Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
In Crime as Structured Action, James W. Messerschmidt presents a groundbreaking theory that interweaves criminology with gender studies, particularly the sociology of masculinity. Rejecting simplistic correlations between gender and crime, Messerschmidt proposes that criminal behavior can serve as a means of accomplishing masculinity—especially when socially legitimate paths to hegemonic masculinity are blocked. His approach is
With their book Queer Criminology (2015), Carrie L. Buist and Emily Lenning lay the foundation for a new criminological subfield that centers queer lives, identities, and experiences in the study of crime and social control. The book challenges the heteronormative and cisnormative assumptions that have long structured mainstream criminology and calls for a fundamental rethinking
Women, Crime and Poverty (1988) is one of the most influential works of British criminologist Pat Carlen. Based on empirical research with women in the British criminal justice system, Carlen presents a groundbreaking feminist critique that links female criminality to structural poverty, social exclusion, and gender-specific forms of control. The book is considered a key
Women and Crime (1985) by British sociologist Frances Heidensohn is considered the founding text of modern feminist criminology. As one of the first scholars in the field, Heidensohn systematically analyzed why women had long been ignored, misrepresented, or solely portrayed as victims in criminology—and why existing theories of crime failed to account for the lived
Critical criminology is not a single, unified theory but an approach that analyses crime, law, and criminal justice as deeply embedded in social power relations. It challenges conventional criminology’s focus on individual offenders by examining how inequality, state power, and ideological control shape definitions of crime and practices of punishment. At its core, critical criminology
Critical, Marxist and Conflict theories in criminology offer a fundamental critique of traditional crime theories that focus on individual pathology or socialisation failures. Instead of asking why individuals offend in isolation, these perspectives explore how definitions of crime, mechanisms of control, and punishment practices are shaped by social inequalities, power structures, and historical conflicts. They