First published in 1966, The Delinquent Solution presents a study of crime associated with the nature of subcultures. The book discusses issues such as the concept and theory of subcultures, the life of delinquent gangs, and the English experience of delinquent subcultures. It also takes an in-depth look at the Stepney and Poplar survey on crime from 1960, analysing both statistical data and more informal observations. Although the book was written over forty years ago, the issues discussed remain relevant and strong areas of interest.

The field of crime and delinquency attracts a great deal of heated and partial opinion, prejudice and other forms of mal-thinking. When there is a scientific approach there tends to be a psychological explanation. This book, first published in 1971, is a corrective to both trends. It is a discussion of criminal behaviour in relation to a wide range of behaviours which could be called deviance and regards the whole field from the sociological point of view. The whole discussion is related to social policy, and is vital reading for students of sociology and criminology.

First published in 1979, Inequality, Crime, and Public Policy integrates and interprets the vast corpus of existing research on social class, slums, and crime, and presents its own findings on these matters. It explores two major questions. First, do policies designed to redistribute wealth and power within capitalist societies have effects upon crime? Second, do policies created to overcome the residential segregation of social classes have effects on crime? The book provides a brilliantly comprehensive and systematic review of the empirical evidence to support or refute the classic theories of Engles, Bonger, Merton, Cloward and Ohlin, Cohen, Miller, Shaw and McKay, amongst many others. Braithwaite confronts these theories with evidence of the extent and nature of white collar crime, and a consideration of the way law enhancement and law enforcement might serve class interest.

Domestic Violence and Criminal Justice offers readers an overview of domestic violence and its effects on society, including what can be done to curtail its rapid growth and widespread harm. Criminal justice and sociology students will find this text readable, up-to-date, and rich in historical detail. Geared toward the criminal justice system, this text focuses on civil and criminal justice processes, from securing a restraining order to completing an arrest, all the way to the final disposition.

The Subcultural Imagination discusses young adults in subcultures and examines how sociologists use qualitative research methods to study them. Through the application of the ideas of C. Wright Mills to the development of theory-reflexive ethnography, this book analyses the experiences of young people in different subcultural settings, as well as reflecting on how young people in subcultures interact in the wider context of society, biography and history. From Cuba to London, and Bulgaria to Asia, this book delves into urban spaces and street corners, young people’s parties, gigs, BDSM fetish clubs, school, the home, and feminist zines to offer a picture of live sociology in practice. In three parts, the volume explores: history, biography and subculture; practising reflexivity in the field; epistemologies, pedagogies and the subcultural subject. The book offers cutting edge theory and rich empirical research on social class, gender and ethnicities from both established and new researchers across diverse disciplinary backgrounds. It moves the subcultural debate beyond the impasse of the term’s relevance, to one where researchers are fully engaged with the lives of the subcultural subjects. This innovative edited collection will appeal to scholars and students in the areas of sociology, youth studies, media and cultural studies/communication, research methods and ethnography, popular music studies, criminology, politics, social and cultural theory, and gender studies.

Originally published in 1967, Social Policy and the Young Delinquent is an account of a process: of the way in which the treatment of the child delinquent has developed from the days when a boy of nine could be sentenced to be hanged for stealing two penny worth of paint (though the sentence, imposed in 1833, was not actually carried out) to the controversies of the time concerning the desirability of replacing the legalistic and penal framework of the services for young offenders by a service more appropriate to their educational and social needs. Peter Boss deals with the development of policy relating to the young offender with sympathy and clarity. While his own views were progressive, he is at pains to point out the administrative advantages and disadvantages of each of the current proposals, and to leave the reader free to make up their own mind on issues which have no simple and easy solution. Profound changes had taken place in our attitude to delinquent children over the previous hundred years, and, as Boss makes clear, the importance and even the direction of change was not always clearly discernible at the time. Whatever the outcome of the controversy in 1967, this account of a developing process would have been of value in enabling us to stand back and take the long view of the most intractable and important problems of modern urban society.