The 109th Congress passed legislation that allows the federal government to civilly commit "sexually dangerous persons". Civil commitment, as it relates to sex offenders, is when a state retains custody of an individual, found by a judge or jury to be a "sexually dangerous person" by involuntarily committing the person to a secure mental health facility after the offender's prison sentence is done. In 1990, the state of Washington passed the first civil commitment law for sexually dangerous persons. Currently, 18 other states and the federal government have similar laws. Moreover, the Supreme Court, in Kansas v. Hendricks and Kansas v. Crane, ruled that current civil commitment laws are constitutional. The civil commitment of sex offenders centres on the belief that sex offenders are more likely than other offenders to re-offend. However, data on sex offender recidivism is varied. Data show that the recidivism risk for sex offenders may be lower than it is typically thought to be; in fact, some studies show that sex offenders recidivate at a lower rate than many other criminals. Other studies show that, given time, almost all sex offenders will commit a new sex crime. Most discussions about recidivism examine ways to decrease it; for example, by providing sex offenders with treatment. Research on the efficacy of sex offender treatment is promising, but it cannot prove that treatment reduces recidivism.

Second edition with additional material by the author, and a new foreword by one of the UK's leading penal reformers. Classic and original - one of the works that paved the way for the development of the Restorative Justice movement. Argues that the real need is for fundamental rethinking of crime and punishment, rather than short-term tinkering with a prison system that is in an intolerable state of crisis. Demonstrates that neither the conservative idea of deterrence through punishment nor the liberal ideal of rehabilitation has worked in practice and proposes the basis for a radical but carefully worked out practical philosophy which would place the emphasis on the offender making amends to the victim and society for the damage caused. 'All those concerned with the monstrosity that is our current prison system, the unchecked growth of the criminal justice system as the response to social problems and the poverty of ideas in dealing with the harm caused by crime will find a re-read of this classic text very worthwhile': Baroness Vivien Stern (from the Foreword). 'The real value of this book is surely in the philosophical arguments that he puts forward to support his thinking. He forces the reader to think through what society's expectations are when someone is sent to prison. Is it to deter against future offending or to deter others? To isolate the criminal from society for the protection of the public? Or is it for rehabilitation? The aims of imprisonment are expounded at length later in the book together with an appraisal of the ethical and practical aspects of punishment, deterrence, denunciation and of justice itself. Making Good provides a demanding, but fascinating read. Although the description of prison life a quarter of a century ago and the thinking behind the policies that determined it, belong to the era in which it was written, the arguments Martin Wright puts forward about justice and punishment still remain pertinent today: ' Internet Law Book Reviews. 'Engages with some diverse elements of imprisonment and with contemporary penal issues': Helen Poole, Coventry University. Martin Wright is a former Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Policy Officer of Victim Support, and Librarian of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology. He is a Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester, and the author of Restoring Respect for Justice and Justice for Victims and Offenders. He is joint editor of Mediation and Criminal Justice: Victims, Offenders and Community. A founder member of the Restorative Justice Consortium, he is currently a member of its board, and acts as a voluntary mediator in the Lambeth Mediation Service, London. As an active member of the European Forum for Restorative Justice he has spoken at many international conferences, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Conflict Resolution, Bulgaria.

This book provides the first detailed examination of the role played by former loyalist and republican prisoners in grass roots conflict transformation work in the Northern Ireland peace process. It challenges the assumed passivity of former prisoners and ex-combatants. Instead, it suggests that such individuals and the groups which they formed have been key agents of conflict transformation. They have provided leadership in challenging cultures of violence, developed practical methods of resolving inter-communal conflict and found ways for communities to explore their troubled past. In analysing this, the authors challenge the sterile demonisation of former prisoners and the processes that maintain their exclusion from normal civic and social life. The book is a constructive reminder of the need for full participation of both former combatants and victims in post-conflict transformation. It also lays out a new agenda for reconciliation which suggests that conflict transformation can and should begin 'from the extremes'. The book will be of interest to students of criminology, peace and conflict studies, law and politics, geography and sociology as well as those with a particular interest in the Northern Ireland conflict.

