NCJ Number
76431
Editor(s)
L I Shelley
Date Published
1981
Length
303 pages
Annotation
Suitable for courses in comparative criminology, comparative sociology, comparative criminal justice and for general courses in crime and deviance, this book discusses crime in terms of the political, social, and economic forces that shape human behavior.
Abstract
Contributors to this anthology include a former prison inmate and college instructor, sociologists, historians, law professors, and judges. The book's 14 essays tackle the problem of whether a particular form of criminal activity is representative of a specific society or whether such an activity is universal. The essays in the first section focus on offender and offense comparison, including comparison by sex, age, and offense. These essays compare middle-class delinquency in Canada and Switzerland; life in Polish and American prisons; and homicide in 110 nations, using a comparative crime data file. An essay on American women and crime concludes that the crimes of women are still confined primarily to larceny, embezzlement, fraud, and forgery; women are still responsible for only a small share of homicides and assaults. Essays in the second section consider social forces, crime, and criminal justice under the subheadings of crime trends, crime and economic development, and comparative criminology and criminal justice. An essay on contemporary crime in historical perspective examines the development of crime in London, England; Stockholm, Sweden; and Sydney, Australia, while another essay explores the modernization of crime in Germany and France 1830-1913. Essays on crime and economic development consider the Soviet case in cross-cultural perspective, examine the 1977 United Nations crime survey, and present a cross-cultural study of the correlates of crime that examines the impact of society on crime in preliterate societies that have no means of measuring criminality. Chapters dealing with comparative criminology and criminal justice include an analysis of the English murder case of August Sangret; a cross-cultural view of peer subcultures in correctional institutions in Poland and the United States; and crime and delinquency research in selected European countries. The book contains 18 figures, 23 tables, notes, and an index. For separate essays, see NCJ 76432-36.