This edited collection brings together established global scholars and new thinkers to outline fresh concepts and theoretical perspectives for criminological research and analysis in the 21st century. Criminologists from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia evaluate the current condition of criminological theory and present students and researchers with new and revised ideas from the realms of politics, culture and subjectivity to unpack crime and violence in the precarious age of global neoliberalism. These ideas range from the micro-realm of the ‘personality disorder’ to the macro-realm of global ‘power-crime’. Rejecting or modifying the orthodox notion that crime and harm are largely the products of criminalisation and control systems, these scholars bring causes and conditions back into play in an eclectic yet thematic way that should inspire students and researchers to once again investigate the reasons why some individuals and groups elect to harm others rather than seek sociability. This collection will inspire new criminologists to both look outside their discipline for new ideas to import, and to create new ideas within their discipline to reinvigorate it and further strengthen its ability to explain the crimes and harms that we see around us today. This book will be of particular interest to academics and both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the field of criminology, especially to those looking for theoretical concepts and frameworks for dissertations, theses and research reports.

New Directions in Criminological Theory focuses on new approaches to theory construction, with particular emphasis on reformulations and new applications of existing paradigms. It includes an assessment of labeling theory, demonstrating how the approach could become part of a more comprehensive explanation of crime. A case is made for studying crime in terms of the social context in which crimes are conceived, interpreted, and negotiated. The debate between crime-general and crime-specific approaches is further amplified. A rethinking of Hirschi's control theory is presented. The volume includes theoretical discussions of spouse abuse, of punishment, and of power-control models. Additional chapters examine theoretical advances in corporate illegality, employee theft, and the alcohol/crime syndrome.These original contributions include: Charles F. Wellford and Ruth A. Triplett, 'The Future of Labeling Theory'; Austin T. Turk, 'A Proposed Resolution of Key Issues in the Political Sociology of Law'; David Weisburd and Lisa Maher, 'Contrasting Crime-General and Crime-Specific Theory'; Sally Simpson, 'Strategy, Structure, and Corporate Crime'; Edward W. Sieh, 'Employee theft'; Robert Nash Parker, 'Alcohol and Theories of Homicide'; Kimberly L. Kemph, 'The Empirical Status of Hirschi's Control Theory'; Jeffrey Fagan, 'The Social Control of Spouse Assualt'; Marc Le Blanc and Aaron Caplan, 'Theoretical Formalization, A Necessity'; Michael J. Lynch, 'Control Theory and Punishment'; Gary F. Jensen, 'Power-Control vs. Social-Control Theories of Common Delinquency'; John Hagan, A.R. Gillis, and John Simpson, 'The Power of Control in Sociological Theories of Delinquency.'

Criminology is at a crossroads. In the last two decades it has largely failed to produce the kind of new intellectual frameworks and empirical data that might help us to explain the high levels of crime and interpersonal violence that beset inner city areas and corrode community life. Similarly, it has failed to adequately explain forms of antisocial behaviour that are just as much a part of life in corporate boardrooms as they are in the ghettos of north America and the sink estates of Britain. Criminology needs to rethink the problem of crime and re-engage its audience with strident theoretical analysis and powerful empirical data. In New Directions in Crime and Deviancy some of the world’s most talented and polemical critical criminologists come together to offer new ideas and new avenues for analysis. The book contains chapters that address a broad range of issues central to 21st century critical criminology: ecological issues and the new green criminology; the broad impact of neoliberalism upon our cultural and economic life; recent signs of political resistance and opposition; systemic and interpersonal forms of violence; growing fear and enmity in cities; the backlash against the women’s movement; the subjective pathology of the serial killer; computer hacking and so on. Based on key papers presented at the historic York Deviancy Conferences, this cutting-edge volume also contains important critical essays that address criminological research methods and the production of criminological knowledge. It is key reading material for those with an academic interest in critical, cultural and theoretical criminology, and crime and deviance more generally.

Criminology, by its very nature as a non-disciplinary field of research and scholarship, has always relied on theoretical perspectives, derived from external disciplines and bodies of literature, for its constant renewal. The editors of New Directions for Criminology chose to consult scholars from outside the criminological community to demonstrate how the latest theoretical work in their field can be made fruitful for criminology. All contributors are familiar with the fundamentals of criminological theories and research, and all are well placed to clearly make the connections between the cutting edge of their field of research and its potential for criminology. New Directions for Criminology makes a distinction between papers that elaborate on the usefulness of particular theories and perspectives for criminology, and papers that outline particular research themes which will be of interest to those working within the broader criminological community. Contents include: Why Criminal Law? Why Break It? If Broken, Then What?' - Criminology and Assemblage Theory - Criminology and Deleuzoguattarism - Criminology and Lacan's Psychoanalytical Approach - Criminology and Forms of Life - Foundations and Origins as Criminological Objects - Criminological Conversations - Criminological Tribes.

This major new book brings together leading researchers in the field in order to describe and analyse internationally significant theoretical and empirical work on offender supervision, and to address the policy and practice implications of this work within and across jurisdictions. Arising out of the work of the international Collaboration of Researchers for the Effective Development of Offender Supervision (CREDOS), this book examines questions and issues that have arisen both within effectiveness research, and from research on desistance from offending. The book draws out the lessons that can be learned not just about ‘what works?’, but about how and why particular practices support desistance in specific jurisdictional, cultural and local contexts. Key themes addressed in this book include: New directions in theory and paradigms for practice Staff skills and effective offender supervision Different issues and challenges in improving offender supervision The role of families, ‘significant others’ and social networks Understanding and supporting compliance within supervision Exploring the social, political, organisational and historical contexts of offender supervision Offender Supervision will be essential reading for academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students, policy makers, managers and practitioners interested in offender supervision.

Rural crime is a fast growing area of interest among scholars in criminology. From studies of agricultural crime in Australia, to violence against women in Appalachia America, to poaching in Uganda, to land theft in Brazil -- the criminology community has come to recognize that crime manifests itself in rural localities in ways that both conform to and challenge conventional theory and research. For the first time, Rural Criminology brings together contemporary research and conceptual considerations to synthesize rural crime studies from a critical perspective. This book dispels four rural crime myths, challenging conventional criminological theories about crime in general. It also examines both the historical development of rural crime scholarship, recent research and conceptual developments. The third chapter recreates the critical in the rural criminology literature through discussions of three important topics: community characteristics and rural crime, drug use, production and trafficking in the rural context, and agricultural crime. Never before has rural crime been examined comprehensively, using any kind of theoretical approach, whether critical or otherwise. Rural Criminology does both, pulling together in one short volume the diverse array of empirical research under the theoretical umbrella of a critical perspective. This book will be of interest to those studying or researching in the fields of rural crime, critical criminology and sociology.

Ideal for use, either as a second text in a standard criminology course, or for a discrete course on biosocial perspectives, this book of original chapters breaks new and important ground for ways today's criminologists need to think more broadly about the crime problem.