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Media and Criminal Justice: The CSI Effect

Author(s): Dennis J. Stevens, PhD, University of North Carolina - Charlotte , Belmont Abbey College
Details:
  • ISBN-13: 9780763755317
  • Paperback    380 pages      © 2011
Price: International Sales $66.95 US List
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Overview

Media and Criminal Justice: The CSI Effect illustrates how media coverage and television programs influence the public’s perception of criminal justice.  Fiction is often mistaken for reality, and this phenomenon called “The CSI Effect” adds to the assumption that all criminal cases can be easily solved through the employment of high-tech forensic science, as depicted on television crime shows. Over 400 prosecutors assist in explaining the CSI Effect's influence which reinforces America's troubled wars on crime, junkies, poverty and immigrants, and produces a greater tolerance of official misconduct, and an escalation of wrongful convictions. This text explores common misconceptions and their consequences, providing readers with the ability to critically analyze information promoted by the media and entertainment. Comprehensive and balanced coverage of timely events in crime scene investigation, prosecutorial discretion, and wrongful convictions are also provided.

Key Features:

  • Current real-world examples provide reliable documented information and data, to help readers reach informed decisions about important issues.
  • Discusses principle theories and scholarly research of criminal justice procedures, and how they can be applied to new present circumstances and experiences. 

Chapters are available for preview. See "Additional Resources."

ShowTable of Contents

Preface
Foreword
Dedication & Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1  The Media and the CSI Craze
Chapter 2  Motion Pictures, Popular Television Dramas, News Reports
Chapter 3  Wars on Crime and Junkies
Chapter 4  Wars on Sex Offenders and Poverty
Chapter 5  War on Immigrants
Chapter 6  Crime Scene Investigations, Forensics, and Junk Science
Chapter 7  Prosecutors
Chapter 8  Wrongful Convictions
Chapter 9  The Death Penalty
Chapter 10  Methodology and Findings
Chapter 11  Recommendations to Reduce Wrongful Convictions and Eliminate Capital Punishment
Appendix 1  Questionnaire
Index  
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ShowAbout the Author(s)

Dennis J. Stevens, PhD-University of North Carolina - Charlotte , Belmont Abbey College

Dr. Dennis J. Stevens received a Ph.D. from Loyola University of Chicago in 1991. Formally, he held the position of director of the Ph.D. CJ program at University of Southern Mississippi and associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Salem State College and director of a criminal justice program in North Carolina. In addition to teaching traditional students, he has taught and counseled law enforcement and correctional officers at law academies such as the North Carolina Justice Academy and the Boston Police Academy and felons at maximum custody penitentiaries such as Attica in New York, Eastern and NC Women’s Institute in North Carolina, Stateville and Joliet near Chicago, and MCI Framingham (women) in Massachusetts. Stevens has published several books and almost 100 scholarly and popular literature articles. He has led group intervention groups for sexually abusive parents in New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina and has lead group crisis sessions among New Orleans and Jefferson Parish officers after Hurricane Katrina.

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ShowAppropriate Courses

This text is ideal for Mass Media, Media and Policing, Criminal Justice, and Intro to Policing and Policy Management courses in the departments of Media, Criminal Justice, Sociology, Political Science, and Public Policy.

 

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