Contents:
1. Introduction PART ONE: 2. Cultural Criminology 3. From Carnival to the Carnival of Crime (with Gavin Carter) 4. Commodification, Consumption and Crime PART TWO: Hurt, Humiliation and Crime as Popular Pleasure 6. The Criminalisation of Consent: The Case of S&M 7. Rap and Rave and the Criminalisation of Youth 8. The Carnival and the Performing of Crime: Young People, Knives and Other Weapons 9. Senseless Acts: The Harbouring and Harvesting of Hate

Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime attempts to make sense of the current increase in violence, cruelty, hate and humiliation, which has come to permeate daily life. The text argues that an overly organised economic world has provoked a widespread desire for extreme, oppositional forms of popular and personal pleasure. This desire has resulted in a cathartic 'second life' of illicit pleasures often deemed criminal by those in power. Amongst the exciting issues Mike Presdee addresses are:
* joyriding
* street crime
* antisocial behaviour in private via the internet
* hate, hurt and humiliation in popular culture
* the popularisation and criminalisation of sadomasochism and dance music cultures.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In a world in which media images of crime and deviance proliferate, where every facet of offending is reflected in a vast hall of mirrors, Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the Image makes sense of the increasingly blurred line between the real and the virtual.

Images of crime and crime control have become almost as 'real' as crime and criminal justice itself. The meaning of both crime and crime control now resides, not solely in the essential and essentially false factuality of crime rates or arrest records, but also in the contested processes of symbolic display, cultural interpretation, and representational negotiation.

It is essential, then, that criminologists are closely attuned to the various ways in which crime is imagined, constructed and framed within modern society.

Framing Crime responds to this demand with a collection of papers aimed at helping the reader to understand the ways in which the contemporary story of crime is constructed and promulgated through the image. It also provides the relevant analytical and research tools to unearth the hidden social and ideological concerns that frequently underpin images of crime, violence and transgression.

Framing Crime will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of criminology, crime and the media, and sociology.

This new title will become the core book on cultural criminology. Cultural Criminology Unleashed brings together cutting edge research across the range of meanings of the term 'cultural', from anthropology to art and the media to theories of meaning. Global in scope, contributions take in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. on both sides of the Atlantic. academics as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students of criminology/sociology of deviance, penology and criminal justice, as well as cultural studies, media studies, qualitative research methods and sociology.

In a world in which media images of crime and deviance proliferate, where every facet of offending is reflected in a ?vast hall of mirrors?, Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the Image makes sense of the increasingly blurred line between the real and the virtual.

Images of crime and crime control have become almost as 'real' as crime and criminal justice itself. The meaning of both crime and crime control now resides, not solely in the essential ? and essentially false ? factuality of crime rates or arrest records, but also in the contested processes of symbolic display, cultural interpretation, and representational negotiation.

It is essential, then, that criminologists are closely attuned to the various ways in which crime is imagined, constructed and framed within modern society.

Framing Crime responds to this demand with a collection of papers aimed at helping the reader to understand the ways in which the contemporary ?story of crime? is constructed and promulgated through the image. It also provides the relevant analytical and research tools to unearth the hidden social and ideological concerns that frequently underpin images of crime, violence and transgression.

Framing Crime will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of criminology, crime and the media, and sociology.