_____________________________________ Book Review

Book information:

(L a n e , B r i a n . C r i m e & D e t e c ti o n . S e c o n d . N e w Y o r k : D o r i n g K i n d e r s l e y p u b l i s h i n g , 2 0 0 0 .
1-19. Print.)

Review Information:

Your name(s) Matthew & Shawn

Class period: 1st

Date: 3/16/11

Overview: Crime & Detection was about guns and felons and about robbery, gambling and about older
people with records. Crime is among the most pressing and visible social problems facing South Africa. It
has
Been referred to by the Government as a high priority issue. Crime also features prominently in
The public’s concern along with issues of poverty, job creation and HIV/AIDS.
While the levels of recorded crime in the country began to increase in the mid-1980s, a
Dramatic increase was noted in the early 1990s. Crime in South Africa does not affect all people
Uniformly, although, for instance, the risk of victimization of violent property crimes, such as
Robbery and car hijacking, is fairly evenly spread throughout the population. However, the
Likelihood of a person falling victim of crime is strongly influenced by, among other things,
Gender, age, income, place of residence and race. Race is still one of the interpretative keys of
The victimization pattern in South Africa. As in other countries, socio-economic factors and
Living circumstances are key determinants of who is victimized by what type of crime. Given
That apartheid policy in South Africa ensured that the race of any individual determined that
Person’s socio-economic standing, race itself was (and to some extent still remains) one of the
Key determinants of the country’s victimization patterns.

Purpose:

Evaluation Scar face was started in 1870 but he died a couple years later. There was this guy that killed
his family because he need to because he was not on track. Functional theory of crime and crime
reduction - that crime is functional because
a) in attempting to reduce it we have to define it and thus understand what the boundaries of our
societal values are. This clarity then makes us feel secure, or in Durkheim’s words, serves to prevent
'anomie'
b)crime and deviance, and social responses to it, can also be functional in leading to social change.eg
changing laws definitions and policies on:
sexuality and marriage/legal and illegal drug taking/forms of disobedience to the currently
powerful/racism/sexism
(see anything by Durkheim on crime- either in the chapter on Crime and Justice in your 'intro to
sociology' texts or by entering his name and the relevant terms into your search engine)

Summary

The book was about guns, and people that did crimes. There was a guy that always gamboled at the
same casino. Then he finally got caught during him gamboling. Then he was sent to jail for 10 years.
Then there was people jacking cars and they got caught on the road. Was sentence for 5 years? Beavan's
lively debut explores developments in criminal forensics that culminated in the first prosecution based
on fingerprint evidence, in London in 1905. He opens his narrative with the wanton double murder of
the elderly Farrows and the crude initial investigation. Beavan, a writer for Esquire and other magazines,
examines at length the slow scientific inroads into 19th-century law enforcement. Following the sharp
decline in hanging offenses, European societies were swept by hysteria regarding multi-aliased career
criminals. Officials reluctantly explored ways of confirming identities of repeat offenders, notably
Alphonse Bertillon's anthropometric system, which posited that "criminal" body types could be
identified by minute bodily measurements. Several British bureaucrats had experimented with inked
fingerprints for identification, but Henry Faulds, an impoverished Scottish medical missionary in Japan,
definitively claimed that fingerprints' particular qualities were ideal for criminal prosecution. Faulds's
early publications spawned fingerprint science; unfortunately, his thunder was stolen by the ambitious,
better-positioned Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin), whom Beavan portrays as an effete plagiarist. Police
in South America and India ventured into this terra incognita, but Scotland Yard fiercely resisted. Only
tragic anthropometric and eyewitness misidentifications led grudging officials to use the Farrows trial as
a test case. The embittered Faulds served as a defense witness, contending that single-digit
identification, the basis for this ultimately successful prosecution, was unreliable. This entertaining and
balanced work centers less on academic precepts than does Simon Cole's Suspect Identities (see review
below). Beavan's effortless prose, firm grasp of his subject and vividly drawn characters will delight
history buffs and armchair criminologists. Photos and illus. (May) Forecast: This is a charmer that, with
good reviews and effective promotion, could catch on outside the true-crime crowd.