CRIME IN AMERICA

Noted social historian/author Meltzer tackles an overwhelming task describing today's broad range of criminal behavior. While many think of crime as violence, really big criminal activity does not occur face-to-face, says Meltzer. Over $174 billion in corporate crime is perpetrated annually—from manufacturers releasing cars with known defects to military officials charging $7,000 for a coffee-maker; from insider Wall Street trading to laundering mob money. Sporting more numbers than in most of his books, Meltzer targets how addiction, greed, learning disabilities, poverty, drugs, and the role of media in the increase of aggression fit together in the patchwork of crime. Objective yet impassioned, Meltzer's survey should make readers "mad" in several senses: hot-and-bothered angry; frenzied with frustration or hoplessness. Though he lists remedies available to ordinary citizens, when corporate executives steal apple juice from babies it's hard not to be distrustful.