Edited by  Sharon Lamb 

It is increasingly difficult to use the word "victim" these days without facing either ridicule for "crying victim" or criticism for supposed harshness toward those traumatized. Some deny the possibility of "recovering" repressed memories of abuse, or consider date rape an invention of whining college students. At the opposite extreme, others contend that women who experience abuse are "survivors" likely destined to be psychically wounded for life.
While the debates rage between victims' rights advocates and "backlash" authors, the contributors to New Versions of Victims collectively argue that we must move beyond these polarizations to examine the "victim" as a socially constructed term and to explore, in nuanced terms, why we see victims the way we do.
Must one have been subject to extreme or prolonged suffering to merit designation as a victim? How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars? Resisting the reductive oversimplifications of the polemicists, the contributors to New Versions of Victims critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the harm of victimization while simultaneously taking on the reactionary boilerplate of writers such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia and offering further strategies for countering the backlash.
Written in clear, accessible language, New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory.

New York; London: NYU Press, 1999. 192p.

By Wendy Grossman 

Who will rule cyberspace? And why should people care? Recently stories have appeared in a variety of news media, from the sensational to the staid, that portray the Internet as full of pornography, pedophilia, recipes for making bombs, lewd and lawless behavior, and copyright violators. And, for politicians eager for votes, or to people who have never strolled the electronic byways, regulating the Net seems as logical and sensible as making your kids wear seat belts. Forget freedom of speech: children can read this stuff.

From the point of view of those on the Net, mass-media's representation of pornography on the Internet grossly overestimates the amount that is actually available, and these stories are based on studies that are at best flawed and at worst fraudulent. To netizens, the panic over the electronic availability of bomb-making recipes and other potentially dangerous material is groundless: the same material is readily available in public libraries. Out on the Net, it seems outrageous that people who have never really experienced it are in a position to regulate it.

How then, should the lines be drawn in the grey area between cyberspace and the physical world? In net.wars, Wendy Grossman, a journalist who has covered the Net since 1992 for major publications such as Wired, The Guardian, and The Telegraph, assesses the battles that will define the future of this new venue. From the Church of Scientology's raids on Net users to netizens attempts to overthrow both the Communications Decency Act and the restrictions on the export of strong encryption, net.wars explains the issues and the background behind the headlines. Among the issues covered are net scams, class divisions on the net, privacy issues, the Communications Decency Act, women online, pornography, hackers and the computer underground, net criminals and sociopaths, and more.

New York; London: NYU Press, 1998. 256p.

By Robert D. Crutchfield 

Are the unemployed more likely to commit crimes? Does having a job make one less likely to commit a crime? Criminologists have found that individuals who are marginalized from the labor market are more likely to commit crimes, and communities with more members who are marginal to the labor market have higher rates of crime. Yet, as Robert Crutchfield explains, contrary to popular expectations, unemployment has been found to be an inconsistent predictor of either individual criminality or collective crime rates. In Get a Job, Crutchfield offers a carefully nuanced understanding of the links among work, unemployment, and crime.

Crutchfield explains how people’s positioning in the labor market affects their participation in all kinds of crimes, from violent acts to profit-motivated offenses such as theft and drug trafficking. Crutchfield also draws on his first-hand knowledge of growing up in a poor, black neighborhood in Pittsburgh and later working on the streets as a parole officer, enabling him to develop a more complete understanding of how work and crime are related and both contribute to, and are a result of, social inequalities and disadvantage. Well-researched and informative, Get a Job tells a powerful story of one of the most troubling side effects of economic disparities in America.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2014. 303p.

BY Lyn Mikel Brown

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women and girls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage “girls will be girls”—gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing— and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviews with over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2003. 259p.

By Cindy D. Ness

In low-income U.S. cities, street fights between teenage girls are common. These fights take place at school, on street corners, or in parks, when one girl provokes another to the point that she must either “step up” or be labeled a “punk.” Typically, when girls engage in violence that is not strictly self-defense, they are labeled “delinquent,” their actions taken as a sign of emotional pathology. However, in Why Girls Fight, Cindy D. Ness demonstrates that in poor urban areas this kind of street fighting is seen as a normal part of girlhood and a necessary way to earn respect among peers, as well as a way for girls to attain a sense of mastery and self-esteem in a social setting where legal opportunities for achievement are not otherwise easily available.
Ness spent almost two years in west and northeast Philadelphia to get a sense of how teenage girls experience inflicting physical harm and the meanings they assign to it. While most existing work on girls’ violence deals exclusively with gangs, Ness sheds new light on the everyday street fighting of urban girls, arguing that different cultural standards associated with race and class influence the relationship that girls have to physical aggression.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2010. 198p.

