Books Received
May 2018

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.

American Detective: Behind the Scenes of Famous Criminal Investigations, by Thomas A. Repetto. Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2018. 312p.

“From the Roaring Twenties to the 1970s detectives reigned supreme in police departments across the country. In this tightly woven slice of true crime reportage, Thomas A. Reppetto offers a behind-the-scenes look into some of the most notable investigations to occur during the golden age of the detective in American criminal justice.

From William Burns, who during his heyday was known as America’s Sherlock Holmes, to Thad Brown, who probed the notorious Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles, to Elliott Ness, who cleaned up the Cleveland police but failed to capture the “Mad Butcher” who decapitated at least a dozen victims, American Detective offers an indelible portrait of the famous sleuths and investigators who played a major role in cracking some of the most notorious criminal cases in U.S. history. Along the way Reppetto takes us deep inside the detective bureaus that were once the nerve centers behind crime-fighting on the streets of America’s great cities, including the FBI itself, under the direction of America’s “top cop,” J. Edgar Hoover.

According to Reppetto, detectives were once able watchdogs until their role in policing became diluted by patrol strategies ranging from “stop and frisk” to community policing. Reppetto argues against these current policing systems and calls for a return to the primacy of the detective in criminal investigations.” From Publisher’s Website.

America’s Jails: The Search for Human Dignity in an Age of Mass Incarceration, by Derek S. Jeffreys. New York: New York University Press, 2018. 256p.

“Twelve million Americans go through the U.S. jail system on an annual basis. Jails, which differ significantly from prisons, are designed to house inmates for short amounts of time, and are often occupied by large populations of legally innocent people waiting for a trial. Jails often have deplorable sanitary conditions, and there are countless records of inmates being brutalized by staff and other inmates while in custody. Local municipalities use jails to institutionalize those whom they perceive to be a threat, so hundreds of thousands of inmates suffer from mental illness. People abandoned by families or lacking health insurance, or those who cannot afford bail, often cycle in and out of jails.

In America’s Jails, Derek Jeffreys draws on sociology, philosophy, history, and his personal experience volunteering in jails and prisons to provide an understanding of the jail experience from the inmates’ perspective, focusing on the stigma that surrounds incarceration. Using his research at Cook County Jail, the nation’s largest single-site jail, Jeffreys attests that jail inmates possess an inherent dignity that should govern how we treat them. Ultimately, fundamental changes in the U.S. jail system are necessary and America’s Jails provides specific policy recommendations for changing its poor conditions.

Highlighting the experiences of inmates themselves, America’s Jails aims to shift public perception and understanding of jail inmates to center their inherent dignity and help eliminate the stigma attached to their incarceration.” From Publisher’s Website.

August Vollmer: The Father of American Policing, by Willard M. Oliver. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2017. 804p.

“August Vollmer was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected town marshal and appointed police chief in American history. It was Vollmer who brought policing out of its wholly corrupt and often brutal era of politics, by professionalizing not only his own police department in Berkeley, California, but police departments across the country and around the world. He was instrumental in the creation of the polygraph machine (lie detector), patrol car radio communication systems, and, as the Los Angeles Police Chief, the first crime lab in America. His greatest legacy, however, was the higher education program he created at UC Berkeley, which developed into the disciplines of criminal justice and criminology that are so widespread today.

This riveting biography by Willard M. Oliver, ten years in the making, is the first single-volume, full-length biography of marshal, police chief, and Professor August Vollmer. It is a profound work of both biography and history, and brings to life the man who forever changed American policing and police education, reaffirming Vollmer’s rightful title as “The Father of American Policing.” Meticulously researched, the book draws upon newly discovered material, interviews, and writings of Vollmer’s never before used, allowing Oliver to craft a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of Vollmer’s life story. This magisterial portrait of one of policing’s greatest leaders promises to reshape our understanding of both the man and his era and to rightfully restore August Vollmer as a household name.” From Publisher’s Website.

Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. 352p.

“The United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other industrialized nation in the world—about 1 in 100 adults, or more than 2 million people—while national spending on prisons has catapulted 400 percent. Given the vast racial disparities in incarceration, the prison system also reinforces race and class divisions. How and why did we become the world’s leading jailer? And what can we, as a society, do about it?

Reframing the story of mass incarceration, Heather Schoenfeld illustrates how the unfinished task of full equality for African Americans led to a series of policy choices that expanded the government’s power to punish, even as they were designed to protect individuals from arbitrary state violence. Examining civil rights protests, prison condition lawsuits, sentencing reforms, the War on Drugs, and the rise of conservative Tea Party politics, Schoenfeld explains why politicians veered from skepticism of prisons to an embrace of incarceration as the appropriate response to crime. To reduce the number of people behind bars, Schoenfeld argues that we must transform the political incentives for imprisonment and develop a new ideological basis for punishment.” From Publisher’s Website.

Challenging the Politics of Early Intervention: Who’s ‘Saving’ Children and Why, by Val Gillies, Rosalind Edwards, and Nicola Horsley. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2017. 208p.

“A vital interrogation of the internationally accepted policy and practice consensus that intervention to shape parenting in the early years is the way to prevent disadvantage. Given the divisive assumptions and essentialist ideas behind early years intervention, in whose interests does it really serve?

This book critically assesses assertions that the ‘wrong type of parenting’ has biological and cultural effects, stunting babies’ brain development and leading to a life of poverty and under-achievement. It shows how early intervention policies underpinned by interpretations of brain science perpetuate gendered, classed and raced inequalities. The exploration of future directions will be welcomed by those looking for a positive, collectivist vision of the future that addresses the real underlying issues in the creation of disadvantage.” From Publisher’s Website.

Crime Without Punishment: Aspects of the History of Homicide, by Lawrence M. Friedman. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 152p.

“In this compelling book, Lawrence M. Friedman looks at situations where killing is condemned by law but not by social norms and, therefore, is rarely punished. He shows how penal codes categorize homicides by degree of intent, which are in turn based on society’s sense of moral outrage. Despite being officially defined as murder, many homicides have historically gone unpunished. Friedman looks at early vigilante justice, crimes of passion, murder of necessity, mercy killings, and assisted suicides. In his explorations of these unpunished homicides, Friedman probes what these circumstances tell us about conflicts in social and cultural norms and the interaction of law and society.

