There is increasing pressure on the humanities to justify their value and on criminology to undertake interdisciplinary research. In this book, Rafe McGregor establishes a new interdisciplinary methodology, ‘criminological criticism’, harnessing the synergy between literary studies and critical criminology to produce genuine interventions in social reality. McGregor practices criminological criticism on George Miller’s ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, Prime Video’s ‘Carnival Row’ and J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’, demonstrating how these popular allegories provide insights into the harms of sexism, racism and class prejudice. This book proposes a model for collaboration between literary studies and critical criminology that is beneficial to the humanities, the social sciences and society.

Establishing a new interdisciplinary methodology, ‘criminological criticism’, Rafe McGregor proposes a model for collaboration between literary studies and critical criminology that is beneficial to the humanities, the social sciences and society.

Literary Theory and Criminology demonstrates the significance of contemporary literary theory to the discipline of criminology, particularly to those criminologists who are primarily concerned with questions of power, inequality, and harm. Drawing on innovations in philosophical, narrative, cultural, and pulp criminology, it sets out a deconstructive framework as part of a critical criminological critique-praxis. This book comprises eight essays – on globalisation, criminological fiction, poststructuralism, patriarchal political economy, racial capitalism, anthropocidal ecocide, critical theory, and critical praxis – that argue for the value of contemporary literary theory to a critical criminology concerned with the construction of a just and sustainable reality in the face of climate change and other mass harms. This is the first criminology book to engage with literary theory from the perspective of criminology and provides a guide for criminologists who want to deploy literary theory as part of their research programmes. It supersedes existing engagements with poststructuralism in the philosophical criminological tradition because it entails neither a constructionist ontology nor a relativist epistemology. It shows criminologists how literary theory offers the tools to first deconstruct and then reconstruct meaning and value. Literary Theory and Criminology is essential reading for all critical criminological theorists.

This book sets to explore the key issues and future prospects facing critical criminology, bringing together a set of leading authorities in the field from the UK, Australasia and the USA. A key concern of the book is to review the possibilities and strategies of pursuing critical criminological scholarship in the context of an increasingly dominant administrative criminology paradigm, reflected in the rise of neo-liberalism, a 'governmentalised' criminology of risk, crime control and situational crime prevention.

Advancing Critical Criminology constitutes a timely addition to the growing body of knowledge on critical criminology scholarship. DeKeseredy and Perry have assembled a volume that provides scholars with an in-depth review of the extant literature on several major branches of criminology as well as examples of how critical criminologists apply their theoretical perspectives to substantive topics, such as drugs, interpersonal violence, and rural crime. Accordingly, this work is divided into two main sections: overviews of theories and applications. Each chapter provides a summary of work in a specific area, along with suggestions for moving the field forward. This reader is unique in its choice of topics, which have often been overlooked in the past. An expert collection of international scholars, Advancing Critical Criminology is certain to stimulate lively debates and generate further critical social scientific work in this field.

The main objective of the second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology is twofold: (1) to provide original chapters that cover contemporary critical criminological theoretical offerings generated over the past five years and (2) to provide chapters on important new substantive topics that are currently being studied and theorized by progressive criminologists. Special attention is devoted to new theoretical directions in the field, such as southern criminology, queer criminology, and green criminology. The diverse chapters cover not only cutting-edge theories, but also the variety of research methods used by leading scholars in the field and the rich data generated by their rigorous empirical work. In addition, some of the chapters suggest innovative and realistic short- and long-term policy proposals that are typically ignored by mainstream criminology. These progressive strategies address some of the most pressing social problems facing contemporary society today, which generate much pain and suffering for socially and economically disenfranchised people. The new edition of the Handbook is a major work in redefining areas within the context of international multidisciplinary critical research, and in highlighting emerging areas, such as human trafficking, Internet pornography and image-based sexual abuse. It is specifically designed to be a comprehensive resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and policymakers.

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.