Books Received
January 2017

Listed below are books received for review over the last two months. Entries include publishing information as well as a description of the book. Unless otherwise stated, the book description is taken from the publisher’s website or the book jacket. Selected titles from this list will be chosen for a full review in forthcoming issues of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books. Previous books received are available from the links below.

Assassin of Youth: A Kaleidoscopic History of Harry J. Anslinger’s War on Drugs, by Alexandra Chasin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 352p.

“Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from its establishment in 1930 until his retirement in 1962, Harry J. Anslinger is the United States’ little known first drug czar. Anslinger was a profligate propagandist with a flair for demonizing racial and immigrant groups and perhaps best known for his zealous pursuit of harsh drug penalties and his particular animus for marijuana users. But what made Anslinger who he was, and what cultural trends did he amplify and institutionalize? Having just passed the hundredth anniversary of the Harrison Act—which consolidated prohibitionist drug policy and led to the carceral state we have today—and even as public doubts about the drug war continue to grow, now is the perfect time to evaluate Anslinger’s social, cultural, and political legacy.

In Assassin of Youth, Alexandra Chasin gives us a lyrical, digressive, funny, and ultimately riveting quasi-biography of Anslinger. Her treatment of the man, his times, and the world that arose around and through him is part cultural history, part kaleidoscopic meditation. Each of the short chapters is anchored in a historical document—the court decision in Webb v. US (1925), a 1935 map of East Harlem, FBN training materials from the 1950s, a personal letter from the Treasury Department in 1985—each of which opens onto Anslinger and his context. From the Pharmacopeia of 1820 to death of Sandra Bland in 2015, from the Pennsylvania Railroad to the last passenger pigeon, and with forays into gangster lives, CIA operatives, and popular detective stories, Chasin covers impressive ground. Assassin of Youth is as riotous and loose a history of drug laws as can be imagined—and yet it culminates in an arresting and precise revision of the emergence of drug prohibition.

Today, even as marijuana is slowly being legalized, we still have not fully reckoned with the racist and xenophobic foundations of our cultural appetite for the severe punishment of drug offenders. In Assassin of Youth, Chasin shows us the deep, twisted roots of both our love and our hatred for drug prohibition.” From Publisher’s Website.

Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts, by Yuval Shany. Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 315p.

“Are international courts effective tools for international governance? Do they fulfill the expectations that led to their creation and empowerment? Why do some courts appear to be more effective than others, and do so such appearances reflect reality? Could their results have been produced by other mechanisms? This book evaluates the effectiveness of international courts and tribunals by comparing their stated goals to the actual outcomes they achieve. Using a theoretical model borrowed from social science, the book assesses their effectiveness by analysing key empirical data.

Its first part is dedicated to theory and methodology, laying out the effectiveness model, explaining its different components, its promise and limits, and discussing the measurement challenges it faces. The second part analyses the role that indicators such as jurisdiction, judicial independence, legitimacy, and compliance play in achieving effectiveness. Part three applies the effectiveness model to the International Court of Justice, the WTO dispute settlement mechanisms (panels and Appellate Body), the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights, and the European Court of Justice, reflecting the diversity of the field of international adjudication. Given the recent proliferation of international courts and tribunals, this book makes an important contribution towards understanding and measuring the value that these institutions provide.” From Publisher’s Website.

Carceral Fantasies: Cinema and Prison in Early Twentieth-Century America, by Alison Griffiths. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 472p.

“A groundbreaking contribution to the study of nontheatrical film exhibition, Carceral Fantasies tells the little-known story of how cinema found a home in the U.S. penitentiary system and how the prison emerged as a setting and narrative trope in modern cinema. Focusing on films shown in prisons before 1935, Alison Griffiths explores the unique experience of viewing cinema while incarcerated and the complex cultural roots of cinematic renderings of prison life.

Griffiths considers a diverse mix of cinematic genres, from early actualities and reenactments of notorious executions to reformist exposés of the 1920s.She connects an early fascination with cinematic images of punishment and execution, especially electrocutions, to the attractions of the nineteenth-century carnival electrical wonder show and Phantasmagoria (a ghost show using magic lantern projections and special effects). Griffiths draws upon convict writing, prison annual reports, and the popular press obsession with prison-house cinema to document the integration of film into existing reformist and educational activities and film’s psychic extension of flights of fancy undertaken by inmates in their cells. Combining penal history with visual and film studies and theories surrounding media’s sensual effects, Carceral Fantasies illuminates how filmic representations of the penal system enacted ideas about modernity, gender, the body, and the public, shaping both the social experience of cinema and the public’s understanding of the modern prison.” From Publisher’s Website.

Caught Up: Girls, Surveillance, and Wraparound Incarceration, by Jerry Flores. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. 2016. 200p.

“From home, to school, to juvenile detention center, and back again. Follow the lives of fifty Latina girls living forty miles outside of Los Angeles, California, as they are inadvertently caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline. Their experiences in the connected programs between “El Valle” Juvenile Detention Center and “Legacy” Community School reveal the accelerated fusion of California schools and institutions of confinement. The girls participate in well-intentioned wraparound services designed to provide them with support at home, at school, and in the detention center. But these services may more closely resemble the phenomenon of wraparound incarceration, in which students, despite leaving the actual detention center, cannot escape the surveillance of formal detention, and are thereby slowly pushed away from traditional schooling and a productive life course.“ From Publisher’s Website.

Coalition Government Penal Policy 2010-2015: Austerity, Outsourcing and Punishment, by David Skinns. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 299p.

“This book shows how the overall impact of the penal policy agenda of the Coalition Government 2010-2015 has not led to the intended ‘rehabilitation revolution’, but austerity, outsourcing and punishment, designated here as ‘punitive managerialism’.

The policy of austerity has led to significant budget cuts in legal aid and court services which threaten justice. It has also led to staffing reductions and overcrowding in the prison system which threaten order and have undermined more positive work with prisoners. The outsourcing of prison and community-based offender services is based on untried method with uncertain results. The shift in orientation towards punishment is regrettable because it is essentially negative. The book notes that this move to punitive managerialism is located in the broader trend towards neo-liberalism. It concludes by attempting to articulate the parameters of an affordable and emotionally satisfying yet humane and rational penal policy.” From Publisher’s Website.

Coercion and Women Co-Offenders: A Gendered Pathway into Crime, by Charlotte Barlow. Policy Press Shorts. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2016. 112p.

“What role does coercion play in women’s involvement in crime? This is the first book to explore coercion as a pathway into crime for co-offending women. Using newspaper articles and case and court files, it analyses four cases of women co-accused of a crime with their partner who suggested that coercive techniques had influenced their involvement in the offending. Based on a feminist perspective, it highlights the importance of gender role expectations and gendered discourses in how the trials were conducted, and the ways in which the media framed the trials (and the women). Considering the legal and social construction of coercion, this fascinating book concludes by exploring the implications for public understanding of coercion and female offending more broadly. “ From Publisher’s Website.

Colombia’s Narcotics Nightmare: How the Drug Trade Destroyed Peace, by James D. Henderson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. 240p.

“This history of Colombia’s illegal drug trade—and of the extreme violence it created—describes how in the late 1960s narcotics traffickers from the United States convinced Colombians who had no previous involvement in the drug trade to grow marijuana for export to America. By the early ’70s, foreign (mostly American) traffickers began requesting cocaine.

This book focuses on the decades of crime and violence the illegal drug trade brought to Colombia and how this social upset was ended in the early 2000s. Six chapters detail the Medellín and Cali cartels’ war against the Colombian government, the revolutionary guerrillas’ war against the government, the war that paramilitary groups conducted against the guerrillas, and the way in which the government finally put a stop to the cartel-financed bloodshed.

In conclusion, the author assesses Colombia’s progress and prospects since the end of the violence claimed the lives of some 300,000 between 1975 and 2008. “ From Publisher’s Website.

Comparing the Democratic Governance of Police Intelligence: New Models of Participation and Expertise in the United States and Europe, edited by Thierry Delpeuch and Jacqueline E. Ross. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2016. 416p.

“Intelligence-led policing” is an emerging movement of efforts to develop a more democratic approach to the governance of intelligence by expanding the types of expertise and the range of participants who collaborate in the networked governance of intelligence. This book examines how the partnership paradigm has transformed the ways in which participants gather, analyze, and use intelligence about security problems ranging from petty nuisances and violent crime to urban riots, organized crime, and terrorism. It explores changes in the way police and other security professionals define and prioritize these concerns and how the expanding range of stakeholders and the growing repertoire of solutions has transformed both the expertise and the deliberative processes involved.” From Publisher Website.

