Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Putting forward a new recovery roadmap and new reform models for prisoners reintegration, Best provides an accessible guide for the implementation of community partnerships for people in recovery from substance abuse or rehabilitating from offending. Using case studies and a strengths-based approach the book emphasizes the importance of long-term recovery and the role that communities and peers play in the process.

This book offers a clear, up-to-date, comprehensive, and theoretically informed introduction to criminal psychology, exploring how psychological explanations and approaches can be integrated with other perspectives drawn from evolutionary biology, neurobiology, sociology, and criminology. Drawing on examples from around the world, it considers different types of offences from violence and aggression to white-collar and transnational crime, and links approaches to explaining crime with efforts to prevent crime and to treat and rehabilitate offenders. This revised and expanded second edition offers a thorough update of the research literature and introduces several new features, including: detailed international case studies setting the scene for each chapter, promoting real-world understanding of the topics under consideration; a fuller range of crime types covered, with new chapters on property offending and white-collar, corporate, and environmental crime; detailed individual chapters exploring prevention and rehabilitation, previously covered in a single chapter in the first edition; an array of helpful features including learning objectives, review and reflect checkpoints, annotated lists of further reading, and two new features: 'Research in Focus' and 'Criminal Psychology Through Film'. This textbook is essential reading for upper undergraduate students enrolled in courses on psychological criminology, criminal psychology, and the psychology of criminal behaviour. Designed with the reader in mind, student-friendly and innovative pedagogical features support the reader throughout.

Handbook of Antisocial Behavior

Each year tens of thousands of families are torn apart, hundreds of thousands of lives are ruined, and millions of dollars' worth of property is destroyed as a result of antisocial behavior. So endemic are violence and aggression to our society that it isn't hard to imagine future historians categorizing the late twentieth century not as the "Space Age" or the "Information Age," but as the "Antisocial Age"—the time when society went to war against itself. As with any plague that threatens civilization, the first and best line of defense against antisocial behavior is the knowledge that comes from dedicated scientific research into its causes and cures.

Does violence on the screen cause violence in the street?

• Do hormones cause violence?
• Can we prevent violence?
• Is antisocial behavior a mental illness?
• How can we identify and measure antisocial behavior?
• How are women and men similar and different with respect to antisocial behavior?
• How can we better understand spouse and child abuse?

In the latter part of this century, an increasingly vigorous and sophisticated scientific study of antisocial behavior has emerged. This new science has offered partial answers to some very important questions which will lead to better understanding and prevention of antisocial behavior. These and other questions are addressed in the Handbook of Antisocial Behavior. In 50 chapters, more than 100 leading scientists, clinicians, and scholars review the research in their area of expertise to provide extraordinarily extensive and deep coverage of the field in a single volume.

These experts share their findings, insights, and theories concerning most types of antisocial behaviors and antisocial behavioral disorders, including aggressiveness, noncompliance, conduct problems, delinquency, sexual offenses, criminality, media violence, child abuse, spouse abuse, impulsivity, and antisocial personality disorder.

The Handbook of Antisocial Behavior is an indispensable resource for mental health practitioners, as well as anyone involved in research into violence and aggression, including psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, public health professionals, epidemiologists, sociologists, and criminologists.

A comprehensive review of the latest research and clinical trends

More than 100 of the world's leading researchers and clinicians from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, the neurosciences, sociology, epidemiology, and criminology share their insights into the causes of and cures for one of contemporary society's most perplexing and pernicious classes of behavioral disorders. Covering virtually all forms of antisocial behavior and antisocial behavioral disorders, the Handbook of Antisocial Behavior comprises the most extensive review currently available of:

• The development and origins of antisocial behavior
• The demographics of all forms of antisocial behavior
• The latest assessment and diagnostic techniques
• Breakthroughs in prevention and intervention
• Special populations and special issues, from domestic violence to cross-cultural and gender issues

From predictive policing to self-surveillance to private security, the potential uses to of big data in crime control pose serious legal and ethical challenges relating to privacy, discrimination, and the presumption of innocence. The book is about the impacts of the use of big data analytics on social and crime control and on fundamental liberties. Drawing on research from Europe and the US, this book identifies the various ways in which law and ethics intersect with the application of big data in social and crime control, considers potential challenges to human rights and democracy and recommends regulatory solutions and best practice. This book focuses on changes in knowledge production and the manifold sites of contemporary surveillance, ranging from self-surveillance to corporate and state surveillance. It tackles the implications of big data and predictive algorithmic analytics for social justice, social equality, and social power: concepts at the very core of crime and social control. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, politics and socio-legal studies.

