In recent years, there has been a surge in school shootings, workplace homicides, hate violence, and deadly terrorist attacks in the United States. This has resulted in a greater focus on homicidal behavior, its antecedents, ways to recognize warning signs of at-risk victims and offenders, and preventive measures. It has also led to increased efforts by lawmakers to create and pass tough crime legislation as well as improved federal, state, and local law enforcement response to murder and other violent crimes. The Dynamics of Murder: Kill or Be Killed is a multifaceted probe of murder offenses, offenders, victims, and characteristics of homicide in American society. This book breaks new ground in homicide studies by examining issues generally ignored or neglected among researchers. Topics include murders occurring in the workplace and in schools, those perpetrated by gangs and terrorists, those incited by bias, and intimate and intrafamilial murders. The book discusses sexual killers, serial and mass murderers, and suicide. It also examines psychological and sociological theories on murder and violence, as well as the increasing role the Internet plays in these crimes. Case studies of actual murderers are included, including serial killers Gerald and Charlene Gallego, mass murderer Byran Koji Uyesugi, the murder/suicide case of Sahel Kazemi, and the intrafamilial murders committed by Charles Stuart and Sarah Marie Johnson. A comprehensive exploration of the crime of murder in American society, this fascinating study is an essential resource for researchers, criminologists, and other professionals in a wide range of disciplines.

Fact finding in judicial proceedings is a dynamic process. This collection of papers considers whether computational methods or other formal logical methods developed in disciplines such as artificial intelligence, decision theory, and probability theory can facilitate the study and management of dynamic evidentiary and inferential processes in litigation. The papers gathered here have several epicenters, including (i) the dynamics of judicial proof, (ii) the relationship between artificial intelligence or formal analysis and "common sense," (iii) the logic of factual inference, including (a) the relationship between causality and inference and (b) the relationship between language and factual inference, (iv) the logic of discovery, including the role of abduction and serendipity in the process of investigation and proof of factual matters, and (v) the relationship between decision and inference.

Individuals who perpetrate murder sometimes pose or reposition victims, weapons, and evidence to make it look like events happened in a different way than what actually transpired. Until now, there has been scarce literature published on crime scene staging.Crime Scene Staging Dynamics in Homicide Cases is the first book to look at this practice, p

This book asks why crime and violence persist in Latin America at extreme levels and why the states have not been able to more effectively solve this problem that dominates the lives of many millions of Latin Americans. Informed by diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the book brings together a team of regional experts to discuss research-based explanations on some of Latin America’s most pressing criminal and violent issues distressing the rule of law. First, it examines old and new forms of observing crime upon perpetrators and victimized communities. Second, it explores the geographies of urban and rural violence and the entangled politics following organized criminality. Third, it questions how the transfer of policy knowledge and expertise reshapes local security governance, and, more importantly, critically examines the problems in implementing foreign models and paradigms in the Latin American context. Finally, it exposes the everchanging scenario of policy-making and prosecuting crime and homicide. Crime, Violence, and Justice in Latin America provides new themes and novel trends on what crime and violence mean in the eyes of observers, perpetrators, policymakers, governmental officials, and victims. It is an important acquisition for policy makers and academics alike.

Much of a society’s resources are devoted to dealing with, or preparing for the possibility of, crime. The dominance of concerns about crime also hint at the broader implications that offending has for many different facets of society. They suggest that rather than being an outlawed subset of social activity, crime is an integrated aspect of societal processes. This book reviews some of the direct and indirect social impacts of criminality, proposing that this is worthwhile, not just in terms of understanding crime, but also because of how it elucidates more general social considerations. A range of studies that examine the interactions between crime and society are brought together, drawing on a wide range of countries and cultures including India, Israel, Nigeria, Turkey, and the USA, as well as the UK and Ireland. They include contributions from many different social science disciplines, which, taken together, demonstrate that the implicit and direct impact of crime is very widespread indeed. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

This book, a sequel to the edited book Dangerous Patients: A Psychodynamic Approach to Risk Assessment and Management, places the emphasis on working in psychodynamic psychotherapy with patients who have killed to gain a greater understanding of their internal world and object relationships.

