By Philip Zimbardo

Renowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil.. The Lucifer Effect explains how—and the myriad reasons why—we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.

Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.

By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

New York: Random House, 2008. 576p.

By Deborah Puccio-Den

“The Mafia? What is the Mafia? Something you eat? Something you drink? I don’t know the Mafia. I’ve never seen it.” Mafiosi have often reacted this way to questions from journalists and law enforcement. Social scientists who study the Mafia usually try to pin down what it “really is,” thus fusing their work with their object. In Mafiacraft, Deborah Puccio-Den undertakes a new form of ethnographic inquiry that focuses not on answering “What is the Mafia?” but on the ontological, moral, and political effects of posing the question itself. Her starting point is that Mafia is not a readily nameable social fact but a problem of thought produced by the absence of words. Puccio-Den approaches covert activities using a model of “Mafiacraft,” which inverts the logic of witchcraft. If witchcraft revolves on the lethal power of speech, Mafiacraft depends on the deadly strength of silence. How do we write an ethnography of phenomena that cannot be named? Puccio-Den approaches this task with a fascinating anthropology of silence, breaking new ground for the study of the world’s most famous criminal organization.

Chicago: HAU Books, 2021. 295p.

By Bruce A. Jacobs and Richard Wright

Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal Underworld is the first systematic exploration of the phenomenon of modern-day retaliation to be written from the perspective of currently active criminals who have experienced it firsthand – as offenders, victims, or both. Retaliation lies at the heart of much of the violence that plagues inner-city neighborhoods across the United States. Street criminals, who live in a dangerous world, realistically cannot rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from attacks by fellow lawbreakers. They are on their own when it comes to dealing with crimes perpetrated against them, and they often use retaliation as a mechanism for deterring and responding to victimization. Against this background, Bruce Jacobs and Richard Wright draw extensively on their candid interviews with active street criminals to shine a penetrating spotlight on the structure, process, and forms of retaliation in the real-world setting of urban America – a way of life that up to now has been poorly understood.

Cambridge, UK: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 154p.

By Lindsey Sank Davis

Despite significant progress towards equal protection under the law for women, LGBT individuals, and people of color in the United States, hate crime remains a pervasive problem, and rates appear to have increased in recent years. Bias-motivated homicide – arguably the most serious form of hate crime – is statistically rare but may have far-reaching consequences for marginalized communities. Data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey have suggested that, on average, fewer than 10 bias-motivated homicides occur in the United States per year; however, data from open sources indicate that the rate of bias-motivated homicide is much higher when utilizing different criteria. In addition to this lack of clarity about prevalence, the dynamics of bias-motivated homicide remain understudied. The present study explores a non-random U.S. sample of 58 closed, adjudicated case files provided by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit for research purposes. The utility of the leading hate crime typology by McDevitt, Levin, and Bennett (2002) is examined by applying the typology to this sample of bias-motivated homicides, and interrater reliability of the typology is considered. To address weaknesses in the typology, this study explores observable expressive and instrumental crime scene behaviors and their relationship to victim identity group membership, provocation, and victim-offender relationship. Results provide preliminary support for a biasmotivated homicide typology based on victim identity and victim-offender interaction preceding the offense. Implications for prevention, offender rehabilitation, and law enforcement are discussed.

New York: City University of New York, 2018. 172p.

Edited by Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac Hans-Jörg Albrecht Michael Kilchling

For the first time, this volume brings together experts in the fields of criminology, criminal law and criminal justice from across the Balkans, to discuss the state of the art of criminology and current crime trends in a region that has thus far largely been neglected by European criminological research. The first chapter analytically describes and defines the Balkan region, not only as a unique historical region, but also as a religious and legal territory, as well as a region of migration and violence and a criminological region sui generis. These facts are used to explore and promote the likely benefits of a coherent regional criminological research approach – with the long-term goal of creating a sustainable ›crimiological landscape‹. Contributions from all members of the Balkan Criminology Network provide an in-depth overview of facts and background information about criminological education and research and data about crime, general crime trends, and current crime and criminal justice challenges. The final chapter presents selected research projects from the actual research agenda of the Max Planck Partner Group for Balkan Criminology (MPPG). This selection makes the book an essential reader for anyone interested in the current criminological setting of the Balkans and an excellent starting point for regional or country specific crime research.

Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2014. 554p.

Soraya Giaccardi, Shawn Van Valkenburgh, Erica L. Rosenthal, Erica Watson-Currie.

On average, 110 people are killed by guns every day in the United States, with Black Americans disproportionately impacted. Young Black men are 20 times more likely to be killed by a gun than young white men, and between 2019 and 2020, deaths by guns increased by 39.5% among Black people. In 2021, for the first time, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared gun violence a “serious public threat.”

Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teens, increasing by 29% from 2019 to 2020 alone. School shootings receive disproportionate media and policy attention and are a major source of fear, but 85% of child victims of gun homicide die in their homes, and over 80% of child gun suicides involve a gun owned by a family member. In addition, myths persist, such as the belief that gun violence is primarily caused by mental illness, or that a civilian “good guy” can intervene in an active shooting and save lives if they are allowed to carry a loaded gun.

New York: Everytown for Gun Safety, 2022.

By Jerome Hall

From the introduction: “Theories of social science, especially those concerning methodology, are often presented very abstractly and in technical vocabularies which seem remote from the actual problems of research. This does not imply that theory should be abandoned or subordinated to practical guidance on research. What is involved is precisely the question of cogent, critical, realistic social theory. Under the circumstances, it occurred to me that a report and discussion of methods and theories employed in this research on theft might be of Interest. The general approach to the problems studied was simply one of curiosity about many phases of law, an attitude conditioned by strong intellectual currents in the social sciences.

New York. Bobbs-Merrill. (1992) 1995. 409p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Marc-André Lagrange and Thierry Vircoulon

The current rise in insecurity in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is often attributed to urban youth gangs – the Kulunas. Embedded in Kinshasa’s neighbourhood life and partnered with local political parties and law enforcement agencies, these gangs threaten urban security in the city. This paper examines the rise of the Kulunas from a historical and sociological perspective, and analyzes the state’s security responses to address it.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime, 2021. 24p.

By Jean-Michel Rabaté

The decade since the publication of Jean-Michel Rabaté's controversial manifesto The Future of Theory saw important changes in the field. The demise of most of the visible French or German philosophers, who had produced texts that would trigger new debates, then to be processed by Theory, has led to drastic revisions and starker assessments.

Globalization has been the most obvious factor to modify the selection of texts studied. During the twentieth century, Theory incorporated poetics, rhetorics, aesthetics and linguistics, while also opening itself to continental philosophy. What has changed today? The knowledge that we live in a de-centered world has destabilized the primacy granted to a purely Western canon. Moreover, much of contemporary theory remains highly allusive and this is often baffling for students. Theory keeps recycling itself, producing authentic returns of basic theses, terms and concepts. Canonical modern theorists often return to classical texts, as those of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche.

New York: London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. 250p.

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By Bob Halloran

In August 2013, “Bac Guai" John Willis, also known as the “White Devil" because of his notorious ferocity, was sentenced to 20 years for drug trafficking and money laundering. Willis, according to prosecutors, was “the kingpin, organizer and leader of a vast conspiracy," all within the legendarily insular and vicious Chinese mafia.

It started when John Willis was 16 years old . . . his life seemed hopeless. His father had abandoned his family years earlier, his older brother had just died of a heart attack, and his mother was dying. John was alone, sleeping on the floor of his deceased brother's home. Desperate, John reached out to Woping, a young Chinese man Willis had rescued from a bar fight weeks before. Woping literally picks him up off the street, taking him home to live among his own brothers and sisters.

White Devil explores the workings of the Chinese mafia, and he speaks frankly about his relationships with other gang members, the crimes he committed, and why he’ll never rat out any of his brothers to the cops.

Dallas: BenBella Books, 2016. 320p.

Crime Statistics by Type and Outcome, HTML AND XLSL formats.

2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1996 to 1999.

Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2021. DOWNLOAD

Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2020. DOWNLOAD

Justice Statistics Web Site (English) - Go There

Justice Statistics Web Site( Portuguese) - Go There

By RAND Europe

This document is the final report of a study commissioned by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) in November 2019 to examine Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based capabilities for border and coast guard applications. This report presents the main findings of the study, including:  A characterisation of the evolving landscape of AI-based capabilities in border security and mapping of the technology, capability areas and border security functions to which AI may be applied;  Mapping of the current and desired capability levels for nine selected technology areas, as well as pathways to their adoption;  Discussion of cross-cutting enablers and barriers for adoption of AI-based capabilities in border security; and  Reflections on the implications for Frontex.

Warsaw, Poland: Frontex – European Border and Coast Guard Agency, 2020. 167p.

Edited by Sandra M. Bucerius and Michael Tonry

Social tensions between majority and minority populations often center on claims that minorities are largely responsible for crime and disorder. Members of some disadvantaged groups in all developed countries, sometimes long-standing residents and other times recent immigrants, experience unwarranted disparities in their dealings with the criminal justice system. Accusations of unfair treatment by police and courts are common. The Oxford Handbook of Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration provides comprehensive analyses of current knowledge about these and a host of related subjects. Topics include legal and illegal immigration, ethnic and race relations, and discrimination and exclusion, and their links to crime in the United States and elsewhere. Leading scholars from sociology, criminology, law, psychology, geography, and political science document and explore relations among race, ethnicity, immigration, and crime.

