Crime is a source of endless fascination and fear. Yet behind the apparent consensus that crime must be fought, there is considerable conflict about what should or should not be treated as criminal, and even the most shocking crimes can inspire divisive debate. This concise book explores the seemingly simple, common-sense concept of crime revealing the huge complexities, ambiguities and tensions that lie beneath it. Criminal law is often at odds with different moral perspectives and the practices of different cultures. The mass media distort the picture profoundly, as do politicians in pursuit of law and order votes. The criminal justice system tackles only a limited range of crimes ? almost entirely ones committed by the poor and relatively powerless ? while often neglecting the most dangerous and harmful activities of corporations and states, from the carnage of unjust wars to the tragedies engendered by austerity. It is only by examining the multiple and varied perspectives on crime that we can begin to understand and respond appropriately to this social phenomenon. Written by a world-leading criminologist, this insightful book will be an invaluable and captivating introduction for students and interested readers of criminology, law, sociology and politics.

Product Description: In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Western societies entered a climate of austerity which has limited the penal expansion experienced in the US, UK and elsewhere over recent decades. These altered conditions have led to introspection and new thinking on punishment even among those on the political right who were previously champions of the punitive turn...read more

Product Description: We now live in a world which thinks through the legislative implications of criminal justice with one eye on human rights. Human Rights and the Criminal Justice System provides comprehensive coverage of human rights as it relates to the contemporary criminal justice system...read more

Product Description: The International Criminal Court emerged in the early twenty-first century as an ambitious and permanent institution with a mandate to address mass atrocity crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity. Although designed to exercise jurisdiction only in instances where states do not pursue these crimes themselves (and are unwilling or unable to do so), the Court's interventions, particularly in African states, have raised questions about the social value of its work and its political dimensions and effects...read more

Product Description: Winner of the 2016 Book Award from the American Society of Criminology, Division of Critical Criminology. In this book, Carrie L. Buist and Emily Lenning reflect on the origins of Queer Criminology, survey the foundational research and scholarship in this emerging field, and offer suggestions for the future...read more

Product Description: World Criminal Justice Systems, Ninth Edition, provides an understanding of major world criminal justice systems by discussing and comparing the systems of six of the world’s countries -- each representative of a different type of legal system...read more

Product Description: Rising prison numbers on both sides of the Atlantic are cause for concern. Justice Reinvestment is a major movement in criminal justice reform in the US that is also attracting lots of interest in the UK. Justice Reinvestment is an approach to addressing the penal crisis that uses the best available evidence to re-direct resources to more effective rehabilitation of offenders and better ‘prehabilitation’...read more

Product Description: Scrutinizing all the relevant case law of the International Criminal Court (ICC), this book elucidates the paradigm that the ICC's jurisprudence represents in international criminal justice. It presents in-depth knowledge of how contemporary international criminal justice preserves, departs from, or extends the principles that have developed since the Nuremberg Trials...read more

Product Description: Myriad forms of communication occur within the criminal justice system as judges and attorneys speak to juries, law enforcement officers interact with the public, and the news media presents stories of events in courtrooms. Hindrances abound, however...read more

Product Description: Contemporary scholars have begun to explore non-normative sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in a growing victimization literature, but very little research is focused on LGBTQ communities’ patterns of offending (beyond sex work) and their experiences with police, the courts, and correctional institutions...read more

One in a series of books by noted science fiction writer Jack Chalker never published before in the UK. Other books in this "Four Lords of the Diamond" series are "Cerbrus", "A Wolf in the Fold", "A Dragon at the Gate", "Medusa" and "Tiger by the Tail".