“The Oxford Handbook of Criminology”

Citation

Liebling, A., Maruna, S., & McAra, L. (Eds.). (2023). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (7th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

Context and Scope

The seventh edition is a completely revised collection of 44 essays by different authors, mainly from British criminology. The publisher organises it into four sections: constructions of crime and justice; borders, boundaries, and beliefs; dynamics of crime and violence; and responses to crime. The editors' introduction, "The renewed vision", sets the volume against changes of the previous seven years, including the pandemic, economic downturn, geopolitical tension and movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. New areas include zemiology, green criminology, victimology, sexual violence, atrocity crimes, border criminology and the governance of big data. Chapters carry extensive references, and the book has an online resource centre. The chapters are grouped below by theme in volume order.

Introduction and Foundations (Chapters 1–5)

• Introduction: The renewed vision (Liebling, Maruna, McAra) sets the agenda for the edition.
• 1. Sociological theories of crime (Rock) traces the sociology of crime from its origins in managing crime in the nineteenth-century British state.
• 2. Criminalization: Historical, legal, and criminological perspectives (Lacey, Zedner) compares legal and criminological constructions of crime over about 300 years.
• 3. Towards a global comparative criminology (Eisner) reviews comparative work and the effect of the data revolution.
• 4. The changing role of data in crime, criminal justice, and criminology (Matthews, McVie) considers how new data challenge the defining and measuring of crime.
• 5. Developmental and life-course criminology: An overview (Jolliffe, Auty) explains how antisocial behaviour begins, escalates and ends, and its use in prevention programmes.

Offenders, Groups and Public Perception (Chapters 6–11)

• 6. Turning over a new leaf: desistance research for a new generation (Weaver, Graham, Maruna) introduces desistance from offending.
• 7. Urban criminal collaborations (Fraser, Hobbs) reviews classifications such as gangs, subcultures, professional crime and organised crime.
• 8. Drug use, drug problems, drug control: A political economy perspective (Seddon, Stevens) treats drugs as a global commodity shaped by inequality.
• 9. Mental health, mental disabilities, and crime (O'Loughlin, Peay) examines definition, causation, treatment and policy.
• 10. Public opinion, crime, and criminal justice (Hough, Roberts) summarises research on public knowledge and attitudes.
• 11. Crime news, trial by media, and scandal hunting (Greer, McLaughlin) argues that criminology has not kept pace with changing news media.

Violence, Harm and Identity (Chapters 12–25)

• 12. Criminology and atrocity crimes (Aydın-Aitchison, Buljubašić, Holá) explores the concepts and history of atrocity criminology, and 13. Contagion and connections: Applying network thinking to violence and organized crime (Campana) applies network ideas to violence and organised crime.
• 14. Demystifying hate crime in an age of crises (Chakraborti, Clarke) and 15. Ethnicities, racism, crime, and criminal justice (Phillips, Bowling, Parmar), on patterns of offending, victimisation and treatment by the system.
• 16. Where is ‘victimology’ in an era of #MeToo? (Ttofi, Grounds, Puigvert), 17. Feminist criminology: Inequalities, powerlessness, and justice (Burman, Gelsthorpe), 18. Domestic violence (Gadd), 19. Prostitution and sex work (Phoenix) and 20. Understanding and rehabilitating men with sexual convictions: Theory, intervention, and compassion (Blagden, Winder).
• 21. Cybercrime: A social ecology (Collier, Hutchings) outlines the social ecology of cybercrime and its fragmented place in mainstream criminology, and 22. White-collar and corporate crime (Levi, Lord) turns to crimes of business and organisations.
• 23. Social harm and zemiology (Canning, Hillyard, Tombs) criticises state-centric definitions of crime; 24. Green criminology (Brisman, South) covers environmental harms; 25. Crime and consumer culture (Hayward, Smith) examines consumerism as criminogenic.

