“Criminals and persons involved in serious and organized crime often do not limit their activities to purely illegal ones such as drug trafficking, fraud or property crimes. They also invest money in legal activities and businesses, for instance to exploit the revenues of their crimes or to generate a legal income. Criminals may establish or take over a construction company and then tender for government contracts. The ‘business processes’ of most types of organized crime also require legal facilities. Authorities thus have a particular interest in preventing criminals from either using the economic infrastructure to acquire a legal income or from misusing businesses to facilitate crimes and applying their criminal proceeds towards this purpose. An administrative approach applied in addition to or coordinated with the traditional instruments of criminal law is a potentially powerful tool to prevent and combat serious and organized crime. In 2011, the European Commission awarded an ISEC grant to the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice (coordinator) to conduct a ‘study on the potential for information exchanges between administrative bodies and traditional law enforcement organizations to support the use of administrative measures within EU Member States and at EU level’. Tilburg University (the Netherlands) and the KU Leuven (Belgium) conducted this research, supported by the Belgian Home Affairs Ministry.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Mahatma Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Since civil societies are ruled by law, they can be evaluated, both figuratively and literally, by how animals are treated in the criminal justice system. This book depicts animals’ roles within society and the laws that govern how humans treat them.

Carmen M. Cusack focuses on current issues in human-animal relationships and how these are affected by the criminal justice system. Her analysis, while objective, is rooted in firsthand activist, professional, legal, and criminal justice experience. She presents a comprehensive overview of the place of animals and the law, including pets in prison, K-9 units, constitutional rights, animal sacrifice, wild animals, entertainment, domestic violence, rehabilitation, history, and religion. She includes information about law, behavioral and social science, systemic responses and procedure, anecdotal evidence, current events, and theoretical considerations.

Animals and Criminal Justice is a useful handbook and a thorough textbook, as well as a practical guide to animals’ relationships with the criminal justice system. Professionals, including police, child protective services, judges, animal control officers, and corrections staff, as well as scholars in the fields of criminal justice and criminology will find this book invaluable.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Born into slavery in rural Louisiana, Rose Herera was bought and sold several times before being purchased by the De Hart family of New Orleans. Still a slave, she married and had children, who also became the property of the De Harts. But after Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862 during the American Civil War, Herera’s owners fled to Havana, taking three of her small children with them. Beyond Freedom’s Reach is the true story of one woman’s quest to rescue her children from bondage.

In a gripping, meticulously researched account, Adam Rothman lays bare the mayhem of emancipation during and after the Civil War. Just how far the rights of freed slaves extended was unclear to black and white people alike, and so when Mary De Hart returned to New Orleans in 1865 to visit friends, she was surprised to find herself taken into custody as a kidnapper. The case of Rose Herera’s abducted children made its way through New Orleans’ courts, igniting a custody battle that revealed the prospects and limits of justice during Reconstruction.

Rose Herera’s perseverance brought her children’s plight to the attention of members of the U.S. Senate and State Department, who turned a domestic conflict into an international scandal. Beyond Freedom’s Reach is an unforgettable human drama and a poignant reflection on the tangled politics of slavery and the hazards faced by so many Americans on the hard road to freedom.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Often seen as a political sop to the racial fears of white voters, aggressive policing and draconian sentencing for illegal drug possession and related crimes have led to the imprisonment of millions of African Americans—far in excess of their representation in the population as a whole. Michael Javen Fortner shows in this eye-opening account that these punitive policies also enjoyed the support of many working-class and middle-class blacks, who were angry about decline and disorder in their communities. Black Silent Majority uncovers the role African Americans played in creating today’s system of mass incarceration.

Current anti-drug policies are based on a set of controversial laws first adopted in New York in the early 1970s and championed by the state’s Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller. Fortner traces how many blacks in New York came to believe that the rehabilitation-focused liberal policies of the 1960s had failed. Faced with economic malaise and rising rates of addiction and crime, they blamed addicts and pushers. By 1973, the outcry from grassroots activists and civic leaders in Harlem calling for drastic measures presented Rockefeller with a welcome opportunity to crack down on crime and boost his political career. New York became the first state to mandate long prison sentences for selling or possessing narcotics.

Black Silent Majority lays bare the tangled roots of a pernicious system. America’s drug policies, while in part a manifestation of the conservative movement, are also a product of black America’s confrontation with crime and chaos in its own neighborhoods.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Every day children exiled to prison are exposed to abusive and neglectful treatment, yet their plight is hidden. Based on wide-ranging research and first-person interviews, this passionately argued book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody. Drawing on human rights legislation and progress in the care and treatment of vulnerable children elsewhere, it outlines the harsh realities of penal child custody including hunger, denial of fresh air, cramped and dirty cells, strip-searching, segregation, the authorised infliction of severe pain, uncivilised conditions for suicidal children and ever-present violence and intimidation. The issues are explored through the lens of protection, not punishment, and the author finds there can be only one conclusion: child prisons must close. Providing a compelling manifesto for urgent and radical change, this book should be read by everyone who cares about child protection and human rights.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This book deals with the dilemmas caused by the various roles one has in life simultaneously. For instance, being a family member, an employee, a friend, a member of a sports club. This could generate tension because expectations of behaviour may clash, or even contradict one another. Individuals may find themselves in a tight spot because notions about loyalty in one’s own family, for instance, may be at odds with the dedication and integrity expected by an employer.

The central theme of the book focuses on the involvement of police officers in honour-related cases in their private lives, either as suspect, victim, or in some other way. The Colours of the Chameleon thereby not only fills a gap in current honour-related conflict research, but also provides a unique insight into honour codes in the private lives of police officers.” From Publisher’s Website.

