- Nicole Rafter, Professor, Northeastern University
The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Theory re-centres theory in the boldest, most thought-provoking form possible within the criminological enterprise. Written by a team of internationally respected specialists, it provides readers with a clear overview of criminological theory, enabling them to reflect critically upon the variety of theoretical positions - traditional, emergent and desirable - that are constitutive of the discipline at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Each chapter has been specially commissioned to include the following:
" A brief historical overview of the theoretical perspective
" Core ideas and key associated concepts
" A critical review of the contemporary status of the perspective
" Reflections on future developments
In addition the Handbook features a substantive introduction by the editors, providing a review of the development of criminological theory, the state of contemporary criminological theory and emergent issues and debates.
The SAGE Handbook of Criminological Theory is an indispensable international resource for libraries and scholars of all levels studying the rapidly developing, interdisciplinary field of criminology.
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.
Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, and Head of Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. He is the author or editor of 35 books, the most recent of which are The Sage Handbook of Criminological Theory (edited with Eugene McLaughlin, 2010) and The Eternal Recurrence of Crime and Control (edited with David Downes and Dick Hobbs, Clarendon Press, 2010). Tim was previously the editor of the journal Policy Studies, and was the founding editor of the Sage journal Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is a former Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the LSE and a past President of the British Society of Criminology. Tim’s primary research interests have been in crime and criminal justice policy, the sociology and governance of policing and security, disadvantaged and disaffected young people, youth crime and youth justice, drugs and alcohol, and comparative criminal justice policy-making and policy transfer. He has recently been involved in a study of the August 2011 English riots. An innovative project which aimed to undertake high quality social research at a speed and in a way that maximised opportunities for influencing public debate, Reading the Riots was run jointly with The Guardian, and its initial results were published in their entirety in the newspaper. Currently, together with Professors David Downes and Paul Rock, Tim is currently engaged in researching and writing of an Official History of Post-war Criminal Justice.