NCJ Number
70397
Editor(s)
E Bittner,
S L Messinger
Date Published
1980
Length
733 pages
Annotation
Selected essays from over 30 journals and books make up this anthology on crime and criminology. Major sections focus on psychological approaches to criminology, white-collar crime, violence, ecology of crime, and the victims.
Abstract
The yearbook furnishes of criminology professionals and students with diverse materials that were published during 1979 and 1980. The yearbook opens with essays on psychological approaches in criminology. The first essay reviews claims and counterclaims of psychological and sociological theories of criminality, while the seven following contributions by psychologists amplify the work of the first authors. The individual papers examine experimental studies in deviancy, particularly dishonesty as deviance, illustrate various approaches to criminality via learning theory, analyze a followup study on childrearing practices that affect learning, and, in general, probe influential factors in criminality including the stress of external events, the social environment, and family atmosphere. Two further contributions present a prisoner typology for use in prisoner treatment and management and an American Psychological Association task force report on ethical problems for psychologists. The next group of essays deals with white-collar crime, its rising interest for criminal justice professionals, and the present nature and extent of certain types of white-collar crime. A typology of bribery is provided, as is a look at crime in the complex world of stock trading. Next, a section on violence is introduced with a summary of what is known, or thought to be known, about the sources of criminal violence. Violent crime trends in Europe and America are analyzed, as are quantitative data on violent crime trends obtained from the Comparative Crime Data File. Violent crime rates, their meaning for criminal justice systems, and police deadly force are covered. The ecology of crime is explored in articles that find areas of high crime to be within 'neighborhood' boundaries defined by class and race. An analysis of places, in terms of what characteristically goes on in them and how this influences crime, is presented, and two papers dealing with crime's impact on the environment are included. Final sections deal with the victims, their part in provoking crime, their treatment by the criminal justice system, effects of fear of crime, and crime in the United States, in particular. Additional topics covered are criminal justice history and clearance rates as measurements of law enforcement effectiveness. Individual essays contain footnotes, tables, and charts. No index is provided. For related documents, see NCJ 70398-70414.