Best, Joel 1946–

PERSONAL:

Born August 21, 1946, in Lincoln, NE, son of Louis Gordon (in management) and Mary Beth (a homemaker) Best; married Joan Catherine Gergen (a librarian), August 28, 1976; children: Eric, Ryan. Education: University of Minnesota, B.A., 1967, M.A., 1979; University of California, Berkeley, M.A., 1968, Ph.D., 1971.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Hockessin, DE. Office—Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716-2580. E-mail—joelbest@udel.edu.

CAREER:

Professor. California State University, Fresno, CA, 1970-91, began as assistant professor, became professor of sociology; Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, professor of sociology, 1991-99; University of Delaware, Newark, professor, 1999—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Charles Horton Cooley award, 1991, for Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims.

WRITINGS:

(With David F. Luckenbill) Organizing Deviance, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1982, 2nd edition, 1994.

(Editor) Images of Issues, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 1989, 2nd edition, 1995.

Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1990.

(Editor, with James T. Richardson and David G. Bromley) The Satanism Scare, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 1991.

(Editor) Troubling Children: Studies of Children and Social Problems, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 1994.

Controlling Vice: Regulating Brothel Prostitution in St. Paul, 1865-1883, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1998.

Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1999.

(Editor) How Claims Spread: Cross-national Diffusion of Social Problems, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 2001.

Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2001.

(Editor, with Donileen R. Loseke) Social Problems: Constructionist Readings, Aldine Transaction, (New York, NY), 2003.

More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2004.

Deviance: Career of a Concept, Thomson/Wadsworth (Belmont, CA), 2004.

Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2006.

Social Problems, W.W. Norton & Company (New York, NY), 2008.

Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joel Best is "one of America's most exciting sociologists," according to London Independent contributor Frank Furedi. Best has written several books about the misleading use of statistics in public discourse and about societal problems. Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims, for which Best won the Charles Horton Cooley Award, argues that statistics about child abuse have been distorted by the media to create a feeling of hysteria on the subject. In this climate of anxiety, there is a push to expand the definitions of child abuse to cover a range of behaviors that Best considers disturbingly inclusive, including such things as exposure to song lyrics and secondhand smoke, circumcision, parental attitudes toward gender differences, and even lack of a television. Best argues that emotion, rather than reason, has driven child-welfare policy in America, and that closer scrutiny of facts could result in saner attitudes. LeRoy Schultz, writing in Institute for Psychological Therapies Journal, noted that Threatened Children might be "the best intellectual history of the current child abuse [controversy] ever assembled."

In Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims, Best again faults the media for exaggerating statistics about violent crime and thereby creat- ing the perception that random violence is a pervasive reality in contemporary American society. He writes that data do not support such a perception; in fact, many statistics indicate that violent crime has decreased. Furthermore, far from being random, violent crime tends to occur according to patterns that relate to poverty, social class, and other sociological factors. Yet the media consistently frame crime reports in ways that suggest randomness and that create, in the words of Western Criminology Review contributor Marilyn McShane, "a melodrama of claimsmaking so that good and evil, victim and offender are easier to understand but, ironically, further from the truth."

Random Violence is "a magnificent contribution to the social construction of social problems literature," wrote Tony R. Smith in Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture. "The lucid analysis draws upon an impressive range of resources to support the central thesis that language is consequential. The language we select to talk about social problems shapes the way we think about and subsequently address society's problems. Effectively tackling our problems demands that we first come to terms with how we talk about them."

In Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists and More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues, Best looks at how skewed data affect perceptions of and responses to public problems. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Steve Weinberg described Damned Lies and Statistics as a "clearly written primer for the statistically impaired" and "as important to discussions of public policy as any book circulating today."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Best, Joel, Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1999.

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June, 2000, David T. Courtwright, review of Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims, p. 943.

American Journal of Legal History, January, 1999, Thomas C. Mackey, review of Controlling Vice: Regulating Brothel Prostitution in St. Paul, 1865-1883, p. 112.

American Journal of Sociology, March, 1996, review of Images of Issues, p. 1494; January, 2008, Karen Bettez Halnon, review of Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads, p. 1234.

American Statistician, May, 2002, Grace Chan and Russel V. Lenth, review of Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, p. 156; August, 2005, Christine M. Anderson-Cook, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues, p. 274.

Booklist, May 1, 2001, Ray Olson, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 1644; September 1, 2004, David Pitt, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 26; March 15, 2006, David Siegfried, review of Flavor of the Month, p. 8.

British Journal of Criminology, April, 1983, Sharon Mast, review of Organizing Deviance, p. 194; autumn, 2000, Betsy Stanko, review of Random Violence, p. 754.

Canadian Journal of Criminology, January, 2000, Kevin D. Haggerty, review of Random Violence, p. 95.

Choice: Current Review for Academic Libraries, February, 1990, review of Images of Issues, p. 1018; February, 1992, J. Lynxwiler, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 971; October, 1994, review of Troubling Children: Studies of Children and Social Problems, p. 379; May, 1999, J. Borchert, review of Controlling Vice, p. 1674; November, 2001, L. Wolfer, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 551; May, 2005, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 1631.

Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 2001, Steve Weinberg, "89 Percent Enjoyed This Review."

Columbia Journalism Review, July, 1992, review of Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims, p. 31.

Contemporary Sociology, March, 1991, James D. Orcutt, review of Images of Issues, p. 327; September, 1992, Spencer E. Cahill, review of Threatened Children, p. 669; July, 1995, Katherine Beckett, review of Troubling Children, p. 375; May, 1996, Mark Peyrot, review of Images of Issues, p. 431; March, 2000, John P. Hewitt, review of Controlling Vice, p. 415; July, 2002, Steve Kroll-Smith, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 488; March, 2007, David Strang, review of Flavor of the Month, p. 160.

