Epidemiological Criminology E-Book

Timothy A Akers

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 778

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Epidemiological Criminology: A Public Health Approach to Crimeand Violence Epidemiological Criminology offers an introduction to thesources and methods of epidemiological criminology and shows how toapply these methods to some of the most vexing problems nowconfronting researchers and practitioners in public healthepidemiology, criminology, and criminal justice. The book describes, explains, and applies the newly formulatedpractice of epidemiological criminology, an emerging disciplinethat finds the intersection across theories, methods, andstatistical models of public health with their corresponding toolsof criminal justice and criminology. The authors show how to applyepidemiological criminology as a practical tool to addresspopulation issues of violence and crime nationally and globally. Inaddition, they look at future directions and the application ofthis emerging field in corrections, public health and law, gangsand gang violence, victimology, mental health and substance abuse,environmental justice, international human rights, and globalterrorism. For students, the book presents an exciting approach tounderstanding epidemiology as a means with which to tackle some ofthe worst problems for vulnerable populations. For researchers andpolicymakers, the book offers a new methodological perspective thatrecognizes the significance of social disparities and the builtenvironment as factors in the formulation of public health policy,and provides a tool with which to produce more effectiveinterventions, preventive measures, and policy formulations.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Figures and Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Authors

Introduction: Crime, Criminal Justice, Health, and Victims

Part One: Foundation for an Emerging Paradigm: Epidemiological Criminology

Chapter 1: Establishing a Historical Framework for Epidemiological Criminology

The War on Poverty

The War on Crime

The War on Drugs

The War on Terror

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 2: Where Two Worlds Collide

Roots and Forks in the Road

History

Determining When or Where to Start an Investigation

Defining an Emerging Paradigm

Epidemiological Criminology

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 3: The Lexicon of Terminology

Scientific and Practice Integration: Building an Emerging Paradigm

Theories and Models: An Integrative Paradigm

Theories and Models: Framing the Paradigm

Units of Analysis

Health and Crime: Biomedical and Behavioral Disparities

Prevention Interventions

Causation: The Epidemiologic Triad

Conclusion

Summary

Part Two: Theories, Concepts, and Methods

Chapter 4: Criminology, Criminal Justice, and the Social Sciences

Criminology

Criminal Justice

Where Does That Leave Epidemiological Criminology?

Public Health

Lessons from the Foundation of Sociology

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 5: Research Methods in Epidemiology and Criminology

Surveillance or Monitoring?

Monitoring, Surveillance, and Epidemiological Criminology

Method, Technique, and Theory

The Evidence Base

In the Field and on the Streets

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 6: Integrating the Interdisciplinary Sciences

Criminogenics: The Evidence Base of Individual Criminal Behavior

Propensity Versus Typology: How Changeable Are Criminogenics?

Dynamic Risks

Implications for Public Health Interventions

Social Learning and Social Structure: Moving Evidence to the Next Social Levels

Epidemiological Criminology Implications for Public Health Interventions

Conclusion

Summary

Part Three: Applying Epidemiological Criminology in Practice and Policy

Chapter 7: Health Disparities and Epidemiological Criminology

Health Disparities

Conceptualizing Criminogenic Health Disparities

Conceptualizing Epidemiological Criminology and Disparities

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 8: Incarceration and Epidemiological Criminology

The Organizational Ecology of Incarceration

Incarceration by Police

Juvenile Detention: A Snapshot

The Process of Incarceration

The Epidemiology of Incarceration: The Importance of Process

Criminal Records

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 9: The Health of Correctional Populations

Competing Images: Magic Castles and Houses of Horror

Juvenile Detention

Jail

Health of Jail Inmates

Health of Prisoners

HIV: An Exemplar of Where One Looks and How

Reentry to the Community

Implications for Epidemiological Criminology

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 10: Recidivism and Epidemiological Criminology

Why Measure Recidivism?

Defining and Measuring Recidivism

How Much Recidivism?

Who Returns to Prison?

Jails and Recidivism

Health Recidivism

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 11: Gang Violence and Adolescent Membership

Biopsychosocial and Environmental Determinants

Micro-, Meso-, and Macroinfluences

Epidemiology of Gangs and Gang Violence

An Integrated Approach

Health Behavior and Criminal Behavior

Biomedical Disparities and Behavioral Disparities

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 12: Criminality, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health

Criminalization

Mental Illness, Crime, and Criminal Justice

Mental Illness and Epidemiological Criminology

Substance Abuse

Substance Abuse and Epidemiological Criminology

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 13: Victims and Victimization

Victims and Victimology

The Academy Discovers Victims

The Role of Place: Geography and Victimization

Routine Activities

The Health Industrial Complex Discovers Victims

Measuring Victims

Violence and Epidemiological Criminology

Conclusion

Summary

Part Four: Future Direction and Trends

Chapter 14: Environmental Justice and the Epidemiology of Crime

What Is Environment? What Is Justice?

The Traditional Epidemiological Approach: What Is Missing?