  • Asks when, if ever, killing can justifiably be considered as homicide
  • Connects seemingly different examples of ‘crimes without punishment’ with historical developments
  • Links research on the history of criminal justice with the way in which legal systems actually operate in society today.” From Publisher’s Website.
The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition, by John D. Bessler. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2017. 460p.

“During the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, Europe’s monarchs often resorted to torture and executions. The pain inflicted by instruments of torture—from the thumbscrew and the rack to the Inquisition’s tools of torment—was eclipsed only by horrific methods of execution, from breaking on the wheel and crucifixion to drawing and quartering and burning at the stake. The English “Bloody Code” made more than 200 crimes punishable by death, and judicial torture—expressly authorized by law and used to extract confessions—permeated continental European legal systems. Judges regularly imposed death sentences and other harsh corporal punishments, from the stocks and the pillory, to branding and ear cropping, to lashes at public whipping posts.

In the Enlightenment, jurists and writers questioned the efficacy of torture and capital punishment. In 1764, the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria—the father of the world’s anti–death penalty movement—condemned both practices. And Montesquieu, like Beccaria and others, concluded that any punishment that goes beyond absolute necessity is tyrannical. Traditionally, torture and executions have been viewed in separate legal silos, with countries renouncing acts of torture while simultaneously using capital punishment. The UN Convention Against Torture strictly prohibits physical or psychological torture; not even war or threat of war can be invoked to justify it. But under the guise of “lawful sanctions,” some countries continue to carry out executions even though they bear the indicia of torture.

In The Death Penalty as Torture, Prof. John Bessler argues that death sentences and executions are medieval relics. In a world in which “mock” or simulated executions, as well as a host of other non-lethal acts, are already considered to be torturous, he contends that death sentences and executions should be classified under the rubric of torture. Unlike in the Middle Ages, penitentiaries—one of the products of the Enlightenment—now exist throughout the globe to house violent offenders. With the rise of life without parole sentences, and with more than four of five nations no longer using executions, The Death Penalty as Torture calls for the recognition of a peremptory, international law norm against the death penalty’s use.” From Publisher’s Website.

Demystifying the Big House: Exploring Prison Experience and Media Representations, edited by Katherine A. Foss. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018. 366p.

“Essays in this volume illustrate how shows such as Orange Is the New Black and Oz impact the public’s perception of crime rates, the criminal justice system, and imprisonment. Contributors look at prison wives on reality television series, portrayals of death row, breastfeeding while in prison, transgender prisoners, and black masculinity. They also examine the ways in which media messages ignore an individual’s struggle against an all too frequently biased system and instead dehumanize the incarcerated as violent and overwhelmingly masculine. Together these essays argue media reform is necessary for penal reform, proposing that more accurate media representations of prison life could improve public support for programs dealing with poverty, abuse, and drug addiction—factors that increase the likelihood of criminal activity and incarceration.

Scholars from cultural and critical studies, feminist studies, queer studies, African American studies, media studies, sociology, and psychology offer critical analysis of media depictions of prison, bridging the media’s portrayals of incarcerated lives with actual experiences and bringing to light forgotten voices in prison narratives.” From Publisher’s Website.

Dilemma of Duties: The Conflicted Role of Juvenile Defenders, by Anne M. Corbin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018. 240p.

“The role of a juvenile defender is riddled with conflict, and clients are uniquely challenging because of their lack of life experience and their underdeveloped decision-making abilities. In Dilemma of Duties, Anne M. Corbin examines the distinct function of defense counsel in juvenile courts, demonstrating the commonplace presence of role conflict and confusion, even among defenders in jurisdictions that clearly define their role. This study focuses on juvenile defense attorneys in North Carolina, where it is mandated that counselors advocate for their client’s wishes, even if they do not agree it is in the client’s best interest.

In Dilemma of Duties, Corbin outlines patterns of role conflict that defenders experience, details its impact on counselors and clients in the juvenile justice system, and addresses the powerful influence of the juvenile court culture and the lack of resources for defenders. Tasked with guiding these children, counselors frequently must contend with and manage their clients’ general distrust of adults as they attempt to serve as their voices to the court.

Understanding how juvenile defenders define their role and experience role conflict provides valuable insights into our juvenile justice system, especially its role in upholding due process rights. Such knowledge points to the importance of the training and practices of juvenile court functionaries and the efficacy, credibility, and legitimacy of the juvenile justice system itself.” From Publisher’s Website.

Drug Courts and the Criminal Justice System, edited by Deborah Koetzle and Shelley Johnson Listwan. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2018. 227p.

“Drug courts—a rare success story in the criminal justice system—are generally credited with reducing recidivism and providing a lower-cost alternative to incarceration. They have also spawned the development of other specialty courts. The authors of Drug Courts and the Criminal Justice System provide a comprehensive analysis of just how drug courts work, systematically examining the model and exploring its broader significance.” From Publisher’s Website.

Drug Policy and the Criminal Justice System, by Nancy E. Marion. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2018. 414p.

“This book provides a description of illicit drug use in the US, including the drugs being used, their effects, and who is using them. An historical analysis of federal laws and policies designed to stop drug use and trafficking in the US and abroad, as well as a political analysis of drug legislation, is also offered.” From Publisher’s Website.

Freedom in White and Black: A Lost Story of the Illegal Slave Trade and Its Global Legacy, by Emma Christopher. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018. 328p.

“By 1808, both Britain and the United States had passed laws outlawing the transatlantic slave trade. Yet the trade covertly carried on. In the summer of 1813, in what is now Liberia, a compound of slave pens was bursting with sick and anguished captives, guarded by other African slaves. As a British patrol swooped down on the illicit barracoon, the slavers burned the premises to the ground, hoping to destroy evidence.

This story can be told because of an exceptional trove of court documents that provides unparalleled insight into one small link in the great, horrific chain of slavery. Emma Christopher follows a trail of evidence across four continents to examine the lives of this barracoon’s owners, their workers, and their tragic human merchandise. She reveals how an American, Charles Mason, escaped justice, while British subjects Robert Bostock and John McQueen were arrested. In court five African men―Tamba, Tom Ball, Yarra, Noah, and Sessay―courageously testified against their former owners/captors. They, and 233 other liberated men, women, and children, were relocated to Freetown, Sierra Leone. There they endured harsh lives of “freedom,” while the punishment of Bostock and McQueen was fleeting.

