What Is Crime?: Controversies over the Nature of Crime and What to Do About It. This item is unavailable.What Is Crime?: Controversies over the Nature of Crime and What to Do About It

For decades, scholars have disagreed about what kinds of behavior count as crime. Is it simply a violation of the criminal law? Is it behavior that causes serious harm? Is the seriousness affected by how many people are harmed and does it make a difference who those people are? Are crimes less criminal if the victims are black, lower class, or foreigners? When corporations victimize workers is that a crime? What about when governments violate basic human rights of their citizens, and who then polices governments? In What Is Crime? the first book-length treatment of the topic, contributors debate the content of crime from diverse perspectives: consensus/moral, cultural/relative, conflict/power, anarchist/critical, feminist, racial/ethnic, postmodernist, and integrational. Henry and Lanier synthesize these perspectives and explore what each means for crime control policy.

Stuart Henry is professor and director of interdisciplinary studies at Wayne State University, where he also serves as associate dean of the College of Lifelong Learning.
Mark M. Lanier is associate professor of criminal justice and legal studies at the University of Central Florida.