R. Pena Gonzalez.

This study explores contexts of disorder and crisis, in which criminal actors gain legitimacy. By affirming that criminal groups are already social agents, this research argues that they gain political legitimacy to the extent that criminal groups engage in an authority-building process. Thus, it focuses on two instances in which criminal groups launched campaigns— or at least engaged in planned activities— in order to gain political and social legitimacy. La Familia Michoacana (LFM) and Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT) de Michoacán in Mexico, on the one hand, and Cosa Nostra (CN) in Italy, on the other, offer rich and instructive cases to examine. Precisely, the research asks for how these groups seek to forge legitimacy, as well as for what are their strategies for that purpose. The research opens two avenues of conceptual discussion.

Leiden: Leiden University 2020. 265p.

By Rebecca Stern.

In Home Economics: Domestic Fraud in Victorian England, Rebecca Stern establishes fraud as a basic component of the Victorian popular imagination, key to its intimate, as well as corporate, systems of exchange. Although Victorian England is famous for revering the domestic realm as a sphere separate from the market and its concerns, actual households were hardly isolated havens of fiscal safety and innocence. Rather, the Victorian home was inevitably a marketplace, a site of purchase, exchange, and employment in which men and women hired or worked as servants, contracted marriages, managed children, and obtained furniture, clothing, food, and labor. Alongside the multiplication of joint-stock corporations and the rise of a credit-based economy, which dramatically increased fraud in the Victorian money market, the threat of swindling affected both actual household commerce and popular conceptions of ostensibly private, more emotive forms of exchange. Working with diverse primary material, including literature, legal cases, newspaper columns, illustrations, ballads, and pamphlets, Stern argues that the climate of fraud permeated Victorian popular ideologies about social transactions. Beyond providing a history of cases and categories of domestic deceit, Home Economics illustrates the diverse means by which Victorian culture engaged with, refuted, celebrated, represented, and consumed swindling in familial and other household relationships.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2008. 207p.

By Pérouse de Montclos.

Most of the academic literature on violence in Nigeria is qualitative. It rarely relies on quantitative data because police crime statistics are not reliable, or not available, or not even published. Moreover, the training of Nigerian social scientists often focuses on qualitative, cultural, and political issues. There is thus a need to bridge the qualitative and quantitative approaches of conflict studies.This book represents an innovation and fills a gap in this regard. It is the first to introduce a discussion on such issues in a coherent manner, relying on a database that fills the lacunae in data from the security forces. The authors underline the necessity of a trend analysis to decipher the patterns and the complexity of violence in very different fields: from oil production to cattle breeding, radical Islam to motor accidents, land conflicts to witchcraft, and so on. In addition, they argue for empirical investigation and a complementary approach using both qualitative and quantitative data. The book is therefore organized into two parts, with a focus first on statistical studies, then on fieldwork.

Leiden: African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL), 2016. 217p.

Edited by CALS (Coalition of African Lesbians) and AMSHeR.

Violence against sexual minorities in Africa is rife. Persons belonging to or perceived to be members of the broad grouping ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI)’ are often victim of violence in African states. This violence is sometimes perpetrated by state actors, such as the members of the Police force, and more often by ordinary persons (non-state actors). By condoning violence by state actors, and by failing to diligently investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of these acts, states fail to respect the basic right to security of some of its citizens. By condoning these actions, or by failing to act effectively, the state also violates its human rights obligations. The argument of this report is not that sexual minorities deserve special protection, but that they are entitled to the rights all other citizens have – the right to security, liberty, life, dignity, and a fair trial.

As members of the African Union, states are party to and should abide by their obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter). Like several other regional and international human rights instruments, the African Charter guarantees freedom from discrimination, and equal protection and equality of individuals and peoples’ before the law (articles 2, 3 and 19). The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission), the body monitoring compliance with the African Charter, has in various communications presented to it denounced acts of discrimination on several of the listed grounds of discrimination and has clearly established that ‘other status’ (in article 2 of the Charter) can be broadly interpreted to include grounds other than those explicitly listed under that provision of the African Charter. The Commission made its first pronouncement on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues in its Concluding Observations on Cameroon’s periodic report of 2005 by expressing concern about the upsurge in intolerance towards sexual minorities. Most recently, the Chairperson of the Commission issued a statement on in April 2013 stating that the he Commission ‘equally denounces violence committed against individuals based on their sexual orientation as part of its mandate to protect individuals from all forms of violence’.

Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press, 2013. 57p.

Author Unknown.

Remarkable criminal trials, mysterious murders, wholesale murders, male and female poisoners, forgery and counterfeiting, bank and post office robberies, swindlers, highway robbery and railway crimes. Full and Authentic Account of the Murder by Henry Wainwright^ of his Mistress Harriet Lane: and an extended account of the the Whitechapel Murders by the infamous Jack the Ripper.

Toronto: Beaver Publishing Co., 1895. 38p.

By Frederick Howard Wines.

"Miscellaneous documents of the House of Representatives for the first session of the fifty-second Congress, 1891-92, volume 50, part 14…..This entire report treats of prisons, juvenile reformatories; almshouses; and benevolent institutions, together with insane paupers in institutions for the insane."

