What Is Crime? Controversies over the Nature of Crime and What to Do about It

by Henry, Stuart; Lanier, Mark M.; Adler, Mortimer J.; Farr, Kathyrn Ann; Gertz, Marc; Gibbons, Don C.; Gould, Leroy C.; Greer, Scott; Hagan, John; Kleck, Gary; Michael, Jerome; Milovanovic, Dragan; Otto, Charles; Russell, Katheryn K.; Schnorr, Paul; Schwend

• ISBN13: 9780847698066
• ISBN10: 0847698068
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-14
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

In What Is Crime?, the first book-length treatment of the topic, contributors debate the content of crime from diverse perspectives: consensus/moral, cultural/relative, conflict/power, anarchist/critical, feminist, racial/ethnic, postmodernist, and integrational. Henry and Lanier synthesize these perspectives and explore what each means for crime control policy. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Author Biography

Mortimer J. Adler is one of the most enduring of American scholars. He has published extensively since 1927; just since his seventieth birthday he has written more than twenty of his sixty books. Professor Adler has a colorful and informative past. He attended Columbia University to study philosophy. However, since he did not complete the required physical education courses, he never graduated. Columbia awarded him a doctorate of philosophy after a few years teaching there in the 1920s. In 1929-1930 he joined the faculty at the University of Chicago, where he remained until 1952. He was chairman and cofounder of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas, founder and director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, cofounder and honoree trustee of the Aspen Institute, and is professor emeritus from the University of Chicago. Now living near San Francisco and nearing a century in age, he is still active and promoting social progress. Kathryn Farr is professor of sociology at Portland State University Marc Gertz, Ph.D., is professor of criminology and criminal justice in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University Don Gibbons is professor emeritus of urban studies and sociology, Portland State University Leroy C. Gould has been professor of criminology and criminal justice at the Florida State University since 1981 Scott Greer is a doctoral candidate in political science at Northwestern University and a former law and social science fellow at the American Bar Foundation John Hagan is the John D. MacArthur Visiting Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University, a senior research fellow at the American Bar Foundation and professor of law and sociology at the University of Toronto Stuart Henry is professor and director of interdisciplinary studies at Wayne State University in Detroit Gary Kleck is professor of criminology and criminal justice in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University Mark M. Lanier is associate professor of criminal justice and legal studies at the University of Central Florida. Jerome Michael was (from 1927 to 1953) Nash Professor of Law at Columbia University and has a Jury Trials Moot Court Award at Columbia University named after him Dragan Milovanovic is professor of criminal justice at Northeastern Illinois University Charles Otto is a graduate teaching assistant in the department of criminal justice and legal studies at the University of Central Florida Katheryn K. Russell is an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland, College Park Paul Schnorr is director of the Urban Studies Program of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Julia and Herman Schwendinger are currently professors in the department of criminology at the University of South Florida. Julia Schwendinger was a cofounder of the first antirape crisis group in the United States. She has counseled the antirape group in New York state, has served as a private consultant for defense attorneys and judges, and has been a parole commissioner and director of the Women's Resource Center for San Francisco Jails. Herman Schwendinger is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He retired as a professor emeritus from the department of sociology, State University of New York, New Paltz, where he was bestowed the title of State University of New York Faculty Exchange Scholar and received the State University of New York Excellence Award. Both have worked in the University of California's Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Social Change and have been exchange scholars at universities in Berlin, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and central Asia. Ray Surette is a professor of criminal justice and legal studies at the University of Central Florida. Paul Tappan was professor of criminology and law at the University of California, Berkeley, until his death in 1964 Larry Tifft and Dennis Sullivan have been collaborating on writing and activist projects about justice since they first taught together at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in 1972

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
Mark M. Lanier
Stuart Henry
Crime in Context: The Scope of the Problem	1	(18)
Mark M. Lanier
Stuart Henry
Part I: Classic Statements
The Nature of Crime	19	(8)
Jerome Michael
Mortimer J. Adler
Who Is the Criminal?	27	(10)
Paul W. Tappan
Defining Patterns of Crime and Types of Offenders	37	(28)
Don C. Gibbons
Kathryn Ann Farr
Defenders of Order or Guardians of Human Rights?	65	(36)
Herman Schwendinger
Julia Schwendinger
Part II: New Directions
Crime as Social Interaction	101	(14)
Leroy C. Gould
Gary Kleck
Marc Gertz
Defining Crime in a Community Setting: Negotiation and Legitimation of Community Claims	115	(24)
Paul Schnorr
The Media's Role in the Definition of Crime	139	(16)
Ray Surette
Charles Otto
Racing Crime: Definitions and Dilemmas	155	(10)
Katheryn K. Russell
Constitutive Definition of Crime: Power as Harm	165	(14)
Dragan Milovanovic
Stuart Henry
A Needs-Based, Social Harms Definition of Crime	179	(28)
Larry L. Tifft
Dennis C. Sullivan
Part III: Integrating Approaches
Crime as Disrepute	207	(20)
Scott Greer
John Hagan
The Prism of Crime: Toward and Integrated Definition of Crime	227	(18)
Stuart Henry
Mark M. Lanier
Index	245	(8)
About the Contributors	253