Complex Criminality, edited by D. Abels, D. Bruin, and H. van der Wilt. The Hague: Eleven Publishing, 2016. 122p.

”This book presents a collection of essays on the wide diversity of meanings of complex criminality. These essays were written to commemorate a national gathering of PhD candidates, from criminal law departments of different universities, at the University of Amsterdam on the 6th of June 2014. ‘Complex criminality’ is a very broad notion with many distinct meanings, e.g., complicated criminality -which may actually apply to all forms of criminality-, sophisticated criminality, common facts rendered more difficult to understand for lay persons as a result of translation into criminal legal jargon, or the systemic nature of certain crimes.

This book offers the reader unique perspectives on complex criminality by authors from various fields of specialization.” From Publisher’s Website.

Confidential Informants: A Closer Look at Police Policy, by Jon Shane. Springer (Springer Briefs), 2016.

“While confidential informants (CI’s) can play a crucial role in police investigations, they also have the potential to cause great harm if they are dishonest. The process by which police agencies qualify a CI to work and the strength of agency policy may be the source of the problem. This Brief examines the integrity problem involving CIs in police operations within the United States, provides an overview of pitfalls and problems related to veracity and informant integrity including the difficulties in detecting when a CI is lying, and compares the provisions of actual published police policy to the model CI policy published by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). The analysis shows a wide divergence between actual police policy and the national standard promulgated by the IACP.

The Brief provides policy recommendations for improving use of CIs that can potentially reduce or eliminate integrity problems that can lead to organizational accidents such as wrongful arrests and convictions, injuries or deaths. Some Courts have issued measures to ensure that information received from CIs is reliable by examining sworn testimony and documents related to their work. However, as this Brief explores, this judicial effort arises only after a police operation has taken place, and the use of force – even deadly force—has already been employed. The author proposes integrity testing beforehand, which would allow police to have a greater understanding of a CI’s motivation, ability and veracity when conducting law enforcement operations. In addition, there are aspects of police policy that can enhance CI management such as training, supervision and entrapment that can further guard against integrity problems. Although integrity testing is not flawless, it does interpose an additional step in the CI management process that can help guard against wrongful conviction and perjury that harms the judicial process.” From Publisher’s Website.

Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment, by Carol S. Steiker and Jordan M. Steiker. Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2016. 400p.

“Unique among Western democracies in refusing to eradicate the death penalty, the United States has attempted instead to reform and rationalize state death penalty practices through federal constitutional law. Courting Death traces the unusual and distinctive history of top-down judicial regulation of capital punishment under the Constitution and its unanticipated consequences for our time.

In the 1960s and 1970s, in the face of widespread abolition of the death penalty around the world, provisions for capital punishment that had long fallen under the purview of the states were challenged in federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened in two landmark decisions, first by constitutionally invalidating the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972) on the grounds that it was capricious and discriminatory, followed four years later by restoring it in Gregg v. Georgia (1976). Since then, by neither retaining capital punishment in unfettered form nor abolishing it outright, the Supreme Court has created a complex regulatory apparatus that has brought executions in many states to a halt, while also failing to address the problems that led the Court to intervene in the first place.

While execution chambers remain active in several states, constitutional regulation has contributed to the death penalty’s new fragility. In the next decade or two, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue, the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment. Courting Death illuminates both the promise and pitfalls of constitutional regulation of contentious social issues.” From Publisher’s Website.

Crime Script Analysis: Preventing Crimes Against Business, by Harald Haelterman. London; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 262p.

”This book positions script analysis as a useful and pragmatic tool, which can guide the selection and implementation of preventive measures in business environments. It illustrates how the concept aligns with the crime-specific orientation found in environmental criminology, and particularly explores the theoretical foundations of situational crime prevention, the approach to which it is deemed most relevant and supportive.

The volume provides clear guidance on how to apply script analysis in daily practice, covering its main building blocks and key features. These are illustrated by a series of case studies into various crime types. Moving beyond the use of script analysis with the intent to disrupt the crime-commission process, the author further explores the wider benefits of the approach to both academics and practitioners. He identifies what is needed most if we want to embrace the full potential of script analysis for preventive purposes.” From Publisher’s Website.

Criminal Enterprise Investigation, by Thomas A. Trier. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2017. 215p.

“Many cities, towns, and municipalities across the United States have criminal organizations operating within their jurisdictions. This book gives the investigator a guide to probing, evaluating, and analyzing local criminal organizations, with the goal of disrupting and dismantling criminal operations. Subjects covered include investigative field techniques, identification of enterprise vulnerabilities, and an in-depth look into FBI task forces. Intended for law enforcement and other criminal justice professionals, Criminal Enterprise Investigation provides readers with a critical “how to” guide to overcoming criminal enterprise in their communities.

Features:

  • Provides step-by-step guide to dismantling criminal organizations
  • Includes real-life examples of successful investigations
  • Covers a wide range of criminal groups, including domestic terrorists, drug cartels, gangs, white-collar criminals, and robbery and extortion rings

For those working to combat criminal organizations, this book is an essential guide to best practices. Criminal Enterprise Investigation provides the theory, techniques, and real-world examples necessary to overcome criminal activity for those of any level of expertise, from seasoned criminal justice professionals to those just beginning their careers.“ From Publisher’s Website.

Criminal Genius: A Portrait of High-IQ Offenders, by James C. Oleson. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. 300p.

“For years, criminologists have studied the relationship between crime and below-average intelligence, concluding that offenders usually possess IQ scores of 8 to 10 points below those of nonoffenders. Little, however, is known about the criminal behavior of those with above-average IQ scores. This book provides some of the first empirical information about the self-reported crimes of people with genius-level IQ scores. Combining quantitative data from 72 different offenses with qualitative data from 44 follow-up interviews, James C. Oleson describes the nature of crime by offenders of high IQ thereby shedding light on a population often ignored in research and yet sensationalized by media.” From Publisher’s Website.

Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach, by Markus D. Dubber and Tatjana Hornle. Oxford University Press. 2014. 720p.

“Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach presents a systematic and comprehensive comparative analysis of the substantive criminal law of two major jurisdictions: the United States and Germany.

Presupposing no familiarity with either U.S. or German criminal law, the book will provide criminal law scholars and students with a rich comparative understanding of criminal law’s foundations and central doctrines. All foreign-language sources have been translated into English, cases and materials are accompanied by heavily cross-referenced introductions and notes that place them within the framework of each country’s criminal law system and highlight issues ripe for comparative analysis.

Divided into three parts, the book covers foundational issues – such as constitutional limits on the criminal law – before tackling the major features of the general part of the criminal law – and a selection of offences in the special part. Throughout, readers are exposed to alternative approaches to familiar problems in criminal law, and as a result will have a chance to see a given country’s criminal law doctrine, on specific issues and in general, from the critical distance of comparative analysis.” From Publisher’s Website.

Cybercriminal Networks: Origin, Growth and Criminal Capabilities, by Rutgers Leukfeldt. The Hague: Eleven Publishing, 2016. 230p.

“This book is about cybercriminal networks that make use of digital means, such as phishing, malware or hacking, to steal money from customers of financial institutions. The author analyzes the processes of origin and growth and criminal capabilities, and puts forward several explanations for the differences found between traditional criminal networks and cybercriminal networks.

His most important findings are that although the majority of these cybercriminal networks still rely on real-world social ties for their origin and growth, some networks make full use of the advantages that digitization provides. As a new kind of offender convergence setting, forums provide a fluid form of cooperation, making dependency relationships seen in traditional criminal networks less important. Furthermore, examples were found of prolonged, repeated interaction through online communities, which raises the question to what extent digital social ties differ from their real-world counterparts.

This study forms an important evidence-based contribution to the criminological knowledge about cybercriminal networks. Furthermore, based on the empirical results, the author outlines possibilities for situational crime prevention against cybercriminal networks. This book will therefore be of interest both to academics and practitioners in the field of cybercrime and cyber security.” From Publisher’s Website.

Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, by Tommie Shelby. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 352p.

“Why do American ghettos persist? Decades after Moynihan’s report on the black family and the Kerner Commission’s investigations of urban disorders, deeply disadvantaged black communities remain a disturbing reality. Scholars and commentators today often identify some factor—such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime—as the key to solving the problem and recommend policies accordingly. But, Tommie Shelby argues, these attempts to “fix” ghettos or “help” their poor inhabitants ignore fundamental questions of justice and fail to see the urban poor as moral agents responding to injustice.

