Despite a historical ideology of individual freedom and equal opportunity, Americans live in a society where the grim realities include glaring social and economic inequalities of class, race, age, and gender. Equally glaring are the realities of crime: a uniquely high rate of violent crime, an unevenness in the social and economic distribution of crime, a fear of crime that often restricts the activities of citizens, and a per capita prison population that is one of the highest in the world.

The twelve papers in this volume seek to discover how and why inequality affects the patterning of crime and criminal justice, with special emphasis on important questions that have been ignored or have received inadequate attention.

The contributors evaluate the merits of various theoretical ideas, debates, and controversies regarding crime and inequality; document the dynamics of inequality in varied crime settings; examine methodologies used in exploring the crime-inequality relationship; and set forth new research and policy agendas for future work.