Book Log 2011 #37: Popular Crime by Bill James


Besides being one of baseball's leading quantitative minds, Bill James has a serious interest in popular crime stories. This book allows him to explore this passion, covering over two millennia of headline crimes, though he mostly focuses on events from 1800 onward.

The results of this examination are somewhat uneven. Some cases get great coverage, while other times get a laundry list of crimes that tend to drag. He creates a taxonomy for cases based on their elements, a digression that may help him but is dry reading at best.

The best parts of the book are where James is actually making an argument for or against something rather than just relating cases to fill the timeline. Towards the end of the book he starts to put together a plan for creating a more effective prison system (basically creating small neighborhood facilities, a neat idea that will never happen) and discusses the justice system generally, which goes on a bit too long.

James also makes a basic argument in the book for the importance of following and understanding these cases, both for their insights into criminal behavior and their reflection of the wider culture. I tend to agree with him here, and think that marginalizing such cases costs us an opportunity to reflect. Worse still is that we allow the cases to become public theater (think Casey Anthony), which only makes the general public more liable to marginalize these cases.

I do think the book is interesting, and worth a read if you're interested in true crime. I also think it could have been sharper in places, so don't expect this to stack up to James's best baseball work.