Individual chapters provide in-depth critical overviews of key issues, controversies, and research. Contributors present the historical backdrops of their subjects, describe population characteristics, and summarize relevant data and research findings. Most articles provide synopses of racial, ethnic, immigration, and justice-related concerns and offer policy recommendations and proposals for future research. Some articles are case studies of particular problems in particular places, including juvenile incarceration, homicide, urban violence, social exclusion, and other issues disproportionately affecting disadvantaged minority groups. The Oxford Handbook of Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration is the first major effort to examine and synthesize knowledge concerning immigration and crime, ethnicity and crime, and race and crime in one volume, and does so both for the United States and for many other countries.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 960p.

By Jacob I. Stowell

Stowell examines the impact of immigration on violent crime. Crimiological theory, and particularly social disorganization theory, has held that immigration is inextricably linked to crime. Stowell tests whether patterns of neighborhood-level violence are partially attributable to the population characteristics of an area, and, in particular, to its nativity composition. His analyses offer both support for and challenges to social disorganization theory. Consistent with theoretical expectations, immigration is found to be indirectly associated with levels of violence. Little support, however, is found for the notion that immigrants are a largely homogeneous population, or that immigration is positively associated with property crime. The results call for a refinement of the disorganization theory, one that is sensitive to the differences among the foreign-born population and one that does not assume a negative impact of immigration on neighborhood social structure and violence.

New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2017. 184p.

Edited by Ilias Bantekas and Emmanouela Mylonaki

This volume is one of the few books to explain in-depth the international crimes behind the scenes of substantive or procedural law. The contributors place a particular focus on what motivates participation in international crime, how perpetrators, witnesses and victims see their predicament and how international crimes should be investigated at local and international level, with an emphasis on context. The book engages these questions with a broad interdisciplinary approach that is accessible to both lawyers and non-lawyers alike. It discusses international crime through the lens of anthropology, neuroscience, psychology, state crime theory and information systems theory and draws upon relevant investigative experience from experts in international and domestic law prosecutions.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 336p.

Edited by William S. Laufer and Freda Adler

The Criminology of Criminal Law considers the relation between criminal law and theories of crime, criminality and justice. This book discusses a wide range of topics, including: the way in which white-collar crime is defined; new perspectives on stranger violence; the reasons why criminologists have neglected the study of genocide; the idea of boundary crossing in the control of deviance; the relation between punishment and social solidarity; the connection between the notion of justice and modern sentencing theory; the social reaction to treason; and the association between politics and punitiveness.

New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2013. 557p.

By Synøve Nygaard Andersen and Torbjørn Skardhamar

Previous studies have identified an "immigrant paradox" in crime in which crime rates are highest among immigrants who are young when they arrive in the host country, even though social capital and integration in the labour market and social networks favour the young. We use Norwegian registry data to estimate the probability of committing at least one crime in any year after the year of immigration, and we include interaction terms between age and age at immigration to explore the troublesome temporal association between age, age at immigration and duration of residence. The results suggest an overall negative association between age at immigration and registered crime, which seems to be exaggerated by the residual effect of the omitted duration of residence variable. Comparability of results between studies depends crucially on how age at immigration is measured.

Oslo: Statistics Norway, Research Department, 2012. 32p.

By Brian Bell, Stephen Machin and Francesco Fasani

This paper examines the relationship between immigration and crime in a setting where large migration flows offer an opportunity to carefully appraise whether the populist view that immigrants cause crime is borne out by rigorous evidence. We consider possible crime effects from two large waves of immigration that recently occurred in the UK. The first of these was the late 1990s/early 2000s wave of asylum seekers, and the second the large inflow of workers from EU accession countries that took place from 2004. A simple economics of crime model, when dovetailed with facts about the relative labour market position of these migrant groups, suggests net returns to criminal activity are likely to be very different for the two waves. In fact, we show that the first wave led to a small rise in property crime, whilst the second wave had no such impact. There was no observable effect on violent crime for either wave. Nor were immigrant arrest rates different to natives. Evidence from victimization data also suggests that the changes in crime rates during the immigrant waves cannot be ascribed to crimes against immigrants. Overall, our findings suggest that focusing on the limited labour market opportunities of asylum seekers could have beneficial effects on crime rates.

Bonn: IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor, 2010. 47p.