"Doing Time" is an essential text for students in criminology and criminal justice - a one-stop overview of key debates in punishment and imprisonment. This edition, thoroughly revised and updated throughout, is a highly accessible guide, providing the tools to critically engage with today's central issues in penology and penal policy.
Examining imprisonment both historically and sociologically, and in international perspective, "Doing Time" outlines theoretical debates, and goes beyond standard introductory texts to help students develop their own critical and informed opinions.
This new edition includes:
- three new chapters
- an up-to-date bibliography
- fully revised statistical information
- a guide to key internet resources
Issues explored include:
- how incarceration became established as the foremost form of punishment
- the role of space, time and labor in the evolution of prisons and prison life
- why prison populations are rising despite the fall in crime figures
- an examination of key prison populations - juveniles, women and ethnic groups
- crime and the business cycle - links between crime, unemployment and imprisonment
- globalization and crime control
- the future of imprisonment

Hanging people for petty crimes as well as grave, the Bloody Penal Code was at its most active between 1770 and 1830. Some 7,000 men and women were executed on public scaffolds, watched by crowds of thousands.

This acclaimed and prize-winning study is the first to explore what a wide range of people felt about these ceremonies. To analyse responses to the scaffold at all social levels, V. A. C. Gatrell draws on letters, diaries, ballads, broadsides, and images, as well as on poignant appeals for mercy which, until now, have been largely neglected by historians. Panoramic in range, scholarly in method, and compelling in style and in argument, this is one of those rare histories which both shift our sense of the past and speak powerfully to the present.

The Habits of Legality provides a broad survey of American criminal justice in a time of troubles. It asks the central questions: In what degree are the justice system's functions guided by ascertainable legal norms? How accountable are public officials who wield the rigorous sanctions of the penal law? Where the habits of legality are weak, how can they be invigorated?
A number of factors combine to constrict the rule of law in the criminal process. A crime epidemic of alarming proportions places enormous burdens on the system and gives rise to a "war on crime" that often oversteps the limits of legality. The institutional structure of the United States is severely fragmented, rendering coherent penal policy difficult or impossible and often freeing public officials of accountability for their uses of public authority. Even the courts and legislatures, the primary law-making agencies of society, often operate to weaken rather than strengthen the rule of law.
Francis A. Allen asserts the vital and continuing importance of the legality principle to democratic societies, discusses how the habits of legality in American criminal justice can be strengthened, and demonstrates that a closer adherence to the rule of law may not only protect the rights of persons more efficiently, but also contribute to more rational and effective penal policy. The Habits of Legality offers solutions on how to revitalize the rule of law. It will be of interest to scholars and students of criminology and law, as well as the general reader concerned with issues of criminal justice.

Every year millions of families are affected by the imprisonment of a family member. Children of imprisoned parents alone can be counted in millions in the USA and in Europe. It is a bewildering fact that while we have had prisons for centuries, and the deprivation of liberty has been a central pillar in the Western mode of punishment since the early nineteenth century, we have only relatively recently embarked upon a serious discussion of the severe effects of imprisonment for the families and relatives of offenders and the implications this has for society. This book draws together some of the excellent research that addresses the impact of criminal justice and incarceration in particular upon the families of offenders. It assembles examples of recent and ongoing studies from eight different countries in order to not only learn about the secondary effects and 'collateral consequences' of imprisonment but also to understand what the experiences and lived realities of prisoners' families means for the sociology of punishment and our broader understanding of criminal justice systems. While punishment and society scholarship has gained significant ground in recent years it has often remained silent on the ways in which the families of prisoners are affected by our practices of punishment. This book provides evidence of the importance of including families within this scholarship and explores themes of legitimacy, citizenship, human rights, marginalization, exclusion, and inequality.

Sentencing reform has become a highly controversial political issue. This new collection of essays brings together case studies of legislative reform initiatives in the USA and Canada, Australia, Sweden, and England and Wales. It also includes essays by leading international authorities on the impetus for and dynamics of change, and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the reform of sentencing practice in the West.

Prisons occupy a central position in the criminal justice system of all the developed nations. Much is known about prisons, their administration, their effectiveness and their problems. More is known now than at any time in the past about how prisons work and how prisoners view their experiences of incarceration.

However, little attention has been given to comparing and contrasting prison systems in different countries. This collection does just that, bringing together leading prison scholars from Italy, Australia, the US, and the UK to produce a set of essays which offer a broad view of recent developments in imprisonment theory and practice. Topics covered include: privately run prisons; the crisis in prisons in several countries; Russian prisons after Perestroika; human rights and prisons in Europe; women in prisons; and racial disproportion in US prisons.

