“Justice is a basic human right in all democratic doctrines, but in Britain, where welfare has faced recent market-based reforms, it’s increasingly a right available only to those who can afford it. Professionals and volunteers are struggling to provide services such as legal counseling and representation to disadvantaged communities. This book explores how strategies to safeguard these vital services can strengthen, rather than undermine, the basic ethics and principles of public service provision. The authors show how such safeguarding might improve the positions of those who administer—as well as those who need—publicly provided legal services. Though focused on Britain, their findings reverberate to the United States and all democracies undergoing similar challenges in the public sphere.” From Publisher’s Website

“Capital Punishment: Theory and Practice of the Ultimate Penalty is a fair, balanced, and accessible introduction to the greatest moral issue facing the American criminal justice system today. Opening with a unique chapter that outlines the philosophical and theoretical explanations for punishment and its relevance to the death-penalty debate, the authors then explore the wide array of topics in the field.

The text covers the history of the death penalty in the U.S. from colonial times to the present day; the relevant landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases from Furman v. Georgia (1972) onwards; the history of public opinion and how it shapes the debate on capital punishment; the history of U.S. execution methods; deterrence; racial disparity in the application of the death penalty; wrongful convictions; the costs associated with capital punishment; and federal, military, and international death penalties.” From Publisher’s Website

“This book provides an analysis of the changes the Sicilian mafia has undergone from legitimisation to denunciation. It argues that conceptualizations of the mafia in public and scientific debate, during the nineteenth and more than half of the twentieth century, created a mystique that legitimised the mafia and contributed to their success.” From Publisher’s Website

“Exploring the complex and controversial topic of civilian oversight of police, this book analyzes the issues and debates entailed by civilian oversight by using worldwide perspectives, in-depth case studies, and a wealth of survey data. Integrating and summarizing decades of research from many locations around the globe, Civilian Oversight of Police: Advancing Accountability in Law Enforcement uses a very clear and consistent pattern of findings to address the overall management of police conduct.

Emphasizing the concept of shared responsibility for effective police integrity management, the book discusses what does and does not work in maximizing police management and performance. It presents a best practices model for managing police conduct and describes the impact of oversight agencies on police policy, including innovative means by which agencies can work with police departments to improve police conduct.

Civilian Oversight of Police provides a critical resource on police conduct for professionals as well as academics. It makes practical recommendations for achieving a “win-win” balance in addressing the needs and interests of all parties involved with the police complaints and accountability process. It also marks a starting point to stimulate further research as well as increased collaboration between researchers and practitioners to enhance the stock of knowledge for effective police integrity management and democratic accountability.” From Publisher’s Website

“The International Criminal Court emerged in the early twenty-first century as an ambitious and permanent institution with a mandate to address mass atrocity crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity. Although designed to exercise jurisdiction only in instances where states do not pursue these crimes themselves (and are unwilling or unable to do so), the Court’s interventions, particularly in African states, have raised questions about the social value of its work and its political dimensions and effects. Bringing together scholars and practitioners who specialise on the ICC, this collection offers a diverse account of its interventions: from investigations to trials and from the Court’s Hague-based centre to the networks of actors who sustain its activities. Exploring connections with transitional justice and international relations, and drawing upon critical insights from the interpretive social sciences, it offers a novel perspective on the ICC’s work. This title is also available as open access.” From Publisher’s Website

“The book examines the diverse approaches to CSR, with a particular focus on how those approaches are siloed within discrete disciplines such as business, law, the social sciences, and human rights. Bridging these disciplines and addressing and critiquing all the conceptual domains of CSR, the book also explores how CSR silos develop as a function of the competition between different interests. Ultimately, the contributors show that CSR actions across all arenas of power are interdependent, continually in dialogue, and mutually constituted. Organizing a diverse range of viewpoints, this book offers a much-needed synthesis of a crucial element of today’s globalized world and asks how businesses can, through their actions, make it better for everyone.”  From Publisher’s Website

“Fueled by corruption, fraud, and organized crime, the shadow economy—also known as the informal, black market, illegal, or underground economy—is currently on the rise worldwide. Corruption, Fraud, Organized Crime, and the Shadow Economy addresses shadow economies and the players involved by examining various aspects of criminal law and prosecution.

This book gathers the insights of several world-renowned professionals and academics in order to portray the links between organized crime, the shadow economy, and corruption. It discusses how to address these issues as they relate to crime, criminal law, and prosecution of the players involved.

The constant misconception by policy makers of the relationships between organized crime, corruption, and the shadow economy fuels the present status quo of economic inequality, increases the risks of future economic crises, victimizes people, and even damages the environment. This book takes a critical, multinational, multidisciplinary, common-sense approach to complex and globalized problems of conventional and unconventional deviance through the shadow economy.

