Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late Modernity (1999) is a foundational work of late modern criminology by British sociologist and criminologist Jock Young. In this influential book, Young links rising crime rates and moral panics to processes of social exclusion, insecurity, and inequality in advanced capitalist societies. Challenging both leftist optimism
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
Stephen Graham’s „Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism“ (2010) is a disturbing yet influential work that analyzes the creeping militarization of urban spaces. Against the backdrop of the “War on Terror” and a globalized security architecture, Graham shows how military logics, technologies, and control practices increasingly permeate everyday life in Western cities. The book
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
Goffman’s Perspective: From Visible Deviance to Social Exclusion In Stigma, Erving Goffman explores the mechanisms by which societies mark individuals whose appearance, behavior, or background is considered deviant from social norms. A stigma is not an inherent attribute, but rather a social judgment that is ascribed to a person. Physical stigmas (e.g., visible disabilities) Character-related
With the concept of “liquid modernity”, Zygmunt Bauman offers a striking diagnosis of contemporary society: our world, he argues, has lost its solid forms. What used to be stable and predictable—work, relationships, life paths—is now flexible, uncertain, and in constant flux. Modernity has become liquid: structures dissolve, reference points vanish, and individuals are increasingly left