”How skirting the law once defined America’s relation to the world.

In the frigid winter of 1875, Charles L. Lawrence made international headlines when he was arrested for smuggling silk worth $60 million into the United States. An intimate of Boss Tweed, gloriously dubbed “The Prince of Smugglers,” and the head of a network spanning four continents and lasting half a decade, Lawrence scandalized a nation whose founders themselves had once dabbled in contraband.

Since the Revolution itself, smuggling had tested the patriotism of the American people. Distrusting foreign goods, Congress instituted high tariffs on most imports. Protecting the nation was the custom house, which waged a “war on smuggling,” inspecting every traveler for illicitly imported silk, opium, tobacco, sugar, diamonds, and art. The Civil War’s blockade of the Confederacy heightened the obsession with contraband, but smuggling entered its prime during the Gilded Age, when characters like assassin Louis Bieral, economist “The Parsee Merchant,” Congressman Ben Butler, and actress Rose Eytinge tempted consumers with illicit foreign luxuries. Only as the United States became a global power with World War I did smuggling lose its scurvy romance.

Meticulously researched, Contraband explores the history of smuggling to illuminate the broader history of the United States, its power, its politics, and its culture.” From Publisher’s Website.

“A small dolphin on the ankle, a black line on the lower back, a flower on the hip, or a child’s name on the shoulder blade—among the women who make up the twenty percent of all adults in the USA who have tattoos, these are by far the most popular choices. Tattoos like these are cute, small, and can be easily hidden, and they fit right in with society’s preconceived notions about what is ‘gender appropriate’ for women. But what about women who are heavily tattooed? Or women who visibly wear imagery, like skulls, that can be perceived as masculine or ugly when inked on their skin?

Drawing on autoethnography, and extensive interviews with heavily tattooed women, Covered in Ink provides insight into the increasingly visible subculture of women with tattoos. Author Beverly Thompson visits tattoos parlors, talking to female tattoo artists and the women they ink, and she attends tattoo conventions and Miss Tattoo pageants where heavily tattooed women congregate to share their mutual love for the art form. Along the way, she brings to life women’s love of ink, their very personal choices of tattoo art, and the meaning tattooing has come to carry in their lives, as well as their struggles with gender norms, employment discrimination, and family rejection. Thompson finds that, despite the stigma and social opposition heavily tattooed women face, many feel empowered by their tattoos and strongly believe they are creating a space for self-expression that also presents a positive body image. A riveting and unique study, Covered in Ink provides important insight into the often unseen world of women and tattooing.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Crime and Everyday Life, Fifth Edition, offers a bold approach to crime theory and crime reduction. The text shows how crime opportunity is a necessary condition for illegal acts to occur. The authors offer realistic, often common-sense, ways to reduce or eliminate crime and criminal behavior in specific settings by removing the opportunity to complete the act. Using a clear and engaging writing style, author Marcus Felson and new co-author Mary Eckert talk directly to the student about criminal behavior, the routine activity approach, and specific crime reduction ideas. The authors emphasize how routine daily activities set the stage for illegal acts — offering fascinating new ideas and examples not presented in earlier editions. Most importantly, this book teaches the student how to think about crime, and then do something about it. “ From Publisher’s Website.

“Defining Crime explores the limitations of the legal definition of crime, how that politically based definition has shaped criminological research, and why criminologists must redefine crime to include scientific objectivity. Lynch, Stretesky, and Long argue that a scientific definition of crime must be detached from criminal law and the variation the political construction imposes. The authors propose an alternative definition of crime, explore its limitations, and how it can reshape criminological research. “ From Publisher’s Website.

”Cold War-era strategic thinking was driven by the belief that individuals, organizations, and foreign states could be deterred from offensive action by the threat of reprisal. That assurance was shaken with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; suddenly, it seemed that no threat was powerful enough to deter individuals or organizations that valued political objectives over their own lives and the lives of their members. More than a decade later, new research and theory are bringing deterrence back into currency as a viable counterterrorism strategy. Alex S. Wilner updates deterrence theory for conflict in the twenty-first century, arguing for its value against challengers such as rogue states, cyber warriors, and transnational terrorist organizations.

Deterring Rational Fanatics provides a full-scale discussion of deterrence theory concepts and controversies, assessing the utility of relying on the logic of deterrence and coercion to counter contemporary terrorism. In particular, targeted killings directed against the Taliban of Afghanistan provide a vivid illustration of the impact deterrence can have on militant behavior: precision strikes that eliminate militant leaders represent a significant cost to planning and participating in political violence, a cost that can coerce, manipulate, and alter behavior. Though deterrence theory is not a panacea for terrorism, insurgency, or militancy, it can serve as a strategic guide for state responses; as Wilner shows, terrorist violence can indeed be deterred.”

”Disordered Personalities and Crime seeks to better understand how we respond to those individuals who have been labelled at various points in time as ‘morally insane’, ‘psychopathic’ or ‘personality disordered’. Individuals whose behaviour is consistent with these diagnoses present challenges to both the criminal justice system and mental health systems, because the people who come to have such diagnoses seem to have a rational and realistic understanding of the world around them but they can behave in ways that suggest they have little understanding of the meaning or consequences of their actions.

This book argues that an analysis of the history of these diagnoses will help to provide a better understanding of contemporary dilemmas. These are categories that have been not only shaped by the needs of criminal justice and the claims of expertise by professionals, but also the fears, anxieties and demands of the wider public. In this book, David W. Jones demonstrates us how important these diagnoses have been to the history of psychiatry in its claims for professional expertise, and also sheds light on the evolution of the insanity defence and helps explain why it remains a problematic and controversial issue even today.

