This book creates an advanced course in substantive criminal law organized around considering whether vice behaviors--gambling, narcotics, commercial and deviate sexual practices, pornography, drinking--are the proper subjects of criminal prohibition, and, if so, with what means of enforcement and punishment. Vice behaviors have been the subject of radical changes over the past generation, making them an ideal laboratory for the study of the law reform process. The materials used include statistical data, philosophical, historical and legal scholarship as well as policy analysis.

The second edition adds new units covering the decriminalization of marijuana in two states, the federal crusade against child pornography, and the constitutional recognition of same sex marriage. A new section of the teacher's manual describes teaching strategies for both law school and criminal justice courses.