Clinard and Quinney's Criminal Behavior Systems

An important classic, familiar to virtually all criminologists, Clinard and Quinney’s Criminal Behavior Systems: A Revised Edition begins with a discussion of the construction of types of crime and then formulates and utilizes a useful typology of criminal behavior systems. It classifies crime into seven categories, among them: violent personal crime, occasional property crime, public order crime, occupational crime, corporate crime, organized crime, and political crime. They examine the criminal career of the offender in each category, public and legal attitudes toward these individuals, support systems they may have, attitudes of the offenders, and other features. The discussion of each category of crime is thorough and enlightening, and takes the reader far in understanding the huge problem of crime and establishing intelligent definitions to study it.

The new edition looks at the criminal landscape of the twenty-first century, capturing both the numerous advancements in theory and research in the field of criminology, as well as many societal changes that have taken place in law, mass media, the economy, culture, and the political system that directly affect the book’s coverage of various types of crimes. A global perspective broadens the book’s relevance to include a variety of different societies. Crimes newly examined in this edition include identity theft, domestic violence, arson, hate crimes, cybercrime, campus sexual assault, police brutality, Ponzi schemes, human trafficking, and terrorism. Finally, alternatives to conventional criminal justice are considered, including such approaches as peacemaking, restorative justice, private justice, problem solving, harm reduction, naming and shaming, and internal and external controls.

Like its predecessors, Clinard and Quinney’s Criminal Behavior Systems: A Revised Edition will be essential to criminologists formulating their own theories and research on criminal behavior as well as to students in criminology and sociology courses on how to view and study crime.