New Directions in Crime and Deviancy


Book Description

Criminology is at a crossroads. In the last two decades it has largely failed to produce the kind of new intellectual frameworks and empirical data that might help us to explain the high levels of crime and interpersonal violence that beset inner city areas and corrode community life. Similarly, it has failed to adequately explain forms of antisocial behaviour that are just as much a part of life in corporate boardrooms as they are in the ghettos of north America and the sink estates of Britain. Criminology needs to rethink the problem of crime and re-engage its audience with strident theoretical analysis and powerful empirical data. In New Directions in Crime and Deviancy some of the world’s most talented and polemical critical criminologists come together to offer new ideas and new avenues for analysis. The book contains chapters that address a broad range of issues central to 21st century critical criminology: ecological issues and the new green criminology; the broad impact of neoliberalism upon our cultural and economic life; recent signs of political resistance and opposition; systemic and interpersonal forms of violence; growing fear and enmity in cities; the backlash against the women’s movement; the subjective pathology of the serial killer; computer hacking and so on. Based on key papers presented at the historic York Deviancy Conferences, this cutting-edge volume also contains important critical essays that address criminological research methods and the production of criminological knowledge. It is key reading material for those with an academic interest in critical, cultural and theoretical criminology, and crime and deviance more generally.




New Directions in Criminological Theory


Book Description

This edited collection brings together established global scholars and new thinkers to outline fresh concepts and theoretical perspectives for criminological research and analysis in the 21st century. Criminologists from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia evaluate the current condition of criminological theory and present students and researchers with new and revised ideas from the realms of politics, culture and subjectivity to unpack crime and violence in the precarious age of global neoliberalism. These ideas range from the micro-realm of the ‘personality disorder’ to the macro-realm of global ‘power-crime’. Rejecting or modifying the orthodox notion that crime and harm are largely the products of criminalisation and control systems, these scholars bring causes and conditions back into play in an eclectic yet thematic way that should inspire students and researchers to once again investigate the reasons why some individuals and groups elect to harm others rather than seek sociability. This collection will inspire new criminologists to both look outside their discipline for new ideas to import, and to create new ideas within their discipline to reinvigorate it and further strengthen its ability to explain the crimes and harms that we see around us today. This book will be of particular interest to academics and both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the field of criminology, especially to those looking for theoretical concepts and frameworks for dissertations, theses and research reports.




New Directions in Criminological Theory


Book Description

New Directions in Criminological Theory focuses on new approaches to theory construction, with particular emphasis on reformulations and new applications of existing paradigms. It includes an assessment of labeling theory, demonstrating how the approach could become part of a more comprehensive explanation of crime. A case is made for studying crime in terms of the social context in which crimes are conceived, interpreted, and negotiated. The debate between crime-general and crime-specific approaches is further amplified. A rethinking of Hirschi's control theory is presented. The volume includes theoretical discussions of spouse abuse, of punishment, and of power-control models. Additional chapters examine theoretical advances in corporate illegality, employee theft, and the alcohol/crime syndrome.These original contributions include: Charles F. Wellford and Ruth A. Triplett, 'The Future of Labeling Theory'; Austin T. Turk, 'A Proposed Resolution of Key Issues in the Political Sociology of Law'; David Weisburd and Lisa Maher, 'Contrasting Crime-General and Crime-Specific Theory'; Sally Simpson, 'Strategy, Structure, and Corporate Crime'; Edward W. Sieh, 'Employee theft'; Robert Nash Parker, 'Alcohol and Theories of Homicide'; Kimberly L. Kemph, 'The Empirical Status of Hirschi's Control Theory'; Jeffrey Fagan, 'The Social Control of Spouse Assualt'; Marc Le Blanc and Aaron Caplan, 'Theoretical Formalization, A Necessity'; Michael J. Lynch, 'Control Theory and Punishment'; Gary F. Jensen, 'Power-Control vs. Social-Control Theories of Common Delinquency'; John Hagan, A.R. Gillis, and John Simpson, 'The Power of Control in Sociological Theories of Delinquency.'




New Directions for Criminology


Book Description

Criminology, by its very nature as a non-disciplinary field of research and scholarship, has always relied on theoretical perspectives, derived from external disciplines and bodies of literature, for its constant renewal. The editors of New Directions for Criminology chose to consult scholars from outside the criminological community to demonstrate how the latest theoretical work in their field can be made fruitful for criminology. All contributors are familiar with the fundamentals of criminological theories and research, and all are well placed to clearly make the connections between the cutting edge of their field of research and its potential for criminology. New Directions for Criminology makes a distinction between papers that elaborate on the usefulness of particular theories and perspectives for criminology, and papers that outline particular research themes which will be of interest to those working within the broader criminological community. Contents include: Why Criminal Law? Why Break It? If Broken, Then What?' - Criminology and Assemblage Theory - Criminology and Deleuzoguattarism - Criminology and Lacan's Psychoanalytical Approach - Criminology and Forms of Life - Foundations and Origins as Criminological Objects - Criminological Conversations - Criminological Tribes.