Security, Policing and Penal Decision-Making (Chapters 26–34)

• 26. Security and everyday life in uncertain times (Loader, Sparks, Bradford and others) asks what insecurities trouble different groups beyond the older "fear of crime" paradigm.
• 27. Crime prevention as urban security (Adam, Donkin, Weirich) reviews forty years of prevention research; 28. Security and smart cities (Bradford, Fussey) covers digital surveillance.
• 29. Policing and the police (Jones, Newburn, Reiner) surveys policing research, mainly in the United Kingdom, and 30. Making and managing terrorism and counter-terrorism: The view from criminology (Innes, Levi) applies criminological ideas to terrorism.
• 31. Understanding penal decision-making: Courts, sentencing, and parole (Padfield, Tata); 32. Youth justice in an age of uncertainty: principles, performance, and prospects (McAra), on the four UK nations; 33. Restorative justice in the twenty-first century: Making emotions mainstream (Rossner); 34. Punishment, victimhood, and social control: towards a criminology of transitional justice (McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther).

Penal Power and Engagement (Chapters 35–43)

• 35. The punishment-welfare relationship: history, sociology, and politics (Garland); 36. Criminology, punishment, and the state in a globalized society (Franko); 37. Border criminology and the changing nature of penal power (Bosworth), on the convergence of criminal justice and immigration control.
• 38. Reconfiguring and reimagining penal power (Crewe, Liebling) on power in prisons in England and Wales; 39. Punishment in the community: Evolution, expansion, and moderation (Robinson, McNeill); 40. Why prison architecture and design matter to our understanding of the limits of punishment and rehabilitation (Jewkes).
• 41. Confronting state power: dissenting voices and the demand for penal abolition (Sim); 42. Convict criminology without guarantees: Proposing hard labour for an unfinished criminology (Earle and others); 43. Criminological engagements (Liebling, McNeill, Schmidt), which argues for subtle, long-term and relational engagement with policy and practice.

Key Concepts

Foundations and Explanation

• Criminalization: the process by which conduct is defined as crime, which varies over time and between legal and criminological accounts.
• Developmental and life-course criminology: the study of how criminal behaviour starts, escalates and stops across a lifetime.
• Desistance: sustained stopping of offending by people who once offended.

New Fields

• Zemiology: the study of social harm, which goes beyond state-defined crime.
• Green criminology: the study of environmental harms and offences.
• Border criminology: the study of the convergence of criminal justice and immigration control.

Penal Power

• Penal power: how punishment operates and is experienced, from prisons to community sanctions.
• Penal abolition and convict criminology: critical and lived-experience perspectives on state punishment.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Range and recency. Forty-four chapters across theory, crime types, security, policing, punishment and engagement, with new topics reflecting current debates.
• Specialist authors. Chapters are written by specialists in each topic, with extensive references for further reading.
• Diversity of perspectives. The editors say they have made room for greater inclusiveness and newer scholars, and the chapters include feminist, convict, green and abolitionist perspectives.
• Study aids. The online resource centre includes guidance on essay questions, practice questions and selected chapters from earlier editions.

Limitations

• A reference, not a first textbook. The essays assume that readers know basic criminological vocabulary; they are not stepwise introductions.
• British emphasis. Several chapters concentrate on the United Kingdom, for example policing, youth justice, prisons and community sanctions.
• Uneven coverage. As in any edited volume, chapters vary in style and difficulty, and no single chapter covers every theory.
• Edition changes. The seventh edition has no separate chapter on psychological or biological explanations of crime, so readers using an older reading list or wanting those theories should check the contents and consult a textbook.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within this criminology and criminal justice list, the Handbook is the advanced survey. Newburn's Criminology and Case and colleagues' The Oxford Textbook on Criminology are the course textbooks to read first, and Roberts's Criminal Justice: A Very Short Introduction is the briefest overview. Easton and colleagues' Sentencing and Punishment and English's Terrorism: How to respond treat single topics in depth, topics the Handbook touches in Chapters 30 to 41.

Use it after a textbook, as a source for essays and dissertations: pick the chapter on the topic, then follow its references.

How to Use This Book

The Handbook suits advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers. A first criminology course is a useful base. Read the editors' introduction first, then Chapters 1 to 5 for foundations. Choose further chapters by topic; for a course on punishment, Chapters 31 to 43 form a coherent block, and for crime types see Chapters 7 to 25. Use the references in each chapter to move from a survey to the primary literature, and use the online resource centre for essay practice.