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Drinking is frequently described as a contemporary, worsening and peculiarly British social problem that requires radical remedial regulation. Comparative data, however, undermines such views and historical research shows that extreme bouts of alarm about drinking have occurred in this country for at least four centuries. So why is Britain such a fertile breeding ground for public anxieties about alcohol? This innovative book takes a genealogical look at both public attitudes and the regulation of alcohol in England and Wales. It draws on the concept of moral regulation and makes extensive use of press and legal sources in its analysis. Ultimately it is argued that, rather than a response to current behavioural trends,the continuing anxiety apparent in how we think about and regulate alcohol is best understood as a historic hangover which derives, in particular, from the Victorian period. The product of several years of research, this book is essential reading for students, academics and anyone with a serious interest in understanding Britain’s ‘drink problem’.

Approaches based around complexity theory are increasingly being used in the study of organisations and the delivery of services. This is the first book to explore the application of complexity theory to difficult practice issues in criminal justice and social work and is intended to stimulate debate. It brings together experts in this emerging field to address complexity theory from a range of perspectives (positivist, realist, and constructivist), providing a detailed but accessible discussion of the key issues to whole systems approaches. The chapters cover theory and research on the nature of complex adaptive systems, their application to key areas of service delivery and the efficacy and ethics of criminal justice and social work interventions. The book argues for the usefulness of applying complexity theory to address significant and intractable social problems and also challenges the reductionist approaches to solving those problems currently favoured by policy makers. It will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in social work and criminal justice.

We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with allocating blame: when something goes wrong someone must be to blame. Bringing together philosophical, psychological, and sociological accounts of blame, this is the first detailed socio-legal account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. The book identifies the problematic and elusive nature of blame and contrasts this with the uncritical way in which it is often used in the criminal justice process. Using a range of examples, the book addresses a number of contemporary issues including moral luck, blame amplification and growing criminalisation. The authors conclude that whilst allocation of blame is often simplistic and arbitrary and reflects little more than the ability of the powerful to coerce the marginalised, deconstructing the process of blame attribution would allow more progressive alternatives to be advanced.

This book asks what can be learned from the problem-solving focus of crime prevention to help face the challenges of climate change in this call to arms for criminology and criminologists. Industries such as energy, food, and tourism and the systematic destruction of the environment through global capitalism are scrutinized for their contribution to global warming. Ideas of ‘state–corporate crime’ and ‘ecocide’ are introduced and explored in this concise overview of criminological writings on climate change. This sound and robust application of theoretical concepts to this ‘new’ area also includes commentary on topical issues such as the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate agreement.

This publication explores the legal, media and social constructions of coercion as a pathway into crime for some co-offending women. Coercion has been increasingly acknowledged as a pathway into crime for female offenders, particularly those whose relationship with their male partner/ co-offender is characterised by abuse, control and/or obsession (Barlow, 2015; Jones, 2008; Richie, 1996; Welle & Falkin, 2000). However, the construction of such women within the law and media and the consequential ways in which they are understood is often limited to over-simplistic explanations and dichotomies, which are usually rooted in gendered assumptions and expectations. Informed by newspaper articles and materials accessed via case and court files, this publication will analyse four cases of co-accused women, all of which utilised the notion of ‘coercion’ (by their male partner/ accomplice/s), albeit to differing levels, as part of their defence. These case studies are used as a tool to understand how media and legal institutions and society more broadly attempt to make sense of coerced women. The alternative, feminist conceptual framework of a ‘continuum of coercion’ is also introduced, to develop a more nuanced conceptual and theoretical framework of coercion as a pathway into crime. The publication also considers the extent to which criminology currently contributes to this discussion and more specifically, what it fails to say about coerced women.

Moral order is disturbed by criminal events. However, in a secularized and networked society a common moral ground is increasingly hard to find. People feel confused about the bigger issues of our time such as crime, anti-social behaviour, Islamist radicalism, sexual harassment and populism. Traditionally, issues around morality have been neglected by criminologists. Through theory, case studies and discussion, this book sheds a new and topical light on these concerns. Using the moral perspective, the book bridges the gap between people's emotional opinions on crime, and criminologists' rationalized answers to questions of crime and security.

Policing and security provision are subjects central to criminology. Yet there are newer and neglected forms that are currently unscrutinised. By examining the work of community safety officers, ambassador patrols, conservation officers, and private police foundations, who operate on and are animated by a frontier, this book reveals why criminological inquiry must reach beyond traditional conceptual and methodological boundaries in the twenty-first century. Including novel case studies, this multi-disciplinary and international book assembles a rich collection of policing and security frontiers both geographical (e.g. the margins of cities) and conceptual (dispersion and credentialism) not seen or acknowledged previously.

