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The World of Crime
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The World of Crime
Breaking the Silence on Problems of Security, Justice and Development Across the World

  • Jan Van Dijk - International Vicimology Institute, Tilburg University, The Netherlands


February 2008 | 456 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

In today's interdependent world, governments must become more transparent about their crime and justice problems. The World of Crime: Breaking the Silence on Problems of Security, Justice and Development Across the World seeks to break the "conspiracy of silence" regarding statistical information on these sensitive issues. It subsequently analyzes the macro causes of crime such as rapid urbanization, economic inequality, gender discrimination, abuse of alcohol, and drugs and availability of guns. Furthermore, the book analyzes the impact of crime on individuals and societies. Using a wealth of statistical information, the author underlines the need of greater international efforts to tackle transnational problems of crime.

Key Features
- Presents 13 chapters, which are organized in 4 main parts, that cover measurement challenges, common crimes, emerging global crimes, criminal justice, and international perspectives on crime and justice
- Contains statistical data taken from 2005 International Crime Victim Surveys
- Includes high quality figures such as scatter plots, graphs, and maps
- Features summary reviews and figure footnotes at the ends of each chapter

Intended Audience: The book is intended as a supplementary text for introduction to criminology, criminal justice, and comparative justice courses and is also appropriate for those professionally interested in security, criminal justice and development.

 
PART I. THE CHALLENGE OF MEASURING CRIME INTERNATIONALLY
 
Chapter 1. The need of better crime diagnostics
The uses of international crime statistics

 
International crime statistics: the sorry state of the art

 
Crime as a social construct

 
International crime statistics as controversial knowledge

 
Twenty years of thwarted efforts

 
ICVS: bringing the bad news

 
Breaking the silence

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 2. Mismeasuring Crime
International crime figures available

 
A crime is a crime ?

 
Recording practices of the police

 
Reporting patterns

 
The breakthrough of crime victimization surveys

 
Victim satisfaction and trust levels

 
The more recorded crime, the less crime ?

 
Police recorded crime and victimization rates compared

 
Other uses of police recorded crime statistics

 
Police figures as trend indicators

 
A moratorium on police figures?

 
The political context of crime surveying

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
PART II. COMMON CRIMES ACROSS THE WORLD
 
Chapter 3. The burden of property crime
Over all levels of crime

 
Five year victimization rates

 
Alternative measures of the crime burden

 
Victimization by property crime

 
Burglary

 
Theft and frauds

 
Consumer fraud

 
Car crimes

 
Car theft and joyriding

 
Car hijacking

 
Robbery

 
Kidnapping

 
The heavy crime burden of the business sector

 
Costs for businesses

 
Summary points/ in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 4. Patterns of violent crime
Homicide

 
National homicide rates

 
Assault

 
Hate crimes in Western Europe

 
Sexual assault/ rape

 
Violence against women revisited

 
Towards further standardization

 
Child abuse and the cycle of violence

 
Summary points/ in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 5. Determinants of common crimes
Comparative perspectives

 
Urbanization and crime

 
Regional patterns and future trends of urbanization

 
Demographics and crime

 
Future demographic trends

 
Affluence and crime

 
Mass transportation and crime

 
Patterns of vehicle theft at second sight

 
More affluence-less crime?

 
Development and crime revisited

 
Poverty and inequality

 
Criminal victimization and gender inequality

 
Drugs and alcohol abuse

 
Alcohol abuse and violence

 
Trends in alcohol consumption

 
Availability of guns

 
Firearms and violent crime

 
Guns and violence in developing countries

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 6. Global crime trends
Global trends in common crimes

 
European trends in focus

 
Trends in police recorded crimes

 
Explaining the drop in crime

 
Responsive securitization and the drop in crime

 
The growing North-South security divide

 
Crime and conflict

 
Latin America: the price of democracy

 
Summary points/in conclusion (part II)

 
 