Professor Chang s very thoughtful and impressively researched study of cybercrime in the greater China region is an invaluable contribution to the information and analyses available in this area. It not only provides important, and heretofore unavailable data, about the incidence and nature of cybercrime in this region, it also offers insightful suggestions into how this problem can most effectively be controlled. It belongs in the library of anyone interested in this area.' - Susan Brenner, University of Dayton, US 'East Asia is a heartland of the variegated scams of the cybercrime problem. Yao Chung Chang's book is an innovative application of routine activity theory and regulatory theory to cybercrime prevention across the cybergulf between China and Taiwan. The long march through the scams and across the Taiwan Strait is fascinating. Chang leads us to ponder a wiki cybercrime prevention strategy that might work in such treacherous waters.' - John Braithwaite, Australian National University 'Very rarely do you read books that impress these days, but for me Cybercrime in the Greater China Region was one of them. Dr Chang is one of a number of young and exciting international academics who are exploring previously unchartered territory in their quest for new understandings about cybercrime. In his book, Dr Chang manages to locate a global policing problem within the sometimes tense political and cultural constraints of regional policing. For me, Professor Grabosky neatly sums up the strengths of the book in his foreword, I can only endorse them. - David S. Wall, University College, Durham University, UK 'Lennon's research is an important contribution to the current limited understanding of the cybercrimes and related laws/regulations and incident reporting issues across the straits between the two major economies in the Asia region. A well researched book, and highly informative with practical suggestions for enhancing visibility and cooperation to improve the overall state of cybersecurity in the region, especially between the two economies. - Meng-Chow Kang, Cisco Systems, China Cybercrime is a worldwide problem of rapidly increasing magnitude and, of the countries in the Asia Pacific region, Taiwan and China are suffering most. This timely book discusses the extent and nature of cybercrime in and between Taiwan and China, focussing especially on the prevalence of botnets (collections of computers that have been compromised and used for malicious purposes). The book uses routine activity theory to analyse Chinese and Taiwanese legal responses to cybercrime, and reviews mutual assistance between the two countries as well as discussing third party cooperation. To prevent the spread of cybercrime, the book argues the case for a 'wiki' approach to cybercrime and a feasible pre-warning system. Learning from lessons in infectious disease prevention and from aviation safety reporting, Cybercrime in the Greater China Region proposes a feasible information security incident reporting and response system. Academics, government agency workers, policymakers and those in the information security or legal compliance divisions in public and private sectors will find much to interest them in this timely study. Contents: Foreword Part I: Setting the Scene 1. Introduction 2. Risk, Routine Activity, and Cybercrime Part II: New Crime in a New Field: Cybercrime in Taiwan and China 3. Cybercrime

Retaining the focus and spirit of the widely adopted and acclaimed first edition, The Drug Legalization Debate, Second Edition, offers several alternatives and addresses the major issues involved in the continuing drug legalization debate. This volume delves into the history of drug use and abuse in America and the federal government?s approach to drug control?including deterrence, treatment, education, and prevention. Chapters confront topics such as the decriminalization of marijuana, the risk of the war on drugs, an enlightened legalization policy, and discussion of the ethical and legal dilemmas at stake. Updates of retained chapters and new chapters deal with drug use trends of the ?90s, including the use of cannabis as a wonder drug and a look at whether legalizing drugs would really reduce violent crime. In addition, the second edition features a substantive introduction and closes with Paul Stares? acclaimed piece titled "Drug Legalization: Time for a Real Debate." Students and professionals in substance abuse, criminology, sociology, psychology, and social work will find this book essential reading.

