Constructing Crime: Contemporary Processes of Criminalization

Constructing Crime examines why particular behaviours are defined and enforced as crimes and particular individuals are targeted as criminals. Contributors interrogate notions of crime, processes of criminalization, and the deployment of the concept of crime in five areas – the enforcement of fraud against welfare recipients and physicians, the enforcement of laws against Aboriginal harvesting practices, the perceptions of disorder in public housing projects, and the selective criminalization of gambling. These case studies and an afterword by Marie-Andrée Bertrand challenge us to consider just who is rendered criminal and why.