Today's (9/3/2010) New Book Releases on Law

Blackstone's Handbook for the Special Constabulary is a timely and comprehensive guide to the role and work of this unique group within the police force. Drawing on the new National Strategy for the Special Constabulary, it provides an invaluable, practical resource for all Special Constables, from new recruits to seasoned officers or even those who simply want to find out more about the role. It is designed as a handy reference tool for use on the job, whilst also providing a comprehensive context to policing and the criminal justice system.

The Handbook covers the police function of a Special Constable in chronological order, beginning with training and development, the law, police powers, and advice on professional standards. The daily encounters and experiences of a Special are explored, with expert guidance on the range of duties performed, such as Stop, Search and Entry, managing people and incidents, policing domestic violence, and working within Neighborhood Policing Teams. There is clear operational advice on crime scene management, including preserving physical evidence, types of forensic evidence, and the role of the First Officer Attending. This approach is supported by a range of practical tools for the reader, such as boxed summaries, case studies, discussion points, flow-charts and checklists.

The fourth edition of this celebrated book brings together a selection of carefully chosen extracts from cases and materials with insightful author text.

Each section begins with a clear overview of the law, followed by illustrating extracts from case law and from government reports and scholarly literature, which are supported by the authors' expert explanation and analysis. Opportunities for further research are highlighted by the many suggestions for additional readings that are woven throughout the text. This approach enables students to gain a rich and contextual understanding of the law of tort.

Online Resource Centre

An Online Resource Centre supports the book, providing updates to the law and a test bank of multiple choice questions.

The great liberties and guarantees of the United States Constitution are stated as general principles, able to be perpetuated and reapplied to meet the needs of a changing America. This book aims to provide a basic understanding of Constitutional law, addressing both the history of the U.S. Constitution and each of its individual clauses. It explains the awesome power of the Supreme Court, whereby a bare majority of five justices, each with lifetime tenure, can overrule the president, the Congress, and state and local governments--effectively declaring the rights and obligations of persons and organizations across the land. Referencing more than 850 Supreme Court decisions, the book treats each subject objectively and without opinionated commentary.

Abolitionism is not only a strategy or a set of demands, aimed at the reduction (or suppression) of custody, it is also a perspective, a philosophy, an approach which challenges conventional definitions of crime. This book examines the origin, philosophy and achievements of abolitionism and reviews the literature on penal abolitionism from the 1960s to the 1980s.

By collecting and discussing the key abolitionist arguments, the author critically analyzes the views expressed by its leading proponents; Nils Christie, Louk Hulsman, Thomas Mathiesen and Herman Bianchi, examining in particular how their views took shape, their philosophical foundations, and the social and political context of abolitionist ideas and perspectives. Policies, such as the virtual abolition of custody for young offenders in Italy, are presented and the area of informal justice is also addressed, with an overview of mediation and compensation practices, and an assessment of the degree of their effectiveness and desirability.

Through assessment of these achievements and experiments of specific abolitionist ideas, the author attempts to identify the legacy of abolitionism from a European perspective, while bringing into focus more recent contributions concerning the study of terrorism and war.

This book is a study of the character and compilation of Justinian's Digest, the main volume of Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis (528-534 AD). This is often considered as one of the most influential works in the history of Western culture. It remains significant, partly because it is still a part of the law in six countries in Southern Africa, and partly because of its role in the evolution over fifteen hundred years of the theory and practice of human rights - a theme explored in Professor Honore's previous book studying Ulpian (2nd ed, OUP 2002).

The book gives a detailed account of the probable methods used in the compilation of the Digest and distinguishes the respective roles of imperial ministers, law professors, and advocates. It also examines the broader issues raised by the Digest's creation - how it was conceived by its compilers, its purpose, and its impact.

The regulation of financial markets and companies in Europe has undergone significant changes over the last decade. The Commission, Member States, and Parliament constructed regimes that facilitate new legislation, sanction delegation to the Commission for financial market law, and structure the cross-border regulation of companies within the single market. The substance of this book is about that regime development.

In creating the regimes discussed in The Regimes of European Integration, EU leaders contributed to the ongoing constitutionalization of Europe by contesting and constructing norms. Each of the regimes required an explicit definition of the vertical relationship between the EU and the member states, and of the horizontal relationship amongst the member states. It defined the kind of regulatory state that would be required, the mix of European and national bodies involved, and the procedures they were to follow in carrying out their functions. It also defined what kinds of national variation in related economic and social policy would be regarded as legitimate. As they made these agreements, European leaders simultaneously articulated what it meant to be a member state in the single market, and what it meant to delegate responsibilities to the EU. This constitutionalised these ideals by sorting out the issues of EU and national responsibilities in a powerfully authoritative way. The theory of this book is about demonstrating the normative foundations of these constitutional agreements and showing how they had to be built on the shoulders of national ones.