By H. Goudriaan.

Victim reports are the main source of information for the police regarding where crimes are committed, and also the basis for most subsequent actions of the criminal justice system. Therefore, the victims' decision to report to the police is crucial. However, much criminal victimization is not reported and, consequently, many offenders are never prosecuted. Why are some crimes reported and others not? Substantial differences in reporting are found across crime locations, neighborhoods and countries. In this book, a socio-ecological model of victims' decision-making is introduced which endeavors to explain these contextual differences in reporting. To empirically test the main hypotheses derived from this model, several data sources are used and different research strategies are employed, with which the effects of crime, victim and contextual factors on victims' reporting behavior are simultaneously analyzed. Factors constituting the context in which crime incidents take place (e.g. whether the location is in the private or public domain), as well as factors composing the neighborhood context (e.g. the neighborhood social cohesion) and – to a lesser extent – the country context in which victims reside, were found to play a role in victims's decision (not) to report.

Leiden: Leiden University, 2006. 213p.

By A.A.J. Blokland.

How does crime develop over the life course? And how do age, life circumstances, and prior offending affect this development? This thesis seeks to answer these two questions that are central to present day developmental and life course criminology. The research presented is based on the Criminal Career and Life course Study (CCLS), a longitudinal study covering the criminal careers of over 5,000 offenders from early adolescence to late adulthood. Employing a range of statistical techniques especially designed for analyzing longitudinal data, this research gives insight in issues such as the reality of life course persistent offenders, the influence of marriage and parenthood on offending, and the role of prior offending in generating stability and change in offending over time.

Leiden: Leiden University, 2005. 189p.

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 Thomas Heebøll-Holm.

In Ports, Piracy, and Maritime War Thomas K. Heebøll-Holm presents a study of maritime predation in English and French waters around the year 1300. Following Cicero, pirates have traditionally been cast as especially depraved robbers and the enemy of all, but Heebøll-Holm shows that piracy was often part of private wars between English, French, and Gascon ports and mariners, occupying a liminal space between crime and warfare. Furthermore he shows how piracy was an integral part of maritime commerce and how the adjudication of piracy followed the legal procedure of the march. Heebøll-Holm convincingly demonstrates how piracy influenced the policies of the English and the French kings and he contributes to our understanding of Anglo-French relations on the eve of the Hundred Years’ War.

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013. 312p.

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 Carolyn Conley.

Even though England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were under a common Parliament in the nineteenth century, cultural, economic, and historical differences led to very different values and assumptions about crime and punishment. For example, though the Scots were the most likely to convict accused killers, English, Welsh and Irish killers were two and a half times more likely to be executed for their crimes. In Certain Other Countries, Carolyn Conley explores how the concepts of national identity and criminal violence influenced each other in the Victorian-era United Kingdom. It also addresses the differences among the nations as well as the ways that homicide trials illuminate the issues of gender, ethnicity, family, privacy, property, and class. Homicides reflect assumptions about the proper balance of power in various relationships. For example, Englishmen were ten times more likely to kill women they were courting than were men in the Celtic nations.

By combining quantitative techniques in the analysis of over seven thousand cases as well as careful and detailed readings of individual cases, the book exposes trends and patterns that might not have been evident in works using only one method. For instance, by examining all homicide trials rather than concentrating exclusively on a few highly celebrated ones, it becomes clear that most female killers were not viewed with particular horror, but were treated much like their male counterparts.

The conclusions offer challenges and correctives to existing scholarship on gender, ethnicity, class, and violence. The book also demonstrates that the Welsh, Scots, and English remained quite distinct long after their melding as Britons was announced and celebrated. By blending a study of trends in violent behavior with ideas about national identity, Conley brings together rich and hotly debated fields of modern history. This book will be valuable both for scholars of crime and violence as well those studying British history.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2007. 255p.

By Leslie Sebba.

