Crimewarps

Sociologist-criminologist Bennett defines ""crimewarp'' as a major change in crime patterns, and she foresees that six displacements are likely to occur. As the mean age of the population becomes greater, there will be more ``geriatric delinquents,'' and, as women become increasingly liberated, there will be more white-collar crime and domestic violence perpetrated by females. With population shifts, there will be less crime in the Northeast and more in the Sunbelt. Street crime will decrease, she claims, but there will be an acceleration of crimes involving computers and credit cards in which the financial stakes will be much higher. Some ``consensual crimes'' like homosexuality and prostitution will be legalized. Crime detection will become more sophisticated, efficient and impersonal, and private police will proliferate; the price we pay for this, she predicts, will be the erosion of some of our civil liberties. Using court decisions, scholarly and popular literature, public-opinion surveys and individual case studies, Bennett argues her case forcefully and convincingly. (February 20)