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Purpose – We review the literature on the general effects of rap music and discuss in detail those studies that purport to examine how it affects attitudes and behavior related to violence and misogyny.Methodology – Critical review of the popular and scholarly rap music literature.Findings – We describe four critical weaknesses in this literature that limit our ability to draw firm conclusions on rap music's effects: (1) the nonempirical nature of most writings on rap; (2) vagueness regarding the precise relationship between rap music and attitudes and behavior, and the associated lack of theoretical perspectives in rap literature; (3) the exclusion of the perspectives of rap music listeners in most studies; and (4) the drawbacks of both experimental research and existing ethnographic studies in this area.Value of chapter – Based on the deficiencies in the literature, we provide recommendations for future work and discuss why it is imperative, despite the many challenges that exist, to conduct research on rap music and its effects.

This chapter considers the impetus for the inclusion of labour rights and secure work rights, with a particular focus on countering human trafficking and what is now widely known as ‘modern slavery’ in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs comprise 17 goals and 169 targets set to assist nation states in achieving sustainable development in the ‘five P’ areas: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. In this chapter we analyse goals and targets that focus on modern slavery and adult human trafficking (in particular sex trafficking and trafficking for forced labour), and review the SDGs in the context of existing international counter-trafficking and slavery mechanisms. We consider what this novel framework has to offer when it comes to addressing these forms of exploitation. In so doing, the chapter considers the likely impact of the SDGs to preventing and countering these exploitative practices, and its potential usefulness within the broader spectrum of counter-trafficking/slavery mechanisms. We suggest that the SDGs are yet another international instrument that makes strong rhetorical commitments to the intersections of labour, migration and exploitation, but lacks clarity and operational strength it needs to lead the path in reduction, if not elimination of such exploitative practices. Finally, we analyse the extent to which this instrument continues to ignore the factors that contribute to or sustain the conditions for exploitation, namely the impact of migration policies and the gendered nature of the issue.

Crime and social control present important issues that move and affect large segments of society. Whether we consider the impact of criminal events in terms of victimization, the construction of deviance into criminalized acts, or the many socially relevant aspects related to criminal justice policies and other social control activities, crime and justice are matters that deserve our most serious attention. It is largely for this reason that scholars develop astute theoretical models and sophisticated methodologies to study crime and social control in their many significant components. Yet, the world of popular culture, which we tend to associate with playfulness and fun, has also embraced themes related to crime and its control. It is perhaps a sign of the very earnestness associated with crime and social control that these themes are also dealt with in the social institutions of entertainment. The study of such portrayals of crime and criminal justice in popular culture is the focus of the present volume.

There is no argument among serious researchers that a mongoloid stock first colonized the New World from Asia. Nor is there controversy about the fact that these continental pioneers used the Bering Land Bridge that then connected the Asian Far East with Alaska.– Gerald F. Shields, et al.American Journal of Genetics (1992)

In Seattle and other cities, recent expansions of trespass law make the regulation of public space easier and more extensive. A range of new tools allow police officials to clear spaces of those deemed undesirable; they define zones of exclusion and increase the police's power to make arrests. The use of these tools extends contemporary practices of using criminal law to address instances of urban “disorder.” We draw on data from Seattle to catalog some of these new tools, the capabilities they create, and the implications they generate. One important such implication is that they work to push undesirables so far to the margins – spatially, socially, politically, legally – as to render them far outside the body politic. The use of these techniques thus raises important questions about the advisability of addressing social problems by increasing the power of the criminal law.