From Simon & Schuster, Crime & Human Nature is the definitive study of the causes of crime. Assembling the latest evidence from the fields of sociology, criminology, economics, medicine, biology, and psychology and exploring the effects of such factors as gender, age, race, and family, two eminent social scientists frame a groundbreaking theory of criminal behavior.
In this century, social factors have dominated theories of antisocial behaviour to the near-exclusion of other explanatory variables in the study of criminology. Criminologists are now coming to realise that fully understanding the causes of criminality requires consideration of both social and biological variables and that their models must take into account the interaction of the two. Reports of the relevant scientific work have previously been scattered through journals with varying disciplinary and geographical limitations. The book presents state-of-the-art investigation into the biological factors that produce criminal activity from authorities in nine countries who are on the forefront of research in behaviour genetics, neurophysiology, biochemistry, neuropsychology, psychophysiology, psychiatry and sociology. The Causes of Crime: New Biological Approaches offers the first comprehensive overview and integration of this new field of enquiry. It will be an invaluable resource for everyone concerned with the causes of criminal behaviour and interventions to reduce its frequency.
In this groundbreaking book that is built on decades of work on the front lines of the criminal justice system, expert psychologist Craig Haney encourages meaningful and lasting reform by changing the public narrative about who commits crime and why. Based on his comprehensive review and analysis of the research, Haney offers a carefully framed and psychologically based blueprint for making the criminal justice system fairer, with strategies to reduce crime through proactive prevention instead of reactive punishment. Haney meticulously reviews evidence documenting the ways in which a person's social history, institutional experiences, and present circumstances powerfully shape their life, with a special focus on the role of social, economic, and racial injustice in crime causation. Haney debunks the "crime master narrative"--the widespread myth that criminality is a product of free and autonomous "bad" choices--an increasingly anachronistic view that cannot bear the weight of contemporary psychological data and theory. This is a must-read for understanding what truly influences criminal behavior, and the strategies for prevention and rehabilitation that follow.
"This volume examines criminology from the perspective of centuries of study. Written by a psychologist who has worked extensively with the criminal population, it focuses on the diverse theories that have been offered and the ways in which they contribute to the modern view of the criminal"--Provided by publisher.
In Causes of Delinquency, Hirschi attempts to state and test a theory of delinquency, seeing in the delinquent a person relatively free of the intimate attachments, the aspirations, and the moral beliefs that bind most people to a life within the law. In prominent alternative theories, the delinquent appears either as a frustrated striver forced into delinquency by his acceptance of the goals common to us all, or as an innocent foreigner attempting to obey the rules of a society that is not in position to make the law or define conduct as good or evil. Hirschi analyzes a large body of data on delinquency collected in Western Contra Costa County, California, contrasting throughout the assumptions of the strain, control, and cultural deviance theories. He outlines the assumptions of these theories and discusses the logical and empirical difficulties attributed to each of them. Then draws from sources an outline of social control theory, the theory that informs the subsequent analysis and which is advocated here.Often listed as a Citation Classic, Causes of Delinquency retains its force and cogency with age. It is an important volume and a necessary addition to the libraries of sociologists, criminologists, scholars and students in the area of delinquency.
Fear of Crime in the United States: Causes, Consequences, and Contradictions examines the nature and extent of crime-related fear. The authors describe and evaluate key research findings in the specific areas of methodology; gender, age, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status; contextual predictors; and the consequences of fear of crime. They discuss the improvement of fear of crime measures over time; the consistent finding that women are more afraid of crime; the impact of age, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on fear; and the importance of environmental factors (such as witnessing crime and perceptions of diversity, disorder, and decline) and indirect victimization (through acquaintances and the media) on fear. The book also describes the physical, psychological, behavioral, and social effects of fear of crime. In the end, the authors tie the findings together to suggest important policy and research implications from the wealth of available research. There is no other book of which I am aware that so masterfully reviews empirical studies on fear of crime during the past half century to show how the research has changed and will continue to evolve. As long as there is crime, there will be perceptions of risk and fear of victimization; and Lane et al. help one to sift through the research with conceptual precision to formulate the most scientifically valid conclusions about the phenomena. The book is a hedgehog view of the research but points the way to needed research on topics such as fear of terrorism and how social context shapes perceptions of crime. The book is must-reading for those involved in research on victimization or fear of crime. - Kenneth F. Ferraro, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Aging and the Life Course, Purdue University This book consolidates the literature on fear of crime in a way that is unprecedented and that lends much-needed coherence to the area. It is
Gang violence is a continual problem in urban neighborhoods around the world. But most of our understanding of the violence and its causes comes through the lens of policing and crime control, with little attention to the role played by the structure, organization, and social makeup of a gang. The Street Casino offers new insight on that front, drawing on an extensive ethnographic study of gang members and community residents in South London. Simon Harding uses this new data to propose a new theoretical perspective on survival in violent street gangs, a constantly fluctuating life built on the accrual of "street capital."
Expands psychological and some biological theories of the origins of crime, its varieties, and to effects of social and legal responses to it. Based primarily on previous statistical studies. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
"This book studies the causes and consequences of organized crime drawing on research from around the world including the countries of Colombia, China, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and the United States. It also includes a discussion of transnational crime and several other key theoretical topics. One important issue examined in this text is the difference between the terms organized crime, international organized crime and transnational organized crime, an often-confusing subject. As the title indicates, one of the goals of this volume is to identify the causes of organized crime. Working independently, the contributing authors have identified similar characteristics as the causes of organized crime no matter the country, culture or time period. For those teaching organized crime at the university level, this book will be a valuable resource. It provides both an in-depth and analytical look at the world's most powerful and persistent criminal organizations. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book contains both qualitative and quantitative research. The works are all original, there are no reprinted chapters in this volume. This text not only provides historical background on the world's most powerful criminal organizations, but also challenges common assumptions about the organization of these infamous groups. This is no 'guns and garlic' book but contains in-depth sociological analyses of current trends in organized crime, one that should be of interest to government officials and those responsible for setting public policy. While this book will be of interest to the serious student, non-academics and casual readers alike will also be interested in the work presented here. It provides a fascinating look at a serious social problem, one that is forever evolving and will continue to challenge the international community"--
Who should police corporate misconduct and how should it be policed? In recent years, the Department of Justice has resolved investigations of dozens of Fortune 500 companies via deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements, where, instead of facing criminal charges, these companies become regulated by outside agencies. Increasingly, the threat of prosecution and such prosecution agreements is being used to regulate corporate behavior. This practice has been sharply criticized on numerous fronts: agreements are too lenient, there is too little oversight of these agreements, and, perhaps most important, the criminal prosecutors doing the regulating aren’t subject to the same checks and balances that civil regulatory agencies are. Prosecutors in the Boardroom explores the questions raised by this practice by compiling the insights of the leading lights in the field, including criminal law professors who specialize in the field of corporate criminal liability and criminal law, a top economist at the SEC who studies corporate wrongdoing, and a leading expert on the use of monitors in criminal law. The essays in this volume move beyond criticisms of the practice to closely examine exactly how regulation by prosecutors works. Broadly, the contributors consider who should police corporate misconduct and how it should be policed, and in conclusion offer a policy blueprint of best practices for federal and state prosecution. Contributors: Cindy R. Alexander, Jennifer Arlen, Anthony S. Barkow, Rachel E. Barkow, Sara Sun Beale, Samuel W. Buell, Mark A. Cohen, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Richard A. Epstein, Brandon L. Garrett, Lisa Kern Griffin, and Vikramaditya Khanna