From the fragmented facts of these lives, Christopher sheds fascinating light on the early development of the nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Australia (where Bostock and McQueen were banished) and the role of former slaves in combatting the illegal trade.” From Publisher’s Website.

Gangs and Spirituality: Global Perspectives, by Ross Deuchar. Cham, SWIT: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 267p.

“This book examines the role of religion and spirituality in desistance from crime and disengagement from gangs. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with male gang members and offenders as well as insights gathered from pastors, chaplains, coaches and personal mentors, the testimonials span three continents, focusing on the USA, Scotland, Denmark and Hong Kong. This volume offers unique empirical findings about the role that religion and spirituality can play in enabling some male gang members and offenders to transition into a new social sphere characterised by the presence of substitute forms of brotherhood and trust, and alternative forms of masculine status. The author presents critical insights into the potential relationship between religious and spiritual participation and the emergence of coping strategies to deal with the ‘stigmata’ that gang masculinity leaves behind. With its wide-ranging and multi-perspective approach, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of gang culture, masculinity and spirituality, as well as policy makers and practitioners.” From Publisher’s Website.

God and the Illegal Alien: United States Immigration Law and a Theology of Politics, by Robert W. Heimburger. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

“Today in the United States, millions of men, women, and children are considered ‘illegal aliens’ under federal law. While the presence of these migrants runs against the law, many arrive in response to US demand for cheap labor and stay to contribute to community life. This book asks where migrants stand within God’s world and how authorities can govern immigration with Christian ethics. The author tracks the emergence of the concept of the illegal alien in federal US law while exploring Christian ways of understanding belonging, government, and relationships with neighbors. This is a thought-provoking book that provides a fresh response to the difficult issue of illegal immigration in the United States through the context of Christian theology.” From Publisher’s Website.

A Handbook of Food Crime: Immoral and Illegal Practices in the Food Industry and What to do About Them, edited by Allison Gray and Ronald Hinch. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2018. 384p.

“Food today is over-corporatized and under-regulated. It is involved in many immoral, harmful, and illegal practices along production, distribution, and consumption systems. These problematic conditions have significant consequences on public health and well-being, nonhuman animals, and the environment, often simultaneously.

In this insightful book, Gray and Hinch explore the phenomenon of food crime. Through discussions of food safety, food fraud, food insecurity, agricultural labour, livestock welfare, genetically modified foods, food sustainability, food waste, food policy, and food democracy, they problematize current food systems and criticize their underlying ideologies.

Bringing together the best contemporary research in this area, they argue for the importance of thinking criminologically about food and propose radical solutions to the realities of unjust food systems.” From Publisher’s Website.

Human Trafficking, by Suman Kakar. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. 2017. 366p.

“Human Trafficking fills the need for a standard, thorough, main text for human trafficking courses. Starting with a discussion of human trafficking and historical, global and local perspectives, Kakar then discusses conceptual frameworks and theories for understanding the issue.

The second half of the book explores domestic and international efforts to combat, control and prevent human trafficking. Other issues, including protections for victims and technology and trafficking, are also explored.

Many real-world examples illustrate the various topics and each chapter ends with a chapter review and discussion questions.” From Publisher’s Website.

Humane Insight: Looking at Images of African American Suffering and Death, by Courtney R. Baker. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2017. 160p.

“In the history of black America, the image of the mortal, wounded, and dead black body has long been looked at by others from a safe distance. Courtney Baker questions the relationship between the spectator and victim and urges viewers to move beyond the safety of the “gaze” to cultivate a capacity for humane insight toward representations of human suffering. Utilizing the visual studies concept termed the “look,” Baker interrogates how the notion of humanity was articulated and recognized in oft-referenced moments within the African American experience: the graphic brutality of the 1834 Lalaurie affair; the photographic exhibition of lynching, Without Sanctuary; Emmett Till’s murder and funeral; and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Contemplating these and other episodes, Baker traces how proponents of black freedom and dignity used the visual display of violence against the black body to galvanize action against racial injustice.

An innovative cultural study that connects visual theory to African American history, Humane Insight asserts the importance of ethics in our analysis of race and visual culture, and reveals how representations of pain can become the currency of black liberation from injustice.” From Publisher’s Website.

Immigrants Under Threat: Risk, and Resistance in Deportation Nation, by Greg Prieto. New York: New York University Press, 2018. 256p.

“Everyday life as an immigrant in a deportation nation is fraught with risk, but everywhere immigrants confront repression and dispossession, they also manifest resistance in ways big and small. Immigrants Under Threat shifts the conversation from what has been done to Mexican immigrants to what they do in response.

From private strategies of avoidance, to public displays of protest, immigrant resistance is animated by the massive demographic shifts that started in 1965 and an immigration enforcement regime whose unprecedented scope and intensity has made daily life increasingly perilous. Immigrants Under Threat focuses on the way the material needs of everyday life both enable and constrain participation in immigrant resistance movements.

Using ethnographic research from two Mexican immigrant communities on California’s Central Coast, Greg Prieto argues that immigrant communities turn inward to insulate themselves from the perceived risks of authorities and a hostile public. These barriers are overcome through the face-to-face work of social-movement organizing that transforms individual grievances into collective demands.

The social movements that emerge are shaped by the local political climates in which they unfold and remain tethered to their material inspiration. Immigrants Under Threat explains that Mexican immigrants seek not to transcend, but to burrow into American institutions of law and family so that they might attain a measure of economic stability and social mobility that they have sought all along.” From Publisher’s Website.

Justice, Mercy, and Caprice: Clemency and the Death Penalty in Ireland, by Ian O’Donnell. Oxford, UK: New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 320p.

“Justice, Mercy, and Caprice is a work of criminal justice history that speaks to the gradual emergence of a more humane Irish state. It is a close examination of the decision to grant clemency to men and women sentenced to death between the end of the civil war in 1923 and the abolition of capital punishment in 1990.

