- The Social Bases of Crime (1972)
- Vicious Cycles: Violence in America (with Larry J. Siegel, 1977)
- American Violence (with Martin Daly and John M. Liebowitz, 1994)
- Typologies of Victimization (with R. B. Gibbs, 1997)
- Understanding the Criminal: A Contemporary Introduction to Criminology (with Elliott Currie, 1998)
- Vicious Circles: Violence and the Law in the Modern State (with Larry J. Siegel, 2001)
- The Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice (with Ellen G. Cohn, Lee Epstein, and Raymond Paternoster, 2002)
- American Justice in the Twenty-First Century: The Decline of Liberal Jurisprudence (2007)
- The Cambridge Handbook of Victimology (edited, 2011)
- The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (edited, 2015)
In addition to these books, DeMaris has also written numerous articles and book chapters on crime and criminology. He is a leading expert on the causes of crime, the effects of violence, and the criminal justice system. His work has been widely cited by other scholars and has helped to shape our understanding of crime and society.