Book Review: Riedel, M., & Welsh, W. (2008). Criminal Violence: Patterns, Causes, and Prevention (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 380 pp

• Date: 01 December 2009
• Author: Gregg Barak
• Published date: 01 December 2009
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808328802
• Subject Matter: Articles

570 Criminal Justice Review

It is often recommended that a book review criticize something, and almost all books

have one thing or another that could be improved. But to do so with Professor Levin’s book

would run the risk of becoming overly picky and just criticizing for the purpose of filling

an expected requirement. Serial Killers and Sadistic Murderers is interesting, well organ-

ized, and a pleasure to read. This book has achieved its goal, and for that the author should

be congratulated.

Louis B. Schlesinger

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York

Riedel, M., & Welsh, W. (2008). Criminal Violence: Patterns, Causes, and Prevention (2nd

ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 380 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016808328802

The second edition of Criminal Violence has retained the strengths of the first edition. It

is also deserved of the marketing label new and improved, as additional chapters have been

added on topics not previously covered, such as school violence and terrorism. At the same

time, this edition shares the same limitations as the first edition. Let me speak to both the

strengths and the weaknesses of this book. Let me also say up front that despite the theo-

retical and practical omissions identified later, this is nevertheless a fine pedagogical

work.

To begin with, Riedel and Welsh have once again delivered a thoughtfully designed

heuristic and lively and well-written text that works well together. The book is also inclusive of

the latest research on the covered topics of criminal violence. Pedagogically, they selectively

and systematically examine various forms of criminal violence by way of the patterns,

explanations, and interventions associated with each of them. Their tripartite framework

allows the reader to engage these forms of violence comparatively. Similarly, their integrated

approach incorporates the perspectives on violence from the vantage points of criminology,

criminal justice, and public health. This brings a certain type of multidisciplinarity into under-

standing the production (e.g., etiology, causes) and reduction (e.g., prevention, punishment)

of individual and also institutional or structural forms and relations of criminal violence.

Organizationally, the book is divided into six sections: introduction, tools, types of criminal

violence, violence in specific settings and contexts, terrorism, and the conclusion. The first

and sixth sections consist respectively of an introductory chapter, “Violence and Criminal

Violence,” and a concluding chapter, “Prevention and Punishment.” Although the first

chapter works well in preparing the reader for what is to come, I have two criticisms.

First, I think the discussion on sanctioned or legitimate violence here and in other places

in the book is too limited and divorced from the unsanctioned and illegitimate forms of

criminal violence. Second, the definition of violence used from the National Research

Council’s Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior is an inadequate

one: “behavior by persons against a person that intentionally threatens, attempts, or actually

inflicts physical harm.” This definition does not allow for an accounting of the full range

of criminal harms within and across societies, past, present, or future.