The contributors identify key critical areas in specific countries from which they originate, adding an insider’s perspective to their analyses. With these insights and the use of illustrative case studies, they highlight best practices as well as mistakes to avoid in encountering the obstacles that lie ahead in combating the shadow economy.” From Publisher’s Website

“Written by an expert in media, popular culture, gender, and sexuality, this book surveys the common archetypes of Internet users—from geeks, nerds, and gamers to hackers, scammers, and predators—and assesses what these stereotypes reveal about our culture’s attitudes regarding gender, technology, intimacy, and identity.

The Internet has enabled an exponentially larger number of people—individuals who are members of numerous and vastly different subgroups—to be exposed to one other. As a result, instead of the simple “jocks versus geeks” paradigm of previous eras, our society now has more detailed stereotypes of the undesirable, the under-the-radar, and the ostracized: cyberpervs, neckbeards, goths, tech nerds, and anyone with a non-heterosexual identity. Each chapter of this book explores a different stereotype of the Internet user, with key themes—such as gender, technophobia, and sexuality—explored with regard to that specific characterization of online users.

Author Lauren Rosewarne, PhD, supplies a highly interdisciplinary perspective that draws on research and theories from a range of fields—psychology, sociology, and communications studies as well as feminist theory, film theory, political science, and philosophy—to analyze what these stereotypes mean in the context of broader social and cultural issues. From cyberbullies to chronically masturbating porn addicts to desperate online-daters, readers will see the paradox in popular culture’s message: that while Internet use is universal, actual Internet users are somehow subpar—less desirable, less cool, less friendly—than everybody else.” From Publisher’s Website

“Dangerous Politics: Risk, Political Vulnerability, and Penal Policy” brings together relevant literature in law, criminology, and politics to provide insights into the nature of British penal politics, the role of the judiciary and pressure groups, and the interrelation between risk, the ‘public voice’, and penal politics. It presents a detailed case study of the IPP story: the creation and eventual demise of the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence.

Drawing on over 60 in-depth interviews with key policymakers, the author investigates the beliefs, traditions, and political processes that propelled developments in the ‘IPP story’, namely the creation, contestation, amendment, and demise of the IPP sentence. An indeterminate sentence modelled upon the existing life sentence but targeted far more broadly, the IPP sentence has been described as ‘one of the least carefully planned and implemented pieces of legislation in the history of British sentencing’ (Jacobson and Hough, 2010) and has dramatically increased the indeterminate-sentenced prison population, from approximately 3,000 in 1992 to over 13,000 in 2014. Though abolished in 2012, it remains a pressing issue: over 5,000 IPP prisoners remain, with ongoing campaigns pressing for their release. Standing as one of the most striking examples of the expansion of preventive goals in sentencing policy, this study of the IPP story stands as a cautionary tale, with important lessons for Australia, Canada, the United States, and other nations that continue to pursue preventive goals. This book argues that the IPP story demonstrates the need to be cautious of equating substance with process – while on one view the IPP sentence constitutes a penal manifestation of the risk society, its development refutes the ‘evolutionary growth’ of such policies as implied by the ‘new penology’ thesis.

Dangerous Politics makes an original contribution to our understanding of the genesis and demise of the IPP sentence, and to our broader understanding of the nature of penalty in early 21st century Britain. It will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of criminology, criminal law, politics and policymaking, as well as sentencing and criminal justice policymakers.” From Publisher’s Website

“In Dark Matters Simone Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted. She shows how contemporary surveillance technologies and practices are informed by the long history of racial formation and by the methods of policing black life under slavery, such as branding, runaway slave notices, and lantern laws. Placing surveillance studies into conversation with the archive of transatlantic slavery and its afterlife, Browne draws from black feminist theory, sociology, and cultural studies to analyze texts as diverse as the methods of surveilling blackness she discusses: from the design of the eighteenth-century slave ship Brooks, Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, and The Book of Negroes, to contemporary art, literature, biometrics, and post-9/11 airport security practices. Surveillance, Browne asserts, is both a discursive and material practice that reifies boundaries, borders, and bodies around racial lines, so much so that the surveillance of blackness has long been, and continues to be, a social and political norm.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Featuring experts from Europe, Australia, Japan, China, and the United States, this collection of essays follows changes in the theory and policy of China’s death penalty from the Mao era (1949–1979) through the Deng era (1980–1997) up to the present day. Using empirical data, such as capital offender and offense profiles, temporal and regional variations in capital punishment, and the impact of social media on public opinion and reform, contributors relay both the character of China’s death penalty practices and the incremental changes that indicate reform. They then compare the Chinese experience to other countries throughout Asia and the world, showing how change can be implemented even within a non-democratic and rigid political system, but also the dangers of promoting policies that society may not be ready to embrace.” From Publisher’s Website.

“The domestic sex trafficking of minors is a problem of growing concern yet little critical attention. This book analyzes the forces behind the sex-trafficking industry in the United States and provides a much-needed reference for practitioners. It adopts a holistic approach, pursuing a nuanced exploration of these young people’s experiences, their treatment, and outside efforts to combat sex trafficking.

