Essentials of Criminal Justice
Larry J. Siegel was born in the Bronx, graduating from Christopher Columbus HS in 1964. While attending City College of New York in the 1960s, he was swept up in the social and political currents of the time. He became intrigued with the influence contemporary culture had on individual behavior: Did people shape society or did society shape people? He applied his interest in social forces and human behavior to the study of crime and justice. After graduating CCNY, he attended the newly opened program in criminal justice at the State University of New York at Albany, earning both his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Siegel began his teaching career at Northeastern University--where he was a faculty member for nine years--and held teaching positions at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire before joining the faculty of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Dr. Siegel has written extensively in the area of crime and justice, including books on juvenile law, delinquency, criminology, and criminal procedure. He is a court certified expert on police conduct and has testified in numerous legal cases.