How do we understand illicit violence? Can we prevent it? Building on behavioral science and economics, this book begins with the idea that humans are more predictable than we like to believe, and this ability to model human behavior applies equally well to leaders of violent and coercive organizations as it does to everyday people. Humans ultimately seek survival for themselves and their communities in a world of competition. While the dynamics of 'us vs. them' are divisive, they also help us to survive. Access to increasingly larger markets, facilitated through digital communications and social media, creates more transnational opportunities for deception, coercion, and violence. If the economist's perspective helps to explain violence, then it must also facilitate insights into promoting peace and security. If we can approach violence as behavioral scientists, then we can also better structure our institutions to create policies that make the world a more secure place, for us and for future generations.

This volume examines the lone actor terrorist phenomenon, including the larger societal trends which may or may not have led to their acts of terrorism. With lone actor terrorism becoming an increasingly common threat, the contributors to this volume aim to answer the following questions: What drives the actions of individuals who become lone actor terrorists? Are ideological and cultural issues key factors, or are personal psychological motives more useful in assessing the threat? Do lone actors evolve in a broader social context or are they primarily fixated loners? What response strategies are available to security services and law enforcement? What is the future outlook for this particular terrorist threat? Although these issues are frequently discussed, few books have taken a global perspective as their primary focus. While many books focus on lone actor terrorists in relation to terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaida and the Islamic State, few, if any, cover lone actors of all ideological backgrounds, including the variants of active shooters and malicious insiders in information security, such as Edward Snowden - with both of these latter categories constituting an important variant of lone actors. Utilising the expertise of academics and practitioners, the volume offers a valuable multidisciplinary perspective. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, political violence, criminology, security studies and IR.

"Clean Streets will take its place alongside other outstanding community ethnographies in the tradition of the Chicago School. An engaging and insightful book that will be widely cited and discussed."
--William Julius Wilson, author of "When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor"

"In an era of declining civic involvement, persistent fear of crime, and cynicism about the efficacy of grassroots community action, Clean Streets offers a story of hope. Using his eye for detail, Carr examines how community residents respond to gang violence, graffiti and other forms of physical disorder, unresponsive judges, and problems at the corner tavern. Clean Streets offers an intriguing organizational framework for community members and public officials in their fight against crime, violence, and disorder."
--John H. Laub, co-author of "Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70"

"Patrick Carr shows us that policing can have a stimulating effect; that communities can mobilize and restore their moral force with tolerance to others and with moderation. This ethnographic study should be read. It should give us hope."
--Peter K. Manning, author of "Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing"

aIn sum, the core theoretical achievement of "Clean Streets," the development of new concepts and ideas regarding successful social control at the local level, merits close attention from sociologists of various persuasions and with varied interests.a
-- Margarethe Kusenbach, University of South Florida.

With the close proximity of gangs and the easy access to drugs, keeping urban neighborhoods safe from crime has long been a central concern for residents. InClean Streets, Patrick Carr draws on five years of research in a white, working-class community on Chicago's South side to see how they tried to keep their streets safe. Carr details the singular event for this community and the resulting rise of community activism: the shootings of two local teenage girls outside of an elementary school by area gang members. As in many communities struck by similar violence, the shootings led to profound changes in the community's relationship to crime prevention. Notably, their civic activism has proved successful and, years after the shooting, community involvement remains strong.

Carr mines this story of an awakened neighborhood for unique insights, contributing a new perspective to the national debate on community policing, civic activism, and the nature of social control. Clean Streets offers an important story of one community's struggle to confront crime and to keep their homes safe. Their actions can be seen as a model for how other communities can face up to similarly difficult problems.

`This text represents a major contribution to the literature on crime prevention and community safety. It goes beyond existing literature in bringing together sophisticated theoretical analysis on these topics which are core issues for government at local as well as national levels. And it also brings a much needed international perspective to our understanding of the local governance of crime' - Kevin Stenson, Professor of Criminology, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College

Crime Prevention and Community Safety provides an essential introduction to the complex issues and debates in the field of crime control and the new politics of safety and security across the globe. Collectively the contributions to this volume present a critique of current policy and open up the field of study to new directions.

While engaging with the dominant focus on `what works' in crime reduction and community safety, the book also moves beyond the traditionally narrow, technical boundaries of much previous debate.

Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions looks at:

-The relationship between crime control, communities and the nation state;

-The diverse and changing sites of conflict, compromise and collusion around crime control policies;

-Wider issues relating to `risk', 'safety' and `security'.

