Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
Jock Young was a pioneering British criminologist whose work spans critical criminology, left realism, and cultural criminology. He began his career with the co-authored New Criminology and went on to help found the tradition of left realism in the 1980s. Young later became a central figure in cultural criminology, analyzing crime through the lenses of
Paul Walton was a British sociologist and criminologist, best known for his collaboration on The New Criminology and his work in media and cultural studies. A prominent figure in the field of critical criminology, Walton was also a co-author of the influential study Policing the Crisis, which analyzed moral panics and media representations of crime
Ian Taylor was a British sociologist and criminologist known for his contributions to critical criminology and his role in co-authoring The New Criminology (1973). A committed Marxist thinker, Taylor sought to integrate political economy and social theory into criminological analysis. He later moved toward cultural criminology and urban sociology, with an interest in consumerism and
John Irwin was a former prisoner turned sociologist who profoundly reshaped the academic and political discourse on incarceration in the United States. As a founder of the field of prison sociology, he combined firsthand experience with scholarly rigor to analyze the structural and cultural dynamics of prison life. His seminal works, including The Felon (1970)
Otto Kirchheimer was a German-American legal scholar and political theorist whose work bridged the disciplines of law, political science, and sociology. Closely associated with the Frankfurt School, he analyzed the transformation of legal systems under modern capitalism and the rise of authoritarianism. His concept of the “plebiscitary party state” and his analysis of political justice
Georg Rusche was a German political economist and social theorist best known for his collaboration with Otto Kirchheimer on Punishment and Social Structure (1939). This pioneering work laid the foundation for the materialist theory of punishment, arguing that penal systems reflect the economic structures and labor needs of a given society. Rusche emphasized that forms