I’ve been fascinated by criminology since I was a child sneaking a peak at my aunt’s tabloids and following the sensational killing of JonBenét Ramsey. I was barely older than Ramsey and naturally kept my guard up after her murder. After all, if it could happen to her, it could happen to me, right? And so began a lifelong interest in criminology. The good thing if you want to learn more about criminology is there’s no shortage of great criminology books out there to help you get up to speed in this diverse, fluid field. The selections you’ll find on this list of the best books to learn criminology cover a range of topics related to crimes, criminals, and the criminal justice system. You’ll find books profiling high-stakes trials, studying serial killers, celebrating pioneers in the field of forensics, and more. Every facet of criminology is represented in this roundup that’s perfect for the armchair criminologist, the true crime junkie, and the amateur forensic psychologist who’s seen more than a few episodes of Criminal Minds. Enjoy!
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American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson
American Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) begins with the “American Sherlock Holmes,” Edward Oscar Heinrich, a criminal investigator specialist whose groundbreaking work helped usher in the new field of forensics in America. Heinrich served as an expert witness, established leading guidelines for crime scenes, and helped create hallmarks of the criminology we use today, like the lie detector test and blood spatter analysis. Heinrich finally gets his due in American Sherlock, an engrossing profile of the investigator that any budding criminologist will want to check out.
How to read it: Purchase American Sherlock on Amazon
The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime by Adrian Raine
Is criminality biological? Are some people genetically predisposed to commit crimes? That’s the argument of The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime by Adrian Raine, who draws on three decades of research into the topic. The result? A fascinatingly in-depth discussion about the genetics behind criminal behavior, science that Raine hopes will help lead to better early detection of criminal tendencies and crime prevention.
How to read it: Purchase The Anatomy of Violence on Amazon
The Art of Investigation by Chelsea A. Binns and Bruce Sachman
Have you ever watched a detective on TV or in the movies and wondered how they get started on an investigation? You’ll find out all that and more in The Art of Investigation, one of the leading criminology books. Each chapter in this comprehensive criminology textbook is written by a different contributor on topics like “Tenacity,” “Skepticism,” and “Discretion.” If you’re looking for the best criminology books for beginners, this one should be on your list.
How to read it: Purchase The Art of Investigation on Amazon
Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari
The subtitle of this book is “The first and last days of the war on drugs,” which is a pretty accurate description of what the book is about: the century-long effort to police drugs. Hari sifts through the data to get to the root of the criminality of illegal and controlled substances, profiling people whose lives are affected by drugs in some way, and argues the merits for the decriminalization.
How to read it: Purchase Chasing the Scream on Amazon
Classic Crimes by William Roughead
This book collects twelve essays about crime in the 19th and early days of the 20th century. Published in the late 1920s, Roughead’s book is one of the earliest and most influential true crime we have. A variety of essays cover different natures of crime, including murder and sensational trials. If you want to go all the way back to the dawn of criminology and true crime, start with William Roughead’s Classic Crimes.
How to read it: Purchase Classic Crimes on Amazon
The Crime Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained by DK
I love the DK “Big Ideas Simply Explained” series and own the one for astronomy, which is out of this world. In The Crime Book, you’ll get a full-on immersion into all things crime: everything from “Bandits, Robbers, and Arsonists” to “Con Artists” and “Murder Cases,” all you need to know about criminology is right here and easy to grasp. This book is a crash course in criminology that you won’t want to miss.
How to read it: Purchase The Crime Book on Amazon
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
While this roundup of the best books to learn criminology is almost exclusively nonfiction, no list of criminology books would be complete without Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s classic novel Crime and Punishment. A study in both crime and its punishment, Dostoevsky’s book details how an average and ordinary man, Raskolnikov, commits a murder and then descends into guilt and madness. Dostoevsky’s novel meditates on how easily someone can slip into becoming a criminal and exactly what constitutes punishment: existential, moral, and emotionally.
How to read it: Purchase Crime and Punishment on Amazon
Criminal Profiling: An Introduction edited by Brent E. Turvey
Are you obsessed with Criminal Minds? Can’t resist Mindhunter? I don’t need to try too hard to crack the case: you’re fascinated by criminal profiling! And if that’s you, get ahold of Brent E. Turvey’s Criminal Profiling: An Introduction. This comprehensive guide to deductive profiling deserves a spot on any criminology reading list. An introduction to behavioral evidence analysis, Turvey’s book focuses on forensic victimology, crime scene analysis, offender characteristics, and professional issues in criminal profiling. Although technically this is part of a series of criminology books for university, anyone looking to learn more about criminology would benefit from reading it.
