The Culture of ControlCrime and Social Order in Contemporary Society

Abstract

This book charts the changes in crime control and criminal justice that have occurred in Britain and America. It then explains these transformations by showing how the social organization 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. The book presents an 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, the book 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. Drawing on research in the UK and the USA, it shows 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 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 world.