PART III. EMERGING GLOBAL CRIME THREATS
 
Chapter 7. Assessing organized crime
The new crime threats

 
The changing nature of organized crime

 
Illicit markets

 
Defining organized crime

 
Measurement issues

 
The alternative of victimization surveys among the business community

 
Towards an organized crime perception index

 
Other “markers” of organized crime presence

 
Instrumental violence

 
The organized crime-corruption complex

 
Other “markers” of organized crime: money-laundering and the black economy

 
Composite organized crime index

 
Country scores

 
Trends in organized crime

 
Participation of national organized crime groups in criminal markets

 
Trafficking in persons

 
Organized car theft

 
The intercorrelates of crime

 
Tentative transnational responses

 
The US report on trafficking in persons

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 8. Other global security threats: corruption, terrorism and cyber crime
Defining corruption

 
Corruption indicators : perceptions and experiences

 
Assessing the merits of objective and subjective indicator

 
Corruption victimizations in the corporate world

 
Business crime surveys

 
Patterns and trends in terrorist crimes

 
The incidence of terrorism

 
Correlates of terrorism

 
Terrorism and organized crime

 
Cyber crime : trends in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) crimes

 
Computer-facilitated crime

 
No Asian exception

 
Computers, organized crime and terrorism

 
Summary point/in conclusion: redrawing the global crime map

 
 
PART IV. INTERNATIONAL TRENDS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
 
Chapter 9. Law enforcement, crime prevention and victim assistance
Trends in criminal justice resources

 
Allocation of resources to law enforcement and criminal justice

 
Human resources for police and private security

 
Police workloads

 
The private security industry

 
Trends in private policing

 
More police-less crime?

 
Homicide conviction rates as performance measure

 
Towards a composite index for police performance

 
Resources, performance and integrity

 
Victim empowerment and support

 
Victim reception by the police

 
Trends in victim satisfaction

 
Victim support services

 
Implementing the UN Victims Declaration

 
International best practices in crime prevention

 
Guidelines for the prevention of crime

 
Evidence-based approaches

 
Planning and implementation

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 10. Courts and sentencing
Judges and magistrates

 
Gender balance in the courts

 
Perceived independence and integrity of the judiciary

 
Towards an international code of conduct for judges

 
Public attitudes towards sentencing

 
In conclusion

 
 
Chapter 11. Corrections: a global perspective
Trends in prisoners rates

 
National prison populations

 
Expanding use of imprisonement

 
Interpreting prisoners rates

 
Costs and limits of imprisonment

 
The search for alternatives

 
Benchmarking prisoners rates

 
An index of punitiveness

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
PART V. INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON CRIME AND JUSTICE
 
Chapter 12. Security, rule of law and sustainable development
Introductory remarks

 
Legal institutions and the level of non-conventional crime

 
Rule of law and terrorism

 
Trafficking in persons and police performance.

 
Good governance and development

 
Good governance, development and the rule of crime

 
Organized crime as Troian horse

 
Vicious crimino-economic circles

 
Summary points/in conclusion

 
 
Chapter 13. Crime and justice: the need of global reform
Diagnosing crime

 
A culture of lawfullness

 
Country profiles at a glance

 
Costs of crime: the global crime bill

 
Lawfulness and human development

 
The North- South ‘security divide’

 
The ‘justice deficit’

 
Security and justice reform first

 
The UN Millenium Development Goals

 
A more secure world

 
 
Appendix A: Datasources and data
International Crime Victim Surveys (ICVS)

 
Methodology

 
Definitions

 
Technical note on ICVS data presentation

 
The International Crime Business Survey (ICBS)

 
The International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS)

 
The United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems

 
Definition of terms

 
Some Other Techincal Matters

 
Method for construction of composite indexes

 
Method for constructing scatter plots

 
Method for constructing bar charts

 
 
Appendix B Data tables
 
Index
 
References
 
Appendix B: Data tables
 
Index
 
References

"This book is important for students who want to put domestic crime and justice issues and criminological theories in an international perspective....It is more than likely that this book will also interest all those who are professionally or privately interested in issues of crime, corruption, terrorism, law enforcement, criminal justice and sustainable development."

Johnson Thomas
BUSINESS INDIA
BUSINESS INDIA

Excellent coverage of the topic.

Dr Stephanie Bush-Baskette
Other, Rutgers University
November 5, 2011

Much of the content of this book will be useful across the MSc programme. In particular, the global perspective will be useful for a course aimed at the international market.

Ms Helen Poole
Social Science , Coventry University
July 15, 2010

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter1

Chapter 3

Chapter 5


For instructors

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