Crime and Delinquency, January, 1983, Carl E. Pope, review of Organizing Deviance, p. 173.

Criminal Justice Review, autumn, 1999, Rebecca Petersen, review of Controlling Vice, p. 191, Jack Kamerman, review of Random Violence, p. 192.

Food Technology, winter, 1992, review of Threatened Children, p. 1074.

Free Inquiry, winter, 1992, Gerald A. Larue, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 62.

Industrial Relations, July, 2001, Janice Kimball, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 532.

Issues in Science and Technology, winter, 2001, David S. Moore, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 93.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June, 1992, Anson Shupe, review of Threatened Children, p. 243; September, 1992, Marion Goldman, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 376.

Journalism Quarterly, winter, 1992, Laura Hendrickson, review of Threatened Children, p. 1074.

Journal of American Culture, September, 2006, Ray B. Browne, review of Flavor of the Month, p. 374.

Journal of American Folklore, Linda J. Jencson, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 519.

Journal of American History, March, 2000, Mariana Valverde, review of Controlling Vice, p. 1802.

Journal of Communication, winter, 1990, review of Images of Issues, p. 186.

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, winter, 2000, Bard R. Ferrall, review of Random Violence, p. 729.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, winter, 1999, Philip Jenkinds, review of Controlling Vice, p. 543.

Law and Politics Book Review, September, 1999, review of Random Violence.

Law and Social Inquiry, spring, 2005, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 465.

Law Society Journal, December, 2005, Shirley Benneworth, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 90.

Library Journal, March 15, 2006, Ellen D. Gilbert, review of Flavor of the Month, p. 87.

Library Quarterly, July, 2002, Matthew Schall, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 377.

Nature, November 1, 2001, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 17.

New Scientist, June 29, 2001, Antony Anderson, review of Damned Lies and Statistics; November 13, 2004, Martin Ince, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics.

New York Times, May 26, 2001, Patricia Cohen, "Q&A: Sorry, You've Got the Wrong Number."

Ohio Northern University Law Review, summer, 1991, Robert M. Regoli, review of Threatened Children, p. 657.

Pacific Historical Review, May, 2000, Patricia Cline Cohen, review of Controlling Vice, p. 321.

Publishers Weekly, May 7, 2001, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 233.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 1990, review of Images of Issues, p. 18; November, 2007, review of Social Problems.

Religion, July, 1992, G.A.P. Harvey, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 290.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 30, 2006, William S. Kowinski, review of Flavor of the Month.

Skeptical Inquirer, May, 2002, Kendrick Frazier, review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 55; February, 2005, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 54.

Social Forces, December, 1984, review of Organizing Deviance, p. 581; December, 1992, Raymond A. Eve, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 547; March, 1993, review of Images of Issues, 846; March, 2000, Gary Lafree, review of Random Violence, p. 1170; June, 2007, David Grazian, review of Flavor of the Month, p. 1823.

Social Science Quarterly, March, 1994, James R. McBroom, review of Threatened Children, p. 243.

Social Service Review, March, 2000, review of Random Violence, p. 161; March, 2006, review of More Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 210.

Sociological Analysis, Christopher Gray Wheeler, review of The Satanism Scare, p. 235.

Sociological Inquiry, winter, 1992, Anthony Synnott, review of Images of Issues, p. 121.

Sociology: Review of New Books, September, 1982, review of Organizing Deviance, p. 149.

Teachers College Record, summer, 1993, N. Ray Hiner, review of Threatened Children, p. 851.

Times Literary Supplement, August 11, 2006, Andrew Stark, review of Flavor of the Month, p. 28.

Virginia Law Review, August, 2000, Daniel M. Filler, review of Random Violence, pp. 1095-1125.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 2002, review of Damned Lies and Statistics.

Wall Street Journal Western Edition, August 30, 2001, John R. Lott, Jr., review of Damned Lies and Statistics, p. 4.

ONLINE

All Business Web site,http://www.allbusiness.com/ (June 29, 2008), David S. Moore, review of Damned Lies and Statistics.

American Mathematical Society Notices,http://www.ams.org/ (June 29, 2008), Lynn Arthur Steen, review of Damned Lies and Statistics.

Canadian Journal of Communication, http://www.cjconline.ca/ (June 29, 2008), Bruce Curtis, review of Damned Lies and Statistics.

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (June 29, 2008), Robin L.E. Hemenway, review of Controlling Vice.

Independent (London, England), http://www.independent.co.uk/ (June 29, 2008), Frank Furedi, review of Damned Lies and Statistics.

Institute for Psychological Therapies Journal, http://www.ipt-forensices.com/journal/ (June 29, 2008), LeRoy Schultz, review of Threatened Children.

Iowa State University Web site, http://wwwpublic.iastate.ued/ (June 29, 2008), profile of Best.

Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture,http://www.albany.edu/scj/ (June 29, 2008), Tony R. Smith, review of Random Violence.

Mike Carruthers' Something You Should Know,http://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/ (June 29, 2008), interview with Best.

Smithy Smithy,http://www.stoyko.net/smithysmithy/ (June 29, 2008), Peter Stoyko, review of Flavor of the Month.

Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Web site,http://www.espach.salford.ac.uk/ (June 29, 2008), profile of Best.

Sociological Research Online, http://www.socresonline.org/uk/ (June 29, 2008), Talmadge Wright, review of How Claims Spread: Cross-national Diffusion of Social Problems.

Statistical Literacy Web site,http://www.statlit.org/ (June 29, 2008), profile of Best.

Western Criminology Review,http://wcr.sonoma.edu/ (June 29, 2008), Marilyn McShane, review of Random Violence.