Federal restrictions on the sale and possession of some firearms were introduced during Prohibition when illegal rumrunners battling for territorial rights commonly used machine guns to destroy the opposition. More sweeping legislation was not passed until 1968, and from that time on the struggle has been between pro- and anti-control forces, with more controls created at state and local levels than at the federal level. However, the mood in Washington has turned, and the question now is how the country can be weaned away from the violence that pervades every aspect of living, from lawlessness to literature, entertainment, and even children's toys. This book traces the history of these gun control measures from the early days to our own violent age.

This is a study of a part of American history that deals not just with gun control as such, but with basic concepts of personal liberty, government responsibility, and the fear of tyranny. All three of these influenced the people who took up arms in the American Revolution and who, for decades afterward, resisted every effort of the central government to substitute a standing army for the armed militia of the states. As the nation grew in size and population, the need for a standing army became apparent, and the nature of the militia changed from that of a purely state organization to an adjunct of the regular army. Still, the view that private individuals were entitled to purchase and keep firearms for their personal use persisted. That this was not a constitutional right was made clear by the Supreme Court in a series of cases beginning as early as 1876.

Federal restrictions on the sale and possession of some firearms were introduced during Prohibition when illegal rumrunners battling for territorial rights commonly used machine guns to destroy the opposition. More sweeping legislation was not passed until 1968, and from that time on the struggle has been between pro- and anti-control forces, with more controls created at state and local levels than at the federal level. However, the mood in Washington has turned, and the question now is how the country can be weaned from the violence that pervades every aspect of living, from lawlessness to literature, entertainment, and even children's toys.

The increasing amount of violence in the United States in recent years has led to measures to control gun purchases and limit their availability. Against the arguments of gun-control lobbyists, who want to further decrease the number of weapons, or even ban guns altogether, are the voices of those who contend that gun bans are unrealistic solutions to crime, and serve only to deny a valid form of self-defense to law-abiding citizens. Going beyond the emotional appeals and stilted rhetoric on gun control, Guns: Who Should Have Them? tackles the problems in a straightforward, intelligent manner. Each chapter in this powerful volume, written by leading experts in law, criminology, medicine, psychiatry, and feminist studies, addresses a major issue in the gun-control debate. The conclusions of this carefully detailed and superbly argued study are difficult to deny: "gun control" is a red herring that has been deflecting attention from the true causes of crime, namely, the breakdown of the family; failed social welfare programs; and increasing hopelessness among male youths, especially in our troubled inner cities.

Japan is often described as an inclusive society, and yet the media reports record highs in crime and suicide figures. This book examines criminal justice in Japan, and questions whether Japan really is facing social malaise, or if the media are simply creating a 'moral panic'.

Gun control remains one of the hottest topics on America's agenda. Increased violence, gang wars in metropolitan areas, and the prevalence of guns in the United States frequently bring this debate to new crescendos of public concern. How can we find answers that maintain safety while protecting individual liberty? "The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy" offers a compelling look at how other democracies have attempted to solve their own gun problems, and what we can learn from these countries.

The cause and causation of crime, covered from the time of Benjamin Rush, one of the most eminent of early American physicians, to Williams Healy; from the last decade of the eighteenth to the second decade of the twentieth century. The material is presented from biological, anthropological, and psychological perspectives.

This timely book provides a theoretical and empirical engagement with contemporary understandings of the governance of crime, safety and security. Using a Bourdieuian framework, Bowden explores concepts such as capital, habitus and symbolic power to present an analytic tool-kit for a critically engaged public criminology.

The problem of violence in schools has not gone away despite radical reductions in violent crimes throughout the country over the last decade. Students continue to harrass, haze, and harm each other in a variety of ways, disrupting classrooms and whole schools. In the wake of the Columbine massacre, many focused on the worst kind of school violence: deadly assaults with dangerous weapons. But other forms of violence are more persistent, common, and just as destructive in many ways: fighting, sexual abuse, carrying weapons to school, vandalism, and assorted other crimes that happen behind the closed doors of elementary, middle, and high schools across the country. The consequences range from violent victimization and death, to the disruption of learning and fear among student bodies and teaching staffs. Here, Thomas provides a foundation for understanding why the violence occurs, preventing it from happening, and treating both offenders and victims after it happens. Using scores of case descriptions to illustrate the types of school violence and their treatment in recent years, the author skillfully shows readers how the problem of violence and crime in schools is an insidious issue that cannot go untreated. He offers both tested and proposed methods for dealing with a host of violence issues and a guide to planning treatment of the problem and its associated consequences. He answers the questions: What are prominent types of violence in American schools? What conditions contribute to those types of violence? What methods can be applied in an effort to reduce school violence? Readers will come away from this book with a greater understanding of the scope of violence in America's schools, and the myriad ways of addressing it.

