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Home » Criminology » Key Works in Criminology

Key Works in Criminology

Juli 7, 2025 | last modified Juli 14, 2025 von Christian Wickert

This section presents key works in criminology that go beyond classical theories of crime. The selected texts are theoretically rich, interdisciplinary, and have had a lasting impact on criminological debate. They cover central themes such as social control, criminal law, policing, surveillance, social inequality, and deviant identities.

  • W. E. B. Du Bois – The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
  • Georg Rusche & Otto Kirchheimer – PunishmentThe imposition of a penalty in response to an offense or crime, intended to deter, reform, or incapacitate. and Social Structure (1939)
  • Edwin H. Sutherland – White Collar CrimeActs or omissions that violate criminal laws and are punishable by the state. (1949)

Symbolic Interactionism & Labeling

  • Erving Goffman – Stigma (1963)
  • Thomas Scheff – Being Mentally Ill (1966)
  • Aaron Cicourel – The Social Organization of Juvenile Justice (1968)
  • John Irwin – The Felon (1970)
  • Stanley Cohen – Folk DevilsSocially constructed groups labeled as threats to societal values, often exaggerated in moral panics. and Moral Panics (1972)
  • Stanley Cohen – Visions of Social ControlSocial control refers to the mechanisms, strategies, and processes societies use to regulate individual behavior and maintain social order. (1985)

  • Taylor, Walton & Young – The New Criminology (1973)
  • Richard Quinney – Class, State, and Crime (1977)
  • Stuart Hall et al. – PolicingThe practice of maintaining public order and enforcing laws through authorized institutions. the Crisis (1978)
  • Thomas Mathiesen – The Politics of Abolition (1974)
  • Alessandro De Giorgi – Re-thinking the Political Economy of Punishment (2006)
  • Bernard E. Harcourt – The Illusion of Free Markets (2011)

Criminal Law, State & Control

  • David Garland – The Culture of Control (2001)
  • Jonathan Simon – Governing Through Crime (2007)
  • Markus D. Dubber – The Police Power (2005)

  • Robert Reiner – The Politics of the Police (1985/2010)
  • Didier Fassin – Enforcing Order (2013)
  • Thomas Mathiesen – The Viewer Society (1997)
  • Sarah Brayne – Predict and Surveil (2020)
  • David Lyon – Surveillance Studies (2007)
  • Lucia Zedner – SecurityProtection from threats, harm, or danger. (2009)

Space, Urbanity & Control

  • Jeff Ferrell – Tearing Down the Streets (2001)
  • Mike Presdee – Cultural CriminologyA perspective that studies crime and control as cultural products shaped by meaning, emotion, and symbolism. and the Carnival of Crime (2000)
  • Keith Hayward – City Limits (2004)
  • Jeff Ferrell, Keith Hayward & Jock Young – Cultural Criminology: An Invitation (2008)
  • Stephen Graham – Cities Under Siege (2010)

Gender, Intersectionality & Queer Criminology

  • Frances Heidensohn – Women and Crime (1985)
  • Pat Carlen – Women, Crime and Poverty (1988)
  • Angela Y. Davis – Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
  • Michelle Alexander – The New Jim Crow (2010)
  • Carrie L. Buist & Emily Lenning – Queer Criminology (2015)
  • James Messerschmidt – Crime as Structured Action (1993)

Crime Policy & Empirical Reflections

  • Nils Christie – Crime Control as Industry (1993)
  • Jock Young – The Exclusive Society (1999)
  • Michael Tonry – Thinking About Crime (2004)

Technocratic & Algorithmic Control

  • Virginia Eubanks – Automating Inequality (2018)
  • Bernard E. Harcourt – Against Prediction (2007)

Category: Key Works in Criminology Tags: classics, Criminology, Critical Criminology, gender and crime, inequality, policing, punishment, social control, surveillance, theory, urban criminology

Seitenspalte

Key Works

  • Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972)
    Stanley Cohen
  • The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (2001)
    David Garland

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