Synopses & Reviews
Top criminologists explain the reasons for the drop in violent crime in America.
Synopsis
This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses on the drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime.
About the Author
Alfred Blumstein is a university professor and the J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research and former Dean (from 1986 to 1993) at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management of Carnegie Mellon University. He is also director of the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR).Joel Wallman is Senior Program Officer at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York. He is the author of Aping Language (Cambridge University Press, 1992) He has also published in Computer Applications in the Biosciences, Current Anthropology, Criminology and Public Policy.
Table of Contents
1. The recent rise and fall of American violence Alfred Blumstein and Joel Wallman; 2. Some recent trends in U.S. violence Alfred Blumstein; 3. Guns and gun violence Garen Wintemute; 4. The limited importance of prison expansion William Spelman; 5. Patterns in adult homicide: 1980-1995 Richard Rosenfeld; 6. The rise and decline of hard drugs, drug markets, and violence in inner-city New York Bruce Johnson, Andrew Golub, and Eloise Dunlap; 7. Have changes in policing reduced violent crime John Eck and Edward Maguire; 8. An economic model of recent trends in violence Jeff Grogger; 9. Demographics and U.S. homicide James Alan Fox; Epilogue to the revised edition. After the crime drop Joel Wallman and Alfred Blumstein.