James B. Jacobs

Kimberly Potter

In the early 1980s, a new category of crime appeared in the criminal law lexicon. In response to concerted advocacy-group lobbying, Congress and many state legislatures passed a wave of "hate crime" laws requiring the collection of statistics on, and enhancing the punishment for, crimes motivated by certain prejudices. This book places the evolution of the hate crime concept in socio-legal perspective. James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter adopt a skeptical if not critical stance, maintaining that legal definitions of hate crime are riddled with ambiguity and subjectivity. No matter how hate crime is defined, and despite an apparent media consensus to the contrary, the authors find no evidence to support the claim that the United States is experiencing a hate crime epidemic--instead, they cast doubt on whether the number of hate crimes is even increasing. The authors further assert that, while the federal effort to establish a reliable hate crime accounting system has failed, data collected for this purpose have led to widespread misinterpretation of the state of intergroup relations in this country. The book contends that hate crime as a socio-legal category represents the elaboration of an identity politics now manifesting itself in many areas of the law. But the attempt to apply the anti-discrimination paradigm to criminal law generates problems and anomalies. For one thing, members of minority groups are frequently hate crime perpetrators. Moreover, the underlying conduct prohibited by hate crime law is already subject to criminal punishment. Jacobs and Potter question whether hate crimes are worse or more serious than similar crimes attributable to other anti-social motivations. They also argue that the effort to single out hate crime for greater punishment is, in effect, an effort to punish some offenders more seriously simply because of their beliefs, opinions, or values, thus implicating the First Amendment. Advancing a provocative argument in clear and persuasive terms, Jacobs and Potter show how the recriminalization of hate crime has little (if any) value with respect to law enforcement or criminal justice. Indeed, enforcement of such laws may exacerbate intergroup tensions rather than eradicate prejudice.

Criminal Law & Identity Politics

Hate Crimes

Kerry T. Cooperman

In 1988, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani brought a massive civil racketeering suit against the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), at the time possibly the most corrupt union in the world. The lawsuit charged that the mafia had operated the IBT as a racketeering enterprise for decades, systematically violating the rights of members and furthering the interests of organized crime. On the eve of trial, the parties settled the case, and twenty years later, the trustees are still on the job. Breaking the Devil's Pact is an in-depth study of the U.S. v. IBT, beginning with Giuliani's lawsuit and the politics surrounding it, and continuing with an incisive analysis of the controversial nature of the ongoing trusteeship. James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman address the larger question of the limits of legal reform in the American labor movement and the appropriate level of government involvement.

The Battle to Free the Teamsters from the Mob

Breaking the Devil’s Pact

Frank Anechiarico

Using anticorruption efforts in New York City to illustrate their argument, Anechiarico and Jacobs demonstrate the costly inefficiencies of pursuing absolute integrity. By proliferating dysfunctions, constraining decision makers' discretion, shaping priorities, and causing delays, corruption control - no less than corruption itself - has contributed to the contemporary crisis in public administration.

How Corruption Control Makes Government Ineffective

The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity

Coleen Friel

Robert Raddick

"James B. Jacobs presents the first comprehensive account of the ways in which the Cosa Nostra infiltrated key sectors of New York City's legitimate economic life and how this involvement came over the years to be accepted as inevitable, in some cases even beneficial. The first half of Gotham Unbound is devoted to the ways organized crime became entrenched in six economic sectors and institutions of the city - the garment district, Fulton Fish Market, freight at JFK Airport, construction, the Jacob Javits Convention Center, and the waste-hauling industry.

How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime

Gotham Unbound

Christopher Panarella

Jay Worthington

She may have had a soap opera private life, which included a very public marriage and breakup with George Jones, among other things, but Tammy Wynette still managed to turn out 17 number one singles during the late '60s and early '70s, the classics "Stand by Your Man," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," and "Bedtime Story" being just three of them, each of which is compiled in this two-disc set of essential tracks. ~ Steve Leggett

United States V. Cosa Nostra

Busting the Mob

Zoe Fuhr

A comprehensive assessment of real gun reform legislation with recommendations for common sense gun control A month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, New York State passed, with record speed, the first and most comprehensive state post-Sandy Hook gun control law. In The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation, James B. Jacobs and Zoe Fuhr ask whether the 2013 SAFE Act —hailed by Governor Andrew Cuomo as “the nation’s toughest gun control law” – has lived up to its promise. Jacobs and Fuhr illuminate the gap between gun control on the books and gun control in action. They argue that, to be effective, gun controls must be capable of implementation and enforcement. This requires realistic design, administrative and enforcement capacity and commitment and ongoing political and fiscal support. They show that while the SAFE Act was good symbolic politics, most of its provisions were not effectively implemented or, if implemented, not enforced. Gun control in a society awash with guns poses an immense regulatory challenge. The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation takes a tough-minded look at the technological, administrative, fiscal and local political impediments to effectively keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous persons and eliminating some types of guns altogether.

The Unfulfilled Promise of New York's SAFE Act

The Toughest Gun Control Law in the Nation

The first book to document organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort.

The Mafia and the American Labor Movement

Mobsters, Unions, and Feds

Few schisms in American life run as deep or as wide as the divide between gun rights and gun control advocates where the debate is largely defined by forceful rhetoric rather than substantive analysis. This text explores the gun-control options of the most heavily armed democracy in the world.

Can Gun Control Work?

Criminal Law and Identity Politics

For 60 million Americans a criminal record overshadows everything else about their identity. Citizens have a right to know when someone around them represents a threat. But convicted persons have rights too. James Jacobs examines the problem of erroneous records and proposes ways to eliminate discrimination for those who have been rehabilitated.

James B. Jacobs

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