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Thinking About Crime
As crime rates inexorably rose during the tumultuous years of the 1970s, disputes over how to handle the violence sweeping the nation quickly escalated. James Q. Wilson redefined the public debate by offering a brilliant and provocative new argument--that criminal activity is largely rational and shaped by the rewards and penalties it offers--and forever changed the way Americans think about crime. Now with a new foreword by the prominent scholar and best-selling author Charles Murray, this revised edition of Thinking About Crime introduces a new generation of readers to the theories and ideas that have been so influential in shaping the American justice system.
311 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1977
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402 people want to read
About the author
James Q. Wilson
223 books52 followersJames Q. Wilson was one of the leading contemporary criminologists in the United States. Wilson, who has taught at several major universities during his academic career, has also written on economics and politics during his lengthy career. During the 1960s and 1970s, Wilson voiced concerns about trying to address the social causes of crime. He argued instead that public policy is most effective when it focuses on objective matters like the costs and benefits of crime. Wilson views criminals as rational human beings who will not commit crimes when the costs associated with crime become impractical.
James Q. Wilson most recently taught at Boston College and Pepperdine University. He was Professor Emeritus of Management and Public Administration at UCLA and was previously Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University. He wrote more than a dozen books on the subjects of public policy, bureaucracy, and political philosophy. He was president of the American Political Science Association, and he is the only political scientist to win three of the four lifetime achievement awards presented by the APSA. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in 2003.
Professor Wilson passed away in March of 2012 after battling cancer. His work helped shape the field of political science in the United States. His many years of service to his American Government book remain evident on every page and will continue for many editions to come.
James Q. Wilson most recently taught at Boston College and Pepperdine University. He was Professor Emeritus of Management and Public Administration at UCLA and was previously Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University. He wrote more than a dozen books on the subjects of public policy, bureaucracy, and political philosophy. He was president of the American Political Science Association, and he is the only political scientist to win three of the four lifetime achievement awards presented by the APSA. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in 2003.
Professor Wilson passed away in March of 2012 after battling cancer. His work helped shape the field of political science in the United States. His many years of service to his American Government book remain evident on every page and will continue for many editions to come.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 31, 2014
Read by assignment for some training I'm doing right now. I overall had the feeling of defeatism. Written in the 1970s it raises some important questions and issues but seemed to be coming from a very limited (white-centric) world view.
July 7, 2015
Thoughtful to a large degree, but other than one or two interesting ideas, doesn't come up with much of anything. Many lines of thought/conclusions come from assumptions that seem to have dropped from the clear blue sky. More ideological than the writer wants to admit. Dry, dull, and out-dated.
May 29, 2018
I had to read this book for a university class and all I can say is that Wilson should really stick with what he knows, which is political science, and far away from sociology.
July 13, 2017
I hate that this guy keeps getting labeled by other reviewers as a conservative, when one of the central points of this book seems to be that there is no real liberal/conservative difference on crime policy. I picked this up because I wanted to learn some basics about criminology. It was so good that I'm worried that I'll never find another (more up to date) book on the subject that will be its equal. I was surprised to find out that virtually everything you hear about crime and punishment is is contradicted by social science. I'm very interested to find out what the social scientists have come up with in the years since this book was published. I'd especially like to know if any more consensus has been reached on some of Wilson's ideas. I know that his ideas on "broken windows" policing were very popular in New York and have now completely flipped and are very unpopular. And the words "mass incarceration" are ringing in every ear today, but are not addressed in the book. Wilson's book is definitely not for everyone. And I mean specifically that it's probably not for you. But if every criminology book were this well written we'd all know more about it.
May 28, 2017
Interesting to read a conservative approach to thinking about crime policies. However, this revised edition was published in 1983, and some of the assertions made by Wilson are quite outdated and are contradicted by scientific evidence.
January 15, 2024
An influential, thoughtful book about crime from (the very much needed and underappreciated) perspective more sympathetic to victims than criminals. Its flaw is its publication date, which means that Wilson didn't apply his elegant thinking to subsequent studies (and, in particular, the general decline in crime). A useful update is Rafael Mangual's Criminal Injustice published in 2022, which the author does intend as a sequel to this.
"To oversimplify a bit, the liberal position crime in the late 1960s and early 1970s was, first, to deny that crime was rising and to imply that public concern about 'crime in the streets' was simply a rhetorical cover for racist sentiments; second, to state that if, by any chance, crime was increasing, it was the result of a failure to invest enough tax money in federal programs aimed at unemployment and poverty; and third, to the extent crime might occur even after such investments, the proper strategy was to rehabilitate offenders in therapeutic facilities located in the community rather than in prisons."
Most famously: "Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)"
"Rehabilitation works only if the values, preferences, or time-horizon of criminals can be altered by plan. There is not much evidence that we can make these alterations for large numbers of persons... Incapacitation… works by definition: its effects result from the physical restraint placed upon the offender and not from his subjective state."
