Homicide

Leonard Beeghley

doi:10.5771/9780585471433

Summary

The American homicide rate remains dramatically higher than that in other Western nations. News of a murder has become a routine event. How do we explain such high levels of lethal violence in the world's leading democracy? Echoing Durkheim's Suicide, this book focuses on one important phenomenon to explain larger currents in American society. Leonard Beeghley examines the historical and cross-national dimensions of homicides and evaluates previous attempts to explain it. He finds the sources of America's murder rate in the greater availability of guns, the expansion of illegal drug markets, greater racial discrimination, more exposure to violence, and sharper economic inequalities. He deftly blends the evidence related to each of these factors into a well-reasoned sociological analysis of the nature of American society. Features Highlights how sociology can be used to explain problems and seek solutions Distinguishes between structural and social psychological levels of analysis Provides a constrasting perspective to Messner & Rosenfeld's widely assigned Crime and the American Dream Uses metaphors and analogies in order to make sociological ideas meaningful to students Employs an engaging writing style to place the analysis in the scholarly literature Offers clear explanations of Durkheim, Weber, Merton, and others, that show their usefulness for understanding modern life

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2004
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8476-9472-3
ISBN-Online: 978-0-585-47143-3
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 225
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Preface No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. We Have a Problem No access
2. Some Consequences of Homicide No access
3. Sociology and Homicide No access
4. Modernity and Homicide No access
5. Notes No access
1. Cross-National and Historical Dimensions of Homicide No access
2. 1. Social Psychological Explanations of Homicide No access
  2. Structural Explanations of Homicide No access
3. Explaining the Homicide Rate No access
4. The Dilemma of Change No access
5. Notes No access
1. A Short History of Homicide in Europe No access
2. Cross-National Homicide Rates Today No access
3. Homicide in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900 No access
4. Homicide in the United States from 1900 to the Present No access
5. 1. Homicide and Region No access
  2. Homicide and Race No access
6. Modernity, Social Class, and Homicide No access
7. Notes No access
1. The Thesis and Its Empirical Basis No access
2. An Institutional-Anomie Explanation of Serious Crime No access
3. Some Critical Comments No access
4. Anomie, Modernity, and Homicide No access
5. Building on the Messner/Rosenfeld Strategy No access
6. Notes No access
1. 1. Guns versus Other Weapons No access
  2. A Brief History of Guns and Homicide in America No access
  3. How Many Guns in America? No access
  4. The Coincidence Hypothesis No access
  5. Gun Availability and the Rate of Homicide No access
  6. Conclusion No access
2. The Expansion of Illegal Drug Markets No access
3. Greater Racial and Ethnic Discrimination No access
4. 1. The Mass Media No access
  2. The Family No access
  3. The Neighborhood No access
  4. The Government No access
5. Greater Economic Inequality No access
6. Understanding Homicide No access
7. Notes No access
1. Sociology and Social Change No access
2. 1. Gun Availability No access
  2. Illegal Drug Markets No access
3. Concluding Comments No access
4. Notes No access
References No access Pages 191 - 214
Index No access Pages 215 - 224
About the Author No access Pages 225 - 225