Chapter 1 - Advance Your Education and Your Career

1. Explore and compare criminal justice careers

2. Set a roadmap for your education and career

3. Update and refine your résumé

4. Write a personal statement

5. Learn the ins and outs of background checks

6. Prepare for the polygraph or Computer Voice Stress Analysis exam

7. Navigate the hiring process

Chapter 2 – Writing for Criminal Justice

1. Examine and improve your writing

2. Refine your writing for maximum impact

3. Learn the basics of writing a police report

4. Write a summary case brief

5. Learn to write an essay in three steps

6. Support your assertions with APA-style citations to authority

Chapter 3 - Crime in the United States

1. Investigate how perceptions of crime are formed

2. Describe historical crime shifts in the United States

3. Compare the roles of American police, courts, and corrections in reducing crime

4. Assess systems for measuring and reporting crime in the United States

Chapter 4 - Criminal Law

1. Explain the nature and purpose of law

2. Differentiate between administrative, civil, and criminal law

3. Distinguish between felonies, misdemeanors, and infractions

4. Compare substantive and procedural law

5. Deconstruct a crime

6. Break a crime down into its elements

7. Summarize categories of criminal defenses

Chapter 5 - The Constitution

1. Investigate the historical underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution and its connections to criminal justice

2. Describe protections afforded by the First Amendment

3. Outline the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment

4. Explain the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment

5. Analyze the rights sustained by the Fifth Amendment

6. Summarize trial rights afforded by the Sixth Amendment

7. Identify protections afforded by the Eighth Amendment

8. Trace the decline of states’ rights and identify the impact of the Warren Court on U.S. criminal justice

Chapter 6 - Police

1. Describe the role and history of police in the United States 

2. Differentiate federal, state, and local law enforcement organizations 

3. Summarize the basic organizational structure of a typical police department

4. Analyze methods of policing

5. Explain how police discretion and the “spirit of the law” affect law enforcement

Chapter 7 - Police Legal Restraints

1. Identify and describe constitutional restraints on police action

2. Differentiate between consensual encounters, detentions and arrests

3. Describe laws of arrest, explaining justifications required for police action

4. Analyze landmark cases that have affected U.S. law enforcement

Chapter 8 - Police Challenges

1. Examine police officer selection and training processes

2. Describe and deconstruct police subculture

3. Analyze police corruption and misconduct

4. Identify areas of police liability and remedies for police misconduct

5. Explain police use of force rules

6. Evaluate police use of confidential informants

Chapter 9 - Courts

1. Explain the concepts of jurisdiction and precedent

2. Compare and describe state and federal court systems

3. Identify and explain the roles of courtroom actors

4. Trace and describe the stages of the criminal justice process

Chapter 10 - Trial

1. Summarize what happens in a criminal trial

2. Outline jury selection in the U.S. criminal justice system

3. Explore common aspects of opening statements in a criminal trial

4. Differentiate and define the primary types of evidence that may be offered at trial

5. Define admissible and inadmissible hearsay and analyze landmark cases that balance the value of hearsay versus the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation

6. Identify characteristics of closing arguments in a criminal trial

7. Describe the role of the jury in a criminal jury trial

8. List methods and common reasons for appeal

Chapter 11 - Sentencing

1. Identify sentencing goals, and tools used to achieve those goals 

2. Compare sentencing methods

3. Analyze the purpose and process of a presentence investigation

4. Differentiate between the roles of the prosecutor and the defense attorney at sentencing

5. Articulate the rights of the criminal defendant at sentencing

6. Explore the writ of habeas corpus

7. Trace the expanding role of the victim at sentencing

8. Clarify the role of the judge at sentencing

9. Describe the changed role of the jury in capital sentencing

Chapter 12 - Corrections

1. Compare probation and parole in the United States

2. Identify the duties of probation and parole officers

3. Analyze landmark decisions that affect probation and parole

4. Contrast imprisonment at the local, state, and federal levels of corrections

5. Weigh advantages and disadvantages of private prisons

6. Explore prison subcultures

7. Examine landmark cases involving prisoners’ rights

Chapter 13 - Juveniles

1. Trace the evolution of juvenile justice

2. Analyze landmark cases relating to juvenile justice

3. Compare juvenile and adult terminology, legal rights, and procedures

4. Summarize current trends in U.S. juvenile justice