Drawing on liberal-egalitarian philosophy and informed by leading social science research, Dark Ghettos examines the thorny questions of political morality raised by ghettos. Should government foster integrated neighborhoods? If a “culture of poverty” exists, what interventions are justified? Should single parenthood be avoided or deterred? Is voluntary nonwork or crime an acceptable mode of dissent? How should a criminal justice system treat the oppressed? Shelby offers practical answers, framed in terms of what justice requires of both a government and its citizens, and he views the oppressed as allies in the fight for a society that warrants everyone’s allegiance.

“The ghetto is not ‘their’ problem but ours, privileged and disadvantaged alike,” Shelby writes. The existence of ghettos is evidence that our society is marred by structural injustices that demand immediate rectification. Dark Ghettos advances a social vision and political ethics that calls for putting the abolition of ghettos at the center of reform.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Distressed Body: Rethinking Illness, Imprisonment, and Healing, by Drew Leder. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2016. 304p.

”Bodily pain and distress come in many forms. They can well up from within at times of serious illness, but the body can also be subjected to harsh treatment from outside. The medical system is often cold and depersonalized, and much worse are conditions experienced by prisoners in our age of mass incarceration, and by animals trapped in our factory farms. In this pioneering book, Drew Leder offers bold new ways to rethink how we create and treat distress, clearing the way for more humane social practices.

Leder draws on literary examples, clinical and philosophical sources, his medical training, and his own struggle with chronic pain. He levies a challenge to the capitalist and Cartesian models that rule modern medicine. Similarly, he looks at the root paradigms of our penitentiary and factory farm systems and the way these produce distressed bodies, asking how such institutions can be reformed. Writing with coauthors ranging from a prominent cardiologist to long-term inmates, he explores alternative environments that can better humanize—even spiritualize—the way we treat one another, offering a very different vision of medical, criminal justice, and food systems. Ultimately Leder proposes not just new answers to important bioethical questions but new ways of questioning accepted concepts and practices.” From Publisher’s Website.

‘Eat the Heart of the Infidel’: The Harrowing of Nigeria and the Rise of Boko Haram, by Andrew Walker. London: Hurst and Company, 2016. 216p.

“Boko Haram’s appetite for violence and kidnapping women has thrust them to the top of the global news agenda. In a few years they all but severed parts of Nigeria-Africa’s most populous state and largest economy-from the hands of the government. When Boko Haram speaks, the world sees a grimacing ranting demagogue who taunts viewers claiming he will ‘eat the heart of the infidels’ and calling on Nigerians to reject their corrupt democracy and return to a ‘pure’ form of Islam. Thousands have been slaughtered in their campaign of purification which has evolved through a five-year bloody civil war. Civilians are trapped between the militants and the military and feel preyed upon by both.

Boko Haram did not emerge fully formed. In Northern Nigeria, which has witnessed many caliphates in the past, radical ideas flourish and strange sects are common. For decades, Nigeria’s politicians and oligarchs fed on the resources of a state buoyed by oil and turned public institutions into spoons for the pot. When the going was good it didn’t matter. But now a new ravenous force threatens Nigeria.” From Publisher’s Website.

Exiled in America: Life on the Margins in a Residential Motel, by Christopher P. Dum. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 320p.

“Residential motels have long been places of last resort for many vulnerable Americans—released prisoners, people with disabilities or mental illness, struggling addicts, the recently homeless, and the working poor. Cast aside by their families and mainstream society, they survive in squalid, unsafe, and demeaning circumstances that few of us can imagine.

For a year, the sociologist Christopher P. Dum lived in the Boardwalk Motel to better understand its residents and the varied paths that brought them there. He witnessed moments of violence and conflict, as well as those of care and compassion. As told through the voices and experiences of motel residents, Exiled in America paints a portrait of a vibrant community whose members forged identities in response to overwhelming stigma and created meaningful lives despite crushing economic instability.

In addition to chronicling daily life at the Boardwalk, Dum follows local neighborhood efforts to shut the establishment down, leading to a wider analysis of legislative attempts to sanitize shared social space. He also suggests meaningful policy changes to address the societal failures that lead to the need for motels such as the Boardwalk. The story of the Boardwalk, and the many motels like it, will concern anyone who cares about the lives of America’s most vulnerable citizens.” From Publisher’s Website.

Familiar Strangers, Juvenile Panic and the British Press: The Decline of Social Trust, by James Morrison. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 254p.

“This book argues that Britain is gripped by an endemic and ongoing panic about the position of children in society – which frames them as, alternately, victims and threats. It argues the press is a key player in promoting this discourse, which is rooted in a wide-scale breakdown in social trust.” From Publisher’s Website.

Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff, by Edward J. Balleisen. Princeton, NJ; Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press, 2017. 479p.

“The United States has always proved an inviting home for boosters, sharp dealers, and outright swindlers. Worship of entrepreneurial freedom has complicated the task of distinguishing aggressive salesmanship from unacceptable deceit, especially on the frontiers of innovation. At the same time, competitive pressures have often nudged respectable firms to embrace deception. As a result, fraud has been a key feature of American business since its beginnings. In this sweeping narrative, Edward Balleisen traces the history of fraud in America—and the evolving efforts to combat it—from the age of P. T. Barnum through the eras of Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff.

Starting with an early nineteenth-century American legal world of “buyer beware,” this unprecedented account describes the slow, piecemeal construction of modern regulatory institutions to protect consumers and investors, from the Gilded Age through the New Deal and the Great Society. It concludes with the more recent era of deregulation, which has brought with it a spate of costly frauds, including the savings and loan crisis, corporate accounting scandals, and the recent mortgage-marketing debacle.

By tracing how Americans have struggled to foster a vibrant economy without enabling a corrosive level of fraud, this book reminds us that American capitalism rests on an uneasy foundation of social trust.” From Publisher’s Website.

From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration Enforcement in Post-Civil Rights America, by Patrisia Macias-Rojas. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 240p.

“Criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses have more than doubled over the last two decades, as national debates about immigration and criminal justice reforms became headline topics. What lies behind this unprecedented increase?

From Deportation to Prison unpacks how the incarceration of over two million people in the United States gave impetus to a federal immigration initiative—The Criminal Alien Program (CAP)—designed to purge non-citizens from dangerously overcrowded jails and prisons. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic and archival research, the findings in this book reveal how the Criminal Alien Program quietly set off a punitive turn in immigration enforcement that has fundamentally altered detention, deportation, and criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses.

Patrisia Macías-Rojas presents a “street-level” perspective on how this new regime has serious lived implications for the day-to-day actions of Border Patrol agents, local law enforcement, civil and human rights advocates, and for migrants and residents of predominantly Latina/o border communities. From Deportation to Prison presents a thorough and captivating exploration of how mass incarceration and law and order policies of the past forty years have transformed immigration and border enforcement in unexpected and important ways.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Geography of Environmental Crime: Conservation, Wildlife Crime and Environmental Activism, edited by Gary R. Potter, Angus Nurse, and Matthew Hall. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 246p.

“This book critically examines both theory and practice around conservation crimes. It engages with the full complexity of environmental crimes and different responses to them, including: poaching, conservation as a response to wildlife crime, forest degradation, environmental activism, and the application of scientific and situational crime prevention techniques as preventative tools to deal with green crime.

Through the contributions of experts from both the social and ecological sciences, the book deals with theoretical and practical considerations that impact on the effectiveness of contemporary environmental criminal justice. It discusses the social construction of green crimes and the varied ways in which poaching and other conservation crimes are perceived, operate and are ideologically driven, as well as practical issues in environmental criminal justice. With contributions based in varied ideological perspectives and drawn from a range of academic disciplines, this volume provides a platform for scholars to debate new ideas about environmental law enforcement, policy, and crime prevention, detection and punishment.” From Publisher’s Website.

Geometries of Crime: How Young People Perceive Crime and Justice, by Avi Brisman. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 249p.

”This book explores how young people perceive the severity of crime and delinquency. It particularly addresses whom or what they consider to be the victims of crime and delinquency, how they analyze and assess appropriate responses by the criminal justice system, as well as their place within it. The book proposes tools for developing a more elaborate and robust understanding of what constitutes crime, identifying those affected by it, and what is deemed adequate or appropriate punishment. In so doing, it offers thick description of young peoples’ conceptions of and experiences with crime, delinquency, justice and law, and uses this description to interrogate the role of the state in influencing – indeed, shaping – these perceptions.” From Publisher’s Website.

Handbook of Transnational Environmental Crime, edited by Lorraine Elliott and William H. Schaedle. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2016. 552p.

