In Their Own Words : Criminals on Crime

The only anthology of its kind, In Their Own Words: Criminals on Crime, Sixth Edition, provides students with a nuanced perspective on how - and why - offenders make decisions that lead them to commit crimes. Featuring firsthand accounts from gang members, burglars, shoplifters, pimps, prostitutes, killers, robbers, addicts, rapists, drug smugglers, and white-collar offenders, the anthology helps students understand the offenders' motives, perceptions, decision-making strategies, and rationalizations forcrime. Brief introductions precede each reading, placing the offenders' words into a theoretical context.

Paul Cromwell is Professor of Public Administration at the University of South Florida.

Michael L. Birzer is Professor of Criminal Justice and Director of the School of Community Affairs at Wichita State University.

Each Section opens with an Introduction.
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Contributors
Section I. Doing Fieldwork with Offenders
1. Researching Crack Dealers: Dilemmas and Contradictions, Bruce A. Jacobs
2. Consenting to Talk: Why Inmates Participate in Prison Research, Heith Copes and Andy Hochstetler
Section II. Criminal Lifestyles and Decision Making
3. The Socially Bounded Decision Making of Persistent Property Offenders, Neal Shover and David Honaker
4. Deciding to Commit a Burglary, Richard T. Wright and Scott H. Decker
5. Opportunities and Decisions: Interactional Dynamics in Robbery and Burglary Groups, Andy Hochstetler
Section III. Property Crime
6. Establishing Connections: Gender, Motor Vehicle Theft, and Disposal Networks, Christopher W. Mullins and Michael C. Cherbonneau
7. "The Devil Made Me Do It": Use of Neutralizations by Shoplifters, Paul Cromwell and Quint Thurman
8. Identity Theft: Assessing Offenders' Motivations and Strategies, Heith Copes and Lynne Vieraitis
Section IV. Violent Crime
9. Gendering Violence: Masculinity and Power in Men's Accounts of Domestic Violence, Kristin L. Anderson and Debra Umberson
10. Serendipity in Robbery Target Selection, Bruce A. Jacobs
11. Accounting for Lethal and Sublethal Violence, Fiona S. Brookman
Section V. Occupational White-Collar Crime
12. Crime on the Line: Telemarketing and the Changing Nature of Professional Crime, Neal Shover, Glenn S. Coffey, and Dick Hobbs
13. Drugged Druggists: The Convergence of Two Criminal Career Trajectories, Dean A. Dabney and Richard C. Hollinger
14. Denying the Guilty Mind: Accounting for Involvement in a White-Collar Crime, Michael L. Benson
Section VI. Illegal Occupations
15. The "Myth of Organization" of International Drug Smugglers, Scott H. Decker and Jana S. Benson
16. The Second Step in Double Jeopardy: Appropriating the Labor of Female Street Hustlers, Kim Romenesko and Eleanor M. Miller
17. Dealing Careers, Patricia A. Adler
Section VII. Gangs and Crime
18. Gang-Related Gun Violence: Socialization, Identity, and Self, Paul B. Stretesky and Mark R. Pogrebin
19. Gender and Victimization Risk among Young Women in Gangs, Jody Miller
20. Voices from the Barrio: Gangs, Families, and Communities, Marjorie S. Zatz and Edwardo L. Portillos
Section VIII. Drugs and Crime
21. The Drugs-Crime Connection among Stable Addicts, Charles E. Faupel
22. "E" Is for Ecstasy: A Participant Observation Study of Ecstasy Use, Wilson R. Palacios and Melissa E. Fenwick
23. "Cooks are Like Gods": Hierarchies in Methamphetamine-Producing Groups, Robert Jenkot
24. Trafficking in Bodily Perfection: Examining the Late-Modern Steroid Marketplace and Its Criminalization, Peter B. Kraska, Charles R. Bussard, and John J. Brent
Section IX. Quitting Crime
25. Aging Criminals: Changes in the Criminal Calculus, Neal Shover
26. Getting Out of the Life: Desistance by Female Street Offenders, Ira Sommers, Deborah R. Baskin, and Jeffery Fagan