By Claire M. Renzetti

Feminist criminology grew out of the Women’s Movement of the 1970s in response to the neglect of women by, and the male dominance of, mainstream criminology. This important volume traces the development of feminist criminology and assesses its impact on the discipline. Examining the development of feminist theoretical perspectives and empirical research in criminology, this key book investigates their impact on research methods and topics, pedagogy and curriculum and employment in academic and criminal justice professions.

Renzetti considers the potential for feminist criminology to transform the discipline, making it more progressive by including as a central principle the need to analyze intersecting inequalities, especially those of gender, race and class, in order to fully understand both crime and justice. She skilfully gives a balanced view of the subject, incorporating both the successes and failures of feminist criminology and provides an extensive, up-to-date bibliography which allows criminology students to access, for their own research purposes, the large body of feminist criminological literature.

ISBN: 9780415381437

Published May 02 2008 by Routledge.

By Richard Collier

This book presents the first published comprehensive overview and critical assessment of the relationship between law and masculinities. It provides a general introduction to the subject whilst, via a series of interlinked readings, engaging with the difficult question of what it means to speak of the masculinity of law in the first place. As a study of the bigger picture of the relationship between men and law, the result is an innovative, timely and important text which has the potential to reach a diverse readership within the sub-fields of legal studies and across other disciplines.

ISBN: 9781904385493

Published April 01 2008 by Routledge-Cavendish.

A Critical Introduction

By Rob Watts, Judith Bessant, Richard Hil

International Criminology is an easy access critical introduction to how conventional criminologists in the international arena think about, and research crime. By using examples from the US, UK and Australia, the authors outline key ideas, vocabulary, assumptions and findings of the discipline while opening up a set of critical underlying issues and problems.

From theoretical traditions to historical perspectives; contemporary criminology to reflexive criminology; this all encompassing text covers it all. This is the most valuable introduction to international criminology available for undergraduates and works as a superb refresher for more experienced students.

ISBN: 9780415431781

Published February 14 2008 by Routledge.

Conflict Resolution in Mediation, Restorative Justice, and Reparations

By Andrew Woolford, R.S. Ratner

The 'reparational turn' in the field of law has resulted in the increased use of so-called 'informal' approaches to conflict resolution, including primarily the three mechanisms considered in this book: mediation, restorative justice and reparations. While proponents of these mechanisms have acclaimed their communicative and democratic promise, critics have charged that mediation, restorative justice and reparations all potentially serve as means for encouraging citizens to internalize and mimic the rationalities of governance. Indeed, the critics suggest that informal justice's supposed oppositional relationship to formal justice is, at base, a mutually reinforcing one, in which each system relies on the other for its effective operation, rather than the two being locked in a struggle for dominance.

This book contributes to the discussion of the confluence of informal and formal justice by providing a clearer picture of the justice 'field' through the notion of the 'informal/formal justice complex.' This term, adapted from Garland and Sparks (2000), describes a cultural formation in which adversarial/punitive and conciliatory/restorative justice forms coexist in relative harmony despite their apparent contradictions. Situating this complex within the context of neoliberalism, this book identifies the points of rupture in the informal/formal justice complex to pinpoint how and where a truly alternative and 'transformative' justice (i.e. a justice that challenges and counters the hegemony of formal legal practices, opening the field of law to a broader array of actors and ideas) might be established through the tools of mediation, restorative justice and reparations.

ISBN: 9780415429344

Published December 20 2007 by Routledge-Cavendish.

The New Geometry of Harm

By Michael McGuire

Hypercrime develops a new theoretical approach toward current reformulations in criminal behaviours, in particular the phenomenon of cybercrime. Emphasizing a spatialized conception of deviance, one that clarifies the continuities between crime in the traditional, physical context and developing spaces of interaction such as a 'cyberspace', this book analyzes criminal behaviours in terms of the destructions, degradations or incursions to a hierarchy of regions that define our social world.

Each chapter outlines violations to the boundaries of each of these spaces - from those defined by our bodies or our property, to the more subtle borders of the local and global spaces we inhabit. By treating cybercrime as but one instance of various possible criminal virtualities, the book develops a general theoretical framework, as equally applicable to the, as yet unrealized, technologies of criminal behaviour of the next century, as it is to those which relate to contemporary computer networks. Cybercrime is thereby conceptualized as one of a variety of geometries of harm, merely the latest of many that have extended opportunities for illicit gain in the physical world.

Hypercrime offers a radical critique of the narrow conceptions of cybercrime offered by current justice systems and challenges the governing presumptions about the nature of the threat posed by it.

ISBN: 9781904385936

Published December 06 2007 by Routledge-Cavendish.