Segregation and Health

Residential Segregation and Criminal Behavior

Environmental Justice and Epidemiological Criminology

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 15: Global and Domestic Terrorism

Epidemiology of Terrorism

Epidemiological Criminology as an Integrated Paradigm

Biopsychosocial and Environmental Makeup of Terrorism and Terrorists

Micro-, Meso-, and Macroinfluences

Health Behavior and Criminal Behavior

Biomedical Disparities and Behavioral Disparities

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 16: Criminal Law, Public Health Law, and the Epidemiological Criminology Framework

Criminal Law, Public Health Law, and Social Control

Whose Interests?

Law and Epidemiological Criminology

Values

Conclusion

Summary

Chapter 17: International Human Rights and Human Trafficking

What Is a Right?

Does the Epidemiological Criminology Framework Fit Human Rights?

A General Model of Trafficking

Trafficking Networks

Individual Traffickers and Individual Victims

Responding to Human Trafficking from an Epidemiological Criminology Framework

Conclusion

Summary

References

Further Reading

Index

Cover photo credit: © Peeterv/istock

Cover design: Jeff Puda

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Akers, Timothy A., 1961-

Epidemiological criminology : a public health approach to crime and violence / Timothy A. Akers, Roberto H. Potter, Carl V. Hill. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-63889-7 (pbk.), ISBN 978-1-118-22083-2 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-23155-5 (ebk), ISBN 978-1-118-25913-9 (ebk)

I. Potter, Roberto Hugh. II. Hill, Carl V., 1973- III. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Epidemiologic Methods. 2. Crime. 3. Criminology—methods. 4. Violence. WA 950]

614.4—dc23

2012033731

FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures

Figure I.1

Risk, Deviance, Crime, and Health Framework

Figure 1.1

U.S. Policy Strategies Since the 1960s

Figure 1.2

Crime and Poverty Rates, 1960–2009

Figure 1.3

Outcome of Exposure to Poverty or Crime

Figure 1.4

Relationship Between Criminal and Victim

Figure 2.1

Epidemiological Criminology Framework

Figure 3.1

Systematic Framework of Theory and Practice Relationship

Figure 3.2

Conceptual Model of Public Health and Criminal Justice Prevention

Figure 7.1

Broad Street Pump Sites and Cholera Cases: London Epidemic of 1854

Figure 8.1

Sequence of Events in the Criminal Justice System

Figure 11.1

B’MORE! Youth Gang Violence Prevention Strategies

Figure 11.2

Health Behavior and Criminal Behavior Prevention Model

Figure 14.1

An Environmental Justice Process from an Epidemiological Criminology Perspective

Figure 15.1

Terrorist Incidents in the United States, 1980–2005

Figure 15.2

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Terrorism and Terrorists from an Epidemiological Criminology Perspective

Figure 15.3

A Conceptual Framework for Organizing Prevention Interventions Across Behaviors and Interdisciplinary Theories from an Epidemiological Criminology Perspective

Tables

Table 1.1

Crime Rate and Drug Arrests, by Population and Year

Table 1.2

Percentage Changes by Years and Crime

Table 2.1

Relationship Between Public Health and Criminology Theory

Table 3.1

Selected Criminological Theories

Table 5.1

Comparison of Public Health and Criminal Justice Approaches to Violent Behavior and Prevention Levels

Table 8.1

Number of Crimes Officially Reported to Police, 1993–2008

Table 9.1

Medical Problems Reported by Jail Inmates and Prisoners, 2002 and 2004 (by Percentage)

Table 9.2

HIV Seroprevalence Studies in Correctional Systems

Table 10.1

Measuring Recidivism: A Comparison of National-Level Studies

Table 11.1

Gang Violence Prevention and Determinants Model

Table 11.2

Gang Membership and Gang Violence by Determinants and Level of Analysis

Table 11.3

Demographic Trends of Gang Members by Year (by Percentage)

Table 11.4

Demographic Characteristics of Gang Members by Area (by Percentage)

Table 12.1

Substance Dependence or Abuse and Mental Health Problems of Jail Inmates and Prisoners

Table 15.1

A Conceptual Framework for Comparative Analysis Between Domestic and International Terrorism from an Epidemiological Criminology Perspective of Determinants

Table 15.2

A Conceptual Framework for Comparative Analysis Across Micro-, Meso-, and Macroinfluences from an Epidemiological Criminology Perspective of Determinants

Table 15.3

Conceptual Model to Compare Disparities by Scientific Discipline

Table 16.1

Criminal and Civil Laws: Source, Process, and Penalty

PREFACE

The fundamental premise of this book, Epidemiological Criminology, is that it is important to adapt to the ever-changing scientific, theoretical, conceptual, and methodological landscape of different disciplines by learning how to gain new insight into issues and problems from various perspectives. The science and practice of epidemiology and public health, and of criminology and criminal justice, are our focus. Their individual disciplines are evolving to reflect the changing demographics, structures, and environments in which they thrive, which have compelled all of them to adjust to various points of view while not sacrificing their fundamental precepts. Epidemiology, for example, and its disciplinary counterpart, public health, share a common bond of a focus on disease.