This book vigorously challenges the existing dominant academic view on ASBOs as erroneous tools of social control, and presents an alternative perspective on anti-social behavior management which expressly promotes the idea of ASBOs as capable of enabling a positive process of engagement among local authorities, housing professionals and residents.

This volume provides a unique collection of essays in honour of the work of Marcus Felson and his notable contribution to routine activity theory, environmental criminology and the discipline more broadly. Chapter 5 of this book is open access under a CC BY license.

Analysing the historical circumstances and theoretical sources that have generated ideas about citizen and community participation in crime control, this book examines the various ideals, outcomes and effects that citizen participation has been held to stimulate and how these have been transformed, renegotiated and reinvigorated over time.

Over the past two decades, both developed and developing countries have experienced major individual and collective tragic victimizations leading to major structural and systemic transformations as a consequence of the influence of organized crime and international terrorism. These trends, many of which, as noted earlier, are global in spread and have catastrophic outcomes, revolve around some categories of political diplomacy and unsatisfactory reform responses to spiraling discontent among motivated youths. Global Perspectives on Victimization Analysis and Prevention is an essential research book that provides comprehensive research on postmodern crime prevention and control strategies as well as potential transformations that could be seen in victimology. It offers resources to understand and analyze the main issues, relevant framework, and contextual intricacies within which public safety agendas are articulated and implemented across the globe. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as public safety, crime prevention, and terrorism, this book is essential for criminologists, law enforcement, victim advocates, criminal profilers, crime analysts, academicians, policymakers, researchers, security planners, NGOs, government officials, and students.

The potential of crime prevention, security and community safety is constrained by implementation failure. This book presents a carefully-designed system of good practice, the 5Is, which handles the complexities of real world prevention, this aims to improve the performance of prevention, and advance process evaluation.

This text analyzes the political and material conditions driving contemporary border control policies and discusses the processes that mediate popular and official understandings of border-related fatalities.

Ben wasn't brought up, he was dragged up.With absent parents and broken friends, a young Ben makes choices that are ruining his life. Before he's even twenty, Ben's spells in prison begin, and soon he finds himself involved in serious crime. When people begin to die, Ben must choose a side. But is this really the life Ben wants or is there a way out of this vicious cycle? Is he destined to fulfil his fate of being once a prisoner, always a prisoner? Or can Ben swap a life on the inside, for one with hope on the outside? Ross Greenwood is back with this shocking, page-turning glimpse into the criminal underworld. This book was previously published as THE BOY INSIDE. Praise for Ross Greenwood: 'Move over Rebus and Morse; a new entry has joined the list of great crime investigators in the form of Detective Inspector John Barton. A rich cast of characters and an explosive plot kept me turning the pages until the final dramatic twist.' author Richard Burke 'Master of the psychological thriller genre Ross Greenwood once again proves his talent for creating engrossing and gritty novels that draw you right in and won't let go until you've reached the shocking ending.' Caroline Vincent at Bitsaboutbooks blog 'Ross Greenwood doesn't write cliches. What he has written here is a fast-paced, action-filled puzzle with believable characters that's spiced with a lot of humour.' author Kath Middleton

