Assessing Risk: A Relational Approach offers the practitioner a novel framework for understanding the complex and subtle issues involved in assessing and managing risks related to violence and sexual offending. The authors draw on their considerable experience working with high risk individuals in assessment and treatment. They have for many years consulted to practitioners in forensic mental health services and the criminal justice system and taught renowned courses at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. This book outlines a comprehensive model of risk which draws on mainstream empirical research, threat assessment, developmental psychopathology, attachment theory, and a relational model derived from psychoanalysis. The framework incorporates intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions and is designed to enhance the reader's capacity to make a thorough risk formulation. The approach highlights the significance of childhood development in understanding violent and sexually violent acts, and the complicated interpersonal processes involved in managing individuals who have a propensity to violent enactment. These dynamic processes between people impact on risk and risk perception, and can distort judgement if not recognised and understood. Assessing Risk will be of practical use in enhancing the skills of professionals to assess and manage risk in a comprehensive and effective way, and will appeal to all those mental health and criminal justice practitioners working with risky individuals.

Scholarly exploration into how and why people stop offending (desistance from crime) has focused on the impact of internal and external factors in processes of desistance. Prior research has, in general, been undertaken within one nation and neglected the fact that desistance processes are situated within a broad social context which shapes an individual's perceptions and actions. This book begins to fill this gap by exploring how societies and cultures shape desistance processes and experiences. Desistance and Societies in Comparative Perspective offers findings from a cross-national comparative mixed-method study of desistance processes in England and Israel: two countries with different social-political systems and distinct cultural attributes. The study is the first of its kind in criminology, both in terms of its key objectives and the methods utilised. The findings uncover how social structures and cultures shape individual-level experience. In particular, the findings illustrate how external and internal mechanisms in desistance processes were 'oriented' in particular ways, in accordance with contextual factors. The book outlines five contextual factors which were key in shaping the dynamics of desistance across societies and cultures. These are: cultural scripts; social climates; shared values and norms; social interactions and encounters; and distinct cultural characteristics. These five factors provide a contextual framework within which to understand the role of cultures and social structures in shaping agency and experiences in processes of desistance, and with which to account for variances and similarities across societies and cultures. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, cultural studies, social theory and those interested in learning about why and how people desist from crime.

There are more than 20 theories that explain crime. Each theory has weaknesses, and no scholar knows which theory is best. To remedy this unsatisfactory situation a new research program of comparative theory testing is proposed. Comparing the theories with each other has not yet been successful. The alternative, suggested in this book, is to show how criminological theories must be modified if they are compared with a general behavioral theory. The book shows under which conditions the major criminological theories provide valid explanations of crime. The latter thus become integrated as parts of the general theory. The general theory that is chosen is a version of the theory of rational action. This is not the problematic version discussed in the literature, but states the real conditions of decision making and, thus, explains when people actually violate the law or remain law-abiding. The general theory is a component of a theoretical approach that explains individual behavior in interaction with societal (macro) conditions. This micro-macro approach is summarized in a proposed structural-cognitive model. This is part of the new program of Analytical Criminology. It suggests empirical theory comparison, process explanations, and micro-macro explanations. The book is not only written for readers who are interested in theories of crime and deviant behavior. It is also a treatise in "analytical" (i.e., rigorous) theory construction and empirical theory comparison.

In Crime & Politics, award-winning journalist Ted Gest gives readers the inside story of how crime policy is formulated inside the Washington beltway and state capitols, why the US has had cycle after cycle of ineffective federal legislation, and where promising reforms might lead in the future. Gest examines how politicians first made crime a national rather than a local issue, beginning with Lyndon Johnson's crime commission and the landmark anti-crime law of 1968 and continuing right up to such present-day measures as "three strikes" laws, mandatory sentencing, and community policing.

Making the Peace is written to help high school students break away from violence, develop self-esteem, and regain a sense of community. It provides photographs, illustrations, exercises, role-plays, in-class handouts, homework sheets, and discussion guidelines to explore issues such as dating violence, gangs, interracial tension, suicide, sexual harassment, and the social roots of violence.

Written by two leading authorities in the field, this book provides a systematic application of concepts of situational crime prevention to internet and e-commerce crime. The book argues that situational crime prevention works and is ideally suited to proving the means of developing measures to combat rapidly growing e-commerce crime. Chapters in the book identify the specific opportunities and transactions in which crime can occur in the e-commerce environment. A variety of techniques to counter e-commerce crime are identified, underpinned by seeking to increase the effort the criminal must make to carry out crime, to increase the perceived risk of crime, to reduce the anticipated rewards of crime, and to remove excuses for the criminal. ... Contents: Preface; Situational crime prevention in the information society: Situational crime prevention - Virtual situations - Opportunity structure and social structure - Situational culture - Enduring qualities of situations - Situations as pre

The objective of this book is to quantify the social costs of gun violence in order to help policy makers determine how many and which violence programs to support. Drawing upon the most detailed and extensive economic study of the cost of gun violence, Cook and Ludwig provide detailed information about how the burden of gun violence is distributed in the U.S. The book also highlights the important implications for public policy. Cook and Ludwig's examination of these costs lead them to propose a multifaceted policy agenda that includes both law enforcement, and gun control measures.

The rise of CCTV and surveillance technologies has been one of the key developments in contemporary society, but its impact has often been analysed in a fragmented manner. This book addresses this issue by providing a detailed, micro-sociological account of the construction of a CCTV network in one English city. It differs from previous studies (which have concentrated on open street CCTV systems) in documenting and analysing the use of visual surveillance systems in a number of different locations and institutional settings, including the industrial workplace, shopping malls, high-rise housing schemes, and hospitals. It is concerned not just with abstract categories of 'grand theory' but seeks to explain how people living in contemporary society experience these changes. The Surveillance Web situates the growth of visual surveillance systems in the context of many of the key concerns of theorists of modernity, and makes a key contribution to understanding the nature of the relationship between surveillance and society. Its starting point is to view the relationship between surveillance and society as a two way process: the book looks at both the social impact of visual surveillance systems, and at how the impact of these technologies is shaped by existing social relations, political practice and cultural traditions. provides a richly textured account and analysis of the introduction of visual surveillance technologies (CCTV) in an English cityexplores the impact of the introduction and use of visual surveillance systems in a wide variety of locales and institutional settings, both public and privatemakes a key contribution to theoretical debates over the relationship between surveillance systems and society, one of the central concerns of theorists of modernity

In a world where technology is continually advancing, and problems are becoming more and more complex, established practices for decision making and problem solving are no longer effective. In this new book, however, Enid Mumford draws on her wealth of experience in management, business schools, and working with the police and other professional problem solvers to show us how to tackle complex problems efficiently. With drugs and cyber-crime as her main examples Professor Mumford shows how these topical, yet apparently permanent problems, could be approached. She does this by looking at how the criminals themselves have overcome legal obstacles, and other problems to make the drug trafficking industry the second largest in the world today, and the relative newcomer, electronic fraud, a multi-billion dollar problem already. These crimes, which in themselves lead to more crime from petty theft to support a drug habit, to international money laundering, are incredibly complex, and yet the book shows us that there is not only a way forward with these issues, but a way to approach all complex problems with efficiency and competency, wherever they occur in our lives.

In " Breaking Away from Broken Windows" Ralph Taylor uses data on recent Baltimore crime-reduction efforts to attack the 'broken windows' thesis--that is, the currently fashionable notion that by reducing or eliminating superficial signs of disorder (dilapidated buildings, graffiti, incivil behavior by teenagers, etc.), urban police deparments can make significant and lasting reductions in crime. Taylor argues that such measures, while useful, are only a partial solution to the problem at hand. His data supports a materialist view: changes in levels of physical decay, superficial social disorder, and racial composition do not lead to higher crime, while economic decline does. He contends that the Baltimore example shows that in order to make real, long-term reductions in crime, urban politicians, businesses, and community leaders must work together to improve the economic fortunes of those living in high-crime areas.

This book examines the increasing appeals to, and actual involvement of, communities in the area of crime control. It charts and analyses the growing `partnership' approach to crime prevention. In doing so, it draws upon two research projects recently conducted in England. The research findings are used to consider the conflicts and tensions around `partnerships' between state agencies and community groups, the nature of `community' to which appeals are made in criminal justice policy and practice, and their implications for the future of crime control.