"One such argument is: 'The United States already imprisons a larger proportion of its population than any other civilized nation, or at least any civilized nation outside the Soviet bloc.' This is like disproving the need for hospitals by saying that the United States already hospitalizes a larger fraction of its population than any other nation. It implies that we are sending people to prison without any regard to the number of crimes committed (or sending them to hospitals without regard to whether they are sick.) The proper question is whether we imprison a higher fraction of those arrested, prosecuted, and convicted than do other nations. No comprehensive international data exist on this subject, but such comparisons as do exist suggest that the argument that this country over-imprisons is, to say the least, questionable.""
"If objective conditions affect crime rates, then the full statement must be: 'Men steal because the net benefits of stealing exceed the net benefits of working.' In other words, persons who explain the rise in crime by the absence of jobs should, by the force of their own logic, be prepared to explain it also by the absence of penalties. But they rarely do."
Concludes: "Rehabilitation has not yet been shown to be a promising method for dealing with serious offenders, broad-gauge investments in social progress have little near-term effect on crime rates, punishment is not an unworthy objective for the criminal justice system of a free and liberal society to pursue, the evidence supports (though cannot conclusively prove) the view that deterrence and incapacitation work, and new crime-control techniques ought to be tried in a frankly experimental manner with a heavy emphasis on objective evaluation"
"To oversimplify a bit, the liberal position crime in the late 1960s and early 1970s was, first, to deny that crime was rising and to imply that public concern about 'crime in the streets' was simply a rhetorical cover for racist sentiments; second, to state that if, by any chance, crime was increasing, it was the result of a failure to invest enough tax money in federal programs aimed at unemployment and poverty; and third, to the extent crime might occur even after such investments, the proper strategy was to rehabilitate offenders in therapeutic facilities located in the community rather than in prisons."
Most famously: "Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)"
"Rehabilitation works only if the values, preferences, or time-horizon of criminals can be altered by plan. There is not much evidence that we can make these alterations for large numbers of persons... Incapacitation… works by definition: its effects result from the physical restraint placed upon the offender and not from his subjective state."
"One such argument is: 'The United States already imprisons a larger proportion of its population than any other civilized nation, or at least any civilized nation outside the Soviet bloc.' This is like disproving the need for hospitals by saying that the United States already hospitalizes a larger fraction of its population than any other nation. It implies that we are sending people to prison without any regard to the number of crimes committed (or sending them to hospitals without regard to whether they are sick.) The proper question is whether we imprison a higher fraction of those arrested, prosecuted, and convicted than do other nations. No comprehensive international data exist on this subject, but such comparisons as do exist suggest that the argument that this country over-imprisons is, to say the least, questionable.""
"If objective conditions affect crime rates, then the full statement must be: 'Men steal because the net benefits of stealing exceed the net benefits of working.' In other words, persons who explain the rise in crime by the absence of jobs should, by the force of their own logic, be prepared to explain it also by the absence of penalties. But they rarely do."
Concludes: "Rehabilitation has not yet been shown to be a promising method for dealing with serious offenders, broad-gauge investments in social progress have little near-term effect on crime rates, punishment is not an unworthy objective for the criminal justice system of a free and liberal society to pursue, the evidence supports (though cannot conclusively prove) the view that deterrence and incapacitation work, and new crime-control techniques ought to be tried in a frankly experimental manner with a heavy emphasis on objective evaluation"
January 12, 2023
Despite its age, the book still holds up as a useful framework for thinking about crime. The book raises many interesting questions about the causes of crime and policies for dealing with it. Among other topics, the author discusses policing practices, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. The questions raised by the author and the difficulties in answering them are essentially the same issues facing researchers today. One benefit of the book's age is that the writing is more candid and clearheaded than most modern writing on the subject.
While the book provides a useful framework for thinking about crime, readers should consult more recent empirical research regarding the topics discussed in the book. There have been significant advances in empirical methods for researching crime since Thinking About Crime was last revised. That is not to say that the studies mentioned in the book are necessarily wrong, only that they are far from the final word.
While the book provides a useful framework for thinking about crime, readers should consult more recent empirical research regarding the topics discussed in the book. There have been significant advances in empirical methods for researching crime since Thinking About Crime was last revised. That is not to say that the studies mentioned in the book are necessarily wrong, only that they are far from the final word.
July 24, 2023
Read by assignment for some training I'm doing right now. I overall had the feeling of defeatism. Written in the 1970s it raises some important questions and issues but seemed to be coming from a very limited (white-centric) world view.
Want to read
October 31, 2025Classic work by scholar who posited broken windows theory.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 27, 2010
Thought provoking work by a top notch political scientist. His basic theme (Page xi): ". . .the proper design of public policies requires a clear and sober understanding of the nature of man and, above all, the extent to which that nature can be changed." Wilson begins by debunking a number of widely held views about crime, such as that "crime is an expression of the political rage of the dispossessed. . . " The chapters follow one upon the other, suggesting interesting views (not all of which I agree with). For instance, the chaspter on policy-community relations.
All in all, still worth a read after many intervening years.
All in all, still worth a read after many intervening years.
September 22, 2011
Although I haven't read his "Bureaucracy," which looks as dull as its subject, I'm inclined to call this Wilson's masterpiece. Philosophically rich, well-argued and supported, plenty of original insights. One thing Wilson does well is guide you through the criminological debates that have informed his views.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews