The Problem of Crime

by John Muncie

• ISBN13: 9780761969716
• ISBN10: 0761969713
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-12
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd

Summary

Praise for the First Edition: 'By providing accessible and readable introductions to often neglected aspects of crime, the volume is a welcome change from texts focusing on the more conventionally constructed problems of juvenile crime, theft and violent crime' - Reviewing Sociology This second edition of The Problem of Crime offers a comprehensive analysis of some of the most important developments in the study of crime. The book considers how the criminological gaze has shifted its focus from a preoccupation with 'crimes of the streets' to examining also the serious social harms and injuries associated with crime in the city, child abuse, domestic violence, organized crime, corporate crime, political violence, hate crime and crimes of the state. The book also emphasizes the necessity of studying the staging and representation of crime in the news media and popular culture. In doing so The Problem of Crime highlights the ways that criminologists are currently challenging and reformulating the concept of crime. Drawing on a wide range of explanatory and illustrative material, the contributors interrogate the proposition that there are universally agreed conceptions of what constitutes the crime problem. A persistent and widespread public concern with crime suggests that everyone knows what it is. However, each chapter in this book shows that 'crime' carries a range of meanings and understandings that are open to disputation, and which shift historically and culturally. Ranging over a wide variety of issues, this fully revised and updated edition will be essential reading for students of criminology, criminal justice, socio-legal studies, social policy and sociology, and also for readers with a general interest in crime. The Problem of Crime is a course text for the Open University course, Crime, Order and Social Control (D315).

Table of Contents

Introduction - John Muncie and Eugene McLaughlin

The Construction and Deconstruction of Crime - John Muncie

The Pleasures of Crime - John Clarke

Interrogating the Detective Story

Crime, Order and Historical Change - Jim Sharpe

Dangerous Places - Peggotty Graham and John Clarke

Crime and the City

Dangerous Places - Ester Saraga

The Family as a Site of Crime

Good or Bad Business? - Gordon Hughes and Mary Langan

Exploring Corporate and Organized Crime

Political Violence, Terrorism and the States of Fear - Eugene McLaughlin