“Crimes associated with the illegal trade in wildlife, timber and fish stocks, and pollutants and waste have become increasingly transnational, organized and serious. They warrant attention because of their environmental consequences, their human toll, their impact on the rule of law and good governance, and their links with violence, corruption and a range of cross-over crimes. This ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary Handbook examines key transnational environmental crime sectors and explores its most significant conceptual, operational and enforcement challenges.

Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, this book presents in-depth analysis based on extensive academic research and operational and enforcement expertise. The sectors covered include illegal wildlife, timber, pollutant and waste trades, and crimes in the carbon market. The contextual chapters examine criminal networks and illicit chains of custody, local sociocultural, economic and political factors, the effectiveness of policy and operational responses, and international jurisdictional challenges.

This Handbook will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of global environmental politics, international environmental law, and environmental criminology as well as for regulatory and enforcement practitioners working to meet the challenges of transnational environmental crime.” From Publisher’s Website.

Ignorance of Law: A Philosophical Inquiry, by Douglas Husak. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 320p.

”This book argues that ignorance of law should usually be a complete excuse from criminal liability. It defends this conclusion by invoking two presumptions: first, the content of criminal law should conform to morality; second, mistakes of fact and mistakes of law should be treated symmetrically. The author grounds his position in an underlying theory of moral and criminal responsibility according to which blameworthiness consists in a defective response to the moral reasons one has. Since persons cannot be faulted for failing to respond to reasons for criminal liability they do not believe they have, then ignorance should almost always excuse. But persons are somewhat responsible for their wrongs when their mistakes of law are reckless, that is, when they consciously disregard a substantial and unjustifiable risk that their conduct might be wrong. This book illustrates this with examples and critiques the arguments to the contrary offered by criminal theorists and moral philosophers. It assesses the real-world implications for the U.S. system of criminal justice. The author describes connections between the problem of ignorance of law and other topics in moral and legal theory.” From Publisher’s Website.

Impact: How Law Affects Behavior, by Lawrence M. Friedman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 336p.

“Laws and regulations are ubiquitous, touching on many aspects of individual and corporate behavior. But under what conditions are laws and rules actually effective? A huge amount of recent work in political science, sociology, economics, criminology, law, and psychology, among other disciplines, deals with this question. But these fields rarely inform one another, leaving the state of research disjointed and disorganized. Lawrence M. Friedman finds order in this cacophony. Impact gathers recent findings into one overarching analysis and lays the groundwork for a cohesive body of work in what Friedman labels “impact studies.”

The first important factor that has a bearing on impact is communication. A rule or law has no effect if it never reaches its intended audience. The public’s fund of legal knowledge, the clarity of the law, and the presence of information brokers all influence the flow of information from lawmakers to citizens. After a law is communicated, subjects sometimes comply, sometimes resist, and sometimes adjust or evade. Three clusters of motives help shape which reaction will prevail: first, rewards and punishments; second, peer group influences; and third, issues of conscience, legitimacy, and morality. When all of these factors move in the same direction, law can have a powerful impact; when they conflict, the outcome is sometimes unpredictable.” From Publisher’s Website.

In the Heat of the Summer: The New York Riots of 1964 and the War on Crime, by Michael W. Flamm. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.  368p.

“On the morning of July 16, 1964, a white police officer in New York City shot and killed a black teenager, James Powell, across the street from the high school where he was attending summer classes. Two nights later, a peaceful demonstration in Central Harlem degenerated into violent protests. During the next week, thousands of rioters looted stores from Brooklyn to Rochester and pelted police with bottles and rocks. In the symbolic and historic heart of black America, the Harlem Riot of 1964, as most called it, highlighted a new dynamic in the racial politics of the nation. The first “long, hot summer” of the Sixties had arrived.

In this gripping narrative of a pivotal moment, Michael W. Flamm draws on personal interviews and delves into the archives to move briskly from the streets of New York, where black activists like Bayard Rustin tried in vain to restore peace, to the corridors of the White House, where President Lyndon Johnson struggled to contain the fallout from the crisis and defeat Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, who had made “crime in the streets” a centerpiece of his campaign. Recognizing the threat to his political future and the fragile alliance of black and white liberals, Johnson promised that the War on Poverty would address the “root causes” of urban disorder. A year later, he also launched the War on Crime, which widened the federal role in law enforcement and set the stage for the War on Drugs.

Today James Powell is forgotten amid the impassioned debates over the militarization of policing and the harmful impact of mass incarceration on minority communities. But his death was a catalyst for the riots in New York, which in turn foreshadowed future explosions and influenced the political climate for the crime and drug policies of recent decades. In the Heat of the Summer spotlights the extraordinary drama of a single week when peaceful protests and violent unrest intersected, the freedom struggle reached a crossroads, and the politics of law and order led to demands for a War on Crime.” From Publisher’s Website.

International Law and Transnational Organised Crime, edited by Pierre Hauck and Sven Peterke. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016. 550p.

“Since the end of the Cold War, states have become increasingly engaged in the suppression of transnational organized crime. The existence of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols demonstrates the necessity to comprehend this subject in a systematic way. Synthesizing the various sources of law that form this area of growing academic and practical importance, International Law and Transnational Organized Crime provides readers with a thorough understanding of the key concepts and legal instruments in international law governing transnational organized crime. The volume analyses transnational organized crime in consideration of the most relevant subareas of international law, such as international human rights and the law of armed conflict. Written by internationally recognized scholars in international and criminal law as well as respected high-level practitioners, this book is a useful tool for lawyers, public agents, and academics seeking straightforward and comprehensive access to a complex and significant topic.” From Publisher’s Website.

Jacked Up and Unjust: Pacific Islander Teens Confront Violent Legacies, by Katherine Irwin and Karen Umemoto. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. 232p.

”In the context of two hundred years of American colonial control in the Pacific, Katherine Irwin and Karen Umemoto shed light on the experiences of today’s inner city and rural girls and boys in Hawai‘i who face racism, sexism, poverty, and political neglect. Basing their book on nine years of ethnographic research, the authors highlight how legacies of injustice endure, prompting teens to fight for dignity and the chance to thrive in America, a nation that the youth describe as inherently “jacked up”—rigged—and “unjust.” While the story begins with the youth battling multiple contingencies, it ends on a hopeful note with many of the teens overcoming numerous hardships, often with the guidance of steadfast, caring adults.” From Publisher’s Website.

Legal Insanity and the Brain: Science, Law and European Courts, edited by Sofia Moratti and Dennis Patterson. Oxford, UK; Portland, OR : Hart Publishing, 2016. 336p.

“This landmark publication offers a unique comparative and interdisciplinary study of criminal insanity and neuroscience. Criminal law theories and ideologies which underpin the regulation of criminal insanity have always been the subject of controversy. The history of criminal insanity is characterised by conceptual and empirical tension between two disciplinary realms: the law and the mind sciences. The authors in this anthology explore in depth the state of the art of legal insanity and the numerous intricate, fascinating, pioneering and sophisticated questions raised by the integration of different criminal law and behaviour theories, diverse disciplines and methodologies, in a genuinely interdisciplinary perspective. This volume will serve as a practical guide for the comparative legal scholar and the judge, as well as stimulating scholarly reading for the neuroscientist, the social scientist and the philosopher with interdisciplinary scientific interests.” From Publisher’s Website.

Man or Monster? The Trial of a Khmer Rouge Torturer, by Alexander Laban Hinton. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. 360p.

“During the Khmer Rouge’s brutal reign in Cambodia during the mid-to-late 1970s, a former math teacher named Duch served as the commandant of the S-21 security center, where as many as 20,000 victims were interrogated, tortured, and executed. In 2009 Duch stood trial for these crimes against humanity. While the prosecution painted Duch as evil, his defense lawyers claimed he simply followed orders. In Man or Monster? Alexander Hinton uses creative ethnographic writing, extensive fieldwork, hundreds of interviews, and his experience attending Duch’s trial to create a nuanced analysis of Duch, the tribunal, the Khmer Rouge, and the after-effects of Cambodia’s genocide. Interested in how a person becomes a torturer and executioner as well as the law’s ability to grapple with crimes against humanity, Hinton adapts Hannah Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil” to consider how the potential for violence is embedded in the everyday ways people articulate meaning and comprehend the world. Man or Monster? provides novel ways to consider justice, terror, genocide, memory, truth, and humanity.” From Publisher’s Website.

Masculinities and the Adult Male Prison Experience, by Jennifer Anne Sloan. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 197p.

“This book critically analyses how men in prison act out their masculine identities. It considers how men negotiate their time in prison, which can involve being placed into a feminine position relative to other men, and particularly looks at the subversion of heteronormative gender positionings through bodies, spaces, time, and relationships. Vulnerability is also taken as a key consideration, and men are shown to act out their masculinities for the benefit of an audience that matters to them. However, that audience is shown to be subject to change at any point in time.