History has taught us that as new facts arise, what may have been considered a fact may now need to adapt to new evidence, thereby altering and changing our once strongly held worldview or scientific view. Throughout this book, we weave together four scientific and practice-based disciplines: epidemiology, public health, criminology, and criminal justice. This tapestry of disciplines has formed the basis for developing a working definition of epidemiological criminology. Akers and Lanier (2009) broached this process by describing “epidemiological theories, principles, practices, methods, and models [as] directly. . . related to epistemological and etiological approaches to criminology as a discipline and science” (p. 399). Potter and Akers (2010) further defined epidemiological criminology as “an epistemological and etiological integration of the theories, methods, practices, and technologies used in public health and criminal justice that incorporates the broader interdisciplinary framework of epidemiology and criminology” (p. 598). The unique quality of an emerging epidemiological criminology paradigm is the hypothesis that the same and similar risk dimensions that underlie criminal behaviors also underlie health risk behaviors. These descriptions serve as the foundation for our emerging paradigm of epidemiological criminology.

We introduce each risk factor as we examine in depth the determinants or causal influences that intersect these seemingly diverse and different disciplines. For example, causal factors that may affect or help determine a specific health or behavioral outcome may consist of filth, family dynamics, poverty, blight, nutrition, crime, mental health, substance abuse, and a host of other determinants and causal factors. Knowing the associative and determinant causal factor can help us better understand a disease state or crime events that may be plaguing individuals, families, institutions, or communities.

This book does not bias or show favor to any particular political view or scientific perspective. Rather it seeks to offer an objective, analytical depth of understanding that can help to stimulate and illustrate different ways of examining specific issues that intersect the health-crime nexus. It is also critical to note that this book is not a rehashing or resurrection of earlier versions of the medical model of crime, where crime is seen as a disease, thereby shifting blame away from individual behavior. If anything, we probably subscribe more to a modest variation of the neoclassical view of behavior in which individuals have free will and are expected to take greater responsibility for their own actions and behavior.

To illustrate the neoclassical review of behavior, we can ask the following series of questions, which should stimulate where the divergence and convergence of epidemiological criminology begin:

If we smoke four packs of cigarettes a day and it is later determined that we have lung cancer, are we partially to blame?

If we have unprotected sex with known carriers of HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases and we become infected, are we or they partially to blame?

If we go on a drinking binge one evening and drive intoxicated, later learning that we hit and killed pedestrians who were not in the crosswalk but we cannot remember, are we or they partially to blame?

If we bully kids at school with a weapon and victims are killed because they chose to stand up for themselves, are we or they partially to blame?

If we were beaten and abused as children and we later beat and abused our children, who die from the injuries we inflicted, are we or they partially to blame?

If we grew up in squalor in an impoverished and crime-infected neighborhood, and we later rob, steal, rape, and commit violent acts, are we partially to blame, or should we blame the victims, community, or society?

These are the types of questions and events that trigger a public health and criminal justice analytical response.

This book is not about shifting blame away from an individual toward something or someone else, or about directing the reader’s focus on rehabilitation efforts. Rather, we have structured this book to identify where health and crime share common risk and protective factors, or complex determinants. This approach will help in identifying associations and causes, methods, and analytical techniques that might be used or directed back toward an analysis of the individual. Our intent is to more fully understand actions taken at the micro (individuals), meso (families, groups, or communities), and macro (society) levels that follow a chain of causal pathways to across the health and crime nexus.

Researchers and practitioners who study the biological and social complexities of human behavior and action are encouraged to adopt, expand, and develop new methods and tools of epidemiology in order to extend the possibilities of its application to other sciences and practices (March & Susser, 2006).

The Development of This Book

One of us (Tim Akers) began conceptualizing epidemiological criminology in the early 1980s. Through his occupational and academic experience in law enforcement, criminal justice, and criminology, followed by academic experience and a career in public health, he began seeing this relationship and realized there were virtually no clear and independent models that explained these commonalities. The few models that did exist were discussed in the context of their individual disciplines, not as an integrated interdisciplinary model of health and crime.

What Is Unique About Epidemiological Criminology?

The first time Timothy Akers broached the topic of epidemiological criminology to R. H. Potter, Potter’s first comment was: “Tim, what’s new? Criminologists have been doing epidemiology since the beginning.” So began the incubation period. We three coauthors spent the next decade trying to figure out what was different and unique about this approach. One of the reviewers of the first draft of the manuscript for this book asked basically the same question and echoed a statement often heard when broaching topics we cover in the book: “Everybody knows this . . .” Yet another anonymous reviewer said, “Wow! This is completely new to me!” Most likely these various commenters were from different disciplines. Such is the case across interdisciplinary thinking and modeling building.

Our position is that what everyone seems to know is rarely articulated in either the academic literature or applied practice. One of the first things that struck us (we have all worked in violence prevention) was that public health epidemiologists did not know the history of research in the fields of delinquency, domestic violence, or interpersonal violence in general. The criminologists in the group of public health violence prevention researchers seemed hesitant to bring forth past criminological and sociological research. Such research, when presented, was often discounted unless it fit with the advocacy position of the public health violence prevention model. There seemed to be no role for the theories that had developed around these behaviors by social scientists.

