Criminology

Citation

Newburn, T. (2017). Criminology (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The third edition is a large textbook of about 1,170 pages, with a glossary, bibliography and index. It is organised in six parts and thirty-eight chapters. The publisher describes it as an introduction to the themes, concepts, theories, methods and events that underpin criminology and criminal justice degree courses. This edition adds a new chapter on the politics of crime and updates the crime data and trends, with new material on events such as the Volkswagen scandal, historic child abuse, and the English riots. A companion website offers review and multiple-choice questions.

Part 1, Chapters 1–5: Understanding Crime and Criminology; Crime and Punishment in History; Crime Data and Crime Trends; Crime and the Media; The Politics of Crime and its Control

The opening part explains what criminology studies and places crime and punishment in historical perspective. It then turns to the sources and limits of crime data, the way crime is presented in the media, and the political context of crime control. The last of these is the new chapter in this edition.

Part 2, Chapters 6–17: the theory chapters

The longest part is an account of criminological theory in twelve chapters: Classicism and Positivism; Biological Positivism; Psychological Positivism; Durkheim, Anomie and Strain; The Chicago School, Subcultures and Cultural Criminology; Interactionism and Labelling Theory; Control Theories; Radical and Critical Criminology; Realist Criminology; Contemporary Classicism; Feminist Criminology; and Late Modernity, Governmentality and Risk. The titles move from the earliest classical and positivist explanations, through sociological schools, to critical, realist, feminist and late-modern approaches.

Part 3, Chapters 18–22: Types and Trends

Five chapters on particular kinds of crime and on those who experience it: Victims, Victimisation and Victimology; White Collar and Corporate Crime; Organised Crime; Violent and Property Crime; and Drugs and Alcohol.

Part 4, Chapters 23–31: Understanding Criminal Justice

Nine chapters on the criminal justice system: Penology and Punishment; Understanding Criminal Justice; Crime Prevention and Community Safety; Policing; Criminal Courts and the Court Process; Sentencing and Non-custodial Penalties; Prisons and Imprisonment; Youth Crime and Youth Justice; and Restorative Justice.

Part 5, Chapters 32–36: Critical Issues in Criminology

Five chapters on specific issues: Race, Crime and Criminal Justice; Gender, Crime and Justice; Criminal and Forensic Psychology; Green Criminology; and Globalisation, Terrorism and Human Rights.

Part 6, Chapters 37–38: Doing Criminology

Two chapters on method: Understanding Criminological Research and Doing Criminological Research. The publisher's contents list numbers these chapters as 36 and 37, repeating the number of the last chapter of Part 5.

Key Concepts

Understanding crime (Part 1)

• Crime data and trends: the sources of information on crime and the questions about what they show.
• The politics of crime: the political influences on how crime is understood and controlled.

Theories (Part 2)

• Classicism and positivism: the two foundational ways of explaining crime, by choice and by cause.
• Anomie and strain: the Durkheimian tradition linking crime to social conditions.
• Subcultures and labelling: explanations based on group culture and on the social reaction to deviance.
• Control theories: accounts of why people refrain from crime.
• Late modernity, governmentality and risk: more recent frameworks for understanding crime and its control.

Types of crime and criminal justice (Parts 3–5)

• Victimology: the study of victims and victimisation.
• White collar and corporate crime: crime by people in respectable positions and by organisations.
• Penology: the study of punishment.
• Restorative justice: an approach to responding to crime that involves those affected.
• Green criminology: criminology applied to harms to the environment.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Very broad coverage. The six parts cover the explanation of crime, types of crime, the criminal justice system, current issues and research methods, so a student can follow most of a criminology degree from one book.
• A full chapter for each theoretical tradition. The twelve theory chapters give each school its own treatment, which is useful for comparing explanations side by side.
• Method treated explicitly. Two chapters on how criminological research is understood and carried out support students writing dissertations.
• Editions are updated. The third edition adds a politics chapter and new crime data, and the publisher also lists a revised companion website with review questions.

Limitations

• Length. At about 1,170 pages and 38 chapters, few courses will use the whole book, and students must choose which chapters to read.
• Focus on England and Wales. The publisher highlights extended coverage of the English riots and the author is based in London, so British material is likely to feature prominently; students on courses elsewhere may need local sources for criminal justice institutions.
• Dated by edition. This is a 2017 edition, so crime data and events after that year are not covered.

Where It Fits in the Course

Newburn's Criminology is the broad first text in the criminology and criminal justice list. Julian Roberts's Criminal Justice: A Very Short Introduction is much shorter and follows a case through the system, so it suits a reader who wants only the criminal justice part quickly. The Oxford Textbook on Criminology, by five authors, is another course textbook that introduces theories, the definition and measurement of crime, and criminal justice institutions, and can be used as a second opinion on the same ground. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology is a larger reference volume of essays, for readers who already know the field. Easton and others' Sentencing and Punishment and Richard English's Terrorism: How to Respond are specialist books that follow up topics from Newburn's Chapters 28 and 36.

Read Newburn first, then move to the specialist books for the topics a course emphasises.

How to Use This Book

The publisher presents the book as the basis for undergraduate courses and modules in criminology and criminal justice; it suits students at the start of such a course and anyone who wants a broad starting point.

A practical reading plan:

• Core: Part 1 (Chapters 1–5) for foundations, and from Part 2 the first nine theory chapters (Chapters 6–14), which cover the main traditions.
• According to the course: the rest of Part 2 (Chapters 15–17), Part 3 for types of crime, and Part 4 for the criminal justice system, taking the chapters that match the syllabus.
• For dissertations: Part 6 on research methods, and the relevant chapter in Part 5.

Use the glossary for key terms, the companion website for review questions, and the bibliography to find the primary studies behind each chapter. Compare the theory chapters in pairs, for example classicism against positivism or labelling against control, to see where explanations disagree.