front cover of Understanding Crime and Place
Understanding Crime and Place
A Methods Handbook
Edited by Elizabeth R. Groff and Cory P. Haberman
Temple University Press, 2023

Place has become both a major field of criminological study as well as an important area for policy development. Capturing state of the art crime and place research methods and analysis, Understanding Crime and Place is a comprehensive Handbook focused on the specific skills researchers need. 

The editors and contributors are scholars who have been fundamental in introducing or developing a particular method for crime and place research. Understanding Crime and Place is organized around the scientific process, introducing major crime and place theories and concepts, discussions of data and data collection, core spatial data concepts, as well as statistical and computational techniques for analyzing spatial data and place-based evaluation. The lessons in the book are supplemented by additional instructions, examples, problems, and datasets available for download.

Conducting place-based research is an emerging field that requires a wide range of cutting-edge methods and analysis techniques that are only beginning to be widely taught in criminology. Understanding Crime and Place bridges that gap, formalizes the discipline, and promotes an even greater use of place-based research.

Contributors: Martin A. Andresen, Matthew P J Ashby, Eric Beauregard, Wim Bernasco, Daniel Birks, Hervé Borrion, Kate Bowers, Anthony A. Braga, Tom Brenneman, David Buil-Gil, Meagan Cahill, Stefano Caneppele, Julien Chopin, Jeffrey E. Clutter, Toby Davies, Hashem Dehghanniri, Jillian Shafer Desmond, Beidi Dong, John E. Eck, Miriam Esteve, Timothy C. Hart, Georgia Hassall, David N. Hatten, Julie Hibdon, James Hunter, Shane D. Johnson, Samuel Langton, YongJei Lee, Ned Levine, Brian Lockwood, Dominique Lord, Nick Malleson, Dennis Mares, David Mazeika, Lorraine Mazerolle, Asier Moneva, Andrew Newton, Bradley J. O’Guinn, Ajima Olaghere, Graham C. Ousey, Ken Pease, Eric L. Piza, Jerry Ratcliffe, Caterina G. Roman, Stijn Ruiter, Reka Solymosi, Evan T. Sorg, Wouter Steenbeek, Hannah Steinman, Ralph B. Taylor, Marie Skubak Tillyer, Lisa Tompson, Brandon Turchan, David Weisburd, Brandon C. Welsh, Clair White, Douglas J. Wiebe, Pamela Wilcox, David B. Wilson, Alese Wooditch, Kathryn Wuschke, Sue-Ming Yang, and the editors.

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front cover of Utah's Lawless Fringe
Utah's Lawless Fringe
Stories of True Crime
Stanford J. Layton
Signature Books, 2001
 It was Sunday and worship service was in progress. One of the settlers who was not attending service eyed four known outlaws passing near town. He raced to church to spread the alarm, and parishioners leaped up, grabbed their guns, and galloped off in pursuit, joined by some neighboring cattlemen. Before it was over, one of the posse was dead.

So it went on the outskirts of Utah Territory. In this case it was the little town of Bluff where the Mormon bishop served for some ten years as de facto sheriff and his congregation as deputies. As elsewhere, law and order developed organically rather than by legislation.

In this anthology several aspects of the process are considered, including one of the worst manifestations of citizen action: vigilantism. Territorial Utah witnessed more lynchings than legal executions. Another citizen trait was an unexpected indifference to vice. In 1908 Salt Lake City had 148 registered prostitutes overseen by a madam who was recruited for the position by the mayor and city council. During Prohibition one of the largest distilleries in the West operated in a Salt Lake warehouse.

What is to be learned from this? The contributors to these fourteen articles leave moral considerations to the reader’s contemplation, while providing surprises along the way in an extremely engaging—dare we say arresting—read.

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