The central feature of the volume as a whole is a commitment to exploring new directions for research and analysis, theoretically, empirically and comparatively. In opening up the varying and volatile spaces for crime prevention and community safety within the more general politics of social order, the book provides a critical rethinking of traditional connections between criminology, social policy and politics.

Crime Prevention and Community Safety will be essential reading for students of criminology, criminal justice, community safety, socio-legal studies, sociology of crime and deviance and social policy.

This is a course Reader for The Open University course D863 Community Safety, Crime Prevention and Social Control

Human trafficking has emerged as one of the top international and domestic policy concerns, and is well covered and often sensationalized by the media. The nature of the topic combined with various international pressures has resulted in an array of government-led mandates to combat the issue. The Domestication of Human Trafficking examines Canada's criminal justice approaches to human trafficking, with a particular focus on the ways in which the intersecting factors of race, class, gender, and sexuality impact practice. Using a wide range of qualitative and empirically grounded research methods, including extensive analysis of court documents, trial transcripts, and interviews with criminal justice actors, this book contributes to much-needed research that examines, specifies, and sometimes complicates the narratives of how trafficking works as a criminal offence. The Domestication of Human Trafficking turns our attention to the ways in which the offence of human trafficking is made on the front lines of criminal justice efforts in Canada.

Environmental criminology is a term that encompasses a range of overlapping perspectives. At its core, the many strands of environmental criminology are bound by a common focus on the role that the immediate environment plays in the performance of crime, and a conviction that careful analyses of these environmental influences are the key to the effective investigation, control, and prevention of crime. This new edition brings together leading theorists and practitioners in the field to provide a comprehensive, integrative coverage of the field of environmental criminology and crime analysis. This book is divided into three sequential parts: * Understanding the crime event explores routine activity approach, crime pattern theory, the rational choice perspective, and situational precipitators of crime. * Analysing crime patterns discusses crime mapping, offender mobility, repeat victimisation, geographic profiling, and crime scripts. * Preventing and controlling crime covers topics including problem oriented policing, situational crime prevention, and environmental design. Fully updated and including new chapters on crime scripts and offender mobility, a scene-setting introductory overview, and critical thinking questions at the end of each chapter, this text is an essential and comprehensive resource for practitioners and students taking courses on environmental criminology, crime analysis, and crime prevention.

Criminologists have known for decades that income inequality is the best predictor of the local homicide rate, but why this is so has eluded them. There is a simple, compelling answer: most homicides are the denouements of competitive interactions between men. Relatively speaking, where desired goods are distributed inequitably and competition for those goods is severe, dangerous tactics of competition are appealing and a high homicide rate is just one of many unfortunate consequences. Killing the Competition is about this relationship between economic inequality and lethal interpersonal violence. Suggesting that economic inequality is a cause of social problems and violence elicits fierce opposition from inequality's beneficiaries. Three main arguments have been presented by those who would acquit inequality of the charges against it: that "absolute" poverty is the real problem and inequality is just an incidental correlate; that "primitive" egalitarian societies have surprisingly high homicide rates, and that inequality and homicide rates do not change in synchrony and are therefore mutually irrelevant. With detailed but accessible data analyses and thorough reviews of relevant research, Martin Daly dispels all three arguments. Killing the Competition applies basic principles of behavioural biology to explain why killers are usually men, not women, and counters the view that attitudes and values prevailing in "cultures of violence" make change impossible.

Human trafficking has emerged as one of the top international and domestic policy concerns, and is well covered and often sensationalized by the media. The nature of the topic combined with various international pressures has resulted in an array of government-led mandates to combat the issue. The Domestication of Human Trafficking examines Canada's criminal justice approaches to human trafficking, with a particular focus on the ways in which the intersecting factors of race, class, gender, and sexuality impact practice. Using a wide range of qualitative and empirically grounded research methods, including extensive analysis of court documents, trial transcripts, and interviews with criminal justice actors, this book contributes to much-needed research that examines, specifies, and sometimes complicates the narratives of how trafficking works as a criminal offence. The Domestication of Human Trafficking turns our attention to the ways in which the offence of human trafficking is made on the front lines of criminal justice efforts in Canada.