Two of us (Akers and Hill) also began inquiring why health disparities research was placed in public health or criminal justice silos. When we looked into the disparities, we saw that a theme emerged when integrating health and crime disparities: there are common factors that researchers, practitioners, and policymakers tacitly acknowledge but do not necessarily discuss together.

When Akers, Potter, and Hill found themselves working in CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHSTP), we were curious about why deviance and criminological theories were not among the theories used to explain risky sexual behaviors. Theories from substance abuse research (for example, stages-of-change models) seemed to dominate, and many of them were developed with criminal justice-involved persons as the objects of study. Although some colleagues who researched sexually transmitted disease risk behaviors among criminal justice–involved populations later alluded to some of the previous research and explanatory schemes that we introduced to them, they were generally dismissive of the ideas from criminology and criminal justice researchers. In the broader public health literature, discoveries of relationships among health outcomes and social variables such as education, socioeconomic status, and marital status seemed remarkably similar to the published findings of medical sociologists in the 1970s and 1980s, and earlier in some instances.

On the criminology and criminal justice sides of the equation, we found that many of our colleagues were unaware of the work on crime-related issues from the public health domain. Partly this was because those affiliated with the public health sector were already well established in the core disciplines that contributed to the criminology arena and continued to publish in journals sponsored by the American Sociological Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. The epidemiology work done by this collection of anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and others in core social science disciplines might be published in public health and medical sources, but it was still viewed basically as criminological or other social science research. The public health approach was recognized as a basic applied science model similar to that developed by social psychologist Kurt Lewin in the late 1940s.

In short, what struck us was that what “everybody knows” tends to be what they know about a sliver of a larger interaction among deviance, criminological, and health outcomes research and theory. What was lacking was an integrative framework to pull these strands together to develop a more comprehensive approach to factors and variables that produce both poor health outcomes (including injury and victimization) and criminal justice involvement.

Our theoretical position is that epidemiological criminology provides a first step toward stimulating new thought and integrating a variety of theories and empirical research strands that can address both poor health outcomes and criminal justice involvement. We hope that exposing researchers and theorists to the various disciplines and interdisciplinary areas whose work overlaps each other will lead to more collaborative research and stimulate stronger interdisciplinary theory. Our goal is to stimulate research that will have practice implications to develop prevention and intervention programs that achieve both positive health outcomes and lower levels of involvement in criminal behaviors.

In short, we postulate that epidemiological criminology will bring what “everybody knows” into a framework that allows a more effective exchange of knowledge about the broader interdisciplinary relationships among health and criminal outcomes. We do not claim that this one book will accomplish this integration. This book is in fact only the first step. We hope, however, that it will stimulate new students, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and interested laypersons, our audience for this book, to think in a broader framework than any one of the core disciplines in health and criminality. If we can stimulate established researchers to think more broadly about these linkages, then all the better. If epidemiological criminology provides an intellectual space for critique, reformulation, and expansion of knowledge about the relationships among poor health and criminal outcomes—what “everybody knows”—we will have accomplished the task we set for ourselves—at least, for this first edition.

In the mid-1990s, when two of us (Akers and Roberto Hugh Potter) began working together at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we shared our common, diverse, and sometimes divergent perspectives on how we both saw these relationships. Over a lot of coffee and lunches, and through many arguments, debates, and presentations, we found common ground and mutual understanding about the model. Potter, a sociologist and criminologist, kept the interdisciplinary richness of the social sciences in the forefront in these discussions. A bit later, Carl Hill, who also began working at the CDC, entered into the fray of these discussions. Hill, whose academic and professional background is in public health, combined with a driving passion in health disparities and social justice, kept us grounded in the applicability of this work to all groups that could benefit from it.

The three of us have developed a common understanding that anchors the epidemiological criminology paradigm, which started a ripple effect throughout many in the CDC and other environments. Others have since taken up these discussions, which have resulted in an outpouring of published work. This book reflects the best we have to share with students, educators, researchers, scientists, practitioners, and policymakers. We trust you will enjoy reading it as much as we did conceptualizing and writing it!

Organization of the Book

The book is divided into four main parts, each focusing on substantive issues that intersect the disease-crime nexus.

Part One provides an overview of the historical events that led to the intersection of epidemiology and criminology. Starting with the war on poverty in the 1960s and 1970s, continuing with the war on crime in the 1960s to 1980s, then on to the war on drugs, which also included the 1990s, and finally to the war on terrorism, these metaphors capture the behavioral and social mind-set during these national structural shifts in policy. Part One also introduces readers to a time that stretches back centuries when epidemiology and criminology were sharing similar methods while incubating their individual sciences. These chapters set out the epidemiological criminology framework that undergirds this book. The chapters in Part One also introduce the lexicon and theories of these disciplines, along with their similarities and differences. We hope that the conceptual diagrams in these three chapters will begin stimulating new thoughts and ideas.