With the academic study of ‘war’ gaining renewed popularity within criminology in recent years, this book illustrates the long-standing engagement with this social phenomenon within the discipline. Foregrounding established criminological work addressing war and connecting it to a wide range of extant sociological literature, the authors present and further develop theoretical and conceptual ways of thinking critically about war. Within this book, whilst providing an implicit critique of mainstream criminology the authors seek to question if a ‘criminology of war’ is possible, and if so how this seemingly ‘new horizon’ of the discipline might be usefully informed by sociology.

The ethical question confronting all of us is how to live alongside each other where the other person is our neighbour, not our disposable enemy. This monograph refines thinking on the subject of the other and rejects that othering, the imposition of a pejorative status, is an inevitable feature of human life. If the conditions of existence under which we live is a contingent creation, the political and economic, the ethical and cultural, can be reconstructed to reduce pejorative othering. There is the scope to refine and develop thinking on the other by incorporating a longer-term stream of history perspective that reaches back to antiquity; acknowledge troubling transformations imposed upon the criminal justice system by a succession of ‘modernising’ governments; foreground moral responses to contest the production of the relegated and demonised other; and to forge a new agreement on ethical priorities to establish the conditions of existence that benefit all of us. These four themes represent the four substantive chapters of this monograph. It is imperative to think about the other in relation to macro (historical, political, material conditions, and ideological commitments); mezzo (organisational transformations); and micro (human subjectivity) that feature in this monograph. Importantly, the scope exists to contest othering; to proceed from the construction and function of othering through new political and ethical commitments to change the way we organise ourselves. Therefore, it is possible to reframe the contours of the debate and to move things on from where they reside at present.

This book explores how evidence-based skills and practices can reduce re-offending, support desistance, and encourage service user engagement during supervision in criminal justice settings; and how those who work with service users in these settings could apply these skills and practices to their work. This book is the first to bring together international research on skills and practices in probation and youth justice, while exploring the wider contexts that affect their implementation in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Wide-ranging in scope, it also covers effective approaches to working with diverse groups such as ethnic minority service users, women and young people. There are chapters on specific practice in England and Wales, the United States, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Romania and Australia.

To date, approaches to understanding serial murder have focused on individual cases rather than the social context in which they occurred. This book marks a departure by situating nineteenth century serial killer Mary Ann Cotton within the broader social structure. Using archival records of her court appearances, local histories and newspaper articles, it uniquely explores how institutions such as the family, economy and religion shaped the environment she inhabited and her social integration through the roles of wife, mother, worker and criminal. Acknowledging that it takes a particular type of individual to commit serial murder, the book shows that it also takes a particular type of society to enable that murderer to go unseen. As the first work to analyse serial murder through the theoretical framework of institutional criminology and institutional anomie theory, it will equip criminologists with a methodological toolkit for performing institutional analysis.

Analysing criminal trajectories via the lens of group offending from childhood to adulthood, this book explores gang organisation as a means for gang business in the contemporary British context. The study itself draws upon a five year study, carried out in the West of Scotland, to present in the voices of practitioners and more notably (ex)offenders the activity which gangs engage in the look to survive, operate, and expand in the illegal criminal underworld. The book is unique in that gang structure, activity, and context are analysed independently yet presents a holistic picture of what (dis)organised crime looks like in Britain today. Particular attention is paid to gang involvement in the countries illegal drug market, with unique light shed on the subject. In addition, the author explores how this illegal activity often overspills and is intertwined with the legitimate British economy.

This distinctive and engaging book proposes an imaginative criminology, focusing on how spaces of transgression are lived, portrayed and imagined. These include spaces of control or confinement, including prison and borders, and spaces of resistance. Examples range from camps where asylum seekers and migrants are confined to the exploration of deviant identities and the imagined spaces of surveillance and control in young adult fiction. Drawing on oral history, fictive portrayals, walking methodologies, and ethnographic and arts-based research, the book pays attention to issues of gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, mobility and nationality as they intersect with lived and imagined space.

Within the criminal justice system of England and Wales, the Crown Court is the arena in which serious criminal offences are prosecuted and sentenced. On the basis of ethnographic research findings, this book provides a detailed description of what it is like to attend Crown Court as a victim, witness or defendant; the interplay between the various participants at court; and the extent to which the court process is viewed as legitimate by those involved in it. The findings reveal that appearing at court can be a frightening, upsetting and frustrating experience, and that there are many aspects of the court process that are chaotic and confusing. It is, moreover, a process characterised by profound incongruities: high levels of formality are mixed with informality; the most intimate, personal and often sordid details of individuals’ lives are publicly recounted in elaborate fashion; matters of greatest seriousness are discussed alongside trivialities; and grief and (black) humour coincide. Notwithstanding the inherent and often immense contradictions and difficulties of the court experience, the vast majority of victims, witnesses and defendants alike are highly compliant in the courtroom: they come to court when told to do so (albeit sometimes late); they sit or stand as instructed; they answer the questions posed to them and in the required manner; and they conduct themselves according to the social rules of the courtroom. This ‘reluctant conformity’ of court users appears to reflect an implicit belief in the legitimacy of the court process and its outcomes.

Little is known about those at the command end of policing in Europe. This book details unique access to those at the top of Europe’s police forces, obtaining detailed comments from more than a hundred strategic police leaders in 22 countries and presenting, for the first time, information about how they are selected for high office, how they are held to account and what their views are on current and future challenges in policing. Building on research conducted in the UK, this is a timely and unparalleled insight into a little-known elite in the law-enforcement world.

Radio produced and broadcast behind prison walls is redefining traditional meanings of ‘public service broadcasting’ and disrupting traditional power structures within the prison system. Focusing on one of the most interesting developments in UK prisons over the past ten years, this book examines the early history of the Prison Radio Association (PRA) and the formation of the first national radio station for prisoners. Highlighting the enduring importance of social values in broadcasting, this book shows how radio can be used as a powerful force for social change. It will be of interest to those involved in media, criminal justice, and social activism.

Criminal justice used to be thought of as a field autonomous from politics and the economy, with the management of crime and punishment being seen as essentially the responsibility of government. However, in recent decades, policies have been adopted which blur the institutional boundaries and functions of the public sector with those of for-profit and civil society interests in many parts of the penal/welfare complex. The impact of these developments on society is contested: Proponents of the ‘neo-liberal penality thesis’ argue economic deregulation, welfare retrenchment, individualised choices – and associated responsibility – may be aligned by market forces into efficient delivery of ‘law and order’. Set against the neo-liberal penal position are arguments that the corporate sector may be no more efficient in delivering criminal justice services than is the public sector, and reliance on the profit motive to deliver criminal justice may lead to perverse incentivisation of NGOs or state agencies. It is to this debate we add our contribution. Criminal justice is an ideal sector in which to consider the implications arising from the differing incentive structures held by different institutions, both private and public, citizens, governments, social enterprise and the corporate sector. All agree on the need for criminal justice, even as they compete in the policy sphere to dictate its form and delivery.

Exploring the untold experiences of family members and friends caring for the children of female prisoners in England and Wales, this book sheds light on the collateral damage that incarceration causes those who take over caregiving responsibilities for the children of female prisoners. Providing new qualitative research on the lived experiences of caregiving relatives, alongside theoretically informed and policy-relevant insights, the book shows the difficult and damaging consequences of the ‘family sentence’ they serve. Exploring the stigma, scarce statutory support and policy neglect they face, it offers much-needed evidence to encourage the development of a more inclusive, understanding and family-oriented justice system.

Modern slavery, in the form of labour exploitation, domestic servitude, sexual trafficking, child labour and cannabis farming, is still growing in the UK and industrialised countries, despite the introduction of laws to try to stem it. This hugely topical book is the first to assess the legislation critically, using evidence from across the field, and to offer strategies for improvement in policy and practice. The book argues that, contrary to its claims to be ‘world-leading’, the Modern Slavery Act is inconsistent, inadequate and punitive, and that the UK government, through its labour market and immigration policies, is actually creating the conditions for slavery to be promoted.

It is well known that the social definition of individuals and ethnic groups helps legitimize how they are addressed by law enforcement. The philosophy of the social construction of crime and criminal behaviour reflects how individuals, such as police officers, construct meaning from the perspective from which they emerge, which in turn influences their law enforcement outlook. In the field, this is generally viewed through a positivist frame of reference which fails to critically examine assumptions of approach and practice. Written by an international specialist in this area, this is the first book which attempts to situate the social construction of crime and criminal behaviour within the philosophical context of phenomenology and how these constructions help inform, and ultimately justify, the policies employed to address them. Challenging existing thinking, this is essential reading for academics and students interested in social theory and theories of criminology.