Frequently, the decision to deflect the law from its course was an attempt to introduce a measure of justice to a system where the mandatory death sentence for murder caused predictable unfairness and undue harshness. In some instances the decision to spare a life sprang from merciful motivations. In others it was capricious, depending on factors that should have had no place in the government’s decision-making calculus. The custodial careers of those whose lives were spared repay scrutiny. Women tended to serve relatively short periods in prison but were often transferred to a religious institution where their confinement continued, occasionally for life. Men, by contrast, served longer in prison but were discharged directly to the community. Political offenders were either executed hastily or, when the threat of capital punishment had passed, incarcerated for extravagant periods.

This book addresses issues that are of continuing relevance for countries that employ capital punishment. It will appeal to scholars with an interest in criminal justice history, executive discretion, and death penalty studies, as well as being a useful resource for students of penology.” From Publisher’s Website.

Key Challenges in Criminal investigation, by Martin O’Neill. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2018.

“What are the current and future challenges in criminal investigation carried out by the police in the UK? How has the role of the detective changed over time and is there a real journey towards professionalism?

Written by an author with extensive practical and training experience, this book provides a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of the development and practice of criminal investigation. It examines decision-making within criminal investigations, from volume crime through to major and serious crime investigations and links investigative influences on policing with the evidence-based agenda. The book:

  • discusses the move from the art and craft of detective work to a new science-based professionalism;
  • contextualises the current position of investigation within the context of government austerity measures and the College of Policing and Government agendas;
  • critically examines models of investigation such as the Core Investigative Doctrine and the Murder Investigation Manual;
  • explores the legal framework for modern critical investigations and the role of the IPCC.

Part of Key themes in policing, a textbook series of evidence-based policing books for use within Higher Education curriculums and in practice, this book is suitable for policing and criminal justice programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level.” From Publisher’s Website.

Killing Time: Life Imprisonment and Parole in Ireland, by Diarmuid Griffin. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2018. 251p.

“Little is known about life imprisonment and the process of releasing offenders back into the community in Ireland. Addressing this scarcity of information, Griffin’s empirical study examines the legal and policy framework surrounding life imprisonment and parole. Through an analysis of the rationales expressed by parole decision-makers in the exercise of their discretionary power of release, it is revealed that decision-makers view public protection as central to the process. However, the risk of reoffending features amidst an array of other factors that also influence parole outcomes including personal interpretations of the purposes of punishment, public opinion and the political landscape within which parole operates. The findings of this study are employed to provide a rationale for the upward trend in time served by life sentence prisoners prior to release in recent times. With reform of parole now on the political agenda, will a more formal process of release operate to constrain the increase in time served witnessed over the last number of decades or will the upward trajectory continue unabated?” From Publisher’s Website.

Literary Obscenities: U.S. Case Law and Naturalism after Modernism. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2018. 208p.

“This comparative historical study explores the broad sociocultural factors at play in the relationships among U.S. obscenity laws and literary modernism and naturalism in the early twentieth century. Putting obscenity case law’s crisis of legitimation and modernism’s crisis of representation into dialogue, Erik Bachman shows how obscenity trials and other attempts to suppress allegedly vulgar writing in the United States affected a wide-ranging debate about the power of the printed word to incite emotion and shape behavior.

Far from seeking simply to transgress cultural norms or sexual boundaries, Bachman argues, proscribed authors such as Wyndham Lewis, Erskine Caldwell, Lillian Smith, and James T. Farrell refigured the capacity of writing to evoke the obscene so that readers might become aware of the social processes by which they were being turned into mass consumers, voyeurs, and racialized subjects. Through such efforts, these writers participated in debates about the libidinal efficacy of language with a range of contemporaries, from behavioral psychologists and advertising executives to book cover illustrators, magazine publishers, civil rights activists, and judges.

Focusing on case law and the social circumstances informing it, Literary Obscenities provides an alternative conceptual framework for understanding obscenity’s subjugation of human bodies, “ desires, and identities to abstract social forces. It will appeal especially to scholars of American literature, American studies, and U.S. legal history.” From Publisher’s Website.

Living on Death Row: The Psychology of Waiting to Die, edited by Hans Toch, James R. Acker, and Vincent Martin Bonventre. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2018. 408p.

“Prisoners on death row spend 22 or more hours a day alone in cramped, barren cells. They have little to do except wait to die — without knowing if it will happen in days, or decades. This extreme isolation combined with the omnipresent fear of death takes a severe psychological toll that is unnecessary, inhumane, and — in the eyes of many — unconstitutional.

In this book Hans Toch, James Acker and Vincent Bonventre present wide-ranging, scholarly perspectives from psychologists, legal professionals, and criminologists along with compelling personal accounts from prison administrators and actual death row inmates. Together, they reveal the systemic, physical, and moral conditions that define and underlie death row, as well as the humanity of death row inmates who struggle to find meaning amid a lack of human contact, physical activity, and mental stimulation.

This book represents an urgent call to action for researchers, policymakers, and all those who seek criminal justice reform.” From Publisher’s Website.

Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock, by Amy Werbel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 408p.

“Anthony Comstock was America’s first professional censor. From 1873 to 1915, as Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Comstock led a crusade against lasciviousness, salaciousness, and obscenity that resulted in the confiscation and incineration of more than three million pictures, postcards, and books he judged to be obscene. But as Amy Werbel shows in this rich cultural and social history, Comstock’s campaign to rid America of vice in fact led to greater acceptance of the materials he deemed objectionable, offering a revealing tale about the unintended consequences of censorship.

In Lust on Trial, Werbel presents a colorful journey through Comstock’s career that doubles as a new history of post–Civil War America’s risqué visual and sexual culture. Born into a puritanical New England community, Anthony Comstock moved to New York in 1868 armed with his Christian faith and a burning desire to rid the city of vice. Werbel describes how Comstock’s raids shaped New York City and American culture through his obsession with the prevention of lust by means of censorship, and how his restrictions provided an impetus for the increased circulation and explicitness of “obscene” materials. By opposing women who preached sexual liberation and empowerment, suppressing contraceptives, and restricting artistic expression, Comstock drew the ire of civil liberties advocates, inspiring more open attitudes toward sexual and creative freedom and more sophisticated legal defenses. Drawing on material culture high and low, including numerous examples of the “obscenities” Comstock seized, Lust on Trial provides fresh insights into Comstock’s actions and motivations, the sexual habits of Americans during his era, and the complicated relationship between law and cultural change.” From Publisher’s Website.

