Books Received
May 2014

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.

Binding Men: Stories about Violence and Law in Late Victorian England, by Lois S. Bibbings. Abingdon, UK; New York: Routledge, 2013. 224p.

Binding Men tells stories about men, violence and law in late Victorian England. It does so by focusing upon five important legal cases, all of which were binding not only upon the males involved but also upon future courts and the men who appeared before them.
The subject matter of Prince (1875), Coney (1882), Dudley and Stephens (1884), Clarence (1888) and Jackson (1891) ranged from child abduction, prize-fighting, murder and cannibalism to transmitting gonorrhoea and the capture and imprisonment of a wife by her husband. Each case has its own chapter, depicting the events which led the protagonists into the courtroom, the legal outcome and the judicial pronouncements made to justify this, as well as exploring the broader setting in which the proceedings took place. In so doing, Binding Men describes how a particular case can be seen as being a part of attempts to legally limit male behaviour.

The book is essential reading for scholars and students of crime, criminal law, violence, and gender. It will be of interest to those working on the use of narrative in academic writing as well as legal methods. Binding Men’s subject matter and accessible style also make it a must for those with a general interest in crime, history and, in particular, male criminality.” From Publisher’s Website

Border Security, by James R. Phelps, Jeffrey Dailey, and Monica Koenigsberg. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014. 420p.
“Much has been written recently concerning the relationship between illegal immigration and border security (or the lack thereof). The concept of border security affects all of us, directly or indirectly. It seems that the closer we get physically to the border (any border), the more we are affected (by border security), and the more we consider it a real and valid concern.
Filled with relevant information, this holistic approach provides a timely foundation for anyone interested in the topic. Descriptive and analytical, the text is designed to offer undergraduates in Homeland Security and Criminal Justice a balanced and up-to-date overview of what border security is, as well as the constant revisions to it that have occurred over the past 109 years.
In this book, authors Phelps, Dailey and Koenigsberg describe and discuss:

  • Various definitions of “borders,” including geographical, political, and economic
  • What “border security” actually is, in relation to different types of borders and how the concept developed historically
  • The classical concepts of border security, including the Walled City, Hadrian’s Wall, the Maginot and Seigfried Lines, and the Great Walls of China
  • Border Patrol Operations, from 1904 to present day
  • Present-day physical border security, including the various Border Fences, Operation Gatekeeper, and the effects of illegal immigration
  • Maritime border security
  • The relationship between border security and transnational crime
  • Transportation security as impacted by borders
  • “Solutions” to security along both the southern and northern borders of the United States.”  From Publisher’s Website
Capital Punishment: A Hazard to a Sustainable Criminal Justice System? Ed. by Lill Scherdin.  Farnham, Surrey, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014.  319p.

“As most jurisdictions move away from the death penalty, some remain strongly committed to it, while others hold on to it but use it sparingly. This volume seeks to understand why, by examining the death penalty’s relationship to state governance in the past and present. It also examines how international, transnational and national forces intersect in order to understand the possibilities of future death penalty abolition.

The chapters cover the USA – the only western democracy that still uses the death penalty – and Asia – the site of some 90 per cent of all executions. Also included are discussions of the death penalty in Islam and its practice in selected Muslim majority countries. There is also a comparative chapter departing from the response to the mass killings in Norway in 2011. Leading experts in law, criminology and human rights combine theory and empirical research to further our understanding of the relationships between ways of governance, the role of leadership and the death penalty practices.

This book questions whether the death penalty in and of itself is a hazard to a sustainable development of criminal justice. It is an invaluable resource for all those researching and campaigning for the global abolition of capital punishment.” From Publisher’s Website

The Cartels: The Story of Mexico’s Most Dangerous Criminal Organizations and Their Impact on U.S. Security, by George W. Grayson. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014.  328p.
“Roughly 50,000 people died in Mexico’s drug wars between 2006 and 2011.

An up-to-date examination of Mexico’s version of the “War on Drugs” that exposes the evolution of major cartels and their corruption of politicians, law-enforcement agencies, and the Army.

What can President Enrique Peña Nieto do to curb the narcotics-induced mayhem in Mexico, and what would be the consequences to the United States if he fails? This book analyzes Mexico’s transition from a relatively peaceful kleptocracy controlled by the Tammany-Hall style Institutional Revolutionary Party/PRI (1929–2000) to a country plagued by rural and urban enclaves of grotesque violence. The author examines the major drug cartels and their success in infiltrating American and Mexican businesses; details the response from the Obama administration; assesses the threat that the continuing bloodshed represents for the United States; and emphasizes the constraints on America’s ability to solve Mexico’s crisis, despite U.S. contributions of intelligence, military equipment, training, and diplomatic support.” From Publisher’s Website

Cartels, Markets and Crime: A Normative Justification for the Criminalisation of Economic Collusion, by Bruce Wardhaugh. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 376p.

