By Ifeanyi Ezeonu

Building on original research into the petroleum industry and on the theory of crimes of globalization, this book introduces the concept of Market Criminology: the criminology of preventable market-generated harms and the criminogenic effects of market rationality in variegated forms of capitalism. Ifeanyi Ezeonu explores the ascendance of the fundamentalist form of market economy in Nigeria; the complicity of the state political and security apparatuses in the corporate expropriation of the country’s petroleum resource wealth; the deleterious effects of this neoliberal architecture on the local population; as well as community resistance strategies over the years. This book offers a major contribution to research on state-corporate crime and the crimes of the powerful. Key reading for scholars and students in the areas of criminology, international political economy and sociology, this book will also be a rich resource for researchers and non-governmental agencies working in the areas of environmental protection, human rights and sustainable development in the Global South, especially Sub-Saharan Africa

Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2018. 173p.

By Claire Hamilton

This book considers the impact of post 9/11 counter-terrorism laws outside of the counter-terrorism context, a process described here as ‘contagion’. It does so via a detailed empirical examination of the impact of counter-terrorism measures on the criminal justice systems of three selected EU countries with varying histories and experience of terrorism, namely, the UK, France and Poland. In particular, the book explores the synergistic relationship between counter-terrorism measures and control measures aimed at ‘ordinary’ crimes and asks what the implications are for the direction of travel of the criminal law in general. It probes the hegemonic power of terrorism and the securitisation agenda more broadly and discusses the implications for criminology as a discipline – does it, for example, have a role in social contestation of contagion? This book will be suitable for academics and students interested in political violence, terrorism and counterterrorism as well as practitioners and experts working in the area.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York:, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 172p.

By Courtney R. Semisch, Kristen Sharp and Alyssa Purdy

This report provides information on offenders sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (hereinafter “the Act” or “the ACCA”)1 using data collected by the United States Sentencing Commission (the “Commission”). This report provides an overview of the ACCA and its implementation in the federal sentencing guidelines. It also includes information on offender and offense characteristics, criminal histories, and recidivism of armed career criminals.

Washington, DC; United States Sentencing Commission, 2021. 88p.

By Frederick Howard Brown

Empirical studies have attempted to measure the relative deprivation - crime relationship with varying degrees of success. These have generally focused on examining ‘actual relative deprivation’ by employing quantitative methods to aggregated, area based data. Operationalising actual relative deprivation in terms of disparities in household income, these studies have attempted to show a relationship between income inequality and crime at the area level. From this they have assumed that those with the lowest incomes are most likely to perceive relative deprivation and are therefore more likely to engage in crime as a result. However, few studies have examined actual and perceived relative deprivation at the individual level. This thesis set out to explore at the individual level whether those experiencing actual relative deprivation are more likely than others to perceive relative deprivation and to determine whether actual or perceived relative deprivation (if either) is a good predictor of criminality.

London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2001. 494p.

By Rick Cummings

Operation Burglary Countdown is an innovative community-based crime reduction program operating in two pilot areas, Bentley and Morley. A comprehensive and independent evaluation study has shown that the model of integrating central and local resources through coordinated police and community activities has been well implemented and generated considerable community support. During 12 months of operation, the program has demonstrated its effectiveness in targeted hotspots by reducing residential burglary in Bentley and the surrounding area by over 40%, saving the community an estimated $700,000. Its lack of significant impact in Morley indicates it is best introduced only in identified hotspots

Perth: Office of Crime Prevention, Government of Western Australia, 2005. 65p.

By Andrew D. Newton, Michelle Rogerson and Alex Hirschfield

This paper explores the relationship between the allocation of target hardening and burglary risk based on recent research in the City of Liverpool. Individual property‐level data from a range of sources was collated for each residential property in the city using a unique property reference number. This produced a rich data set enabling burglary and target hardening activity to be analysed through time at both the individual property‐level and across a variety of spatial units (e.g. super output areas, wards and regeneration areas). The results highlight an imperfect alignment between target hardening and burglary risk locations largely attributable to the influence of Liverpool’s area based regeneration initiatives. The paper makes the case for prioritising properties for target hardening based on a combination of the prior burglary history of individual properties, the burglary risk of an area, and existing levels of target hardening protection.