Making Habeas Work: A Legal History, by Eric M. Freedman. New York: New York University Press, 2018. 208p.

“Habeas corpus, the storied Great Writ of Liberty, is a judicial order that requires government officials to produce a prisoner in court, persuade an independent judge of the correctness of their claimed factual and legal justifications for the individual’s imprisonment, or else release the captive. Frequently the officials resist being called to account. Much of the history of the rule of law, including the history being made today, has emerged from the resulting clashes.

This book, heavily based on primary sources from the colonial and early national periods and significant original research in the New Hampshire State Archives, enriches our understanding of the past and draws lessons for the present.

Using dozens of previously unknown examples, Professor Freedman shows how the writ of habeas corpus has been just one part of an intricate machinery for securing freedom under law, and explores the lessons this history holds for some of today’s most pressing problems including terrorism, the Guantanamo Bay detentions, immigration, Brexit, and domestic violence.

Exploring landmark cases of the past – like that of John Peter Zenger – from new angles and expanding the definition of habeas corpus from a formal one to a functional one, Making Habeas Work brings to light the stories of many people previously overlooked (like the free black woman Zipporah, defendant in “the case of the headless baby”) because their cases did not bear the label “habeas corpus.”

The resulting insights lead to forward-thinking recommendations for strengthening the rule of law to insure that it endures into the future.” From Publisher’s Website.

More Money, More Crime: Prosperity and Risking Crime in Latin America, by Marcelo Bergman. Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. 408p.

“While worldwide crime is declining overall, criminality in Latin America has reached unprecedented levels that have ushered in social unrest and political turmoil. Despite major political and economic gains, crime has increased in every Latin American country over the past 25 years, currently making this region the most crime-ridden and violent in the world.

Over the past two decades, Latin America has enjoyed economic growth, poverty and inequality reduction, rising consumer demand, and spreading democracy, but it also endured a dramatic outbreak of violence and property crimes. In More Money, More Crime, Marcelo Bergman argues that prosperity enhanced demand for stolen and illicit goods supplied by illegal rackets. Crime surged as weak states and outdated criminal justice systems could not meet the challenge posed by new profitably criminal enterprises. Based on large-scale data sets, including surveys from inmates and victims, Bergman analyzes the development of crime as a business in the region, and the inability-and at times complicity-of state agencies and officers to successfully contain it. While organized crime has grown, Latin American governments have lacked the social vision to promote sustainable upward mobility, and have failed to improve the technical capacities of law enforcement agencies to deter criminality. The weak state responses have only further entrenched the influence of criminal groups making them all the more difficult to dismantle.

More Money, More Crime is a sobering study that foresees a continued rise in violence while prosperity increases unless governments develop appropriate responses to crime and promote genuine social inclusion.” From Publisher’s Website.

Murdering Animals: Writings on Theriocide, Homicide and Nonspeciest Criminology, by Piers Beirne with Ian O’Donnell and Janine Janssen. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2018. 225p.

“Murdering Animals confronts the speciesism underlying the disparate social censures of homicide and “theriocide” (the killing of animals by humans), and as such, is a plea to take animal rights seriously. Its substantive topics include the criminal prosecution and execution of justiciable animals in early modern Europe; images of hunters put on trial by their prey in the upside-down world of the Dutch Golden Age; the artist William Hogarth’s patriotic depictions of animals in 18th Century London; and the playwright J.M. Synge’s representation of parricide in fin de siècle Ireland. Combining insights from intellectual history, the history of the fine and performing arts, and what is known about today’s invisibilised sites of animal killing, Murdering Animals inevitably asks: should theriocide be considered murder? With its strong multi- and interdisciplinary approach, this work of collaboration will appeal to scholars of social and species justice in animal studies, criminology, sociology and law.” From Publisher’s Website.

Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School, by Calvin Morrill and Michael Musheno. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. 320p.

“Urban schools are often associated with violence, chaos, and youth aggression. But is this reputation really the whole picture? In Navigating Conflict, Calvin Morrill and Michael Musheno challenge the violence-centered conventional wisdom of urban youth studies, revealing instead the social ingenuity with which teens informally and peacefully navigate strife-ridden peer trouble. Taking as their focus a multi-ethnic, high-poverty school in the American southwest, the authors complicate our vision of urban youth, along the way revealing the resilience of students in the face of carceral disciplinary tactics.

Grounded in sixteen years of ethnographic fieldwork, Navigating Conflict draws on archival and institutional evidence to locate urban schools in more than a century of local, state, and national change. Morrill and Musheno make the case for schools that work, where negative externalities are buffered and policies are adapted to ever-evolving student populations. They argue that these kinds of schools require meaningful, inclusive student organizations for sustaining social trust and collective peer dignity alongside responsive administrative leadership. Further, students must be given the freedom to associate and move among their peers, all while in the vicinity of watchful, but not intrusive adults. Morrill and Musheno make a compelling case for these foundational conditions, arguing that only through them can schools enable a rich climate for learning, achievement, and social advancement.” From Publisher’s Website.

Obstacles to Fairness in Criminal Proceedings: Individual Rights and Institutional Forms, by John Jackson and Sarah Summers. London: Hart/Bloomsbury, 2018. 438p.

“This volume considers the way in which the focus on individual rights may constitute an obstacle to ensuring fairness in criminal proceedings.

The increasingly cosmopolitan nature of criminal justice, forcing legal systems with different institutional forms and practices to interact with each other as they attempt to combat crime beyond national borders, has accentuated the need for systems to seek legitimacy beyond their domestic traditions. Fairness, expressed in terms of the right to a fair trial in provisions such as Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, has emerged across Europe as the principal means of guaranteeing the legitimacy of criminal proceedings. The consequence of this is that criminal procedure doctrines are framed overwhelmingly in ‘constitutional’ terms – the protection of defence rights is necessary to restrict and legitimate the state’s mandate to prosecute crime. Yet there are various problems with relying solely or predominantly on defence rights as a means of ensuring that proceedings are ‘fair’ or legitimate and these issues are rarely discussed in the academic literature. In this volume, scholars from the disciplines of law, philosophy and sociology challenge various normative assumptions underpinning our understanding of fairness in criminal proceedings.” From Publisher’s Website.

