Pockets of Crime


Book Description

Why, even in the same high-crime neighborhoods, do robbery, drug dealing, and assault occur much more frequently on some blocks than on others? One popular theory is that a weak sense of community among neighbors can create conditions more hospitable for criminals, and another proposes that neighborhood disorder—such as broken windows and boarded-up buildings—makes crime more likely. But in his innovative new study, Peter K. B. St. Jean argues that we cannot fully understand the impact of these factors without considering that, because urban space is unevenly developed, different kinds of crimes occur most often in locations that offer their perpetrators specific advantages. Drawing on Chicago Police Department statistics and extensive interviews with both law-abiding citizens and criminals in one of the city’s highest-crime areas, St. Jean demonstrates that drug dealers and robbers, for example, are primarily attracted to locations with businesses like liquor stores, fast food restaurants, and check-cashing outlets. By accounting for these important factors of spatial positioning, he expands upon previous research to provide the most comprehensive explanation available of why crime occurs where it does.




Crime and Planning


Book Description

The form and layout of a built environment has a significant influence on crime by creating opportunities for it and, in turn, shaping community crime patterns. Effective urban planners and designers will consider crime when making planning and design decisions. A co-publication with the American Planning Association, Crime and Planning: Building Socially Sustainable Communities presents a comprehensive discussion of the interconnections between urban planning, criminal victimization, and crime prevention. An introduction into the main concerns at the intersection of criminology and community planning, the book first provides an overview of crime patterns. It then explores major issues within planning and their impact on crime. Critical topics discussed include connectivity, mixed-use developments, land use and zoning, transit-oriented design, and pedestrian trails, greenways, and parks. The remaining chapters explore: Crime prevention theories Crime prevention as a central component of sustainability How to incorporate social sustainability and planning guidelines into local planning decisions Policy discussion of issues such as zoning How tools such as smart growth and form-based codes relate to crime and crime prevention Examples of how planning decisions can impact crime patterns in both a residential and retail setting, and what has already worked in real-world communities As communities continue to grapple with foreclosure, sprawl, and infill/redevelopment, a sound understanding of how the built environment impacts crime is of increasing importance. This book provides planners with the tools and knowledge necessary to minimize the impact of crime on communities with the goal of creating socially sustainable communities.




Crime and Planning


Book Description

The form and layout of a built environment has a significant influence on crime by creating opportunities for it and, in turn, shaping community crime patterns. Effective urban planners and designers will consider crime when making planning and design decisions. A co-publication with the American Planning Association, Crime and Planning:




Mortal Danger


Book Description

Only Ann Rule, the #1 "New York Times"-bestselling true-crime author, could lend her sharp insight into these cases of the spouse, lover, family member, or helpful stranger who is totally trusted--but whose lethally violent nature, though masterfully disguised, can kill. Original.




Crime Human Nature


Book Description

From Simon & Schuster, Crime & Human Nature is the definitive study of the causes of crime. Assembling the latest evidence from the fields of sociology, criminology, economics, medicine, biology, and psychology and exploring the effects of such factors as gender, age, race, and family, two eminent social scientists frame a groundbreaking theory of criminal behavior.




Perspectives on Adult Crime and Correction


Book Description

Numerous Statistical And Qualitative Investigations Have Been Done On Crime And Delinquency But Nothing Tangible Has Been Done So Far In This Field In India. The Present Study Was Undertaken To Identify The Relationship Between Selected Social Situations And Criminal Behaviour. An Etiological Analysis Reveals That Crime Is The Result Of Stresses And Strains Created By The Pressures Of Primary Relations Particularly In The Interpersonal Relations In The Family. Assessment Of Peno-Correctional Programmes In Resocialising The Criminals Including The Formal And Informal Inmate Codes, And Interpersonal Relations Among Fellow Inmates And Interaction Between Officials And Inmates, Indicates That The Situation In Custody-Oriented Prison Is Less Conducive Than That In The Freedom-Oriented Probation.