“This study of the normative justification for the use of criminal sanctions as a means of cartel control goes beyond the historical and economic viewpoints by adding a normative evaluation of anti-cartel regimes and analysing cartel control in the USA, Europe and the UK. The analysis is unique in seeking to establish why, in a liberal society, criminal sanctions should apply to individuals who participate in this sort of activity. Although cartels have been rhetorically likened to theft and fraud, there are significant differences. Notwithstanding these differences, Cartels, Markets and Crime presents an argument for the criminalisation of economic collusion and, with this argument in mind, analyses the regimes of the USA, EU and UK and considers the possibility of global convergence.” From Publisher’s Website

Choosing the Future for American Juvenile Justice, by Franklin E. Zimring & David S. Tanenhaus. New York: NYU Press, 2014. 256p.

“This is a hopeful but complicated era for those with ambitions to reform the juvenile courts and youth-serving public institutions in the United States. As advocates plea for major reforms, many fear the public backlash in making dramatic changes. Choosing the Future for American Juvenile Justice provides a look at the recent trends in juvenile justice as well as suggestions for reforms and policy changes in the future. Should youth be treated as adults when they break the law? How can youth be deterred from crime? What factors should be considered in how youth are punished? What role should the police have in schools?

This essential volume, edited by two of the leading scholars on juvenile justice, and with contributors who are among the key experts on each issue, the volume focuses on the most pressing issues of the day: the impact of neuroscience on our understanding of brain development and subsequent sentencing, the relationship of schools and the police, the issue of the school-to-prison pipeline, the impact of immigration, the privacy of juvenile records, and the need for national policies—including registration requirements–for juvenile sex offenders. Choosing the Future for American Juvenile Justice is not only a timely collection, based on the most current research, but also a forward-thinking volume that anticipates the needs for substantive and future changes in juvenile justice.” From Publisher’s Website

Citizens Enforcing the Law: The Legal and Social Space for Citizen’s Arrest, by Astrid Bosch. Antwerp, NETH: Maklu Publishers, 2013. 182p.

“In the Netherlands, the right of citizens to arrest the suspect of a crime is the subject of debate. At stake is whether citizens engaging in law enforcement should be punished for taking the law into their own hands. In the political sphere, it is argued that by enforcing the law, citizens are making a contribution to public safety in cases in which the State cannot guarantee adequate protection. In the legal sphere, however, it is argued that this could open the gates for eigenrichting (own way/vigilantism). In this context, author Astrid Bosch raises the following questions for discussion: Have the legal norms constraining citizens’ right to enforce the law become outdated? Is there, thus, a gap between the current legal and social opinions regarding citizen’s arrest? Would bridging this gap, by broadening the legal space for citizen’s arrest, endanger the rule of law?” From Publisher’s Website

Combating Corruption: Legal Approaches to Supporting Good Governance and Integrity in Africa, by John Hatchard. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014. 400p.

Drawing on numerous recent examples of good and bad practice from around the continent, this insightful volume explores the legal issues involved in developing and enhancing good governance and accountability within African states, as well as addressing the need for other states worldwide to demonstrate the ‘transnational political will’ to support these efforts.

John Hatchard considers the need for good governance, accountability and integrity in both the public and private sector. He studies how these issues are reflected in both the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The book demonstrates that despite the vast majority of African states being party to these conventions, in practice, many of them continue to experience problems of bad governance, corporate bribery and the looting of state assets. It explores how the ‘art of persuasion’ can help develop the necessary political will through which to address these challenges at both the national and transnational levels.” From Publisher’s Website

Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground, by Michael Kwass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. 472p.

“Louis Mandrin led a gang of bandits who brazenly smuggled contraband into eighteenth-century France. Michael Kwass brings new life to the legend of this Gallic Robin Hood and the thriving underworld he helped to create. Decades before the storming of the Bastille, surging world trade excited a revolution in consumption that transformed the French kingdom. Contraband exposes the dark side of this early phase of globalization, revealing hidden connections between illicit commerce, criminality, and popular revolt.

France’s economic system was tailor-made for an enterprising outlaw like Mandrin. As French subjects began to crave colonial products, Louis XIV lined the royal coffers by imposing a state monopoly on tobacco from America and an embargo on brilliantly colored calico cloth from India. Vigorous black markets arose through which traffickers fed these exotic goods to eager French consumers. Flouting the law with unparalleled panache, Mandrin captured widespread public attention to become a symbol of a defiant underground.

This furtive economy generated violent clashes between gangs of smugglers and customs agents in the borderlands. Eventually, Mandrin was captured by French troops and put to death in a brutal public execution intended to demonstrate the king’s absolute authority. But the spectacle only cemented Mandrin’s status as a rebel folk hero in an age of mounting discontent. Amid cycles of underground rebellion and agonizing penal repression, the memory of Mandrin inspired ordinary subjects and Enlightenment philosophers alike to challenge royal power and forge a movement for radical political change.” From Publisher’s Website

