Crime and the American Dream (A volume in the Wadsworth Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice Series)

Using the basic ideas, insights, and conceptual tools of sociology, Messner and Rosenfeld present a provocative introduction to alternative ways of thinking about crime. They provide both an insightful and comprehensive analysis of the Anomie tradition as well as other existing theories while offering a distinctive theoretical perspective to explain the exceptionally high levels of serious crime in the United States. They integrate empirical and quantitative data with ethnographic and qualitative data to provide a clear, succinct and unique discussion of crime and the American dream which is both accessible and interesting to students.