The book features interviews with service providers and experts, and incorporates recent research, thereby mapping the complex factors associated with young people’s involvement in trading sex and the social connections that facilitate their behavior. It considers the experiences of both those who “choose” sex work and those who are forced into it by circumstances or third parties, and it discusses the networks of friends and close acquaintances who introduce newcomers to the trade. In addition, it takes a hard look at how local and federal responses to trafficking increase young people’s vulnerability to trading sex. Urging policymakers and practitioners to move beyond the simple framework of “rescuing” victims and “punishing” villains, this book calls for policies and programs that focus on the failure of social and cultural systems and respond better to the young people caught in this web.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This book examines the history of popular drug cultures and mediated drug education, and the ways in which new media – including social networking and video file-sharing sites – transform the symbolic framework in which drugs and drug culture are represented. Tracing the emergence of formal drug regulation in both the US and the United Kingdom from the late nineteenth century, it argues that mass communication technologies were intimately connected to these “control regimes” from the very beginning. Manning includes original archive research revealing official fears about the use of such mass communication technologies in Britain. The second half of the book assesses on-line popular drug culture, considering the impact, the problematic attempts by drug agencies in the US and the United Kingdom to harness new media, and the implications of the emergence of many thousands of unofficial drug-related sites.” From Publisher’s Website.

“The growing body of work on imprisonment, desistance and rehabilitation has mainly focused on policies and treatment programmes and how they are delivered. Experiencing Imprisonment reflects recent developments in research that focus on the active role of the offender in the process of justice. Bringing together experts from around the world and presenting a range of comparative critical research relating to key themes of the pains of imprisonment, stigma, power and vulnerability, this book explores the various ways in which offenders relate to the justice systems and how these relationships impact the nature and effectiveness of their efforts to reduce offending.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Violence is a persistent feature of modern society. However, excessive violence, occurring unexpectedly and seemingly without sense, particularly challenges social cohesion by transgressing the limits of normalised violence. This book explores the dynamics of excessive violence using a broad range of interdisciplinary case studies, including: riots, school shootings, torture, extreme right-wing violence, and terrorist acts. It highlights that excessive violence depends on various contingencies and is not always the outcome of rational decision making. The contributors to this volume also analyse the discursive framing of acts of excessive violence. Most people experience violent acts through mass media only in retrospect and from a distance. The book shows that it is essential to examine how those events are retrospectively framed, narrated and therefore (re)integrated into the symbolic order of society. It will be of great interest to students and scholars across the fields of criminology, cultural studies, and the sociology of violence.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Free Market Criminal Justice explains how faith in democratic politics and free markets has undermined the rule of law in US criminal process. America’s unique political development, characterized by skepticism of government power, has restrained the state’s role not only in the economic realm but also in key parts of its criminal justice systems. From charging decisions through trials or guilty pleas and appeals, legal safeguards against bias, wrongful convictions, and excessive punishment rely more on politics and laissez-faire economic ideas than on enforceable rules and duties. Prosecutorial discretion is checked not by legal standards but by popular elections, and plea bargaining law is wholly built on a faith in unregulated markets-in contrast to the systems in other common law countries that also have neoliberal economies, adversarial process, and high guilty plea rates. This book argues that democratic and market ideas have led to more partisan prosecutors, narrower duties of evidence disclosure, and to a right to defense counsel that carefully accommodates preexisting wealth inequalities. Most important, democratic and market values have diminished the responsibility of judges-and of the state itself-for the accuracy and integrity of court judgments. Paradoxically, skepticism of government has expanded state power, reduced checks on executive officials, marginalized juries, and contributed to record incarceration rates. In contrast to recent arguments for re-invigorating democracy in criminal process, Free Market Criminal Justice argues that, to strengthen the rule of law, US criminal justice needs less democracy, fewer market mechanisms, and more law.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps five hundred body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil’s biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit-men to gun down forty-one police officers and prison guards in two days. In southern Mexico, a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies.A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world’s trade in narcotics, guns, and humans. What they do affects you now–from the gas in your car, to the gold in your jewelry, to the tens of thousands of Latin Americans calling for refugee status in the U.S. Gangster Warlords is the first definitive account of the crime wars now wracking Central and South America and the Caribbean, regions largely abandoned by the U.S. after the Cold War. Author of the critically acclaimed El Narco, Ioan Grillo has covered Latin America since 2001 and gained access to every level of the cartel chain of command in what he calls the new battlefields of the Americas. Moving between militia-controlled ghettos and the halls of top policy-makers, Grillo provides a disturbing new understanding of a war that has spiraled out of control–one that people across the political spectrum need to confront now.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In recent decades, international courts have increasingly started investigating armed conflicts. However, the impact of this remains under-researched. Patrick S. Wegner closes this gap via a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the International Criminal Court in the Darfur and Lord’s Resistance Army conflicts. He offers a fresh approach to peace and conflict studies, while avoiding the current quantitative focus of the literature and polarisation between critics and supporters of applying justice in conflicts. This is the first time that the impact of an international criminal court has been analysed in all its facets in two conflicts. The consequences of these investigations are much more complex and difficult to predict than most of the existing literature suggests. Recurrent claims, such as the deterrent effect of trials and the danger of blocking negotiations by the issuing of arrest warrants, are put to the test here with some surprising results.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Using an array of cultural documents from 1990 to the present, including diaries, testimonies, fiction, online video postings, and anti-mafia social networks, Robin Pickering-Iazzi examines the myths, values, codes of behaviour, and relationships produced by the Italian mafia through a wide cross-disciplinary lens. The Mafia in Italian Lives and Literature explores the ways that these literary engagements with the mafia relate to broader contemporary Italian life and offer implicit challenges, and a quiet code of resistance, to the trauma and injustice wrought by the mafia in various Italian cities.

