NCJ Number
74506
Editor(s)
P Carlen,
M Collison
Date Published
1980
Length
215 pages
Annotation
Current controversial issues in criminology are discussed in a series of essays.
Abstract
The essays are radical in terms of the questions that they raise, but no generalized solutions are offered. The first section of the book explores the different types of knowledge that can be useful to individuals seeking to intervene in penal issues. Discussions in this section relate to criminology's radical traditions and the relationships among criminalization, subjectivity, and the rule of law, to the Peter Rajah case as an example of the successful pursuit of prisoners' rights with the assistance of the British National Council for Civil Liberties, to infringements of police power on civil liberties, and to the role of law and civil liberties in socialist states. The second section is devoted to topics that have either been avoided by radical theorists or have been incorporated into generalized feminist or utopian-marxist rhetoric. Selections are critiques of feminist views on sexual differences in law and approaches to reform; attitudes toward violence and their reworking in party political criminology; conditions on which the current British system of juvenile justice is based, especially incursion of the State into the family sphere and the political significance of present contradictions within social work. Underlying themes of the collection as a whole are the need for specific analyses and the contradictions between theory and policies of penal practice and criminal law. Separate notes for a number of the chapters and an extensive bibliography are supplied.