Who Are The Criminals

Looks at the inequalities in the criminal justice system, examines government policy on the prosecution and punishment of street and white-collar crime, and discusses the differences in approaches to crime by dividing the recent history of American criminal justice into two eras--the age of Roseevelt (approximately 1933-1973) and the age of Reagan (1974-2008).

Criminals and Victims presents an economic analysis of decisions made by criminals and victims of crime before, during, and after a crime or victimization occurs. Its main purpose is to illustrate how the application of analytical tools from economics can help us to understand the causes and consequences of criminal and victim choices, aiding efforts to deter or reduce the consequences of crime. By examining these decisions along a logical timeline over which crimes take place, we can begin to think more clearly about how policy effects change when it is targeted at specific decisions within the body of a crime. This book differs from others by recognizing the timeline of a crime, paying particular attention to victim decisions, and examining each step in the crime cycle at the micro-level. It demonstrates that criminals plan their crimes in systematic, economically logical ways; that deterring the destruction of criminal evidence may deter crime in general; and that white-collar criminals exhibit recidivism patterns not unlike those of street criminals. It further shows that the degree of criminality in a society motivates a variety of self-protection behaviors by potential victims; that not all victim resistance makes matters worse (and some may help); and that victims who report their crimes do not receive high returns for going to the police, helping to explain why some crimes ultimately go unreported.

One in four people in the US has a criminal record; four in four have a criminal history. These are their stories.We Are All Criminals combines criminal justice statistics and statutes with compelling photography and first-person narrative to personalize the destruction caused by decades of mass criminalization, while leaving the reader with a sense of hope and inspiration to affect change.From the pediatrician who blew up a porta potty to the chiefs of police who burglarized a liquor warehouse to the countless students who smoked and sold pot, this 279 page photo-packed book is filled with stories of people who got away with crimes--and parallel stories of people laboring under the stigma of a criminal record. It's an examination of criminality, privilege, punishment, and second chances. Woven throughout is incisive commentary on the havoc our carceral state has wreaked upon the nation; the disparate impact of our legal system on poor communities and communities of color; and the exploration of innumerable life barriers created by criminal and juvenile records.

This book presents students with recent and important research on criminal behavior. The articles in this anthology, all based on actual field studies, provide the reader with a realistic portrayal of what actual offenders say about crime and their participation in it. The offenders' voices, along with the researchers' analyses, offer students a real-life view of what, how, and why various criminals behave the way they do.

A history of criminology as a history of science and practice.

How Americans came to fear street crime too much—and corporate crime too little How did the United States go from being a country that tries to rehabilitate street criminals and prevent white-collar crime to one that harshly punishes common lawbreakers while at the same time encouraging corporate crime through a massive deregulation of business? Why do street criminals get stiff prison sentences, a practice that has led to the disaster of mass incarceration, while white-collar criminals, who arguably harm more people, get slaps on the wrist—if they are prosecuted at all? In Who Are the Criminals?, one of America's leading criminologists provides new answers to these vitally important questions by telling how the politicization of crime in the twentieth century transformed and distorted crime policymaking and led Americans to fear street crime too much and corporate crime too little. John Hagan argues that the recent history of American criminal justice can be divided into two eras--the age of Roosevelt (roughly 1933 to 1973) and the age of Reagan (1974 to 2008). A focus on rehabilitation, corporate regulation, and the social roots of crime in the earlier period was dramatically reversed in the later era. In the age of Reagan, the focus shifted to the harsh treatment of street crimes, especially drug offenses, which disproportionately affected minorities and the poor and resulted in wholesale imprisonment. At the same time, a massive deregulation of business provided new opportunities, incentives, and even rationalizations for white-collar crime—and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The time for moving beyond Reagan-era crime policies is long overdue, Hagan argues. The understanding of crime must be reshaped and we must reconsider the relative harms and punishments of street and corporate crimes. In a new afterword, Hagan assesses Obama's policies regarding the punishment of white-collar and street crimes and debates whether there is any evidence of a significant change in the way our country punishes them.