Crime And the American Dream

CRIME AND THE AMERICAN DREAM is the seminal work in a major segment of criminological theory by Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld, both highly respected scholars and researchers. This is a theory book that students will actually understand, with a very clear and accessible writing style. The foundation of the book is institutional anomie theory (an offshoot of Mertonian anomie theory), which the authors posit helps explain why America's over-emphasis on the pursuit of materialistic gain contributes to the country's high rate of violent crime.

Steven F. Messner is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and has taught at Columbia University and Nankai University in the People's Republic of China. His research has focused primarily on the relationship between features of social organization and violent crime rates. His other books include PERSPECTIVES ON CRIME AND DEVIANCE, (with Allen E. Liska), THEORETICAL INTEGRATION IN THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE AND CRIME, (with Marvin D. Krohn and Allen E. Liska), and CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN A CHANGING CHINA (with Jianhong Liu and Lening Zhang). Dr. Messner has also authored numerous articles and book chapters on the topic of criminal violence and is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.

Richard Rosenfeld is a Curators Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a past President of the American Society of Criminology. He has written several articles on violent crime, crime statistics, and crime control policy, and his current research focuses on explaining changes in crime rates over time. He is an ASC Fellow and has served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and Justice.