The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society - Softcover

Garland, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199258023 ISBN 13: 9780199258024

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2002

Synopsis

The Culture of Control Charts the dramatic changes in crime control and criminal justice that have occurred in Britain and America. This book explains these transformations by showing how the social organisation of society has prompted a series of politic

About this title

Review

Garland's book is more than just an important contribution to criminology. It is also a major work of social analysis, which deserves to be read more widely...his account of changes in crime control also provides one of the clearest and most convincing characterizations of contemporary society in general. (Robert Reiner, The Times Literary Supplement)

Synopsis

"The Culture of Control" charts the dramatic changes in crime control and criminal justice that have occurred in Britain and America over the last 25 years. It then explains these transformations by showing how the social organisation of late modern society has prompted a series of political and cultural adaptations that alter how governments and citizens think and act in relation to crime. This book presents an original and in-depth analysis of contemporary crime control, revealing its underlying logics and rationalities, and identifying the social relations and cultural sensibilities that have produced this new culture of control. In developing a "history of the present" in the field of crime control, David Garland presents an intertwined history of the welfare state and the criminal justice state, a theory of social and penal change, and an account of how social order is constructed in late modern societies. Drawing on extensive research in the UK and the USA, he shows in detail how the social, economic and cultural forces of the late 20th century have reshaped criminological thought, public policy, and the cultural meaning of crime and criminals.

"The Culture of Control" explains how our responses to crime and our sense of criminal justice came to be so dramatically reconfigured at the end of the 20th century. The shifting policies of crime and punishment, welfare and security - and the changing class, race and gender relations that underpin them - are viewed as aspects of the problem of governing late modern society and creating social order in a rapidly changing social world. Its theoretical scope, empirical range and interpretative insight make this book an indispensable guide to one of the central issues of our time.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0199258023
• ISBN 13: 9780199258024
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 328