Huddersfield, UK: University of Huddersfield, 2008. 25p.

By Timothy Coupe and Max Griffiths

Residential burglary can be regarded as one of the most serious crimes, since, as well as being one of the more common forms of criminal behaviour, it also intrudes into the home and damages feelings of personal security, peace of mind and well-being. Because of this, it often has an impact on its victims, and others who fear burglary, that is out of proportion to the value of the property that is stolen. It is, therefore, important that residential burglary detection rates should be improved. As well as reducing the numbers of existing offenders at large, this should also serve to deter others contemplating burglary. Fewer burglaries should also ease public anxiety, and moderate home insurance costs which have risen sharply during the last decade. The purpose of this research was to identify ways of improving burglary detection rates, while maintaining, and, where possible, improving the quality of service provided to victims by the police. It involved the study of police operations, the offenders, the victims and their perceptions, the burgled dwellings and the property stolen, and the residential environment. It was concerned with how the police allocate resources and time to the investigation of residential burglaries, and with assessing the relative contribution of proactive and reactive policing (Audit Commission, ACPO & HMIC, 1993) to their detection. The principal objective was to assess the scope for adjusting existing operational procedures in order to optimise human resource deployment and primary detection rates, without degrading the victim’s perception of police effectiveness. The findings illustrate how police actions during the course of burglary investigations influence the victims’ view of the service they provide and form the basis for recommending appropriate indicators for monitoring the quality of policing provision in terms of the service provided to victims.

London: Home Office, Police Research Group: 1996. 53p.

The first European Sourcebook project started in 1996. In that year the Council of Europe established a committee to prepare a compendium of crime and criminal justice data for its member states. Information was collected from 36 European countries covering the period 1990 to 1996. It included both statistical data and information on the statistical rules and the definitions behind these figures. The main publication that is produced in this way "European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics" was published first in 1999, and since then five editions were published. For the 4th edition that was published in 2010 and the 5th that was published in 2015, Asst. Prof. Galma Akdeniz (member of the Human Rights Law Research Center) collected crime and justice data for Turkey and thus contributed to the publication. More information about this project, databases that were formed as a part of the project, and its publications can be found on the European Sourcebook website.

By Tani Marilena Adams

The phenomenon of “non-conventional armed violence, which refers to the hybrid forms of organised violence that emerge outside or alongside traditional armed conflict, is best understood through a more systemic understanding of violence. Many groups and individuals identified as part of the “nonconventional” phenomenon form part of a larger, self-reproducing system of chronic violence. These systems are driven by a complex combination of structural factors and behaviours, cultures, and practices that undermine human development in predictable ways.

Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF), 2014. 11p.

By Justin Kotzé

The Myth of the ‘Crime Decline’ seeks to critically interrogate the supposed ­statistical decline of crime rates, thought to have occurred in a number of predominantly Western countries over the past two decades. Whilst this trend of declining crime rates seems profound, serious questions need to be asked. Data sources need to be critically interrogated, and context needs to be provided. This book seeks to do just that. This book examines the wider socio-economic and politico-cultural context within which this decline in crime is said to have occurred, highlighting the changing nature and landscape of crime and its ever deepening resistance to precise measurement. By drawing upon original qualitative research and cutting-edge criminological theory, this book offers an alternative view of the reality of crime and harm. In doing so it seeks to reframe the ‘crime decline’ discourse and provide a more accurate account of this puzzling ­contemporary phenomenon. Additionally, utilising a new theoretical framework developed by the author, this book begins to explain why the ‘crime decline’ discourse has been so readily accepted.

London: Routledge, 2019. 188p.

Edited by Christiana Gregoriou

Crime and criminals are a pervasive theme in all areas of our culture, including media, journalism, film and literature. This book explores how crime is constructed and culturally represented through a range of areas including Spanish, English Language and Literature, Music, Criminology, Gender, Law, Cultural and Criminal Justice Studies.

Cham: Springer, 2012. 256p.