Contributors: Richard Sparks, Douglas C. McDonald, Massimo Pavarini, Roy D. King, Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins, Michael Tonry, Ken Pease, Pat Carlen, Rod Morgan, Malcolm Evans, Mike Maguire

This second volume of Lord Windlesham's seminal work Responses to Crime concentrates on the making of penal policy between the first post-war Criminal Justices Act in 1948 and the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The central role of government, the Home Office in particular, is brought out, as are the diverse sources of policy proposals and the influence on ministers, legislators, and civil servants. It is an insider's account, the author having had experience as a minister at the Home Office and for Northern Ireland, as well as Leader of the House of Lords. From 1982-88 Lord Windlesham was Chairman of the Parole Board, and became President of Victim Support in 1992. He is currently Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford.

The British public today endure some of the world's worst crime levels. According to the government's own estimates, 132 million indictable crimes alone are committed every year, the vast majority of which go unrecorded and undetected. Burglary is rife; street crime burgeoning and violence is escalating to unprecedented levels. Fear of crime means that many of us - especially the vulnerable and the elderly - have become prisoners in our own homes, leaving predatory criminals free to roam our streets. In this meticulously researched and passionately argued study of the contemporary British justice system, David Fraser offers a sobering indictment of post-war British governments, who have not only overseen but also fostered this spectacular and terrifying rise in crime. Almost without exception, governments - and the civil servants and academics who abet them - have sought to persuade us that criminals are victims of society and that they are best rehabilitated within the community rather than punished inside prisons. So pervasive has this 'anti-prison propaganda' become that few of whatever political complexion are now prepared to question its truth. However, as David Fraser cogently argues, community supervision and probation orders have simply left criminals free to reoffend, while the criminal justice system's near obsession with the well-being of criminals has come to override its concerns for their victims, whose interests and sufferings are callously ignored. Moreover, he suggests successive governments' failure to carry out what is their first duty - to protect their citizens - threatens to undermine our democracy, as more and more people - exasperated by the blatant injustice of the justice system - take the law into their own hands. Britain has indeed become 'a land fit for criminals'.

Covering all the key topics across the subject of Penology, this book gives you the tools you need to delve deeper and critically examine issues relating to prisons and punishment.

The second edition: explores prisons and punishment within national, international and comparative contexts, and draws upon contemporary case studies throughout to illustrate key themes and issues includes new sections on actuarial justice, proportionality, sentencing principles, persistent offending, rehabilitation, and abolitionist approaches to punishment features a companion website directing you towards relevant journal articles and web links.

The book also includes a useful study skills section which guides you through essay writing and offers hints and tips on how you can get the most out of your lectures and seminars. This is the perfect primer for all undergraduate students of Criminology taking modules on Prisons and Punishment or Penology.

*Provides a clear, yet panoramic analysis of how the concept of social control has been used by different theoretical traditions in the social sciences.
*Connects contemporary changes in areas such as policing, penal systems and surveillance, with wider and deeper changes in the constitution of society.
*Employs empirical examples to illustrate key conceptual points.
*Develops an innovative argument about the nature and scope of social control in late-modern societies.
Understanding Social Control investigates how the concept of social control has been used to capture the ways in which individuals, communities and societies respond to a variety of forms of deviant behaviour. In so doing, the book demonstrates how an appreciation of the meanings of the concept of social control is vital to understanding the dynamics and trajectories of social order in contemporary late-modern societies. Through an analysis of a range of different modes of social control including: policing, imprisonment, surveillance, risk management, audit and architecture, this book explores how and why the mechanisms and processes of social control are changing. The book will be of interest to those studying courses in criminology and the social sciences, researchers with interests in the sociology of deviance and social control, and readers who want to understand the social forces that are shaping the world they live in.

Most people in jail have not been convicted of a crime. Instead, they have been accused of a crime and cannot afford to post the bail amount to guarantee their freedom until trial. Punishing Poverty examines how the current system of pretrial release detains hundreds of thousands of defendants awaiting trial. Tracing the historical antecedents of the US bail system, with particular attention to the failures of bail reform efforts in the mid to late twentieth century, the authors describe the painful social and economic impact of contemporary bail decisions. The first book-length treatment to analyze how bail reproduces racial and economic inequality throughout the criminal justice system, Punishing Poverty explores reform efforts, as jurisdictions begin to move away from money bail systems, and the attempts of the bail bond industry to push back against such reforms. This accessibly written book gives a succinct overview of the role of pretrial detention in fueling mass incarceration and is essential reading for researchers and reformers alike.