Policing the World: The Practice of International and Transnational Policing, by John Casey, Michael J. Jenkins, and Harry R. Dammer. 2d ed. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2018. 286p.

“Crime threats are increasingly global and all police agencies must now routinely deal with transnational and international issues such as terrorism, e-crime, and human trafficking. Police officers often find themselves working closely with colleagues from other countries either as part of international investigations or on assignment with one of the increasing number of police contingents deployed in peacekeeping and capacity building roles.

This book covers the three key areas of the international dimension of policing: comparative policing and the creation of international “good practice” cooperative efforts to respond to emerging transnational and international crime threats; and peace operations and capacity building in post-conflict and transitional societies.” From Publisher’s Website

The Politics of Drug Violence: Criminals, Cops, and Politicians in Colombia and Mexico, by Angelica Duran-Martinez. Oxford, UK: New York: Oxford University Press. 2018. 328p.

“Over the last few decades, drug trafficking organizations in Latin America became infamous for their shocking public crimes, from narcoterrorist assaults on the Colombian political system in the 1980s to the more recent wave of beheadings in Mexico. However, while these highly visible forms of public violence dominate headlines, they are neither the most common form of drug violence nor simply the result of brutality. Rather, they stem from structural conditions that vary from country to country and from era to era. In The Politics of Drug Violence, Angelica Durán-Martínez shows how variation in drug violence results from the complex relationship between state power and criminal competition. Drawing on remarkably extensive fieldwork, this book compares five cities that have been home to major trafficking organizations for the past four decades: Cali and Medellín in Colombia, and Ciudad Juárez, Culiacán, and Tijuana in Mexico. She shows that violence escalates when trafficking organizations compete and the state security apparatus is fragmented. However, when the criminal market is monopolized and the state security apparatus cohesive, violence tends to be more hidden and less frequent. The size of drug profits does not determine violence levels, and neither does the degree of state weakness. Rather, the forms and scale of violent crime derive primarily from the interplay between marketplace competition and state cohesiveness. An unprecedentedly rich empirical account of one of the worst problems of our era, the book will reshape our understanding of the forces driving organized criminal violence in Latin America and elsewhere.” From Publisher’s Website.

Prison Bureaucracies in the United States, Mexico, India, and Honduras, by Brian Norris. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. 294p.

“Modern criminal justice institutions globally include police, criminal courts, and prisons. Prisons, unlike courts which developed out of an old aristocratic function and unlike police which developed out of an ancient posse or standing army function, are only about 200 years old and are humanitarian inventions. Prisons, defined as modern institutions that deprive the freedom of individuals who violate societies’ most basic norms in lieu of corporal or capital punishment, were near universal at the dawn of the 21st century and their use was expanding globally. The US alone spent $60 billion on prisons in 2014. Prison Bureaucracies addresses two fundamental questions. Do prisons in Christian, Hindu, and Muslim societies separated by space and level of socioeconomic development follow a common evolutionary path? Given that differences in prison structure and performance exist, what factors—resources, laws, leadership, historical accident, institutions, culture—account for differences? Based on more than 150 interviews conducted in ten international trips with prison administrators in 15 male state prisons in the US, Mexico, India, and Honduras, Norris provides ethnographic descriptions of prisons bureaucracies that are immediately recognizable as similar institutions, but that nonetheless possessed distinctive forms and developmental trajectories. Economists and political scientists have argued that incentives provided by institutions matter for good or bad public administration, and this is undeniable in the prisons of this study. But institutional incentives were one factor among many affecting the form and function of the prisons and prison systems of this study.” From Publisher’s Website

Race, Gender, Class, and Criminal Justice: Examining Barriers to Justice, by Danielle McDonald. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2017. 292p.

“In the United States, those who become involved or interact with the criminal justice system often experience the system differently based on their race, class, and/or gender. To better understand this problem, the textbook examines race, class, and gender from a historical perspective to help the reader make the connection between the terms historical connotations and how they are used today. The remainder of the text focuses on how one’s race, class, and/or gender can impact interactions with the police, courts, corrections, and reentry after prison.

To provide more in-depth information on issues that are relevant to the topics being discussed, each chapter includes “In Focus” text boxes as well as a “Global Spotlight” text box that discusses the topic from a global perspective. Each chapter also ends with a series of discussion questions to encourage further engagement and reflection with the topic. Teaching materials includes PowerPoint lectures, test questions, and ideas for further classroom engagement.” From Publisher’s Website.

Rape and Resistance, by Linda Martin Alcoff. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2018. 264p.

“Sexual violence has become a topic of intense media scrutiny, thanks to the bravery of survivors coming forward to tell their stories. But, unfortunately, mainstream public spheres too often echo reports in a way that inhibits proper understanding of its causes, placing too much emphasis on individual responsibility or blaming minority cultures.

In this powerful and original book, Linda Martín Alcoff aims to correct the misleading language of public debate about rape and sexual violence by showing how complex our experiences of sexual violation can be. Although it is survivors who have galvanized movements like #MeToo, when their words enter the public arena they can be manipulated or interpreted in a way that damages their effectiveness. Rather than assuming that all experiences of sexual violence are universal, we need to be more sensitive to the local and personal contexts – who is speaking and in what circumstances – that affect how activists’ and survivors’ protests will be received and understood.

Alcoff has written a book that will revolutionize the way we think about rape, finally putting the survivor center stage.” From Publisher’s Website.

Regulating Police Detention: Voices from Behind Closed Doors, by John Kendall. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2018. 176p.

“When suspects are arrested, they spend their time in police custody largely in isolation and out of public view. These custody blocks are police territory, and public controversies about what happens there often only arise when a detainee dies.

Custody visitors are volunteers who make what are supposed to be random and unannounced visits to police custody blocks to check on the welfare of detainees. However, there is a fundamental power imbalance between the police and these visitors, which calls the independence and effectiveness of custody visiting into question.

