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Hale et al: Criminology 2e

Chapter 1

References from the book:

Most textbooks have either a chapter or a section on defining crime. These vary drastically in quality and can be repetitive.

The classic discussion is Keith Bottomley, ‘What is Crime?’, Chapter 1 of Criminology in Focus (1979, Oxford: Martin Robertson).
One of the better recent discussions is John Tierney, Criminology: Theory and Context (1996, London: Prentice Hall), Chapter 1 ‘Criminology, Crime and Deviance: some Preliminaries’, and Chapter 2 ‘Measuring Crime and Criminality’.

Perhaps the best recent single chapter is Stuart Henry and Dragan Milovanovic, Constitutive Criminology: Beyond Postmodernism (1996, London: Sage), Chapter 5, ‘Definitions of Crime and Constructions of the Victim’. See also Chapter 2 ‘A Crime by Any Other Name . . . ’ in Jeffrey Reiman’s And the Poor Get Prison: Economic Bias in American Criminal Justice (1996, Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon) for examples of industrial accidents and other events that cause great harm not being called crimes.

On the rise and fall of the sociology of deviance Colin Sumner’s ‘The Sociology of Deviance: an Obituary’ (1994, Buckingham: Open University Press) is wonderful reading.

For an instructive and relevant essay on the contrast between mainstream criminology and more realist conceptions of harm see Phil Scraton’s ‘Defining “power” and challenging “knowledge”: critical analysis as resistance in the UK’ in Critical Criminology: Issues, Debates, Challenges, Kerry Carrington and Russell Hogg (eds) (2002, Devon: Willan).

Nils Christie’s A Suitable Amount of Crime (2004, London: Routledge) is an excellent consistent analysis of the proposition that ‘crimes are in endless supply. Acts with the potentiality of being seen as crimes are like an unlimited natural resource. We can take out a little in the form of crime—or a lot’ (p. 10).

The best argument that crime needs to be replaced by concepts of social harm is Beyond Criminology:Taking Harm Seriously, Paddy Hillyard, Christina Pantazis, Steve Tombs and Dave Gordon (eds) (2004, London: Pluto).

For a counter argument which analyses why western societies appear to be treating every imaginable source of harm as a crime see Crime in an Insecure World, Richard Ericson (2006: Oxford: Polity).

For the need for criminology to move beyond the nation state see Wayne Morrison’s, Criminology, Civilisation and the New World Order (2006, London: Routledge/Cavendish).

For an alternative criminology textbook that stresses the importance of meaning and power in the construction of crime and law, see Jeff Ferrell, Keith Hayward, and Jock Young’s Cultural Criminology: An Invitation (2008, London: Sage).

Further references:

There are a number of core texts that can be recommended, particularly Maguire, M. Morgan, R. & Reiner, R (eds.) (2002) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology 3rd  edition; Cavadino, M. & Dignan, J. (2002) The Penal System  3rd edition; Sanders, A. & Young , R. (2000) Criminal Justice 2nd edition; Ashworth, A. (1998) The Criminal Process  2nd edition; and Lacey, N. (ed.) (1994) Criminal Justice: A Socio-Legal Reader Introduction. Introductory sections in any of these books will provide the reader with a useful grounding in the fundamental issues.