'An intricate and brilliantly written psychiatric perspective on the most perplexing of crimes' Kerry Daynes, author of The Dark Side of the Mind 'Beautifully written and very dark' Nimco Ali OBE 'Whodunnit' doesn't matter so much, not to a forensic psychiatrist. We're more interested in the 'why'. In his twenty-six years in the field, Richard Taylor has worked on well over a hundred murder cases, with victims and perpetrators from all walks of life. In this fascinating memoir, Taylor draws on some of the most tragic, horrific and illuminating of these cases - as well as dark secrets from his own family's past - to explore some of the questions he grapples with every day: Why do people kill? Does committing a monstrous act make someone a monster? Could any of us, in the wrong circumstances, become a killer? As Taylor helps us understand what lies inside the minds of those charged with murder - both prisoners he has assessed and patients he has treated - he presents us with the most important challenge of all: how can we even begin to comprehend the darkest of human deeds, and why it is so vital that we try? The Mind of a Murderer is a fascinating exploration into the psyche of killers, as well as a unique insight into the life and mind of the doctor who treats them. For fans of Unnatural Causes, The Examined Life and All That Remains. MORE PRAISE FOR THE MIND OF A MURDERER: 'A fascinating insight into what drives criminality - and a punchy polemic against mental-health service cuts' Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph 'A fascinating, well-written and compelling account of the mental state in homicide' Alisdair Williamson, TLS 'A dark, fascinating and often surprising glimpse into the minds of those who kill, from a forensic psychiatrist who's seen it all' Rob Williams, writer of BBC's The Victim 'An excellent, engaging and honest book, full of interesting, powerful and important observations' Alison Liebling, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Cambridge

This book fills a number of gaps in the study of community and crime. How do changes in the urban environment impact upon local (high crime) communities? How do changes in housing provision and consumption influence crime patterning? Can current community safety and urban policies address the needs of high crime, mixed tenure, inner-city areas? And how do community groups respond to neighborhood change, crime and disorder? Hancock makes important theoretical contributions to these and other questions.

Policing in an Age of Austerity uniquely examines the effects on one key public service: the state police of England and Wales. Focusing on the major cut-backs in its resources, both in material and in labour, it details the extent and effects of that drastic reduction in provision together with related matters in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This book also investigates the knock-on effect on other public agencies of diminished police contribution to public well-being. The book argues that such a dramatic reduction in police services has occurred in an almost totally uncoordinated way, both between provincial police services, and also with regard to other public agencies. While there may have been marginal improvements in effectiveness in certain contexts, the British police have dramatically failed to seize the opportunity to modernize a police service that has never been reformed to suit modern exigencies since its date of origin in 1829. British policing remains a relic of the past despite the mythology by which it increasingly exports its practices and officers to (especially) transitional societies. Operating at both historical and contemporary levels, this book furnishes a mine of current information. Critically, it also emphasizes the extent to which British policing has traditionally concentrated on the lowest socio-economic stratum of society, to the neglect of the policing of the more powerful. Policing in an Age of Austerity will be of interest to academics and professionals working in the fields of criminal justice, development studies, and transitional and conflicted societies, as well as those with an interest in the social schisms caused by the current financial crisis.

This book examines the extent to which criminal desistance - 'the change process involved in the ending of criminal behaviour' - is affected by personal and social circumstances which are place specific. Grounded in criminological spatial analysis, as well as more general social scientific investigations of the role of space and place in contemporary social, economic and cultural life, it examines why large numbers of prisoners in the United States and the United Kingdom appear to be drawn from - and after release return to - certain urban neighbourhoods. In doing so Criminal Behaviour in Context assesses the effect of this unique life course experience on the pathways and choices open to ex-prisoners who attempt to give up crime. Including new data on the geographical distribution of offenders, interviews with serving prisoners, and drawing on theories about social context, identity and subjectivity, it discusses the implications of the evidence and arguments presented for prisoner reintegration policy and practice.

In the tsunami of publications on terrorism which followed 9/11, few have probed effectively into the deeper layers of motivation that enable normal human beings to carry out such unimaginable acts. Terrorist's Creed casts a penetrating beam of empathetic understanding into the disturbing and murky psychological world of fanatical violence, explaining how the fanaticism it demands stems from the profoundly human need to imbue existence with meaning and transcendence. Drawing on sociology, psychology, novels and films, it shows how the need to defend or create a territorial or purely cultural 'home' in an unforgiving universe can precipitate a process of 'heroic doubling' which in extreme circumstances legitimates murder and suicide for the sake of a 'higher' cause.

