Good Cop, Bad Cop

The Authors: Milton Heumann received his Ph.D. from Yale University and his B.A. from Brooklyn College, and is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University. He has written extensively on case disposition processes, civil liberties, and criminal justice concerns, and is the author and co-author of numerous books and articles, including Plea Bargaining, Speedy Disposition (with Thomas Church), and Hate Speech on Campus (with Thomas Church).Lance Cassak is currently Regional Counsel for Enforcement at the Office of Thrift Supervision in the United States Department of Treasury. He received his M.A. in American history from the University of Chicago and his J.D. from Boston University School of Law. He has taught as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University, Rutgers Law School, and Seton Hall Law School. He has published articles in a number of law reviews and has lectured on matters related to constitutional law and legal history.

«‘Profiling’ can be a psychiatrist’s prediction that a serial bomber will prove to be heavy-set, single, middle-aged, foreign-born, and Roman Catholic. It can be a federal task force’s identification of 25 to 30 characteristics shared by many airplane hijackers but not by most members of the public. It can be a federal drug agent’s personal, constantly changing list of characteristics supposedly indicative of drug trafficking. It can be the practice of making traffic arrests of blacks and Latinos more often than whites because highway patrol officers believe that blacks and Latinos are more likely to be drug couriers. It can be a list of the characteristics of the bank accounts used to finance past terrorist activities. It can even be any law enforcement action a critic wants to call racially biased. In ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’, Milton Heumann and Lance Cassak examine these uses of the chameleon-like concept, tracing how one use has led to another. The result is an original, important, readable, engaging, and thought-provoking study.» (Albert W. Alschuler, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology, University of Chicago School of Law)