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This article reviews our current knowledge about automobile theft. It defines crime and outlines its prevalence. It further examines the social and economic consequences of auto theft and deals with patterns of auto theft in the United States and elsewhere. Auto theft is found to be an activity of greater salience among the socially advantaged. It moves on with the discussion of forms of motor vehicle theft, including various types of offenders and offender motivations. It includes discussion about victim and offender characteristics, correlates of victimization risk, and types of vehicles stolen and motor vehicle theft offenders. Finally, it examines the ways of controlling auto theft, concluding with a discussion of policy-relevant issues and directions for future research.

This article addresses burglary in various countries and jurisdictions, in criminal law as well as in victimization survey questions. It discusses victims, offenders, and the police as sources of information. It presents data on the current prevalence of burglary in the United States, England, and Wales. This article discusses burglary targets and reviews data on the people who commit burglaries. Burglars are described in terms of their demographic attributes, motivations for burglary, co-offending patterns, and level of planning involved in the commission of a burglary. The burglary daily time cycle and its relation to target choice are also mentioned. The next section is dedicated to the issue of repeated burglaries against nearby addresses and is a phenomenon that has received considerable attention during the past decades. It discusses evidence on the effectiveness of situational burglary prevention measures and concludes by enumerating future research priorities.

This article discusses key methodological issues that are germane to understanding some of the parameters for developing a sound knowledge base on temporal crime patterns. It then surveys the landscape of what we currently know, focusing initially on the description and explanation of crime trends in the United States and elsewhere through the late 1950s, then addressing comparable themes since that time, which are labeled as the “contemporary period”. The concluding section outlines directions for future research.

This essay examines the history of the prison since late the eighteenth century. Following a discussion of the origins of the reformative prison, the essay analyzes its global expansion as a tool for disciplining populations, expanding imperial control, and establishing national legitimacy. In particular, it emphasizes the dialectic between colonial and national projects and the multiple uses that the prison has come to play in states around the globe. From its origins as a local response to particular issues of crime and disruption, during the nineteenth century the prison became a sign of modernity itself. Its twentieth-century history, in the United States and across the globe, only tightened its relationship with systems of racial domination and the continuing legacy of colonial violence. The prison now marks the collapse of Enlightenment hopes for a more humane system of punishment.

Human smuggling and human trafficking are phenomena that require different policy responses. This article summarizes data, figures, and patterns concerning human smuggling and human trafficking. In practice, the two different phenomena may be intertwined. Human smuggling basically involves mutual consent between illegal immigrants, their families, and smugglers. In combating human trafficking, involuntary prostitution, helping victims, and prosecuting offenders are key issues. A much discussed element in forced prostitution is the involvement of criminal groups and organized crime. This article is devoted to policy measures and interventions and highlights research priorities for the coming decade. An important area for research is the method by which different prostitution and enforcement policies affect the opportunities and restrictions of various parties: clients, owners, operators, pimps, and prostitutes.

This article takes a look at the tools used to regulate prison conditions and compares these to the ones used in other countries. It emphasizes that the regulatory framework of the United States is almost completely separated from international standards, and that it depends on the weak regulatory tools of judicial intervention. It then presents a report on the rigorous prison inspectorate systems utilized in Western Australia and the United Kingdom and the inspection regimes promoted by several international committees.

This article briefly maps the domain of tax evasion and draws on the best data available from the United States to illustrate the magnitude of the problem. It reviews the scientific literature on the primary drivers of tax evasion. The nature and extent of tax evasion vary across contexts and time, depending on opportunity to evade tax and the enforcement processes in place. It illustrates tax evasion as a white-collar crime, the substance of which is sometimes poorly specified and changes with economic and social conditions. There is a brief review on the reasons for individuals evading tax and includes discussion about benefits, coercion, obligation, and justice. It considers some of the strategies that governments are using to try to rebuild the effectiveness and integrity of their tax systems to ensure future sustainability.

Cultural artifacts encompass both antiquities and works of art. Global crime related to cultural artifacts can be divided into several types. This article discusses these types and look at the nexus with other types of crime. It focuses on art crimes that involve cross-border activities. The transnational trade in stolen art and antiquities can be placed in the context of several causal mechanisms and influences. Law enforcement efforts and other policy approaches are also described. Finally, it discusses the policy implications with focus on ratification of multilateral treaties. Police agencies specializing in art theft are few in number and typically small. On the basis of the current body of knowledge about the trade in stolen art and antiquities several tentative recommendations can be offered for both public policies and research in this field.