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Female drug addicts are often stereotyped either as promiscuous, lazy, and selfish, or as weak, scared, and trapped into addiction. This title presents a critical feminist analysis of the drug world. By shifting the discussion to one centered on women's agency and empowerment, it reveals the experiences and social relationships of women addicts.

The American prison system has grown tenfold since the 1970s, but crime rates in the United States have not decreased. The author argues that our oversized prison system is a product of our consumer culture, the public's inaccurate beliefs about controlling crime, and the government's criminalization of the poor.

Provides a firsthand account of the changing nature of control efforts employed by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies when confronted with mass activism. Based on ethnographic research, and using an incisive theoretical framework, this title maps the use of legal, physical, and psychological approaches.

An eye for an eye, the balance of scales - for centuries, these and other traditional concepts exemplified the public's perception of justice. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to this topic, and argues that common conceptions of criminal justice are too limited.

Presents an analytical and historical study of the juvenile justice system. Focusing on social reformers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this work argues that the 'child savers' movement was not an effort to liberate and dignify youth but, instead, a punitive and intrusive attempt to control the lives of working-class urban adolescents.

In the US, murderers, particularly those sentenced to death, are usually considered as entirely different from the rest of us. Sociologist Susan F. Sharp challenges perspective by reminding us that those facing a death sentence, in addition to being murderers, are brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers, daughters or sons.