Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
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
The Viewer Society, written by the Norwegian sociologist and criminologist Thomas Mathiesen, presents one of the most influential extensions of Michel Foucault’s panopticism. In an age of accelerating video surveillance, mass media, and digital communication, Mathiesen proposes a shift in perspective: instead of focusing solely on the few who watch the many, we must also
Enforcing Order, written by French anthropologist and sociologist Didier Fassin, is a dense ethnographic study of everyday policing in the French banlieues. Based on several years of participant observation within an anti-crime brigade (BAC), Fassin reveals how police act as instruments of control and social exclusion in marginalized urban areas. The study is not only
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