Author: William J Chambliss
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN: 081333487X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
How criminal justice policies are creating a nation divided by race, class, and morality.

Author: William J Chambliss
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429977719
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In the United States today, we are on the verge of fulfilling a nightmare scenario. Parents are fearful of letting their children play in their own yards and elderly people are afraid to leave their homes. The bogeyman in this rampant panic about crime is the young black male, who, in the media and public image, is a ?superpredator? lurking on every street corner ready to attack any prey that is vulnerable. But is crime in America really as bad as the public has been made to believe?Power, Politics, and Crime argues that the current panic over crime has been manufactured by the media, law enforcement bureaucracies, and the private prison industry. It shows how the definition of criminal behavior systematically singles out the inner-city African American. But urban minorities aren't the only victims. Although crime rates have been declining for 25 years, vast amounts of money pour into the criminal justice-industrial complex, diverting scarce resources from other social services such as education, social welfare, and health care. While in recent years downsizing has affected almost every segment of the public sector, the criminal justice bureaucracies have seen an unprecedented expansion.Through ethnographic observations, analysis of census data, and historical research, William Chambliss describes what is happening, why it has come about, and what can be done about it. He explores the genesis of crime as a political issue, and the effect that crime policies have had on different segments of the population. The book is more than a statement about the politics of crime and punishment?it's a powerful indictment of contemporary law enforcement practices in the United States.In addition to updating the data the author has added a discussion of the "declining crime rate." Contrary to presentations in the media and by law enforcement agencies, the rate has been declining for over 25 years and therefore cannot be attributed to any "get tough on crime" policies so dear to the hearts of prosecutors and politicians. Chapter Seven, "Crime Myths and Smokescreens" has been completely revised and updated. Updates include a discussion of the recent scandal in the Los Angeles Police Department which has resulted in criminal charges against police officers and the release of numerous convicted felons because of falsified evidence and testimony on the part of police officers. The attack on Louima in the police station in New York as well as the shooting of Diallo are discussed in some detail as well as other recent exposures of police brutality and corruption. The sections on white collar, corporate, and state crimes have been updated and recent examples added to the text.

Author: Ted Gest
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190290137
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Why has America experienced an explosion in crime rates since 1960? Why has the crime rate dropped in recent years? Though politicians are always ready both to take the credit for crime reduction and to exploit grisly headlines for short-term political gain, these questions remain among the most important-and most difficult to answer-in America today. In Crime & Politics, award-winning journalist Ted Gest gives readers the inside story of how crime policy is formulated inside the Washington beltway and state capitols, why we've had cycle after cycle of ineffective federal legislation, and where promising reforms might lead us in the future. Gest examines how politicians first made crime a national rather than a local issue, beginning with Lyndon Johnson's crime commission and the landmark anti-crime law of 1968 and continuing right up to such present-day measures as "three strikes" laws, mandatory sentencing, and community policing. Gest exposes a lack of consistent leadership, backroom partisan politics, and the rush to embrace simplistic solutions as the main causes for why Federal and state crime programs have failed to make our streets safe. But he also explores how the media aid and abet this trend by featuring lurid crimes that simultaneously frighten the public and encourage candidates to offer another round of quick-fix solutions. Drawing on extensive research and including interviews with Edwin Meese, Janet Reno, Joseph Biden, Ted Kennedy, and William Webster, Crime & Politics uncovers the real reasons why America continues to struggle with the crime problem and shows how we do a better job in the future.

Author: James Cockayne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190694815
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis, from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia? Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Author: Vincenzo Ruggiero
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317647394
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
This book provides an analysis of the two concepts of power and crime and posits that criminologists can learn more about these concepts by incorporating ideas from disciplines outside of criminology. Although arguably a 'rendezvous' discipline, Vincenzo Ruggiero argues that criminology can gain much insight from other fields such as the political sciences, ethics, social theory, critical legal studies, economic theory, and classical literature. In this book Ruggiero offers an authoritative synthesis of a range of intellectual conceptions of crime and power, drawing on the works and theories of classical, as well as contemporary thinkers, in the above fields of knowledge, arguing that criminology can ‘humbly’ renounce claims to intellectual independence and adopt notions and perspectives from other disciplines. The theories presented locate the crimes of the powerful in different disciplinary contexts and make the book essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of criminology, sociology, law, politics and philosophy.

Author: Richard A. Aliano
Publisher: Capricorn Books (New York, NY)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description

Author: Milan Vaishnav
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300216203
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The first thorough study of the co-existence of crime and democratic processes in Indian politics In India, the world's largest democracy, the symbiotic relationship between crime and politics raises complex questions. For instance, how can free and fair democratic processes exist alongside rampant criminality? Why do political parties recruit candidates with reputations for wrongdoing? Why are one-third of state and national legislators elected--and often re-elected--in spite of criminal charges pending against them? In this eye-opening study, political scientist Milan Vaishnav mines a rich array of sources, including fieldwork on political campaigns and interviews with candidates, party workers, and voters, large surveys, and an original database on politicians' backgrounds to offer the first comprehensive study of an issue that has implications for the study of democracy both within and beyond India's borders.

Author: Christopher Rudolph
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501708414
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
On August 21, 2013, chemical weapons were unleashed on the civilian population in Syria, killing another 1,400 people in a civil war that had already claimed the lives of more than 140,000. As is all too often the case, the innocent found themselves victims of a violent struggle for political power. Such events are why human rights activists have long pressed for institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute some of the world’s most severe crimes: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. While proponents extol the creation of the ICC as a transformative victory for principles of international humanitarian law, critics have often characterized it as either irrelevant or dangerous in a world dominated by power politics. Christopher Rudolph argues in Power and Principle that both perspectives are extreme. In contrast to prevailing scholarship, he shows how the interplay between power politics and international humanitarian law have shaped the institutional development of international criminal courts from Nuremberg to the ICC. Rudolph identifies the factors that drove the creation of international criminal courts, explains the politics behind their institutional design, and investigates the behavior of the ICC. Through the development and empirical testing of several theoretical frameworks, Power and Principle helps us better understand the factors that resulted in the emergence of international criminal courts and helps us determine the broader implications of their presence in society.

Author: Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739113585
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
More than simply a study of the mafia, Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt's work argues that collaboration between political science and criminology is critical to understanding the real nature of organized crime and its power. Schulte-Bockholt looks at specific case studies from Asia, Latin America, and Europe as he develops a theoretical discussion - drawing on the thought of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Antonio Gramsci - of the intimate connections between criminal groups and elite structures. Ranging from an historical discussion of the world drug economy to an examination of the evolution of organized crime in the former Soviet Union, the book extends into a consideration of the possible future development of organized crime in the age of advanced globalization.

Author: Stuart A. Scheingold
Publisher: Quid Pro Books
ISBN: 161027038X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
Foundational and renowned study of how politicians and others use crime rates -- and most of all the public perception of street crime, whether or not it is accurate -- for their own purposes. Dr. Scheingold also provides a theoretical and historical basis for his views. The follow-up to the landmark book The Politics of Rights, this text is both supported in research and accessible and interesting to readers everywhere. Features new 2010 Foreword by Berkeley law professor Malcolm Feeley. A work that is both "timely and timeless," writes Feeley, it "is important for what it says -- and how it says it -- about American crime and crime policy, as well as American political culture. It speaks truth to power today as much as it did when it was first published." As recently noted by Amherst College's Austin Sarat, Scheingold "was quite simply one of the world's leading commentators on law and politics."