In 2005 Waverly Duck was called to a town he calls Bristol Hill to serve as an expert witness in the sentencing of drug dealer Jonathan Wilson. Convicted as an accessory to the murder of a federal witness and that of a fellow drug dealer, Jonathan faced the death penalty, and Duck was there to provide evidence that the environment in which Jonathan had grown up mitigated the seriousness of his alleged crimes. Duck's exploration led him to Jonathan's church, his elementary, middle, and high schools, the juvenile facility where he had previously been incarcerated, his family and friends, other drug dealers, and residents who knew him or knew of him. After extensive ethnographic observations, Duck found himself seriously troubled and uncertain: Are Jonathan and others like him a danger to society? Or is it the converse-is society a danger to them? Duck's short stay in Bristol Hill quickly transformed into a long-term study-one that forms the core of No Way Out. This landmark book challenges the common misconception of urban ghettoes as chaotic places where drug dealing, street crime, and random violence make daily life dangerous for their residents. Through close observations of daily life in these neighborhoods, Duck shows how the prevailing social order ensures that residents can go about their lives in relative safety, despite the risks that are embedded in living amid the drug trade. In a neighborhood plagued by failing schools, chronic unemployment, punitive law enforcement, and high rates of incarceration, residents are knit together by long-term ties of kinship and friendship, and they base their actions on a profound sense of community fairness and accountability. Duck presents powerful case studies of individuals whose difficulties flow not from their values, or a lack thereof, but rather from the multiple obstacles they encounter on a daily basis. No Way Out explores how ordinary people make sense of their lives within severe constraints and how they choose among unrewarding prospects, rather than freely acting upon their own values. What emerges is an important and revelatory new perspective on the culture of the urban poor.

In the past fifty years, street crime rates in America have increased eightfold. These increases were historically patterned, were often very rapid, and had a disproportionate impact on African Americans. Much of the crime explosion took place in a space of just ten years beginning in the early 1960s. Common explanations based on biological impulses, psychological drives, or slow-moving social indicators cannot explain the speed or timing of these changes or their disproportionate impact on racial minorities. Using unique data that span half a century, Gary LaFree argues that social institutions are the key to understanding the U.S. crime wave. Crime increased along with growing political distrust, economic stress, and family disintegration. These changes were especially pronounced for racial minorities. American society responded by investing more in criminal justice, education, and welfare institutions. Stabilization of traditional social institutions and the effects of new institutional spending account for the modest crime declines of the 1990s.

The use of Closed-Circuit Television, or CCTV, has dramatically increased over the past decade, but its presence is often so subtle as to go unnoticed. Should we unthinkingly accept that increased surveillance is in the public's best interests, or does this mean that 'Big Brother' is finally watching us?
This book asks provocative questions about the rise of the maximum surveillance society. Is crime control the principal motivation behind increased surveillance or are the reasons more complex? Does surveillance violate peoples' right of privacy? Who gets surveilled and why? What are its implications for social control? Does surveillance actually reduce crime? What will developments in technology mean for the future of surveillance? What rights do individuals under surveillance have? How is the information gathered through CCTV used by the authorities?
Based on extensive fieldwork on automated surveillance in Britain over a two-year period, this book not only attempts to answer these vexing questions, but also provides a wealth of detailed information about the reasoning behind and effects of social control.

Over the past quarter-century, U.S. politicians have responded to the public's fear of crime by devoting ever more resources to building and strengthening the criminal justice apparatus, which as a result has grown tremendously in size and cost. Policymakers have also taken steps to toughen procedures for dealing with suspects and criminals, and broaden legal definitions of what constitutes crime, which has led to the incarceration, under harsher-than-ever conditions, of a record-high percentage of the U.S. population. Yet public confidence in the criminal justice apparatus is, if anything, lower than ever before, and fear of crime continues to be high.In recent years, some activists, scholars, criminal-justice officials, and politicians have begun to call for a reexamination of "get-tough" crime policies. A more sensible approach to crime, they argue, would focus on "community justice"--that is, on building healthy communities in which criminality cannot take root, and on making citizens and criminal-justice into partners rather than adversaries. In this thought-provoking study, Todd Clear and David Karp provide both a broad theoretical analysis of this ideal, and a close examination of a range of attempts to put it into practice in communities throughout the country. They conclude that by making the criminal justice system and the public into partners rather than adversaries, community-justice strategies for dealing with crime are both more effective and more resource-efficient than the failed "get-tough" approach.