Part Two guides readers down a path that illustrates how different disciplines share similar origins and how the social and behavioral sciences have integrated their theories. The chapters in this part set out the many complex issues confronting disciplines that are interested in aberrant, deviant, and criminal behavior. Our goal was that as readers move from chapter to chapter, they will appreciate the importance of understanding the research methods that can be used to bridge the sciences of epidemiology and criminology, as well as public health and criminal justice. What may at times appear to be redundancies are in fact our deliberate attempts at helping readers who might choose to read chapters out of sequence. We in fact recognize that most readers will thumb through different chapters, depending on their interests. These few redundancies in the book around concepts and topics are a way to help readers avoid missing salient and important points, concepts, and topics. We felt that readers might need chapters that address their individual disciplines and also chapters that discuss and frame the importance of interdisciplinary sciences and their theoretical foundations. We are optimistic that Part Two accomplishes this task.

Part Three serves as the core, substantive focus of this book. It offers topics that seem almost inherently epidemiological or criminological. However, through our strategy, we have woven a tapestry of important subjects, all the while demonstrating how the emerging discipline of epidemiological criminology can serve as a guiding framework that integrates public health with criminal justice, alongside epidemiology with criminological theory. Topics range from health disparities to victimization. We introduce the model of epidemiological criminology as an emerging and innovative way of examining long-held beliefs and assumptions, or methods and critical analyses. We look at the actual as well as the theoretical richness of this material. Gangs and violence, prisons and recidivism, substance abuse and mental health all anchor how the epidemiological criminology model can be applied and understood practically and scientifically.

Whereas the chapters in Parts One to Three look at new ways to examine long-followed issues such as gangs, violence, and substance abuse, Part Four introduces emerging issues that will be with us for decades to come unless we create new models of prevention that take into account their public health and criminal justice impact. For example, the environments in which we work, live, and play are coming under attack by toxins, blight, and crime. We often do not think of where there might be justice in an environment that is fraught with physical and social despair. Nor do we think about the impact that intentional acts of terrorism can have on our health, environment, and liberties. The final chapters in this book thus focus on topics that are only now becoming clear. Our task in this book is to help nudge the scientific and policy community by bringing about an awareness of these issues and provide tools that can stimulate thinking and action. From environmental justice to human trafficking, the epidemiological criminology paradigm is serving as the intersection between health and crime outcomes.

We did not set out to write a book that exhaustively treats all the theories in public health, epidemiology, criminal justice, and criminology. Rather, we give homage to the scholars and researchers, practitioners and policymakers who have made it their life’s work to study a particular theory or policy. Our goal instead has been to introduce an emerging paradigm, an emerging discipline at the intersection of public health and criminal justice, one at the intersection of epidemiology and criminology. To date, there has not been any such theory. We often hear anecdotally that researchers and policymakers look at health and crime outcomes in which they see their relationships, intersections, or overlaps. Yet there is no overarching or unifying theory that introduces to students, educators, researchers, scientists, policymakers, journalists, and citizens an emerging, easily understood scientific tool that is balanced and makes sense.

Finally, in examining a great deal of work that focuses on violence or public health, or infectious disease and criminal justice—as in the case of the prison system—we have noticed that very little published work provides conceptual models that depict these complex relationships. Throughout this book, we provide a plethora of models that illustrate relationships or help to contextualize events or complex subjects. We have found that it is easier to understand complex topics by means of illustration. Although we have not addressed these issues in depth due to space limitations, there are selected topics that we feel are also emerging threats that need greater attention: cybercrime, bullying, crime and violence on college campuses, human trafficking, new terrorism, and the vulnerability of electronic health records. These are areas whose applicability we plan to study from an epidemiological criminology perspective. Our ultimate goal is to provide a theoretical and conceptual tool that others can use to frame their analysis around topics not otherwise addressed in greater detail in this book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Timothy A. Akers: Writing the acknowledgments is not as simple as one may think. Trying to recognize so many people who have helped to guide and mentor an author in such an endeavor as a book, especially a book that is introducing an emerging paradigm, becomes an almost overwhelming process indeed. Regrettably and invariably, some of those who have been very important to one’s growth and development will be inadvertently excluded, having become a shadow memory even while remaining a force in thought. This is my dilemma, my Achilles heel.

I start by reflecting on my first set of courses in policing, investigation, security, and counterterrorism during my early training in the U.S. Air Force Security Police Academy at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. To all my instructors who taught this young airman, I salute you. Thank you! Defensor fortis. I also acknowledge the excellent criminal investigations training I received at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming, while I was working full time in the air force and attending courses.

While I was at Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado, my professors and classmates ignited the spark that started the flame for me in both criminal justice and criminology. I was fortunate to study under exceptional scholar-practitioners, the true educators: the late Jackie Lynn Wilson, who wrote on my final paper entitled, “The Probability of Interaction Theory,” which examined the integration of different disciplines, that I should publish it; Richard Jackson, who in the mid-1980s introduced me and other criminal justice students to the little-known disease of AIDS as a way of educating us in how to think and not be afraid of people we would invariably encounter with AIDS in the criminal justice system; and Joseph Sandoval and Walt Copley, who grounded my understanding in the science of criminal justice and criminology and their relationship to other disciplines. Little did anyone know that this solemn student was listening and absorbing the wisdom these professors imparted.

