Multiple killings by serial or spree killers and the mass violence seen in war crimes and other atrocities have typically been understood as discrete category types, which can foster the view that there are fundamentally different kinds of human beings, including "deviants" who are born evil and innately given to sadism or a callous lack of empathy. In contrast, this book considers the violence of these "deviants" in terms of larger questions about human violence. Therefore, in addition to describing the life histories of a sample of individual serial and spree murderers, the book includes analysis of macro-level phenomena such as genocide, mass rape and killing, and torture occurring under conditions of war, state authorization, or political upheaval. The chief claim of the book is that, given the "right" combination of factors occurring at different levels of analysis, virtually anyone can emerge as a killer or perpetrator of atrocities. While it is crucial to understand individual killers in terms of the details of their biographies, it is equally crucial to understand political atrocities in terms of the details of their histories; and to see that persons and groups are always the product of complexly interacting assemblage processes.

Multiple killings by serial or spree killers and the mass violence seen in war crimes and other atrocities have typically been understood as discrete category types, which can foster the view that there are fundamentally different kinds of human beings, including "deviants" who are born evil and innately given to sadism or a callous lack of empathy. In contrast, this book considers the violence of these "deviants" in terms of larger questions about human violence. Therefore, in addition to describing the life histories of a sample of individual serial and spree murderers, the book includes analysis of macro-level phenomena such as genocide, mass rape and killing, and torture occurring under conditions of war, state authorization, or political upheaval. The chief claim of the book is that, given the "right" combination of factors occurring at different levels of analysis, virtually anyone can emerge as a killer or perpetrator of atrocities. While it is crucial to understand individual killers in terms of the details of their biographies, it is equally crucial to understand political atrocities in terms of the details of their histories; and to see that persons and groups are always the product of complexly interacting assemblage processes.

The Emerald Handbook of Crime, Justice and Sustainable Development brings together a diverse and international collection of essays to critically examine issues relating to crime and justice in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides an important global framework for advancing human rights, social justice and environmental sustainability. A number of the Agenda's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address issues relating to crime, justice and security, and implicit in the 2030 Agenda is the assumption that members of the international community 'including traditional development actors and the myriad international, non-governmental, private, state and local organizations and actors that collectively contribute to the global governance of crime' must work together to enhance the capacities of both developing and developed countries to achieve this vision. Against this backdrop, this volume analyses and interrogates the SDGs from different theoretical and ideological standpoints originating from within and beyond criminology, illustrating the complex and politically contentious nature of these issues and providing insight into the different possibilities that exist for realising the SDGs and mitigating the risk that initiatives meant to realise the SDGs, may in fact contribute to harmful and counterproductive policies and practices. This book will be essential reading for scholars and students within criminology, criminal justice, socio-legal studies, international relations and development studies.

Unraveling the Crime-Development Nexus offers the first criminological account of the relationship between international development, crime, and security in nearly thirty-five years. It historically situates and critiques the assumption that crime represents both a significant threat to economic development and a consequence of underdevelopment. The book acknowledges evidence of a heightened risk of experiencing crime and violence for residents of many ‘developing’ countries but challenges the uncritical embrace of this empirically and theoretically problematic discourse by proponents of a post-neoliberal development agenda. It is argued that many of the reforms advocated for are structurally criminogenic and that these prescriptions for economic liberalisation and securitisation fundamentally prioritise the economic interests and security needs of those who stand to profit from further incursions by neoliberal globalisation rather than the economic and security needs of local residents and communities. To confront this dynamic, the book concludes that international institutions like the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) along with major international donors should shift their attention towards the structural causes of crime and embrace alternative development approaches, including those informed by feminist and post-colonial perspectives, in order to address the major drivers of crime, violence and exploitation in the global South.