The Criminalisation of HIV Transmission

By Matthew Weait

In what circumstances and on what basis, should those who transmit serious diseases to their sexual partners be criminalised? In this new book Matthew Weait uses English case law as the basis of a more general and critical analysis of the response of the criminal courts to those who have been convicted of transmitting HIV during sex.

Examining cases and engaging with the socio-cultural dimensions of HIV/AIDS and sexuality, he provides readers with an important insight into the way in which the criminal courts construct the concepts of harm, risk, causation, blame and responsibility.

Taking into account the socio-cultural issues surrounding HIV/AIDS and their interaction with the law, Weait has written an excellent book for postgraduate and undergraduate law and criminology students studying criminal law theory, the trial process, offences against the person, and the politics of criminalisation. The book will also be of interest to health professionals working in the field of HIV/AIDS genito-urinary medicine who want to understand the issues that may face their clients and patients.

ISBN: 9781904385714

Published December 06 2007 by Routledge-Cavendish.

Centralization of Power and Rationalization of the Legal System

By Bin Liang

This groundbreaking book examines the changing Chinese legal system since 1978. In addition to historical analyses of changes at the economic, political-legal, and social levels, Liang gives special attention to crime and punishment functions of the legal system, and the current judicial system based on field research, i.e., court observations in both Beijing and Chengdu. The court system has been in a process of systemization, both internally and externally, seeking more power and relative independence. However, traditional influences, such as preference of mediation (over litigation) and substantive justice (over procedural justice), and lack of respect (from the masses) and guaranteed power (from the political structure), still have major impacts on the building and operation of the judicial system. Liang also shrewdly places the Chinese legal and political reform within the global system. This book, which reshapes our understanding of the economic, political, and essentially legal changes in China within the global context, will be crucial reading for scholars of Asia, law, criminal justice, and sociology.

ISBN: 9780415958592

Published November 27 2007 by Routledge.

Edited by Mary Vogel

Why has crime dropped while imprisonment grows? This well-edited volume of ground-breaking articles explores criminal justice policy in light of recent research on changing patterns of crime and criminal careers.

Highlighting the role of conservative social and political theory in giving rise to criminal justice policies, this innovative book focuses on such policies as ‘three strikes (two in the UK) and you’re out’, mandatory sentencing and widespread incarceration of drug offenders. It highlights the costs - in both money and opportunity - of increased prison expansion and explores factors such as:

• labour market dynamics
• the rise of a ‘prison industry’
• the boost prisons provide to economies of underdeveloped regions
• the spreading political disenfranchisement of the disadvantaged it has produced.

Throughout this book, hard facts and figures are accompanied by the faces and voices of the individuals and families whose lives hang in the balance. This volume, an essential resource for students, policy makers and researchers of criminology, criminal justice, social policy and criminal law, uses a compelling inter-play of theoretical works and powerful empirical research to present vivid portraits of individual life experiences.

ISBN: 9780415382694

Published November 22 2007 by Routledge.

By Phil Scraton

Drawing on a body of empirical, qualitative work spanning three decades, this unique text traces the significance of critical social research and critical analyses in understanding some of the most significant and controversial issues in contemporary society. Focusing on central debates in the UK and Ireland – prison protests; inner-city uprisings; deaths in custody; women’s imprisonment; transition in the north of Ireland; the ‘crisis’ in childhood; the Hillsborough and Dunblane tragedies; and the ‘war on terror’ – Phil Scraton argues that ‘marginalisation’ and ‘criminalisation’ are social forces central to the application of state power and authority. Each case study demonstrates how structural relations of power, authority and legitimacy, establish the determining contexts of everyday life, social interaction and individual opportunity.

This book explores the politics and ethics of critical social research, making a persuasive case for the application of critical theory to analysing the rule of law, its enforcement and the administration of criminal justice. It is indispensable for students in the fields of criminology, criminal justice and socio-legal studies, social policy and social work.

ISBN: 9780415422406

Published October 25 2007 by Routledge.

Women as Spies in Popular Culture

By Rosie White

The female spy has long exerted a strong grip on the popular imagination. With reference to popular fiction, film and television Violent Femmes examines the figure of the female spy as a nexus of contradictory ideas about femininity, power, sexuality and national identity. Fictional representations of women as spies have recurrently traced the dynamic of women’s changing roles in British and American culture. Employing the central trope of women who work as spies, Rosie White examines cultural shifts during the twentieth century regarding the role of women in the professional workplace.

Violent Femmes examines the female spy as a figure in popular discourse which simultaneously conforms to cultural stereotypes and raises questions about women's roles in British and American culture, in terms of gender, sexuality and national identity.

Immensely useful for a wide range of courses such as film and television studies, English, cultural studies, women’s studies, gender studies, media studies, communications and history, this book will appeal to students from undergraduate level upwards.

ISBN: 9780415370776

Published October 25 2007 by Routledge.