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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.

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.

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.

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.

At a time when criminal justice systems appear to be in a permanent state of crisis, in this collection leading scholars from criminology and theology have come together to challenge criminal justice orthodoxy by questioning the dominance of retributive punishment. The book is a timely and unique contribution that considers alternatives which draw on Christian ideas of hope, mercy and restoration, rather than the norms of punishment, pain and retribution. Contributions focus on punishment, although wider criminal justice concerns in policing and probation, as well as mental health and surveillance are also considered. Promoting cross-disciplinary learning, the book is of interest to academics and students of criminology, public theology, socio-legal studies, legal philosophy and religious studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers. If the ideas discussed in this book are taken seriously they offer a fundamental challenge to the contemporary view of criminal justice.

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.

This book answers the question of the usefulness of criminological fiction. Criminological fiction is fiction that can provide an explanation of the causes of crime or social harm and could, in consequence, contribute to the development of crime or social harm reduction policies. The book argues that criminological fiction can provide at least the following three types of criminological knowledge: (1) phenomenological, i.e. representing what certain experiences are like; (2) counterfactual, i.e. representing possible but non-existent situations; and (3) mimetic, i.e. representing everyday reality in detail and with accuracy. The book employs the phenomenological, counterfactual, and mimetic values of fiction to establish a theory of the criminological value of narrative fiction. It begins with a critical analysis of current work in narrative criminology and current criminological work on fiction. It then demonstrates the phenomenological, counterfactual, and mimetic values of narrative fiction using case studies from fictional novels, graphic novels, television series, and feature films. The argument concludes with an explanation of the relationship between the aetiological and pedagogic values of narrative fiction, focusing on cinematic fictions in virtue of the vast audiences they reach courtesy of their place in global popular culture.

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.

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.

Drawing on original research from the Women, Family, Crime and Justice research network, this book sheds new light on the challenges and experiences of women and families who encounter the criminal justice system in the UK. Each chapter demonstrates how these groups are often ignored, oppressed and repeatedly victimised. The book addresses crucial issues including short-term imprisonment, trauma-specific interventions, schools supporting children affected by parental imprisonment and visibility and voice in research. Bringing together contemporary knowledge from both research and practice, the book offers valuable insights and practical recommendations for positive action and change.

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.

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.

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.

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.