This book will be key reading for students, researchers and academics who are interested in crime and its relationship to mental disorder and also for those interested in psychiatry and abnormal psychology.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This book considers an important and largely neglected area of Islamic law by exploring how medieval Muslim jurists resolved criminal cases that could not be proven beyond a doubt. Intisar A. Rabb calls into question a controversial popular notion about Islamic law today, which is that Islamic law is a divine legal tradition that has little room for discretion or doubt, particularly in Islamic criminal law. Despite its contemporary popularity, that notion turns out to have been far outside the mainstream of Islamic law for most of its history. Instead of rejecting doubt, medieval Muslim scholars largely embraced it. In fact, they used doubt to enlarge their own power and to construct Islamic criminal law itself. Through a close examination of legal, historical, and theological sources, and a range of illustrative case studies, this book shows that Muslim jurists developed a highly sophisticated and regulated system for dealing with Islam’s unique concept of doubt, which evolved from the seventh to the sixteenth century.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In 2000, the U.S. passed a major aid package that was going to help Colombia do it all: cut drug trafficking, defeat leftist guerrillas, support peace, and build democracy. More than 80% of the assistance, however, was military aid, at a time when the Colombian security forces were linked to abusive, drug-trafficking paramilitary forces. Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats examines the U.S. policymaking process in the design, implementation, and consequences of Plan Colombia, as the aid package came to be known.

Winifred Tate explores the rhetoric and practice of foreign policy by the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, Congress, and the U.S. military Southern Command. Tate’s ethnography uncovers how policymakers’ utopian visions and emotional entanglements play a profound role in their efforts to orchestrate and impose social transformation abroad. She argues that U.S. officials’ zero tolerance for illegal drugs provided the ideological architecture for the subsequent militarization of domestic drug policy abroad. The U.S. also ignored Colombian state complicity with paramilitary brutality, presenting them as evidence of an absent state and the authentic expression of a frustrated middle class. For rural residents of Colombia living under paramilitary dominion, these denials circulated as a form of state terror. Tate’s analysis examines how oppositional activists and the policy’s targets—civilians and local state officials in southern Colombia—attempted to shape aid design and delivery, revealing the process and effects of human rights policymaking.” From Publisher’s Website.

“No matter where in Canada they occur, inquiries and inquests into untimely Indigenous deaths in state custody often tell the same story. Repeating details of fatty livers, mental illness, alcoholic belligerence, and a mysterious incapacity to cope with modern life, the legal proceedings declare that there are no villains here, only inevitable casualties of Indigenous life.

But what about a sixty-seven-year-old man who dies in a hospital in police custody with a large, visible, purple boot print on his chest? Or a barely conscious, alcoholic older man, dropped off by police in a dark alley on a cold Vancouver night? Or Saskatoon’s infamous and lethal starlight tours, whose victims were left on the outskirts of town in sub-zero temperatures? How do we account for the repeated failure to care evident in so many cases of Indigenous deaths in custody?

In Dying from Improvement, Sherene H. Razack argues that, amidst systematic state violence against Indigenous people, inquiries and inquests serve to obscure the violence of ongoing settler colonialism under the guise of benevolent concern. They tell settler society that it is caring, compassionate, and engaged in improving the lives of Indigenous people – even as the incarceration rate of Indigenous men and women increases and the number of those who die in custody rises.

Razack’s powerful critique of the Canadian settler state and its legal system speaks to many of today’s most pressing issues of social justice: the treatment of Indigenous people, the unparalleled authority of the police and the justice system, and their systematic inhumanity towards those whose lives they perceive as insignificant.” From Publisher’s Website.

”This groundbreaking monograph asserts the need for the establishment of an exclusionary rule of evidence in China as a means of protecting the people from police wrongdoing. The author skilfully explores the foundations and developments of the exclusionary rule in the UK and USA, assessing the rule from a comparative perspective and illuminating some issues that may arise in transferring the rule from one legal system to another. Divided into two parts, the first part discusses lessons from the past, and provides an in-depth examination of the development of the exclusionary rule in the UK and USA, covering rationales, debates and the theoretical foundation of the exclusionary rule in the constitutional context. The second part looks to the future and the establishment of a Chinese exclusionary rule. Specifically, it analyses the effects of police torture, the passive attitude of judges and the need to establish such a rule in practice for future protection of human rights. The author’s experience in criminal law and procedure allow him to adroitly analyse crucial issues on both theoretical and practical level that is understandable to those working in the areas of human rights, comparative criminal procedure, and the Chinese legal system.” From Publisher’s Website.

”Explicit Utopias explores a problem that has long haunted feminist, lesbian, and queer critics: the obstacles to imagining women’s desire and sexual agency. Pornography is one arena in which women have actively sought to imaginatively overcome this problem, yet pornography has also been an object of passionate feminist contention. Revisiting the feminist sex wars of the 1980s, Amalia Ziv offers a comprehensive and thoughtful reassessment of the arguments and concerns of both camps, tying these early debates to the contemporary surge of concern over the pornification of culture. She also sets out to rectify the lack of critical attention to marginal sexual representations by examining the feminist, queer, and psychoanalytic literature on several key issues, including fantasy, the phallus, identification, and gender performativity.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Fishers and Plunderers focuses on the exploitation of fish and fishers alike in a global industry that gives little consideration to either conservation or human rights. In a business characterized by overprovisioned vessels and shortages of fish, young men are routinely trafficked from poor areas onto fishing boats to work under conditions of virtual slavery. Poverty and debt push many towards piracy and drugs—although the criminality linked to the industry extends far beyond any individual worker, vessel, or fleet. Fishers and Plunderers provides strong evidence of industry-wide crimes and injustices and argues for regulations that protect the rights of fishers across the board.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Framing Drug Use examines the forces that shape the way we use drugs. The book analyses space, streetscapes, languages, signs, photographs, stories, routines, social organisations and the frameworks of everyday life, which contribute to drug-related harm. This variously implicates the forces of economics, emotion, physical pleasure and culture. John Fitzgerald importantly proposes a new set of tools and a new framework for analyzing drug problems. The new framework suggests that care, compassion and responsibility might come to replace blame and punishment as central terms that define how we approach drug control.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In Gangs of Russia, Svetlana Stephenson explores the secretive world of the gangs. Using in-depth interviews with gang members, law enforcers, and residents in the city of Kazan, together with analyses of historical and sociological accounts from across Russia, she presents the history of gangs both before and after the arrival of market capitalism.

