By Harald Dern, Roland Frönd, Ursula Straub, Jens Vick and Rainer Witt.

“The perpetrator isn’t from here!” This claim is an understandable defensive response exhibited by local people following a sexual homicide,1 particularly in cases involving a child victim. The contention is grounded more in belief than in knowledge, however, as very few of the perpetrators who are later identified travelled a great distance to the crime scene. One occasionally encounters this notion in police circles as well, and it often makes the process of identifying the perpetrator even more difficult. When cases of this kind remain unsolved, the investigating unit in charge frequently requests the appropriate operational case analysis unit to perform a case analysis.2 As a rule, such cases analyses include the development of an offender profile containing, to the extent possible, statements about the unidentified perpetrator’s probable age, prior criminal record and place or region of residence. These criteria within the offender profile are of utmost importance to local investigative authorities. On the basis of a combination of these criteria, which can be researched in databases, analysts can, for example, identify a group of potential suspects and/or establish a scale of priorities within a known group of suspects (keyword “profiling”).

Wiesbaden: Bundeskriminalamt , 2005. 101p.

By Karina Garcia.

Dominant scholarly approaches to drug trafficking violence (DTV) in Mexico generally explain its onset and escalation by focusing on one of four issues: a) the democratisation process in the 1990s and 2000s; b) the systemic corruption of the judicial and legislative institutions; c) a weak rule of law across the country; and d) the ‘war on drugs’ launched by former president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012). These approaches, however, fail to account for the discursive conditions that enable the perpetrators to engage in DTV. This thesis, therefore, proposes a new critical approach to our understanding of DTV by examining the life stories of thirty-three former narcos collected in Mexico between October 2014 and January 2015. Using a discourse analytical approach, I identify a set of meaning production regularities, uncovered through detailed interviews, which I conceptualise as narco discourse. In this discourse, informed by a neoliberal ethos, poverty is understood as a fixed condition, ‘poor people have no future’ and have ‘nothing to lose’. Under this logic, the ‘only’ way for them to enjoy life is to engage in illegal activities conceived as ‘la vida fácil’ [the easy life] which guarantee them ‘dinero fácil’ [easy money]. The narco discourse also produces the idea that ‘un hombre de verdad’ [a true man] embodies the normative characteristics of machismo. This masculinity, in turn, justifies male violence as ‘necessary’ in order to ‘survive’ in contexts of poverty. These three intertwined discourses of poverty, masculinity and violence enable the construction of DTV in instrumental terms, e.g. as ‘un negocio’ [a business’], as something ‘exciting’ and even as a source of empowerment. In this way, I demonstrate how DTV is discursively made possible by and for former narcos. This is a starting point for rethinking DTV not only as the result of corruption, or failed policies, but also as the product of the interplay between pre-existing social conditions and discourses produced and reproduced by perpetrators of DTV.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2018. 179p.

National Research Council.

Volume II takes an in-depth look at the various aspects of criminal careers, including the relationship of alcohol and drug abuse to criminal careers, co-offending influences on criminal careers, issues in the measurement of criminal careers, accuracy of prediction models, and ethical issues in the use of criminal career information in making decisions about offenders.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 1986. 416p.

National Research Council.

By focusing attention on individuals rather than on aggregates, this book takes a novel approach to studying criminal behavior. It develops a framework for collecting information about individual criminal careers and their parameters, reviews existing knowledge about criminal career dimensions, presents models of offending patterns, and describes how criminal career information can be used to develop and refine criminal justice policies. In addition, an agenda for future research on criminal careers is presented.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 1986. 458p.

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 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.

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 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.

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 R. Alexander.

The illegality of the East India Company's monopoly of the drug; and its injurious effects upon India, China, and the commerce of Great Britain. Five letters addressed to the earl of Shaftesbury 3d ed., rev. and enl. Contents: 1. On the institution of the opium monopoly, and its effects upon India -- 2. Rise and consequences of smuggling in China -- 3. Effects upon the commerce of Great Britain and China -- 4. Testimonies against the contraband trade -- 5. Illegality of the opium monopoly in India and suggestions for its suppression.

London: Judd and Glass, 1856. 214p.

by William Burgess

A Historical Review and Study of the Problems Relating to the Subject. “This book was prompted not only by the appeal made to a scholarly mind by the widely scattered data of the long war against vice, but also by personal experience on the field of action where the author has aided achievement in securing organized effort. So rapidly and widely has the struggle against the social evil spread that the local and national groups engaged in it are for the most part unaware of what a diverse world-wide movement they constitute. Each several line of aggressive effort has its own organization and publications, covering the medical and psychopathic, the legislative and police, the educational and protective, the moral and religious attacks upon the hydra-headed evil. This book was prompted not only by the appeal made to a scholarly mind by the widely scattered data of the long war against vice, but also by personal experience on the field of action where the author has aided achievement in securing organized effort. So rapidly and widely has the struggle against the social evil spread that the local and national groups engaged in it are for the most part unaware of what a diverse world-wide movement they constitute. Each several line of aggressive effort has its own organization and publications, covering the medical and psychopathic, the legislative and police, the educational and protective, the moral and religious attacks upon the hydra-headed evil.”

Chicago : Saul Brothers, [1914]. 426p.

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