Social Science : Criminology

Few schisms in American life run as deep or as wide as the divide between gun rights and gun control advocates. Awash in sound and symbol, the gun regulation debate has largely been defined by forceful rhetoric rather than substantive action. Politicians shroud themselves in talk of individual rights or public safety while lobbyists on both sides make doom-and-gloom pronouncements on the consequences of potential shifts in the status quo. In America today there are between 250 and 300 million firearms in private hands, amounting to one weapon for every American. Two in five American homes house guns. On the one hand, most gun owners are law-abiding citizens who believe they have a constitutional right to bear arms. On the other, a great many people believe gun control to be our best chance at reducing violent crime. While few--whether gun owner or anti-gun advocate--dispute the need to keep guns out of the wrong hands, the most important question has too often been dodged: What gun control options does the most heavily armed democracy in the world have? Can gun control really work? The last decade has seen several watersheds in the debate, none more important than the 1993 Brady Bill. That bill, James B. Jacobs argues, was the culmination of a strategy in place since the 1930s to permit widespread private ownership of guns while curtailing illegal use. But where do we go from here? While the Brady background check is easily circumvented, any further attempts to extend gun control--for instance, through comprehensive licensing of all gun owners and registration of all guns--would pose monumental administrative burdens. Jacobs moves beyond easy slogans and broad-brush ideology to examine the on-the-ground practicalities of gun control, from mandatory safety locks to outright prohibition and disarmament. Casting aside ideology and abstractions, he cautions against the belief that there exists some gun control solution which, had we the political will to seize it, would more...

Price: $35.00

This book turns on the television, opens the newspaper, goes to the cinema and assesses how punishment is performed in media culture, investigating the regimes of penal representation and how they may contribute to a populist and punitive criminological imagination. It places media discourse in prisons firmly within the arena of penal policy and public opinion, suggesting that while Bad Girls, The Shawshank Redemption, internet jail cams, advertising and debates about televising executions continue to ebb and flow in contemporary culture, the persistence of this spectacle of punishment - its contested meaning and its politics of representation - demands investigation. Alongside chapters addressing the construction of popular images of prison and the death penalty in television and film, Captured by the Media also has contributions from prison reform groups and prison practitioners which discuss forms of media intervention in penal debate. This book provides a highly readable exploration of media discourse on prisons and punishment, and its relationship to public attitudes and government penal policy. At the same time it engages with the 'cultural turn' within criminology and offers an original contribution to discussion of the relationship between prison, public and the state. It will be essential reading for students in both media studies and criminology as well as practitioners and commentators in these fields. more...

Price: $89.95

Throughout the western world public opinion has played an important role in shaping criminal justice policy. At the same time opinion polls repeatedly demonstrate that the public knows little about crime and justice, and holds negative views of the criminal justice system. This book, consisting of chapters from leading authorities in the field, is concerned to address this problem, and draws upon research in a number of different countries to address the issues arising from this state of affairs. more...

Price: $89.95

Neonaticide is practiced on every continent and by every level of cultural complexity; from governments that legislate population limits to families who let a sickly infant die rather than expend the resources. This book examines neonaticide in its historical, cultural, psychological, and legal aspects. It details neonaticide's many forms, including Munchausen-by-Proxy, and investigates the role of the father--responsible in roughly 75 percent of these cases. The authors study media influence on public opinion, copycat crime, and legal bias, and explain the legal defenses, including insanity, and differential post-partum diagnosis. They suggest possible new policies, punishments, and preventive measures. more...

Price: $89.95

Over the last decade, the reformed youth justice system has seen increases in the numbers of children and young people in custody, a sharp rise in indeterminate sentences and the continuing deaths of young prisoners. This report brings together contributions from leading experts on young people and criminal justice to critically examine current policy and practice. more...

Price: $29.95