Amazon.com description: Product Description: This casebook follows the tradition of providing students with leading criminal law cases, urging them to analyze existing case law and to discuss the various arguments for and against the decisions of the court. However, many criminal law books are dry tomes of case after case with little background or supporting pedagogy. Most are developed for law students and are extensive and too legalistic, with a significant gap between the legal point of view and the needs of the social science student coming to the study of law for the first time. The goals of this book are to provide students with a context for understanding the social, political, and economic forces at work in the creation and interpretation of criminal law and to make the material more accessible via the sociological perspective and such pedagogical aids as chapter introductions and study questions.