This book provides the first systematic overview of the theoretical, empirical, clinical, and police issues related to sexual murderers and murder. Bringing together leading researchers, theoreticians, and practitioners from across eight different countries, this is a truly international collaboration and an essential reference text for students, researchers, and professionals interested in sexual homicide, as well as an exhaustive source of guidelines for the assessment and treatment of sexual murderers. This book is divided into five parts: Part I, Theories and research, presents a detailed review of theoretical models and empirical studies of sexual homicide. Part II, Sexual sadism, discusses theoretical, empirical, and clinical considerations and reviews the literature on the characteristics of sadistic sexual aggressors. Part III, Clinical issues, discusses the assessment and management of sexual murderers at each phase of the judicial process: at trial, during incarceration, and during follow-up in the community. Part IV, Policing issues, discusses research and practical issues related to police activities surrounding a sexual murder. Topics include investigation, offender and geographical profiling, behavioural linkage, and police interrogation of the murderers. Part V, New directions, presents new directions for the study of sexual homicide and discusses the limits of current knowledge related to sexual murderers and their crimes. Offering a broad and comprehensive approach, this Handbook is an indispensable source of information on theory, research, clinical assessment, treatment, and police issues related to sexual murderers and murder.

"As a good encyclopedia does, the Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime brings together articles that offer diverse insights into the topic, while at the same time giving the reader a feel for its overall scope." --AGAINST THE GRAIN This comprehensive single-volume encyclopedia contains a wealth of material on killing and other violent behavior, as well as detailed information on a host of criminal cases from local decisions to Supreme Court rulings. The Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime includes nearly 500 entries that range from Antisocial Personality Disorder and the Beltway Snipers to the infamous Zodiac Murders. Entries take several formats, including: substantial essays on criminal terms, pathologies, and criminal justice concise case studies of serial murderers, infamous crimes, and their investigations relatively brief definitions of relevant legal and criminological terms. The Encyclopedia is written by an impressive group of contributors, many leading experts in their fields of criminology, criminal justice, and more. Extra features such as a handy, easy-to-use Reader's Guide, a lavish art program of approximately 50 photographs, and several appendixes enhance and complete the volume. This valuable reference is designed for academic, school, public, and special/private libraries as well as criminal justice agencies.

From R. Barri Flowers, award-winning criminologist and bestselling author of Murder of the Horse Trainer’s Rival, Murderess on the Loose, Murder at the Pencil Factory, Murder of the Doctor’s Wife, and Murder During the Chicago World’s Fair, comes the thought-provoking historical true crime short, Killer of Her Husband’s Secretary: The 1935 Love Triangle Ire of Etta Reisman. On the morning of August 14, 1935, Virginia Seigh, an attractive twenty-three-year-old secretary, was shot and killed as she stood in the driveway of a home in Queens, New York. Her murderer was Mrs. Etta Reisman, the thirty-five-year-old wife of Arthur Reisman, a forty-two-year-old well-to-do owner of a beauty salon chain. The previous day, Reisman had confessed to his wife that he had fallen in love with Miss Seigh--his secretary, who had resided with the Reismans for seven years--and wanted a separation. This did not set well with Etta, who felt totally betrayed by her husband and their house guest, causing her to snap and go on a shooting frenzy. Along with Reisman himself, also witnessing the shocking homicide was his daughter from an earlier marriage, Annette Reisman. The twenty-three-year-old was injured when she attempted to take the gun from the unhinged shooter. Etta Reisman was arrested and charged with murder in this classic case of a love triangle that ended tragically for all parties concerned. The embittered wife turned vengeful killer was convicted of the crime of violence, resulting in a stunning and controversial action the judge set in motion. The heartbreaking tale of Etta Reisman has endured through the decades as, sadly, many others have followed the same path of jealous rage as an often impulsive and deadly response to being wronged and paying an even greater price themselves in the final analysis. Bonus material includes a chapter from the author’s bestselling true crime book, Serial Killer Couples: Bonded by Sexual Depravity, Abduction, and Murder. Also included are excerpts from the author’s true crime anthologies, Murder and Menace: Riveting True Crime Tales, and Murder Chronicles: A Collection of Chilling True Crime Tales.

From R. Barri Flowers, award winning criminologist and international bestselling author of The Sex Slave Murders and The Sex Slave Murders 2, comes a gripping new true crime short, Killers of the Lonely Hearts: The Tale of Serial Killers Raymond Fernandez & Martha Beck. In this gripping tale of sex, jealousy, con artists, and murder, the author gets to the root of the violent crimes perpetrated by 1940s serial killers Fernandez and Beck, who preyed on lonely women through personal ads, stealing from them, and murdering them before the ultimate justice was served on the killer lovers. As a bonus, included is a complete true crime short, The Sinful Killers, about serial killers James Gregory Marlow and Cynthia Coffman, who murdered at least five people over three states in 1986, including four women, who were targeted for abduction, sexual assault, and robbery. An added bonus is excerpts from R. Barri Flowers bestselling true crime shorts, Mass Murder in the Sky, in which an airliner is brought down over Denver by dynamite and Murder at the Pencil Factory, chronicling the century old murder of Mary Phagan and the lynching of her purported killer Leo Frank. Also included are excerpts from the author's bestselling novel, Dark Streets of Whitechapel, a Jack the Ripper historical thriller.