The Mark of Cain

This book is one of the great 20th century classics on the historical, cultural and social role of stigma in societies everywhere, but especially Western Society. Shoham, his erudition on display like no other, explores what it means to be stigmatized and how society becomes differentiated between "us" and "them." The case study on Jean Genet, famous playwright and infamous thief, is an essay of genius, surpassing, some say, Sartre's Saint Genet. You will think about crime, criminals, the police who chase them and the judges who judge them in a very different light after you've read this book. Foreword by Marvin E. Wolfgang.

This book is one of the great 20th century classics on the historical, cultural and social role of stigma in societies everywhere, but especially Western Society. Shoham, his erudition on display like no other, explores what it means to be stigmatized and how society becomes differentiated between "us" and "them." The case study on Jean Genet, famous playwright and infamous thief, is an essay of genius, surpassing, some say, Sartre's Saint Genet. You will think about crime, criminals, the police who chase them and the judges who judge them in a very different light after you've read this book. Foreword by Marvin E. Wolfgang. Chapters include: Foreword Introduction 1. The Role Of Stigma In Norm-Sending And Norm-Receiving 2. Psychopathy As Social Stigma: A Myth Revisited 3. Deviant Behaviour And Value Deviation As A Predisposition To Social Stigma 4. Deviant Behaviour, Value Deviation And Social Stigma 5. The Process Of Social Stigma 6. An Empirical Referent: Social Stigma And Prostitution 7. The Formal Stigma And Its Consequences 8. The Effects Of Social Stigma 9. Social Stigma And The Criminal Group 10. Jean Genet: A Criminal Manifesto Notes Bibliography

Prof. Shlomo Giora Shoham was born in Lithuania in 1929 and immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1935. During Israel's War of Independence he served in the Nebi Daniel Convoy which was called in to help the Gush Etzion settlements. The bloc surrendered and he was captured by the Jordanians. Upon his release he started studying law at the Hebrew University and was among the first class to graduate from the Faculty of Law. He was later also the first to receive a PhD in law from the Faculty. He then went on to study criminology at Cambridge University in England, and upon his return to Israel founded the Institute of Criminology at the Bar-Ilan University. A decade later he founded the Department of Criminology at the Tel-Aviv University and is a teacher and scholar at the Faculty of Law till this day. Over the years he developed, with Prof. Yehuda Fried, a new method for treating drug-addicts, which was applied in Israel with impressive results. In his studies he examined social deviance and elaborated a unique personality theory to explain crime and deviation. His Stigma Theory, published in his book The Mark of Cain, which was translated into many languages, made it possible to understand the meaning of recidivism in the fields of crime and social deviance. In recent years he developed a new micro and macro theory in criminology. In his book Valhalla, Calvary and Auschwitz he proved that it is possible to explain the Nazi movement using a macro-criminological point of view, while the Holocaust may be understood from a macro-victimological aspect. His studies were published in numerous books and articles in the field of criminological theory and its application. As member of the Cohen Committee which was set up to discuss penal methods he dealt with the applicable aspects of criminological research for many years. His eldest son Giora was killed in the Yom Kippur War and Prof. Shoham has since added his son's name to his own. For his work he was awarded the Israel Prize in 2003.