By Michelle Oberman and Cheryl L. Meyer

Michelle Oberman and Cheryl L. Meyer don’t write for news magazines or prime-time investigative television shows, but the stories they tell hold the same fascination. When Mothers Kill is compelling. In a clear, direct fashion the authors recount what they have learned from interviewing women imprisoned for killing their children. Readers will be shocked and outraged—as much by the violence the women have endured in their own lives as by the violence they engaged in—but they will also be informed and even enlightened.
Oberman and Meyer are leading authorities on their subject. Their 2001 book, Mothers Who Kill Their Children, drew from hundreds of newspaper articles as well as from medical and social science journals to propose a comprehensive typology of maternal filicide. In that same year, driven by a desire to test their typology—and to better understand child-killing women not just as types but as individuals—Oberman and Meyer began interviewing women who had been incarcerated for the crime. After conducting lengthy, face-to-face interviews with forty prison inmates, they returned and selected eight women to speak with at even greater length. This new book begins with these stories, recounted in the matter-of-fact words of the inmates themselves.
There are collective themes that emerge from these individual accounts, including histories of relentless interpersonal violence, troubled relationships with parents (particularly with mothers), twisted notions of romantic love, and deep conflicts about motherhood. These themes structure the books overall narrative, which also includes an insightful examination of the social and institutional systems that have failed these women. Neither the mothers nor the authors offer these stories as excuses for these crimes.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008. 208p.

By Mary Louise Frampton, Ian Haney Lopez, and Jonathan Simon

Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed a pyrrhic war on crime, with sobering numbers at once chilling and cautionary. Our imprisoned population has increased five-fold, with a commensurate spike in fiscal costs that many now see as unsupportable into the future. As American society confronts a multitude of new challenges ranging from terrorism to the disappearance of middle-class jobs to global warming, the war on crime may be up for reconsideration for the first time in a generation or more. Relatively low crime rates indicate that the public mood may be swinging toward declaring victory and moving on.
However, to declare that the war is over is dangerous and inaccurate, and After the War on Crime reveals that the impact of this war reaches far beyond statistics; simply moving on is impossible. The war has been most devastating to those affected by increased rates and longer terms of incarceration, but its reach has also reshaped a sweeping range of social institutions, including law enforcement, politics, schooling, healthcare, and social welfare. The war has also profoundly altered conceptions of race and community.
It is time to consider the tasks reconstruction must tackle. To do so requires first a critical assessment of how this war has remade our society, and then creative thinking about how government, foundations, communities, and activists should respond. After the War on Crime accelerates this reassessment with original essays by a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars as well as policy professionals and community activists. The volume's immediate goal is to spark a fresh conversation about the war on crime and its consequences; its long-term aspiration is to develop a clear understanding of how we got here and of where we should go.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2008.256p

By  James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman

In 1988, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani brought a massive civil racketeering suit against the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), at the time possibly the most corrupt union in the world. The lawsuit charged that the mafia had operated the IBT as a racketeering enterprise for decades, systematically violating the rights of members and furthering the interests of organized crime. On the eve of trial, the parties settled the case, and twenty years later, the trustees are still on the job.

Breaking the Devil’s Pact is an in-depth study of the U.S. v. IBT, beginning with Giuliani’s lawsuit and the politics surrounding it, and continuing with an incisive analysis of the controversial nature of the ongoing trusteeship. James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman address the larger question of the limits of legal reform in the American labor movement and the appropriate level of government involvement.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2011. 320p.