The Criminalization of Immigration: Contexts and Consequences, ed. by Alissa R. Ackerman and Rich Furman. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014. 302p.
“Immigration has become an increasingly popular topic often leading to passionate and powerful debate. The visceral emotions that stem from such debates transcends fact and paves the way for value conflicts over what it means to be an American. For most of our history, one of our most important narratives has been that we are a country that was built by and for immigrants. Indeed, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads, in part, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” For many generations we welcomed new generations of immigrants who added new levels of richness and possibility to our nation. This certainly influenced U.S. policy on the handling of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Yet, at the same time, a coexisting argument threatened this discourse. In this story, America is a country for Americans, and is threatened by “others”. While this part of the story is certainly not new, it has resurfaced in the wake of September 11th and, even more recently, has become a political tool utilized to serve the interests of those in power.
The Criminalization of Immigration: Contexts and Consequences explores these competing narratives and the consequences of criminalizing immigration in the United States and abroad. It examines the impact of national, state, and local legislation on the psychosocial well being of immigrants. The book explores key ways in which immigration is criminalized, and examines how the problematization of immigration becomes a political tool. The first chapters of the book explore the criminalization of immigration through the lens of pacification and the theater of cruelty. In both chapters, the authors seek to understand the process of “othering” members of the immigrant population to exact social control and to mollify the public. These front chapters set the tone for remainder of the book. They provide the impetus for why states have enacted, or have attempted to enact state level immigration laws that make it nearly impossible for the undocumented to live within the boundaries of these states. In section two, three U.S. states are highlighted: Arizona, Alabama, and Indiana. While the chapters on Arizona and Alabama summarize key aspects of state laws, author Sujey Vega highlights the life of one undocumented immigrant as she navigates life in the Heartland.

The book then turns its focus to the criminalization of immigration in a socio-political context. Here, four chapters provide explorations of the criminalization of immigration on labor standards enforcement, immigrant detention, the right wing perspective in the United States and in Europe, and white supremacy. Labor standards impact the rate by which undocumented immigrants are paid, which in turn impacts their health and safety within and outside the workplace, protections from workplace discrimination, and collective activity protections. The criminalization of immigration erodes many of the workplace and labor protections that we have come to view as essential. Similarly, the privatization of corrections has influenced the incarceration and detention of many undocumented immigrants and has even influenced the very laws described in section two of this book. If not for the possibility of profiting off of the detention of the undocumented, many of immigration related laws would not have come to fruition.

The next section of the book provides a transnational and international context to the criminalization of immigration. With chapters focusing on human rights violations, the transnational dimensions of Mexican migration, the making of the Maras, and the criminalization of immigration in the United Kingdom, these chapters ask the reader to examine the criminalization of immigration from a broader perspective. The reader learns how national issues become international and, likewise how international immigration issues influence national policy.

The final chapters of the book put the human face on the criminalization of immigration. Each chapter represents a case study of a specific aspect of the criminalization of immigration. They approach the issue from the viewpoint of a day laborer, an undocumented woman who has become a victim of domestic violence, a child whose parents are undocumented, and a detention officer who wrestles with his decisions to continue his job. Regardless of which chapters one reads, the raw emotion felt by placing oneself in each context is overwhelming.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Death Penalty in Africa: Foundations and Future Prospects, by Andrew Novak. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 122p.

“Over the past decade the death penalty has sharply declined across the African continent, and the number of executions outside of North Africa has fallen to a trickle. While this would seem to fit within the general global decline in executions and the increasing number of abolitionist jurisdictions worldwide, it is a process that bears little relation to public opinion in Africa or to the strong retributivist sentiments held by the continent’s political elites. This study places modern capital punishment in Africa within the context of religious and culturally specific notions of life, death, and burial as well as the Western imposition of criminal and penal policy during the colonial era. The tensions of the death penalty in present-day sub-Saharan Africa, increasingly limited to English-speaking and common-law Africa (as well as majority-Islamic regions), reflect these historical origins.” From Publisher’s Website

Federal Law Enforcement: A Primer, by Jeff Bumgarner, Charles Crawford, and Ronald Burns. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014. 280p.

“Federal Law Enforcement: A Primer, serves to fill a gap in criminal justice literature by examining federal law enforcement from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Part I of the book considers the history of federal law enforcement in the United States as well as its current status within the broader American law enforcement community. Debate over the reach and scope of federal law enforcement is also addressed.
Part II through Part V of the book examines the history, organization, personnel, and function of over 20 specific federal law enforcement agencies. Finally, Part VI of the book addresses careers within, and the future of, federal law enforcement in the United States.” From Publisher’s Website

Flawed Convictions: “Shaken Baby Syndrome” and the Inertia of Injustice, by Deborah Tuerkheimer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 320p.

“The emergence of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) presents an object lesson in the dangers that lie at the intersection of science and criminal law. As often occurs in the context of scientific knowledge, understandings of SBS have evolved. We now know that the diagnostic triad alone does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an infant was abused, or that the last person with the baby was responsible for the baby’s condition. Nevertheless, our legal system has failed to absorb this new consensus. As a result, innocent parents and caregivers remain incarcerated and, perhaps more perplexingly, triad-only prosecutions continue even to this day.

