Criminal justice

Abstract: 1. A History of the Present 2. Modern Criminal Justice and the Penal-Welfare State 3. The Crisis of Penal Modernism 4. Social Change and Social Order in Late Modernity 5. Policy Predicament: Adaptation, Denial and Acting Out 6. Crime Complex: The Culture of High Crime Societies 7. The New Culture of Crime Control 8. Crime Control and Social Order Bibliography Index

Abstract: With over 2 million individuals currently incarcerated, and over half a million prisoners released each year, the large and growing number of men being processed through the criminal justice system raises important questions about the consequences of this massive institutional intervention. This article focuses on the consequences of incarceration for the employment outcomes of black and white job seekers. The present study adopts an experimental audit approach—in which matched pairs of individuals applied for real entry‐level jobs—to formally test the degree to which a criminal record affects subsequent employment opportunities. The findings of this study reveal an important, and much underrecognized, mechanism of stratification. A criminal record presents a major barrier to employment, with important implications for racial disparities.

Abstract: The article offers a descriptive analysis of strategies of crime control in contemporary Britain and elsewhere. It argues that the normality of high crime rates and the limitations of criminal justice agencies have created a new predicament for governments. The response to this predicament has been recurring ambivalence that helps explain the volatile and contradictory character of recent crime control policy. The article identifies adaptive strategies (responsibilization, defining deviance down, and redefining organizational success) and strategies of denial (the punitive sovereign response), as well as the different criminologies that accompany them.

Abstract: By focusing attention on individuals rather than on aggregates, this book takes a novel approach to studying criminal behavior. It develops a framework for collecting information about individual criminal careers and their parameters, reviews existing knowledge about criminal career dimensions, presents models of offending patterns, and describes how criminal career information can be used to develop and refine criminal justice policies. In addition, an agenda for future research on criminal careers is presented.

Abstract: There is widespread commitment across public service agencies in the UK and elsewhere to ensuring that the best available evidence is used to improve public services. The challenge is not only making research evidence accessible and available, but also getting it used. This book provides a timely and novel contribution to understanding and enhancing evidence use. It builds on and complements the popular and best-selling What Works?: Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Public Services by drawing together current knowledge from the education, health care, social care, and criminal justice fields.