In Guarded Words Eric de Bellaigue has attempted to answer questions inspired by his reading of Isaac D'Israeli's short essay 'Imprisonment of Learned', from that author's Curiosities of Literature. He asks: 'Can prison writing lay claim to a distinctive chapter in histories of literature? Is there a thread linking prisoners' output across the centuries? Can confinement provide the ideal environment for literary creativity? Is there common ground among the subjects treated? Alternatively, does diversity ride rough-shod over the shared experiences of imprisonment?' The author's Preface explains the self-imposed restrictions that have determined his choice of writers and how the sequence of chapters has largely been governed by geography and chronology. The main sections of the book are: Incarceration in England; Incarceration in France; Incarceration in Russia; Convicted Murderers. Texts need to have been composed within the prisons themselves, and memoirs written after release have been excluded. With three exceptions the writings are in English or French with the year 1500 as a starting point. The writers who make their appearance here are a mixed bag. Where common ground is apparent it is at the personal level, notably in the causes of imprisonment which include: * For religious views: John Bunyan; Clement Marot; Anne Askew; Thomas More; John Hart. * For reasons of State: Walter Ralegh; William Prynne; Antoine Lavoisier; Madame Roland; Andre Chenier; Jean-Antoine Roucher; the Earl of Surrey; Charles I ; Richard Lovelace. * As victims of civil action: William Combe; Theodore von Neuhoff, King of Corsica; Mirabeau; Voltaire. * For Murder: Pierre Francois Lacenaire; William Chester Minor. * For dissidence in Russia: Alexander Solzhenitsyn; Lev Mishchenko ; Irina Ratushinskaya. An appendix, 'Snapshots of Prison Writing', provides short notes about each writer. There are also textual notes, a bibliography and an index. Illustrations: approximately 30 b&w illustrations of writers and the places where they were incarcerated.

Inside Criminal Justice: Thinking about Police, Courts, and Corrections provides students with a comprehensive and critical exploration of the U.S. criminal justice system. Opening chapters introduce criminal justice as a system, a career, and an academic discipline; identify the main types of crimes in American jurisprudence; define crime; and explain how the criminalization process works. Additional chapters describe approaches to justice in American society, criminal injustice, the complexities and realities of police work, and police reform. Students learn about democratic policing, police powers and the rights of citizens, federal and state courts, the roles of prosecutors and judges in the courtroom, defendants' rights, and the practices of criminal defense attorneys. Sentencing, mass incarceration, institutional corrections, community corrections, the death penalty, and juvenile justice are covered. Learning outcomes, chapter summaries, discussion questions, key terms, and references enrich the student reading and learning experience. Inside Criminal Justice is designed for introductory courses in criminal justice.

This fifth edition of the first true textbook on the death penalty engages the reader with a full account of the arguments and issues surrounding capital punishment. The book begins with the history of the death penalty from colonial to modern times, and then examines the moral and legal arguments for and against capital punishment. It also provides an overview of major Supreme Court decisions and describes the legal process behind the death penalty. In addressing these issues, the author reviews recent developments in death penalty law and procedure, including ramifications of newer case law, such as that regarding using lethal injection as a method of execution. The author's motivation has been to understand what motivates the "deathquest" of the American people, leading a large percentage of the public to support the death penalty. The book educates readers so that whatever their death penalty positions are, they are informed opinions.

Based on over thirty years of research of government sentencing policy and work within the criminal justice system, David Fraser demonstrates that Britain's increased reliance on alternatives to imprisonment has allowed violent crime to flourish. The number of life-threatening attacks has increased rapidly over the last forty years but justice officials have masked this development within a blizzard of deceptive statistics. Anti-prison groups tell the public that violent offenders can be managed in the community under supervision and that prison makes offenders worse. Contrary to this misleading propaganda, the evidence presented here informs us that criminals under probation supervision as an alternative to imprisonment commit hundreds of the most serious crimes every year, while the government's figures - which are kept away from the public eye - make it clear that long prison sentences are our best protection against violent crime. Licence to Kill demonstrates that the death penalty was an effective deterrent to homicide but does not argue for its reintroduction. Instead, by acknowledging its effectiveness, David Fraser argues the case for a re-vamped sentencing system that is as effective as was the fear of the hangman's noose. By providing readers with an alternative perspective, he invites them to consider the idea of a new criminal sentencing framework.