Civil Liability in Criminal Justice - Softcover

Capitalism and Criminal Justice examines how state and economic forces work together through a dialectic process in efforts to prepare social and cultural capital for economic accumulation. This unique book demonstrates the close working relationship between the state and market by focusing on two recent trends: the emergence of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (cage-fighting) and the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). These trends are examined as illustrative of the state/market nexus in sanctioning and criminalizing transgressive behaviors. The books aims to both deepen criminology’s understanding of the criminalization/legalization process, and introduce a genre of theoretical work not often employed in a grounded manner – criminology scholarship. Sociological, criminological―and particularly cultural criminological―scholarship has generally overlooked the ways in which state authority vindicates, legitimizes, and criminalizes various transgressive activities depending on their market potential. Traditional research addressing formal mechanisms of control frequently note that the state attempts to distinguish what the market wishes to celebrate. As a result, most of the literature assumes a type of oppositional dichotomy between the state and market.

This handbook addresses the problems confronting criminal justice practitioners and their agencies due to the increased number of civil liability lawsuits. It introduces the reader to civil liability generally and the federal law specifically, while indicating steps that can be taken to minimize risks. Due to increasing civil litigation against criminal justice agencies, students and practitioners not only need a working knowledge of criminal law but a firm grasp on the civil law process. Hundreds of cases are referenced throughout the text.