Flawed Convictions: “Shaken Baby Syndrome” and the Inertia of Injustice is the first book to survey the scientific, cultural, and legal history of Shaken Baby Syndrome from inception to formal dissolution. It exposes extraordinary failings in the criminal justice system’s treatment of what is, in essence, a medical diagnosis of murder. The story of SBS highlights fundamental inadequacies in the legal response to “science dependent prosecution.” A proposed restructuring of the law contends with the uncertainty of scientific knowledge.” From Publisher’s Website

Gender and Violence in Haiti: Women’s Path from Victims to Agents, by Benedetta Faedi Duramy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014. 188p.

“Women in Haiti are frequent victims of sexual violence and armed assault. Yet an astonishing proportion of these victims also act as perpetrators of violent crime, often as part of armed groups. Award-winning legal scholar Benedetta Faedi Duramy visited Haiti to discover what causes these women to act in such destructive ways and what might be done to stop this tragic cycle of violence.

Gender and Violence in Haiti is the product of more than a year of extensive firsthand observations and interviews with the women who have been caught up in the widespread violence plaguing Haiti. Drawing from the experiences of a diverse group of Haitian women, Faedi Duramy finds that both the victims and perpetrators of violence share a common sense of anger and desperation. Untangling the many factors that cause these women to commit violence, from self-defense to revenge, she identifies concrete measures that can lead them to feel vindicated and protected by their communities.

Faedi Duramy vividly conveys the horrifying conditions pervading Haiti, even before the 2010 earthquake. But Gender and Violence in Haiti also carries a message of hope—and shows what local authorities and international relief agencies can do to help the women of Haiti.” From Publisher’s Website

Get a Job: Labor Markets, Economic Opportunity, and Crime, by Robert D. Crutchfield. New York, NYU Press, 2014. 304p.

“Are the unemployed more likely to commit crimes? Does having a job make one less likely to commit a crime? Criminologists have found that individuals who are marginalized from the labor market are more likely to commit crimes, and communities with more members who are marginal to the labor market have higher rates of crime. Yet, as Robert Crutchfield explains, contrary to popular expectations, unemployment has been found to be an inconsistent predictor of either individual criminality or collective crime rates. In Get a Job, Crutchfield offers a carefully nuanced understanding of the links among work, unemployment, and crime.

Crutchfield explains how people’s positioning in the labor market affects their participation in all kinds of crimes, from violent acts to profit-motivated offenses such as theft and drug trafficking. Crutchfield also draws on his first-hand knowledge of growing up in a poor, black neighborhood in Pittsburgh and later working on the streets as a parole officer, enabling him to develop a more complete understanding of how work and crime are related and both contribute to, and are a result of, social inequalities and disadvantage. Well-researched and informative, Get a Job tells a powerful story of one of the most troubling side effects of economic disparities in America.” From Publisher’s Website

Histories of Victimhood, ed. by Steffen Jensen and Henrik Ronsbo.  Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. 274p.

“The word and concept of victim bear a heavy weight. To represent oneself or to be represented as a victim is often a first and vital step toward having one’s suffering and one’s claims to rights socially and legally recognized. Yet to name oneself or be called a victim is a risky claim, and social scientists must struggle to avoid erasing either survivors’ experience of suffering or their agency and resourcefulness. Histories of Victimhood engages with this dilemma, asking how one may recognize and acknowledge suffering without essentializing affected communities and individuals.
This volume tackles the theoretical and empirical questions surrounding the ways victims and victimhood are constructed, represented, and managed by state and nonstate actors. Geographically broad, the twelve essays in this volume trace histories of victimhood in Colombia, India, South Africa, Guatemala, Angola, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Occupied Palestine, Denmark, and Britain. They examine the implications of victimhood in a wide range of contexts, including violent occupations, displacement, war, reparation projects, refugee assistance, HIV treatment, trauma intervention, social welfare projects, and state formation. In exploring varying forms of hardship and identifying what people do to survive, how they make sense of their own suffering, and how they are frequently either acted upon or ignored by humanitarian agencies and states, Histories of Victimhood encourages us to see victimhood not as a definite and definable category of experience but as a changeable and culturally contingent state.´From Publisher’s Website

The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling, by Judith Kafka.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Justice through Apologies: Remorse, Reform, and Punishment, by Nick Smith. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 336p.

“In this follow up to I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies, Nick Smith expands his ambitious theories of categorical apologies to civil and criminal law. After rejecting court-ordered apologies as unjustifiable humiliation, this book explains that penitentiaries were originally designed to bring about penance – something like apology – and that this tradition has been lost in the assembly line of mass incarceration. Smith argues that the state should modernize these principles and techniques to reduce punishments for offenders who demonstrate moral transformation through apologizing. Smith also explains the counterintuitive situation whereby apologies come to have considerable financial worth in civil cases because victims associate them with priceless matters of the soul. Such confusions allow powerful wrongdoers to manipulate perceptions to disastrous effect, such as when corporations or governments assert that apologies do not equate to accepting blame or require reform or redress.” From Publisher’s Website

Leaving Prostitution: Getting Out and Staying Out of Sex Work, by Sharon S. Oselin. New York: NYU Press, 2014. 218p.

