Key Ideas in Criminology
About the Book Series
Key Ideas in Criminology explores the major concepts, issues, debates and controversies in criminology. The series provides authoritative essays on central topics within the broader area of criminology. Each book adopts a strong individual ‘line’, constituting original essays rather than literature surveys and offers lively and agenda setting treatments of their subject matter.
These books will appeal to students, teachers and researchers in criminology, sociology, social policy, cultural studies, law and political science.
Trial by Media
1st Edition
By Chris Greer
December 31, 2025
Trial by Media is a form of interactive, mediatised justice in which individuals and institutions are accused, tried, judged and sentenced in the ‘court of public opinion’. This agenda-setting book argues that Trial by Media is redefining the meaning and nature of justice in a multi-media world. ...
Feminist Criminology
2nd Edition
By Claire M. Renzetti, Carrie L. Buist
April 07, 2025
This revised and updated second edition traces the growth of feminist criminology from the 1970s to the present, examining the diversity of feminist criminologies that have developed, the ways they have responded to and built on one another, and the future directions for research and activism to ...
Punishment
1st Edition
By Rob Canton
June 10, 2022
This book explores the concept of punishment: its meaning and significance, not least to those subject to it; its social, political and emotional contexts; its role in the criminal justice system; and the difficulties of bringing punishment to an end. It explores how levels of criminal punishment ...
Historical Criminology
1st Edition
By David Churchill, Henry Yeomans, Iain Channing
November 30, 2021
This book sets an agenda for the development of historical approaches to criminology. It defines ‘historical criminology’, explores its characteristic strengths and limitations, and considers its potential to enhance, revise and fundamentally challenge dominant modes of thinking about crime and ...
The Crimmigrant Other: Migration and Penal Power
1st Edition
By Katja Franko
December 09, 2019
Western societies are immersed in debates about immigration and illegality. This book examines these processes and outlines how the figure of the "crimmigrant other" has emerged not only as a central object of media and political discourse, but also as a distinct penal subject connecting...
The Corporate Criminal: Why Corporations Must Be Abolished
1st Edition
By Steve Tombs, David Whyte
April 16, 2015
Drawing upon a wide range of sources of empirical evidence, historical analysis and theoretical argument, this book shows beyond any doubt that the private, profit-making, corporation is a habitual and routine offender. The book dissects the myth that the corporation can be a rational, responsible...
Sentencing: Time for a Paradigm Shift
1st Edition
By Ralph Henham
September 05, 2013
Sentencing is the process through which the legitimacy of punishment is declared and justified. However, it is increasingly portrayed as a social activity which should be more responsive to the pluralistic needs and values of individuals and communities in contemporary society. It will therefore ...
Public Criminology?
1st Edition
By Ian Loader, Richard Sparks
August 18, 2010
What is the role and value of criminology in a democratic society? How do, and how should, its practitioners engage with politics and public policy? How can criminology find a voice in an agitated, insecure and intensely mediated world in which crime and punishment loom large in government agendas ...
Genocidal Crimes
1st Edition
By Alex Alvarez
November 19, 2009
Genocide has emerged as one of the leading problems of the twentieth century. No corner of the world seems immune from this form of collective violence. While many individuals are familiar with the term, few people have a clear understanding of what genocide is and how it is carried out. This book ...
Security
1st Edition
By Lucia Zedner
April 28, 2009
Just a decade ago security had little claim to criminological attention. Today a combination of disciplinary paradigm shifts, policy changes, and world political events have pushed security to the forefront of the criminological agenda. Distinctions between public safety and private protection, ...
Rehabilitation
1st Edition
By Tony Ward, Shadd Maruna
June 25, 2007
Over the last two decades, empirical evidence has increasingly supported the view that it is possible to reduce re-offending rates by rehabilitating offenders rather than simply punishing them. In fact, the pendulum’s swing back from a pure punishment model to a rehabilitation model is arguably one...
Penal Populism
1st Edition
By John Pratt
December 19, 2006
Expertly drawing on international examples and existing literature, Penal Populism closes a gap in the field of criminology. In this fascinating expose of current crime policy John Pratt examines the role played by penal populism on trends in contemporary penal policy. Penal populism is associated ...