Using extensive ethnographic data drawn from adult male prisoners, the book adopts the viewpoint of the individual prisoner as a frame to consider masculinity. It also advances ethnographic research in criminology by reflecting upon the identity of researchers in prisons, particularly the female researcher’s gendered identity in such environments. It will be of great interest to scholars of penology, gender and ethnography.” From Publisher’s Website.

Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert: La vida no vale nada, edited by Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, Elestino Fernandez, Jessie K. Finch, and Araceli Masterson-Algar. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

“Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert addresses the tragic results of government policies on immigration. The contributors consist of a multidisciplinary group who are dedicated to the thousands of men, women, and children who have lost their lives while crossing the desert in search of a better life. Each chapter in this important new volume seeks answers to migrant deaths, speaking to the complexity of this tragedy via a range of community and scholarly approaches.

The activists, artists, and scholars included in this volume confront migrant deaths and disappearances in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as they reflect on the startling realities of death, migration, and public policy. Chapters touch on immigration and how it is studied, community responses to crisis, government policy, definitions of citizenship, and the role of the arts and human expression in response to state violence. Collectively the contributions throw a spotlight on the multivocal, transdisciplinary efforts to address the historical silence surrounding this human tragedy.

Despite numerous changes in the migration processes and growing attention to the problem, many people who attempt border crossings continue to disappear and die. This book offers a timely exploration of the ways that residents, scholars, activists, and artists are responding to this humanitarian crisis on their doorstep.

Despite numerous changes in the migration processes and growing attention to the problem, many people who attempt border crossings continue to disappear and die. This book offers a timely exploration of the ways that residents, scholars, activists, and artists are responding to this humanitarian crisis on their doorstep.” From Publisher’s Website.

Misunderstanding Terrorism, by Marc Sageman. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 192p.

“Misunderstanding Terrorism provides a striking reassessment of the scope and nature of the global neo-jihadi threat to the West. The post-9/11 decade experienced the emergence of new forms of political violence and new terrorist actors. More recently, Marc Sageman’s understanding of how and why people have adopted fundamentalist ideologies and terrorist methods has evolved. Author of the classic Understanding Terror Networks, Sageman has become only more critical of the U.S. government’s approach to the problem. He argues that U.S. society has been transformed for the worse by an extreme overreaction to a limited threat—limited, he insists, despite spectacular recent incidents, which he takes fully into account. Indeed, his discussion of just how limited the threat is marks a major contribution to the discussion and debate over the best way to a measured and much more effective response.” From Publisher’s Website.

Moving on from Crime and Substance Use: Transforming Identities, edited by Anne Robinson and Paula Hamilton. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2016. 272p.

“Desistance is one of the big news stories of the criminological world. Research suggests that, as ‘offenders’ turn their backs on crime, they often change their identities as well as their behaviour. Yet we know much less about how reforming or transforming identity might be affected by gender, age or ethnicity. This book focuses on diversity and showcases research from a wide range of authors in the field. It considers the similarities and differences between desisting from crime and recovering from addiction. Taking the desistance and recovery debates in unfamiliar directions, it examines the experiences of change for individuals seeking healthier and more successful futures” From Publisher’s Website.

Multiple Injustices: Indigenous Women, Law, and Political Struggle in Latin America, by R. Aida Hernandez Castillo. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. 328p.

“The last two decades have witnessed two political transformations that have deeply affected the lives of the indigenous peoples of Latin America. First, a discourse on indigeneity has emerged that links struggles across the continent with movements whose core issues are racism and political and cultural rights. Second, recent constitutional reforms in several countries recognize the multicultural character of Latin American countries and the legal pluralism that necessarily follows.

Multiple Injustices synthesizes R. Aída Hernández Castillo’s twenty-four years of activism and research among indigenous women’s organizations in Latin America. As both feminist and critical anthropologist, Hernández Castillo analyzes the context of legal pluralism wherein the indigenous women of Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia struggle for justice. Through ethnographical research in community, state, and international justice, she reflects on the possibilities and limitations of customary, national, and international law for indigenous women.

Colonialism, racism, and patriarchal violence have been fundamental elements for the reproduction of capitalism, Hernández Castillo asserts. Only a social policy that offers economic alternatives based on distribution of wealth and a real recognition of cultural and political rights of indigenous peoples can counter the damage of outside forces such as drug cartels on indigenous lands.

She concludes that the theories of indigenous women on culture, tradition, and gender equity—as expressed in political documents, event reports, public discourse, and their intellectual writings—are key factors in the decolonization of Latin American feminisms and social justice for all.” From Publisher’s Website.

‘Ndrangheta: The Glocal Dimensions of the Most Powerful Italian Mafia, by Anna Sergi and Anita Lavorgna. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 122p.

”This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the ‘ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various ’ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that ’ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the ‘upperworld’ and in the ‘underworld’, a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the ‘ndrangheta is today labeled as ‘the most powerful Italian mafia’. It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology. “

On the Parole Board: Reflections on Crime, Punishment, Redemption, and Justice, by Frederic G. Reamer. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 296p.

“Few people experience life inside of prison. Even fewer are charged with the formidable responsibility of deciding whether inmates should be released. In his twenty-four years on the Rhode Island Parole Board, Frederic G. Reamer has judged the fates of thousands of inmates, deciding which are ready to reenter society and which are not. It is a complicated choice that balances injury to victims and their families against an offender’s capacity for transformation.

With rich retellings of criminal cases—some banal, some brutal—On the Parole Board is a singular book that explains from an insider’s perspective how a variety of factors play into the board’s decisions: the ongoing effect on victims and their loved ones, the life histories of offenders, the circumstances of the crimes, and the powerful and often extraordinary displays of forgiveness and remorse. Pulling back the curtain on a process largely shrouded in mystery, Reamer lays bare the thorny philosophical issues of crime and justice and their staggering consequences for inmates, victims, and the public at large.

Reamer and his colleagues often hope, despite encountering behavior at its worst, that criminals who have made horrible mistakes have the capacity for redemption. Yet that hope must be tempered with a realistic appraisal of risk, given the potentially grave consequences of releasing an inmate who may commit a future crime. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the complexities of the criminal justice system, the need to correct its injustices, and the challenges of those who must decide when justice has been served.” From Publisher’s Website.

Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking and Violence in Mexico: The Transition from Felipe Calderon to Enrique Pena Nieto, by Jonathan D. Rosen and Roberto Zepeda. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. 166p.

“Organized Crime, Drug Trafficking, and Violence in Mexico: The Transition from Felipe Calderón to Enrique Peña Nieto examines the major trends in organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico. The book provides an exhaustive analysis of drug-related violence in the country. This work highlights the transition from the Felipe Calderón administration to the Enrique Peña Nieto government, focusing on differences and continuities in counternarcotics policies as well as other trends such as violence and drug trafficking.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law, edited by Markus D. Dubber and Tatjana Hornle. Oxford, UK: New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 1,232p.

“The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas.

The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison or corrections law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law’s place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.” From Publisher’s Website.

Pathways into Sexual Exploitation and Sex Work: The Experiences of Victimhood and Agency, by Jane Dodsworth. Basingstoke, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 227p.

“This book identifies risk and protective factors influencing routes into, through and out of sexual exploitation and sex work. It explores how the sense made of key childhood and adult experiences influences the ability to manage roles and identities and choices they feel empowered or forced to make.” From Publisher’s Website.

Philosophical Criminology, by Andrew Millie. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2016. 168p.

”Philosophical criminology asks big questions about how we get on with one another and what happens when we do not. This accessible book in the New Horizons in Criminology series is the first to foreground this growing area. The book is structured around six philosophical ideas concerning our relations with others: values, morality, aesthetics, order, rules and respect. Building on the author’s theoretical and empirical research, the book considers the boundaries of criminology and the scope for greater exchange between criminology and philosophy. The book is illustrated using examples from a range of countries, and provides a platform for engaging with important topical issues using philosophical and theoretical insights.” From Publisher’s Website.

Police Use of Force: Important Issues Facing the Police and the Communities They Serve, edited by Michael J. Palmiotto. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2016. 196p.

“Starting with a historical introduction, Police Use of Force presents readers with critical and timely issues facing police and the communities they serve when police encounters turn violent. Dr. Palmiotto offers in-depth coverage of the use of force, deadly force, non-lethal weapons, militarization of policing, racism and profiling, legal cases, psychology, perception and training, and violence prevention. Police Use of Force also investigates many case studies, both famous (Rodney King) and contemporary (Ferguson, MO). Essential reading for both criminal justice professionals and academics, this text places police conflict within a complex, modern context, inviting cogent conversation in the classroom and the precinct.”

