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.