Crime, Violence, and Global Warming introduces the many connections between climate change and criminal activity. Conflict over natural resources can escalate to state and non-state actors, resulting in wars, asymmetrical warfare, and terrorism. Crank and Jacoby apply criminological theory to each aspect of this complicated web, helping readers to evaluate conflicting claims about global warming and to analyze evidence of the current and potential impact of climate change on conflict and crime. Beginning with an overview of the science of global warming, the authors move on to the links between climate change, scarce resources, and crime. Their approach takes in the full scope of causes and consequences, present and future, in the United States and throughout the world. The book concludes by looking ahead at the problem of forecasting future security implications if global warming continues or accelerates. This fresh approach to the criminology of climate change challenges readers to examine all sides of this controversial question and to formulate their own analysis of our planet's future.

Medieval Violence provides a detailed analysis of the practice of medieval brutality, focusing on a thriving region of northern France in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It examines how violence was conceptualised in this period, and uses this framework to investigate street violence, tavern brawls, urban rebellions, student misbehaviour, and domestic violence. The interactions between these various forms of violence are examined in order to demonstrate the complex and communicative nature of medieval brutality. What is often dismissed as dysfunctional behaviour is shown to have been highly strategic and socially integral. Violence was a performance, dependent upon the spaces in which it took place. Indeed, brutality was contingent upon social and cultural structures. At the same time, the common stereotype of the thoughtlessly brutal Middle Ages is challenged, as attitudes towards violence are revealed to have been complex, troubled, and ambivalent. Whether violence could function effectively as a form of communication which could order and harmonise society, or whether it inevitably degenerated into chaotic disorder where meaning was multivalent and incomprehensible, remained a matter of ongoing debate in a variety of contexts. Using a variety of source material, including legal records, popular literature, and sermons, Hannah Skoda explores experiences of, and attitudes towards, violence, and highlights profound contemporary ambiguity concerning its nature and legitimacy.

The Psychology of Interpersonal Violence is a textbook which gives comprehensive coverage of interpersonal violence - exploring the various violent acts that occur between individuals in contemporary society. * Examines in detail the controversial use of corporal punishment * Explores ways that psychology can add to our understanding of interpersonal violence * Offers directions for future research that can help to prevent or reduce incidents of interpersonal violence

Children are the most criminally victimized segment of the population, and a substantial number face multiple, serious "poly-victimizations" during a single year. And despite the fact that the priority emphasis in academic research and government policy has traditionally gone to studying juvenile delinquents, children actually appear before authorities more frequently as victims than as offenders. But at the same time, the media and many advocates have failed to note the good news: rates of sexual abuse, child homicide, and many other forms of victimization declined dramatically after the mid-1990s, and some terribly feared forms of child victimization, like stereotypical stranger abduction, are remarkably uncommon. The considerable ignorance about the realities of child victimization can be chalked up to a field that is fragmented, understudied, and subjected to political demagoguery. In this persuasive book, David Finkelhor presents a comprehensive new vision to encompass the prevention, treatment, and study of juvenile victims, unifying conventional subdivisions like child molestation, child abuse, bullying, and exposure to community violence. Developmental victimology, his term for this integrated perspective, looks at child victimization across childhood's span and yields fascinating insights about how to categorize juvenile victimizations, how to think about risk and impact, and how victimization patterns change over the course of development. The book also provides a valuable new model of society's response to child victimization - what Finkelhor calls the Juvenile Victim Justice System - and a fresh way of thinking about barriers that victims and their families encounter when seeking help. These models will be very useful to anyone seeking to improve the way we try to help child victims. Crimes against children still happen far too often, but by proposing a new framework for thinking about the issue, Childhood Victimization opens a promising door to reducing its frequency and improving the response. Professionals, policymakers, and child advocates will find this paradigm-shifting book to be a valuable addition to their shelves.

Readers' Choice Award Winner The level of injustice in the world is staggering. The church can respond. International Justice Mission (IJM) has rescued thousands of people from oppression and violence. IJM also partners with thousands of churches to help them live out the mandate of Isaiah 1:17: to seek justice, rescue the oppressed and care for orphans and widows. Christians need to be equipped and mobilized to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those who are vulnerable and oppressed. The God of Justice is a twelve-session, discussion-based curriculum from IJM that explores the biblical narrative of justice throughout the whole of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. Through the participatory study of Scripture, Christians will explore God's call to engage in bringing about justice on earth. While coming to a deeper knowledge and understanding of biblical justice, participants will draw personal application for the pursuit of justice ministry in their individual lives and the wider church. Prepare to have your heart and mind engaged, to be instructed by Scripture, and to be challenged by real-life stories of people freed by the God of justice. This curriculum will help you and your church bring freedom, restoration and reconciliation to those in need. Discover how God reveals himself to those who join him on his justice journey!