The Prison Boundary: Between Society and Carceral Space, by Jennifer Turner. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 248p.

“This book explores the idea of the prison boundary, identifying where it is located, which processes and performances help construct and animate it, and who takes part in them. Although the relationship between prison and non-prison has garnered academic interest from various disciplines in the last decade, the cultural performance of the boundary has been largely ignored. This book adds to the field by exploring the complexity of the material and symbolic connections that exist between society and carceral space.

Drawing on a range of cultural examples including governmental legislation, penal tourism, prisoner work programmes and art by offenders, Jennifer Turner attends to the everyday, practised manifestations and negotiations of the prison boundary. The book reveals how prisoners actively engage with life outside of prison and how members of the public may cross the boundary to the inside. In doing so, it shows the prison boundary to be a complex patchwork of processes, people and parts. The book will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of criminology, carceral geography and cultural studies.”

Psychiatric Criminology: A Roadmap for Rapid Assessment, by John A. Lieberg and William J. Birnes. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2016. 405p.

“Since the shutdown of our public psychiatry system, the seriously mentally ill are now mostly managed by public safety officers, school officials, emergency first responders and social workers with little experience in recognizing symptoms, triggers and issues. This book addresses the need to recognize the psychiatric component of criminological issues and the methodology of dealing with it on a practical as well as academic basis. It provides a roadmap for training in rapid assessment built on evidence-based emergency psychiatry protocols.” From Publisher’s Website.

Respectability on Trial: Sex Crimes in New York City, 1900-1918, by Brian Donovan. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2016. 244p.

“Providing a front row seat at critical courtroom battles over seduction, pimping, rape, and sodomy in early twentieth-century New York City, Brian Donovan uses verbatim trial transcripts to understand the city’s history during the so-called “first sexual revolution.” By tracing the revolutionary and repressive dimensions of this time period, Donovan reveals how conflicting ideas about sex and gender shaped the city’s criminal justice system. He unearths stories of sexual violence and legal injustice that contradict the image of early twentieth-century America as a time of sexual revolution and progress. Police and courts often served the interests of the upper classes, men, and racial and ethnic majorities, but the trial transcripts included here reveal the considerable extent to which members of working-class and immigrant communities used the machinery of law enforcement for their own ends. Many previous books have fully documented and analyzed the sensational trials of turn-of-the-century New York City, but none have paid such close attention to the courtroom experiences of common city dwellers.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Role of Prison in Europe: Travelling in the Footsteps of John Howard, by Tom Vander Beken. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 243p.

”This book discusses the role of the prison in Europe across a divide of over 200 years. Inspired by the travels of the prison reformer John Howard (1726-1790), who visited prisons across Europe in the eighteenth century, it fundamentally reflects on centuries of the practice of locking people up as punishment. Howard travelled across Europe to visit prisons, with a simple method: he travelled and knocked on prison doors on his journey and entered the premises. He then observed the situation in the prison, took notes and left to visit other locations. Howard’s influential book The State of the Prisons resulted from his experiences, provoking debate among prison reformers and academics worldwide.

Adopting the contemporary methods of prison tourism research, the author follows in Howard’s footsteps. He draws on extensive research conducted in prisons across six countries: England, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Azerbaijan. Howard’s reflections are used as a frame to assess contemporary prisons, particularly revolving around the questions of what prisons are for today, and what they should (or should not) be. It will be of great interest to criminologists researching prisons and penology, as well as historians interested in the histories of punishment.” From Publisher’s Website.

Sex Trafficking in the United States: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice, by Andrea J. Nichols. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 336p.

“Sex Trafficking in the United States is a unique exploration of the underlying dynamics of sex trafficking. This comprehensive volume examines the common risk factors for those who become victims, and the barriers they face when they try to leave. It also looks at how and why sex traffickers enter the industry. A chapter on buyers presents what we know about their motivations, the prevalence of bought sex, and criminal justice policies that target them. Sex Trafficking in the United States describes how the justice system, activists, and individuals can engage in advocating for victims of sex trafficking. It also offers recommendations for practice and policy and suggestions for cultural change.

Andrea J. Nichols approaches sex-trafficking-related theories, research, policies, and practice from neoliberal, abolitionist, feminist, criminological, and sociological perspectives. She confronts competing views of the relationship between pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking, as well as the contribution of weak social institutions and safety nets to the spread of sex trafficking. She also explores the link between identity-based oppression, societal marginalization, and the risk of victimization. She clearly accounts for the role of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, LGBTQ identities, age, sex, and intellectual disability in heightening the risk of trafficking and how social services and the criminal justice and healthcare systems can best respond. This textbook is essential for understanding the mechanics of a pervasive industry and curbing its spread among at-risk populations.” From Publisher’s Website.

Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage, by Sowande M. Mustakeem. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016. 288p.

“Most times left solely within the confine of plantation narratives, slavery was far from a land-based phenomenon. This book reveals for the first time how it took critical shape at sea. Expanding the gaze even more deeply, the book centers how the oceanic transport of human cargoes–infamously known as the Middle Passage–comprised a violently regulated process foundational to the institution of bondage.

Sowande’ Mustakeem’s groundbreaking study goes inside the Atlantic slave trade to explore the social conditions and human costs embedded in the world of maritime slavery. Mining ship logs, records and personal documents, Mustakeem teases out the social histories produced between those on traveling ships: slaves, captains, sailors, and surgeons. As she shows, crewmen manufactured captives through enforced dependency, relentless cycles of physical, psychological terror, and pain that led to the the making–and unmaking–of enslaved Africans held and transported onboard slave ships. Mustakeem relates how this process, and related power struggles, played out not just for adult men, but also for women, children, teens, infants, nursing mothers, the elderly, diseased, ailing, and dying. Mustakeem offers provocative new insights into how gender, health, age, illness, and medical treatment intersected with trauma and violence transformed human beings into the world’s most commercially sought commodity for over four centuries.” From Publisher’s Website.

Social Control of Sex Offenders: A Cultural History, by D. Richard Laws. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 238p.

“This book surveys the history, current status, and critical issues regarding the various mechanisms designed to control sex offenders. It shows that the social problem of sex offending is not apparently resolvable by any of the means currently employed.

A large array of procedures are used in the attempt to control the difficult population of sex offenders, including: imprisonment, institutional and community treatment, community monitoring by probation and parole, electronic monitoring, registration as a sex offender, community notification of an offender’s status, strict limits on behavioral movement in the community, and residence restrictions. However, these constraints on behavior are almost completely the result of public outrage regarding sensational sex crimes, overreaction of media coverage that produce inaccurate statements of potential community risk, and the efforts of the legal profession and politicians to quell this anger and foreboding by enacting legislation that supposedly confronts the risk. This book demonstrates that we have constructed a massive edifice of community control that is socially and politically driven and which has largely failed to contain sex crime.” From Publisher’s Website.

Social Problems in Popular Culture, by R.J. Maratea and Rian Monahan. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2015. 208p.

”Popular culture is more than just a broad term for entertainment and frivolous diversions; it is also highly relevant to our understanding of society. This exciting book is the first to offer insights into the important, but often overlooked, relationship between popular culture and social problems. Drawing on historical and topical examples, the authors apply an innovative theoretical framework to examine how facets of popular culture—from movies and music to toys, games, billboards, bumper stickers, and bracelets—shape how we think about, and respond to, social issues, such as problems of gender, sexuality, and race.

Including student features, evocative case studies, and access to online material, this book will help students explore and understand the essential connection between popular culture and social problems. Deftly combining the fun and irreverence of popular culture with critical scholarly inquiry, this timely book delivers an engaging account of how our interactions with—and consumption of—popular culture matter far more than we may think.” From Publisher’s Website.

Speaking Truth to Power: Confidential Informants and Police Investigations, by Dean A. Dabney and Richard Tewksbury. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. 232p.

“Domestic drug enforcement takes many forms, from the rural patrol officer who happens upon a small-scale mobile “shake and bake” methamphetamine lab during a routine traffic stop, to the city narcotics detective who initiates a low-level buy-bust operation that nets a few hits of crack cocaine on the street corner, to the local, state, and federal agents working in multiagency task forces that coordinate a sting operation that nets thousands of kilos of near-pure cocaine being transported by tractor-trailer. Regardless of the form, there is a high probability that these authorities have exploited access to known offenders and exerted pressure on those individuals to gather inside information on illicit drug sales. These confidential informants provide intelligence on the inner workings of drug operations in exchange for leniency or remuneration, providing a relatively cheap source of intelligence that fuels much of the ongoing war on drugs. In other instances, law enforcement authorities will reach out to members of the criminal underworld who are willing to provide valuable intelligence in exchange for money. Despite the central role of informants in contemporary police operations, little is known about the shadowy relationships among law enforcement, snitches, and offenders. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the narcotics, homicide, and street-level vice operations in two major metropolitan police departments, Speaking Truth to Power takes readers to the front lines of the war on drugs to unravel this complex web of information exchange.” From Publisher’s Website.

