Books » Crime & Criminal Nonfiction

Crime prevention should be rational and should be based on the best possible evidence. Decision-makers should weigh heavily any available evidence on what works best. How can a program that has produced no discernable evidence of effectiveness, as shown through numerous evaluations, be considered for implementation Unfortunately, this happens all the time. Evidence-based crime prevention attempts to overcome this and other obstacles by ensuring that the best available evidence is considered in any decision to implement a program designed to prevent crime. This book is about evidence-based crime prevention. A project of the Campbell Collaboration Crime and Justice Group, Preventing Crime brings together the leading scientific evidence on what works best for a wide range of interventions organized around four important domains in criminology: at-risk children, offenders, victims, and places. It is the first book to assess the effectiveness of criminological interventions using the most rigorous review methodology of the systematic review. It is an indispensable guide to the leading scientific evidence on what works best to prevent crime.

This volume presents reflections on a variety of environmental issues in South-Eastern Europe from diverse contemporary scientific disciplines. The contributions address many crucial issues including national environmental policies, economic instruments for preventing crimes against the environment, international waste trafficking, threats to air, water and soil due to mining, management of dump areas, environment protection and food safety from a perspective of public health. The book will be a useful resource for researchers, developers and decision makers interested in the stability and sustainable development of the South-Eastern European countries.

Countries undergoing major social and legal transitions typically experience a light, but relatively insignificant, increase in crime. However, in the past decade, many transitional countries in Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular, have experienced a surge in criminal activities that came about through the collaboration of diverse playerssuch as criminals, state officials, businesspersons, and law enforcementinto organized networks aimed to obtain financial and economic gains.

This book examines all forms of human trafficking globally, revealing the operations of the trafficking business and the nature of the traffickers themselves. Using a historical and comparative perspective, it demonstrates that there is more than one business model of human trafficking and that there are enormous variations in human trafficking in different regions of the world. Drawing on a wide body of academic research - actual prosecuted cases, diverse reports, and field work and interviews conducted by the author over the last sixteen years in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the former socialist countries - Louise Shelley concludes that human trafficking will grow in the twenty-first century as a result of economic and demographic inequalities in the world, the rise of conflicts, and possibly global climate change. Coordinated efforts of government, civil society, the business community, multilateral organizations, and the media are needed to stem its growth.

A cursory reading of the history of U.S. colleges and universities reveals that violence, vice, and victimization - campus crime - has been part of collegiate life since the Colonial Era. It was not until the late 1980s - some 250 years later - that campus crime suddenly became an issue on the public stage. Drawing from numerous mass media and scholarly sources and using a theoretical framework grounded in social constructionism, The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower chronicles how four groups of activists - college student advocates, feminists, victims and their families, and public health experts - used a variety of tactics and strategies to convince the public that campus crime posed a new danger to the safety and security of college students and the Ivory Tower itself, while simultaneously convincing policymakers to take action against the problem. Readers from a range of disciplinary interests, campus security professionals, and informed citizens will find the book both compelling and valuable to understanding campus crime as a newly constructed social reality.

This book examines all forms of human trafficking globally, revealing the operations of the trafficking business and the nature of the traffickers themselves. Using a historical and comparative perspective, it demonstrates that there is more than one business model of human trafficking and that there are enormous variations in human trafficking in different regions of the world. Drawing on a wide body of academic research - actual prosecuted cases, diverse reports, and field work and interviews conducted by the author over the last sixteen years in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the former socialist countries - Louise Shelley concludes that human trafficking will grow in the twenty-first century as a result of economic and demographic inequalities in the world, the rise of conflicts, and possibly global climate change. Coordinated efforts of government, civil society, the business community, multilateral organizations, and the media are needed to stem its growth.

This book is the first extensive study of criminal networks The case study designs and analytical paths are straightforward and can serve as a source for future research endeavours using a variety of data sources

The trafficking of human beings is a major worldwide problem. This book addresses the need for a system that provides the same set of quantitative and qualitative data to help develop a comprehensive counter-strategy. It analyzes various definitions as well as the complexity of phenomena that impair the collection and comparability of data. Coverage also examines different approaches with the aim of coming to an effective monitoring system.

Murder and Politics in Mexico studies the causes of political killings in Mexicos liberalization-democratization within the larger context of political repression. Mexicos democratization process has entailed a little known but highly significant cost of human lives in pre- and post-election violence. The majority of these crimes remain in a state of impunity: in other words, no person had been charged with the crime and/or no investigation of it had occurred. This has several consequences for Mexican politics: when the level of violence is extreme and when political killings that are systematic and invasive are involved, this could indicate a real fracture in the democratic system. This book analyzes several dimensions regarding impunity and political crime, more specifically, the political killings of members of the PRD in the post-1988 period in Mexico. The main argument proposed in this book is that impunity for political killings is a structured system requiring one central precondition, namely the failure of the legal system to function as a system of restraint for killings. Dr Schatzs research finds that political assassinations are indeed rational, targeted actions but they do not occur within an institutional vacuum. Political assassinations are calculated strategies of action aimed at eliminating political rivals. As a form of interpersonal violence, political assassination involves direct or implied authorization from political leaders, the availability of assassins for hire and the willingness of some political leaders to utilize them against political opponents, and violent interactions between political parties combined with judicial system ineffectiveness. A corrupt legal system facilitates the use of political assassination and explains the persistence of impunity for political murder over time. To reduce political violence in the transition to electoral democracy, specific institutional conditions, namely a structured system of impunity for murder, must be overcome.

Prostitution and Sex Work is the first book since 1921 to offer a historic overview of this controversial topicand what our views on it say about American society. Exploring key people, places, and events, the guide includes descriptions of the myriad variations of the sale of sex and of the venues where prostitution occurs, as well as recurring themes such as panics about sexually transmitted diseases and the ever-present issue of violence in the sex trade.After reviewing the history of prostitution and sex work over the past 400 years, the book offers detailed information about the legal context of prostitution in America during the last century. It focuses particularly on the period since prostitution was criminalized during a panic over "white slavery" in the early 20th century, drawing parallels with current "sex trafficking" topics. An appendix of materials produced by sex workers is especially informative for those wishing to truly understand both sides of the issue.