The introductory chapter examines the scope of crime, criminal behavior, law and order, problems involved in defining key crime terms, and crime prevention and control. Subsequent chapters focus on the politics of crime in the United States, recent shifts in crime prevention programs and activities in Great Britain, contrasting political constructions of crime prevention in France and Great Britain, and the politics of prostitution and drug control. Chapters in the second part of the book look at freedom, responsibility, and justice and the criminology of the "New Right"; left realism and crime control priorities; theoretical and political priorities of criminal criminology; violence against women and children and the contradictions of crime control under patriarchy; and abolitionism and crime control. Particular attention is paid to radical criminology; the emphasis of some crime control strategies on community control; crime causes such as unemployment and poverty; and public morality and human suffering and to racial aspects of police, criminal justice, and penal institutions. References