How to read it: Purchase Criminal Profiling: An Introduction on Amazon
Criminology: A Complete Introduction by Peter Joyce and Wendy Laverick
So you want to learn criminology, but you don’t want to drop a ton of money on a textbook or enroll in a course to get the basics? Got it. Try Criminology: A Complete Introduction, one of the books in the Teach Yourself series. Many of its chapters are titled as questions, such as: “What is crime?,” “How do we measure crime?,” and “How is crime detected?” This book also includes potential questions you can try to answer to practice what you’ve learned. In other words, this book serves as the equivalent to an intro to criminology university course.
How to read it: Purchase Criminology: A Complete Introduction on Amazon
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
This true crime classic tells the outrageous story of a killer who plagued Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair. Larson braids two narratives together: first, Daniel H. Burnham, the architect behind the fair’s construction, and, second the story of H. H. Holmes, a serial killer posing as a charismatic con artist masquerading as a physician. Dr. Holmes constructed the World’s Fair Hotel, nicknamed “The Castle,” which had its own gas chamber and crematorium, and lured innocent victims to his lair. Dr. Holmes confessed to killing 27 people while awaiting his own execution, but he was ultimately only charged with the murder of Benjamin Pitezel, Holmes’ business partner and accomplice. Erik Larson knows how to tell a story, so don’t be surprised if you tear through this book as you learn more about the history of criminology.
How to read it: Purchase The Devil in the White City on Amazon
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault
One of the best books to learn criminology, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison is influential philosopher and historian Michel Foucault’s deep look at the nature of discipline, the horrors of torture, the contemporary prison, and the way we punish crimes. Foucault’s main argument is, throughout history, we have transformed the way we punish. According to Foucault, we have evolved from punishing a prisoner’s body to punishing his soul, and we actually end up encouraging and refining criminal activity through our concern with rehabilitation.
How to read it: Purchase Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison on Amazon
The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer is known for his fiction, but it’s his massive, sprawling true crime book The Executioner’s Song that might be his most important work. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Executioner’s Song tells the shocking story of Gary Gilmore, who robbed and killed two men in 1976. What was unusual about Gilmore’s case was how he argued for his own execution, even as he spent years alive and well in prison awaiting the end he demanded. Eventually, Gilmore got his wish, becoming the first person to be killed in the United States in 10 years following the Supreme Court’s moratorium on capital punishment. The Executioner’s Song is among the best criminology books to scrutinize the criminal justice system.
How to read it: Purchase The Executioner’s Song on Amazon
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
The Fact of a Body is an unforgettable memoir by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich. As a law student, Marzano-Lesnevich took a summer job at a firm that helped men convicted for murder get access to legal representation. But when they saw a picture of a potential client, alleged murderer and pedophile Ricky Langley, they felt overcome with an intense feeling of wanting to see Langley dead. And Marzano-Lesnevich began a long journey grappling with their own sexual abuse as a child and the wayward life of Langley. In The Fact of a Body, Marzano-Lesnevich delivers a complex meditation on the inevitability of crime, the vicious cycle of child abuse survivors who become abusers themselves, and the complicated legality of capital punishment. Make no mistake: this is a hard read, but it’s also a masterpiece that made my list of the Best Books of 2017.
How to read it: Purchase The Fact of a Body on Amazon
Forensic Psychology for Dummies by David Canter
Hack criminal justice school with Forensic Psychology for Dummies, which stands out among the best books on criminology and psychology. This book has all you need to learn more about criminology and, specifically, forensic psychology. You’ll discover more about assisting police, measuring the criminal mind, viewing psychology in court, and helping and treating offenders. An affordable option to learn criminology at your own pace, Forensic Psychology for Dummies is a great way to explore the field in depth.
How to read it: Purchase Forensic Psychology for Dummies on Amazon
Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime
by Val McDermid
If you’re fascinated by forensics, you need to read Val McDermid’s Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime. This easily accessible book is one of the best resources to learn criminology by yourself. Across 12 chapters on topics like “The Crime Scene,” “Pathology,” “Toxicology,” “Fingerprinting,” and “Blood Spatter and DNA,” McDermid, a bestselling crime novelist, breaks down forensics for the layperson in this essential book for learning criminology.
