Capital Crimes [Paperback]

George Winslow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1999

Crime tops the headlines, leads the evening news, and is a focus of every election. But what causes crime? Is there a more rational way to address it than by law-and-order crusades?

In this fact-filled, sweeping treatment, George Winslow takes on every aspect of the topic, from the streets to the suites. Unlike conventional accounts, Capital Crimes places the issue in the context of a larger political economy. From the Burmese heroin trade to homicide, from the capital flight that has generated crime in inner cities to corporate money-laundering schemes, Capital Crimes shows how economic forces and elite interests have shaped both the world of crime and society's response to it.

Based upon extensive research and interviews, Capital Crimes presents a comprehensive alternative to a "lock 'em up" approach that has produced a gargantuan prison-industrial complex without coming to terms with the root of crime.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

paper 1-58367-001-7 In a sweeping indictment of our economic system that's short on solutions, freelancer Winslow traces the economic genesis of American crime in the streets and in the suites. For Winslow, street crime and white-collar crime share a common denominator: our society's pervasive money-lust. Looking past demographic, psychological, and genetic factors often thought to be at the root of crime, Winslow attributes America's drug problem, its epidemic street violence, and corporate crime to greed, fostered by global capitalism. He contends first that the creation of a market economy in developing countries destroyed traditional peasant communities and engendered thriving narcotics industries. Winslow then uses the 1994 killing of 16-year-old yeshiva student Aaron Halberstam by an immigrant named Rashid Baz, seemingly a crime without an economic motive, to show how economic forces like Baz's involvement in the drug trade shape crime in America's urban centersalthough he says little about Baz's psychology or the development of his anti-Semitism, which might be thought significant factors in his motive. Winslow also examines the relationship between poverty, street crime, and the ``prison-industrial complex,'' and concludes that our society's retributive response to crime is wasteful and ineffective (though he offers little in the way of alternatives). Finally, in a survey of corporate crimes against the environment, workers, and investorsan activity in which he contends corporations are abetted by corrupt politiciansWinslow concludes that capital flights to emerging economies and other financial activities of corporations have fostered crime, and that ``corporate crime helps create street crime.'' In questioning conventional criminological wisdom, Winslow raises some provocative questions, but in reducing crime to a matter of economics, he runs the risk of unconstructive oversimplification. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

George Winslow, a journalist living in New York City, is the editor of World Screen News, TV Europe, and TV Latina. He has written for publications ranging from The New York Times Book Review to The Columbia Encyclopedia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583670017
• ISBN-13: 978-1583670019
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,591,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid, fascinating, well-written analysis of U.S. Crime, August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Capital Crimes (Paperback)

This is one of the best books on American crime that I have ever read. It is excellent because it illustrates the connections between street crime, drugs, U.S. foreign policy and --above all -- corporate greed and amorality. From the jungles of Burma to Miami, from the woods of Oregon to the S and L scandal, this book is sweeping in its analysis, and highly accessible. Clearly written. Critical. Thought-provoking. Calls it like it is.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Commanding, April 19, 2008

By 

GlobalChangeSupercenter5 "Globalchangesuperce... (Salem, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Capital Crimes (Paperback)

Winslow's work is tremendously vital, epic in scope, vivid in its details. While the case study approach may seem to be disconcerting at first, the way Winslow draws the focus back out from each case to the wider horrors demonstrates the impeccable nature of his analysis. This is as good a history of our times up until the neo-con Bushian takeover as there is, showing how all the tendencies and traps were in place for war, punishment, corporate criminality, and the hollowing out of the American economy. Winslow writes not as an academic, but as a careful reader and writer, repudiating the supposed superiority of the established "Name" or academic big-thinker. Sober and free of sectarian jargon, a classic.