Despite the long tradition of representing the mafia in Italian literature, until now women’s contributions to this literature have been overlooked. Pickering-Iazzi’s aim is to encourage new critical reflection on a broader selection of literature through new theoretical lenses in order to enrich our understanding of crime fiction, Sicily and Sicilian identity in literature, narrative traits of the new Italian epic, and the cultural and social functions of storytelling in life and literature.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In a time when threats against the maritime community have never been greater, Maritime Security: Protection of Marinas, Ports, Small Watercraft, Yachts, and Ships provides a single, comprehensive source of necessary information for understanding and preventing or reducing threats to the maritime community.

The book defines what comprises the maritime community, including marinas, ports, small watercraft, yachts, and ships. It focuses on the protection of these rather than the protection of cargo in the maritime supply chain, since with the protection of the infrastructural elements it follows that the cargo is secured.

In identifying and discussing threats to security, the book includes natural threats such as storms as well as traditional criminal threats and piracy, with especially detailed examinations of terrorism and cybersecurity. It also introduces the US Coast Guard America’s Waterway Watch program, describing the components of the program, its implementation throughout the maritime community, and its successes.

By dealing with the security of all areas within the maritime community, Maritime Security is highly valuable to all members of the community, from the local boater to professionals charged with the protection of major ports and seagoing vessels. It gives you the skills to understand, identify, analyze, and address natural and man-made threats to localized or broad sections in the maritime community.” From Publisher’s Website

“Since 1996, when the deportation laws were hardened, millions of migrants to the U.S., including many long-term legal permanent residents with “green cards,” have experienced summary arrest, incarceration without bail, transfer to remote detention facilities, and deportation without counsel—a life-time banishment from what is, in many cases, the only country they have ever known. U.S.-based families and communities face the loss of a worker, neighbor, spouse, parent, or child. Many of the deported are “sentenced home” to a country which they only knew as an infant, whose language they do not speak, or where a family lives in extreme poverty or indebtedness for not yet being able to pay the costs of their previous migration. But what does this actually look like and what are the systems and processes and who are the people who are enforcing deportation policies and practices? The New Deportations Delirium responds to these questions. Taken as a whole, the volume raises consciousness about the complexities of the issues and argues for the interdisciplinary dialogue and response. Over the course of the book, deportation policy is debated by lawyers, judges, social workers, researchers, and clinical and community psychologists as well as educators, researchers, and community activists. The New Deportations Delirium presents a fresh conversation and urges a holistic response to the complex realities facing not only migrants but also the wider U.S. society in which they have sought a better life.” From Publisher’s Website

“There is no more vivid example of a state’s power over its citizens than the criminal law. By criminalizing various behaviours, the state sets boundaries on what we can and cannot do. And the criminal law is in many ways unique in the harshness of its sanctions. But traditional criminal law theory has for too long focused on the questions, what is a crime? and what is the justification of punishment? The significance of the criminal law extends beyond these questions; indeed, critical philosophical questions underlie all aspects of the criminal justice system. The criminal law engages us not just as offenders or potential offenders, but also as victims, suspects, judges and jurors, prosecutors and defenders and as citizens. The authors in this volume go beyond traditional questions to challenge our conventional understandings of the criminal law. In doing so, they draw from a number of disciplines including philosophy, history, and social science.” From Publisher’s Website

“The terrorist attacks of 9/11 are indelibly etched into our cultural memory. This is the story of how the legal ramifications of that day brought two presidents, Congress, and the Supreme Court into repeated confrontation over the incarceration of hundreds of suspected terrorists and “enemy combatants” at the US naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba. Could these prisoners (including an American citizen) be held indefinitely without due process of law? Did they have the right to seek their release by habeas corpus in US courts? Could they be tried in a makeshift military judicial system? With Guantánamo well into its second decade, these questions have challenged the three branches of government, each contending with the others, and each invoking the Constitution’s separation of powers as well as its checks and balances.

