Criminological Imagination - Hardcover

Young, Jock

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745641067 ISBN 13: 9780745641065

Publisher: Polity, 2011

Synopsis

For the last three decades Jock Young's work has had a profound impact on criminology. Yet, in this provocative new book, Young rejects much of what criminology has become, criticizing the rigid determinism and rampant positivism that dominate the discipline today. His erudite and entertaining examination of what's gone wrong with criminology draws on a range of research - from urban ethnography to sexology and criminal victimization studies - to illustrate its failings.

At the same time, Young makes a passionate case for a return to criminology's creative and critical potential, partly informed by the new developments in cultural criminology. A late-modern counterpart to C.Wright Mills's classic The Sociological Imagination, this inspirational piece of writing from one of the most brilliant voices in contemporary criminology will command widespread attention. It will be essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of criminology, and the social sciences more generally.

About this title

About the Author:

Jock Young is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, UK.

Review:

"Great teachers like Young translate between cultural forms and fields of knowledge."
Kriminologisches Journal

'The terms "criminology" and "imagination" do not naturally belong together. Jock Young's singular achievement is to apply a fine "criminological imagination", exposing the soulless discourse of mainstream criminology and reflecting upon the alternative critical tradition in which he himself played such a central role.'
Stan Cohen, London School of Economics and Political Science

‘If reading a clever and consequential book were a crime, you would get arrested and hauled straight to jail for picking up The Criminological Imagination. Adapting and deepening C.-Wright Mills's classic critique of the foibles of sociology, Young not only offers a razor-sharp diagnosis of how criminology lost its way in a funny-mirror house of methodological fetishism, empirical legerdemain, conceptual confusion and policy subservience. He also clears a path toward rescue and renewal: criminology can regain its analytic poise and civic relevance by embracing its sociological grounding and by reconnecting crime to formations of meaning and power. This book will energize all those who wish to free the craft from the clutches of the profession, and it is sure to fire up vigorous debate between and among partisans of mainstream and critical criminology.'
Loïc Wacquant, author of Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality and Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity.

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0745641067
• ISBN 13: 9780745641065
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224