Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction / Edition 2

Echoing these sentiments, it's been said that an introductory textbook like this one must be a mile long, but it can only be an inch thick. In other words, any introduction to criminology must cover the history of the field and the important theorists and theories of the past and present. It must also provide a solid overview of the crime picture in contemporary society, and it must offer some insight into the crime control policies of yesterday and today. Most such books are also expected to include a description of different types of crime, along with an explanation of the complex social and individual nexus that leads to crime. As an author of a number of books in the field of crime and justice, I can attest to the fact that this is a tall order. Because of its physical limits, an introductory text cannot spend too much time describing any one perspective, theory, law, or offense.

Thankfully, in writing the third edition of Criminology Today I no longer found myself bound by the traditional limits of print media. This new edition, for the first time, makes extensive use of educational technologies that were only in their infancy when the first edition of this book appeared. Even though the first editionwas accompanied by a Web site (the first criminology text to have reached such a milestone, I am told), and the second edition built that site into a comprehensive and interactive learning tool, it is with this new edition that the true possibilities of the Internet have been fully embraced. Sprinkled throughout the pages of this book you will find icons pointing to new learning possibilities. Among them are

• Web Quests!, which challenge you to work your way through comprehensive Web-based chapter projects. Web Quests! make studying enjoyable and open the door to a wealth of electronic information.
• Web Extras!, which take you to sites that are closely related to the materials you are reading about. Web Extras! provide a "virtual criminology" tour of the Internet, with visits to sites too numerous to mention in this brief preface.
• Audio Extras!, which allow you to listen to the author introduce each chapter of your text.
• Library Extras!, which provide a list of readily accessible Web-based reading assignments that round out chapter materials.

All are new to this edition, and each has been closely integrated with the text to provide a wealth of freely available materials that add substantial value to the learning experience. Web Quests!, Web Extras!, Audio Extras!, and Library Extras! finally allow me, as an author, to offer you a textbook that is far more than the proverbial "inch-thick" book would be.

Other special features of Criminology Today make this book substantially different from all the other available texts which deal with the same subject matter. The following list highlights what I see as the important differences:

• Criminology Today makes use of the latest-available instructional technologies and offers students the opportunity to learn from the Internet, from videos, and from print media.
• Criminology Today emphasizes the wide and interdisciplinary variety of academic perspectives that contribute to a thorough and well-informed understanding of the crime problem—hence the book's subtitle, An Integrative Introduction.
• Criminology Today is up-to-date. It addresses the latest social issues and discusses innovative criminological perspectives within a well-grounded and traditional theoretical framework.
• Criminology Today is socially relevant. It contrasts contemporary issues of crime and social order with existing and proposed crime control policies.
• Criminology Today is interesting and easy to read. Written for today's student, it makes use of attention-getting stories, news briefs, images, and charts and graphs to capture student attention.
• Criminology Today is policy oriented. Unlike many existing texts, it stresses the consequences of criminological thought for social policy and describes the practical issues associated with understanding and controlling crime. Social policies focusing on prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and victim restoration are all discussed.
• Criminology Today is thematic. It builds upon the divergence between the social problems viewpoint and the social responsibility perspective. In so doing, it highlights the central issue facing criminologists today: whether crime should be addressed as a matter of individual responsibility and accountability or treated as a symptom of a dysfunctional society.
• Criminology Today provides instructors and students with a wealth of resources for studying crime and society's response to it, including an award-winning World Wide Web site , an annotated instructor's edition, a video library, full-color transparencies, an excellent student study guide, and other supplements.

The thematic approach of Criminology Today is dualistic. On the one hand, it presents a social problems framework, which holds that crime may be a manifestation of underlying cultural issues like poverty, discrimination, and the break-down of traditional social institutions. It contrasts the social problems approach with a social responsibility perspective which claims that individuals are fundamentally responsible for their own behavior and which maintains that they choose crime over other, more law-abiding, courses of action. The thematic contrast is an important one, for it provides student with a useful framework for integrating the voluminous material contained within the field of criminology. Contrasting the two perspectives, as this book does, provides fertile ground for a dialectical process whereby students can better understand the central issues defining contemporary criminology and come to their own conclusions about the value criminological theorizing.

As an author, I have tried to ensure that today's students will find Criminology Today relevant, interesting, informative, and useful. It is my fondest hope that this boo and its Internet extensions will assist students in drawing their own conclusions about the American crime problem that it will help prepare them for the future, and that it will allow them to make informed decisions about public crime control policy.