Contrary to predominant notions of gangs as collections of maladjusted delinquents or illegal enterprises, Stephenson argues, Russian gangs should be seen as traditional, close-knit male groups with deep links to their communities. Stephenson shows that gangs have long been intricately involved with the police and other state structures in configurations that are both personal and economic. She also explains how the cultural orientations typical of gangs—emphasis on loyalty to one’s own, showing toughness to outsiders, exacting revenge for perceived affronts and challenges—are not only found on the streets but are also present in the top echelons of today’s Russian state.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Is drug addiction a disease that can be treated, or is it a crime that should be punished? In her probing study, Illness or Deviance?, Jennifer Murphy investigates the various perspectives on addiction, and how society has myriad ways of handling it—incarcerating some drug users while putting others in treatment.

Illness or Deviance? highlights the confusion and contradictions about labeling addiction. Murphy’s fieldwork in a drug court and an outpatient drug treatment facility yields fascinating insights, such as how courts and treatment centers both enforce the “disease” label of addiction, yet their management tactics overlap treatment with “therapeutic punishment.” The “addict” label is a result not just of using drugs, but also of being a part of the drug lifestyle, by selling drugs. In addition, Murphy observes that drug courts and treatment facilities benefit economically from their cooperation, creating a very powerful institutional arrangement.

Murphy contextualizes her findings within theories of medical sociology as well as criminology to identify the policy implications of a medicalized view of addiction.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This is the first book about the intermediary scheme, criminal justice’s untold ‘good news story’. Intermediaries are independent communication specialists who assist children and vulnerable adults at police interviews and trials, helping to improve the quality of their evidence and providing access to justice for those who previously had been excluded. Richly illustrated with case examples through intermediaries’ own descriptions of their work, the book also includes feedback from justice system personnel and over 70 judges. This unique book provides a comprehensive explanation of how intermediaries work in practice and gives ‘behind the scenes’ insights into the criminal process. It will be of interest to practitioners and the wider public in England and Wales and encourage consideration of the scheme elsewhere.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Why do young Saudis, night after night, joyride and skid cars on Riyadh’s avenues? Who are these “drifters” who defy public order and private property? What drives their revolt? Based on four years of fieldwork in Riyadh, Pascal Menoret’s Joyriding in Riyadh explores the social fabric of the city and connects it to Saudi Arabia’s recent history. Car drifting emerged after Riyadh was planned, and oil became the main driver of the economy. For young rural migrants, it was a way to reclaim alienating and threatening urban spaces. For the Saudi state, it jeopardized its most basic operations: managing public spaces and enforcing law and order. A police crackdown soon targeted car drifting, feeding a nationwide moral panic led by religious activists who framed youth culture as a public issue. The book retraces the politicization of Riyadh youth and shows that, far from being a marginal event, car drifting is embedded in the country’s social violence and economic inequality.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Juvenile Offenders and Guns explores how and why twenty-five incarcerated young men of color acquired and used guns, how guns made them feel, and how they felt about the violence in which they participated as well as the violence to which they were exposed as victims and witnesses. Through their narratives, patterns emerge of boys attempting to become men in homes headed by mothers who struggled financially, the multiple attractions of the street that exceeded those of school, and the risks of the street lifestyle that prompted these youth to arm themselves. Guns, long a part of both American history and myth, arise here as having multiple meanings and serving many symbolic and practical purposes for these youth, from protection to constructing a capable masculinity adapted to their lifestyle in the streets.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Law has a strangely complicated relationship to deception. Though it sometimes takes a hard line on behalf of truth – “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” – competing values often cause law to look the other way. How and why is lying alternately accepted, condemned, or prosecuted? What are the government’s interests in allowing or disallowing lying? Law and Lies is the first book to thematically address the role of lying in the American legal system. Undercover police agents are permitted to lie in the name of catching criminals, and government officials are permitted to lie in service of national security. In the case of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, lying was not only permitted, but actively encouraged. A range of illuminating case studies reveal that the government’s tolerance of deception is rarely as simple as the ‘whole truth.’” From Publisher’s Website.

“Little is known about those at the command end of policing in Europe. Over the last two years, Bryn Caless and Steve Tong have had unique access to those at the top of Europe’s police forces, obtaining detailed comments from more than a hundred strategic police leaders in 22 countries and presenting, for the first time, information about how they are selected for high office, how they are held to account and what their views are on current and future challenges in policing. Building on research conducted in the UK, this is a timely and unparalleled insight into a little-known elite in the law-enforcement world.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research from around the world, this book brings together renowned international scholars to explore life-course perspectives on women’s imprisonment. Instead of covering only one aspect of women’s carceral experiences, this book offers a broader perspective that encompasses women’s pathways to prison, their prison experiences and the effects of these experiences on their children’s well-being, as well as their subsequent chances of desisting from crime.

