From its 1790 founding until 1974, Washington, D.C.--capital of "the land of the free--lacked democratically elected city leadership. Fed up with governance dictated by white stakeholders, federal officials, and unelected representatives, local D.C. activists catalyzed a new phase of the fight for home rule. Amid the upheavals of the 1960s, they gave expression to the frustrations of black residents and wrestled for control of their city. Bringing together histories of the carceral and welfare states, as well as the civil rights and Black Power movements, Lauren Pearlman narrates this struggle for self-determination in the nation's capital. She captures the transition from black protest to black political power under the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations and against the backdrop of local battles over the War on Poverty and the War on Crime. Through intense clashes over funds and programming, Washington residents pushed for greater participatory democracy and community control. However, the anticrime apparatus built by the Johnson and Nixon administrations curbed efforts to achieve true home rule. As Pearlman reveals, this conflict laid the foundation for the next fifty years of D.C. governance, connecting issues of civil rights, law and order, and urban renewal.

Considers D.C. law enforcement and crime prevention activities, including D.C.-Federal authorities implementation of D.C. crime preventive activities recommended by President's Commission on Crime and D.C.-state cooperation in preventing crime from spreading into neighboring suburbs. Appendix includes Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments report "Program Design for Regional Law Enforcement, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Planning in the Washington Metropolitan Area," Jan. 1969 (p. A-9 - A-171).

During the height of the crack epidemic that decimated the streets of D.C., Ruben Castaneda covered the crime beat for the Washington Post. The first in his family to graduate from college, he had landed a job at one of the country's premier newspapers. But his apparent success masked a devastating secret: he was a crack addict. Even as he covered the drug-fueled violence that was destroying the city, he was prowling S Street, a 24/7 open-air crack market, during his off hours, looking for his next fix. Castaneda's remarkable book, S Street Rising, is more than a memoir; it's a portrait of a city in crisis. It's the adrenalin-infused story of the street where Castaneda quickly became a regular, and where a fledgling church led by a charismatic and streetwise pastorwas protected by the local drug kingpin, a dangerous man who followed an old-school code of honor. It's the story of Castaneda's friendship with an exceptional police homicide commander whose career was derailed when he ran afoul of Mayor Marion Barry and his political cronies. And it's a study of the city itself as it tried to rise above the bloody crack epidemic and the corrosive politics of the Barry era. S Street Rising is The Wire meets the Oscar-winning movie Crash. And it's all true.

Organized crime in America today is not the tough hoodlums familiar to moviegoers and TV watchers. It is more sophisticated, with many college graduates, gifted with organizational genius, all belonging to twenty-four tightly knit "families," who have corrupted legitimate business and infiltrated some of the highest levels of local, state, and federal government. Their power reaches into Congress, into the executive and judicial branches, police agencies, and labor unions, and into such business enterprises as real estate, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, linen-supply houses, and garbage-collection routes.How does organized crime operate? How dangerous is it? What are the implications for American society? How may we cope with it? In answering these questions, Cressey asserts that because organized crime provides illicit goods and services demanded by legitimate society, it has become part of legitimate society. This fascinating account reveals the parallels: the growth of specialization, "big-business practices" (pooling of capital and reinvestment of profits; fringe benefits like bail money), and government practices (negotiated settlements and peace treaties, defined territories, fair-trade agreements).For too long we have, as a society, concerned ourselves only with superficial questions about organized crime. "Theft of the Nation" focuses on to a more profound and searching level. Of course, organized crime exists. Cressey not only establishes this fact, but proceeds to explore it rigorously and with penetration. One need not agree with everything Cressey writes to conclude that no one, after the publication of "Theft of the Nation", can be knowledgeable about organized crime without having read this book.

“A vigorous tale of twists and turns . . . An authentic thriller.”—The Washington Post Book World Murder didn't stop Mac Smith or Annabel Reed from falling in love, or from getting married at the glorious church on the hill in Washington, D.C., the National Cathedral. But the brutal murder of a friend drags them from their newlywed bliss into an unholy web of intrigue and danger. The body is found in the cathedral. There are scant clues and no suspects. And to further complicate matters, a parallel crime is committed at a church in England's Cotswolds, where the honeymooners have recently been visitors. Across the sea go the Smiths again, and straight into the center of an ungodly plot of secret agents, a playboy priest, a frustrated lover, a choleric cleric . . . and a murder so perfect it's a sin. Praise for Murder at the National Cathedral “One of her most enjoyable books.”—Associated Press “Margaret Truman has become a first-rate mystery writer.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

Providing a description of the responses taken by the federal government to issues revolving around criminal justice, each chapter focuses on a different problem and shows what different presidents have said, what policies were proposed and/or passed by Congress, and any cases heard by the Supreme Court on the issue.