Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
The Illusion of Free Markets (2011) is a seminal work in critical legal studies and penal policy. Legal scholar and political theorist Bernard E. Harcourt reveals how the notion of the “free market” is ideologically constructed—and how closely this neoliberal order is intertwined with a repressive penal system. Harcourt exposes the idea of a minimally
Re-thinking the Political Economy of Punishment (2006) by Alessandro De Giorgi is a key work of 21st-century critical criminology. Building on the ideas of Karl Marx, Rusche & Kirchheimer, and Michel Foucault, De Giorgi analyzes the transformation of punishment in the age of neoliberalism. His core thesis is that penal policy increasingly serves the exclusion
The Politics of Abolition (1974) by Thomas Mathiesen is one of the most influential works in penal abolitionism and critical criminology. In a radical departure from traditional theories of punishment, Mathiesen advocates not for alternative forms of punishment, but for the abolition of the prison system altogether—calling into question the legitimacy of the entire penal
Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order (1978) by Stuart Hall and his co-authors is a groundbreaking work in critical criminology and cultural studies. In their analysis of the “mugging” discourse in 1970s Britain, the authors compellingly demonstrate how crime operates as a social construct—politically manufactured, amplified by the media, and ideologically
Class, State, and Crime: On the Theory and Practice of Criminal Justice (1977) by Richard Quinney is one of the most influential Marxist analyses of crime and social control in the United States. The book combines a materialist analysis of society with a radical critique of the state’s penal system and is a key text
Social and Academic Context Emerging during a period of massive societal upheaval—including civil rights movements, anti-colonial struggles, and student protests—The New Criminology reflects the desire for a sociology that not only explains but also transforms the world. The authors take a clear stance against the dominant American sociology of the 1960s and advocate for a