Demographics and Criminality: The Characteristics of Crime in America

As the problem of crime continues to worsen in the 1980s, the need for up-to-date, comprehensive information on its dynamics and incidence increases. This work, the fourth in a four-volume series, is the first study to focus exclusively on demographic trends in criminality and victimization for crime as a whole. Concerned with the broad picture of crime in America as well as specific demographic correlates and characteristics, it develops profiles of patterns in criminality and suggests ways of applying this demographic data to promote more effective crime control.

Flowers begins by exploring the demographic aggregate features of crime and victimization in America, as well as geographical and temporal trends. The demographic correlates examined in the next section include age, gender, race, ethnicity, class, employment, income, education, marital status, and substance abuse. The third section is devoted to a survey of demographic characteristics of three deviant groups--habitual and career criminals, the prison population, and violent families. The author concludes with a discussion of the implications of demographics for the study and control of criminality and victimization in the years ahead. This book, together with its three companion volumes, will be an important resource for professionals, academians, and students in criminology, criminal justice, law, victimology, racial and ethnic studies, and related disciplines, as well as laypersons who seek greater insight into the world of crime.