Edited by Jan van Dijk, Andromachi Tseloni and Graham Farrell

Drawing on studies from major European countries and Australia, this exciting new collection from a group of internationally-renowned scholars extends the ongoing debate on falling crime rates from the perspective of criminal opportunity or routine activity theory. Considering the trends and discourse of the international crime fall, this book analyses the effect of Post World War II crime booms which triggered a universal improvement in security across the Western world, such as the introduction of mandatory security in motor vehicles in Europe and the US. Preliminary evidence is also presented on the impact of collective improvements in home security, analyzing levels of household burglaries and their distribution amongst the population in The Netherlands, England and Wales.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 333p.

By Stephen Farrell

The crime drop is one of the most important puzzles in contemporary criminology: since the early-1990s many countries appear to exhibit a pronounced decline in crime rates. While there have been many studies on the topic, this book argues that the current crime drop literature relies too heavily on a single methodological approach, and in turn, provides a new method for examining the falling rates of crime, based on ideas from political science and comparative historical social science. Farrall’s original new research forwards an understanding of trends in crime and responses to them by questioning the received theoretical assumptions. The book therefore encourages a ‘deepening’ in the nature of the sorts of studies which have been undertaken so far.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 116p.

By Alfred Blumstein and Joel Wallman

Violent crime in America shot up sharply in the mid-1980s and continued to climb until 1991, after which something unprecedented occurred. The crime level declined to a level not seen since the 1960s. This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses first on the dramatic drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. Detailed analyses emphasize the mutual effects of changes in crack markets, a major focus of youth violence, and the drop in rates of violence following decline in demand for crack. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 375p.

By Hikmet Karčić

Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse, and killing. Foreign journalists exposed the horrors of the camps in the summer of 1992, sparking worldwide outrage. This exposure, however, did not stop the mass atrocities. Hikmet Karčić shows that the use of camps and detention facilities has been a ubiquitous practice in countless wars and genocides in order to achieve the wartime objectives of perpetrators. Although camps have been used for different strategic purposes, their essential functions are always the same: to inflict torture and lasting trauma on the victims. Torture, Humiliate, Kill develops the author’s collective traumatization theory, which contends that the concentration camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities had the primary purpose of inflicting collective trauma on the non-Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collective traumatization consisted of excessive use of torture, sexual abuse, humiliation, and killing. The physical and psychological suffering imposed by these methods were seen as a quick and efficient means to establish the Serb “living space.” Karčić argues that this trauma was deliberately intended to deter non-Serbs from ever returning to their pre-war homes. The book centers on multiple examples of experiences at concentration camps in four towns operated by Bosnian Serbs during the war: Prijedor, Bijeljina, Višegrad, and Bileća. Chosen according to their political and geographical position, Karčić demonstrates that these camps were used as tools for the ethno-religious genocidal campaign against non-Serbs. Torture, Humiliate, Kill is a thorough and definitive resource for understanding the function and operation of camps during the Bosnian genocide.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 277p.

By Robert Muggah

Climate change is already disrupting cities around the world. Continued greenhouse gas emissions and warming are intensifying heat islands, contributing to water shortages, rising seas, increasing flood-related risks and worsening pollution. With over two thirds of the population expected to live in cities by 2030, the effects are consequential. Large and fast-growing cities in Asia, Africa and the Americas are likely to be hit hardest by more frequent and intense disasters. Coastal cities across North America and Western Europe are likewise on the front-line.

Climate change is influencing all aspects of city life, from labor markets and food security to migration patterns and economic productivity. One critical, if under-examined, way climate change is affecting cities is in relation to crime and victimization. To be sure, the debate about the relationships between climate and security – and in particular the influence of global warming on conflict onset, duration and intensity – has heated-up over the past decade, there is less attention devoted to how climate change stands to influence criminal violence in cities around the world.

Evidence suggests that dramatic climate change will generate a substantial increase in crime in many cities – and especially more vulnerable neighborhoods. In this paper, Robert Muggah, Igarapé Institute co-founder and Research and Innovation Director analyses studies and theories about the link climate-crime and present strategies and preventive measures to avoid violence while protecting the most vulnerable.

Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brasil, Igarapé Institute, 2021. 13p.

Edited by Ravi K. Thiara, Stephanie A. Condon, and Monika Schröttle

This book draws together both: theory and practice on minority/migrant women and gendered violence. The interplay of gender, ethnicity, religion, class, generation and sexuality in shaping the lives, experiences and choices of minority/migrant women affected by violence has not always been adequately theorised within much of the existing writing on violence against women. Feminist theory, especially the insights provided by the concept of intersectionality, are central to the editors’ conceptual frameworks.

Leverkusen-Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich , 2011. 426p.

By David Wästerfors

This book considers how the concept of violence has been interpreted, used, defined, and explored by social researchers and thinkers. It does not provide a final answer to the question of what violence is or how it should be explained (or prevented), and instead offers a variety of useful ways of thinking about and theorising the phenomenon, mainly from a sociological standpoint. It outlines four ways of understanding violence: • Violence as situation: the tension that exists between category-driven and situational explanations. • Violence as speciality: the study of particularly violent actors, and how they may be understood by reference to childhood histories, technologies, institutions, culture, class, and gender. • Violence as politics: political violence and violent politics. • Violence as storytelling: representations of violence from a narrative perspective. Concluding with reflections on possible convergences between the four approaches and new directions for research, this book offers a unique and experimental approach to discussing and reconstructing the concept of violence.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023. 138p.

By Justin Kurland

Numerous studies have been conducted on football ‘hooliganism’ with the majority of this work ignoring the immediate, environmental conditions that facilitate opportunities for crime in the football match day context. Consequently, the existing theoretical framework for explaining why crime emerges during football matches remains incomplete. This thesis aims to fill this gap for understanding modern football-related crime and disorder. The thesis uses a predominantly environmental criminology framework to explore whether crime opportunity theories can make sense of crime patterns observed around previously unexplored English domestic football stadia. It is crime event-oriented, focussing on how variation in the ecology of the area around stadia on match days and a set of counterfactual days when the stadium is not used facilitates different criminal opportunities. This is achieved primarily through the analysis of police-recorded crime data for three kilometre areas surrounding a sample of five stadia for the period 2005- 2010. The thesis focuses on three components of crime events - where they occur, when they occur, and why a disproportionate amount of it clusters in some neighbourhoods and not others. Despite the contrasting physical environment around the five stadia, the findings suggest very similar spatial and temporal crime patterns in the area surrounding stadia when they are used relative to when they are not and thus lend support to environmental theories of crime in the football context. The findings also help draw attention to where and when crime is elevated on football match days. The implications of the research for reducing the unintended and unwanted side-effect of football that is desired for the positive utilities it brings, in particular the practicality of employing situational crime prevention in the context of English domestic football are discussed.

London: University College London, 2014.

By Thomas Joiner

Of the approximately 38,500 deaths by suicide in the U.S. annually, about two percent--between 750 and 800--are murder-suicides. The horror of murder-suicides looms large in the public consciousness--they are reported in the media with more frequency and far more sensationalism than most suicides, and yet we have little understanding of this grave form of violence.

In The Perversion of Virtue, leading suicide researcher Thomas Joiner explores the nature of murder-suicide and offers a unique new theory to explain this nearly unexplainable act: that murder-suicides always involve the wrongheaded invocation of one of four interpersonal virtues: mercy, justice, duty, and glory. The parent who murders his child and then himself seeks to save his child from a fatherless life of hardship; the wife who murders her husband and then herself seeks to right the wrongs he committed against her, and so on. Murder-suicides involve the gross misperception of when and how these four virtues should be applied.

Drawing from extensive research as well as real examples from the media, Joiner meticulously examines, deconstructs, and finally rebuilds our understanding of murder-suicide in such a way that brings tragic reason to what may seem an unfathomable act of violence. Along the way, he dispels some of the most enduring myths of suicide--for instance, that suicide is usually an impulsive act (it is almost always pre-meditated), or that alcohol or drugs are involved in most suicides (usually they are not).

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. 264p.