The Crime Drop in America
Revised Edition

Edited by Alfred Blumstein, H. John Heinz School of Public Management
Edited by Joel Wallman, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation

Violent crime in America shot up sharply in the mid-1980s and continued to climb until 1991, after which something unprecedented occurred. The crime level declined to a level not seen since the 1960s. This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses first on the dramatic drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. Detailed analyses emphasize the mutual effects of changes in crack markets, a major focus of youth violence, and the drop in rates of violence following decline in demand for crack. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime.

Violent Crime
Assessing Race and Ethnic Differences

Edited by Darnell F. Hawkins, University of Illinois, Chicago

Analysts have long noted that some societies have much higher rates of criminal violence than others. The risk of being a victim or a perpetrator of violent crime varies considerably from one individual to another. Some ethnic and racial groups have been reported to have higher rates of violent offending and victimization than other groups in societies with ethnically and racially diverse populations. This series of essays explores the extent and causes of racial and ethnic differences in violent crime in the U.S. and several other contemporary societies.

Street Justice
Retaliation in the Criminal Underworld

Bruce Jacobs, University of Texas, Dallas
Richard Wright, University of Missouri, St Louis

Street criminals live in a dangerous world, but they cannot realistically rely on the criminal justice system to protect them from predation by fellow lawbreakers; they are on their own when it comes to dealing with crimes perpetrated against them and often use retaliation as a mechanism for deterring and responding to victimization. Although retaliation lies at the heart of much of the violence that plagues many inner-city neighborhoods across the United States, it has received scant attention from criminologists. As a result, the structure, process, and forms of retaliation in the real world setting of urban America remain poorly understood. Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal World explores the face of modern day retaliation from the perspective of currently active criminals who have experienced it first hand, as offenders, victims, or both.

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Rethinking Homicide
Exploring the Structure and Process Underlying Deadly Situations

Terance D. Miethe, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Wendy C. Regoeczi, Cleveland State University
With Kriss A. Drass

Using multiple data sources and methods, this book presents a micro-historical analysis of the nature of change and stability in homicidal situations over time. With a focus on the homicidal situation as the unit of analysis, it explores similarities and differences in the context of homicide for different social groups. Analysis of over 400,000 U.S. homicides is supplemented by qualitative analysis of narrative accounts of homicide events to more fully investigate their structure. Findings of homicidal situations across different time periods and social groups are then considered regarding their implications for criminological theory and public policy.