In The 9/11 Terror Cases, Allan A. Ryan leads students and general readers through the pertinent cases: Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, both decided by the Supreme Court in 2004; Hamdan v. Bush, decided in 2006; and Boumediene v. Bush, in 2008. An eloquent writer and an expert in military law and constitutional litigation, Ryan is an adept guide through the nuanced complexities of these cases, which rejected the sweeping powers asserted by President Bush and Congress, and upheld the rule of law, even for enemy combatants. In doing so, as we see clearly in Ryan’s deft account, the Supreme Court’s rulings speak directly to the extent and nature of presidential and congressional prerogative, and to the critical separation and balance of powers in the governing of the United States.” From Publisher’s Website

“It is well known that the social definition of individuals and ethnic groups helps legitimize how they are addressed by law enforcement. The philosophy of the social construction of crime and criminal behaviour reflects how individuals, such as police officers, construct meaning from the perspective from which they emerge, which in turn influences their law enforcement outlook. In the field, this is generally viewed through a positivist frame of reference which fails to critically examine assumptions of approach and practice. Written by an international specialist in this area, this is the first book which attempts to situate the social construction of crime and criminal behaviour within the philosophical context of phenomenology and how these constructions help inform, and ultimately justify, the policies employed to address them. Challenging existing thinking, this is essential reading for academics and students interested in social theory and theories of criminology.” From Publisher’s Website

“Police Corruption in the NYPD: From Knapp to Mollen explores how the New York Police Department experienced two major investigations within a quarter of a century. It compares the states of corruption within the NYPD during the Knapp and Mollen commissions, examining why corruption continued and why the revealed ethical breaches became more serious. It also discusses how corruption was enhanced even after accountability and responsibility were assigned to department administration.

The book gives in-depth discussions of the Knapp and Mollen reports and relates the history and relevance of efforts to combat corruption and to improve police practices. It uses empirical data from interviews and current NYPD recruit training documents as reference materials in examining police practices. It also identifies failures of leadership that contributed to the systemic ethical degeneration of the NYPD.

Police Corruption in the NYPD goes beyond the training of ethics and enforcement by delving into the departmental failures that permit officers to develop from being merely unethical to becoming criminals. By presenting and analyzing theories of corruption from current authorities, it lays a foundation for critical discussion and comparison between commissions as well as current department ethical training and practices.” From Publisher’s Website

“Bias, prejudice, and corruption riddle the history of US jurisprudence. Policing American Indians: A Unique Chapter in American Jurisprudence explores these injustices, specifically the treatment of American Indians. A mix of academic research as well as field experience, this book draws on author Laurence French’s more than 40 years of experience with American Indian individuals and groups. It illustrates how, despite changes in the law to correct past injustices, a subculture of discrimination often persists in law enforcement, whether by a prosecutor or a street cop.

The book provides specific examples of the role of police in extra-legal confrontations with American Indians, as well as examples of using the US military to police American Indians. It covers the ways in which US policy regarding American Indians has changed since the country’s birth, including recent changes in policy as a response to issues of national security following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Policing American Indians takes an interdisciplinary approach that includes criminology, sociology, anthropology, cultural psychology, and historical analysis of geopolitics. It challenges actual historical practices of the basic concepts of due process and justice for all espoused by the American criminal justice system. It also adds a nuanced cultural dimension to the history of policing in American history to give you a more detailed image of unjust behavior in the history of American criminal justice.” From Publisher’s Website

“This edited volume illustrates the important advances in Israeli police science over the last decade. In addition to providing Israel with better knowledge about policing, these advances play an important part in police science. The book illustrates how empirical research in Israel or other countries outside the traditional research domains of the US, Europe and Australia can provide comparative legitimacy to key concepts and findings in policing. The book also examines how new knowledge bringing new questions can be identified.” From Publisher’s Website

“The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. To be sentenced to prison is to face systematic violence, humiliation, and, perhaps worst of all, separation from family and community. It is, to borrow Orlando Patterson’s term for the utter isolation of slavery, to suffer “social death.” In Prison and Social Death, Joshua Price exposes the unexamined cost that prisoners pay while incarcerated and after release, drawing upon hundreds of often harrowing interviews conducted with people in prison, parolees, and their families.

Price argues that the prison separates prisoners from desperately needed communities of support from parents, spouses, and children. Moreover, this isolation of people in prison renders them highly vulnerable to other forms of violence, including sexual violence. Price stresses that the violence they face goes beyond physical abuse by prison guards and it involves institutionalized forms of mistreatment, ranging from abysmally poor health care to routine practices that are arguably abusive, such as pat-downs, cavity searches, and the shackling of pregnant women. And social death does not end with prison. The condition is permanent, following people after they are released from prison. Finding housing, employment, receiving social welfare benefits, and regaining voting rights are all hindered by various legal and other hurdles. The mechanisms of social death, Price shows, are also informal and cultural. Ex-prisoners face numerous forms of distrust and are permanently stigmatized by other citizens around them.