Investigating this largely unexplored part of the criminal justice system, this timely book includes the voices of the detainees who have a unique insight into the scheme. It offers detailed proposals for radically reforming custody visiting to make it an effective regulator of police behaviour, with an explanation of the political context that could make that a reality” From Publisher’s Website.

Selma and the Liuzzo Murder Trials: The First Modern Civil Rights Convictions, by James P. Turner. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018. 144p.

“In 1965 the drive for black voting rights in the south culminated in the epic Selma to Montgomery Freedom March. After brutal state police beatings stunned the nation on “Bloody Sunday,” troops under federal court order lined the route as the march finally made its way to the State Capitol and a triumphant address by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But within hours klan terror struck, claiming the life of one of the marchers, Viola Liuzzo, a Detroit mother of five. Turner offers an insider’s view of the three trials that took place over the following nine months—which finally resulted in the conviction of the killers. Despite eyewitness testimony by an FBI informant who was riding in the car with the killers, two all-white state juries refused to convict. It took a team of Civil Rights Division lawyers, led by the legendary John Doar, to produce the landmark jury verdict that klansmen were no longer above the law. This is must reading today, as the voting rights won in Selma come under renewed attack.” From Publisher’s Website.

Sentencing Policy and Social Justice, by Ralph Henham. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018. 320p.

“Sentencing Policy and Social Justice argues that the promotion of social justice should become a key objective of sentencing policy, advancing the argument that the legitimacy of sentencing ultimately depends upon the strength of the relationship between social morality and penal ideology. It sheds light on how shared moral values can influence sentencing policy at a time when relationships of community appear increasingly fragmented, arguing that sentencing will be better placed to make a positive contribution to social justice if it becomes more sensitive to the commonly-accepted moral boundaries that underpin adherence to the ‘rule of law’.

The need to reflect public opinion in sentencing has received significant attention more recently, with renewed interest in jury sentencing, ‘stakeholder sentencing’, and the involvement of community views when regulating policy. The author, however, advocates a different approach, combining a new theoretical focus with practical suggestions for reform, and arguing that the contribution sentencing can make to social justice necessitates a fundamental change in the way shared values about the advantages of punishment are reflected in penal ideology and sentencing policy.

Using examples from international, comparative and domestic contexts to advance the moral and ethical case for challenging the existing theories of sentencing, the book develops the author’s previous theoretical ideas and outlines how these changes could be given practical shape within the context of sentencing in England and Wales. It assesses the consequences for penal governance due to increased state regulation of discretionary sentencing power and examines the prospects for achieving the kind of moral transformation regarded as necessary to reverse such a move. To illustrate these issues each chapter focuses on a particularly problematic area for contemporary sentencing policy; namely, the sentencing of women; the sentencing of irregular migrants; sentencing for offences of serious public disorder; and sentencing for financial crime.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma: Community Activism, Safety, and Social Justice, by Monica Williams. New York: New York University Press, 2018. 288p.

“When a South Carolina couple killed a registered sex offender and his wife after they moved into their neighborhood in 2013, the story exposed an extreme and relatively rare instance of violence against sex offenders. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems.

No community wants a sex offender in its midst, but instead of vigilantism, Monica Williams argues, citizens often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep these offenders out of local neighborhoods. Her book, the culmination of four years of research, 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources, reveals the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predators (SVP) in the U.S. Specifically, The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma examines the placement process for released SVPs in California and the communities’ responses to those placements.

Taking the reader into the center of these related issues, Monica Williams provokes debate on the role of communities in the execution of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to both groups of citizens. The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma is sure to promote increased civic engagement to help strengthen communities, increase public safety, and ensure government accountability.” From Publisher’s Website.

The Soul of the First Amendment, by Floyd Abrams. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. 176p.

“The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the US Constitution—the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, examines the degree to which American law protects free speech more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is the case anywhere else in the world, including democratic nations such as Canada and England. In this lively, powerful, and provocative work, the author addresses legal issues from the adoption of the Bill of Rights through recent cases such as Citizens United. He also examines the repeated conflicts between claims of free speech and those of national security occasioned by the publication of classified material such as was contained in the Pentagon Papers and was made public by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.” From Publisher’s Website

Theories of Delinquency: An Examination of Explanations of Delinquent Behavior, by Donald J. Shoemaker. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. 416p.

“Theories of Delinquency is a comprehensive survey of the theoretical approaches towards understanding delinquent behavior. Donald Shoemaker aptly presents all major individualistic and sociological theories in a standard format with basic assumptions, important concepts, and critical evaluations. Theories covered include biological and psychological explanations, anomie and social disorganization, differential association, drift theory, labeling theory, critical theories, and explanations of female delinquency. Now in its seventh edition, Theories of Delinquency contains up-to-date discussions based on current research, incorporates new developments in social disorganization theory and related concepts of collective efficacy and criminology of place, and presents a fresh look at bio-social and psychological connections to crime and delinquency and the general theory of crime. Clearly written, consistently organized, and thoroughly updated, Theories of Delinquency remains essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of crime and delinquency.” From Publisher’s Website.

Timber Trafficking in Vietnam: Crime, Security and the Environment, by Ngoc Ahn Cao. Cham, SWIT: Palgrave, 2018. 393p.

“This book is the first systematic investigation into the problem of timber trafficking in Vietnam, providing a detailed understanding of the typology of, victimization from, and key factors driving this crime. The book first reveals a multifaceted pattern of timber trafficking in Vietnam, comprising five different components: harvesting, transporting, trading, supporting, and processing. It then assesses the crime’s victimization from timber trafficking. Thanks to the employment of a broad conceptual framework of human security, Cao reveals that timber trafficking has substantial harmful impacts on all seven elements of human security: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political; whilst being closely interconnected, they vary between different groups of victims. Cao concludes by offering five solutions to better control of timber trafficking in the context of Vietnam, which crucially involve refining the current policy framework of forest governance and improving the efficiency of law enforcement. A wide-ranging and timely study, this book will hold particular appeal for scholars of green criminology and environmental harm.” From Publisher’s Website.

