Unprecedented Crime

In 2017, the heat waves, extreme wild fires, and flooding around the world confirmed beyond doubt that climate disruption is now a full-blown emergency. We have entered Churchill’s “period of consequences”, yet governments have simply watched the disasters magnify, while rushing ahead with new pipelines and annual trillions in fossil fuel subsidies. Governments simply cannot say they did not know. The events we are seeing today have been consistently forecast ever since the First Assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was signed by all governments back in 1990, which The Lancet has described as the best research project ever designed. Unprecedented Crime first lays out the culpability of governmental, political and religious bodies, corporations, and the media through their failure to report or act on the climate emergency. No emergency response has even been contemplated by wealthy high-emitting national governments. Extreme weather reporting never even hints at the need to address climate change. It then reports how independently of governments, scores of proven zero-carbon game changers have been coming online all over the world. These exciting technologies, described in the book, are now able to power both household electricity and energy-dense heavy industry. We already have the technical solutions to the CO2 problem. With these solutions we can act in time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near-zero within 20 years. These willful crimes against life itself by negligent governments, oblivious media and an insouciant civil society are crimes that everyday citizens can nonetheless readily grasp – and then take to the streets and to the courts to protest on behalf of their children and grand-children. This thoroughly researched and highly-documented book will show them how.

This book combines (1) the most extensive treatment of the causes and phenomena of climate change in combination with (2) an extensive treatment of social obstacles and challenges (fossil-fuel funded denialism, media failure,political failure, and moral, religious, and economic challenges), (3) the most extensive treatment of the needed transition from fossil-fuel energy to clean energy, and (4) the most extensive treatment of mobilization. It provides the most complete, most up-to-date treatment of the various kinds of clean energy, and how they could combine to provide 70% clean energy by 2035 and 100% before 2050 (both U.S. and worldwide).

In mapping out the field of human rights for those studying and researching within both humanities and social science disciplines, the Handbook of Human Rights not only provides a solid foundation for the reader who wants to learn the basic parameters of the field, but also promotes new thinking and frameworks for the study of human rights in the twenty-first century. The Handbook comprises over sixty individual contributions from key figures around the world, which are grouped according to eight key areas of discussion: foundations and critiques; new frameworks for understanding human rights; world religious traditions and human rights; social, economic, group, and collective rights; critical perspectives on human rights organizations, institutions, and practices; law and human rights; narrative and aesthetic dimension of rights; geographies of rights. In its presentation and analysis of the traditional core history and topics, critical perspectives, human rights culture, and current practice, this Handbook proves a valuable resource for all students and researchers with an interest in human rights.

Many theories--from the routine to the bizarre--have been offered up to explain the crime decline of the 1990s. Was it record levels of imprisonment? An abatement of the crack cocaine epidemic? More police using better tactics? Or even the effects of legalized abortion? And what can we expect from crime rates in the future? Franklin E. Zimring here takes on the experts, and counters with the first in-depth portrait of the decline and its true significance. The major lesson from the 1990s is that relatively superficial changes in the character of urban life can be associated with up to 75% drops in the crime rate. Crime can drop even if there is no major change in the population, the economy or the schools. Offering the most reliable data available, Zimring documents the decline as the longest and largest since World War II. It ranges across both violent and non-violent offenses, all regions, and every demographic. All Americans, whether they live in cities or suburbs, whether rich or poor, are safer today. Casting a critical and unerring eye on current explanations, this book demonstrates that both long-standing theories of crime prevention and recently generated theories fall far short of explaining the 1990s drop. A careful study of Canadian crime trends reveals that imprisonment and economic factors may not have played the role in the U.S. crime drop that many have suggested. There was no magic bullet but instead a combination of factors working in concert rather than a single cause that produced the decline. Further--and happily for future progress, it is clear that declines in the crime rate do not require fundamental social or structural changes. Smaller shifts in policy can make large differences. The significant reductions in crime rates, especially in New York, where crime dropped twice the national average, suggests that there is room for other cities to repeat this astounding success. In this definitive look at the great American crime decline, Franklin E. Zimring finds no pat answers but evidence that even lower crime rates might be in store.

The Trump administration's attempted and actual violations of the Constitution and the law have surpassed our worst expectations again and again. Add to that the legal morass surrounding members of the Trump campaign staff, and the United States finds itself led by the most corrupt administration in modern American history. The investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on 2016 election interference and obstruction of justice led to multiple indictments that boggle even the brightest legal minds. So how can the rest of us make sense of it all?' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 'Sara Azari breaks down the investigations, evidence, criminal charges, and defenses involving an ever-expanding rogues' gallery of Trump associates and campaign members, as well as the president's own criminal conduct. Her docket also includes a comprehensive summary and expert analysis of the Mueller Report. Azari addresses the consequences of President Trump's conduct and considers whether the president of the United States is ever above the law.An essential nonpartisan guide, Unprecedented gives readers the tools they need to understand the legal issues engulfing Trump's campaign and presidency.' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '

2020 Choice​ Outstanding Academic Title Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes analyzes the looming threats posed by climate change from a criminological perspective. It advances the field of green criminology through a examination of the criminal nature of catastrophic environmental harms resulting from the release of greenhouse gases. The book describes and explains what corporations in the fossil fuel industry, the U.S. government, and the international political community did, or failed to do, in relation to global warming. Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes integrates research and theory from a wide variety of disciplines, to analyze four specific state-corporate climate crimes: continued extraction of fossil fuels and rising carbon emissions; political omission (failure) related to the mitigation of these emissions; socially organized climate change denial; and climate crimes of empire, which include militaristic forms of adaptation to climate disruption. The final chapter reviews policies that could mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to a warming world, and achieve climate justice.