A law professor and former prosecutor reveals how inconsistent ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the problems that plague our entire criminal justice system—from mass incarceration to police brutality. We take for granted that some crimes are violent and others aren’t. But how do we decide what counts as a violent act? David Alan Sklansky argues that legal notions about violence—its definition, causes, and moral significance—are functions of political choices, not eternal truths. And these choices are central to failures of our criminal justice system. The common distinction between violent and nonviolent acts, for example, played virtually no role in criminal law before the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet to this day, with more crimes than ever called “violent,” this distinction determines how we judge the seriousness of an offense, as well as the perpetrator’s debt and danger to society. Similarly, criminal law today treats violence as a pathology of individual character. But in other areas of law, including the procedural law that covers police conduct, the situational context of violence carries more weight. The result of these inconsistencies, and of society’s unique fear of violence since the 1960s, has been an application of law that reinforces inequities of race and class, undermining law’s legitimacy. A Pattern of Violence shows that novel legal philosophies of violence have motivated mass incarceration, blunted efforts to hold police accountable, constrained responses to sexual assault and domestic abuse, pushed juvenile offenders into adult prisons, encouraged toleration of prison violence, and limited responses to mass shootings. Reforming legal notions of violence is therefore an essential step toward justice.

Stalking and Violence: New Patterns of Obsession and Trauma provides new perspectives on the prevalence, causes, and effects of stalking in intimate and non-intimate relations. Drawing on the results of a large random survey of restraining orders, this book found that stalking is highly prevalent in a variety of relationships and is a pattern of behaviors that is routinely regulated by the demographic and social characteristics of the victims and offenders. This book demonstrates that it is possible to develop reliable stalker profiles to help better detect and respond to the threat of stalking. These findings differ from previous studies that considered stalking limited to severely disturbed persons. Covering a wide range of topics from offender profiling, the dangers of stalking, cyberstalking, traumatic health effects, and the responses of the police and courts to stalking, this book will be relevant to a wide range of professionals and students in the fields of mental health, criminal justice, law, social work, medicine, nursing, public health, security/safety, and internet technology.

Drawing on cases, Stark identifies the problems with our current approach to domestic violence, outlines the components of coercive control, and then uses this alternate framework to analyse the cases of battered women charged with criminal offenses directed at their abusers.

A law professor and former prosecutor reveals how inconsistent ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the problems that plague our entire criminal justice system—from mass incarceration to police brutality. We take for granted that some crimes are violent and others aren’t. But how do we decide what counts as a violent act? David Alan Sklansky argues that legal notions about violence—its definition, causes, and moral significance—are functions of political choices, not eternal truths. And these choices are central to failures of our criminal justice system. The common distinction between violent and nonviolent acts, for example, played virtually no role in criminal law before the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet to this day, with more crimes than ever called “violent,” this distinction determines how we judge the seriousness of an offense, as well as the perpetrator’s debt and danger to society. Similarly, criminal law today treats violence as a pathology of individual character. But in other areas of law, including the procedural law that covers police conduct, the situational context of violence carries more weight. The result of these inconsistencies, and of society’s unique fear of violence since the 1960s, has been an application of law that reinforces inequities of race and class, undermining law’s legitimacy. A Pattern of Violence shows that novel legal philosophies of violence have motivated mass incarceration, blunted efforts to hold police accountable, constrained responses to sexual assault and domestic abuse, pushed juvenile offenders into adult prisons, encouraged toleration of prison violence, and limited responses to mass shootings. Reforming legal notions of violence is therefore an essential step toward justice.

From jubilant sports fans celebrating a victory to angry political protestors, crowds create volatile situations that can all too often result in violence or property destruction. Preventing Crowd Violence offers a lucid examination of crowd behavior and of law enforcement tactics designed to deescalate tensions and promote cooperative interactions.

"Born first as an online platform, and then as a series of public debates, 'Design and Violence' organized by Paola Antonelli and Jamer Hunt, examines the ways in which violence manifests in the post-2001 landscape and asks what makes these manifestations unique to their era. Design and Violence' is not a gallery-based exhibition simply translated online. From our earliest conversations, we conceived it as a platform for multiple projects--a series of public debates, a set of academic course materials, a symposium and this book, for instance--with the website as anchor. This book brings together controversial, provocative, and compelling design projects with leading voices from the fields of art and design, science, law, criminal justice, ethics, finance, journalism, and social justice. Each author responds to one object--ranging from an AK-47 to a Euthanasia Rollercoaster, from plastic handcuffs to the Stuxnet digital virus--sparking dialogue, reflection, and debate. These experimental and wide-ranging conversations make Design and Violence an invaluable resource for lively discussions and classroom curricula.