Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
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
Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (2007) is an influential work by American legal sociologist Jonathan Simon. Simon demonstrates how the fight against crime has become a comprehensive governmental paradigm in the United States since the 1970s—with far-reaching consequences for democratic institutions, social relations,
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
The Felon (1970) by American sociologist John Irwin is one of the most influential analyses of the lived realities of formerly incarcerated individuals. As a former inmate turned sociologist, Irwin combines personal experience with academic analysis. His central aim: to reconstruct the social processes through which ex-prisoners remain stigmatized as “criminals” and become socially marginalized
Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates by Erving Goffman is one of the most influential sociological works of the 20th century. Originally published in 1961, the book presents a powerful analysis of psychiatric hospitals and similar institutions, which Goffman defines as total institutions. These settings, according to Goffman, profoundly