A compelling blend of solidarity, civil rights activism, and social research, Prison and Social Death offers a unique look at the American prison and the excessive and unnecessary damage it inflicts on prisoners and parolees.” From Publisher’s Website

“The death penalty is embodied in Indian law, yet there is very little known about the people who are on death row except for media reports on them. In order to explore the way the prisoners on death row experience and perceive their lives and make meaning of that world 111 prisoners on death row in India were interviewed. Underpinned by phenomenology and symbolic interactionism, the data analysis, first and foremost leads to an understanding of the prisoners who are on death row with reference to their demographic profile and the impact of death sentence on the families of these prisoners.” From Publisher’s Website

“In this book, Carrie L. Buist and Emily Lenning reflect on the origins of Queer Criminology, survey the foundational research and scholarship in this emerging field, and offer suggestions for the future. Covering topics such as the criminalization of queerness; the policing of Queer communities; Queer experiences in the courtroom; and the correctional control of Queer people, Queer Criminology synthesizes the work of criminologists, journalists, legal scholars, non-governmental organizations, and others to illuminate the historical and contemporary context of the Queer experience.

Queer Criminology offers examples of the grave injustices that Queer people face around the world, particularly in places such as Russia, Kyrgyzstan, England, India, Thailand, Nigeria, and the United States. These injustices include, but are not limited to, selective enforcement, coerced confessions, disproportionate sentencing, rape, extortion, denial of due process, forced isolation, corporal punishment, and death. By highlighting a pattern of discriminatory, disproportionate, and abusive treatment of Queer people by the criminal legal system, this book demonstrates the importance of developing a criminology that critiques the heteronormative systems that serve to oppress Queer people around the world.

Buist and Lenning argue that criminology is incomplete without a thorough recognition and understanding of these Queer experiences. Therefore, Queer Criminology is a vital contribution to the growing body of literature exploring the Queer experience, and should be considered a necessary tool for students, scholars, and practitioners alike who are seeking a more just criminal legal system.” From Publisher’s Website

“In the two and a half decades since the end of the Cold War, policy makers have become acutely aware of the extent to which the world today faces mass atrocities. In an effort to prevent the death, destruction, and global chaos wrought by these crimes, the agendas for both national and international policy have grown beyond conflict prevention to encompass atrocity prevention, protection of civilians, transitional justice, and the Responsibility to Protect. Yet, to date, there has been no attempt to address the topic of the prevention of mass atrocities from the theoretical, policy, and practicing standpoints simultaneously. This volume is designed to fill that gap, clarifying and solidifying the present understanding of atrocity prevention. It will serve as an authoritative work on the state of the field.” From Publisher’s Website

“A significant proportion of serious crime is economically motivated. Almost all financial crimes will be either motivated by greed, or the desire to cover up misconduct. This Handbook addresses financial crimes such as fraud, corruption and money laundering, and highlights both the risks presented by these crimes, as well as their impact on the economy.

The contributors cover the practical issues on the topic on a transnational level, both in terms of the crimes and the steps taken to control them. They place an emphasis on the prevention, disruption and control of financial crime. They discuss, in eight parts, the nature and characteristics of economic and financial crime, The enterprise of crime, business crime, the financial sector at risk, fraud, corruption, The proceeds of financial and economic crime, and enforcement and control.

Academics interested in criminology, law, as well as business and legal studies students will find this book to be an invaluable resource. Practitioners, including lawyers, compliance and risk managements, law enforcement officers, and policy makers will also find the points raised to be of use.” From Publisher’s Website

“This timely Research Handbook contains an analysis by leading scholars and practitioners of various legal questions concerning cyberspace and cyber activities. Comprehensive and thorough, it succeeds in mapping out the range of international rules that apply to cyberspace and to specific cyber activities, assesses their regulatory efficacy and offers insightful suggestions, where necessary, for revised standards. Contributors examine the application of fundamental international law principles to cyberspace such as the principle of sovereignty, jurisdiction, state responsibility, individual criminal responsibility, human rights and intellectual property rights. They explore the application of international rules to cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, cyber crime, cyber attacks and to cyber war. They deal with the meaning of cyber operations, the ethics of cyber operations as well as with cyber deterrence. Finally, they comment on the cyber security policies of international and regional institutions such as those of the United Nations, the European Union, NATO and of Asian-Pacific institutions. This Research Handbook will benefit scholars in the fields of international law, international relations, public and private law. Researchers will find the suggested future research avenues in this field invaluable whilst policy-makers and practitioners will gain fresh insights into topical issues concerning the regulation of cyberspace and of cyber activities.” From Publisher’s Website

“Starting in the late 1960s, the United States suffered the biggest rise in violent crime in its history. Aside from the movement for black civil rights, it is difficult to think of a phenomenon that had a more profound effect on American life in the last third of the 20th century. Fear of murder, rape, robbery and assault influenced decisions on where to live and where to school one’s children, how to commute to work and where to spend one’s leisure time. In some locales, people dreaded leaving their homes at any time, day or night, and many Americans spent part of each day literally looking over their shoulders.

