Criminology - Research

This book offers a theory of trafficking and modern slavery with implications for policy. Going beyond polarised debates on the sex trade, this book shows the importance of coercion and the societal complexities that perpetuate modern slavery.

In the first academic analysis of the ‘spycops’ scandal, the author draws on extensive fieldwork and his first-hand experience of police infiltration in this exploration of covert policing practices.

This book examines law’s troubled relationship with racial justice. Both a lawyer’s guide to anti-racism and an anti-racist’s guide to legal action, it unites these perspectives to help both groups understand how to use the law to tackle racial injustices.

Since the 1960s a major mental health crisis has emerged among Western working populations. Through a study spanning several decades, this book uses an original framework to capture the history and developments of mental vulnerability in working life.

Crime research has grown substantially over the past decade, with a rise in evidence-informed approaches to criminal justice. The fuel that has driven this growth is data and one of its most pressing challenges is the lack of research on its use and interpretation. This accessible book closes that gap for researchers, practitioners and students.

This collection brings together academics from a range of disciplines to examine modern slavery. Providing a platform to critique the legal, ideological and political responses to the issue, experts interrogate the construct of modern slavery and the anti-trafficking discourse which have dominated contemporary responses to exploitation.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book examines how governments misuse detention to abuse power, suppress dissent and maintain social hierarchies. Proposing solutions for future policy, this is a call for greater respect for the rule of law and human rights.

‘Desistance’ - understanding how people move away from offending – has become a significant policy focus in recent years, with desistance thinking transplanted from the adult to the youth justice system in England and Wales. This book is the first to critique this approach to justice-involved children.

Using real world cases, this book reveals the tendency of magistrates’ courts to prioritise efficiency over substantive justice. Yates offers insights into the ways criminal courts can increase their speediness and cost-effectiveness, whilst upholding social justice and procedural due process.

Policy development and implementation has a pivotal role in the youth justice system, with a profound impact upon professionals and the children they work with. Presenting original research on a variety of stakeholder policy-makers in England and Wales, this book is key reading for researchers and practitioners responding to youth offending.

The ultimate expression of power is the ability to act beyond the confines of law. Illuminating the condition of ‘panoramic power’, this book offers new thinking on damaging structures of power and privilege – and the political activities needed to achieve intervention and change.

Focusing on Ghana, this book explores the intersection of dominant children's rights principles with lived realities. Challenging one-dimensional portrayals, it advocates for more holistic approaches to the study of children’s lives and children’s rights realization in Southern contexts.