“While street prostitutes comprise only a small minority of sex workers, they have the highest rates of physical and sexual abuse, arrest and incarceration, drug addiction, and stigmatization, which stem from both their public visibility and their dangerous work settings. Exiting the trade can be a daunting task for street prostitutes; despite this, many do try at some point to leave sex work behind. Focusing on four different organizations based in Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Hartford that help prostitutes get off the streets, Sharon S. Oselin’s Leaving Prostitution explores the difficulties, rewards, and public responses to female street prostitutes’ transition out of sex work.Through in-depth interviews and field research with street-level sex workers, Oselin illuminates their pathways into the trade and their experiences while in it, and the host of organizational, social, and individual factors that influence whether they are able to stop working as prostitutes altogether. She also speaks to staff at organizations that aid street prostitutes, and assesses the techniques they use to help these women develop self-esteem, healthy relationships with family and community, and workplace skills. Oselin paints a full picture of the difficulties these women face in moving away from sex work and the approaches that do and do not work to help them transform their lives. Further, she offers recommendations to help improve the quality of life for these women. A powerful ethnographic account, Leaving Prostitution provides an essential understanding of getting out and staying out of sex work.” From Publisher’s Website

EU Security and Justice Law: After Lisbon and Stockholm, ed. by Diego Acosta Arcarazo and Cian C. Murphy. Oxford, UK; Portland OR: Hart Publishing, 2014. 211p.
Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States, by Denise Brennan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. 304p.

Life Interrupted introduces us to survivors of human trafficking who are struggling to get by and make homes for themselves in the United States. Having spent nearly a decade following the lives of formerly trafficked men and women, Denise Brennan recounts in close detail their flight from their abusers and their courageous efforts to rebuild their lives. At once scholarly and accessible, her book links these firsthand accounts to global economic inequities and under-regulated and unprotected workplaces that routinely exploit migrant laborers in the United States. Brennan contends that today’s punitive immigration policies undermine efforts to fight trafficking. While many believe trafficking happens only in the sex trade, Brennan shows that across low-wage labor sectors—in fields, in factories, and on construction sites—widespread exploitation can lead to and conceal forced labor. Life Interrupted is a riveting account of life in and after trafficking and a forceful call for meaningful immigration and labor reform.” From Publisher’s Website

Maritime Transport Security: Issues, Challenges and National Policies, by K. Bichou, J. S. Szyliowicz & L. Zamparini. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014. 320p.

Maritime Transport Security offers a multidisciplinary framework and a comparative analysis of maritime transport security policies and practices in several key countries.

Policy makers and industry stakeholders have established a set of international measures, procedures and benchmarks for maritime security. Yet the way these are designed and implemented often diverge due to technical, market and policy issues. This unique book includes both an interdisciplinary survey of the main concerns related to maritime security and an examination of a number of relevant country case studies.

Providing a comprehensive study of the critical themes, issues and frameworks surrounding maritime transport security, this book will be of great interest to practitioners and academics in the field. It will also be of great value to institutions that provide courses or programs in maritime management and related issues.” From Publisher’s Website

The Medical Marijuana Maze: Policy and Politics, by Nancy E. Marion. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014. 270p.

“The use of marijuana as medicine is a controversial topic in the US and around the world. While the US federal government continues to criminalize marijuana use, possession and distribution, many states have made it legal as a treatment for numerous medical conditions. As a result, the debate over whether it has recognized medicinal uses rages on. In The Medical Marijuana Maze, the intricacies of the laws regarding medical marijuana are explored. After a brief history of the drug is presented, the current state laws regarding medical cannabis are analyzed. The roles of various political actors regarding medical cannabis are described, including executives (presidents, governors and mayors), followed by a description of the most recent court decisions in which the legality of medical cannabis is further defined. The part that other key political actors, bureaucracies and interest groups, have played in this debate are illustrated as well. Of course, the public’s opinions about the issue are behind much of the policies, so they are also described. The business opportunities that have emerged alongside the state legalization of medical cannabis are explained at the end of the book. In the end, The Medical Marijuana Maze is a comprehensive description and analysis of the status of medical marijuana in the US today.” From Publisher’s Website

The Mental Element in International Criminal Law, ed. by K. Janjac and D. Andoni. The Hague: International Courts Association, 2014. 372p.
National Security and Civil Liberty: A Chronological Perspective, by Michael Geary. 2nd ed. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014. 312p.