By Storm Ervin, Susan Nembhard, Claudia Nmai

In 2020, the New York City Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, the New York City Human Resources Administration, and the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence funded the Urban Institute to conduct an implementation assessment of the Respect and Responsibility (R&R) demonstration project, a free nonmandated program for people who cause intimate partner violence (IPV). The majority of intervention programs for people who cause IPV—batterer intervention programs, also called abusive partner intervention programs—are court-mandated and for people who are in the criminal legal system as a result. The challenge with mandating IPV intervention programs for harm doers is that IPV needs to be reported to law enforcement in order for a court mandate to occur and, often, IPV goes unreported. To date, the Respect and Responsibility demonstration project is the first program in New York City to operate as a non mandated intervention program for those who have caused harm or are causing harm in their intimate relationships.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute. 2024, 44pg

By Lisa Sharland and Ilhan Dahir  

   Women are impacted by violence in digital contexts in a variety of ways. While technology and the internet have catalyzed opportunities for men and women to engage, communicate, and further their human rights, digital space also poses a gendered risk, as abuses offline are mirrored and replicated online. Technology facilitated violence disproportionately affects women and can be used to perpetuate different types of inequality. Member states have reached agreement through multiple UN processes on the importance of enacting legislation, developing policies, creating monitoring and accountability mechanisms, and providing effective remedies for victims and survivors of violence in digital contexts. However, efforts to advance domestic implementation have been slow. Building on previous research by the Stimson Center, this paper provides a blueprint that offers ten overarching strategies for governments to consider in the development of more effective and coherent domestic policy on ending violence against women and girls (VAWG) in digital contexts. The blueprint also offers a framework for civil society to hold governments to account for the commitments they have made to end VAWG in digital contexts  

Washington, DC: Stimson Center. 2023, 44pg

By Joel Koh, Vanessa Rose, Gayatri Kembhavi-Tam, Rebecca Featherston, Aron Shlonsky

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability was established in April 2019 in response to community concern about widespread reports of violence against, and neglect, abuse and exploitation1 of, people with disability. This rapid review – undertaken by the Centre for Evidence and Implementation in partnership with Monash University – reviews evidence that describes experiences of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, with the aim of preventing this from occurring, and better supporting people with disability. We had two key review questions: • What are the risk and protective factors associated with violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disabilities from birth to 65 years? • What is the nature of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation experienced by people with disabilities from birth to 65 years? The scope of the review was limited to avoid overlap with the Aged Care Royal Commission and to reflect contemporary disability policy and legislation within four Commonwealth Western Industrialised countries with similar economic, political and legal systems. We used a rigorous and systematic process to identify 168 papers in the peer reviewed literature: 60 publications focused on risk and protective factors and 109 publications focused on the nature and experience of violence against, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability (and one publication focused on both of these topics). Evidence from studies focused on risk and protect factors related to violence against, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability suggest: • Having a disability increases the risk of experiencing violence, abuse, and neglect. The overarching finding across almost all studies was that people with disabilities were more likely to have experienced all types of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation when compared to people without disabilities. • Being a female with a disability increases the risk of experiencing violence and abuse. This includes studies focused on violence, violent crime or victimisation, intimate partner or gender-based violence, sexual abuse and physical abuse. • The reported risk factors are limited, primarily focussed at the individual level, and static. There was a focus more on individual and static (usually unchanging) risk factors, such as disability status or gender and little attention to different types disability, groups or intersectionality.

Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with a Disability. 2021, 81pg

By Natalie Townsend

The Australian Government Department of Social Services (2019, p. 60) defines sexual violence as sexual actions without consent, which may include coercion, physical force, rape, sexual assault with implements, being forced to watch or engage in pornography, enforced prostitution or being made to have sex with other people. While there is a growing body of international evidence on sexual violence, its prevalence and impact has not been extensively examined in the Australian context. The existing evidence base is largely limited to data sources that are likely to underestimate the prevalence of sexual violence or to apply only to discrete groups of women (e.g. clinical samples). Further, while international and national estimates of sexual violence prevalence are available, these rarely capture experiences and outcomes across the life span. The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) has collected sexual violence data since its inception in 1996 and offers an ideal opportunity to examine sexual violence over the life span. The ALSWH has captured a broad range of data on women’s health, which are crucial for understanding the economic, social, physical and mental health trajectories of women who have experienced sexual violence. This report was developed in consultation with ANROWS to address the limitations of the existing evidence by utilising ALSWH data. Aims The purpose of this report was to assess the prevalence of sexual violence over the life course and the impacts of experiencing sexual violence on health and wellbeing among Australian women using national, longitudinal data. The research had the following specific aims: 1. Determine the prevalence of sexual violence across the life course, including sexual violence experienced in childhood and adulthood, perpetrated both within an intimate relationship and outside of such a relationship. 2. Determine the role of sexual violence during childhood as a risk factor for experiences of multiple forms of violence later in life. 3. Identify the impact of sexual violence on socio-economic factors over time, such as education, paid employment and financial stress. 4. Determine the nature of associations between sexual violence experienced by women at different life stages and subsequent health behaviours. 5. Assess the impact of sexual violence on women’s physical and mental health. 6. Measure health service use in relation to sexual violence, including costs of selected health services and satisfaction with general practitioner services. 7. Identify factors associated with the general health and wellbeing of women who have experienced sexual violence.  