Zero Tolerance Policing is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the police, crime prevention, community safety and order maintenance. It is a highly significant text, providing the reader with a more informed understanding of the many issues involved. With chapters from eminent practitioners and academics, and based on a combination of practical experience and extensive research, each chapter examines a key issue involved in zero tolerance policing. Subjects under discussion include current initiatives in both the UK and US, problem-oriented policing, community reaction, the implications for civil liberties of a true zero tolerance approach, and the problems of begging and vagrancy.

Crime and Criminal Justice provides students with a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the study of criminology by taking an interdisciplinary approach to explaining criminal behaviour and criminal justice.

The book is divided into two parts, which address the two essential bases that form the discipline of criminology. Part One describes, discusses and evaluates a range of theoretical approaches that have offered explanations for crime, drawing upon contributions from the disciplines of sociology, psychology, and biology. It then goes on to apply these theories to specific forms of criminality. Part Two offers an accessible but detailed review of the major philosophical aims and sociological theories of punishment, and examines the main areas of the contemporary criminal justice system ? including the police, the courts and judiciary, prisons, and more recent approaches to punishment.

Presenting a clear and thorough review of theoretical thinking on crime, and of the context and current workings of the criminal justice system, this book provides students with an excellent grounding in the study of criminology.

Examining the erosion of people's democratic rights and the potential catastrophic dangers of neglecting civil liberties, this book explores the endemic danger of the enlarged power of the state and the central role of Government in undermining personal freedoms through the use of state force in the name of the protection of security.

The United Kingdom has more than 4.2 million public closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras-one for every fourteen citizens. Across the United States, hundreds of video surveillance systems are being installed in town centers, public transportation facilities, and schools at a cost exceeding $100 million annually. And now other Western countries have begun to experiment with CCTV to prevent crime in public places. In light of this expansion and the associated public expenditure, as well as pressing concerns about privacy rights, there is an acute need for an evidence-based approach to inform policy and practice.
Drawing on the highest-quality research, criminologists Brandon C. Welsh and David P. Farrington assess the effectiveness and social costs of not only CCTV, but also of other important surveillance methods to prevent crime in public space, such as improved street lighting, security guards, place managers, and defensible space. Importantly, the book goes beyond the question of "Does it work?" and examines the specific conditions and contexts under which these surveillance methods may have an effect on crime as well as the mechanisms that bring about a reduction in crime.
At a time when cities need cost-effective methods to fight crime and the public gradually awakens to the burdens of sacrificing their privacy and civil rights for security, Welsh and Farrington provide this timely and reliable guide to the most effective and non-invasive uses of surveillance to make public places safer from crime.

Over the past thirty years social scientists and particularly social historians have stressed the need to take popular protest seriously. The corollary of this, the need to take the policing of protest seriously, seems to have been less well acknowledged. The aim of this volume is to redress this situation by probing, in depth, a limited number of incidents of public disorder and focusing particularly on the role of the police. In doing so, this collection will draw out general patterns of police provocation and public responses and suggest general hypotheses. The incidents explored range across Europe and the United States, involve different kinds of political regime, and are drawn from both the interwar and the postwar years. They pose important questions about the effects of riot training and specialist equipment for the police, about the reality and roles of "agitators" and of "rotten apples" amongst the police, and about the role of the media and the courts in fostering certain kinds of undesirable and counterproductive police behavior.

Over the past thirty years social scientists and particularly social historians have stressed the need to take popular protest seriously. The corollary of this, the need to take the policing of protest seriously, seems to have been less well acknowledged. The aim of this volume is to redress this situation by probing, in depth, a limited number of incidents of public disorder and focusing particularly on the role of the police. In doing so, this collection will draw out general patterns of police provocation and public responses and suggest general hypotheses. The incidents explored range across Europe and the United States, involve different kinds of political regime, and are drawn from both the interwar and the postwar years. They pose important questions about the effects of riot training and specialist equipment for the police, about the reality and roles of "agitators" and of "rotten apples" amongst the police, and about the role of the media and the courts in fostering certain kinds of undesirable and counterproductive police behavior.

Richard Bessel is Professor of Twentieth-Century History at the University of York. His publications include Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism and Germany after the First World War.

Clive Emsley is Professor of History at the Open University and Co-Director of the European Centre for the Study of Policing. His publications include Crime and Society in England, 1750-1900 and The English Police: A Political and Social History. Since 1995 he has been President of the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice.