This text has three aims: the first is to show that what separates the USA from other countries is not crime rates but lethal violence. Secondly, the book seeks to clarify the causes of violence by looking at the proximate causes of violence. The last section concerns the prevention of violence.

This book has three main aims: the first is to show that what separates the USA from other countries is not crime rates but lethal violence. Crimes like burglary and theft are a part of modern urban life worldwide; shootings and stabbings are not - they are particularly American. Why is this so? Secondly , the book seeks to clarify the causes of violence by looking at the proximate causes of deadly violence - guns, violence in the media, drugs and the tradition of lethal violence are all examined. The concluding section of the book concerns the prevention of lethal violence as a priority issue. The authors discuss a range of anti-violence alternatives from change in the criminal law to social and physical environmental factors and social values and attitudes.

This is an extremely useful book that should definitively explode a number of myths about the nature of the crime problem in the USA