Who are the men committing the rising number of serial homicides in the U.S. -- and why do they kill? The increase in these violent crimes over the past decade has created an urgent need for more and better information about these men: their crime scene patterns, violent acts, and above all, their motivations for committing these shocking and repetitive murders. This authoritative book represents the data, findings, and implications of a long-term F.B.I.-sponsored study of serial sex killers. Specially trained F.B.I. agents examined thirty-six convicted, incarcerated sexual murderers to build a valuable new bank of information which reveals the world of the serial sexual killer in both quantitative and qualitative detail. Data was obtained from official psychiatric and criminal records, court transcripts, and prison reports, as well as from extensive interviews with the offenders themselves. Featured in this book is detailed information on the F.B.I.'s recently developed Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) and a sample of an actual VICAP Crime Analysis Report Form.

The human race spends a disproportionate amount of attention, money, and expertise in solving, trying, and reporting homicides, as compared to other social problems. The public avidly consumes accounts of real-life homicide cases, and murder fiction is more popular still. Nevertheless, we have only the most rudimentary scientific understanding of who is likely to kill whom and why. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson apply contemporary evolutionary theory to analysis of human motives and perceptions of self-interest, considering where and why individual interests conflict, using well-documented murder cases. This book attempts to understand normal social motives in murder as products of the process of evolution by natural selection. They note that the implications for psychology are many and profound, touching on such matters as parental affection and rejection, sibling rivalry, sex differences in interests and inclinations, social comparison and achievement motives, our sense of justice, lifespan developmental changes in attitudes, and the phenomenology of the self. This is the first volume of its kind to analyze homicides in the light of a theory of interpersonal conflict. Before this study, no one had compared an observed distribution of victim-killer relationships to "expected" distribution, nor asked about the patterns of killer-victim age disparities in familial killings. This evolutionary psychological approach affords a deeper view and understanding of homicidal violence.

The Global Study on Homicide 2013 is based on comprehensive data from more than 200 countries/territories, and examines and analyses patterns and trends in homicide at the global, regional, national and sub-national levels. Such analysis is fundamental to understanding the various factors and dynamics that drive homicide, so that measures can be developed to reduce violent crime. The Study provides a typology of homicide, including homicide related to crime, coexistence-related homicide, and socio-political homicide. The nature of crime in several countries emerging from conflict, the role of various mechanisms in killing, and the response of the criminal justice system to homicide are also analyzed. A further chapter examines homicide at the sub-national level, and includes analysis at the city-level for selected global cities.

The editors, Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy, have assembled a diverse cast of criminologists, historians, legal scholars, psychologists, and sociologists from a number of countries to discuss key concepts and debates central to the field. The Handbook includes examinations of the historical and contemporary patterns of women's and men's involvement in crime; as well as biological, psychological, and social science perspectives on gender, sex, and criminal activity. Several essays discuss the ways in which sex and gender influence legal and popular reactions to crime. An important theme throughout The Handbook is the intersection of sex and gender with ethnicity, class, age, peer groups, and community as influences on crime and justice. Individual chapters investigate both conventional topics - such as domestic abuse and sexual violence - and topics that have only recently drawn the attention of scholars - such as human trafficking, honor killing, gender violence during war, state rape, and genocide.

Authored by Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld, both highly respected scholars and researchers, CRIME AND THE AMERICAN DREAM, 5th Edition is the seminal work in a major segment of criminological theory. The foundation of the book is institutional anomie theory (an offshoot of Mertonian anomie theory), which the authors posit helps to explain why America's over-emphasis on the pursuit of materialistic gain contributes to the country's high rate of violent crime. Featuring a very clear and accessible writing style, this is a theory book that students will actually understand. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

This comprehensive work provides a sourcebook of information about the substantive, methodological, and policy-oriented aspects of homicide research in Europe. Part one of this work covers the most recent substantive and methodological information about European homicide research. The second part will contains detailed case studies on homicide research in 15-20 individual European nations. This work will be both conceptual and practical. conceptual and practical. Conceptual aspects will focus on theoretical frameworks and patterns and trends of violence in Europe. Practical aspects will examine the results of empirical research, topics relating to different data sources and the variation of legal definitions of violence throughout Europe, and policy issues relating to variation in homicide prevention and punishment of homicide offenders throughout Europe. This handbook will not only provide an up-to-date reference that brings together known information, but will also offer previously unpublished comprehensive literature reviews and original research findings. The editors’ distinctive approach is to provide readers with an English-language central source of information about the voluminous literature on European homicide research that is currently spread widely in dozens of different European and American journals.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

A law professor and former prosecutor reveals how inconsistent ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the problems that plague our entire criminal justice system—from mass incarceration to police brutality. We take for granted that some crimes are violent and others aren’t. But how do we decide what counts as a violent act? David Alan Sklansky argues that legal notions about violence—its definition, causes, and moral significance—are functions of political choices, not eternal truths. And these choices are central to failures of our criminal justice system. The common distinction between violent and nonviolent acts, for example, played virtually no role in criminal law before the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet to this day, with more crimes than ever called “violent,” this distinction determines how we judge the seriousness of an offense, as well as the perpetrator’s debt and danger to society. Similarly, criminal law today treats violence as a pathology of individual character. But in other areas of law, including the procedural law that covers police conduct, the situational context of violence carries more weight. The result of these inconsistencies, and of society’s unique fear of violence since the 1960s, has been an application of law that reinforces inequities of race and class, undermining law’s legitimacy. A Pattern of Violence shows that novel legal philosophies of violence have motivated mass incarceration, blunted efforts to hold police accountable, constrained responses to sexual assault and domestic abuse, pushed juvenile offenders into adult prisons, encouraged toleration of prison violence, and limited responses to mass shootings. Reforming legal notions of violence is therefore an essential step toward justice.