Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
Restorative Justice (RJ) represents a paradigm shift in the way societies deal with crime and conflict. Rather than focusing on punishment and retribution, restorative approaches emphasise dialogue, reparation, and the active participation of all parties involved. Victims, offenders, and community members are brought together to address harm, foster accountability, and promote healing. Restorative justice is
Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age (2007) is one of the key works by Bernard E. Harcourt and a foundational analysis of contemporary actuarial justice. Harcourt critiques the growing reliance on statistical risk assessment in criminal justice—particularly through police profiling, predictive policing, and risk-based sentencing. The book is a sharp critique
Thinking About Crime, published in 2004 by American criminologist Michael Tonry, offers a scathing critique of punitive crime control policies in the United States. Building on decades of policy analysis and empirical research, Tonry dismantles the assumptions underpinning the “tough on crime” agenda and argues for a more rational, evidence-based approach to criminal justice. The
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
Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment and Classification (1985) by Stanley Cohen provides a profound analysis of the transformations in social control in the late 20th century. While his earlier work, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), focused on media discourses and moral reactions to deviance, Visions of Social Control turns to institutional, political, and