From Global to Grassroots looks at how transnational activism aimed at combating violence against women is used to instigate changes in local practice. Focusing on the case of the European Union, this book provides empirical and intersectional feminist analysis to demonstrate the transnational processes that connect global and grassroots advocacy efforts. It does this by taking an in-depth look at the roles played by regional organizations and networks in efforts to address violence against women. Over the past decades, the complex and evolving system of EU multilevel governance has provided new venues for women's transnational activism. Despite a predominantly economic focus, the EU has undertaken various initiatives that utilize different tools of authority to combat violence against women. This book first traces the processes by which violence against women became a European Union issue, examining the role played by global movements and organizations as well as European advocates within and outside of EU institutions. Second, it explores and analyzes the different strategies that the EU has utilized to influence its member and candidate states to change their practices. Third, it evaluates the impact that these strategies have had at the local level by investigating the interaction of international and regional efforts with domestic characteristics. The geographic and institutional variation found in the EU makes it a particularly rich case study for comparing the way that different strategies, power relationships, and domestic circumstances interact to provide a range of responses in member and candidate states. While other studies have emphasized formal policy change as evidence that domestic change has occurred, From Global to Grassroots looks beyond the rhetoric to examine the extent to which violence against women is addressed on the ground, paying special attention to the disparate impact strategies may have on particular groups of women.

Overcoming Evil describes the origins or influences leading to genocide, violent conflict and terrorism. It identifies principles and practices of prevention, and of reconciliation between groups after violence, or before violence thereby to prevent violence. It uses both past cases such as the Holocaust, and contemporary ones such as Rwanda, the Congo, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, contemporary terrorism, and the relations between the Dutch and Muslim minorities, which also has relevance to other European countries, as examples. The book draws on the author's previous work on all these issues, as well as on research in genocide studies, the study of conflict and of terrorism, and psychological research on group relations. It also describes the work of the author and his associates in real world settings, such as promoting reconciliation in Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo. The book considers what needs to be done to prevent impending or stop ongoing violence. It emphasizes early prevention, when violence generating conditions are present and a psychological and social evolution toward violence has begun, but not yet immediate danger of intense violence. The book considers the role of difficult social or life conditions, repression, culture, the institutions or structure of society, the psychology of individuals and groups, and the behavior of witnesses or bystanders within and outside societies. It emphasizes psychological processes, such as differentiation between us and them and devaluation of the "other," past victimization and psychological woundedness, the power of ideas and people's commitment to destructive ideologies. It considers humanizing the other, healing from past victimization, the creation of constructive ideologies and groups and how these help people develop cultures and institutions that make violence less likely. The book asks what needs to be accomplished to prevent violence, how it can be done, and who can do it. It aims to promote knowledge, understanding, and "active bystandership" by leaders and government officials, members of the media and citizens to prevent violence and create harmonious societies.

For decades now, serial killers have taken center stage in the news and entertainment media. The coverage of real-life murderers such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer has transformed them into ghoulish celebrities. Similarly, the popularity of fictional characters such as Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter or Dexter demonstrates just how eager the public is to be frightened by these human predators.
But why is this so? Could it be that some of us have a gruesome fascination with serial killers for the same reasons we might morbidly stare at a catastrophic automobile accident? Or it is something more? In "Why We Love Serial Killers," criminology professor Dr. Scott Bonn explores our powerful appetite for the macabre, while also providing new and unique insights into the world of the serial killer, including those he has gained from his correspondence with two of the world's most notorious examples, David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") and Dennis Rader ("Bind, Torture, Kill"). In addition, Bonn examines the criminal profiling techniques used by law enforcement professionals to identify and apprehend serial predators, he discusses the various behaviors--such as the charisma of the sociopath-- that manifest themselves in serial killers, and he explains how and why these killers often become popular cultural figures.
Groundbreaking in its approach, "Why We Love Serial Killers" is a compelling look at how the media, law enforcement agencies, and public perception itself shapes and feeds the "monsters" in our midst.

In The Myth of Mob Rule, Lisa Miller compares three countries-the US, the UK, and the Netherlands-and explores when and with what consequences crime becomes a politically salient issue. Drawing from extensive original research, her findings reverse many of the accepted causal claims in the literature, finding that countries with multi-party parliamentary systems are more responsive to mass publics than the U.S. on crime and that such responsiveness promotes protection from a range of social risks, including from excessive violence and state repression. In other words, democratic publics in such countries support measures against violent crime, but also support policies that alleviate and improve social conditions in high-crime areas. The Myth of Mob Rule is essential reading for anyone concerned with the ways that political institutions affect crime and social welfare.