This briefs integrates and synthesizes an array of research about who helps others and under what conditions and discusses the implications of this research for a bystander intervention focused prevention agenda to reduce sexual and relationship violence in schools and communities. It combines an examination of bystander helping behavior in the specific context of sexual and relationship violence with social psychological research on bystander behavior outside that context in order to inform prevention efforts. This briefs is designed for researchers, practitioners, and students concerned about violence prevention and who are interesting in bystander intervention as a promising prevention strategy. Connections between research and practice are the foundation of this briefs. The briefs addresses the following questions: What is the promise of a bystander approach to violence prevention? Where does it fit within the spectrum of sexual and relationship violence prevention? How do we expand theoretical models of helping behavior to the unique context of interpersonal violence? How can we bring in research from other areas of health behavior change and developmental research on violence to inform a broader bystander action model? It provides a new synthesis and model of bystander interaction. It outlines a strategic plan for new research and next steps in prevention practices.

In this interdisciplinary collection leading experts and scholars from criminology, psychology, law and history provide a compelling analysis of practices and beliefs that lead to violence against women, men and children in the name 'honour'.

"Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research" is a series of volumes that features scholarly work on the frontiers of interdisciplinary research on families and family life. Volume 2, "Families, Crime and Criminal Justice" reflects this pioneering orientation by bringing together new empirical research that examines the various ways that families intersect with and are affected by crime and the criminal justice system. The interdisciplinary nature of the volume is reflected in the diversity of disciplines represented, including developmental psychopathology, criminology, sociology, family studies, psychology, social work and demography. The inclusion of qualitative studies based upon observational techniques and in-depth, long interviews as well as quantitative work using demographic and survey approaches demonstrates the wide methodological range employed by the authors. The topics examined include the involvement of children in crime, the patterns and impact of violence in the home, the impact of criminal involvement on parenting strategies and youth development, the experience of families of victims and perpetrators, and responses of the criminal justice system to the needs of families.

In Offending and Desistance, Beth Weaver examines the role of a co-offending peer group in shaping and influencing offending and desistance, focusing on three phases of their criminal careers: onset, persistence and desistance. While there is consensus across the body of desistance research that social relations have a role to play in variously constraining, enabling and sustaining desistance, no desistance studies have adequately analysed the dynamics or properties of social relations, or their relationship to individuals and social structures. This book aims to reset this balance. By examining the social relations and life stories of six Scottish men (in their forties), Weaver reveals the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships and families of formation, employment and religious communities. She shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviours and lifestyles, but with differing results. Weaver's re-examination of the relationships between structure, agency, identity and reflexivity in the desistance process ultimately illuminates new directions for research, policy and practice. This book is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of criminology and criminal justice, delinquency, probation and criminal law.

This volume focuses on the complex relation between offending and the transition from school to the workplace: how employment and education are related to breaking the law and getting in contact with the criminal justice system. The contributors report results from several large scale and sophisticated studies conducted in the Netherlands that gathered rich data on employment, education and criminal behaviour. Each of the studies focuses on a particular period during the life course and particular risk categories. Taken together, they contribute to our understanding of how getting out of school, getting into a job and doing illegal things are intertwined over the life-course, and how these relations differ with age and gender. The background of this volume is our interest in the often-studied relation between offending and employment, or more generally, between offending and the transition from school to work, including dropping out, part-time work and joblessness. The available literature casts little doubt that employment and education are indeed related to less crime and offending. However, this relation is much more complex than it appears at first hand. The volume is primarily aimed at researchers and students in the fields of criminology, sociology and economics. However, it may also be of use for non-academic professionals, in particular policy makers and practitioners in the field of criminal justice, probation/rehabilitation, and youth/schools.

Political leaders and the popular press tell us that society is in the grip of a moral crisis. 'Where have our values gone?' our newspapers scream at us. 'Benefit scroungers', 'greedy bankers', 'intrusive journalists', 'have-a-go rioters', political scandals and criminals of all shapes and sizes are continually cited as evidence that we live in a modern-day Gomorrah. Criminologists have studied this in several ways, including: media representations of crime, mass incarceration, hooliganism and the exercise of power and control through communities. What criminologists have not studied is the place of morality in shaping public debate about understanding crime and how this then shapes crime control strategies. Rather than dismiss statements about community breakdown, 'broken society' and irresponsibility as ideological, self-justificatory rhetoric, what happens when we take these claims seriously? What do they tell us about the causes of crime? How do they shape the crime control agenda? How else might we begin to understand and explain the relationship between crime and society? Navigating between criminological concerns about control and governance and social theories about culture and identity, this book explores what is meant by crime, community and morality and puts this meaning to the test. Discussion of a new theory of rule-breaking, combined with an analysis of how our justice system is becoming maladapted, makes this essential reading for criminologists around the globe, as well as those general readers interested in the causes of crime.