“National Security and Civil Liberty takes the reader on a unique journey through American history from the colonial era to the present day. Suitable for a history, criminal justice, or law class, no other book on the market examines two centuries of American history from the perspective of balancing national security and individual civil liberty interests. Where other books may focus on a particular liberty issue or security issue — such as government spying on political groups or distrust of aliens — this book reviews history by examining events occurring during significant decades in America’s history (e.g.: The Colonial Era, Civil War Era, the Cold War Era). This approach enables the reader to better appreciate how two centuries of war, acts of terror, distrust of aliens, innovations in technology, and presidential intrigue have shaped the federal government’s present response to perceived threats to our national security. Sadly, government action (spying, censorship, mass internment) in the face of a perceived crisis (the threat of communism, violent groups, terrorists) has usually led to the temporary lessening of traditional civil liberties, followed by cooling-off periods of decreased federal action where civil liberties are restored. However, our history has shown that once initiated, government encroachment upon individual liberty and freedom is never completely halted. The net effect of decades of steady, incremental advances in technology and military capabilities, coupled with the acceptance of ever-lessening liberties since the 9/11 attacks, means that we may now be living in a “police state” in America. After reading the book, students will have a solid foundation of historical information upon which to draw as they examine the issue of the trading of cherished liberties in the hope it will lead to increased security.” From Publisher’s Website

Offender Reintegration and Rehabilitation as a Component of International Criminal Justice? By Gert Vermeulen & Eveline De Wree. Antwerp, NETH: Maklu Publishers, 2014. 134p.

“Historically, little attention was paid to the execution of sentences passed at the level of international courts and tribunals. Capital punishment was still used and custodial sanctions were imposed in the relevant states. It was not until the 1990s, with the creation of the ad hoc tribunals, that the execution of sentences also became a task for international tribunals, in cooperation with, and by means of transferring the sentenced person to, a state which had committed itself to executing the sentence. The basic principles of these vertical transfer procedures are characterized by a system logic, with a limited role for the sentenced person, as is also the case at the level of the ICC. Nonetheless, minimal human rights and international standards for the execution of sentences (as agreed upon at the level of the UN) are respected.

This book investigates if, and to what extent, the interests of the sentenced person could be better pursued and enhanced during vertical procedures for the execution of sentences. It therefore takes a clear-cut rehabilitation and social integration perspective. Given the dominant representation of EU Member States among States willing to execute sentences passed by international tribunals and courts, the book wonders whether practice should not evolve towards reflecting the obligatory compliance of these States with, besides the UN standards, additional (sometimes wider, more precise and higher) Council of Europe and EU standards. This would be reflected in the policies of the tribunals and courts (especially the ICC) relating to the conclusion of sentence execution agreements with states, as well as in the actual case-based decisions in which particular sentence execution states are chosen. The book further pleads for the conclusion of a bilateral EU-ICC agreement on the execution of sentences, since this would constitute an important contribution to international justice, and one that is likely to make the reintegration and rehabilitation of offenders (a greater) part of it.” From Publisher’s Website

Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala, by Kirsten Weld. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. 352p.

“In Paper Cadavers, an inside account of the astonishing discovery and rescue of Guatemala’s secret police archives, Kirsten Weld probes the politics of memory, the wages of the Cold War, and the stakes of historical knowledge production. After Guatemala’s bloody thirty-six years of civil war (1960–1996), silence and impunity reigned. That is, until 2005, when human rights investigators stumbled on the archives of the country’s National Police, which, at 75 million pages, proved to be the largest trove of secret state records ever found in Latin America.

The unearthing of the archives renewed fierce debates about history, memory, and justice. In Paper Cadavers, Weld explores Guatemala’s struggles to manage this avalanche of evidence of past war crimes, providing a firsthand look at how postwar justice activists worked to reconfigure terror archives into implements of social change. Tracing the history of the police files as they were transformed from weapons of counterinsurgency into tools for post-conflict reckoning, Weld sheds light on the country’s fraught transition from war to an uneasy peace, reflecting on how societies forget and remember political violence.” From Publisher’s Website

Politics of Crime in Mexico Democratic Governance in a Security Trap, by John Bailey. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press, 2014. 235p.

“What kind of democracy will emerge in Mexico when the current levels of violence are brought under control? Will democratic reformers gain strength in the new equilibrium between government and criminal organizations? Or will corruption tilt the balance toward criminal interests? In the context of these questions, John Bailey explores the “security trap” in which Mexico is currently caught—where the dynamics of crime, violence, and corruption conspire to override efforts to put the country on a path toward democratic governance.” From Publisher’s Website

The Politics of Sorrow: Families, Victims, and the Micro-Organization of Youth Homicide, by Daniel D. Martin. Farnham, Surrey, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. 198p.

Drawing on several years of research with grief support organizations and the families and friends of murdered children, this book examines the emotional experience of families in the aftermath of a homicide. It examines the politics of sorrow, offering a comparative analysis of White and African-American families as they navigate the experience of homicide, shedding light on the ways in which the class location or ethnicity of mourners affects their experience. Analyzing the manner in which police and other authorities differentially extend emotional support to bereaved families, notify them of a homicide, or assign blame, The Politics of Sorrow reveals how ‘disenfranchised grief’ comes to be an institutionalized outcome of their practice. The book further examines the effects of ‘announcement shock’ and the importance to the family of the moral career of the deceased, as they seek to manage his or her identity, often dealing with their grief through an active pursuit of justice in court, or through political involvement with a grief support organization, which mobilizes families in pursuit of its political ends.

