'This is a great resource that reflects the huge expertise of the authors. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and indeed anyone wanting critical but comprehensive coverage of key issues and trends concerning drugs and society - locally and globally, historically and today.' - Nigel South, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex 'Provides informative, balanced and contextualized insights into the relationships between people and drugs. Whatever your background and however knowledgeable you feel you are about contemporary drug issues, I guarantee that you will learn something unexpected and new from this valuable text.' - Joanne Neale, Professor of Public Health, Oxford Brookes University Why do people take drugs? How do we understand moral panics? What is the relationship between drugs and violence? How do people's social positions influence their involvement in drug use? Insightful and illuminating, this book discusses drugs in social contexts. The authors bring together their different theoretical and practical backgrounds, offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary introduction that opens up a wide scientific understanding moving beyond cultural myths and presuppositions.

This is an invaluable reference source for students on criminology, sociology and social sciences programmes, as well as drug service practitioners such as drug workers, social workers and specialist nurses.

"A crucial text for whetting the academic appetite of those studying criminology at university. The comprehensive engagement with key crime and deviance debates and issues make this a perfect springboard for launching into the complex, diverse and exciting realm of researching criminology." - Dr Ruth Penfold-Mounce, University of York "Essential reading for those new to the discipline and an invaluable reference point for those well versed in criminology and the sociology of crime and deviance." - Dr Mark Monaghan, University of Leeds Key Concepts in Crime and Society offers an authoritative introduction to key issues in the area of crime as it connects to society. By providing critical insight into the key issues within each concept as well as highlighted cross-references to other key concepts, students will be helped to grasp a clear understanding of each of the topics covered and how they relate to broader areas of crime and criminality. The book is divided into three parts: Understanding Crime and Criminality: introduces topics such as the social construction of crime and deviance, social control, the fear of crime, poverty and exclusion, white collar crime, victims of crime, race/gender and crime. Types of Crime and Criminality: explores examples including human trafficking, sex work, drug crime, environmental crime, cyber crime, war crime, terrorism, and interpersonal violence. Responses to Crime: looks at areas such as crime and the media, policing, moral panics, deterrence, prisons and rehabilitation. The book provides an up-to-date, critical understanding on a wide range of crime related topics covering the major concepts students are likely to encounter within the fields of sociology, criminology and across the social sciences.

The tragedies arising from HIV and AIDS are problems faced on every continent in the world. Case studies of carefully selected countries, representative of every region of the world, are presented in this unique volume. Students, teachers, and researchers can make cross-cultural comparisons to discover how the problem is viewed in different countries, how the problem is changing, what kinds of research is being conducted worldwide to find appropriate interventions for the problem and other details of how this disease affects different societies.

Each chapter is divided into similar subsections including the history of HIV and AIDS, the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, public and political views of the problem, and preventative measures. Readers can choose one or more of these aspects and compare how each differs from country to country. Here they will find that perceptions of the problem and the perceptions of degree to which people are taking preventative measures against the disease does not always reflect the reality. This worldview will help students and scholars to think critically about how building a better understanding of how a specific social issue is viewed and handled worldwide can help build a better world community.

Now in its seventh edition, The American Drug Scene, edited by James A. Inciardi and Karen McElrath, is a collection of contemporary and classic articles on the changing patterns, problems, perspectives, and policies of legal and illicit drug use. Offering a unique focus on the social contexts in which drug usage, drug-related problems, and drug policies occur, it presents theoretical and descriptive material drawn from both ethnographic and quantitative sources.