Controlling Crime

The second edition of Controlling Crime provides an important evaluation of criminal justice in the United Kingdom during a period of rapid social change. Each chapter encourages historical, comparative and critical reflection on the organizational logics, powers, procedures and practices of the criminal justice system. The key issues of ′race′, gender, class, and the formulation and delivery of criminal justice are addressed throughout.

Collectively, the chapters contribute to a broad-ranging analysis of past and current issues in the field of crime control and criminal justice and point forward to emergent trends and possible alternatives. Illustrating the complexities of the challenges facing the criminal justice system, Controlling Crime facilitates a consideration of the unfolding debates on the future of crime control and criminal justice in the UK.

The areas covered include:

· the origins of the police and key issues in modern police work

· justice and injustice in criminal justice

· criminal courts and sentencing practices

· the emergence of the prison and contemporary penal policy

· youth justice

· probation and punishment in the community

· restorative justice

· crime prevention and community safety

Intended as essential reading for students of criminology, criminal justice, community safety, socio-legal studies, sociology of crime and deviance and social policy, Controlling Crime will also be of interest to anyone wishing to gain an understanding of the operation of contemporary criminal justice systems.

Controlling Crime is a course text for the Open University course D315 Crime, Order and Social Control.

Eugene McLaughlin is Professor of Criminology and co-director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Research. He is also a member of the Centre for Law Justice and Journalism. He completed his postgraduate criminology studies at the University of Cambridge and the University of Sheffield. Eugene has held various academic appointments including at the University of Hong Kong, the Open University and the University of Southampton. He has also been Visiting Professor at the Department of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, the Department of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. He is an associate editor of Crime, Media and Cultureand is on the editorial board of Criminal Justice Matters. He has served on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Criminology, Critical Social Policy, the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice and was co-editor of Theoretical Criminology.


John Muncie is Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the Open University, UK. He is the author of Youth and Crime (5th edition, Sage, 2021), and he has published widely on issues in comparative youth justice and children’s rights, including the co-edited companion volumes Youth Crime and Justice and Comparative Youth Justice (Sage, 2006). He has produced numerous Open University texts and readers, including Crime: Local and Global (Willan, 2010), Criminal Justice: Local and Global (Willan, 2010), The Problem of Crime (2nd edition, Sage, 2001), Crime Prevention and Community Safety (Sage, 2001) and Imprisonment: European Perspectives (Harvester, 1991). He has also contributed nine volumes to the The Sage Library of Criminology (Sage, 2007–2009). He is co-editor of the Sage journal Youth Justice: An International Journal.