1st Edition
Toward Justice Broadening the Study of Criminal Justice
Designed as a text for Criminal Justice and Criminology capstone courses, Toward Justice encourages students to engage critically with conceptions of justice that go beyond the criminal justice system, in order to cultivate a more thorough understanding of the system as it operates on the ground in an imperfect world—where people aren’t always rational actors, where individual cases are linked to larger social problems, and where justice can sometimes slip through the cracks. Through a combined focus on content and professional development, Toward Justice helps students translate what they have learned in the classroom into active strategies for justice in their professional lives—preparing them for careers that will not simply maintain the status quo and stability that exists within our justice system, but rather challenge the system to achieve justice.
Part One: Understanding Justice
Chapter 1: Defining Justice
Selected Readings
Chapter 2: Gaps in Justice
Selected Readings
Chapter 3: Justice, Privilege and Identity
Selected Readings
Part Two: Locating Justice in Criminal Justice
Chapter 4: Ideology in Criminal Justice
Selected Readings
Chapter 5: Injustice in Criminal Justice
Selected Readings
Chapter 6: Linking Theory, Research and Policy
Selected Readings
Part Three: Creating Justice
Chapter 7: Writing and Speaking for Justice
Selected Readings
Chapter 8: Working in Criminal Justice
Selected Readings
Chapter 9: Translating Justice into Practice
Selected Readings
Biography
Dr. Kristi Holsinger is Professor and Chair of the Criminal Justice and Criminology department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she has been on faculty since 1999. She received her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati. Her primary research interests include policies and practices related to girls and women in correctional systems as well as innovations in teaching. Each fall, she teaches a mentoring course in collaboration with the Jackson County Family Court, in which students mentor and develop programming for incarcerated girls. Dr. Holsinger’s book, Teaching Justice: Solving Social Justice Problems through University Education was published in 2012. She has more than 30 academic articles, and has delivered more than 50 conference presentations. She is an active member of the American Society of Criminology and its Division on Women and Crime, and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
Dr. Lori Sexton is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She earned her Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine, and an M.A. in Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses primarily on prisons and punishment, with a secondary focus on marginalized populations and intersectionality. She has worked on numerous studies of incarcerated populations, including two studies focusing specifically on transgender prisoners. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, and the Fletcher Jones Foundation. Findings from her research have informed criminal justice policy, and practice through publication in peer-reviewed journals and books, inclusion in testimony to legislative bodies and for civil legal proceedings, and incorporation into trainings for criminal justice practitioners.
There are so many aspects to admire and respect about Toward Justice, including the authors’ clear and engaging coverage of expansive topics, the untangling of seemingly simple concepts such as "justice," the timeliness of such a book, and the remarkable included activities and exercises. But more than anything, I appreciate how Toward Justice provides students with hope, concrete strategies and potential solutions, and with some of the leadership, creativity, and responsibility necessary to advocate for social and legal justice.—Joanne Belknap, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder
