Browse

Focusing on the Criminalisation of Social Policy, this book explores the intersections between crime and social policy and the ways in which contemporary social policies in many different countries look more like crime control policies. From anti-immigration agendas, which criminalise vulnerable populations, to the punishment of the poor and the governance of parenting, the book engages with the ways in which certain constituencies in our societies, who need help and support, are made to feel criminal in their relationships with the state and its agents. Specific policy examples chosen from across countries show that the criminalisation of social policy has resonance internationally. These are selected from the fields of work and welfare; borders and citizenship; family policy, urban planning and offender reintegration. In illuminating intersecting, and at times very troubling policy interventions, the book wrestles with ideas as to what social policy and welfare states should look like in our societies. It incites the reader to continue this process so that we reclaim the best of the ‘social’ in social policy for the twenty-first century.

There is increasing pressure on the humanities to justify their value and on criminology to undertake interdisciplinary research. In this book, the author establishes a new interdisciplinary methodology, ‘criminological criticism’, harnessing the synergy between literary studies and critical criminology to produce genuine interventions in social reality. The author practices criminological criticism on George Miller' Mad Max: Fury Road, Prime Video's Carnival Row, and J.K. Rowling's The Cuckoo's Calling, demonstrating how these popular allegories provide insights into the harms of sexism, racism, and class prejudice. The book proposes a model for collaboration between literary studies and critical criminology that is beneficial to the humanities, the social sciences, and society.

Using striking examples of imprisonment in different continents and cultures Prisons of the World raises fundamental questions about the manner in which governments and societies (mis)use prison as a response to a wide range of fundamental social, economic and political issues. It describes the mistreatment of women prisoners in North America and the United Kingdom and of elderly prisoners in Japan, the intractable influence of gangs in Latin America, the legacy of colonialism in South Africa and the Caribbean and the continuing influence of the Gulag system in many countries of the former Soviet Union. The book discusses the work of international bodies such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Europe, the involvement of the Inter American Court of Human Rights in the Caribbean and of court interventions in respect of the excessive use of solitary confinement in Canada and the United States. There is also a description of the author’s involvement in a unique instance of prison monitoring to resolve a violent dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The book concludes by offering some positive pointers for the future. In the medium term many of the resources which are currently invested in the demand led imprisonment industry could be transferred to initiatives such as those which are known as Justice Reinvestment and in the longer term radical change could be achieved through use of the Human Development model.

The people most impacted by criminal justice polices, and practices, are seldom included in the decision making processes that impact their lives. This edited volume builds on the sentiment underpinning the growing ‘nothing about us without us’ social movement, to argue for the importance of an approach to criminology that is inclusive of those voices that have historically been hushed, marginalised, silenced or ignored. Incorporating the experiences of service users, academics, and state and grassroots practitioners, this volume presents a nuanced perspective that furthers criminological scholarship by capturing the voices of marginalised groups. The volume explores the importance of diversity and inclusivity in criminological discourses and, consider how researchers might bridge the gap between theory and lived experience, and how the authenticity of the voices of those who have been silenced can be incorporated into a meaningful criminology.

We live in a pre-crime society. Within this society, information technology strategies and techniques such as predictive policing, actuarial justice and surveillance penology are used to achieve hyper-securitization. However, such securitization comes at a cost. In this new people-making society, the criminalisation of everyday life is guaranteed, justice functions as an algorithmic industry and punishment is administered through dataveillance regimes. Exploring relevant theories, developing technologies and institutional practices, this pioneering book explains how the pre-crime society operates in the ‘ultramodern’ age, reviews this society’s cultural effects and proposes new directions in crime control policy. Edited by critical and cultural criminologists, Bruce A. Arrigo and Brian G. Sellers, the volume brings together an international cast of interdisciplinary scholars, working at the intersections of data science, digital culture, and justice studies. This is the first collection to comprehensively consider the relevance and impact of the pre-crime society thesis, across the systems of state, national, and global surveillance and securitization.

From corporate corruption and the facilitation of money laundering, to food fraud and labour exploitation, European citizens continue to be confronted by serious corporate and white-collar crimes. Presenting an original series of provocative essays, this book offers a European framing of white-collar crime. Experts from different countries foreground what is unique, innovative, or different about white-collar and corporate crimes that are so strongly connected to Europe, including the tensions that exist within and between the nation-states of Europe, and within the institutions of the European region. This European voice provides an original contribution to discourses surrounding a form of crime which is underrepresented in current criminological literature.

The Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and the US-China trade dispute have heightened interest in the geopolitics and security of modern seaports. Ports are where contemporary societal dilemmas converge: the (de)regulation of international flows; the (in)visible impact of globalisation; the perennial tension between trade and security; and the thin line between legitimate, illicit and illegal. Applying a multidisciplinary lens to the political economy of port security, this book presents a unique outlook on the social, economic and political factors that shape organised crime and governance. Drawing on several primary interviews with port security professionals, this text bridges the divide between global and local, and theory and practice.

This book describes the experience and outcomes of engaging prisoners in philosophy education. Through philosophical dialogue, prisoners had the opportunity to discuss some of the ‘big’ questions in life: ‘What does it mean to be me?’ ‘What is society?’ ‘What are morals and how do they affect how we ought to behave?’ Through non-adversarial, collaborative conversation, Szifris works with men serving long sentences to develop a community of philosophical enquiry. After 3 months of philosophical conversation, the importance of this type of education became apparent – this is about identity and self-understanding. Men in prison need opportunity to express themselves, to explore philosophical questions and engage with each other in positive activity. Through discussion of identity, the text considers whether there is room for growth in the prison environment or can people only ‘survive’. The research, which took place in two prisons, explores the role of prison education, community dialogue and active philosophising in encouraging personal development. The research describes the role of philosophical dialogue in developing trust and relationships between and among the participants; the relevance of this type of education to prisoners’ psychological wellbeing; and the significance of the subject-matter to participants’ perspectives. The book argues that prison promotes the formation of a hyper-masculine ‘survival’ identity. It goes on to argue that education, and more specifically philosophy education, can play a role in cultivating growth identities that encourage personal exploration, self-reflection, and development of new interests.

From its earliest days, criminology has been a visual discipline, and the processes of the visual remain significant in the production and configuration of harm, crime, and justice. Reflecting the foundational power of the image, contemporary criminological and social theory are increasingly engaging with the processes and products of the visual from fine art to popular digital cultures. Following a longstanding and critical theoretical interest in the politics of meaning and the ways that our understandings of the phenomena of crime and justice shape (and are shaped-by) their cultural meaning and significance, visual criminology has begun to address the ways that contemporary social conditions, crime, justice, politics, and history configure the production and meaning of the visual (and vice versa). Detailing and employing the most prominent methodological and theoretical approaches at work in visual criminology, with a focus on the ways in which visually-attentive theory can enrich and enliven critical understandings of social relations, this book traces the development of the visual as a field and object of inquiry in criminology and social science at large. It describes the key methodological tendencies of the field, and theoretically explains and explores the visual perspective in relation to material ecology and environmental harm, drugs and drug culture, prison and punishment, and police and police power. This book broadens the horizons of criminological engagement and reveals how visual criminology—as one dimension of a broader sensory agenda—can offer new and critical ways to understand and theorize crime and harm.

Criminal Justice is popularly conceptualised as a pursuit of the truth. This book considers the extent to which this view reflects reality by exploring a number of key themes. The ‘pursuit of truth’ suggests an obtainable, single truth and the book considers the extent to which truth is a far more complex, nuanced phenomenon. Often the criminal process appears to be more about constructing a narrative and telling a convincing story. The book explores the extent to which a pursuit of truth can conflict with other values such as justice and the protection of human rights, with particular focus on illegally obtained evidence and confessions. The concluding chapters discuss the extent to which the pursuit of truth has shaped the modern trial process and assesses alternative approaches to criminal justice including restorative justice and truth commissions. The conclusion highlights some fundamental themes in the book and points to the limitations of the current criminal justice system not only in terms of establishing truth but in terms of realising significant social benefit. Three areas of focus are taken to assess the current system’s ability to find the truth: blame, juvenile justice, and the pursuit of justice. The book argues that the current criminal process adopts a person, rather than a system, approach to bad events with a focus on identifying individuals to blame rather than addressing the wider problems resulting from crime.