Creativity and Crime

Arthur Cropley obtained his PhD from the University of Alberta (Canada) in 1965 and taught at the Universities of Regina (Canada) and Hamburg (Germany), with brief stints in Australia. He has also lectured in Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Latvia, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the USA. After becoming Professor Emeritus on April 1, 1999, he was Adjunct Professor of Engineering at the University of South Australia for six years and also became visiting professor at the University of Latvia. He was founding editor of High Ability Studies and is on the board of the Creativity Research Journal. He has received awards and fellowships, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Latvia. In 2004, he received the Order of the Three Stars from the President of Latvia. He has published extensively on creativity and is the author of 25 books, with translations into a dozen languages including Hungarian, Latvian, Chinese and Korean. He has become increasingly interested in recent years in using creativity concepts to examine areas not usually associated with creativity (such as engineering) and has looked closely at the dark side of creativity, and particularly crime. David Cropley is a former officer in the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. He has been a member of staff at the University of South Australia since 1990, teaching across a range of topics in electronic and systems engineering. From 2003 to 2007 he was Director of the University's Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre (SEEC). Since 2006 he has been very active in developing masters degrees in systems engineering with a particular focus on flexible delivery and has built up considerable experience in the application of tools such as virtual classrooms to the delivery of postgraduate education. Together with Arthur Cropley he has published Fostering Creativity: A Diagnostic Approach for Higher Education and Organisations (2009) and in conjunction with Cropley, James Kaufman and Mark Runco was co-editor of The Dark Side of Creativity (Cambridge, 2010).

'The value of creativity is now recognized in numerous domains, fields of study, and professions. No wonder this broadening of interests and applications has led to the question of a relationship between creativity and crime. This volume explores that relationship in an objective, cogent, and readable manner. It accomplishes the difficult feat of sticking with the research and yet keeping the discussion broadly accessible. This volume therefore represents a huge step forward towards an understanding of the various ways in which crime and creativity might be related to one another.' Mark Runco, Editor, Creativity Research Journal

• 1. Creativity and crime: basic principles; 2. The social science approach to crime; 3. Basic creativity concepts; 4. Creativity: a bundle of paradoxes; 5. General enchantment with creativity; 6. The dark side of creativity; 7. Creativity and crime; 8. Consumer and corporate fraud: scams, hustles and swindles; 9. Terrorism: a case study; 10. Practical implications and countermeasures.