"Peace In the Hood" evokes the reality of gangland warfare but also acknowledges the possibility of peace. Written by Basheer, a pioneer of the interventionist movement, it documents the lessons he learned from over 40 years of working in inner cities.
This book is designed to teach anyone how to be an interventionist, offering clear guidelines on the necessities of intervention work, including understanding the gang mindset, learning how to evaluate rumors for truth, and convincing young people to leave gangs. Each chapter deals with one key aspect of peacemaking, and the advice comes with anecdotes from Basheer's own life.
"Peace In the Hood" includes real-life accounts of Basheer's interactions with gang members offering unique insight into gang culture. Its descriptions of the fairly new field of peacekeeping and intervention with its mix of story and advice make it both a perfect tool for students and teachers who study social justice and anyone simply looking for a fascinating read. Being the first book to offer a detailed description of the process of making peace within gangs, it's a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of gangs and the efforts to make peace within them.

In this groundbreaking book Christian Gerlach traces the social roots of the extraordinary processes of human destruction involved in mass violence throughout the twentieth century. He argues that terms such as 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' are too narrow to explain the diverse motives and interests that cause violence to spread in varying forms and intensities. From killings and expulsions to enforced hunger, collective rape, strategic bombing, forced labour and imprisonment he explores what happened before, during, and after periods of widespread bloodshed in countries such as Armenia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nazi-occupied Greece and in anti-guerilla wars worldwide in order to highlight the crucial role of socio-economic pressures in the generation of group conflicts. By focussing on why so many different people participated in or supported mass violence, and why different groups were victimized, he offers us a new way of understanding one of the most disturbing phenomena of our times.

Volume 15 of "Sociological Studies of Children and Youth" investigates the interactional procedures used by children and young people as disputes arise in varying contexts of their everyday life. Disputes are a topic of angst and anxiety for children, young people and adults alike, and yet are important times for interactional matters to be addressed. A particular intention of the book is its ethnomethodological focus, bringing a fine-grained analysis and understanding to disputes and related interactional matters. Such analysis highlights the in situ competency of children and young people as they manage their social relationships and disputes to offer insight into how children arrange their social lives within the context of school, home, neighbourhood, correctional, club and after school settings. This volume offers a contemporary understanding of the relational matters of children's peer cultures to better understand and address the complex nature of children and young people's everyday lives in today's society. Papers include: when verbal disputes get physical; conditional threats in young children's peer interaction; and young children's disputes during computer game playing.

With few exceptions, scholarship on creativity has focused on its positive aspects while largely ignoring its dark side. This includes not only creativity deliberately aimed at hurting others, such as crime or terrorism, or at gaining unfair advantages, but also the accidental negative side effects of well-intentioned acts. This book brings together essays written by experts from various fields (psychology, criminal justice, sociology, engineering, education, history, and design) and with different interests (personality development, mental health, deviant behavior, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism) to illustrate the nature of negative creativity, examine its variants, call attention to its dangers, and draw conclusions about how to prevent it or protect society from its effects.

With few exceptions, scholarship on creativity has focused on its positive aspects while largely ignoring its dark side. This includes not only creativity deliberately aimed at hurting others, such as crime or terrorism, or at gaining unfair advantages, but also the accidental negative side effects of well-intentioned acts. This book brings together essays written by experts from various fields (psychology, criminal justice, sociology, engineering, education, history, and design) and with different interests (personality development, mental health, deviant behavior, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism) to illustrate the nature of negative creativity, examine its variants, call attention to its dangers, and draw conclusions about how to prevent it or protect society from its effects.

War is a highly complex and dynamic form of social conflict. This book demonstrates the importance of using sociological tools to understand the changing character of war and organised violence. The author offers an original analysis of the historical and contemporary impact that coercion and warfare have on the transformation of social life, and vice versa. Although war and violence were decisive components in the formation of modernity most analyses tend to shy away from the sociological study of the gory origins of contemporary social life. In contrast, this book brings the study of organised violence to the fore by providing a wide-ranging sociological analysis that links classical and contemporary theories with specific historical and geographical contexts. Topics covered include violence before modernity, warfare in the modern age, nationalism and war, war propaganda, battlefield solidarity, war and social stratification, gender and organised violence, and the new wars debate.

A riveting expose of child abuse in America and how the newest breed of pediatricians determines what happened, why, and at whose hands. Although more than one million children are abused each year in the United States, child abuse often remains a secret to family members, professionals, and politicians who neither see nor understand it. Child abuse pediatricians are the newest breed of pediatricians, specialized in exposing abuse. With detective-like acumen, child abuse pediatricians deduce through careful medical analysis who has abused and who has been abused. Describing the most compelling cases among the thousands that they have evaluated, author Lawrence Ricci reveals the trauma, pain, disability, and sometimes death that abused children experience at the hands of trusted adults. This gripping look at the dark side of American families is about good parents and poor ones, perpetrators and victims, and collateral victims such as innocent family members. It is also about the professionals who have made it their career to expose child abuse and to treat children who have suffered from it. The conclusion calls for systematic changes that could help to stem the tide of child abuse. Explains how signs of abuse can be missed by professionals, community members, and even family members Includes interviews and insights from more than two dozen child abuse pediatricians Addresses physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, including abuse by neglect and abuse due to Munchausen syndrome by proxy Details how cases can go wrong in court rooms when confuscation by defense attorneys overpowers evidence brought to court by child abuse pediatricians Offers ideas for stemming the tide of child abuse

Human Development and Political Violence presents an innovative approach to research and practice with young people growing up in the context of political violence. Based on developmental theory, this book explains and illustrates how children and youth interact with environments defined by war, armed conflict, and the aftermath involving displacement, poverty, political instability, and personal loss. The case study for this inquiry was a research workshop in four countries of the former Yugoslavia, where youth aged 12 to 27 participated in activities designed to promote their development. The theory-based Dynamic Story-Telling by Youth workshop engaged participants as social historians and critics sharing their experiences via narratives, evaluations of society, letters to public officials, debates, and collaborative inquiries. Analyses of these youth perspectives augment archival materials and researcher field notes to offer insights about developmental strategies for dealing with the threats and opportunities of war and major political change.

The nature of human security is changing globally: interstate conflict and even intrastate conflict may be diminishing worldwide, yet threats to individuals and communities persist. Large-scale violence by formal and informal armed forces intersects with interpersonal and domestic forms of violence in mutually reinforcing ways. Gender, Violence, and Human Security takes a critical look at notions of human security and violence through a feminist lens, drawing on both theoretical perspectives and empirical examinations through case studies from a variety of contexts around the globe. This fascinating volume goes beyond existing feminist international relations engagements with security studies to identify not only limitations of the human security approach, but also possible synergies between feminist and human security approaches. Noted scholars Aili Mari Tripp, Myra Marx Ferree, and Christina Ewig, along with their distinguished group of contributors, analyze specific case studies from around the globe, ranging from post-conflict security in Croatia to the relationship between state policy and gender-based crime in the United States. Shifting the focus of the term "human security" from its defensive emphasis to a more proactive notion of peace, the book ultimately calls for addressing the structural issues that give rise to violence. A hard-hitting critique of the ways in which global inequalities are often overlooked by human security theorists, Gender, Violence, and Human Security presents a much-needed intervention into the study of power relations throughout the world.

The Maoist insurgency in Nepal lasted from 1996 to 2006, and at the pinnacle of their armed success the Maoists controlled much of the countryside. Maoists at the Hearth, which is based on ethnographic research that commenced more than a decade before the escalation of the civil war in 2001, explores the daily life in a hill village in central Nepal, during the "People's War." From the everyday routines before the arrival of the Maoists in the late 1990s through the insurgency and its aftermath, this book examines the changing social relationships among fellow villagers and parties to the conflict. War is not an interruption that suspends social processes. Life in the village focused as usual on social challenges, interpersonal relationships, and essential duties such as managing agricultural work, running households, and organizing development projects. But as Judith Pettigrew shows, social life, cultural practices, and routine activities are reshaped in uncertain and dangerous circumstances. The book considers how these activities were conducted under dramatically transformed conditions and discusses the challenges (and, sometimes, opportunities) that the villagers confronted. By considering local spatial arrangements and their adaptation, Pettigrew explores people's reactions when they lost control of the personal, public, and sacred spaces of the village. A central consideration of Maoists at the Hearth is an exploration of how local social tensions were realized and renegotiated as people supported (and sometimes betrayed) each other and of how villager-Maoist relationships (and to a lesser extent villager-army relationships), which drew on a range of culturally patterned preexisting relationships, were reforged, transformed, or renegotiated in the context of the conflict and its aftermath.

Every year around three-quarters of a million people die (directly or indirectly) as a result of gun violence, with most deaths occurring in the poorest, yet also most highly weaponized parts of the world. Firearm proliferation -- 875 million global firearms -- is a direct contributor to both regional conflicts and to crime. This book attempts to understand the inter-related dynamics of supply and demand which are weaponizing the world.

