cover image Main Justice: The Men and Women Who Enforce the Nation's Criminal Laws and Guard Its Liberties

Main Justice: The Men and Women Who Enforce the Nation's Criminal Laws and Guard Its Liberties

Jim McGee, James McGee. Simon & Schuster, $24.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-684-81135-2

Main Justice is the term used in the District of Columbia for the headquarters of the Department of Justice; Washington Post reporter McGee and U.S. News and World Report investigations editor Duffy here display a knowledge of its workings that is encyclopedic. Concentrating on the Criminal Division, the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, they show how the department's powers have expanded enormously in the past two decades, so that its prosecutors, building on groundwork laid by the FBI, the DEA, the ATF and local police, have overseen the federalization of criminal law. This trend has proved effective in bringing down drug cartels and violent street gangs, but the authors express concern about ""the growing incidence of prosecutorial misconduct"" and the reluctance of Main Justice to take action against it. The book gets off to a slow start as McGee and Duffy chart personnel changes, of little interest to the general reader, but when they discuss specific cases, they are riveting. (July)