This text analyzes the theories and methodological problems inherent in the study of crime and justice in American history. The contributors assess the efficiency of justice, the relationship between war and crime, feminism and cultural influences.

This volume brings up the issues which cut across particular locales or topics. The theoretical issues move well beyond the confines of criminal justice or single time periods. The issues reach out to American culture and to that of western Europe. It confronts the problems inherent in a topic where one of the major components is hidden. The methodological problems inherent in doing criminal justice history should appeal to the same kind of reader as to "police procedural" mystery stories. The topical range here moves across continents and centuries. The scholars range from legal historians to sociologists and criminologists. They represent the ideological spectrum, though the reader may discover that the authors are more likely to disagree on the nuts and bolts of a problem that on grand theoretical formulations. And the methodological variety is a broad, if not broader than the ideological or theoretical breadth represented here.