Stop and Frisk: The Use and Abuse of a Controversial Policing Tactic, by Michael D. White and Henry F. Fradella. New York: New York University Press, 2016. 256p.

“No policing tactic has been more controversial than “stop and frisk,” whereby police officers stop, question and frisk ordinary citizens, who they may view as potential suspects, on the streets. As Michael White and Hank Fradella show in Stop and Frisk, the first authoritative history and analysis of this tactic, there is a disconnect between our everyday understanding and the historical and legal foundations for this policing strategy. First ruled constitutional in 1968, stop and frisk would go on to become a central tactic of modern day policing, particularly by the New York City Police Department. By 2011 the NYPD recorded 685,000 ‘stop-question-and-frisk’ interactions with citizens; yet, in 2013, a landmark decision ruled that the police had over- and mis-used this tactic. Stop and Frisk tells the story of how and why this happened, and offers ways that police departments can better serve their citizens. They also offer a convincing argument that stop and frisk did not contribute as greatly to the drop in New York’s crime rates as many proponents, like former NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have argued.

While much of the book focuses on the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk, examples are also shown from police departments around the country, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Newark and Detroit. White and Fradella argue that not only does stop and frisk have a legal place in 21st-century policing but also that it can be judiciously used to help deter crime in a way that respects the rights and needs of citizens. They also offer insight into the history of racial injustice that has all too often been a feature of American policing’s history and propose concrete strategies that every police department can follow to improve the way they police. A hard-hitting yet nuanced analysis, Stop and Frisk shows how the tactic can be a just act of policing and, in turn, shows how to police in the best interest of citizens.” From Publisher’s Website.

Surveillance, Privacy and Trans-Atlantic Relations, edited by David D. Cole, Fererico Fabbrini and Stephen Schulhofer. Oxford, UK; Portland, OR: Bloomsburg (Hart), 2017. 248p.

“Recent revelations, by Edward Snowden and others, of the vast network of government spying enabled by modern technology have raised major concerns both in the European Union and the United States on how to protect privacy in the face of increasing governmental surveillance. This book brings together some of the leading experts in the fields of constitutional law, criminal law and human rights from the US and the EU to examine the protection of privacy in the digital era, as well as the challenges that counter-terrorism cooperation between governments pose to human rights. It examines the state of privacy protections on both sides of the Atlantic, the best mechanisms for preserving privacy, and whether the EU and the US should develop joint transnational mechanisms to protect privacy on a reciprocal basis. As technology enables governments to know more and more about their citizens, and about the citizens of other nations, this volume offers critical perspectives on how best to respond to one of the most challenging developments of the twenty-first century. “ From Publisher’s Website.

Street Art World, by Alison Young. London: Reaktion Books, 2016. 208p.

“Street art and graffiti are a familiar sight in cities around the world. Neighbourhoods painted with murals are popular with tourists and tagged walls become backdrops for fashion shoots and music videos. Banksy is a global celebrity whose work sells for astonishing prices. Millions of photographs of street art are saved on smartphones, uploaded to social media, and displayed on T-shirts and other merchandise. But are street art and graffiti the same thing? Or do they have different histories, meanings, and practitioners? Who makes street art? Who buys it? Can it be exhibited in a gallery or must it be located on the street? Why have museums started collecting street art? Is there a commercial market for street art? And will it even exist in the future?

This strikingly illustrated book explores every aspect of street art, from making and photographing, to stealing and selling it. Artists working in the streets reveal both their passion for street art and ambivalence about its commodification. The rise, fall and rise again of street art in the art market is told through revealing encounters with collectors and auction houses in Paris, London, Melbourne and beyond.

Based on twenty years of research in the graffiti and street art scenes, Street Art World is the first book to provide a history and context for the words and images that appear in cities all around the world. Inviting the reader into a realm that is usually hidden, it will enthrall all those who enjoy this global phenomenon.” From Publisher’s Website.

Tackling Correctional Corruption, by Andrew Goldsmith, Mark Halsey and Andrew Groves. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 184p.

“Corruption is a problem in prisons about which we hear very little, except when there is an escape from custody or other scandal that makes the media. The closed nature of correctional institutions has made the activities that go on within them less visible to the outside world. While some persons might be inclined to dismiss correctional corruption as an issue, this view ignores the scale of criminality and misconduct that can go on in prison and the impact it can have upon not just the good order of the prison or the rights of prisoners but on the prospects for successful reintegration of ex-prisoners into society.

This book is the first to examine the phenomenon in any detail or to suggest what might be done to reduce its incidence and the harms that can arise from it. Andrew Goldsmith, Mark Halsey and Andrew Groves argue that it is not enough to tackle corruption alone. Rather there should be a broader attempt to promote what the authors call ‘correctional integrity’.” From Publisher’s Website.

Taking Care of Business: Police Detectives, Drug Law Enforcement and Proactive Investigation, by Matthew Bacon. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016. 292p.

Taking Care of Business offers a rich and insightful ethnography of specialist detective units assigned to the task of investigating drug offences and gathering evidence to support the prosecution of the persons who perpetrate them. Based on extensive fieldwork undertaken in two English police service areas, it provides an in-depth analysis of the everyday realities of the ‘war on drugs’ and the associated working rules, tacit understandings, and underlying assumptions that operate beneath the presentational canopy of police organizations. The analytical standpoint adopted places the occupational culture of the police at the centre of an understanding of police work and criminal justice processes. By interweaving the findings of observations, interviews, and documentary analyses, the author explores how police officers perceive the drug world and their role in it, translate policy from its written form into action, and utilize intelligence-led policing strategies to instigate covert operations and make cases. The book also critically examines the most pertinent legislative initiatives, organizational reforms, and shifts in thinking about the values, objectives, and norms of policing that have occurred over recent decades, which, between them, have contributed to some significant changes in the ways that detectives are trained and investigations are controlled and carried out. Theoretically and empirically informed, Taking Care of Business addresses contemporary police culture, detective work, and drug law enforcement. Its timely character also has relevance with respect to some highly salient issues in the current social, economic, and political climate regarding operational policing and drug control policy.” From Publisher’s Website.

Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America, by David J. Silverman. Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2016. 400p.

“The adoption of firearms by American Indians between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries marked a turning point in the history of North America’s indigenous peoples—a cultural earthquake so profound, says David Silverman, that its impact has yet to be adequately measured. Thundersticks reframes our understanding of Indians’ historical relationship with guns, arguing against the notion that they prized these weapons more for the pyrotechnic terror guns inspired than for their efficiency as tools of war. Native peoples fully recognized the potential of firearms to assist them in their struggles against colonial forces, and mostly against one another.

The smoothbore, flintlock musket was Indians’ stock firearm, and its destructive potential transformed their lives. For the deer hunters east of the Mississippi, the gun evolved into an essential hunting tool. Most importantly, well-armed tribes were able to capture and enslave their neighbors, plunder wealth, and conquer territory. Arms races erupted across North America, intensifying intertribal rivalries and solidifying the importance of firearms in Indian politics and culture.

Though American tribes grew dependent on guns manufactured in Europe and the United States, their dependence never prevented them from rising up against Euro-American power. The Seminoles, Blackfeet, Lakotas, and others remained formidably armed right up to the time of their subjugation. Far from being a Trojan horse for colonialism, firearms empowered American Indians to pursue their interests and defend their political and economic autonomy over two centuries.” From Publisher’s Website.

Transforming Probation: Social Theories and the Criminal Justice System, by Philip Whitehead. Bristol, UK: Policy Press (distributed in U.S. by the University of Chicago Press), 2017. 254p.

“Written by an established author in the field, this book explores the politics of modernization and transformation of probation in the criminal justice system. It is unique in drawing upon innovative social theories and moral perspectives to analyze changes in the probation service by including data from quantitative and qualitative empirical research. This highlights the challenges to, but also support of, the platform of modernization that culminated in the transformative Rehabilitation Revolution. Providing critical tools for the reader to use in their own work and studies, it makes a timely contribution to criminal justice and probation theory and uniquely provides insights into what representatives of other organizations think about probation—from the outside looking in.” From Publisher’s Website.

