The book I read to research this post was The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Criminal Justice System which is an excellent book which I bought from kobo. This book is about the criminal justice system in the USA and is very interesting although I am British. The book keeps your interest throughout and is fairly long. One thing they have for example in America but which we don't have in England is the victim of a serious crime can write a letter to the court which is taken into account when sentencing. Certainly in Britain it's often said the criminal has more rights than the victim. This book doesn't cover every law in every state which vary quite wildly but does a good job of presenting it in general. An interesting thing is generally if something worth less than $500 is stolen in most states it's called larceny and lower amounts are called theft. They have very strict kidnapping laws where if a gang holds up a bank they have a good chance of being done for kidnapping or false imprisonment if they hold people against their will. In America if you drink or take drugs and drive and it results in a fatality it will probably get you a murder conviction. If you are convicted of possession of crack they come down much harder on you than if you have cocaine powder although if you have paraphenalia for drug dealing regardless of the quantity of drugs found you get prosecuted for drug dealing. There was a bit of a scandal over several cases where things happened like someone was drunk and went in the wrong house and was shot dead. The law which used to say you could protect your home with deadly force has changed so you can shoot someone forcing their way through a window but not a fleeing burglar.