Opportunity theories of crime seek to explain the occurrence of crime rather than simply the existence of criminal dispositions. They emphasize the fundamental element in the criminal act of opportunity: how this arises, how it is perceived, evaluated and acted on by those with criminal dispositions. This volume brings together influential research articles on opportunity theories of crime by leading theorists such as Cohen and Felson on routine activity theory and Clarke and Cornish on the bounded rational choice perspective. The articles also include more recent theoretical developments and studies of situational crime prevention of specific twenty-first century crimes. These articles attest to the sheer volume as well to as the richness and the variety of work designed to reduce crime that has forever changed the face of criminology and criminal justice.
White-Collar Crime explains the common types of crime committed, ranging from simple fraud to embezzling to insider trading, notes the famous cases, and discusses how law enforcement agencies identify and fight these crimes.
Ever since Sutherland coined the term ‘white-collar crime’, researchers have struggled to understand and explain why some individuals abuse their privileged positions of trust and commit financial crime. This book makes a novel contribution to the development of convenience theory as a framework to understand and explain ‘white-collar crime’.
Unlike other books of its kind, Understanding White-Collar Crime: An Opportunity Perspectiveuses a coherent theoretical perspective in its coverage of white-collar crime. Using opportunity perspective, or the assumption that all crimes depend on offenders having some sort of opportunity to commit an offense, allows the authors to uncover the processes leading up to white-collar crimes and offer potential solutions to this rampant issue, without being reductive in their treatment of the topic. With this second edition, Benson and Simpson have greatly expanded their coverage to include new case studies, substantive materials, and an annotated appendix of online resources to make this a core book for courses on white-collar crime.
CTPED and Traditional Security Countermeasures: 150 Things You Should Know is a handy reference for both seasoned professionals and those just starting out in security and law enforcement. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a foundational concept to physical security and can be incorporated widely in security policies, plans, and procedures. It has proven effective over the many years insofar as building and campus design, security architecture, and creating an overall security culture in any workplace. The authors have collected a broad array of topics together, garnered through their many years of real-world experience in the field. Security solutions that address a wide range of physical security challenges are presented in an easy to follow format. Security practitioners and law enforcement professionals alike will find practical tips to understand and manage their security program, including access control, target hardening, command and control, physical security protections, and visitor management, among a myriad of other topics. This will be a must-have reference for professionals looking for real-world recommendations for physical security solutions.
Uses case studies, interviews, and the most up-to-date research to explore the connections between transnational crime and organized crime -- Back cover.
The ninth edition of Introduction to Criminology provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of lawmaking, lawbreaking, and reactions to crime. Both classic and contemporary theories of the causes of crime are discussed and critiqued. Special attention is given to critical theories of crime and to general theories. The latest crime statistics, research, and theorizing are fully integrated throughout the text and the innovative epilogue provides students with the tools to actually apply criminological theory to real life events. New to this edition: Thoroughly updated throughout including statistics, studies, and theories in criminology. The discussions of drugs, prostitution, and organized crime are now together in one chapter (chapter 7). New chapters have been added on critical theories (chapter 14) and biological, psychological, and evolutionary explanations of crime (chapter 11). More illustrations and examples of crime from popular culture have been added throughout the text in an effort to help students make stronger intellectual connections to the material. A new epilogue has been added that will help students think through common criminological issues and questions they are likely to encounter in everyday conversation.
Crime analysis is an emerging profession in policing and a growing topic of interest in the criminal justice field. This book offers a thorough introduction to the field as well as guidelines for its practice, making it a useful asset for current and future crime analysts and police practitioners as well as for students.
The main objective of this book is to propose an alternative criminal opportunity theory. The authors build upon social control and routine activities to develop a dynamic, multi-contextual criminal opportunity theory. Emphasizing the importance of contextual explanations of criminal acts, they propose two levels of analysis: individual and environmental. At each level, the theory pivots on three broad organizing constructs--offenders motivated to commit criminal acts, targets such as persons or property suitable as objects of criminal acts, and the presence or absence of individuals or other defensive mechanisms capable of serving as guardians against criminal acts. Crime is profoundly real, possessing qualities that make its occurrence and prevention pressing and persistent matters for individuals and societies. Theory, in contrast, is seen as highly abstract and removed from the seriousness of "real life." Theory almost seems to be a peculiar sport of an academic class. The practically minded, even some academic criminologists, are often perplexed by the seeming obsession some scholars have with theory, which, after all, is nothing more than an explanation of facts. The practically minded, seeing a compelling need to identify the crucial factors that could be used to predict and prevent crime, wonder why anyone would invest precious time and energy into speculating about the abstract, underlying details of why crime occurs when and where it does. The authors contend that every intervention, prevention, and policy is based on some theoretical explanation of the causes of human behavior. The improvement of interventions, preventions, and policies is thus directly related to the improvement of theoretical understandings of the abstract, underlying details of the causes of crime. The development of explanations of events, when properly done, is a crucial component to understanding and possibly improving the "real world." This work does just that.
