Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
Class, State, and Crime: On the Theory and Practice of Criminal Justice (1977) by Richard Quinney is one of the most influential Marxist analyses of crime and social control in the United States. The book combines a materialist analysis of society with a radical critique of the state’s penal system and is a key text
Punishing the Poor by French-American sociologist Loïc Wacquant offers a sharp analysis of the relationship between poverty, criminal justice, and the neoliberal state. The central thesis: in times of neoliberal redistribution and social insecurity, the penal apparatus takes the place of the welfare state—not to solve social problems, but to manage the consequences of growing