What is it that compels a person to choose a life of crime and deviancy over one of responsibility and social conformity? To understand exactly how and why that choice is ultimately made, we must turn to the discipline of psychology. The author presents and then deconstructs his own unique formulation of the internal deterrence system, and looks specifically at the psychosocial development of each of the proposed component parts -- attachment, morality, and identity.
Whether it be Jack the Ripper in nineteenth-century England or Ted Bundy in 1970s America, the public has always been fascinated by the criminal offender type known as the serial killer. Professionals continue to speculate and develop new theories about their identity decades after their crimes ended. But what is it that causes such evilness in individuals that causes them to take an innocent life, not once but multiples times, and for no apparent reason beyond their own perverse psychological gratification? This fascinating book explores this question by looking at the psychosocial determinants of criminal behavior, including serial murder. The role of such internal processes as attachment, moral development, and identity formation in the development of a person’s predisposition to various forms of deviance, including physical and sexual aggression, is reviewed. This information is then applied to actual serial killers, including David Berkowitz (The Son of Sam), Charles Manson, Eric Rudolph (God’s Crusader), Ted Bundy (The Face of Evil), Edmund Kemper (The Co-ed Killer), and the Zodiac Killer, in an effort to construct a psychosocial profile of each and to attempt to pinpoint the various developmental factors that contributed to their eventual criminality. Finally, early intervention strategies are explored that can potentially redirect a child’s developmental trajectory away from crime and deviance, and toward a more adaptive and socially acceptable behavioral repertoire. This book will be an insightful resource to all law enforcement professionals, policymakers, police academics, psychologists, psychiatrists, and many others in the helping professions as well.
For 14K Triad official Steven Wong, faking his own death to escape trial was easy. But evading investigative reporter Terry Gould -- impossible. For 11 years terry Gould has tracked the man known as the “paper fan” through the organized crime circles of six countries. This riveting, horrifying, yet often hilariously funny book is the story of that search, a daredevil journey through the seductions and terrors of Steve’s world. Steven Wong is the “paper fan,” a thirty-nine-year-old Hong Kong-born mobster. Raised in New York’s Chinatown, he matured into crime in Vancouver, where he founded and headed the murderous Gum Wah Gang in the late 1980s and early ’90s. In 1992, Wong “died” in a traffic accident in a remote area of the Philippines before he could be sent to jail for heroin trafficking, conveniently just after he’d taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy. His urn may still be interred in a Vancouver cemetery, but today, Interpol has a “Red Alert” arrest warrant out for Wong, and his updated file reads like a Hollywood action film -- a post-mortem panorama of organized criminal adventure that circles the Pacific Rim, from Macau to Japan, from Cambodia to the Philippines. Gould’s search takes him into a world in which politicians, police, businessmen and criminals sprint along in one big pack, sometimes nipping each other’s heels, sometimes licking each other’s faces, and sometimes inviting one another back home for all-night mah-jong parties. Forced to work according to right-side-up rules, honest cops haven’t had a chance of arresting Steve in his upside-down world. Four times, Terry Gould has traced Steven Wong through Asia’s circles of corruption and pinned him down, but the law has let him slip away. Fifth time lucky? “Gangsters are good team players who generally exhibit a locker-room familiarity with other men. Still, it surprised me when Steve answered the door on Monday wearing only his polka-dot boxers, showing off his biceps and his chest tattooed with the winged dragons and sharp-taloned eagle. He was talking on the phone and barely interrupted himself as he turned back into the house, whereupon I realized that the display was likely done on purpose. Neck to waist his back was totally covered by a stylized tableau of a dragon crawling against a background of tigers and flowers — a Triad montage no one outside his syndicate world was supposed to see.” -- from Paper Fan
There is no doubt that the triads have become recognized as a sophisticated and international criminal force and, following the handover of Hong Kong to China, there have been increasing fears that their influence will spread to the West through emigration. This book investigates the reality behind the myth with a study of the Hong Kong triads, generally regarded as the headquarters of triad societies throughout the world. Yiu Kong Chu examines their origins, their organized extortion from legitimate businesses large and small, and their more recent moves into illegal activities such as drug trafficking, human smuggling and gambling. Contrary to the popular belief that Hong Kong triads are replacing the Italian Mafia as the most powerful criminal organization in the world, this book argues that Hong Kong triads may be declining, as other ethnic Chinese crime gangs emerge as powerful crime groups in Western societies. Based on interviews with ex triad members and victims of the triads, police from Hong Kong, mainland China and Europe, as well as documentary evidence The Triads as Business gives a vivid and compelling picture of the triads as part of a wider society.
The Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy in Everyday Life summarizes the latest research on how these personality traits (psychopathology, narcissism, Machiavellianism) are defined and displayed, while also exploring the impact they have on individuals and society, the relationship between clinical conditions and personality traits, and their adaptivity. The book introduces the Dark Triad through the lens of existing clinical and personality literature, discussing shared and unique cognitive and empathetic profiles associated with each trait. Antisocial, antagonistic, and criminal behaviors associated with the Dark Triad are also covered, as is the way these individuals compete socially and in the workplace. - Reviews the development, measurement and evolutionary origins of these traits - Explores how these traits may be adaptive - Assesses the relationship between clinical conditions and Dark Triad personality traits - Includes sections on manipulation, competition and cooperation
A searing portrait of small-time crooks and immigrant gangs in Argentina's capital... When an armed robber shoots a British tourist in Buenos Aires, Lucas's life changes forever. A humble watch-seller moonlighting for the gang behind the robbery, he wants to go straight but instead gets pulled into extortion work for the Xiezhi Triad.
The Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime is edited by a internationally recognized expert on serial killers, covering both murder and violent crime in their variant forms. Included will be biographies, chronologies, special interest inset boxes, up to 100 photos, comprehensive article bibliographies, and appendices for things like famous unsolved cases, celebrity murders, assasinations, original source documents, and online sources for information.
Beggars, outcasts, urchins, waifs, prostitutes, criminals, convicts, madmen, fallen women, lunatics, degenerates—part reality, part fantasy, these are the grotesque faces that populate the underworld, the dark inverse of our everyday world. Lurking in the mirror that we hold up to our society, they are our counterparts and our doubles, repelling us and yet offering the tantalizing promise of escape. Although these images testify to undeniable social realities, the sordid lower depths make up a symbolic and social imaginary that reflects our fears and anxieties—as well as our desires. In Vice, Crime, and Poverty, Dominique Kalifa traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. He examines how the myth of the lower depths came into being in nineteenth-century Europe, as biblical figures and Christian traditions were adapted for a world turned upside-down by the era of industrialization, democratization, and mass culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience. While the social conditions that created that underworld have changed, Vice, Crime, and Poverty shows that, from social-scientific ideas of the underclass to contemporary cinema and steampunk culture, its shadows continue to haunt us.
This set comprises a comprehensive selection of colonial Western scholarly texts on Chinese secret societies from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. It includes a selection of important papers on Chinese secret societies by a variety of scholars, missionaries, and colonial officials.