Now over ten years after Peter Squires s Gun Culture or Gun Control?, the issues pertaining to gun violence and gun control have developed dramatically. With Gun Crime in Global Contexts, Peter Squires offers a cutting-edge account of contemporary developments in the politics of gun crime and the social and theoretical issues that surround the problem. This book contains:

With its interdisciplinary perspective and global reach, this book will be important reading for academics and students interested in youth and gang crime, violent crime and comparative criminal justice, as well as peace and security studies and international relations."

Winner of the 2013 Ursula Gielen Global Psychology Book Award. Winner of the International Society of Political Psychology Alexander George Book Award. Overcoming Evil identifies the root causes of genocide, violent conflict, and terrorism, informed by Ervin Staub's 30 years in the field. An understanding of these root causes is essential for mapping ways to move beyond violence. In this landmark volume, Staub lays out principles and practices to prevent violence, halt ongoing violence, and promote reconciliation to prevent the recurrence of violence. In analyzing violence, Staub considers difficult conditions of life, conflict, repression, culture, the institutions of society, individual and group psychology, the evolution of violence, and the behavior of witnesses or bystanders within and outside societies. To move beyond violence, it is necessary to humanize the other, to heal from past victimization, and develop cultures and institutions that help curb violence. The book considers how all this can be accomplished, and how caring values and moral courage for action can develop.

In this volume, top experts in the field of delinquency discuss the implications of the findings of the Pittsburgh Youth Study for current conceptualizations of antisocial behavior. Violence and Serious Theft is unique in that it combines the strengths of three disciplines to explain delinquency in young people: developmental psychopathology, criminology, and public health. The book addresses questions in two main areas: serious offending as an outcome over time and developmental aspects of serious offending; and factors which explain why some young males become violent and/or commit serious crime while others do not. Violence and Serious Theft is a resource for researchers, practitioners and students in developmental, school and counseling psychology; psychopathology, psychiatry, public health and criminology.

How do economic conditions such as poverty, unemployment, inflation, and economic growth impact youth violence? Economics and Youth Violence provides a much-needed new perspective on this crucial issue. Pinpointing the economic factors that are most important, the editors and contributors in this volume explore how different kinds of economic issues impact children, adolescents, and their families, schools, and communities.Offering new and important insights regarding the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and youth violence across a variety of times and places, chapters cover such issues as the effect of inflation on youth violence; new quantitative analysis of the connection between race, economic opportunity, and violence; and the cyclical nature of criminal backgrounds and economic disadvantage among families. Highlighting the complexities in the relationship between economic conditions, juvenile offenses, and the community and situational contexts in which their connections are forged, Economics and Youth Violence prompts important questions that will guide future research on the causes and prevention of youth violence. Contributors: Sarah Beth Barnett, Eric P. Baumer, Philippe Bourgois, Shawn Bushway, Philip J. Cook, Robert D. Crutchfield, Linda L. Dahlberg, Mark Edberg, Jeffrey Fagan, Xiangming Fang, Curtis S. Florence, Ekaterina Gorislavsky, Nancy G. Guerra, Karen Heimer, Janet L. Lauritsen, Jennifer L. Matjasko, James A. Mercy, Matthew Phillips, Richard Rosenfeld, Tim Wadsworth, Valerie West, Kevin T. Wolff

A comprehensive resource, this book reviews current and historical examples of violence in film, television, radio, music, music videos, video games, and novels. Despite decades of attention and various attempts to enact legislation that limits violence in American popular culture, it remains ubiquitous across films, television, radio, music, music videos, video games, and popular fiction. Studies have shown that programs marketed to children are often remarkably violent and that viewing or otherwise consuming such violence has numerous negative effects on children's psychological health. This book sheds light on the scholarship related to violence in popular culture and compares historical and current examples, analyzing popular shows such as Game of Thrones, video games such as Mortal Kombat, young adult fiction including the trilogy The Hunger Games, and more. Not only does Violence in American Popular Culture provide a comprehensive review of the research about the effects of violence in media, but it also offers detailed assessments of violent content in various expressions of popular culture. In addition, it invites readers to compare violence in American popular culture with that globally via entries on violence in popular culture outside the United States. An appendix of additional resources and primary sources gives readers further tools for deepening their understanding of this complex and controversial issue. Informs about issues and controversies related to violence in popular culture today Includes entries on a diversity of genres, both historical and contemporary Offers a global comparison via significant entries about violence in popular culture outside the U.S. Features an easy-to-read format and includes introductions and other accompanying materials