During the 20th century, only six women were legally executed by the State of New York at Sing Sing Prison. In each case, the condemned faced a process of demonization and public humiliation that was orchestrated by a powerful and unforgiving media. When compared to the media treatment of men who went to the electric chair for similar offenses, the press coverage of female killers was ferocious and unrelenting. "Granite woman," "black-eyed Borgia," "roadhouse tramp," "sex-mad," and "lousy prostitute" are just some of the terms used by newspapers to describe these women. Unlike their male counterparts, females endured a campaign of expulsion and disgrace before they were put to death. Not since the 1950s has New York put another woman to death. Gado chronicles the crimes, the times, and the media attention surrounding these cases. The tales of these death row women shed light on the death penalty as it applies to women and the role of the media in both the trials and executions of these convicts. In these cases, the press affected the prosecutions, the judgements, and the decisions of authorities along the way. Contemporary headlines of the era are revealing in their blatant bias and leave little doubt of their purpose. Using family letters, prison correspondence, photographs, court transcripts, and last- minute pleas for mercy, Gado paints a fuller picture of these cases and the times.

Moving backwards from the murders they committed through their adult lives, relationship histories, and their childhoods, the author sought to understand what motivates the men to kill. The patterns he found reveal that the murders were neither impulsive crimes of passion nor were they indiscriminate. Why Do They Kill? is the first book to profile different types of wife killers, and to examine the courtship patterns of abusive men. The author shows that wife murders are not, for the most part, A�crimes of passion, A(R) but culminations of lifelong predisposing factors of the men who murder, and that many elements of their crimes are foretold by their past behavior in intimate relationships. Key turning points of these relationships include the first emergence of the man's violence, his blaming of the victim, her attempts to resist, his escalation, her attempts to end the relationship, and his punishment for her defiance. Critical perspective on the men's accounts comes from interviews with victims of attempted homicide (standing in for the murder victims) who survived shootings, stabbings, and strangulation. These women detail their partner's escalating patterns of child abuse, sexual violence, terroristic threats, and stalking. The section on help-seeking patterns of victims helps to dispel notions of A�learned helplessnessA(R) among victims.

Crazy in America shows how people suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and other serious psychological illnesses are regularly incarcerated because alternative care is not available. Once behind bars, they are frequently punished again for behavior that is psychotic, not criminal. A compelling and important examination of a shocking human rights abuse in our midst, Crazy in America is an indictment of a society that incarcerates its weakest and most vulnerable citizens -- causing them to emerge sicker and more damaged.

While the link between crime and schizophrenia has been noted for almost a century, it is only recently that research has provided convincing, broad-based evidence for this association. This advance in knowledge also brings with it the troublesome danger that schizophrenia patients could be doubly-stigmatised in society: they suffer from a serious mental illness and furthermore they are potentially dangerous. This understandable fear has both lead to significant resistance in accepting that the crime -- schizophrenia relationship truly exists. While well-meaning, this resistance has resulted in three unfortunate consequences. First, by not recognising that the relationship exists, the comorbid antisocial and violent behaviour of schizophrenia patients has gone unchecked, and consequently the stigma associated with this comorbidity goes on unabated. Second, research in this area has become almost fixated on the simple establishment of a link between the two conditions, and has not moved on to more important research that could help develop new perspectives on the nature of the crime -- schizophrenia relationship in a way which will significantly benefit our understanding and treatment of both conditions. Frustratingly, we actually know surprisingly little about the crime -- schizophrenia relationship. The third and more indirect consequence is that the issue of schizophrenia-spectrum disorder in antisocial criminal populations is almost entirely ignored. Such individuals literally fall between the cracks in both the mental health system and the criminal justice system. For these reasons, it is argued that ignoring or denying the crime -- schizophrenia relationship ultimately does more harm than good. The main goal of this book is to stimulate a new generation of research on the crime -- schizophrenia relationship which could benefit not just individuals with these two conditions, but also society in general. Going beyond the fundamental issue of whether there is a relationship between crime and schizophrenia, contributors to this book both outline risk factors for crime and schizophrenia and also develop hypotheses on which factors may give rise to both conditions, and hence in part explain the comorbidity issue. Furthermore, contributors go on to outlining intervention and prevention programs for not just crime and schizophrenia, but also for both conditions simultaneously. -- From the Preface

