Drawing on new studies from major European countries and Australia, this exciting collection extends the ongoing debate on falling crime rates from the perspective of criminal opportunity or routine activity theory. It analyses the effect of post WW2 crime booms which triggered a universal improvement in security across the Western world.

MARCELO F. AEBI University of Lausanne, Switzerland
ANDREW BRITTON Home Office Statistics, UK
MARCUS FELSON Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Texas, USA
ANNA ALVAZZI DEL FRATE Small Arms Survey, Switzerland
SHURYO FUJITA John Jay College, USA
LAURA GARIUS PhD Student, Loughborough University, UK
LOUISE GROVE Lecturer of Criminology and Social Policy, University of Loughborough, UK
KRISTIINA KANGASPUNTA UNICRI, Italy
CHRIS KERSHAW Home Office Statistics, UK
MARTIN KILLIAS Academy of Experimental Criminology Fellow, University of Zurich, Switzerland
BRUNO LANFRANCONI Swiss National Accident Insurance Fund (Suva), Switzerland
ANTONIA LINDE Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, Spain) and University of Lausanne, Switzerland
INEKE HAEN MARSHALL Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University, USA
MICHAEL MAXFIELD Professor of Criminal Justice, John Jay College, USA
PAT MAYHEW London, UK
STEVEN F. MESSNER Distinguished Teaching Professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Albany, USA
SARAH OSBORNE Home Office Statistics, UK
RICHARD ROSENFELD Curators Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA
KEVIN SMITH Home Office Statistics, UK
REBECCA THOMPSON Nottingham Trent University, UK
NICK TILLEY Professor in the Department of Security and Crime Science, Jill Dando Institute, University College London, UK
GIULIA MUGELLINI TRANSCRIME Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime, Italy
BEN VOLLAARD Assistant Professor at the Economics Department of Tillburg University, The Netherlands

Editors' Introduction PART I: INTERNATIONAL TRENDS  Global Overview: International trends in Victimization and Recorded Crime; J.van Dijk  & A.Tseloni Crime Trends in Western Europe According to Official Statistics from 1990 to 2007; M.F.Aebi  & A.Linde The Case of Australia and New Zealand; P.Mayhew Trends in Violence Against Women: Some Good News and Some Bad News; K.Kangaspunta  & I.H.Marshall The Crime Drop in 'Non-Western' Countries: a Review of Homicide Data; A.A.del Frate  & G.Mugellini PART II: CRIME ANALYSIS AND PATTERNS Underlying Patterns within the England and Wales Crime Drop; A.Britton , C.Kershaw , S.Osborne  & K.Smith Crime, Inequality and Change in England and Wales; L.Grove , A.Tseloni  & N.Tilley The Crime Drop in Comparative Perspective: The Impact of the Economy and Imprisonment on American and European Burglary Rates; R.Rosenfeld  & S.F.Messner PART III: NEW PERSPECTIVES Security and the Drop in Car Theft in the United States; S.Fujita  & M.Maxfield Self-limiting Crime Waves; J.van Dijk  & B.Vollaard The Crime Drop Discourse - or the Illusion of Uniform Continental Trends: Switzerland as a Contrasting Case; M.Killias  & B.Lanfranconi Crime in the Broad Sweep of History; M.Felson Towards a Comprehensive Research Plan on Opportunity Theory and the Crime Falls; A.Tseloni , G.Farrell , N.Tilley , L.Grove , R.Thompson  & L.Garius Editors' Conclusions: Understanding International Crime Trends: A Summing Up