The rational choice perspective developed by Cornish and Clarke in 1986 provides criminologists with a valuable and practical framework for purposes of crime control and prevention. More than twenty-five years later, Cognition and Crime pushes the boundaries of this field of research by bringing together international leading (or emerging) researchers in this area of script analysis into a single volume for the first time. It also presents a series of original contributions on offender decision-making during crime and crime script analysis as well as offering a critical perspective of what could be achieved in the future to further help develop this field of research for prevention purposes. In addition, each empirical chapter treats a specific and important form of crime such as stalking violence, drug dealing, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, child sexual abuse, and transnational illegal market of endangered species. Academics and students from various backgrounds, and interested in investigating and preventing crime, will benefit from this book as it applies crime script analysis and discusses new and future developments in regards to this approach and the rational choice perspective. This volume will be of particular relevance for practitioners such as police officers and crime investigators.

Contemporary Issues in Victimology: Identifying Patterns and Trends examines current topics in victimology and explores the main issues surrounding them. Key topics include: intimate partner violence and dating violence, rape and sexual assault on the college campus, Internet victimization, elder abuse, victimization of inmates, repeat and poly-victimization, fear of crime and perceived risk of crime, human trafficking, mass shootings, and child-to-parent violence. Each chapter includes information about the specific topic, including the nature of the issues, trends, current research, policy, current issues, and future challenges.

Organized crime is now a major threat to all industrial and non-industrial countries. Using an inter-disciplinary and comparative approach this book examines the nature of this threat. By analysing the existing, official institutional discourse on organized crime it examines whether or not it has an impact on perceptions of the threat and on the reality of organized crime. The book first part of the book explores both the paradigm and the rationale of policy output in the fight against organized crime, and also exposes the often 'hidden' internal assumptions embedded in policy making. The second part examines the perceptions of organized crime as expressed by various actors, for example, the general public in the Balkans and in Japan, the criminal justice system in USA and circles within the international scientific community. Finally, the third part provides an overall investigation into the realities of organized crime with chapters that survey its empirical manifestations in various parts of the world. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, criminology, security studies and practitioners.

Crime, Inequality and Power challenges the dominant definitions of crime and the criminal through its uniquely comparative approach. In this book Eileen Leonard analyzes multiple forms of criminal behavior in the United States, including violence, sexual assault, theft, and drug law violations, whilst also asking readers to consider the parallels between crimes that are rarely thought comparable. Leonard's juxtaposition of familiar street crimes, such as car theft, alongside large-scale corporate theft, vividly exposes profound inequalities in the way crime is defined, and the treatment it receives within the criminal justice system. Leonard's analysis also reveals the underlying inequalities of race, class, and gender which enable the perpetuation of such crimes, as well as calling into question the reality of fundamental American ideals of fairness and equal justice. Moreover, the book questions whether current policies that punish street crime excessively while minimizing the crimes of the powerful, fail to keep the public safe. A broader consideration of crime, and the inequalities that underlie it, offers a fresh opportunity to rethink public policies and enduring issues of crime and criminal justice. Challenging the many persistent inequalities in the perception of and response to crime, this critique of American crime and punishment will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as scholars, in the fields of criminology, sociology and law.

Challenging the widely held conjecture that gangs represent 'the new face of youth crime' this book repudiates claims which situate the gang at the heart of sexual violence, mass shooting and control of the illegal drugs trade. It pushes the epistemological, methodological and ontological borders of cultural criminology in order to understand violent street worlds and the informal organisations that operate within them. In part polemic, in part theoretical treatise, the book deciphers the gang talk now mediated by a developing industry of gang-talkers and explores how street realities have become lost in a collectively induced fantasy where gangs are regarded as public enemy number one.