The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America is a landmark synthesis of criminology and social history that fully explains how and why violent crime exploded across the United States in the late 60s—and what ultimately drove it down decades later. It is the first book of its kind to analyze criminal violence in the U.S. from World War II to the 21st century. It examines crime in the context of all of the major social trends since the World War, including the postwar economic boom and suburbanization, the baby boom and the turmoil of the 60s, the urbanization of minorities, the advent of crack cocaine, the hardening of the criminal justice system and current efforts to contract it. Latzer’s sweeping, definitive study at last brings coherence to the bewildering array of explanations for the nightmarish reality that many Americans lived with for decades.” From Publisher’s Website

“Almost everyone agrees–Right on Crime, the ACLU, Koch Industries, George Soross Open Society Foundation, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal–that Americas current systems for sentencing criminal offenders are a shambles, with crazy quilts of incompatible and conflicting laws, policies, and practices in every state and the federal system. Most everyone agrees that punishments are too severe, and too many people are in prison. However, the kinds of major changes required to undo mass incarceration and rebuild American sentencing are simply not happening. Despite well-intentioned rhetoric and media coverage, there has been very little meaningful change. In Sentencing Fragments, Michael Tonry explains what needs to be done to rebuild just systems of sentencing and punishment, and how to do it. This book tells the story of sentencing policy changes since 1975, examines research findings concerning their effects, and explains what does and does not work. Beyond calling attention to the devastating effects on the lives of the poor and disadvantaged and the latest empirical evidence, Tonry identifies the common moral theories behind criminal sentencing–as well as their larger assumptions about human nature–and discusses the ways in which different theories have bred very different sentencing policies. Sentencing Fragments concludes with a set of proposals for creating better policies and practices for the future, calling for American legislators and politicians to remake sentencing into the humane and just process that it always should have been. In lucid and engaging prose, Michael Tonry reveals the historical foundation for the current state of the American criminal justice system, while simultaneously offering a game plan for long overdue reform.” From publisher’s Website

“The most punitive era in American history reached its apex in the 1990s, but the trend has reversed in recent years. Smart on Crime: The Struggle to Build a Better American Penal System examines the factors causing this dramatic turnaround. It relates and echoes the increasing need and desire on the part of actors in the American government system to construct a penal system that is more rational and humane.

Author Garrick L. Percival points out that the prison boom did not naturally emerge as a governmental response to increasing crime rates. Instead, political forces actively built and shaped the growth of a more aggressive and populated penal system. He is optimistic that the shifting political forces surrounding crime and punishment can now reform the system, explaining how current political actors can craft more constructive and just policies and programs. The book shows how rationality and humanitarianism lead to a penal system that imprisons fewer people, does less harm to the lives of individual offenders and those close to them, and is less expensive to maintain.

The book presents empirical data to concretely demonstrate what is working and what is not in today’s penal system. It closely examines policies and practices in Texas, Ohio, and California as comparative illustrations on what progress has been made or needs to be made in penal systems across the United States. The book includes a comprehensive discussion of highlighted issues, and relates more than two dozen interviews with pivotal political actors who clarify why there is a major shift underway in the American penal system. Their insights reveal paths that can be taken to improve the current penal system.” From Publisher’s Website

“The United Nations has called violence against women “the most pervasive, yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world” and there is a long-established history of the systematic victimization of women by the state during times of peace and conflict. This book contributes to the established literature on women, gender and crime and the growing research on state crime and extends the discussion of violence against women to include the role and extent of crime and violence perpetrated by the state.

State Crime, Women and Gender examines state-perpetrated violence against women in all its various forms. Drawing on case studies from around the world, patterns of state-perpetrated violence are examined as it relates to women’s victimization, their role as perpetrators, resistors of state violence, as well as their engagement as professionals in the international criminal justice system. From the direct involvement of Condaleeza Rice in the United States-led war on terror, to the women of Egypt’s Arab Spring Uprising, to Afghani poetry as a means to resist state-sanctioned patriarchal control, case examples are used to highlight the pervasive and enduring problem of state-perpetrated violence against women.

