Franklin E. Zimring

"Punishment and Democracy is an analysis of the politics and impact of "get tough" criminal sentencing legislation. Franklin Zimring, Gordon Hawkins, and Sam Kamin examine the origins of the law in California, compare it to other crackdown laws, and analyze large samples of offenders arrested in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco in the year before and the two years after the law went into effect. They show that the Three Strikes law was a significant development in criminal justice policy-making, not only at the state level, but also at the national level. The study presents compelling evidence, however, that the new regime has been enormously over-rated as a crime prevention measure. The book also examines the new politics of criminal punishment in the United States and the proper role of citizen preferences in the governance of criminal punishment. In its scrutiny of California's Three Strikes law, Punishment and Democracy extracts crucial lessons about democracy and criminal justice in America."--BOOK JACKET.

When Police Kill is the first comprehensive analysis of police use of lethal force in the United States. The first seven chapters of this volume provide a summary and analysis of the known facts about killings by police. Who dies from police gunfire? What circumstances provoke police to shoot? Why is the death rate from shootings by police so high? Why are civilian deaths from police attacks so much higher in the United States than in other developed nations? Why are police also so much more at risk of death by assault than police in other nations? The final five chapters of the book provide an account of how federal, state and local governments can reduce killings by police without risking the lives of police officers. There are many strategies that federal and state government can use to motivate changes by police chiefs and sheriffs, but local law enforcement agencies are the main arena for reducing the carnage from police violence in the United States.--

Many theories, from the routine to the bizarre, have been offered to explain the crime decline of the 1990s - record levels of imprisonment, an abatement of the crack cocaine epidemic, more police using better tactics, or even the effects of legalized abortion. And what can we expect from crime rates in the future? Franklin E. Zimring here takes on the experts, and counters with the first in-depth portrait of the decline and its true significance.

American Juvenile Justice is a definitive volume for courses on the criminology and policy analysis of adolescence. The focus is on the principles and policy of a separate and distinct system of juvenile justice. The book opens with an introduction of the creation of adolescence, presenting ajustification for the category of the juvenile or a period of partial responsibility before full adulthood. Subsequent sections include empirical investigations of the nature of youth criminality and legal policy toward youth crime. At the heart of the book is an argument for a penal policy thatrecognizes diminished responsibility and a youth policy that emphasizes the benefits of letting the maturing process continue with minimal interruption. The book concludes with applications of the core concerns to five specific problem areas in current juvenile justice: teen pregnancy, transfer tocriminal court, minority overrepresentation, juvenile gun use, and youth homicide.

Harry and Bert are the meanest kids on the block until something happens to change Harry's outlook.

An investigation into the reasons why New York City saw a dramatic drop in crime during the late 20th century into the 21st. Franklin Zimring provides a detailed and comprehensive statistical investigation into the city's falling crime rates.