Customer Reviews

Criminal Law Today (4th Edition)

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4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've just finished up a criminal justice degree and I can honestly say this was my favorite book from all the ones I had. I learned more from this book than any of the others. The charts and color pictures brought the concepts to life and it made complicated concepts easy to understand.

As I sat, poised over this textbook, attempting to gather information for an upcoming test, I felt compelled to warn potential criminal justice students and teachers of just some of the glaring issues I have with this book. Though I know many of you will have no choice but to purchase this book for a class, perhaps my review will help shed some light on the reason why you will certainly come to despise this textbook.

First, the illustrations, images, and graphs are unbelievably dull. Even the limited use of FONTS puts me to sleep when attempting to mentally consume this stale material. This review I am currently writing has approximately one-third of the number of fonts used in the ENTIRE textbook. The images used to "help" the students are some of the worst I've ever seen. Created with some sort of beginner's image creation program, the images feature creepy-looking persons with labels either pointing to them or under them describing what they're doing (because it's nearly impossible to infer their "actions" from the mannequin-esque poses they strike). Many of these creepy people are used in the same poses and striking the same expressions when a series of frames are used in an illustration. Though these illustrations are not crucial to grasping the mostly simple ideas presented in the book, their presence is truly an eye-sore and a major distraction at that.

Many "cases" (which are poorly outlined and placed in-between paragraphs) are also strewn throughout the text and do little more than significantly aid you in losing your place and train of thought (or should I say caboose of thought). Other example cases attempt to kick-off a new idea presented in the text, but lack any interesting qualities and seem almost totally unrelated to the new material after reading past it.

If you are condemned to read this book for your course, I feel genuinely sorry for you. My only advice is to avoid letting your eyes wander from the text. The graphs and images will only serve to confuse you. You'd be much better off finding some sort of "Notepad" version of solely the text...

The book is fine and was supposed to have had an accompanying disk. The disk never did arrive. The publisher said that since I ordered this book through Amazon, that it was Amazon's problem. The running around is getting ridiculous.

If you order any books that have a "disk enclosed", make sure you purchase arrives shrink wrapped with all components. If not, send it back!

My order was cancelled after Amazon sent me a confirmation that the book had already been shipped. Apparently, the seller could not locate the book in the warehouse. This is very unprofessional, and I will not order from this company again. I had to scramble to find another copy for my son and pay extra for expedited shipping to get it here in time for school.Should keep up with inventory and not post for sale if not in inventory.Poor!