In recent years, the idea of emergence, which suggests that observed patterns in behavior and events are not fully reductive and stem from complex lower-level interactions, has begun to take hold in the social sciences. Criminologists have started to use this framework to improve our general understanding of the etiology of crime and criminal behavior. When Crime Appears: The Role of Emergence is concerned with our ability to make sense of the complex underpinnings of the end-stage patterns and events that we see in studying crime and offers an early narrative on the concept of emergence as it pertains to criminological research. Collectively, the chapters in this volume provide a sense of why the emergence framework could be useful, outlines its core conceptual properties, provides some examples of its potential application, and presents some discussion of methodological and analytic issues related to its adoption.

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.

Cites successful examples of community-based policing.

Over the past two centuries, many aspects of criminal behavior have been investigated. Finding this information and making sense of it all is difficult when many studies would appear to offer contradictory findings. The Handbook of Crime Correlates collects in one source the summary analysis of crime research worldwide. It provides over 400 tables that divide crime research into nine broad categories: - Pervasiveness and intra-offending relationships - Demographic factors - Ecological and macroeconomic factors - Family and peer factors - Institutional factors - Behavioral and personality factors - Cognitive factors - Biological factors - Crime victimization and fear of crime Within these broad categories, tables identify regions of the world and how separate variables are or are not positively or negatively associated with criminal behavior. Criminal behavior is broken down into separate offending categories of violent crime, property crime, drug offenses, sex offenses, delinquency, general and adult offenses, and recidivism. Accompanying each table is a description of what each table indicates in terms of the positive or negative association of specific variables with specific types of crime by region. This book should serve as a valuable resource for criminal justice personnel and academics in the social and life sciences interested in criminal behavior.

This book reviews research on psychology and crime in Japan, and compares the findings with similar research conducted in Western industrialised countries. It examines explanations for crime and antisocial behaviour in Japan using research and theories from a psychological perspective. Topics covered include cultural explanations, developmental and life-course criminology, family violence and family risk factors, youth crime and early prevention, school factors and bullying, mental disorders, biosocial factors, psychopathy and sexual offending. In some parts, it challenges and refines the prevailing belief that Japan is a society characterised by low crime and little antisocial behaviour. This original project is the most up-to-date work on crime in Japan, and advances the important field of psychological criminology.