Washington, DC: GPO, 1896. 440p.

By Roy K. Anderson.

“ At a time when the drug-evil, as it is called, is attracting so much attention all over the world, it does not seem out of place to tell the public something about how conditions brought it about.”

Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, 1922. 104p.

By Albert W. Elliott.

“In the following pages, I purpose to lay bare the stark facts of the Social Evil, believing that public knowledge of conditions as they really are will prove a power for good; I will strive to tell the unflinching truth, pitiless though it appears, for therein lies the world’s only hope of freedom from error and vice. This book, my reader, is meat for strong men, not milk for babes. The author has devoted six years of his life to rescue work among fallen women, has studied the underworld from New Orleans to New York, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; has entered on the course of his mission, more than three thousand houses of shame and talked with more than fifteen thousand inmates ; he has walked the valley of this terrible shadow meeting its blackened spirits face to face, searching their innermost secrets, praying and working for their deliverance, and crying from the depth of his soul over the hopeless tragedy of it all. Of the intimate, accurate, heart-crushing ex- perience thus gathered, this book is a faithful record.”

Atlanta, GA: Webb & Vary Co., 1914..

By Peter H. Grabosky.

Crime fascinates many members of the public. They are eager to know what forms it takes, whether kinds of crime change, what measures are taken to combat it. Sydney in Ferment draws widely on primary sources, many previously unpublished. It focuses on trends in criminal behaviour, political dissidence, collective violence and crime control policies in New South Wales from Phillip{u2019}s landing in 1788 to the early 1970s. It investigates variations in rates and types of crime and threats to public order and discusses changes in criminal law, the creation and development of police forces and trends in criminal procedure and penal form. Its conclusion on the relative weights to be given to the influence of short-term changes in policy on criminal justice and to fundamental social and economic factors will provoke spirited discussion. This book is a lively account both of crime itself and also of the changes in the moral attitudes of the officials and the public at large.

Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1977. 234p.

By Robert N. Willson.

“The following pages are published in the earnest hope that they may assist in the preservation of the American home circle through their influence upon the boy and the young man. Each of the four chapters was prepared for those who listened to it, and with no idea that it would eventually find its way into print. I have now arranged them in permanent form for the purpose of more widely introducing a difficult and delicate subject in a plain but thoroughly clean way. For years I have felt the need, as an individual and a physician, of a simple, and yet scientifically accurate, presentation of the world's great blemish, its causes, and effects, in such a form that I might safely place it in the hands of the American boy and girl. Each of the chapters comprising this little volume has been chosen with this end in view. Each has been utilized, moreover, in response to a desire, expressed openly and often, by men and women who have the integrity of American manhood deeply at heart.”

Philadelphia, Chicago, The J.C. Winston company , 1905. 174p.

By Jane Addams.

“Published in 1912 on the heels of Twenty Years at Hull-House and at the height of Jane Addams's popularity, "A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil" assesses the vulnerability of the rural and immigrant working-class girls who moved to Chicago and fell prey to the sexual bartering of what was known as the white slave trade. Addams offers lurid accounts--drawn from the records of Chicago's Juvenile Protection Association--of young women coerced into lives of prostitution by men who lurked outside hotels and sweatshops. Because they lacked funds for proper recreation, Addams argues, poor and socially marginalized women were susceptible to sexual slavery, and without radical social change they would perhaps be "almost as free" as young men. In addition to promoting higher wages and better living conditions, Addams suggests that a longer period of public education for young women would deter them from the dangers of city life. Despite its appeal to middle-class readers eager for tales of sexual excess and the rape of innocence, the press and prominent intellectuals criticized A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil for being disproportionately hysterical to its philosophical weight.”

New York: Macmillan, 1912. 219p.

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By Increase Mather.

Or, a sermon (preached at the lecture in Boston in New-England the 18th day of the 1 moneth 1674, when two men were executed, who had murthered their master) wherein is shewed that excesse in wickedness doth bring untimely death.

Boston: John Foster, 1879. 25p.

By E.G. Redmond.

Or, Beware of shams, how they are worked and how to foil them - the tricks and methods of all kinds of frauds and swindlers, from the petty sneak-thief to the cleverest schemes of the expert bank robber, fully exposed for the protection of the American public. “For the protection of the community in general from all classes of depredators this book is intended. The methods of catching victims by fraudulent and swindling practices has never before been given in full to the public. We have now for the first time, in this book, given a truthful and reliable expose of the multifarious schemes, swindles and dodges practiced on the American public. Scarcely a day passes but the press reports depredations of one kind or another from all parts of the country. The burglar, safe-breaker, sneak-thief, swindler, confidence man, forger, check-raiser and counterfeiter are ever on the alert, and the reason these rascals are usually successful is owing to the fact that the public is unacquainted with the "* way they work. This book exposes all manner of thievery, swindling, robbery, etc. —the modus operandi—in a plain and practical way. For the protection of the people of America from all classes of thieves and rascals this work is written. It is the result of years of careful application and untiring work by experts, and will be found of inestimable value to the public. It is not a detective story, or work of fiction, but a book of facts, instructive, interesting and educational.”

Naperville, IL: J.L. Nichols & Co.1902. 411p.

By Thomas Holmes.

“Year after year our Prison Commissioners, in presenting their reports, have not failed to impress upon the State the great part physical and mental afflictions play in the production of crime. So far, the information given by the Prison Commissioners has produced little or no effect neither have their representations led to any alteration in the treatment of unfortunate individuals whose infirmities are in reality the root cause of their delinquency.”

London: J.M. Dent & Sons., 1912. 88p.

By The Committee of Fifteen

With special reference to conditions existing in the city of New York. . “In the fall of 1900, the city of New York was startled by discoveries in regard to the spread of the Social Evil in certain districts, and as to the extent of flagrant offences against public morality and common decency. A meeting of citizens was held at the Chamber of Commerce in November, as a result of which the Committee of Fifteen was called into existence. The objects which the Committee of Fifteen undertook to accomplish were thereupon stated as follows : (1) To institute a searching inquiry, uninfluenced by partisan considerations, into the causes of the present alarming increase of gambling and the Social Evil in this city, and to collect such evidence as shall establish the connection between existing conditions and those who, in the last analysis, are responsible for these conditions. (2) To publish the results of such investigations in order to put our fellow-citizens in possession of facts, and to enable them to adopt such corrective measures as may be needed. (3) To promote such legislation as shall render it less difficult to reach offenders, and as shall put an end to the shifting and division of responsibility in the local administration of the laws relating to vice and crime, to the end that public officers and their subordinates may be held to a strict accountability for their acts. (4) To suggest and promote the provision of more wholesome conditions and surroundings, in order to lessen the allurements and incentives to vice and crime.”

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902. 188p.

By Thomas Stone, M.D

Measurements of the Heads of the most notorious thieves Confined in the Edinburgh jail and bridewell, And of various individuals, English, Scotch, and Irish, Presenting an extensive series of facts subversive of phrenology. Read before the royal medical society of Edinburgh. ““Assail our facts, and we are undone; Phrenology admits of no exceptions.”(Phrenological Journal, vol. iii. p. 256).

Edinburgh: Robert Buchanan, 1829. 85p.

By Bernard Glueck.

“ Forensic Psychiatry is a classic psychology history text by Bernard Glueck. When, in 1810, Franz Joseph Gall said: "The measure of culpability and the measure of punishment can not be determined by a study of the illegal act, but only by a study of the individual committing it," he expressed an idea which has, in late years, come to be regarded as a trite truism. This called forth as an unavoidable consequence a more lively interest on the part of various social agencies in the personality of the criminal, with the resultant gradually increasing conviction that the suppression of crime is not primarily a legal question, but is rather a problem for the physician, sociologist, and economist.”

Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1916. 269p.

By Andreas Bjerre.

A Study in Criminal Psychology. “The subject has attracted many writers before Bjerre—philosophers, doctors, lawyers and essayists. But Bjerre has approached the problem from an entirely new point of view. He has not contented himself with wide generalizations, or with the treatment of such second-hand material as criminal statistics, reports of trials, hospital and prison journals or other superficial data, however obtained He has devoted many years of his life to first-hand study in Swedish prisons in order by constant personal association with criminals to solve the riddles hidden away in the dark places of their psychic lives.” (Preface).

Longmans, Green and Co. ltd., 1927. 182p.

By John Cuthbert Goodwin.

“There is good—much good—in every man, and in every woman. Even in cases where it seems non-existent it is but shyly waiting to be coaxed up to the surface. Some there may be, others there will be, who will see in this volume, as in the daily newspapers, the stage, the kinema, and in parts of the Old Testament itself, a veiled incentive towards wrongdoing. With the sensitive, the apprehensive, and all who, speaking perhaps with authority, and not as the scribes, see a healthy purpose in nothing and a sinister motive in everything, I do not attempt to argue. Crime is a difficult subject to handle in such a manner that its presentation satisfies all, offends none, and withholds secrets which prudence demands should remain secrets, but I have endeavoured to incorporate in my mosaic of deeds and misdeeds nothing that is not already known to the criminal but unknown to the majority of the public. I would, however, assure my readers that they need not expect a tedious pageant of ancient exposures masquerading as palate-tickling novelties.”

London: Hutchinson & Co., 1923. 336p.

By William Healy and Mary Tenney Healy.

A Study in Forensic Psychology. “Careful studies of offenders make group-types stand out with distinctness. Very little advancement in the treatment of delinquents or criminals can be expected if typical characteristics and their bearings are not understood. The group that our present work concerns itself with is comparatively little known, although cases belonging to it, when met, attract much attention. It is to all who should be acquainted with these striking mental and moral vagaries, particularly in their forensic and psychological significances, that our essay is addressed. In some cases vital for the administration of justice, an understanding of the types of personality and of behavior here under discussion is a prime necessity. The whole study of characterology or the motivation of conduct is extremely new, and there are many indications of immense values in uncovered fields. Some appreciation of this fact may be gained from the following pages which show the possibility of tracing one form of behavior to its source.”

Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1917. 286p.