Advances a new sociology of crime and disrepute that focuses on the criminal costs of social inequality. Connects the diversion of capital away from distressed communities in the U.S. to increased violence and lack of social mobility for disadvantaged groups, which result in the development of "deviance service centers" and "ethnic vice industries." Shows the important link between "crime in the streets" and "crime in the suites" and the differences between the two in eluding punishment.
In Crime and Modernity, John Lea develops a broad historical and sociological overview relating the rise and fall of effective crime control to different types of social structures.
For decades, scholars have disagreed about what kinds of behavior count as crime. Is it simply a violation of the criminal law? Is it behavior that causes serious harm? Is the seriousness affected by how many people are harmed and does it make a difference who those people are? Are crimes less criminal if the victims are black, lower class, or foreigners? When corporations victimize workers is that a crime? What about when governments violate basic human rights of their citizens, and who then polices governments? In What Is Crime? the first book-length treatment of the topic, contributors debate the content of crime from diverse perspectives: consensus/moral, cultural/relative, conflict/power, anarchist/critical, feminist, racial/ethnic, postmodernist, and integrational. Henry and Lanier synthesize these perspectives and explore what each means for crime control policy.
How Americans came to fear street crime too much—and corporate crime too little How did the United States go from being a country that tries to rehabilitate street criminals and prevent white-collar crime to one that harshly punishes common lawbreakers while at the same time encouraging corporate crime through a massive deregulation of business? Why do street criminals get stiff prison sentences, a practice that has led to the disaster of mass incarceration, while white-collar criminals, who arguably harm more people, get slaps on the wrist—if they are prosecuted at all? In Who Are the Criminals?, one of America's leading criminologists provides new answers to these vitally important questions by telling how the politicization of crime in the twentieth century transformed and distorted crime policymaking and led Americans to fear street crime too much and corporate crime too little. John Hagan argues that the recent history of American criminal justice can be divided into two eras--the age of Roosevelt (roughly 1933 to 1973) and the age of Reagan (1974 to 2008). A focus on rehabilitation, corporate regulation, and the social roots of crime in the earlier period was dramatically reversed in the later era. In the age of Reagan, the focus shifted to the harsh treatment of street crimes, especially drug offenses, which disproportionately affected minorities and the poor and resulted in wholesale imprisonment. At the same time, a massive deregulation of business provided new opportunities, incentives, and even rationalizations for white-collar crime—and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The time for moving beyond Reagan-era crime policies is long overdue, Hagan argues. The understanding of crime must be reshaped and we must reconsider the relative harms and punishments of street and corporate crimes. In a new afterword, Hagan assesses Obama's policies regarding the punishment of white-collar and street crimes and debates whether there is any evidence of a significant change in the way our country punishes them.
There may be areas of human life in which people have profited from understanding history, but criminal justice is definitely not one of them. In this field, each generation seems to undo the last generation's reforms. Each generation resurrects old failures and trots them out as new. A previous generation hailed indeterminate sentencing as a great
The new edition of this best-selling study skills book provides a practical guide for success for individuals at every level of their criminology and criminal justice degree. The new edition of this best-selling study skills book is a practical guide to success for individuals at every level of their criminology and criminal justice degree. Fully revised to reflect changes in the curriculum, the book continues to provide students with practical and relevant information for their degree, including topics on choosing modules, sourcing and researching, applying theory to practice, writing essays, presentation skills, revision, taking exams and careers after your degree. New to the second edition: a chapter on plagiarism developments in virtual learning environments and e-resources expanded coverage of internet and e-learning skills advice on moving from A-level to university. Maintaining its student-friendly approach and useful pedagogy - tips, activities, glossary, key terms and issues - Study Skills for Criminology is an essential purchase for any student of criminology or criminal justice looking to excel in their degree. John Harrison, formerly of Teesside University Mark Simpson is Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Law at Teesside University. Olwen Harrison, formerly of Teesside University. Emma Martin is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Teesside University. SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, quizzes and videos on study success!
'Focusing on key issues, themes and concepts within victimology, this edited collection provides an accessible and comprehensive critical analysis of crucial areas within victimisation. The main theories are related to, and integrated with, empirical research in an engaging style.' - Dr Anette Ballinger, Keele University 'This book achieves the rare feat of helping its readers without patronising them. The aids to the reader - tables, boxes, glossaries, questions, and suggestions for further reading - will prove genuinely helpful to students and their teachers, but they appear within a text that is theoretically informed as well as comprehensive and up to date in its coverage. It deserves to be widely read and used in the teaching of criminology, victimology, and criminal justice' - Professor David Smith, University of Lancaster, UK. Organized around the intersecting social divisions of class, race, age and gender, the book provides an engaging and authoritative overview of the nature of victimisation in society. In addition to a review of the major theoretical developments in relation to understanding aspects of victimization in society, individual chapters explore the political and social context of victimisation and the historical, comparative and contemporary research and scholarly work on it. Each chapter includes the following: - Background and glossary - Theory, research and policy review - `Thinking critically about...' sections - Reflections and future research directions - Summary and conclusions - Annotated bibliography Victims, Crime and Society is the essential text on victims for students of criminology, criminal justice, community safety, youth justice and related areas.
This book represents a brief treatise on the theory and research behind the concept of desistance from crime. This ever-growing field has become increasingly relevant as questions of serious issues regarding sentencing, probation and the penal system continue to go unanswered. Rocque covers the history of research on desistance from crime and provides a discussion of research and theories on the topic before looking towards the future of the application of desistance to policy. The focus of the volume is to provide an overview of the practical and theoretical developments to better understand desistance. In addition, a multidisciplinary, integrative theoretical perspective is presented, ensuring that it will be of particular interest for students and scholars of criminology and the criminal justice system.
Criminology has developed strong methodological tools over the past decades, establishing itself as a competitive, sophisticated, and independent social science. Perhaps because of its emphasis on matters of design, methodology, and quantitative analysis, criminology has had few significant advances in theory. Advances in Criminological Theory is the first series exclusively dedicated to the dissemination of original work on criminological theory.The Process and Structure of Crime, the ninth volume in this landmark series, is a thorough overview of the conceptual and empirical issues raised by the adoption of a criminal event perspective, which takes into account the multifaceted character of human behavior. This book is divided into three sections: conceptual bases of criminal events, the criminal event perspective itself, and responses to criminal events. Contributors analyze and explore a wide range of topics, including: how interpersonal routines are structured through past experience; the influence of social context on interpersonal routines; criminal opportunity and its impact on criminal events; the significance of neighborhood context; the effect of victimization and fear; how problem-oriented policing efforts need to be informed by and reflect the problems of repeat offenders, repeat victims, and hot spots of crime; and finally, how changes in the physical environment constrain or limit criminal opportunities. This fascinating work will be beneficial to criminologists, sociologists, and scholars of legal studies.Contributors to this volume include: Leslie W. Kennedy, Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, Robert F. Meier, Mark Warr, Christopher Birkbeck, Luis Gerardo Gabaldon, Kriss A. Drass, Terance D. Miethe, Julie Horney, Jeffrey Fagan, Deanna L. Wilkinson, Robert J. Buskirk, Jr., Vincent F. Sacco, Ross Macmillan, John E. Eck, Paul J. Brantingham, and Pat Brantingham.