In the past thirty years, women and crime has become a major intellectual and professional specialty. The Crimes Women Commit: The Punishments They Receive represents the third edition of Women in Crime, a classic in the field by Rita J. Simon first published in 1975. This revised and updated edition takes advantage of the fact that women are more represented in official crime statistics today than they have been at any time since systemic national data has been available. Rita J. Simon and Heather Ahn-Redding present the most current demographic data and updates of the arrest, conviction, and prison statistics reported in the first and second editions as they examine issues such as women's labor force participation, the percentage of female-headed households in which women are the caretakers of young children, as well as trends in how female crime statistics are reported. This classic text will become an essential tool for teachers and researchers within criminology and criminal justice, and among the subfields within sociology, psychology, and economics, where research on women who commit crimes has grown into a major area of interest.

In the past thirty years, women and crime has become a major intellectual and professional specialty. The Crimes Women Commit: The Punishments They Receive represents the third edition of Women in Crime, a classic in the field by Rita J. Simon first published in 1975. This revised and updated edition takes advantage of the fact that women are more represented in official crime statistics today than they have been at any time since systemic national data has been available. Rita J. Simon and Heather Ahn-Redding present the most current demographic data and updates of the arrest, conviction, and prison statistics reported in the first and second editions as they examine issues such as women's labor force participation, the percentage of female-headed households in which women are the caretakers of young children, as well as trends in how female crime statistics are reported. This classic text will become an essential tool for teachers and researchers within criminology and criminal justice, and among the subfields within sociology, psychology, and economics, where research on women who commit crimes has grown into a major area of interest.

From arrest to release, the organizational response to mentally ill offenders is continually evolving according to existing policies and resources. How organizations respond, how they should respond, and their ability to evolve is important. The chapters in this volume offer cases with wide ranging policy implications regarding structural and functional changes institutions and organizations might consider given the confines of context and resources to improve the conditions of mentally ill offenders. Policies regarding mentally ill offenders are played out differently by state and county, and the capacity of communities to support individuals with mental illness and criminal histories varies. The quantitative and qualitative research on organizational responses to offenders with mental illness highlighted herein include program evaluation; data collection; best practices in resource utilization; dispositions and the courts; screening; and a broader articulation of outcomes given the special needs of the population.

In many modern wars, there have been those who have chosen not to fight. Be it for religious or moral reasons, some men and women have found no justification for breaking their conscientious objection to violence. In many cases, this objection has led to severe punishment at the hands of their own governments, usually lengthy prison terms. Peter Brock brings the voices of imprisoned conscientious objectors to the fore in "These Strange Criminals."

This important and thought-provoking anthology consists of thirty prison memoirs by conscientious objectors to military service, drawn from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and centring on their jail experiences either during the first or second world wars or in Cold War America. Voices from history - like those of Stephen Hobhouse, Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, Ian Hamilton, Alfred Hassler, and Donald Wetzel - come alive, detailing the impact of prison life and offering unique perspectives on wartime government policies of conscription and imprisonment. Sometimes intensely moving, and often inspiring, these memoirs show that in some cases, individual conscientious objectors - many well-educated and politically aware - sought to reform the penal system from within either by publicizing its dysfunction or through further resistance to authority. The collection is an essential contribution to our understanding of criminology and the history of pacifism, and represents a valuable addition to prison literature.

In an unusually user-friendly forum, the co-author of the widely respected three-volume study The Criminal Personality addresses the questions posed by professional audiences during his speaking engagements of the past twenty years about causes, characteristics, and treatment of antisocial behavior. Stanton Samenow's responses, informed by his research and clinical experience with criminal populations, assess environmental influences, social and familial; discuss bio-genteic factors and differential mental capacities and mental illnesses; and identify patterns, preventions, and interventions as well as issues of sentencing, confinement, and habilitation. "I am a clinical psychologist with the kind of practice few others have or want to have", Dr. Samenow says, referring to the hundreds of men, women, and children he has interviewed, evaluated, and counseled. The perspectives and recommendations he shares here are rooted in and distilled from that practice; they constitute an accessible, authoritative digest.

"[A] significant contribution to the national debate about violent criminal behavior."—Senator Joe Lieberman

Neurologist Dr. Jonathan Pincus personally examined and probed into the family and medical history of numerous serial killers and other violent criminals to analyze what creates and triggers the violent instinct. He discovered that virtually all suffered severe abuse as children, as well as brain damage and mental illness. In these gripping, terrifying stories, Pincus concludes that violent criminal behavior is the catastrophic product of a dysfunctional brain coupled with an abusive environment. Focusing on these critical factors, how can we prevent the development of potentially violent persons from a young age before the damage becomes irrevocable? And how do we evaluate chances of rehabilitation?

"[A] rigorous, troubling, and profoundly humane book."—Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic

"An urgent wake-up call for the nation...a must-read for every professional engaged in the administration of criminal justice."—Samuel Dash, Georgetown University Law Center

"There is much of value in Jenkins' work. He manages to discuss CP calmly, while at the same time making clear his personal revulsion, an achievement in itself in an area characterized by so much hysteria."
-- "The Journal of Sex Research"

"Magnificently readable social science on a widely misunderstood subject."
--"Booklist"

"A useful introduction to the methods that the kiddie-porn community uses to hide its activities...a smart history of the child-porn industry"
"--The Washington Monthly," Nov. 2001

"This is a troubling book that exposes how child pornography has found a safe haven on the Internet. Philip Jenkins's innovative research methods let him explore and map the secret electronic networks that link individuals whose deviance seems not just outrageous, but incomprehensible. Jenkins shows how culture and social structure emerge in a virtual--and decidedly not virtuous--world. This book raises profound questions about the nature of deviance in an electronic future."
--Joel Best, University of Delaware

"A disturbing, thought-provoking study"
--"Library Journal"

"A detailed yet engaging account . . . . Engrossing"
--"Liberty," Jan. 2002

Perhaps nothing evokes more universal disgust as child pornography. The world of its makers and users is so abhorrent that it is rarely discussed much less studied. Child pornographers have taken advantage of this and are successfully using the new electronic media to exchange their wares without detection or significant sanction. What are the implications of this threat for free speech and a free exchange of ideas on the internet? And how can we stop this illegal activity, which is so repugnant that eventhe most laissez-faire cyberlibertarians want it stamped out, if we know nothing about it?

Philip Jenkins takes a leap onto the lower tiers of electronic media in this first book on the business of child pornography online. He tells the story of how the advent of the internet caused this deviant subculture to become highly organized and go global. We learn how the trade which operates on clandestine websites from Budapest or Singapore to the U.S. is easy to glimpse yet difficult to eradicate. Jenkins details how the most sophisticated transactions are done through a proxy, a "false flag" address, rendering the host computer, and participants, virtually unidentifiable. And these sites exist for only a few minutes or hours allowing on-line child pornographers to stay one step ahead of the law. This is truly a globalized criminal network which knows no names or boundaries, and thus challenges both international and U.S. law.

Beyond Tolerance delves into the myths and realities of child pornography and the complex process to stamp out criminal activity over the web, including the timely debates over trade regulation, users' privacy, and individual rights. This sobering look and a criminal community contains lessons about human behavior and the law that none interested in media and the new technology can afford to ignore.

Written for mental health professionals, this indispensable guide reviews the range of relevant literature covering issues in assessing child molesters. Fully updated, this volume directs the professional to the most current knowledge available on the subject in a compact, accessible form. Readers will learn from this resource which characteristics do and do not distinguish child molesters, which situational factors are related to molestation, which instruments are used in the assessment of child molesters, how assessment information is used to appraise risk and guide treatment, and all of the elements of a useful assessment report.

'The third in a series explicating the criminal mind, this volume summarizes observations, interpretations, and conclusions derived from a study of 121 criminal men who used drugs and/or alcohol to excess. Originally set in writing by Yochelson before his death in 1976, the materials were edited and updated by Samenow for publication. Systematic, probing and repeated interviews were used as the vehicle for gathering information on common mental themes among men apprehended and sentenced for criminal acts.... Yochelson and Samenow attribute crime to a series of early irresponsible choices that predate drug use among drug-using criminals. Personality and personal choice variables are conceptualized as critical in initialing and maintaining use. In what is called an indiscriminate search for excitement, drug-using criminals are characterized as expanding their criminal repertoire while excusing their actions by rationalizations sometimes invented by sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Although these ideas are of considerable interest, the real value of the text lies in its intriguing presentation of drug-user thinking. Specifically, three chapters are well worth reading. The description of mental activities associated with such constructs as 'the high,' 'the nod,' and 'the rush' are probably on target for many drug users, whether criminal or not. The chapter explaining drugs as facilitators offers several notions worthy of systematic inquiry, as does the one devoted to principles for encouragement of behavior change. Of perhaps greatest benefit to most readers are caveats regarding management of drug users in what may be seen as a cognitive-behavioral framework. Yochelson and Samenow contend that drug-using criminal men represent the architects of their criminal life-styles and that it is they themselves who can correct irresponsible thoughts and behaviors through application of logic over emotion.' DContemporary Psychology A Jason Aroson Book

The Criminal Personality presents a detailed description of criminal thinking and action patterns and convincingly argues that these patterns cannot be explained by sociologic or psychologic explanations alone. A Jason Aronson Book

Women Accused of Murder in Nineteenth-Century England got bad press. Broadsides, newspapers, and books depicted their stories in gruesome detail, often with illustrations of the crime scene, the courtroom proceedings, and the execution. Unlike murders committed by men, murders by women were sensationalized. The press -- and the public -- were fascinated by these acts 'most unnatural' of the fairer sex.

Judith Knelman contends that this portrayal of the murderess was linked to a broader public agenda, set and controlled by men. Women were supposed to be mothers and wives, giving and sustaining life. If a woman killed her baby or husband, she posed a threat to patriarchal authority. Knelman describes the range and incidence of murder by women in England. She analyzes case histories of different kinds of murder, and explores how press representations of the murderess contributed to the Victorian construction of femininity.

If readers in the nineteenth century shivered at accounts of murder by women, we should get an equal chill up the spine today reading about how these women were perceived. Twisting in the Wind is a book that won't leave any of its readers -- true crime fans, sociologists and criminologists, historians, or researchers in women's studies -- hanging in doubt.

In an unusually user-friendly forum, the co-author of the widely respected three-volume study The Criminal Personality addresses the questions posed by professional audiences during his speaking engagements of the past twenty years about causes, characteristics, and treatment of antisocial behavior. Stanton Samenow's responses, informed by his research and clinical experience with criminal populations, assess environmental influences, social and familial; discuss bio-genteic factors and differential mental capacities and mental illnesses; and identify patterns, preventions, and interventions as well as issues of sentencing, confinement, and habilitation. "I am a clinical psychologist with the kind of practice few others have or want to have", Dr. Samenow says, referring to the hundreds of men, women, and children he has interviewed, evaluated, and counseled. The perspectives and recommendations he shares here are rooted in and distilled from that practice; they constitute an accessible, authoritative digest.

Breaking the Codes is a cultural history of the fin-de-siecle that uses the "problem" of the criminal woman to examine both the debates around the appropriate place of women in French society and the ways in which issues of gender were central to the most important cultural transformations of the period.
The author asserts that "female criminality" was a code that condensed and obscured larger concerns. For example, to what degree and in what ways did the symbolic overtones of female criminality connect to the substantive issues that appeared over and over again in the stories of women's crime? How were the crimes of domestic violence, infanticide, and abortion interpreted in the context of broader debates about divorce, depopulation, sexuality, and women's roles in the public sphere? What was the role of expert commentary - from the forensic psychiatrist, the criminologist, the legal scholar - in producing a normative code for female behavior? And how did this code accommodate or resist the newly recognized voice of popular opinion and changing notions of citizenship?
This study demonstrates both the inadequacy of the categories of public and private as they have been conventionally used to segregate the subjects of historical inquiry and the artificiality of the boundaries between high and low culture. Instead, it moves between domestic life and public courtrooms, between social science literature and popular journalism, analyzing the complex responses to female crime among different constituencies and through different genres. In so doing, the author sheds light on various overlapping processes of cultural negotiation in a period of profound change.

The second edition of Women and Crime is a carefully revised version of what has become the standard text on this subject. Women and Crime provides a comprehensive review of findings about female criminality, women and criminal justice, and the treatment of female offenders. It also offers a clear analysis of theoretical perspectives, of images of deviant women and women's experiences of social control. A new section reviews developments during the past decade and outlines the shifts in social research and crime concerns. The bibliography has been thoroughly revised and updated.

Women in conflict with the law have their own ideas about why and how they became law breakers. Experts tell us who these women are and why they break the law, usually igonroing of discrediting the opinions of the women themselves.

As a counselling and research intern in a women's medium-security prison, Evelyn K. Sommers heard the stories of dozens of women inmates who came for counselling. Their crimes were related to prostitution, drug abuse, theft, physical abuse, assault, and arson. Most of the women had been imprisoned several times before. Their stories called into question existing theoretical explanations for criminal behaviour as well as the explanations commonly heard in the day-to-day discourse of the prison. Sommers came to the conclusion that attempts to help women in conflict with the law can be effective only if they take into account the women's understanding of what happened to them in the course of their lifetime. She resolved to conduct intensive interviewa with fourteen women and to find the common threads in their stories, threads that might prove useful in furthering our understanding of women's conflicts with the law.

Sommers presents the women's accounts of their actions, thoughts, and feelings, without excusing, condemning them, and without moulding their explanations for their behaviour to some ideological model. Four common reasons or themes emergedfrom the women's accounts: need; disconnection and the influence of others, visible anger; and fear. Further analysis uncovered two implicit underlying themes that were present in all of the women's stories; namely, the centrality of relationships in their lives and their personal quest for empowerment. Voices from Within demonstrates the importance of conducting separate studies of male and female lawbreakers including women as a focus of study; of relying on subjective perspectives to distinguish amd appropriately address differences inherent in the criminal population; and of reconceptualizing of the notion of motivation. Sommers concludes with suggestions for further research, and for practical approaches to working with lawbreakers.

Recipient of the 1993 American Society of Criminology's August Vollmer Award for distinguished contribution to the profession of criminology Youth violence continues to rise at an alarming rate in a civilization that is being characterized as the most violent in history. Global economic transformations; weakened family, school, and church structures; and an inefficient juvenile justice system only add to the doomsday projections for troubled youngsters, who see little in the way of preventive advocacy. Reinventing Juvenile Justice presents an honest albeit painful view of the current status of justice for young offenders. Could it be that the celebrated "children's court" has outlived its usefulness? This central question is raised by the authors in exploring whether the juvenile court can or should survive in the years ahead. With no core constituency in the political arena, the pressure to handle more children in adult courts and correctional facilities will only increase and the challenge of needed reform will go unmet. Among some of the other issues discussed are juvenile justice laws and court procedures, influences on probation petition and detention decisions, and the influence of gender and race on taking youth into custody. Students and caring professionals will find the invaluable material in this book of tremendous assistance in addressing a generation of young people on whom our world's future depends. "This book is informative, not least about developments in the U.S.A, and is easy to read." --Youth and Policy "The authors have substantial reputations in the field and are well qualified to make recommendations. This book compares favorably with books offering different assessments and solutions." --Choice "[The book] has great market potential as a juvenile justice text and supplemental text. . . . [It] is very readable and well organized. . . . It will also have a broad appeal in the practitioner community . . . . Youth correction workers, probation officers, juvenile and family court judges, prosecutors, public defenders, child advocates, and youth service workers will find this to be a useful book." --Ira M. Schwartz, Professor and Director, The Center for the Study of Youth Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

A chilling exploration of the criminal mind--from juvenile delinquency to cold-blooded murder. Drawing on studies of offenders and victims, self-reports and autobiographies, narratve reconstructions of crime scenes, and famous cases, this brilliant and shocking book will forever revolutionize the way we think about crime.