This book will change the way you look at crime.
‘Crime has been with us since Adam and Eve and, surprisingly, God didn’t spot the solution. Rather than punishing the miscreants it might have been better if he had put the forbidden fruit higher up the tree.
It really is true that opportunity makes the thief. To a vast extent, it also creates the football hooligan, drink-driver, knife-wielding youth, sex offender, violent lover, fraudster and murderer too.’
In a whirlwind demolition of dozens of misconceptions about crime, Nick Ross proposes what is arguably the most radical re-think of crime policy since the dawn of policing. Setting conventional thinking on its head CRIME challenges everything we take for granted. Nick Ross demonstrates why the criminal justice system has little effect on crime rates, how policing has been hijacked to serve the needs of lawyers, and how ‘facts’ about crime are continually manipulated to serve the needs of politicians and the media.
This extraordinary book confronts assumptions that crime is caused by poverty or moral decay and instead reveals the true drivers of theft, violence and anti-social behaviour. It explains why crime rocketed and why it has fallen so precipitously. Most importantly, CRIME sets out a wide-ranging strategy for revolutionising criminal and policing policy.
It will delight those who come to it with an open mind and infuriate ideologues from left, right and centre.
Above all CRIME is a book every Home Secretary and opinion-former ought to read.
‘Brilliant. Incisive and full of insights. A voice of sanity amongst the politicking and posturing that comes with tackling crime.’ – Fiona Bruce
‘A fascinating and beautifully written corrective to the many myths and false legends surrounding the issues of crime and punishment, from fraud to paedophilia. Nick Ross’s book is an evidence-rich zone which our policymakers – and we as citizens – would do well to spend some time in.’ – David Aaronovitch
‘Every Home Secretary and PCC should read this book.’ – Lord Imbert
‘I was buoyed by Nick Ross’s extraordinarily effective book, putting into such effective language the need to challenge so much of what is said.’ – Herman Goldstein, father of problem-priented policing (POP)
CRIME is the result of twenty years’ experience working with police and victims and ten years’ research to find out what makes crime rates ebb and flow. This is a major work that explodes fallacies and entreats us to be more sceptical.
CRIME will delight those who come to it with an open mind and infuriate ideologues from left, right and centre.
About the author
Nick Ross spent almost 25 years presenting Crimewatch, working closely with police, advising Victim Support and Crimestoppers and serving on several government committees. Yet despite his background in detection he became disillusioned with the idea that we could arrest our way out of crime and turned to research, eventually inspiring the new discipline, Crime Science. After the murder of his colleague he proposed and helped create the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London which is now a major department. He is a visiting professor at UCL and an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Experimental Criminologists.
His was for many years one of Britain’s best-known broadcasters and documentary makers and has long been involved in promoting science and bioethics. He is chairman, president, an ambassador or a trustee for several charities.
More comments from serialisation of the book
‘A book that explodes myths like a flail in a minefield.’
‘Whatever you thought you knew about crime, prepared to be amazed.’
‘A real eye-opener.’
‘A stunning achievement that sweeps across social policy, politics and science.’
‘Meticulously researched.’
‘Tears apart almost everything you thoyught you knew about crime’ ‘‘For the first time a convincing explanation of why crime rocketed, then plunged.’
‘I learned something fascinating on every page.’
‘Provocative and unafraid to be politically incorrect.’
‘Accessible and masterful.’
‘Helpfully shows us a rationalist way forward’
‘What the Home Secretary and every opinion-former ought to know about.’
‘This is a book everyone should read.’