Over the past two decades considerable interest has developed in the subject of the victims of crime. This interest reached a peak in 1982 with the establishment and report of the President's Task Force on Victims of Crime (1982), which made numerous recommendations for legislative, executive, and other institutional action on both the federal and state levels, including an amendment to the United States Constitution. However, the momentum continued. Subsequent developments have included the establishment of an Office for Victims of Crime in the Office of Justice Programs, a flurry of legislative activity across the nation, and the declaration of National Crime Victims' Rights weeks with the participation of the U.S. president. The interests of victims have been taken up not only by special organizations established for the purpose, such as the National Organization of Victims' Assistance (NOVA), the Victims' Assistance Legal Organization in Virginia, and the National Victim Center (founded in honor of Sunny von Bulow), as well as more narrowly focused groups such as MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving), but also by such mainstream professional bodies as the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Association of Attorneys General, the National Conference of the Judiciary, the American Psychological Association, and the National Institute for Mental Health. Landmark legislation at the federal level includes the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982, the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, and the Victims' Rights and Restitution Act and other related provisions of the Crime Control Act of 1990. (See also the Attorney-General's Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance, issued in pursuance of the 1982 and the 1990 acts.) A review of victim-oriented legislation both at the federal and at the state levels, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1996. 446p.

R. de Bont. Liem.

Illicit drugs continue to be a profitable area for criminal organizations operating within the EU. Drug use and drug markets can act as facilitators for all types of violence, which could ultimately lead to homicide. Yet, drug-related homicide (DRH) has not been monitored. The development of a drug-related homicide data collection is necessary to study this phenomenon. This report provides a first step towards a European-level DRH monitor.

Leiden; Leiden University, 2017. 66p.

By T. van Ham.

Collective violence offenders usually do not have a criminal record. In earlier research, the emphasis in explaining collective violence has been on the relationships between the groups involved in collective. This thesis argues that individual characteristics cannot be ignored. A part of collective violence offenders (approximately 10 percent) appear to have come into contact with the police from an early age on due to violence, committed both alone and in groups. Moreover, certain psychological characteristics - such as problems with impulse control, ADHD and aggression regulation problems - are more common in this group than among other collective violence offenders. In short: for some of involved in collective violence, taking part seems to be prompted not only by the situation but also by individual characteristics which manifest themselves in such situations. To date, the role of individual characteristics has only been examined to a limited extent, based on the idea that this does not do justice to the context in which collective violence manifests itself. The findings of this research argue for nuance in the scientific debate. When explaining collective violence, attention should be paid to the mutual relationships between the groups involved, the applicable "values" within specific offender groups (such as hooligans) and individual characteristics.

Leiden: Leiden University, 2020. 147p.

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.

By Laura Dolci.

On 19 August 2003, Laura Dolci lost her husband, Jean-Sélim Kanaan, in the terrorist attack against the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq. They were a 'UN couple' of young humanitarians, who had met in war-torn Bosnia. On the day of the blast, he was 33, she was 33. Their son was 28 days old. "A Victimless Crime?" juxtaposes the author's personal story with thorough research on victims of terrorism, whom she calls "the silent protagonists of our times". Today, victims of terrorism are in all continents and belong to all communities, races, gender, ages, professional backgrounds and creeds. Yet, in most countries they are not recognized or assisted. At the international level, little has been achieved within the UN-led counter-terrorism for their acknowledgment and assistance. In a 'problem without passports' as is global terrorism today, the author argues that victims fall increasingly between the cracks as if they were everybody's and, paradoxically, nobody's responsibility. This book brings them to the forefront, taking the reader through the specificities of the experience of victims of terrorism. It convincingly makes the case for greater empathy, understanding and action by states, civil society and the UN.

Geneva: United Nations Sabbatical Programme, 2017. 121p.

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.

Edited by Judith van Erp.