Collective Morality and Crime in the Americas


Book Description

This study examines the ways in which the moral community is "talked into being" in relation to crime, and the objects of concern that typically occupy its attention. It maps the imagined moral universe of the virtuous and the criminal and charts the relations between these two groups in the "history of the present." It examines the calls to action which symbolically endow the moral community with power. And it looks at the character and content of collective moralizing. The source materials are commentaries about crime and criminal justice appearing in selected newspapers across the Americas. The moral "talk" found there is stylized, routine, trivial and occasionally dramatic. It looks nothing like the weightier renderings of morality that derive from the reconstruction of a particular "ethic" or from the systematic probing of values and moral reasoning. And its fuzzy, offhand, unexceptional and frequently unsystematic nature makes it a difficult candidate for explaining either stability or change in crime policies. But moral talk has intrinsic importance as the creator and sustainer of an imagined moral community, a community that symbolizes the existence and vigor of morality itself and confers a crucially important identity on its self-proclaimed members. And moral talk reveals inherent intersections between normative, empirical and technical discourses, highlighting the relationships between morality, science and social engineering. Thus, a prosaic, instrumental, model of morality is particularly strong in North America, but only found in a more abstract form in Latin America, where it sits alongside a stirring vision of morality, more directly anchored in virtue. Research on social problems, moral panics and the sociology of morality has largely overlooked the type of moral discourse studied here. While emphasizing the culturally contingent nature of the findings, the conclusion reflects on their significance for understanding the nature of moralizing, the artifacts of talk and the construction of identity.




Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator


Book Description

Sixteen-year-old Guy Langman, his best friend Anoop, and other members of the school Forensics Club investigate a break-in and a possible murder, which could be connected to the mysterious past of Guy's recently deceased father.




The Pocket


Book Description

A New York Times Best Art Book of 2019 “A riveting book . . . few stones are left unturned.”—Roberta Smith’s “Top Art Books of 2019,” The New York Times This fascinating and enlightening study of the tie-on pocket combines materiality and gender to provide new insight into the social history of women’s everyday lives—from duchesses and country gentry to prostitutes and washerwomen—and to explore their consumption practices, sociability, mobility, privacy, and identity. A wealth of evidence reveals unexpected facets of the past, bringing women’s stories into intimate focus. “What particularly interests Burman and Fennetaux is the way in which women of all classes have historically used these tie-on pockets as a supplementary body part to help them negotiate their way through a world that was not built to suit them.”—Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian “A brilliant book.”—Ulinka Rublack, Times Literary Supplement




Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal


Book Description

A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of 2013 A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013 An Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Nominee An explosive, sweeping account of the scandal that has sent the Catholic Church into a tailspin -- and the brave few who fought for justice In the mid-1980s a dynamic young monsignor assigned to the Vatican's embassy in Washington set out to investigate the problem of sexually abusive priests. He found a scandal in the making, confirmed by secret files revealing complaints that had been hidden from police and covered up by the Church hierarchy. He also understood that the United States judicial system was eager to punish offenders and those who aided them. He presented all of this to the American bishops, warning that the Church could be devastated by negative publicity and bankrupted by its legal liability. They ignored him. Meanwhile, a young lawyer listened to a new client describe an abusive sexual history with a priest that began when he was ten years old. His parents' complaints were downplayed by Church officials who offered them money to go away. The lawyer saw a claim that any defendant would want to settle. Then he began to suspect he was onto something bigger, involving thousands of priests who had abused countless children while the Church had done almost nothing about it. The lawsuit he filed would touch off a legal war of historic and global proportions. Part history, part journalism, and part true-crime thriller, Michael D'Antonio's Mortal Sins brings to mind landmark books such as All the President's Men, And the Band Played On, and The Informant, as it reveals a long and ferocious battle for the soul of the largest and oldest organization in the world.