Crime Is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America

by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins

Book Overview

Year after year, in poll after poll, crime tops the list of American anxieties. Indeed, crime is seen by many people as the number one problem in the United States, a threat to the quality of life unparalleled in any other developed country. Now two legal scholars, Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, have conducted intensive research on the question and have reached a startling conclusion--crime is not the problem. America's great problem, they...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019511065X
• ISBN13: 9780195110654
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Important book

I have used this book in several classes (In Florida & SC--so I am happy that Inga isn't one of my students)w/ great success. Changing the frames of CJ policy is crucial, expecially after this most recent election (it may be over by the time you see this). In sum: Lethal criminal violence sets the US apart, and much of what we do about it is irrelevant & /or misguided. Zimring's formidable data analysis is convincing--not that we embrace simplistic and ineffective programs like capital punishment, 3 strikes, or gun registration--but that we have much more work to do. Zimring's calls for inductive policy development highlight the difficult and ongoing choices that we will make. We can either continue the haphazard & simplistic policies of the [year 2000] presidential candidates ( & at least one college freshman) or we can actually prepare to do some hard work.

Thoughtful Review of the American Crime Problem

Zimring and Hawkins provide a thorough and well-documented analysis of the reasons why homicide in America is so much more pervasive than in other industrialized countries. For journalists such as myself, this is one of the indispensible works. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand America's crime problem.