How to read it: Purchase Forensics on Amazon
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
There is no list of the best books to learn criminology without Truman Capote’s 1965 classic In Cold Blood. This pioneering book arguably established the genre of true crime. Capote brings to life the brutal murder of four members of the Clutter family in Kansas on November 15, 1959, the ensuing search for the criminals, and the trial that captivated the nation. Capote tries to unravel the motive for the murders, profile the perpetrators, and explore the nature of justice in this book that belongs on any criminology reading list
How to read it: Purchase In Cold Blood on Amazon
Iphigenia in Forest Hills by Janet Malcolm
New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm tells the riveting story of a murder trial that shook the close-knit and reclusive Bukharan-Jewish community of Forest Hills, Queens. It’s there that Mazoltuv Borukhova, a talented and beautiful physician, is accused of hiring an assassin to murder her estranged husband, a well-regarded orthodontist, in front of their four-year-old kid. Malcolm concentrates on the shattered life of the couple’s child while also scrutinizing the trial from every angle. The result is a captivating read that’s among the best criminology books and delivers no easy answers.
How to read it: Purchase Iphigenia in Forest Hills on Amazon
The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr
In Douglas Starr’s The Killer of Little Shepherds, we travel back in time to the end of the nineteenth century when serial killer Joseph Vachar terrorized the French countryside. After eluding authorities for years, Vachar met his match with prosecutor Emile Fourquet and the respected criminologist Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne. The case would bring about a new era in criminology as Lacassagne established some of the earliest advances in forensic science, such as criminal profiling, refining blood-spatter analysis, and establishing autopsy practices, and serving as a forensic psychology consultant to argue against Vachar’s claims of insanity in the court room. This compelling story details a revolutionary time in criminology and highlights important contributions to the emerging field of what we now call forensic science,
How to read it: Purchase The Killer of Little Shepherds on Amazon
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon is set in the earliest days of the FBI. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in all the world were the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. Steeped in oil, their land made them wealthy and prosperous. After twenty four Osage were murdered, the FBI got involved in one of the agency’s earliest major homicide investigations. Young director J. Edgar Hoover assembled an undercover team to solve the case, adopting as best they could the newfound science and procedures of detective work. This is one of the best criminology books for beginners as it weaves together a spellbinding serial killer story with the history of the FBI.
How to read it: Purchase Killers of the Flower Moon on Amazon
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 won the Pulitzer Prize, and it’s not hard to see why. This book tells the unbelievable true story of the emergence of Al-Qaeda and the plot to terrorize America on September 11, 2001. Wright’s book spans five decades as he relates the rise of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and the dawn of their shared vision of Al-Qaeda while also profiling the FBI’s counterterrorism leader, John O’Neill. As the definitive guide to how Al-Qaeda pulled off the 9/11 attacks, The Looming Tower ranks high on any list of the best criminal justice books.
How to read it: Purchase The Looming Tower on Amazon
McMafia: Seriously Organized Crime by Misha Glenny
In McMafia: Seriously Organized Crime, author Misha Glenny takes readers on a global tour of the world’s criminal underworld. You’ll find out all about how money launderers thrive in Dubai, drug syndicates flourish in Canada, and cyber criminals blossom in Brazil. Glenny tells the story not just of the criminals, but also of their victims and the law enforcement trying to battle organized crime with mixed results. This book is an eye-opening look at the world of nefarious dealings pulsating beneath the surface and a good introductory book to learn criminology, specifically of organized crime.
How to read it: Purchase McMafia on Amazon
Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas
One of the premier criminology books, John E. Douglas’ hugely influential Mind Hunter memoir inspired the hit Netflix series Mindhunter. (And if you’re a Mindhunter fan, you’ll definitely want to check out this blog’s top 10 books to read for Mindhunter viewers.) Douglas remembers his twenty five years at the FBI working with the agency’s Investigative Support Unit, interviewing mass murderers like Charles Manson, pursuing the Atlanta child murderer, and tracking down the Seattle Green River killer all while the FBI began to embrace new concepts, like serial killers, forensic psychology, and criminal profiling. Douglas certainly has his battle scars and bragging rights to some extraordinary stories; don’t be shocked if this is a read-in-one-sitting book.
How to read it: Purchase Mind Hunter on Amazon
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow has made a huge impact by highlighting the problems with mass incarceration in a country where a disproportionate of those incarcerated are people of color. Alexander’s book advocates for the theory that racial caste is alive and well in the United States of America, where it slots young Black men into jail, disenfranchises them as prisoners, and leaves their home communities shaken, effectively trapping them in a fraught system that is nearly impossible to escape. Read The New Jim Crow, and you’ll see why it’s one of the best criminal justice books. Alexander’s study has resulted in policy changes, cited in judicial decisions, and established the $100 million Art for Justice Fund.