Encompassing perspectives from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, the United States, Ukraine and Sri Lanka, this book uncovers the similarities across time and space in women offenders’ life histories and those of their children and examines the differences in women’s experiences and trajectories by shedding light on the moderating effects of particular cultural contexts.

Lives of Incarcerated Women will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of punishment, penology, life-course criminology, women and crime and gender studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Mary Buser began her career at Rikers Island as a social work intern, brimming with ideas and eager to help incarcerated women find a better path. Her reassignment to a men’s jail coincided with the dawn of the city’s “stop-and-frisk” policy, a flood of unprecedented arrests, and the biggest jailhouse build-up in New York City history.

Committed to the possibility of growth for the scarred and tattooed masses who filed into her session booth, Buser was suddenly faced with black eyes, punched-out teeth, and frantic whispers of beatings by officers. Recognizing the greater danger of pointing a finger at one’s captors, Buser attempted to help them, while also keeping them as well as herself, safe. Following her promotion to assistant chief, she was transferred to different jails, working in the Mental Health Center, and finally, at Rikers’s notorious “jail within jail,” the dreaded solitary confinement unit, where she saw horrors she’d never imagined. Finally, it became too much to bear, forcing Buser to flee Rikers and never look back – until now.

Lockdown on Rikers shines a light into the deepest and most horrific recesses of the criminal justice system, and shows how far it has really drifted from the ideals we espouse.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This is a fieldwork driven book based upon personal interviews with 55 men connected to one batterer intervention group.

Most of the men that were interviewed had been incarcerated at some point for domestic violence, and many were re-interviewed every six to nine months, four or five times.

The authors also conducted focus groups with other men who were participating in the state-certified batterer intervention program the authors were studying, and they observed many group meetings over their years of data collection.

This primary data is supplemented by an analysis of the closed case-files from over 1100 men.

The men’s accounts of their lives are told within a broader framework of the agency where they have attended groups.” From Publisher’s Website.

“By some estimates, there are as many as twelve million psychopaths in the United States alone. Cold-blooded, remorseless, and strangely charismatic, they commit at least half of all serious and violent crimes. Supposedly, most serial killers are psychopaths, as, surprisngly, are large numbers of corporate executives. They seem to be an inescapable, and fascinating, threat in our midst.

But is psychopathy a brain disorder, as many scientists now claim? Or is it just a reflection of modern society’s deepest fears? The Myth of the Born Criminal offers the first comprehensive critique of the concept of psychopathy from the eighteenth-century origins of the born-criminal theory to the latest neuroimaging, behavioural genetics, and statistical studies. Jarkko Jalava, Stephanie Griffiths, and Michael Maraun use their expertise in neuropsychology, psychometrics, and criminology to dispel the myth that psychopathy is a biologically-based condition. Deconstructing the emotive language with which both research scientists and reporters describe the psychopaths among us, they explain how the idea of psychopathy offers a comforting neurobiological solution to the mystery of evil.

A stunning merger of rigorous science and clear-sighted cultural analysis, The Myth of the Born Criminal is for anyone who wonders just what truth – or fiction – lurks behind the study of psychopathy.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In 2005 Waverly Duck was called to a town he calls Bristol Hill to serve as an expert witness in the sentencing of drug dealer Jonathan Wilson. Convicted as an accessory to the murder of a federal witness and that of a fellow drug dealer, Jonathan faced the death penalty, and Duck was there to provide evidence that the environment in which Jonathan had grown up mitigated the seriousness of his alleged crimes. Duck’s exploration led him to Jonathan’s church, his elementary, middle, and high schools, the juvenile facility where he had previously been incarcerated, his family and friends, other drug dealers, and residents who knew him or knew of him. After extensive ethnographic observations, Duck found himself seriously troubled and uncertain: Are Jonathan and others like him a danger to society? Or is it the converse—is society a danger to them?

Duck’s short stay in Bristol Hill quickly transformed into a long-term study—one that forms the core of No Way Out. This landmark book challenges the common misconception of urban ghettoes as chaotic places where drug dealing, street crime, and random violence make daily life dangerous for their residents. Through close observations of daily life in these neighborhoods, Duck shows how the prevailing social order ensures that residents can go about their lives in relative safety, despite the risks that are embedded in living amid the drug trade. In a neighborhood plagued by failing schools, chronic unemployment, punitive law enforcement, and high rates of incarceration, residents are knit together by long-term ties of kinship and friendship, and they base their actions on a profound sense of community fairness and accountability. Duck presents powerful case studies of individuals whose difficulties flow not from their values, or a lack thereof, but rather from the multiple obstacles they encounter on a daily basis.

No Way Out explores how ordinary people make sense of their lives within severe constraints and how they choose among unrewarding prospects, rather than freely acting upon their own values. What emerges is an important and revelatory new perspective on the culture of the urban poor.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In Offending and Desistance, Beth Weaver examines the role of a co-offending peer group in shaping and influencing offending and desistance, focusing on three phases of their criminal careers: onset, persistence and desistance. While there is consensus across the body of desistance research that social relations have a role to play in variously constraining, enabling and sustaining desistance, no desistance studies have adequately analysed the dynamics or properties of social relations, or their relationship to individuals and social structures. This book aims to reset this balance.

By examining the social relations and life stories of six Scottish men (in their forties), Weaver reveals the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships and families of formation, employment and religious communities. She shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviours and lifestyles, but with differing results.