A rigorous study of stigma, identity, and stratified experiences of grief, The Politics of Sorrow will appeal to sociologists interested in interactionist methods, race, class, and emotion.” From Publisher’s Website

Proportionality in International Law, by Michael A. Newton & Larry May. Oxford, UK: New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 352p.

“Proportionality is intimately linked to the overarching concepts of self-defense, lawful force, and the controlled application of violence. It is one of the most visible facets of humanitarian law designed to reduce unnecessary human suffering and avoid excessive damage to property, and the natural environment. However, its application has come under renewed scrutiny and sustained controversy as a result of wars against non-state actors and from the extensive use of drones, human shields, cyber war techniques, and counterinsurgency tactics.

Proportionality in International Law critically assesses the law of proportionality in normative terms combining abstract philosophical and legal analysis with highly emotive contemporary combat cases. The principle of proportionality permits actions that are logically linked to the intended goal, and thus defines the permissible boundaries for the initiation and conduct of modern wars. The case studies discussed in this book are predominantly from the perspective of those who make decisions in the midst of armed conflict, bringing analytic rigor to the debates as well as sensitivity to facts on the ground. The authors analyze modern usages of proportionality across a wide range of contexts enabling a more complete comprehension of the values that it preserves. This book contrasts the applications of proportionality in both jus ad bellum (the law and morality of resort to force) and within jus in bello (the doctrines applicable for using force in the midst of conflicts). Proportionality in International Law provides the reader with a unique interdisciplinary approach, offering practitioners and policymakers alike greater clarity over how proportionality should be understood in theory and in practice.” From Publisher’s Website

Pulled Over: How Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship, by Charles R. Epp, Steven Maynard-Moody, and Donald Haider-Markel.   Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.  253p.

“In sheer numbers, no form of government control comes close to the police stop. Each year, twelve percent of drivers in the United States are stopped by the police, and the figure is almost double among racial minorities. Police stops are among the most recognizable and frequently criticized incidences of racial profiling, but, while numerous studies have shown that minorities are pulled over at higher rates, none have examined how police stops have come to be both encouraged and institutionalized.

Pulled Over deftly traces the strange history of the investigatory police stop, from its discredited beginning as “aggressive patrolling” to its current status as accepted institutional practice. Drawing on the richest study of police stops to date, the authors show that who is stopped and how they are treated convey powerful messages about citizenship and racial disparity in the United States. For African Americans, for instance, the experience of investigatory stops erodes the perceived legitimacy of police stops and of the police generally, leading to decreased trust in the police and less willingness to solicit police assistance or to self-censor in terms of clothing or where they drive. This holds true even when police are courteous and respectful throughout the encounters and follow seemingly colorblind institutional protocols. With a growing push in recent years to use local police in immigration efforts, Hispanics stand poised to share African Americans’ long experience of investigative stops.
In a country that celebrates democracy and racial equality, investigatory stops have a profound and deleterious effect on African American and other minority communities that merits serious reconsideration. Pulled Over offers practical recommendations on how reforms can protect the rights of citizens and still effectively combat crime.” From Publisher’s Website

Jack the Ripper: The Forgotten Victims, by Paul Begg & John Bennett. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. 312p.

“The number of women murdered and mutilated by Jack the Ripper is impossible to know, although most researchers now agree on five individuals. These five canonical cases have been examined at length in Ripper literature, but other contemporary murders and attacks bearing strong resemblance to the gruesome Ripper slayings have received scant attention. These unsolved cases are the focus of this intriguing book.

The volume devotes separate chapters to a dozen female victims who were attacked during the years of Jack the Ripper’s murder spree. Their terrible stories—a few survived to bear witness, but most died of their wounds—illuminate key aspects of the Ripper case and the period: the gangs of London’s Whitechapel district, Victorian prostitutes, the public panic inspired by the crimes and fueled by journalists, medical practices of the day, police procedures and competency, and the probable existence of other serial killers. The book also considers crimes initially attributed to Jack the Ripper in other parts of Britain and the world, notably New York, Jamaica, and Nicaragua. In a final chapter, the drive to find the identity of the Ripper is examined, looking at contemporary and later suspects as well as several important theories, revealing the lengths to which some have gone to claim success in identifying Jack the Ripper.” From Publisher’s Website

Sex Crime, Offenders and Society, by Christina Mancini.  Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014. 316p.

“Sex crime management has become a “growth industry” recently, with several laws being enacted nationally to respond to sex offending. Perhaps reflecting this increased interest in preventing sexual violence, a growing body of literature has been devoted toward understanding the nature and extent of sex crime, its causes, and public and policy responses to sex offending. Yet, relatively few scholarly texts which summarize and review this large knowledge base currently exist. This gap is particularly striking given that contemporary discussions about sex offenders frequently rely on myths about sex crime. In turn, scholars claim that current policy responses resting on these misperceptions are not likely to be effective in preventing sex offending. This text seeks to fill this void by examining three critical dimensions of sex crime scholarship, which are covered in twelve chapters.

