Customer Reviews

Crime and the American Dream (Wadsworth Series in Criminological Theory)

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This was a textbook in my university criminology class, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It applies the theory of anomic strain to the United States as a whole and proposes that it is the cause for crime and deviance. Many of the ideas and themes presented in it ring true with sentiments of Americans today, with the gap between the upper and lower class growing larger and larger.

I was privileged to have Dr. Rosenfeld as a professor while majoring in criminology. I found his course and his research fascinating. This book is very well written and an interesting theory. Having recently become a public defender representing indigents charged with felony offenses, Dr. Rosenfeld's theory is right on the mark. American crime is a serious problem, with its roots deep in american culture and expectations. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the true roots of american crime.

Interesting idea, that our need to always have the newest and best (most expensive) things has contributed to our crime problem. I recommend this book highly. The price is outrageous, would def. look for a used copy.

This is certainly a worth-reading book. Its application of Durkheim's and Merton's anomie theory to the crime dynamics of American society is tightly reasoned and very appealing. The thesis that unusually high crime rates in the US are the dark side of the success promoted by the American ethos seems to account for many of the observed facts. The book follows an excellent logical development and provides appealing explanations for the etiology of the main American nightmare. Unfortunately, it lacks a truly comparative perspective, since it practically ignores crime in the underdeveloped countries. Compariong with Western Europe is hardly enough. And the last ten pages, where the authors provide their recipe for combatting crime, are, to say the least disappointing. By proposing actions which are obviously non-viable, the authors transform their whole argument into an interesting, even fascinating, but useless academic exercise. One final point: The tendency of the authors to add "political correctness" to citations is unforgivable. What an author said anywhere between 150 and 80 years ago, should be cited as he/she wrote. Thus, in page 105, the introduction of a "her" in a citation of Marx is unnecessary and smacks of opportunism. The same can be said of the citation of James Truslow Adams in page 106, where the authors introduce a "and women". And before I forget, the table on page 103 places Australia and New Zealand low in homicide but also low on decommodification (monstruous word!), whereas Finland is higher in decommodification than the UK, but also higher in homicide. Don't these contradictions fatally weaken the argument of this chapter?

This book details a theory of crime in America as resulting from a pathological veneration of the value of success--absent a similar emphasis on the proper means to achieve the "American Dream." Criminologists, sociologists, and just about anybody with a social conscience would probably enjoy this well-written, accessible, and insightful look at crime in the country where the playing field isn't even, but where there is considerable equity in our expectation that everyone has the ability to succeed. READ IT!--You'll thank me.

"Crime and the American Dream" is a retread of the same old "Blame America First" argument that prevails in academia. No country on the planet has opportunities for upward mobility as those that exist in the USA. Envy, the desire for shortcuts and a "something for nothing" sense of entitlement did not originate in 1776. We have redefined poverty such that expensive sneakers, cell phones, and large screen TV's are seen as necessities. Want to see poverty that might actually drive people to crime, then visit Manila, Mexico City. or Bogota. Our worst slums would be luxury for millions.