Weaver’s re-examination of the relationships between structure, agency, identity and reflexivity in the desistance process ultimately illuminates new directions for research, policy and practice. This book is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of criminology and criminal justice, delinquency, probation and criminal law.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Organized Crime: Analyzing Illegal Activities, Criminal Structures, and Extra-legal Governanceprovides a systematic overview of the processes and structures commonly labeled “organized crime,” drawing on the pertinent empirical and theoretical literature primarily from North America, Europe, and Australia. The main emphasis is placed on a comprehensive classificatory scheme that highlights underlying patterns and dynamics, rather than particular historical manifestations of organized crime. Esteemed author Klaus von Lampe strategically breaks the book down into three key dimensions: (1) illegal activities, (2) patterns of interpersonal relations that are directly or indirectly supporting these illegal activities, and (3) overarching illegal power structures that regulate and control these illegal activities and also extend their influence into the legal spheres of society. Within this framework, numerous case studies and topical issues from a variety of countries illustrate meaningful application of the conceptual and theoretical discussion.” From Publisher’s Website.

“The topics of bullying and hazing have sparked interest and discussion in recent years. Hazing is a crime in the United States, and Western nations have made efforts to stamp out bullying in schools, the workplace, and institutions. However, for the most part, bullying and hazing are ill-defined and lack theoretical perspective. Mestrovic brings classical as well as contemporary social theory to bear on this discussion.

Thorstein Veblen defined the predatory barbarian as the social type, enshrined by modernity, who prefers to use force over peaceable means to achieve ends. On the other extreme, Marcel Mauss wrote about the spirit of the gift and its obligations – to give, to receive, and to reciprocate – as the fundamental basis of social life. Yet, he argued that the spirit of modernity was disappearing with the progress of modernity.

Mestrovic traces this fundamental opposition between barbaric force or bullying versus benign obligation that is the spirit of the gift through a host of modernist and postmodernist thinkers and theories. He introduces the concept of the ‘postemotional bully’ as an alternative to both of these major bodies of social theory. The postemotional bully, as a social type, is fungible, beset by screen-images on media and social media that are isolating, and is at the mercy of the peer-group.

Case studies focus on bullying and hazing, specifically the cases of an American soldier who committed suicide in Afghanistan, instances of torture at Abu Ghraib, and the murder of a 23-year-old African-American inmate in a Southern state prison in the US.

The topics of bullying and hazing have sparked interest and discussion in recent years. Hazing is a crime in the United States, and Western nations have made efforts to stamp out bullying in schools, the workplace, and institutions. However, for the most part, bullying and hazing are ill-defined and lack theoretical perspective. Mestrovic brings classical as well as contemporary social theory to bear on this discussion.

Thorstein Veblen defined the predatory barbarian as the social type, enshrined by modernity, who prefers to use force over peaceable means to achieve ends. On the other extreme, Marcel Mauss wrote about the spirit of the gift and its obligations – to give, to receive, and to reciprocate – as the fundamental basis of social life. Yet, he argued that the spirit of modernity was disappearing with the progress of modernity.

Mestrovic traces this fundamental opposition between barbaric force or bullying versus benign obligation that is the spirit of the gift through a host of modernist and postmodernist thinkers and theories. He introduces the concept of the ‘postemotional bully’ as an alternative to both of these major bodies of social theory. The postemotional bully, as a social type, is fungible, beset by screen-images on media and social media that are isolating, and is at the mercy of the peer-group.

Case studies focus on bullying and hazing, specifically the cases of an American soldier who committed suicide in Afghanistan, instances of torture at Abu Ghraib, and the murder of a 23-year-old African-American inmate in a Southern state prison in the US.” From Publisher’s Website

“Pre-crime aims to pre-empt ‘would-be-criminals’ and predict future crime. Although the term is borrowed from science fiction, the drive to predict and pre-empt crime is a present-day reality. This book critically explores this major twenty-first century development in crime and justice.

This first in-depth study of pre-crime defines and describes different types of pre-crime and compares it to traditional post-crime and crime risk approaches. It analyses the rationales that underpin pre-crime as a response to threats, particularly terrorism, and shows how it is spreading to other areas. It also underlines the historical continuities that prefigure the emergence of pre-crime, as well as exploring the new technologies and forms of surveillance that claim the ability to predict crime and identify future criminals. Through the use of examples and case studies it provides insights into how pre-crime generates the crimes it purports to counter, providing compelling evidence of the problems that arise when we act as if we know the future and aim to control it through punishing, disrupting or incapacitating those we predict might commit future crimes.

Drawing on literature from criminology, law, international relations, security and globalization studies, this book sets out a coherent framework for the continued study of pre-crime and addresses key issues such as terminology, its links to past practises, its likely future trajectories and its impact on security, crime and justice. It is essential reading for academics and students in security studies, criminology, counter-terrorism, surveillance, policing and law, as well as practitioners and professionals in these fields.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Through the centuries, prisons were closed institutions, full of secrets and shrouded in mystery. But modern media culture has opened the gates. Dawn Cecil explores decades of popular culture—from Golden Age Hollywood films to YouTube videos, from newspapers to beer labels, hip-hop music, and children’s books—to reveal how prison imagery shapes our understanding of who commits crimes, why, and how the criminal justice system should respond.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This book addresses maritime piracy by focusing on the unique and fascinating issues arising in the course of domestic piracy prosecutions, from the pursuit and apprehension of pirates to their trial and imprisonment. It examines novel matters not addressed in other published works, such as the challenges in preserving and presenting evidence in piracy trials, the rights of pirate defendants, and contending with alleged pirates who are juveniles. A more thorough understanding of modern piracy trials and the precedent they have established is critical to scholars, practitioners, and the broader community interested in counter-piracy efforts, as these prosecutions are likely to be the primary judicial mechanism to contend with pirate activity going forward.” From Publisher’s Website.

