Customer Reviews

Street Stories: The World of Police Detectives

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This is an impressive book. By and large I've found books about police are written in a positive but unintellectual style. The authors retell the stories as told by the officers but don't add much in the telling. Jackall essentializes the stories in a style that in itself would make him a good storyteller but goes a step farther. He weaves these stories into a historical background of the police departments and the culture in which the detectives exist. As a result, Jackall smoothly shifts between well told close-ups of particular characters, and fascinating wide angle views of the history and organizational culture the subjects function within.

Robert Jackall's study of NYC detectives and the criminals they pursue should be required reading for any person thinking about violent modern society and attempts to control it. Amidst gripping and grim stories of detectives' difficult crime-fighting work, Jackall weaves deeply perceptive analysis of the bureaucracies of criminal justice and the societal forces shaping criminal enterprise and its players.

This is a finely crafted book, from its overall organization and pace through sentence structure and work choice. The work of a fine mind of our time.