Criminology - Research

From Margaret Thatcher’s first government to austerity politics, Ian Cummins traces changing attitudes to imprisonment and the social state. With fresh insights and critical thinking, he demonstrates how increasingly punitive approaches to crime and welfare have shaped the neoliberal economy and created stigma around those living in poverty.

Drawing on complex narratives across film, TV, novels and graphic novels, this authoritative critical analysis demonstrates the value of fictional narratives as a tool for understanding, explaining and reducing crime and social harm. McGregor establishes an original theory of the criminological value of fiction.

Renowned criminologist Mike Hough considers how the police service might build trust, legitimacy and compliance with the law in this important book. He challenges conventional thinking on crime, contrasts ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policing styles and offers a fresh approach that secures compliance with the law through ethical policing.

This timely and unique contribution brings together leading scholars from criminology and theology to challenge criminal justice orthodoxy. They question the dominance of retributive punishment, and consider alternatives which draw on Christian ideas of hope, mercy and restoration.

Drawing on interviews with survivors, this book gives voice to survivors to illuminate how restorative justice processes can meet their justice needs. With a unique focus on the people around the survivor rather than on the abuser, it offers radical solutions for the development of restorative justice programs and policy initiatives.

This pioneering study looks across key trafficking crimes to develop a social theory of transnational criminal markets. Looking at how traffickers think of their illegal enterprises as ‘just business’, it draws broader lessons for the ways forward in understanding criminality in this emerging field.

This significant study reveals how participation is supported in the courts and tribunals of England and Wales. Including reflections on changes to the justice system as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it details the socio-structural, environmental, procedural, cultural and personal factors which constrain it.

Based on unprecedented empirical research, this book assesses how institutional legacy and external intervention have shaped the structural conditions of corruption in the Afghan police force and state. Filling a major gap in the literature, this is an invaluable contribution to the literature and to anti-corruption policy in developing states.

Using the evidence from New Zealand, this unique collection examines how decriminalisation is experienced by different groups of sex workers and reveals the enduring challenges for sex workers in this context. This is an invaluable contribution to the urgent debates regarding sex work laws and the global struggle to realise sex worker’s rights.

Leading experts explore current strategies and thinking in relation to prevention of sexual violence in this timely collection

With psychological, sociological and legal perspectives, it addresses longstanding and contemporary themes including sexual harassment and working with offenders, and maps new approaches to practice and prevention.

As marketisation and privatisation reshape the criminal justice system, this illuminating overview sets out their causes, scale and impacts.

With case studies and economic, sociological and criminological perspectives, leading academics consider the evolving roles of public, private and voluntary sectors and possible future reforms.

Exploring the untold experiences of family members and friends caring for the children of female prisoners in England and Wales, this book analyses the complex challenges of the ‘family sentence’ they serve and the realities of their disenfranchised status in society, policy and practice.