Chapter 21

Recent British books providing general overviews of theories of violence include Jones's Understanding Violent Crime (Open University Press, 2000) and Brookman's Understanding Homicide (Sage, 2005). Also useful is Stanko's summary of an ESRC-funded research programme on violence, 'Theorizing About Violence: Observations From the Economic and Social Research Council's Violence Research Program' (Violence Against Women, Vol. 12, 2006). There are numerous North American texts which discuss explanations of violence in the USA, among the more interesting and readable being Barak's Violence and Nonviolence: Pathways to Understanding (Sage, 2003) and Gilligan's Violence: Reflections on our Deadliest Epidemic (Jessica Kingsley, 2000). Among older books, Pathways to Criminal Violence (Weiner and Wolfgang, Sage, 1989) is still a useful resource, while both Katz's The Seductions of Crime: the Moral and Sensual Attractions of Doing Evil (Basic Books, 1988) and Athens's Violent Criminal Acts and Actors: Revisited (University of Illinois Press, 1997) are rich texts providing good summaries of conventional approaches as well as putting forward original theories of their own.

Key books that focus on 'masculinities' include Messerschmidt's Masculinities and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualization (Rowman & Littlefield, 1993), Archer's Male Violence (Routledge, 1994) and Polk's When Men Kill: Scenarios of Masculine Violence (Cambridge, 1994). Three edited books are also recommended: Newburn and Stanko's Just Boys Doing Business (Routledge, 1994); Bowker's Masculinities and Crime (Sage, 1998); and Understanding Masculinities, edited by Mac An Ghaill (Open University Press, 1996). A good example of empirical research exploring masculinities is Messerschmidt's Nine Lives (Westview Press, 2000), which discusses in detail the life histories of nine adolescent boys and unravels why some commit acts of violence or sexual offences, whilst others do not. Where female violence is concerned, Miller's One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs, and Gender (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Campbell's classic study, The Girls in the Gang (Blackwell, 1991) are among the most important studies of gang violence, while violence by women in domestic situations is discussed in Browne's When Battered Women Kill (Free Press, 1991), Jensen's Why Women Kill: Homicide and Gender Equality (Lynne Reiner, 2001) and a thought-provoking journal article by Dobash and Dobash, 'Women's Violence Against an Intimate Male Partner: Working on a Puzzle' (British Journal of Criminology, 2004).

There is a huge literature on domestic or family violence more generally. Dobash and Dobash's Violence against Wives (Free Press, 1979) was a pioneering study in the area and is still well worth reading, although much of the same authors' later work, including Women, Violence, and Social Change (Routledge, 1992) has developed their ideas further. Gelles et al.'s Current Controversies on Family Violence (Sage, 2004) gives a good flavour of current debates, while Hanmer et al.'s reader Home Truths about Domestic Violence: Feminist Influences on Policy and Practice (Routledge, 2000) provides a good range of examples of feminist approaches.

In regard to other specific forms of violence, there is a rich North American literature on gang violence (useful overviews can be found in Huff's Gangs in America (Sage, 1990) and Jankowski's Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society (University of California Press, 1992), while perhaps the classic British study remains Patrick's A Glasgow Gang Observed (Eyre Methuen, 1973). There has been a considerable amount of recent attention in the UK to alcohol-related violence, and particularly recommended is Hobbs et al.'s Bouncers: Violence and Governance in the Night time Economy (Oxford University Press, 2005). On corporate 'violence' Wells's Corporations and Criminal Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 2001) is a key text. Finally—but very importantly—on large-scale political violence and abuses of human rights, Cohen's States of Denial (Polity Press, 2000) is essential reading.

The British Crime Survey and other Home Office commissioned surveys have produced a great deal of quantitative data about the extent and distribution of specific forms of violent crime, and numerous studies can be found on the Home Office website. Examples include Violence at Work: Findings from the 2002/03 British Crime Survey (Upson, 2004); Violence in the Night-time Economy: Key Findings from Research (Finney, 2004); Young People and Crime: Findings from the 2004 Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (Budd et al., 2005) and Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking: Findings from the 2004/05 British Crime Survey (Finney, 2006).

Recent British publications on responses to violent crime include a broad overview by Maguire and Brookman, 'Violent and Sexual Crime', in Handbook of Crime Prevention (ed. Tilley: Willan, 2005) and (specifically on homicide) Brookman and Maguire's 'Reducing Homicide in the UK: A Review of the Possibilities' (Crime, Law and Social Change, 2005). Where specific kinds of intervention are concerned, Strang and Braithwaite's edited volume, Restorative Justice and Family Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Dobash et al.'s edited volume, Changing Violent Men (Sage, 2000) and Managing Sex Offenders in the Community: Contexts, Challenges and Responses, edited by Matravers (Willan, 2003) are all valuable contributions. Police and criminal justice responses to domestic violence in England and Wales are well covered in Hoyle's Negotiating Domestic Violence: Police, Criminal Justice and Victims (Oxford University Press, 1998) and in the USA in Buzawa and Buzawa's Domestic Violence: The Criminal Justice Response (University of Massachusetts, 2003).

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Chapter 21