The first dimension, “The Nature and Extent of Sex Offending and Prominent Theoretical Explanations,” which encompasses four chapters, reviews what is known about sexual offending and sex crime. The text then moves into the second substantive domain, “Societal Responses to Sexual Offending,” which includes three chapters. This focus is particularly relevant toward a broader understanding of sexual offenders and sex crime policy given that public opinion, and more generally, societal impressions, have played a significant role in the creation of sex crime laws. The final focus of the text, “Sex Crime Policy and Reform,” which includes the remaining chapters, analyzes prominent laws and policies developed in recent decades to punish and control sex offenders.” From Publisher’s Website

Situational Prevention of Poaching, ed. by A.M. Lemieux. London; New York: Routledge, 2014. 232p.

“For centuries, criminologists have looked for scientific ways to study, understand, and ultimately prevent crime. In this volume, a unique offense, poaching, is explored in various contexts to determine what opportunity structures favor this crime and how situational crime prevention may reduce its prevalence. The data sources used range from publically available secondary data about animal populations, to interviews with hunters, to actual law enforcement data collected inside protected areas. Various methods are utilized to look for patterns in poaching behaviour regarding where poachers strike, which species they target and their modus operandi.

Collectively, the volume shows that principles of criminal opportunity theory and situational crime prevention are useful for studying and preventing poaching in a variety of contexts. The methods employed by each chapter are easily replicated and meant to stimulate empirical poaching research where data is available. While the theoretical grounding of this volume is drawn from criminology, it is written for a broad audience of academics, practitioners and those interested in wildlife conservation.” From Publisher’s Website

The Streets of San Francisco: Policing and the Creation of a Cosmopolitan Liberal Politics, 1950-1972, by Christopher Lowen Agee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. 256p.

“For decades, the city of San Francisco has been nearly synonymous with the word “liberal,” known for its diversity and acceptance, environmental activism, and thriving art scene.  But this has not always been the case.  Liberalism in San Francisco in the years right after World War II was mostly confined to notions of state welfare and business regulation. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s, when new peoples and cultures poured into the city, that San Francisco produced a new liberal politics.

Christopher Lowen Agee details this fascinating transition in The Streets of San Francisco, focusing in particular on the crucial role the police played during this cultural and political shift.  He partly attributes the creation and survival of cosmopolitan liberalism to the police’s new authority to use their discretion when interacting with African American gang leaders, gay and lesbian bar owners, Haight-Ashbury hippies, artists who created sexually explicit works, Chinese American entrepreneurs, and a host of other postwar San Franciscans. In thus emboldening rank-and-file police officers, Agee shows, the city created partners in democratic governance. The success of this model in San Francisco resulted in the rise of cosmopolitan liberal coalitions throughout the country. Today, liberal cities across America ground themselves in similar understandings of democracy through an emphasis on both broad diversity and strong policing.” From Publisher’s Website

Towards a Victimology of State Crime, by Dawn Rothe & David Kauzlarich. Abingdon, UK; New York: Routledge, 2014. 280p.

“Millions of people have been victimized by the actions and omissions of states and governments. This collection provides expert analyses of such victimizations across the world, from Europe, the United States, and Africa to New Zealand and South America. Leading scholars in the area of state crime describe the nature, extent, and distribution of state crime

victimization, as well as theoretical and practical paths for understanding, explaining, and aiding victims of massive harms by governments.

Cases of state crime and state victimization are presented on Brazilian, Native American, and New Zealand children, Somalian Pirates, Columbian, South African, and Bosnian civilians, United States immigrants, and war crime victimization in World War II. Other chapters delve into formal and informal ways to address victimization through the European Court of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, and provide analyses of justice processes around the world.

This anthology bridges the latest thinking, theory and research in the fields of state crime and victimology and provides a general resource concerning basic issues related to victimization – particularly victims of state crime. As such, it fills a major gap in the literature by providing the first text and scholarly book focused solely on a victimology of state crime. This book is essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates, socio-legal jurists and academics with an interest in state crime and victimology.” From Publisher’s Website

Walking Prey: How America’s Youth are Vulnerable to Sex Slavery, by Holly Austin Smith. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 248p.

“Today, two cultural forces are converging to make America’s youth easy targets for sex traffickers. Younger and younger girls are engaging in adult sexual attitudes and practices, and the pressure to conform means thousands have little self-worth and are vulnerable to exploitation. At the same time, thanks to social media, texting, and chatting services, predators are able to ferret out their victims more easily than ever before. In Walking Prey, advocate and former victim Holly Austin Smith shows how middle class suburban communities are fast becoming the new epicenter of sex trafficking in America. Smith speaks from experience: Without consistent positive guidance or engagement, Holly was ripe for exploitation at age fourteen. A chance encounter with an older man led her to run away from home, and she soon found herself on the streets of Atlantic City. Her experience led her, two decades later, to become one of the foremost advocates for trafficking victims. Smith argues that these young women should be treated as victims by law enforcement, but that too often the criminal justice system lacks the resources and training to prevent the vicious cycle of prostitution. This is a clarion call to take a sharp look at one of the most striking human rights abuses, and one that is going on in our own backyard.” From Publisher’s Website

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