Criminology has experienced tremendous growth over the last few decades, evident, in part, by the widespread popularity and increased enrolment in criminology and criminal justice departments at the undergraduate and graduate levels across the U.S. and internationally. Evolutionary paradigmatic shift has accompanied this surge in definitional, disciplinary and pragmatic terms. Though long identified as a leading sociological specialty area, criminology has emerged as a stand-alone discipline in its own right, one that continues to grow and is clearly here to stay. Criminology, today, remains inherently theoretical but is also far more applied in focus and thus more connected to the academic and practitioner concerns of criminal justice and related professional service fields. Contemporary criminology is also increasingly interdisciplinary and thus features a broad variety of ideological orientations to and perspectives on the causes, effects and responses to crime. 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook provides straightforward and definitive overviews of 100 key topics comprising traditional criminology and its modern outgrowths. The individual chapters have been designed to serve as a "first-look" reference source for most criminological inquires. Both connected to the sociological origins of criminology (i.e., theory and research methods) and the justice systems' response to crime and related social problems, as well as coverage of major crime types, this two-volume set offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of criminology. From student term papers and masters theses to researchers commencing literature reviews, 21st Century Criminology is a ready source from which to quickly access authoritative knowledge on a range of key issues and topics central to contemporary criminology.
J. Mitchell Miller (Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1996) is a Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he serves as Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice. He has also served two years (2000-2002) as a Visiting Professor at Moscow International University in Russia and as Director the Graduate Studies Program in Drugs and Addictions at the University of South Carolina (2002-2006). He was Editor-in-Chief of the 3-volume Encyclopedia of Criminology (Taylor & Francis, 2005) and has authored or co-authored five textbooks and one monograph and 46 articles and book chapters. He has also served as Editor of two journals (Journal of Crime & Justice, 1999-2002; Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 2005-2009). The National Criminal Justice Honor Society named him National Advisor of the Year in 2002, and he is actively involved in both national and regional criminology and criminal justice associations (ASC, ACJS, ASA, etc.).