Violence Against Queer People: Race, Class, Gender and the Persistence of Anti-LGBT Discrimination, by Doug Meyer. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015. 192p.

“Violence against lesbians and gay men has increasingly captured media and scholarly attention. But these reports tend to focus on one segment of the LGBT community–white, middle class men–and largely ignore that part of the community that arguably suffers a larger share of the violence–racial minorities, the poor, and women. In Violence against Queer People, sociologist Doug Meyer offers the first investigation of anti-queer violence that focuses on the role played by race, class, and gender. Drawing on interviews with forty-seven victims of violence, Meyer shows that LGBT people encounter significantly different forms of violence–and perceive that violence quite differently–based on their race, class, and gender. His research highlights the extent to which other forms of discrimination–including racism and sexism–shape LGBT people’s experience of abuse. He reports, for instance, that lesbian and transgender women often described violent incidents in which a sexual or a misogynistic component was introduced, and that LGBT people of color sometimes weren’t sure if anti-queer violence was based solely on their sexuality or whether racism or sexism had also played a role. Many feel that the struggle for gay rights has largely been accomplished and the tide of history has swung in favor of LGBT equality. Violence Against Queer People, on the contrary, argues that the lives of many LGBT people have improved very little, if at all, over the past thirty years.” From Publisher’s Website.

Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy, by Etienne Balibar. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 232p.

“In Violence and Civility, Étienne Balibar boldly confronts the insidious causes of violence, racism, nationalism, and ethnic cleansing worldwide, as well as mass poverty and dispossession. Through a novel synthesis of theory and empirical studies of contemporary violence, the acclaimed thinker pushes past the limits of political philosophy to reconceive war, revolution, sovereignty, and class.

Through the path-breaking thought of Derrida, Balibar builds a topography of cruelty converted into extremism by ideology, juxtaposing its subjective forms (identity delusions, the desire for extermination, and the pursuit of vengeance) and its objective manifestations (capitalist exploitation and an institutional disregard for life). Engaging with Marx, Hegel, Hobbes, Clausewitz, Schmitt, and Luxemburg, Balibar introduces a new, productive understanding of politics as antiviolence and a fresh approach to achieving and sustaining civility. Rooted in the principles of transformation and empowerment, this theory brings hope to a world increasingly divided even as it draws closer together.” From Publisher’s Website.

Voices of Crime: Constructing and Contesting Social Control in Modern Latin America, edited by Luz E. Huertas, Bonnie A. Lucero, Gregroy J. Swedberg; Ricardo Donato Salvatore. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. 264p.

“Crime exists in every society, revealing not only the way in which societies function but also exposing the standards that society holds about what is harmful and punishable. Criminalizing individuals and actions is not the exclusive domain of the state; it emerges from the collective consciousness—the judgments of individuals and groups who represent societal thinking and values. Studying how these individuals and groups construct, represent, perpetrate, and contest crime reveals how their message reinforces and also challenges historical and culturally specific notions of race, class, and gender.

Voices of Crime examines these official and unofficial perceptions of deviancy, justice, and social control in modern Latin America. As a collection of essays exploring histories of crime and justice, the book focuses on both cultural and social history and the interactions among state institutions, the press, and a variety of elite and non-elite social groups. Arguing that crime in Latin America is best understood as a product of ongoing negotiation between “top-down” and “bottom up” ideas (not just as the exercise of power from the state), the authors seek to document and illustrate the everyday experiences of crime in particular settings, emphasizing underresearched historical actors such as criminals, victims, and police officers.

The book examines how these social groups constructed, contested, navigated, and negotiated notions of crime, criminality, and justice. This reorientation—in contrast to much of the existing historical literature that focuses on elite and state actors—prompts the authors to critically examine the very definition of crime and its perpetrators, suggesting that “not only the actions of the poor and racial others but also the state can be termed as criminal.” From Publisher’s Website.

What Works in Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation: Lessons from Systematic Reviews, edited by David Weisburd, David P. Farrington, and Charlotte Gill. New York: Springer, 2016. 331p.

“Systematic reviews aim to minimize any possible bias in drawing conclusions by stating explicit criteria for inclusion and exclusion of studies, by conducting extensive and wide-ranging searches for possibly eligible studies, and by making all stages of the review explicit and transparent so that the methods can be checked and replicated. Over a decade ago, a concerted effort was made by members of the criminology community, including the Editors and contributors of this volume, to bring the practice of systematic reviews to the study of Criminology, providing replicable, evidence-based data to answer key questions about the study of crime causation, detection, and prevention. Now, the pioneers in this effort present a comprehensive stock-taking of what has been learned in the past decade of systematic reviews in criminology. Much has been discovered about the effectiveness of (for example) boot camps, “hot spots” policing, closed-circuit television surveillance, neighborhood watch, anti-bullying programs in schools, early parenting programs, drug treatment programs, and other key topics.

This ambitious volume aims to bring together and assess all major systematic reviews of the effectiveness of criminological interventions, to draw broad conclusions about what works in policing, corrections, developmental prevention, situational prevention, drug abuse treatments, sentencing and deterrence, and communities. It will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, as well as in related fields such as public health and forensic science, with important implications for policy-makers and practitioners.” From Publisher’s Website.

Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Cartel, by Dan Slater. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016. 352p.

“The story of two American teens recruited as killers for a Mexican cartel, and their pursuit by a Mexican-American detective who realizes the War on Drugs is unwinnable.

What’s it like to be an employee of a global drug-trafficking organization? And how does a fifteen-year-old American boy go from star quarterback to trained assassin, surging up the cartel corporate ladder?

At first glance, Gabriel Cardona is the poster boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn’t long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His younger friend Bart, as well as others from Gabriel’s childhood, join him in working for the Zetas, boosting cars and smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel’s leadership.

Meanwhile, Mexican-born Detective Robert Garcia has worked hard all his life and is now struggling to raise his family in America. As violence spills over the border, Detective Garcia’s pursuit of the boys, and their cartel leaders, puts him face to face with the urgent consequences of a war he sees as unwinnable.

In Wolf Boys Dan Slater shares their stories, taking us from the Sierra Madre mountaintops to the dusty, dark alleys of Laredo, Texas, on a harrowing, often brutal journey into the heart of the Mexican drug trade. Gabriel’s evolution from good-natured teenager into a feared assassin is as inevitable as Garcia’s slow realization of the futile nature of his work. A nonfiction thriller, Wolf Boys depicts more than just Gabriel, Bart, and the officers who took them down. It shows, through vivid detail and rich, often moving, narrative, the way in which the border itself is changing, disappearing, and posing new, terrifying, and yet largely unseen threats to American security. Ultimately though, Wolf Boys is the intimate story of the “lobos” themselves: boys turned into pawns for cartels. Their stories show how poverty, ideas about identity, and government ignorance have warped the definition of the American dream.” From Publisher’s Website.

Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse, edited by Ros Burnett. Oxford, UK: New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 368p.

“Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse fills a gap for an authoritative and considered text focused on false accusations of recent or historical abuse, both as a miscarriage of justice and as an ordeal which impairs lives even when it does not result in criminal charges. It brings together experts from different disciplinary backgrounds and relevant specialisms to explicate the context, causes, and processes that foster erroneous or fabricated allegations and to consider ways of reducing their incidence and the injustices that follow them.

While there has been a welcome increase in policies which address child abuse, rape and other sexual offences, these tend to neglect or disavow the diametrical problem of false allegations of such offences. It is inherent in the, typically, unwitnessed and physically uncorroborated nature of these ‘hidden’ crimes that they are difficult to prosecute; but also to disprove if no crime has been committed. It is right that all allegations of abuse are treated as believable and are rigorously investigated, but it is not in the interest of any progressive and robust system of justice to convict or malign innocent people. Approached from this more controversial perspective, the five parts of this volume chart the life-course of an untrue allegation. Beginning with the nature, extent and harm of false abuse allegations, the cultural and political context giving rise to false allegations, and then the causal and motivational factors for making them, are explored, before addressing the role and impact of the criminal justice system when handling such cases. The final part looks at the ways such concerns might be addressed whilst remaining mindful of victims of abuse and their suffering.

Tackling an under-researched and under-discussed area, Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse offers thoughtful and thought-provoking discourses around an understandably difficult and sensitive area. It will be essential reading for academics and students of criminology, sociology, criminal justice, criminal law, socio-legal studies, and psychology, as well as those working with victims of false allegations, and police and specialist practitioners dealing with sexual offences and child abuse.” From Publisher’s Website.

Start typing and press Enter to search