How to read it: Purchase The New Jim Crow on Amazon
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson
The Psychopath Test is one of my all-time favorite books. I just love Jon Ronson’s storytelling skills as he brings readers inside the world of psychopathology with humor and heart. Ronson interviews psychopaths, the people who treat them, and the many more people who profit off of them, telling an absorbing story you won’t want to put down. Ronson asks hared-hitting questions, like whether it’s possible to rehabilitate psychopaths, or what the ethics are for locking someone up for a genetic condition (if psychopathology does have a biological basis), or how we can avoid over-medicating children for misbehavior. The Psychopath Test ranks high on my list of the best books on criminology and psychology.
How to read it: Purchase The Psychopath Test on Amazon
Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough
Public Enemies tracks America’s great crime wave during 1933-1934, when a young J. Edgar Hoover faced a rotating cast of foes, from John Dillinger to Machine Gun Kelly to Bonnie and Clyde and many more iconic criminals. Hoover struggled with managing his newfound agency, the FBI, and battled everyday with rampant crime, already institutional beurocacy, and a terrified American public. Bryan Burrough tells the story of this dramatic period in America’s history in one of the most captivating criminology books that anyone wanting to learn more about criminology will want to add to their To-Be-Read list.
How to read it: Purchase Public Enemies on Amazon
The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial by Maggie Nelson
Criminology books don’t get any better than Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial. In March 1969, twenty-three-year-old Jane Mixer was brutally murdered around the same time other young women were killed, and their deaths were collectively attributed to serial killer John Collins as the “Michigan Murders.” But officially, Jane’s death remained unsolved, an open wound that Maggie grew up with as her mother’s sister never got the justice she deserved. Fast forward to 2004, when a DNA match led to the arrest of a new possible subject who might have killed Jane. At the same time, Nelson was about to release a book of poetry about Jane’s life and death. In The Red Parts, Nelson sorts through the legacy of Jane’s death on her own writing, the trial of the new suspect, and the collective cultural fetishization of the untimely demise of young white women.
How to read it: Purchase The Red Parts on Amazon
The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Force by Radley Balko
Radley Balko’s The Rise of the Warrior Cop explains the evolution of policing in America. Initially, after the Revolutionary War, Americans wanted to keep the police force separate from the military, and so began a division of powers—until now, when a decades-long shift has seen local police increasingly resembling the military’s ground troops. Balko traces this trend—and its troubling consequences—from the history of the early days of policing in America to our modern force that is being taught to view the citizen as the enemy. Learning criminology through books like The Rise of the Warrior Cop will help you think critically about the nature of security, crime, and punishment.
How to read it: Purchase The Rise of the Warrior Cop on Amazon
The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin
Perhaps no other legal event has had as much of an impact on modern society than the O.J. Simpson murder trial. From 1993-1994, the court case enthralled the public through twists and turns and enough drama to justify its place on daytime television, turning Simpson’s lawyers—the theatrical Johnny Cochran, the intimidating Robert Shapiro—and the prosecution’s Marcia Clark into larger-than-life characters in an epically entertaining soap opera rather than a highly publicized murder case. Jeffrey Toobin covers the whole trial and its influence in The Run of His Life, highlighting changes in criminal justice that were pioneered with the Simpson case, like the use of forensic DNA, and humanizing the attorneys at the center of the action.
How to read it: Purchase The Run of His Life on Amazon
Serial Murders and Their Victims by Eric W. Hickey
If you’re trying to read the best books to learn criminology, you’ll want to pick up Eric W. Hickey’s Serial Murders and Their Victims, a criminology textbook that’s also a readable book for those wanting to learn more about the field. Serial Murders and Their Victims includes a comprehensive history of serial killers while also presenting the most recent and up-to-date criminology research and breakthroughs in identifying and stopping serial murderers.
How to read it: Purchase Serial Murders and Their Victims on Amazon
Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers discusses how things can go wrong when we talk to strangers. At the beginning of the book, Gladwell hopes to dissect the breakdown in communication between a police officer and Sandra Bland, a young Black woman who took her life while she waited in jail after the officer arrested her during a routine traffic stop. How does something like this happen? And, conversely, how can criminals lie to our faces and we trust them implicitly? These are some of the complicated questions Gladwell asks in this fascinating book. Talking to Strangers is one of the best books on criminology and psychology to reach a wide audience.