“While considerable attention has been given to encounters between black citizens and police in urban communities, there have been limited analyses of such encounters in suburban settings. Race, Place, and Suburban Policing tells the full story of social injustice, racialized policing, nationally profiled shootings, and the ambiguousness of black life in a suburban context. Through compelling interviews, participant observation, and field notes from a marginalized black enclave located in a predominately white suburb, Andrea S. Boyles examines a fraught police-citizen interface, where blacks are segregated and yet forced to negotiate overlapping spaces with their more affluent white counterparts.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Environmentalism is a contest about the meaning of nature and the social construction of activism, deviance and harm. The contests that are the subject of this book are fought on the margins, in spaces where what is deviant and what is criminal are fluid concepts. Forest activists engaged in Tasmania’s old-growth forests, and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society activists campaigning in the Southern Ocean to protect whales tell powerful and moving stories about their encounters with nature. These are profound experiences that fundamentally alter how they understand themselves and their world. What emerges in this book is a perspective that recognises the personhood of non-humans and which gives rise to a strong moral obligation to defend nature from harm.

Providing a unique account of environmentalism, one that highlights the voices of the activists and the nature they defend, Radical Environmentalism: Nature, Identity and More-than-human Agency will be of great interest to students and academics of green criminology, environmental sociology and nature–human studies more broadly.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Signed into law in 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) defined the crime of human trafficking and brought attention to an issue previously unknown to most Americans. But while human trafficking is widely considered a serious and despicable crime, there has been far less consensus as to how to approach the problem—owing in part to a pervasive emphasis on forced prostitution that overshadows repugnant practices in other labor sectors affecting vulnerable populations. Responding to Human Trafficking examines the ways in which cultural perceptions of sexual exploitation and victimhood inform the drafting, interpretation, and implementation of U.S. antitrafficking law, as well as the law’s effects on trafficking victims.

Drawing from interviews with social workers and case managers, attorneys, investigators, and government administrators as well as trafficked persons, Alicia W. Peters explores how cultural and symbolic frameworks regarding sex, gender, and victimization were incorporated into the drafting of the TVPA and have been replicated through the interpretation and implementation of the law. Tracing the path of the TVPA over the course of nearly a decade, Responding to Human Trafficking reveals the profound gaps in understanding that pervade implementation as service providers and criminal justice authorities strive to collaborate and perform their duties. Ultimately, this sensitive ethnography sheds light on the complex and wide-ranging effects of the TVPA on the victims it was designed to protect.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In the years since 9/11, counter-terrorism law and policy has proliferated across the world. This handbook comprehensively surveys how the law has been deployed in all aspects of counter-terrorism. It provides an authoritative and critical analysis of counter-terrorism laws in domestic jurisdictions, taking a comparative approach to a range of jurisdictions, especially the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, and Europe.

The contributions to the book are written by experts in the field of terrorism law and policy, allowing for discussion of a wide range of regulatory responses and strategies of governance. The book is divided into four parts, reflective of established counter-terrorism strategic approaches, and covers key themes such as:

• Policing and special powers, including surveillance
• Criminal offences and court processes
• Prevention of radicalisation and manifestations of extremism
• Protective/preparative security
• The penology of terrorism

In addressing counter-terrorism laws across a broad range of topics and jurisdictions, the handbook will be of great interest and use to researchers, students and practitioners in criminal law, counter-terrorism, and security studies.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Safety and Security in Transit Environments presents important interdisciplinary approaches to safety and security on public transport from leading international authors. The book develops a conceptual framework and demonstrates that transit safety and security is dependent on multi-scale dimensional conditions acting at various geographical scales in the urban environment. These include: the micro-environmental attributes of a node (a stop or station), the characteristics of the immediate environment Safety and Security in Transit Environments presents important interdisciplinary approaches to safety and its wider neighbourhood (the meso and macro transit settings), and the importance of considering all settings encountered in a journey (‘door to door’) from the perspective of all its users. This important volume identifies key challenges and complexities in addressing security and safety concerns in transit settings, policy recommendations for prevention, and new frontiers for research at transit settings.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives examines the diverse, complex, and mutating practice of providing sanctuary to asylum-seekers. The ancient tradition of church sanctuary underwent a revival in the late 1970s. Immigrants living without legal status and their supporters, first in the United Kingdom, and then in the US, Canada, and elsewhere in Europe, have resorted to sanctuary practices to avoid and resist arrest and deportation by state authorities. Sanctuary appeared amidst a dramatic rise in asylum-seekers arriving in Western countries and a simultaneous escalation in national and international efforts to discourage and control their arrival and presence through myriad means, including deportation. This collection of papers by prominent US, European, Canadian, and Japanese scholars is the first to place contemporary sanctuary practices in international, theoretical, and historical perspective. Moving beyond isolated case studies of sanctuary activities and movements, it reveals sanctuary as a far more complex, varied, theoretically-rich, and institutionally-adaptable set of practices.” From Publisher’s Website.

“This book empirically explores young people’s practices and perceptions of sexting. It defines and surveys the various facets of sexting, and particularly addresses the ways in which sexting has been represented and responded to by the media, education campaigns and the law. It draws on a substantial body of qualitative and quantitative evidence of young people’s views and experiences of sexting, a media discourse analysis capturing the tenure of public discussion about sexting, and an in-depth analysis of existing laws and sanctions that apply to sexting. Sexting and Young People also analyses the important broader socio-legal issues raised by sexting and the appropriateness of current responses. In doing so, this book offers important recommendations for policy makers and the legal system, and provides direction for future approaches to sexting research.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Extraordinary rendition—the practice of abducting criminal suspects in locations around the world—has been criticized as an unprecedented expansion of U.S. police powers. But America’s aggressive pursuit of fugitives beyond its borders far predates the global war on terror. Uncle Sam’s Policemen investigates the history of international manhunts, arguing that the extension of U.S. law enforcement into foreign jurisdictions at the turn of the twentieth century forms an important chapter in the story of American empire.

