Results by title

Biosocial criminology—and biosocial criminologists—focuses on both the environmental and biological factors that contribute to antisocial behavior. Importantly, these two domains are not separate parts of an equation but pieces of the same puzzle that fit together for a complete picture of the causes of crime/antisocial behavior. 

Fitting the Facts of Crime applies a biopsychosocial lens to the “13 facts of crime” identified by John Braithwaite in his classic book, Crime, Shame and Reintegration. The authors unpack established facts—about gender and sex, age, environment, education, class, social bonds and associations, stress, and other influences—providing both empirical research and evidence from biopsychosocial criminology to address the etiology behind these facts and exactly how they are related to deviant behavior.

With their approach, the authors show how biopsychosocial criminology can be a unifying framework to enrich our understanding of the most robust and well-established topics in the field. In so doing, they demonstrate how biological and psychological findings can be responsibly combined with social theories to lend new insight into existing inquiries and solutions. Designed to become a standard text for criminology in general, Fitting the Facts of Crime introduces key concepts and applies them to real-world situations.

Law and Society is a rapidly-growing interdisciplinary field that turns on its head the conventional, idealized view of the “Law” as a magisterial abstraction. Kitty Calavita’s Invitation to Law and Society brilliantly brings to life the ways in which law shapes and manifests itself in the institutions and interactions of human society, while inviting the reader into conversations that introduce the field’s dominant themes and most lively disagreements. 

Deftly interweaving scholarship with familiar personal examples, Calavita shows how scholars in the discipline are collectively engaged in a subversive exposé of law’s public mythology. While surveying prominent issues and distinctive approaches to the use of the law in everyday life, as well as its potential as a tool for social change, this volume provides a view of law that is more real but just as compelling as its mythic counterpart. In a field of inquiry that has long lacked a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to its ways of thinking, Invitation to Law and Society will serve as an engaging and indispensible guide.