The exploration of topics that have not previously been addressed in the criminological literature, such as women as perpetrators of state violence and their role as willing consumers who reinforce and replicate the existing state-sanctioned patriarchal status quo, makes State Crime, Women and Gender a must-read for students and scholars engaged in the study of state crime, victimology and feminist criminology.” From Publisher’s Website

“The notion that an individual accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty is one of the cornerstones of the American criminal justice system. However, the presumption of innocence creates a number of practical and theoretical issues, particularly regarding pre-trial and post-trial processes. In Taming the Presumption of Innocence, Richard L. Lippke argues that the presumption of innocence should be contained to the criminal trial. Beyond the realm of the trial, legal professionals, investigators, and the general public should carry out their respective roles in the criminal justice process without making any presumptions about guilt or innocence whatsoever. Rather than eschewing the significance of the presumption of innocence, the book defends its role within its proper context, the criminal trial. According to Lippke, other aspects of the criminal justice system such as investigation, lawmaking, and treatment of ex-offenders should be conducted in such a way that reflects the fallibility and unpredictability of the system without involving the issue of presumed guilt or innocence. Lippke dispels the idea that the presumption of innocence can be used to remedy some of the current issues in the practice of criminal justice, and instead proposes engaging in deeper, more substantive reforms of the American criminal justice system. The first monograph dedicated exclusively to the presumption of innocence, Taming the Presumption of Innocence will be an ideal text for students and scholars of criminology, criminal justice, and legal theory.” From Publisher’s Website

“Scholars and practitioners alike agree that somehow the past needs to be addressed in order to enable individuals and collectives to rebuild trust and relationships. However, they also continue to struggle with critical questions. When is the right moment to address the legacies of the past after violent conflict? How can societies address the past without deepening the pain that arises from memories related to the violence and crimes committed in war? How can cultures of remembrance be established that would include and acknowledges the victims of all sides involved in violent conflict? How can various actors deal constructively with different interpretations of facts and history?

Two decades after the wars, societies in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia – albeit to different degrees – are still facing the legacies of the wars of the 1990s on a daily basis. Reconciliation between and within these societies remains a formidable challenge, given that all three countries are still facing unresolved disputes either at a cross-border level or amongst parallel societies that persist at a local community level.

This book engages scholars and practitioners from the regions of former Yugoslavia, as well as international experts, to reflect on the achievements and obstacles that characterise efforts to deal with the past. Drawing variously on empirical studies, theoretical discussions, and practical experience, their contributions offer invaluable insights into the complex relationship between transitional justice and conflict transformation.” From Publisher’s Website

“Hate crimes and lesser acts of bigotry and intolerance are seen to be constants in today’s world. Since 1990, the federal government has published annual reports on hate crime incidents in the United States. While the reported numbers are disturbing, even more devastating is the impact of these crimes on individuals, communities, and society.

This comprehensive textbook can serve as a stand-alone source for instructors and students who study hate crimes and/or other related acts. It invites the reader to consider relevant social mores and practices as well as criminal justice policies as they relate to hate crimes by presenting this subject within a broad context.” From Publisher’s Website

“A Ponzi scheme is one of the simplest, albeit effective, financial frauds to engineer, and new schemes keep coming forward. Despite this, however, people continue to invest in them. How are we to account for the seemingly never-ending lure of such schemes? In providing answers to this central question, this concise and well-researched book examines how Ponzi schemes operate, how they differ from pyramid schemes, Ponzi finance and other financial arrangements.

The author questions whether the victims have only themselves to blame, why fraudsters think that they can avoid detection, and what important insights behavioural finance theory and psychology can add. Particular attention is paid to the reasons behind the failure of financial regulation, and the types of regulatory changes needed to protect investors and avoid repetitions. The analysis is informed by case studies of 11 Ponzi schemes in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Finance and business academics interested in the operation of Ponzi schemes, and how they differ from pyramid schemes, will find this book invaluable, as will students of economics, finance, behavioural decision-making and psychology. Lawyers, psychologists, regulatory agencies and financial institutions will also benefit considerably from the analysis.” From Publisher’s Website

“This book addresses a growing area of concern for scholars and development practitioners: discriminatory gender norms in legally plural settings. Focusing specifically on indigenous women, this book analyses how they, often in alliance with supporters and allies, have sought to improve their access to justice. Development practitioners working in the field of access to justice have tended to conceive indigenous legal systems as either inherently incompatible with women’s rights or, alternatively, they have emphasised customary law’s advantageous features, such as its greater accessibility, familiarity and effectiveness. Against this background – and based on a comparison of six thus far underexplored initiatives of legal and institutional change in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia – Anna Barrera Vivero provides a more nuanced, ethnographic, understanding of how women navigate through context-specific constellations of interlegality in their search for justice. In so doing, moreover, her account of ongoing political debates and local struggles for gender justice grounds the elaboration of a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the legally plural dynamics involved in the contestation of discriminatory gender norms.” From Publisher’s Website

“This insightful book focuses on developments since the publication in 2007 of the Corston Report into women and criminal justice. While some of its recommendations were accepted by government, actual policy has restricted the scale and scope of change. The challenges of working with women in the current climate of change and uncertainty are also explored, seeking to translate lessons from good practice to policy development and recommending future directions resulting from the coalition government’s Transforming Rehabilitation plans. This timely analysis engages with wide-ranging considerations for policy makers, providers and practitioners of services and interventions for women who offend, and questions whether women should be treated differently in the criminal justice system.” From Publisher’s Website