"Street Stories, based on years of fieldwork with the New York City Police Department and the District Attorney of New York, examines the moral ambiguities of the detectives' world as they shuttle between the streets and a bureaucratic behemoth." "This book brims with the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction violence of the underworld and tells about a justice apparatus that splinters knowledge, reduces life-and-death issues to arcane hair-splitting, and makes rationality a bedfellow of absurdity." "Detectives' stories lay bare their occupational consciousness - the cunning and trickery of their investigative craft, their self-images, moral rules-in-use, and judgments about the players in their world - as well as their personal ambitions, sensibilities, resentments, hopes, and fears. When detectives do make cases, they have the satisfaction of taking predators off the streets and helping to ensure public safety. But their stories also illuminate dark corners of a troubled social order."--BOOK JACKET.
Includes bibliographical references and index.