I owe thanks to my friends, mentors, and professors who taught me how to think beyond any one perspective while I was studying the complexities of criminal justice and criminology at Michigan State University: Charles Corley, professor of criminal justice, whose conceptual and analytical thinking helped me to see the crime-health nexus in the context of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention; Rosie (Ekpenyong) Rowan, lawyer and professor of criminology, who taught me how to evaluate criminal justice systems; Tim Bynum, professor of criminal justice, who grounded my understanding of the world of corrections; John Hudzik, professor of criminal justice, who taught me to examine the criminal justice systems, planning, and policy as an integrated system; and Frank Horvath, professor of criminal justice, whose astute skills in criminal justice statistics grounded my skills in measurement. And to the late Robert (Bob) Trajanowicz, professor of criminal justice, who provided me an opportunity to advance my study of community policing.

In learning more about urban settings and environmental health issues, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to John Schweitzer, professor of urban studies, whose superior methodological and statistical acumen taught me to embrace the complexities and measurement challenges of interdisciplinary systems thinking; Richard Thomas, professor of history, who taught me how to examine cultural and racial issues with a critical and scientific eye; June Manning Thomas, professor of urban planning, who taught me how to analyze urban policy from diverse perspectives; and Bella Mody, professor of telecommunications and assistant dean of urban affairs, who gave me an opportunity when I needed it the most.

I acknowledge Eckhart Dersch, an environmental scientist, who encouraged me to submit my interdisciplinary environmental health research for international recognition in the area of interorganizational systems and water management where we were both selected and sponsored by Feng Chia University in Taichung, Taiwan, to present our theoretical model. I owe profound thanks and gratitude to George T. Rowan, professor, mentor, and friend, whose advanced knowledge of the many dimensions of disparities led me to expand my thinking in crime and health. He later hired me as his first senior research scientist in the College of Human Medicine’s David Walker Research Institute at Michigan State University, whose mission has been to focus on African American male health disparities. During this time, we researched a tapestry of diverse health-related research topics that affect primarily African American men—diabetes, prostate cancer, HIV/AIDS, technological disparities, gangs, and violence—and many other public health–relevant topics that are the basis of this book. For all that you have done, Dr. Rowan, thank you! I owe you a debt of gratitude that I will always endeavor to repay.

Following my work at MSU, I was fortunate to work with another renowned expert in health disparities, Rueben Warren, former director of the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He clearly saw the relationship between public health and criminal justice, and his guidance and support encouraged me to push the evolution of the concept that I had been mulling over since the late 1980s. Thank you, Dr. Warren! My CDC colleagues Karen Bouye and Juarlyn Gaiter shared in my enthusiasm as the concept of epidemiological criminology began taking shape as an emerging paradigm. Yet if it were not for Roberto Hugh Potter, a former CDC colleague, with whom I shared many cups of coffee, discussions, lunches, and debates, this emerging paradigm of epidemiological criminology may not have continued to take shape. Thank you, Hugh! These accolades need to be extended further to two other key CDC colleagues, Carl Hill and Kevin Williams, when we worked together at the CDC’s Office of Minority Health and then the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention. Carl and Kevin helped me to keep this effort alive when seeking their counsel in its evolution.

I acknowledge and thank Mark Lanier, who coauthored with me “Epidemiological Criminology: Coming Full Circle,” the first article on this topic, which appeared in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009. Hugh Potter introduced us and informed us that we shared a lot in common, especially given our similar research experiences in public health, criminal justice, and criminology. Thanks, Mark!

I thank other colleagues as well: Ron Braithwaite, who helped open the door to the genesis of this book, and Jonathan VanGeest, who endured my rants over twenty-two years ago about the relationship between health and crime during our long drives to the west coast of Michigan (the city will remain nameless) where we were conducting homeless studies and talking our way out of an occasional threat to rob us for the incentives we were giving our homeless study participants. Jonathan has worked alongside me for almost a decade on many diverse research projects, including the establishment of a proposed Joint Center for Epidemiological Criminology. He has been a reliable and trusted confidant and research partner for many years. Thanks, Jonathan, for your unwavering support! I owe thanks to a dear friend from afar, Kathy Rodgers, who gave me encouragement when my energy was low. When I need to vent and brainstorm, she has always been there. Thank you, Kathy.

I do not want to forget someone who helped me to regain the spark of energy I had suppressed: Jim Frederick, my teacher, trainer, and instructor in kenpo karate in Towson, Maryland. There were three times in my life when I really needed discipline and focus: the military, college and graduate school, and writing this book. I attribute this last burst of energy to Jim Frederick who reignited in me the confidence I needed to complete this book. Thank you, Mr. Frederick, for your training and wisdom in the art, science, and discipline of kenpo karate.

Professional societies and journals are critical in any scholastic endeavor because they provide a forum for scientific debate and expression. In particular, I thank the American Journal of Public Health for publishing our seminal article and the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association, specifically, Aaron Mendelsohn (cochair) and the other members, for being an advocate and extending a fifth invitation to organize another successful panel on epidemiological criminology as an emerging paradigm. Thank you, Aaron!