Research suggests that crime prevention is generally more effective than harsh punishment. But the public fears victimization and demands punishment for the perpetrators of its fears. Consequently, any policy that moves toward prevention, treatment, and alternative modes of punishment must simultaneously move toward reducing the level of victimization in a direct and readily comprehensible manner. The fifteen authors of this volume articulate a pragmatic crime policy for America which combines academic insights about crime prevention with the realities of contemporary politics. The studies collectively outline a coherent policy that centers on "minimizing harm," as opposed to retribution, eliminating crime, or solving the social problems that generate criminal behavior. Minimizing harm implies a compromise between the best current research and the concerns of citizens. The book consists of four principal studies focusing on public attitudes toward crime, prevention, alternative sanctions, and drug policy. Each study is accompanied by two commentaries.

The nightly news and other media provide a constant reminder of illegal drug transport over American borders and along routes between various U.S. cities. The general public is well aware that law enforcement efforts to address the foreign supply and trafficking of illegal drugs into the United States is an ongoing battle.This useful and readable compendium gives a fascinating account of how illegal drugs are transported into and around the United States and throughout its neighborhoods. Criminologist and geographer George F. Rengert takes a unique approach to the problem of illegal drug distribution and U.S. drug markets. Using maps and charts to illustrate his findings, Rengert applies spacial diffusion models to the illegal drug trade and explains why certain drugs are transported and found in different parts of the country. For example, the highest concentration of marijuana plants is not on either coast, but rather across the middle of the United States--throughout what is known as the corn belt. At the local level Rengert assesses the patterns and processes that interconnect drug sales and neighborhood deterioration and change.The book also addresses the important issues of how illegal drugs in this country operate on wholesale and retail levels and ways in which law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels contend with this widespread problem. Using ethnographic material to provide real-life examples, Rengert explores how drug dealers on the street expand spatially and predictably in their neighborhoods. He illustrates how this knowledge helps law enforcement in efforts to get these drugs off the streets.

Unlike the outcry over street crime committed by males, concerns about women and violence have centered primarily on their roles as victims of sexual and physical violence committed by strangers and by males in intimate relationships. Rarely is violence by women considered in the development or testing of theories of aggression.The book provides a detailed account of the criminal careers of 170 women who committed violent street crimes in New York City, describing their entry into criminal activities, their development into persistent street criminals, and, for some, their eventual transition out of street crime.Unlike other qualitative works in this area, "Casualties of Community Disorder" offers more than cultural analysis. Deborah Baskin and Ira Sommers integrate structural and individual levels of explanation by examining the career patterns of female violent offenders and the relationships of these women to family members and communities. Through the use of census data, analyses of political and economic changes, and ethnographic observations of activities specific to these communities, the authors provide a perspective on the relationship of individual decisions to structural constraints.The research presented here clearly challenges contemporary assumptions regarding female offending. Baskin and Sommers' analysis suggests a complex relationship of social and individual factors that serves as a caution against generic and gender-based generalizations that have been drawn from time-bound, aggregate level data sets and from ethnographies of women's involvement in street hustling. Finally, in "Casualties of Community Disorder, " the street drug and criminal subculture is understood through the words of those who usually are spoken for, studied, and objectified.

This collection presents vivid experiences of drug policy-making at city, regional, national, and Union levels.

These essays examine how and why inequality affects the patterning of crime and criminal justice. They evaluate the merits of various theoretical ideas, debates, and controversies regarding crime and inequality; document the dynamics of inequality in varied crime settings; examine methodologies used in exploring the crime-inequality relationship; and set forth new research and policy agendas for future work.

The main objective of the second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology is twofold: (1) to provide original chapters that cover contemporary critical criminological theoretical offerings generated over the past five years and (2) to provide chapters on important new substantive topics that are currently being studied and theorized by progressive criminologists. Special attention is devoted to new theoretical directions in the field, such as southern criminology, queer criminology, and green criminology. The diverse chapters cover not only cutting-edge theories, but also the variety of research methods used by leading scholars in the field and the rich data generated by their rigorous empirical work. In addition, some of the chapters suggest innovative and realistic short- and long-term policy proposals that are typically ignored by mainstream criminology. These progressive strategies address some of the most pressing social problems facing contemporary society today, which generate much pain and suffering for socially and economically disenfranchised people. The new edition of the Handbook is a major work in redefining areas within the context of international multidisciplinary critical research, and in highlighting emerging areas, such as human trafficking, Internet pornography and image-based sexual abuse. It is specifically designed to be a comprehensive resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and policymakers.

Millions of pounds are spent every year trying to tackle human trafficking, modern slavery and child sexual exploitation. These are apparently threats perpetrated by 'criminal masterminds', spreading at a dizzying rate and approaching epidemic proportions - or so the story goes. Amid all the bold rhetoric and sweeping claims, there is very little robust research to help understand these problems and inform evidence-based policy and practice. In this book, readers are invited to delve inside the murky world of human trafficking. It focuses on the internal (domestic) trafficking of children for sexual exploitation. It is based on far-reaching analysis of six of the earliest and largest such investigations in the United Kingdom (UK), including the infamous Derby and Rochdale cases that sparked nationwide concerns about 'street grooming' and 'Asian sex gangs'. Innovative methods, analytical rigour and truly extraordinary data underpin the research: a nuanced and sometimes unsettling exploration of the offender and victim networks, their characteristics, structure, activity and dynamics and the problems they pose for investigation and prosecution. The results paint a picture of a sprawling and dynamic system of grooming and abuse that is deeply embedded in complex webs of social relations and interactions. This book challenges accepted wisdom, debunks myths and introduces new and fundamentally different ways of thinking about trafficking and its prevention. An accessible and compelling read, this book is for academics, policymakers, practitioners and others interested in serious and organised crime.

A major contribution to the field of crime/deviance, this volume by noted criminologist Charles R. Tittle puts forth an integrated theory of deviance--control balance. Its central premise is that the total amount of control people are subjected to, relative to the control they can exercise, will affect the probability and type of their deviant behavior.In developing control balance, Tittle critically reviews other general theories such as anomie, Marxian conflict, social control, differential association/social learning, labelling, and routine activities and offers reasons why those theories are insufficient. Using real-world examples to illustrate his argument, he contends that deviance results from the convergence of four variables, each of which represents an interactive nexus of several inputs, including most prominently a control imbalance. The variables are predisposition, motivation, opportunity, and constraint. Control balance theory also explains six basic types of deviance, ranging from predation, defiance, and submissiveness on one end of a control ratio continuum to exploitation, plunder, and decadence on the other.Tittle conceives of control balance as a continuation, or temporary culmination, of the collective efforts of crime/deviance scholars who have gone before, presenting it as a vehicle for trying to achieve a fully adequate general theory of deviance.

From media images of "mean girls" to the disproportionate punishment of Black, Latina and/or queer girls in schools and the justice system, female aggression has become a public concern. Scholars, educators, policymakers and parents are scrambling to respond to the perceived upsurge in girls' bullying, peer pressure, and aggression/violence. Girls, Aggression and Intersectionality examines how intersecting social identities - such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, and others - shape media representations of, and criminal justice reactions to, female aggression. The book focuses on three overarching questions: How do race, class, and/or sexuality influence media images of female aggression? How do aggressive girls' intersecting identities affect law enforcement and criminal justice responses to their aggression? How are diverse groups of girls trying to resist their labelling and criminalization? Using intersectionality as a conceptual framework, this insightful volume deconstructs a unitary analysis of "female aggression" and transforms the mainstream discourse that paints girls as inherently "mean." Girls, Aggression and Intersectionality will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields including Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Youth Studies, Criminology and Media and Culture.