Sydney: Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited (ANROWS). 2022, 95pg

by Osborne Jackson and Riley Sullivan

Criminal justice reform has been a high-priority policy area in New England and the nation in recent years. States are generally seeking legislation that would help reintegrate ex-offenders into society while still prioritizing the welfare of all members of the public and the achievement of fiscal goals. The research findings presented in this report indicate that raising felony larceny thresholds—that is, increasing the dollar value of stolen property at or above which a larceny offense may be charged in court as a felony rather than a misdemeanor, a policy adopted by three New England states over the last decade—seems to balance these objectives. Policymakers interested in criminal justice reform should consider incorporating felony larceny threshold increases into the suite of policy changes implementing such reform.

When assessing larceny incidents as a whole, this report concludes that enacting higher felony larceny thresholds does not lead to an escalation of crime in the short run. Even upon considering the subset of larceny incidents where escalation is most likely to occur and where analysis is potentially not affected by other concurrent changes in larceny penalties, this report finds only a small, 2 percent short-run increase in the intensity of larceny crime (value of stolen property) and still no increase in the amount of larceny crime (rate of occurrence).

New England Public Policy Center,  Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 2020, 29pg

By Osborne Jackson and Thu Tran

The “hidden tax” resulting from larceny crime refers to the higher prices paid by consumers to producers who raise prices in order to pass on some of the associated cost of such theft. In the same vein, consumers who are victimized by larceny theft could pass along some of the associated cost that they bear by spending less. This study analyzes larceny crime as a hidden tax in order to examine its welfare implications. Using traditional tax theory, the authors first characterize how larceny crime might create distortions in a given product market. Employing a sample covering 17 US states during the 2000–2015 period, they then use the enactment of higher felony larceny thresholds to generate exogenous variation in larceny crime by product market. A felony larceny threshold is the dollar value of stolen property at or above which a larceny offense may be charged in court as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Focusing on the subset of larceny crime that is likely most affected by raising the larceny threshold, the authors calculate baseline hidden tax rates and then examine how changes in larceny rates related to higher thresholds affect this tax. They use these estimated changes in the hidden tax rates to compare the associated welfare costs of larceny crime across product markets.''

Boston: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Research Department. 2020, 33

By The Pelican Institute

This year, disturbing reports of increased crime have dominated the news, both in Louisiana and nationally.

Crime is a serious issue that demands thoughtful solutions to deter criminal behavior and promote public safety. They should be guided by data and evidence, not anecdotes. That’s why Pelican set out to review and better understand the underlying data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report and Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Comparing Louisiana’s crime data with other states paints a complete picture of the scale of the problem and its potential causes.

New Orleans LA: Pelican Institute. 2022, 12pg

By Douglas Husak

The allegation that criminal justice systems (and that of the United States in particular) have become guilty of overcriminalization is widely accepted by academics and practitioners on nearly all points along the political spectrum (Dillon 2012). Many commentators respond by recommending that states decriminalize given kinds of conduct that supposedly exemplify the problem. I urge those who are theoretically minded to proceed cautiously and address several preliminary matters that must be resolved before genuine progress is possible. In the absence of a position on several controversial normative and conceptual issues, discussions of overcriminalization and decriminalization are bound to be oversimplified and superficial. My review is organized around six of these issues. I invite commentators to examine (a) what the criminal law is; (b) what overcriminalization means; (c) why overcriminalization is thought to be pernicious; (d) whether overcriminalization is a de jure or de facto phenomenon, i.e., whether it is a function of the law on the books or the law in action; (e) what normative criteria might be invoked to alleviate the predicament; and (f) whether and to what extent overcriminalization is a serious concern in our penal system. Even though these six issues are analytically distinct, positions about one invariably blur into commitments about the others. Although theorists rarely dissent from the claim that states are guilty of something called overcriminalization, uncertainties about the foregoing topics mar their treatments. I conclude that a deep understanding of the problem of overcriminalization depends on how these six issues are resolved.

