The relationship between crime and social media has become an increasingly important topic in a networked world. However, the use of social media in relation to violent crime is little understood. This unique book, by an expert in the field, addresses this gap by analysing what those involved in homicide do with social media. Using three international cases in which perpetrators confessed to homicide on social media, it investigates the practices of those involved, providing a groundbreaking conceptual framework of use to criminologists. It argues that such confessions convey important insights not only into the individual offender but also the social and cultural context of contemporary homicide.

As our interactions with others become ever more mediated by various forms of electronic communication, the relationship between crime and technology is becoming an increasingly important topic for both theoretical and practical studies of criminology. This book analyzes digital communications as they play a part in contemporary homicide, drawing on a range of cases from the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world--cases where killers confessed on social media, for example, or where their actions were traced using their digital communications. Offering a groundbreaking conceptual framework for people studying this issue, the book will be of great value to criminologists, students, and police officers.

Discussing social media-related scholarship found in criminology, legal studies, policing, courts, corrections, victimization, and crime prevention, this book presents the current state of our knowledge on the impact of social media and the major sociological frameworks employed to study the U.S. justice system. Building a theoretical framework for the study of social media and criminal justice in each chapter, the chapters provide a systematic reflection of extant research on social media in cybercrime, operations of courts, administration of institutional and community corrections, law enforcement, and crime prevention. The book fills the gap between the contemporary state of knowledge regarding social media and criminal justice with respect to both empirical evidence and types of sociological frameworks being employed to explore and identify the societal costs and benefits of our growing dependence upon social media. In addition to providing an up-to-date overview of our current state of knowledge, this book highlights important areas of future research, wherein the benefits of social media can be expanded and the negative aspects of its broadening use can be minimized. Social Media and Criminal Justice will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of judicial administration, corrections management, law enforcement, and criminal justice-engaged community-based nonprofit organizations involved in court-referred treatment and/or active collaboration with local law enforcement agencies.

Cutting across multiple disciplines, this book maps out a new role for the public sociologist in the post-COVID world. It envisions a new kind of public sociology that brings together “the digital” and the “physical” to create public spaces where critical scholarship and active civic engagement can meet in a mutually reinforcing way.

This distinctive and engaging book proposes an imaginative criminology, focusing on how spaces of transgression are lived, portrayed and imagined. These include spaces of control or confinement, including prison and borders, and spaces of resistance. Examples range from camps where asylum seekers and migrants are confined, to the exploration of deviant identities and the imagined spaces of surveillance and control in young adult fiction. Drawing on oral history, fictive portrayals, walking methodologies, and ethnographic and arts-based research, the book pays attention to issues of gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, mobility and nationality as they intersect with lived and imagined space.

First published in 1994, this book investigates the social construction of serial homicide and assesses the concern that popular fears and stereotypes have exaggerated: the actual scale of multiple homcide. Jenkins has produced an innovative synthesis of approaches to social problem construction that includes an historical and social-scientific estimate of the objective scale of serial murder; a rhetorical analysis of the contruction of the phenomenom in public debate; a cultural studies-oriented analysis of the portrayal of serial murder in contemorary media. Chapters include: "The Construction of Problems and Panic," which covers areas such as comprehending murder, dangerous outsiders, and the rhetoric of perscution; "The Reality of Serial Murder," which discusses statistics, stereotype examination, and media patterns;"Popular Culture: Images of the Serial Killer"; "The Racial Dimension: Serial Murder as Bias Crime"; and "Darker than We Imagine"; "Cults and Conspiracies."

Understanding Homicide is a comprehensive and challenging text unravelling the phenomenon of homicide. The author combines original analysis with a lucid overview of the key theories and debates in the study of homicide and violence. In introducing the broad spectrum of different features, aspects and forms of homicide, Fiona Brookman examines its patterns and trends, how it may be explained, its investigation and how it may be prevented. The book is unique in its focus, coverage, and style and bridges a major gap in criminological literature. While focused in several respects upon the UK experience of homicide, the text necessarily draws upon and makes a significant contribution to international literature, research and debate.