The evolution of this book is also attributable to previous panels that have helped to shape and hone our thinking. My thanks and gratitude extend to all of our panel members over the past few years. A number of important panelists have contributed to epidemiological criminology: Jennifer Adjemian, Paul Archibald, Scott Burris, Kevin Daniels, Ralph DiClemente, Paul Juarez, Robert Pack, Robin Pollini, Stacy Smith, Robin Toblin, Eve Waltermaurer, David Williams, and Jennifer Wood. Many others acknowledged in this book have also served as panelists. Special thanks must be given to our first invited keynote speaker in 2008, Ronald L. Akers, a world-renowned criminologist. He reminded our public health forum that the precepts of epidemiological criminology are not new to criminal justice and criminology per se, but can serve as a binding framework for an emerging relationship between the communities of scholars in health and crime. Thank you, Ron! I can now see!

The publication of this book would have been almost impossible without the steadfast support of our publisher, Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint, and senior editor Andy Pasternack, who has the vision to see the future firsthand. Andy embraced the ethos of epidemiological criminology as a potential new discipline and model and strongly supported our work throughout this process. Andy, thank you for your unyielding support and patience! In addition, Seth Schwartz worked his magic identifying some critical revisions and edits that have helped immeasurably in clarifying our thoughts. Thank you, Seth! And no book would be complete without going through the production process: Mark Karmendy served as our guide and mentor throughout this process. Thank you, Mark! We also thank Mark’s copyediting colleague, Beverly Miller, for her critical edits, reviews, and comments. Thank you, Bev! We give special thanks to peer reviewers Karen E. Bouye, Jamison D. Fargo, Aaron B. Mendelsohn, Robert Pack, Robin A. Pollini, and Bill Sanders for their time and effort. We hope (and believe) we have addressed their rich comments in one way or another.

This book would not have been possible without the sacrifices my family made while my coauthors and I were working on it. My wife, Mary Anne Alabanza Akers, and our daughter, Aubrey, were patient with me during my frequent absences from family life while this book was being written. Many vacations and family time went by way of the wind during that time. And special thanks to my brother, Thom, for his constant support, and my sisters, Debbie, Donna, and Nancy.

Roberto H. Potter: I acknowledge Ron Akers for making the connections between criminal and health behaviors for me even before we met in the late 1970s and for his encouragement over the years to continue pursuing this line of inquiry. Ron also introduced me to Linda Saltzman, who brought me to CDC. My years there gave me opportunities to work with Linda Teplin, Karen Abrams, Linda G. Smith, Richard Tewksbury, Faye Taxman, Steve Blenko, Catherine Gallagher, Ann Dowds, the late Jim Inciardi, and a host of other criminologists whose work brought health issues in criminal justice populations forward. John Miles, Laurie Reid, Karina Rapposelli, Cynthia Crick, Alex Crosby, Monica Swahn, Jeanne Krider, Joanne Kaufman, and a host of public health advisors were inspirational colleagues at CDC, as well as keeping me from engaging in behaviors addressed in this book at various points. I thank Marilyn Moses, the late Andy Goldberg, Alan Beck, Laura Maruschak, Steve Sabol, and Karen Stern at the Office of Justice Programs agencies; Pete Delany, Ken Robertson, David Morrissette, and Elizabeth Crane of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; as well as Redonna Chandler and Bennett Fletcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse for their dedication, support, and inspiration over the years. I also thank those at CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who sought to stifle the work we did on the factual relationships between poor health and health care in the community, criminal behavior, and the criminal justice system. Inspiration comes from many sources.

Surgeons General Richard Carmona and Ken Moritsugu (acting) and staff at the Office of the Surgeon General get special recognition for trying to keep that work alive, even though the draft surgeon general’s call to action on corrections and community health will never see the light of day (and the artificially sweetened, artificially vanilla-flavored version that emerged from “clearance” never should). I also met Tim Akers at CDC, so even through the bipolar nature of my time there, the idea for epidemiological criminology could not have developed without that shared experience. My former colleague here at the University of Central Florida, Mark Lanier, my chair, Bob Langworthy, and others on the faculty have been great critics and new partners in this effort since I returned home. And to my graduate student, Elisa Toman, who read every word! As always, the wonderful Lyndy Potter gets special recognition in keeping me sane and providing intellectual guidance in a loving home. None of this would be possible without her presence.

Carl V. Hill: I acknowledge my mentors, friends, and colleagues—souls of sacrifice—who serve as nobility for worthy aspirations and endeavors. Specifically, I acknowledge the contributions of Mirian Mason, Timothy Akers, Harold W. Neighbors, James Jackson, David Williams, Cleopatra Caldwell, Bill Jenkins, Rueben C. Warren, Helene Gayle, Linda Forys, Patricia Rodney, Emma Frazier, Zara Sadler, Noble Maseru, Robert Wilson, Kevin Williams, Richard Milliones, Bryan K. Lindsey, Roberto Hugh Potter, and Ernest Alema-Mensah.

In the spirit of hope we accepted, Ad astra per aspera. We now faithfully believe in the way.

From all of us: As a shared tribute, we acknowledge and thank our colleagues at the CDC. Many of the agency’s scientists and policy analysts have helped to shape this book. And for all those whom we have not listed, we thank you for helping to nurture the evolution of the field of epidemiological criminology.

