You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
First published in 1995. One of the most pervasive forms of social control in our society is the mass media. The public learns from television, newspapers, magazines, movies, and books what is happening in the world and how to interpret it. The problem, however, is that full or complete interpretations of reality are not presented. In short, reality itself, clear and unadorned, is not to be found in the information provided by the media. Instead, media presentations consist of those various viewpoints that succeed in capturing the minds and imaginations of the masses, or in terms of the 1992 presidential campaign, that successfully put the winning spin on information. Barak and others believe that criminologists should participate in the various media presentations of crime and justice. By bringing their knowledge to bear on media presentations, criminologists can help make some news more representative and less distorted of the social reality of crime.
Deviance is by definition a social problem. Since deviant behavior violates the normative expectations of a given group, deviance must be regarded as a problem for that group, since all groups of people want their norms to be enforced. Many modern societies place considerable value on personal liberty, so much so that interference with personal choices to deviate from group norms can be justified only in terms of the potential damage that particular kinds of behavior might do to the legitimate interests of others. Sociological research suggests that the social problem associated with deviance is often the behavior of individuals who violate norms cannot be justified in terms of basic values ...
Randol Contreras came of age in the South Bronx during the 1980s, a time when the community was devastated by cuts in social services, a rise in arson and abandonment, and the rise of crack-cocaine. For this riveting book, he returns to the South Bronx with a sociological eye and provides an unprecedented insider’s look at the workings of a group of Dominican drug robbers. Known on the streets as “Stickup Kids,” these men raided and brutally tortured drug dealers storing large amounts of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and cash. As a participant observer, Randol Contreras offers both a personal and theoretical account for the rise of the Stickup Kids and their violence. He mainly focuses o...
Designed for upper-level senior and graduate criminological theory courses, this text thoroughly examines the ideas and assumptions underlying each major theoretical perspective in criminology. It lays bare theorists' ideas about human nature, social structure, social order, concepts of law, crime and criminals, the logic of crime causation and the policies and criminal justice practices that follow from these premises. The book provides students with a clear critical, analytic overview of criminological theory that enable enformed evaluative comparisons among different theorists.
As new jails fill up almost as soon as they open, conflict continues to grow among public officials, who, in turn, create policies that do little more than avoid blame and temporarily control the crisis. This book proposes that we can understand this crisis by tracing the interdependence of the jail system with local agencies of criminal justice.
Coming of age at the Berkeley School of Criminology -- Life as a young criminologist -- Academic activism -- Doing public criminology -- Doing newsmaking criminology -- Doing multidisciplinary criminology -- Academic praxis -- Integrating criminology -- Globalizing criminology.
This anthology brings together essential essays on major facets of narrative dynamics, that is, the means by which "narratives traverse their often unlikely routes from beginning to end." It includes the most widely cited and discussed essays on narrative beginnings, temporality, plot and emplotment, sequence and progression, closure, and frames. The text is designed as a basic reader for graduate courses in narrative and critical theory across disciplines including literature, drama and theatre, and film. Narrative Dynamics includes such classic exponents as E. M. Forster on story and plot; Vladimir Propp on the structure of the folktale; R. S. Crane on plot; Boris Tomashevsky on story, plo...
An important classic, especially useful for courses in criminal behavior and personality, this text begins with a discussion of the construction of types of crime and then formulates and utilizes a typology of criminal behavior systems.
This book explores in depth the origins, development, and prospects of outlawry and of the relationship of outlaws to the social conditions of changing times. Throughout American history you will find larger-than-life brigands in every period and every region. Often, because we hunger for simple justice, we romanticize them to the point of being unable to separate fact from fiction. Frank Richard Prassel brings this home in a thorough and fascinating examination of the concept of outlawry from Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, and Blackbeard through Jean Lafitte, Pancho Villa, and Billy the Kid to more modern personalities such as John Dillinger, Claude Dallas, and D. B. Cooper. A separate chapter on...