In the late 1800s, expanding networks of railroads and steamships made it increasingly easy for criminals to evade justice. Recognizing that domestic law and order depended on projecting legal authority abroad, President Theodore Roosevelt declared in 1903 that the United States would “leave no place on earth” for criminals to hide. Charting the rapid growth of extradition law, Katherine Unterman shows that the United States had fifty-eight treaties with thirty-six nations by 1900—more than any other country. American diplomats put pressure on countries that served as extradition havens, particularly in Latin America, and cloak-and-dagger tactics such as the kidnapping of fugitives by Pinkerton detectives were fair game—a practice explicitly condoned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The most wanted fugitives of this period were not anarchists and political agitators but embezzlers and defrauders—criminals who threatened the emerging corporate capitalist order. By the early twentieth century, the long arm of American law stretched around the globe, creating an informal empire that complemented both military and economic might.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Sexual homicide generates widespread public fear and media attention, yet remains an understudied area within criminology. This book provides a thorough survey of sexual homicide offender classifications, and analyses current theoretical explanations and understandings of sexual homicide from a criminological perspective. Importantly, Oliver Chan offers a new integrated theoretical understanding of sexual homicide offenders. Understanding Sexual Homicide Offenders: An Integrated Approach is essential reading for students at all levels of study, researchers, clinicians and law enforcement practitioners seeking a comprehensive understanding of sexual murderers.” From Publisher’s Website.

“In the United States and Great Britain, 20-30% of all homicides involve the killing of a woman by a man, and it is far rarer when a woman is killed by another woman. Unfortunately, this is not a very well understood phenomenon. Most books on the topic discuss serial killings, but those only make up 2% of sexual murder-a sensationalist subset of a subset. There has never before been a comprehensive book that has covered the entire scope of homicide cases in which men murder women.

Dobash and Dobash, two seasoned researchers and longtime collaborators in the study of violence against women, reveal in When Men Murder Women what they have learned from a three-year study, which examined and analyzed 866 homicide case files, as well as 200 in-depth interviews taken within prisons.

When Men Murder Women offers guidelines for assessing and managing risk to women, and discusses various interventions for male offenders. The result is this essential book for students and researchers in the social sciences studying violence, gender, and crime.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Why Don’t You Just Talk to Him? looks at the broad political contexts in which violence, specifically domestic violence, occurs. Kathleen Arnold argues that liberal and Enlightenment notions of the social contract, rationality and egalitarianism — the ideas that constitute norms of good citizenship — have an inextricable relationship to violence. According to this dynamic, targets of abuse are not rational, make bad choices, are unable to negotiate with their abusers, or otherwise violate norms of the social contract; they are, thus, second-class citizens. In fact, as Arnold shows, drawing from Nietzsche and Foucault’s theories of power and arguing against much of the standard policy literature on domestic violence, the very mechanisms that purportedly help targets of domestic abuse actually work to compound the problem by exacerbating (or ignoring) the power differences between the abuser and the abused. The book argues that a key to understanding how to prevent domestic violence is seeing it as a political rather than a personal issue, with political consequences. It seeks to challenge Enlightenment ideas about intimacy that conceive of personal relationships as mutual, equal and contractual. Put another way, it challenges policy ideas that suggest that targets of abuse can simply choose to leave abusive relationships without other personal or economic consequences, or that there is a clear and consistent level of help once they make the choice to leave.

Asking “Why Don’t You Just Talk to Him?” is in reality a suggestion riven with contradictions and false choices. Arnold further explores these issues by looking at two key asylum cases that highlight contradictions within the government’s treatment of foreigners and that of long-term residents. These cases expose problematic assumptions in the approach to domestic violence more generally. Exposing major injustices from the point of view of domestic violence targets, this book promises to generate further debate, if not consensus.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Surveys reveal that domestic abuse is more commonplace among teenagers and young adults than older populations, yet surprisingly little is written about young men’s involvement in it. Reporting on a three-year study based in the UK, this book explores young men’s involvement in domestic abuse, whether as victims, perpetrators or witnesses to violent behaviors between adults. Original survey data, focus group material and in-depth biographical interviews are used to make the case for a more thoroughgoing engagement with the meanings young men come to attribute to violent behavior, include the tendency among many to configure violence within families as “fights” that call for acts of male heroism. The book also highlights the dearth of services interventions for young men prone to domestic abuse, and the challenges of developing responsive practice in this area. Each section of the book highlights further online resources that those looking to conduct research in this area or apply its insights in practice can draw upon.” From Publisher’s Website.

“Youth Gangs, Racism, and Schooling examines Vietnamese American youth gang formation in Southern California, with an emphasis on the experiences of those heavily involved in the 1990s. Lam traces the genealogy of the Vietnamese American youth gang phenomenon as part of the conflict in Southeast Asia. He describes the consequences of war and migration for youth as well as their racialization as “Asian American” subjects. Grounded in the critical narratives of three gang members, Lam addresses themes of racism, violence, class struggle, style, and schooling in an era of anti-youth legislation in the state and nationally. In this dehumanizing context, Lam frames Vietnamese and Southeast Asian American gang members as post-colonial subjects, offering an alternative analysis toward humanization and decolonization.”