THE AUTHORS

Timothy A. Akers is a professor of public health and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Morgan State University (MSU), Baltimore, Maryland. Concurrently he is serving as the director of the Center for Health Informatics, Planning and Policy (CHIPP), a center originally funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the MSU campus. Akers has also been assistant dean for research in MSU’s Public Health Program, School of Community Health and Policy, and assistant dean for research and graduate studies at the WellStar College of Health and Human Services, Kennesaw State University. He is currently a senior fellow with the National Center for Health Behavioral Change, a Kellogg Foundation–sponsored center, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Akers has also served as the senior research scientist for the College of Human Medicine’s David Walker Research Institute at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

Akers was a former senior behavioral scientist with CDC in the Office of Minority Health, in the Office of the Director, where he served as senior project officer of eight of the minority health professions schools, as well as team leader in the Program Evaluation Research Branch at CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention. In this capacity, he and his team focused on the development of HIV/AIDS indicators for the center’s strategic plan and called for the development of the nation’s first standardized HIV/AIDS prevention intervention classification taxonomy.

Akers has worked in law enforcement and as a planning and research analyst for a municipal police agency. While serving on the U.S. Air Force Security Police Emergency Services Team, he received advanced training in counterterrorism while protecting priority nuclear weapons and resources for the Strategic Air Command as a fire team and security response team leader. He was certified as a Master Surveillance and Control Facility Operator and was promoted to wing security control where he deployed and led security forces to high-risk-threat areas.

Among his many awards and citations, Akers has received from the U.S. Air Force the prestigious USAF Meritorious Achievement Medal for research he conducted.

Akers holds a B.S. in criminal justice and criminology from Metropolitan State College, Denver, Colorado; a joint M.S. in criminal justice and urban studies from Michigan State University; and a joint Ph.D. in environmental studies (resource development) and urban studies, also from Michigan State.

Roberto H. Potter is a sociologist who, over the past four decades, has conducted and applied social science research in the fields of juvenile and criminal justice, substance abuse treatment, family welfare, and public health. That experience includes working in organizations that provided services to a range of persons whose personal problems fall under the headings of runaways, delinquents, criminals, abusers, and generally dangerous and desperate people. He has worked in local and statewide nonprofit agencies, state executive branch agencies and the Florida Supreme Court, and federal government agencies.

Potter’s work history is connected by a concern with how the organizations that deal with controlling social problems operate and their effects not only on their clients but also on the employees and organizations themselves. Another unifying theme in his work is the social control of sexual behaviors, both private and commercial. His decade at the CDC (1998–2008) allowed him to experience public health operations in regard to violence prevention, the prevention and control of sexually transmitted and other infectious diseases, substance abuse harm reduction, and a global operations perspective as one of the goal team leaders in the eventually abandoned effort to transform the agency. At CDC, he was also the project lead on the production of the draft surgeon general’s call to action on corrections and community health. Richard Carmona, the surgeon general who commissioned the call, later noted in congressional testimony that the document had been scuttled due to political interference, an example of how organizations exercise control to achieve organizational interests in the field of science.

Potter has taught at a number of postsecondary institutions and been a full-time member of departments at the University of New England in Australia (1991–1996) and Morehead State University in Kentucky (1996–1998). He is currently professor and director of research partnerships in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida.

Potter is a native of central Florida and a graduate of the University of South Florida (B.A.) and the University of Florida (M.A., Ph.D.). Thus, he has returned home to irritate an emerging cadre of legislators with inconvenient science. His worldview is expressed in the Jennings-Buffet theorem: “I’ve always been crazy, but it keeps me from going insane/If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane”—with apologies to two great artists.

Carl V. Hill works as a program officer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). He has worked with the CDC as a prevention specialist and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities as a health scientist. His specific interests include using the epidemiological criminology framework to assess the influence of the criminal justice system on the health and well-being of black American men, examining the role of fathers in maternal and child health disparities, and the evaluation of community outreach and engagement in addressing health disparities and ensuring the public’s health.

He is a founding member of the Black Young Professionals Public Health Network, a member of the Delta Omega (Alpha Lambda chapter) honor society, a member of the NIH Diversity Council, and current chairperson for the NIH Special Populations Research Forum. He earned his B.A. from Morehouse College and M.P.H. from the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health under the direction of Harold W. Neighbors while training in the university’s Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health, its program for research on black Americans, and the W. K. Kellogg Fellowship in Health Policy.

Persons suffering from any kind of ailment or infirmity are far more liable to become criminals than are healthy members of the community. The intimate connection between disease and crime is a matter which must never be forgotten.

—William Douglas Morrison

INTRODUCTION: CRIME, CRIMINAL JUSTICE, HEALTH, AND VICTIMS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Provide a critique of the agent-host-environment triad, and expand it to incorporate epidemiological criminology.

List and briefly explain the variety of environments needed to fit the epidemiological criminology framework.

Outline the role of definition and reaction in the epidemiological criminology framework.

Briefly outline the distinctions as well as the overlaps among deviance, criminality, and health.

Understand the intellectual and pragmatic developments that have led criminology and health epidemiology back into similar and sometimes contested intellectual and practice space.

Understand the key differentiating role played by the criminal law in maintaining important distinctions between the two related fields.