Annual Review of Criminology, v. 6. 2023, 19pg

By Ralph B. Taylor

For close to a century, the field of community criminology has examined the causes and consequences of community crime and delinquency rates. Nevertheless, there is still a lot we do not know about the dynamics behind these connections. In this book, Ralph Taylor argues that obstacles to deepening our understanding of community/crime links arise in part because most scholars have overlooked four fundamental concerns: how conceptual frames depend on the geographic units and/or temporal units used; how to establish the meaning of theoretically central ecological empirical indicators; and how to think about the causes and consequences of non-random selection dynamics. The volume organizes these four conceptual challenges using a common meta-analytic framework. The framework pinpoints critical features of and gaps in current theories about communities and crime, connects these concerns to current debates in both criminology and the philosophy of social science, and sketches the types of theory testing needed in the future if we are to grow our understanding of the causes and consequences of community crime rates. Taylor explains that a common meta-theoretical frame provides a grammar for thinking critically about current theories and simultaneously allows presenting these four topics and their connections in a unified manner. The volume provides an orientation to current and past scholarship in this area by describing three distinct but related community crime sequences involving delinquents, adult offenders, and victims. These sequences highlight community justice dynamics thereby raising questions about frequently used crime indicators in this area of research. A groundbreaking work melding past scholarly practices in criminology with the field’s current needs, Community Criminology is an essential work for criminologists.

New York; London: New York University Press, 2015. 336p.

By Monica Williams

The controversy surrounding community responses to housing for sexually violent predators When a South Carolina couple killed a registered sex offender and his wife after they moved into their neighborhood in 2013, the story exposed an extreme and relatively rare instance of violence against sex offenders. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems. No community wants a sex offender in its midst, but instead of vigilantism, Monica Williams argues, citizens often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep these offenders out of local neighborhoods. Her book, the culmination of four years of research, 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources, reveals the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predators (SVP) in the U.S. Specifically, The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma examines the placement process for released SVPs in California and the communities’ responses to those placements. Taking the reader into the center of these related issues, Monica Williams provokes debate on the role of communities in the execution of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to both groups of citizens. The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma is sure to promote increased civic engagement to help strengthen communities, increase public safety, and ensure government accountability.

New York; London: New York University Press, 2018. 288p.

By Bruce A. Jacobs, and Michael Cherbonneau

Carjacking is a violent crime with a broad motivational landscape related to the unique opportunities that a motor vehicle, as the item targeted, makes available to offenders once it is stolen. Although carjacking is technically a form of robbery, carjacking is a hybrid offense because it draws from elements of both regular robbery and motor vehicle theft. Nuanced in its etiology and expression, carjacking boasts a structure and process that require offenders to navigate multiple challenges under considerable time pressure and uncertainty. The fact that carjacking is so often opportunistic yet simultaneously requires a fair amount of calculation makes the offense even more subtle in its complexity. The purpose of this review is to examine these nuances through the lens of official data and existing empirical research. Nascent but growing, this research provides insight into the scope of the problem, the method and manner of the crime's commission, and the challenges of curbing a clear urban menace.

Annual Review of Criminology, v. 6. 2023, 24pg

By David Garland

This review situates the recent, radical challenges to American criminal justice—calls to end mass incarceration, defund the police, and dismantle systemic racism—within the broader social and economic arrangements that make the US system so distinctive and so problematic. It describes the social structures, institutions, and processes that give rise to America's extraordinary penal state—as well as to its extraordinarily high rates of homicide and social disorder—and considers what these portend for the prospect of radical change. It does so by locating American crime and punishment in the structural context of America's (always-already racialized) political economy—a distinctive set of social structures and institutional legacies that render the United States more violent, more disorderly, and more reliant on penal control than any other developed nation. Drawing on a broad range of social science research findings, it argues that this peculiar political economy—a form of capitalism and democratic governance forged on the anvils of slavery and racial segregation and rendered increasingly insecure and exclusionary in the decades following deindustrialization—generates high levels of social disorganization and criminal violence and predisposes state authorities to adopt penal control as the preferred policy response.

Annual Review of Criminology v. 6. 2023, 20pg