New Directions in Race, Ethnicity and Crime


Book Description

The disproportionate criminalisation and incarceration of particular minority ethnic groups has long been observed, though much of the work in criminology has been dominated by a somewhat narrow debate. This debate has concerned itself with explaining this disproportionality in terms of structural inequalities and socio-economic disadvantage or discriminatory criminal justice processing. This book offers an accessible and innovative approach, including chapters on anti-Semitism, social cohesion in London, Bradford and Glasgow, as well as an exploration of policing Traveller communities. Incorporating current empirical research and new departures in methodology and theory, this book also draws on a range of contemporary issues such as policing terrorism, immigration detention and youth gangs. In offering minority perspectives on race, crime and justice and white inmate perspectives from the multicultural prison, the book emphasises contrasting and distinctive influences on constructing ethnic identities. It will be of interest to students studying courses in ethnicity, crime and justice.




Sex-Positive Criminology


Book Description

Sex-Positive Criminology proposes a new way to think about sexuality in the fields of criminology and criminal justice. Sex-positivity is framed as a humanizing approach to sexuality that supports the well-being of self and others. It is rooted in the principle of active and ongoing consent, and it encourages perspectives that value bodily autonomy, the right to access education, and respect for sexual difference. In this book, the authors argue that institutions such as prisons, schools, and healthcare facilities, as well as agents of governments, such as law enforcement, correctional officers, and politicians, can unduly cause harm and perpetuate stigma through the regulation and criminalization of sexuality. In order to critique institutions that criminalize and regulate sexuality, the authors of Sex-Positive Criminology examine case studies exploring the criminalization of commercial sex and related harm (at the hands of law enforcement) experienced by those who sell sex. They investigate sex education in schools, reproductive justice in communities and institutions, and restrictions on sexuality in places like prisons, jails, juvenile detention, and immigrant detention facilities. They look into the criminalization of BDSM practices and address concerns about young people’s sexuality connected to age of consent and privacy violations. The authors demonstrate how a sex-positive perspective could help criminologists, policymakers, and educators understand not only how to move away from sex-negative frameworks in theory, policy, and practice, but how sex-positive criminological frameworks can be a useful tool to reduce harm and increase personal agency. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, sexuality studies, cultural studies, criminal justice, social theory, and all those interested in the relationship between sexuality and the crimino-legal system.




Crime Prevention and Community Safety


Book Description

This book provides an essential introduction to the complex issues and debates in the field of crime control and the new politics of safety and security across the globe. The contributions to this volume present a critique of current policy and open up the field of study to new directions.




Punished


Book Description




Handbook on Crime and Deviance


Book Description

This 2nd edition of the Handbook provides an interdisciplinary coverage of new understandings of the most important developments in the sociology of crime and deviance that is current and emerging for research, methodology, practice, and theory in criminology. It fosters research to take the fields of criminology and criminal justice in new directions. Unlike any other handbook, it includes chapters on cutting-edge quantitative data and analytical techniques that are shaping the future of empirical research and expanding theoretical explanations of crime and deviance. It further devotes a section to the most current and innovative methodological issues. Chapters are updated providing an inclusive discussion of the current research and the theoretical and empirical future of crime and deviance. This handbook is of great interest for advanced undergraduates, graduates students, researchers and scholars in criminology, criminal justice, sociology and related fields, such as social welfare, economics, and psychology.




Social Control and Self-Control Theories of Crime and Deviance


Book Description

Control theories have dominated criminological theory and research since the 1969 publication of Hirschi's seminal work on the social bond. Social control and self-control theorists are unique in suggesting that patterns in criminal behaviors are better explained by variations in social constraints rather than by individual motivational impulses, thus indicating that their main concerns are the explication and clarification of the techniques, processes, and institutions of informal social control. The four major sections of this volume focus on: the similarities and differences among the major contributors to the early developmental stage of social control theory; the central importance of parents, peers, and schools in the creation of informal control mechanisms and their link to crime and delinquency; the theoretical underpinnings of self-control theory, including empirical tests and criticisms; and theoretical integrations of social control and self-control theories with various motivational theories of crime and delinquency.