Crime In Context - Hardcover

Taylor, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813368065 ISBN 13: 9780813368061

Publisher: Westview Press, 1999

Synopsis

This book is a timely and wide-ranging account of the relationship between the development of a ”free market society” in Europe and North America and the fears and anxieties provoked by crime. It offers an evaluation of the theoretical schools in social theory and in criminology which continue to dominate the academy, but whose purchase on contemporary realities is slipping everywhere.Crime in Context begins with an analysis of the nine different transformations which define the parameters of social and economic change. It then develops an alternative criminology for analyzing crime and the fear of crime in current circumstances, including specific chapters on youth crime (with analyses of the pressing issues of drugs, alcohol and violence), the social and cultural geography of urban crime and urban fear, the temptations of crime in free market societies, and the significance of the new-found provenance of firearms and other weapons in a market society. In three comprehensive concluding chapters, Taylor's argument about the influence of market relations is applied to the marketing of social control and to the markets in actually occurring professional or semi-professional crime.A major work by one of the leading scholars in the field, this book will be essential reading for students in criminology, urban studies, social policy and sociology.

About this title

About the Author:

Ian Taylor is Principal of Van Mildert College, Durham University, and professor of sociology at the University of Durham. He has previously held chairs at the University of Salford and at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

Review:

'With this book, Ian Taylor confirms his standing as one of the most thoughtful students of crime and society writing anywhere in the world today. Crime in Context is well-reasoned, wide-ranging and important - a major contribution to our understanding of the ways in which the enormous social and economic transformations of our time are reshaping the problems of crime and social order.' Elliott Currie, University of California, Berkeley

'This timely book will be useful both to students and professional criminologists in that it puts late twentieth-century developments in crime and disorder within a broad social and historical context. There is no other book that does this. I have no doubt that it will find a wide and enthusiastic audience.' Jock Young, Middlesex University

"This book is a scholarly and finely crafted account of the major social transformations wrought by marketisation and the consequences of this for crime and social order. Its theoretical and policy relevance make it a landmark text for a wide readership seeking a more critical grasp of crime and criminology in a global market world." Andrew Pithouse, Cardiff University

About this edition

• Publisher: Westview Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0813368065
• ISBN 13: 9780813368061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300