In this comprehensive and objective reference to America's criminal past, Sifakis offers 2,000 A-to-Z entries covering significant crimes, criminals, and law enforcement figures and techniques. Entries are chosen based on their symbolic or historical relevance and consist of biographies, definitions, and detailed accounts of criminal activities.

Among the topics covered are:
-- Criminal "firsts, " including the Vikings' early depredations in the New World and the case of John Billington, the first convicted murderer in Plymouth colony
-- Urban crime, including New York at the end of the eighteenth century and the crime rates in our cities today
-- Organized crime, from its beginning in the Prohibition er with bootleg king Al Capone to present-day figures, such as John Gotti and Vincent Gigante
-- Public enemies of the 1930s
-- Major crime issues of the new millennium, including the use of DNA and other methods to prevent miscarriages of justice
-- Serial killers and the latest FBI statistics on serial murder
-- Lawmen and folk hero bandits of the Old West, such as Wyatt Earp, the James Brothers, and Billy the Kid
-- Profiles of colorful, brilliant, and sometimes devious prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The second edition features new and updated entries on such figures, topics, and events as: the Oklahoma City Bombing; Lee Harvey Oswald; bank robberies; serialkillers, such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Andrew Cunanan, as well as female serial killers; the O.J. Simpson Case; the World Trade Center Bombing; the Unabomber/Theodore Kaczynski; the Hillside Stranglers; Jean Harris and the Scarsdale Diet Doctor; the Sunset Slayer; the treatment of sex criminals; white collar criminals, such as Charles Keating and Michael Milken; and wrongful convictions.