Corporate crimes seem endemic to modern society. Newspapers are filled on a daily basis with examples of financial manipulation, accounting fraud, food fraud, cartels, bribery, toxic spills and environmental harms, corporate human rights violations, insider trading, privacy violations, discrimination, corporate manslaughter or violence, and, recently, software manipulation. Clearly, the problem of corporate crime transcends the micro level of the individual ‘rotten apple’ (Ashforth et al. 2008; Monahan and Quinn 2006); although corporate crimes are ultimately committed by individual members of an organization, they have more structural roots, as the enabling and justifying organizational context in which they take place plays a defining role. Accounts of corporate fraud, misrepresentation, or deception that foreground individual offender’s motivations and characteristics, often fail to acknowledge that organizational decisions are more than the aggregation of individual choices and actions, and that organizations are more than simply the environment in which individual action takes place.

Basel: MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2018. 152p.

By Ralph Espach, Daniel Haering, Javier Melendez Quinonez, and Miguel Castillo Giron.

The Dilemma of Lawlessness explores in-depth three towns typical of Guatemala’s border regions and examines the economic, political, and security effects of the amplification of the drug trade in their streets, across their rivers, and on their footpaths. The cases reveal that trade has brought prosperity, but also danger, as illegal profits penetrate local businesses, government offices, and churches as longstanding local smuggling networks must contend with or accommodate the interests of Mexican cartels. The authors argue persuasively for the importance of cultivating local community capital to strengthen these communities’ resiliency in the face of these threats.

Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press (MCUP), 2016. 104p.

Edited by Kent R. Kerley.

The scientific study of religion is a rather recent development in colleges and universities in the United States and in other nations. Beginning in the 1960s, researchers from many social science backgrounds began conducting data-driven studies of the extent to which religiosity is related to crime, deviance, and delinquency. Since the 1980s, social scientists have also studied the nature, extent, practice, and impact of faith and faith-based programs in prisons and other correctional contexts. This volume contains the most contemporary and cutting-edge research on religion and crime, which includes data-driven (quantitative and qualitative), conceptual, review, and policy oriented papers.

Basel: MDPI Books, 2018. 274p.

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 W.L. Fisher.

Philadelphia: The following pages were written during the severe weather of late winter, when the sufferings of the poor became so interesting a subject of enquiry. …I impugn neither the motives nor philanthropy of those who differ from me….”

Self published. 1831. 119p.

By Henry Herbert Goddard.

This book is offered to the public in the belief that the three cases herein described are typical of a large proportion of criminal cases and that the analysis and discussion at- tempted will help to make clear important points which are often misunderstood, points relative to the criminal and to the imbecile. A clear conception of the nature of the imbecile and of his relation to crime will inevitably result in a most desirable change in our criminal procedure. It should be noted that we use "imbecile" in the legal sense which includes the moron and often the idiot as scientifically classified. This usage is justified since much of the literature still describes all mental defectives as imbeciles, idiots, or feeble-minded —according to the preference of the writers. These cases are unique in that they were the first court cases in which the Binet-Simon tests were admitted in evidence, the mental status of these persons under indictment being largely determined by this method.

New York: Macmillan, 1916.188p.

By Albert Borowitz.

This is the first book-length study of an important early Victorian criminal case: the murder of Patrick O'Connor in Bermondsey (South London) by his mistress Marie Manning and her husband. Set in the midst of the raging cholera epidemic of 1849, the case stirred the passionate interest of all sectors of British society, including writers and public figures. Notable among students of the case was Charles Dickens, who based his characterization of Mile Hortense, the murderess in Bleak House, on the personality of Mrs. Manning. The Manning case represents a remarkable chapter in the social history of England. The apprehension of the Mannings was a major early triumph of Scotland Yard; and the efficient detective work, featuring the use of the newly invented electric telegraph, as well as pursuits by sea and rail, confirmed the early Victorian sense of security and the belief in progress based on science. At the same time, the case stirred controversy in a number of respects. The intensive coverage of the murder by a sensation-mongering press led to public outcries against the commercialization of crime; and the brutish behavior of the crowd at the Mannings' execution sharpened partisan feelings on the issue of capital punishment. Dickens was inspired to write his famous letters to the Times advocating an end to public hangings, and was denounced in turn by absolutist supporters of the abolition of the death penalty.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1981. 337p.