Torture: An Expert’s Confrontation with an Everyday Evil, by Manfred Nowak. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 208p.

“Torture represents a direct attack on the essence of human dignity. Its mere mention evokes a prolific and sordid history: Europe in the Middle Ages, with beds of nails, witch hunts, and burnings; the brutal methods used by military dictatorships against political dissidents in 1970s Latin America; and the gruesome photographs from Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other Bush-era places of detention. While leaders in the West had once hoped that torture would disappear by the end of the twentieth century—and that our children would read about this unfathomable practice in history books and not in the daily papers—research indicates that torture is still routinely used in the majority of twenty-first-century nations.

In his six years as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak was tasked with reviewing thousands of complaints of torture and detention, investigating facts and circumstances surrounding the global practice of torture, and drawing up recommendations aimed at combating torture. Now, in Torture, readers can get a firsthand glimpse of how modern-day torture is investigated and understood by those working on the frontlines of researching, addressing, and preventing it.

Nowak recounts his experience visiting countries, reviewing documents, collecting evidence, and conducting interviews with perpetrators, witnesses, and victims of torture. He offers vignettes of the many states he visited, comparing their diverse experiences, and he explores the rise of new twenty-first-century practices of torture, questioning whether capital punishment, corporal punishment, solitary confinement, and contemporary forms of slavery qualify as torture. Ultimately, Torture offers vital insights for human-rights scholars and professionals as it tries to make the unfathomable more comprehensible and to clarify the causes and dynamics of torture.” From Publisher’s Website.

Towards a Philosophy of Narco Violence in Mexico, by Amalendu Misra. Cham, SWIT: Palgrave, 2018. 179p.

“This book explores the politics of narco-killing and public attitudes to violence and death in the Mexican Drug War. It examines questions such as the culture of human sacrifice, the religious principles that sanction egregious violence and most importantly the society’s complex response strategies towards such violence. Primarily a philosophical reflection, this study nonetheless uses anthropological, architectural and sociological methods to provide an interdisciplinary explanation to the visceral, commonplace violence taking place in contemporary Mexico.” From Publisher’s Website.

Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, by R. Evan Ellis. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. 236p.

“Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Evolving Threats and Responses to Integrated, Adaptive Solutions provides a comprehensive overview of and introduction to transnational organized crime in Latin America for the student and practitioner. It addresses the geography of illicit activities, including relationships between source, transit, and consumption zones, as well as illicit activities beyond narcotrafficking, such as illegal mining, contraband, human smuggling, and money laundering. It applies a typology of cartels, intermediate groups, gangs, and ideological groups to examine specific criminal organizations and the relationships between them. It makes a comparative assessment of government approaches to combatting transnational organized crime in the region, including discussions of interagency coordination, interdiction, targeting of criminal group leaders, the use of the military in law enforcement, law enforcement reform efforts, prison control, and international cooperation. It concludes by applying these thorough analyses to make concrete recommendations for both Latin American and United States policymakers.” From Publisher’s Website.

The War on Neighborhoods: Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a Divided City, by Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018. 242p.

“For people of color who live in segregated urban neighborhoods, surviving crime and violence is a generational reality. As violence in cities like New York and Los Angeles has fallen in recent years, in many Chicago communities, it has continued at alarming rates. Meanwhile, residents of these same communities have endured decades of some of the highest rates of arrest, incarceration, and police abuse in the nation.

The War on Neighborhoods argues that these trends are connected. Crime in Chicago, as in many other US cities, has been fueled by a broken approach to public safety in disadvantaged neighborhoods. For nearly forty years, public leaders have attempted to create peace through punishment, misinvesting billions of dollars toward the suppression of crime, largely into a small subset of neighborhoods on the city’s West and South Sides. Meanwhile, these neighborhoods have struggled to sustain investments into basic needs such as jobs, housing, education, and mental healthcare.

When the main investment in a community is policing and incarceration, rather than human and community development, that amounts to a “war on neighborhoods,” which ultimately furthers poverty and disadvantage. Longtime Chicago scholars Ryan Lugalia-Hollon and Daniel Cooper tell the story of one of those communities, a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side that is emblematic of many majority-black neighborhoods in US cities. Sharing both rigorous data and powerful stories, the authors explain why punishment will never create peace and why we must rethink the ways that public dollars are invested into making places safe.

The War on Neighborhoods makes the case for a revolutionary reformation of our public-safety model that focuses on shoring up neighborhood institutions and addressing the effects of trauma and poverty. The authors call for a profound transformation in how we think about investing in urban communities—away from the perverse misinvestment of policing and incarceration and toward a model that invests in human and community development.” From Publisher’s Website.

When Justice Fails: Causes and Consequences of Wrongful Convictions, by Robert J. Norris, Catherine L. Bonventre, and James R. Acker. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2018. 278p.

“Wrongful convictions have become a prominent concern in state and federal systems of justice. As thousands of innocent prisoners have been freed in the United States in the past few decades, social science researchers and legal actors have produced a wealth of new insights about how and why mistakes occur and what can be done to help prevent further injustices.

When Justice Fails surveys the field of innocence scholarship to offer an overview of the key research, legal, and policy issues associated with wrongful convictions. Topics include the leading sources of error, the detection and correction of miscarriages of justice, the aftermath of wrongful convictions, and more. The volume includes references to historic and contemporary instances of miscarriages of justice and presents information gleaned from media sources about the cases and related policy issues. The book is ideally suited for use in undergraduate classes which focus on wrongful convictions and the administration of justice.” From Publisher’s Website.

Wildlife Crime: An Environmental Criminology and Crime Science Perspective, by William D. Moreto and Stephen F. Pires. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2018. 282p.

“Influenced by theories and concepts found in environmental criminology, the field of crime science has proven to be a unique and useful approach in understanding and preventing crime. This book applies these principles and techniques to the study, analysis, and prevention of wildlife crime. With this book, William Moreto and Stephen Pires present the first complete book addressing wildlife crime from an environmental criminology and crime science perspective.

Divided into three main sections, readers will be provided with an in-depth overview of wildlife crime, the theoretical foundations of environmental criminology and crime science, and practical concepts and tools that can be used to analyze and prevent wildlife crimes around the world.” From Publisher’s Website.

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