The Oxford Textbook on Criminology

Citation

Case, S., Johnson, P., Manlow, D., Smith, R., & Williams, K. (2021). The Oxford Textbook on Criminology (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The second edition is a large (about 1,150-page) introductory textbook in 33 chapters and five parts, organized around three verbs: exploring, explaining and responding to crime. It is framed by a short opening part on starting to study criminology and a closing part on research and careers. The publisher stresses its student-centred design: recurring boxes ask "What do you think?", present "Controversy and debate", introduce "New frontiers" in each area, and include "Conversations" with academics, students, police officers, lawyers, campaigners, victims, former offenders and employers. Compared with the first edition, this one adds chapters on global criminology, social harm and green criminology, expands victimology, hate crime and race, and streamlines the opening and closing parts.

Part 1: Journeying into Criminology (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1, "Studying criminology" is a single orientation chapter on what the discipline is and how to approach studying it, which the publisher says was streamlined in this edition to give practical guidance for beginning students.

Part 2: Exploring Crime (Chapters 2–14)

The longest part asks what crime is and how we know about it. Chapters 2–3, "What is 'crime'?" and "What is 'justice'?" set out the contested definitions that the rest of the book relies on. Chapters 4–6, "How criminology produces knowledge", "Crime statistics" and "Crime and the media" examine the sources of knowledge about crime, from research to official figures to media representations. Chapters 7–11 take particular groups and perspectives: "Victimology", "Hate crime", "Youth offending and youth justice", "Race, ethnicities, and the criminal justice system", and "Gender and feminist criminology". Chapters 12–14 are new or newly expanded areas: "Green criminology" and two chapters on global criminology, "Comparative criminology" and "Transnational criminology". The publisher lists organized crime, drug trafficking, people smuggling, cybercrime, terrorism and the call for a "southern criminology" among the global topics.

Part 3: Explaining Crime (Chapters 15–22)

A broadly chronological tour of theory: "Free will, classicism and rational choice" (Chapter 15), "Biological and psychological positivism" and "Sociological positivism" (Chapters 16–17), "Critical criminology" (Chapter 18), the new chapter on "Social harm" (Chapter 19), "Right and left realism" (Chapter 20) and "Integrated theories of crime" (Chapter 21). Chapter 22, "Searching for the causes of crime" closes the part by stepping back to the question that all these theories try to answer.

Part 4: Responding to Crime (Chapters 23–31)

The criminal justice part moves from principles to practice: "Criminal justice principles", "Criminal justice institutions" and "Criminal justice policies and practices" (Chapters 23–25); "Crime prevention" and "Crime control" (Chapters 26–27); and four chapters on penal responses: "Punishment", "Rehabilitation of offenders", "Alternatives to punishment" and "Critical perspectives on punishment" (Chapters 28–31).

Part 5: Research and Careers in Criminology (Chapters 32–33)

"Conducting criminological research" guides students into their own projects, and "Employability and careers" connects the degree to work, including in the criminal justice system.

Key Concepts

Parts 1–2: Exploring crime

• Crime as a contested category: what counts as crime depends on law, power and social reaction, a question opened in Chapter 2.
• Knowledge production: research, official statistics and the media as different, and differently reliable, sources of what we know about crime.
• Victimology and hate crime: the study of victims and of offences motivated by hostility to a group.
• Green and global criminology: harms to the environment, and crime and justice across and between nations.

Part 3: Explaining crime

• Classicism and rational choice: crime as the choice of a free, reasoning actor.
• Positivism: the search for biological, psychological or social causes of offending.
• Critical criminology and social harm: perspectives that question official definitions of crime and widen the focus to harms that the law may not criminalize.
• Realism and integrated theory: right and left realist approaches to crime as a practical problem, and attempts to combine several explanations.

Parts 4–5: Responding to crime

• Criminal justice principles and institutions: the values and organizations through which a society responds to crime.
• Prevention and control: reducing crime before it happens versus managing it through enforcement.
• Punishment, rehabilitation and alternatives: competing aims of the penal response and their critiques.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built for students. The design treats readers as developing criminologists rather than passive learners: reflective "What do you think?" boxes, debates, and interviews with a wide range of people inside and outside the criminal justice system. Endorsements quoted by the publisher from criminology lecturers (for example at Anglia Ruskin, Edinburgh and Leicester) single out this student focus.
• Breadth with current topics. The second edition adds dedicated chapters on green criminology, global criminology and social harm, and every area includes "New frontiers" boxes on emerging developments, so students meet recent debates as well as the classic theories.
• A full degree companion. Part 1 and Part 5 cover starting the subject, doing research and planning careers, so the book can follow students from their first year to their dissertation.
• Clear three-part logic. Exploring, explaining and responding give the 33 chapters an easy structure to navigate and to map onto modules.

Limitations

• Very long. At roughly 1,150 pages, the book contains far more than one module needs; selection is essential.
• A UK frame. The book is published by Oxford University Press in the UK for UK criminology degrees, and its endorsers teach at UK universities. Chapters on criminal justice institutions, policies and statistics are therefore likely to be most directly applicable there; students elsewhere should expect to add local material for those chapters.
• Introductory depth. Theories are covered in survey chapters; students writing essays on a single theory or institution will need the primary literature or a research-level collection.
• Endorsements are not reviews. The available assessments are publisher-selected endorsements rather than independent published reviews.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the main undergraduate textbook in the course's criminology list. Tim Newburn's Criminology is another comprehensive UK introduction and can be used in its place or alongside it for a second explanation of theory and criminal justice. Julian Roberts's Criminal Justice: A Very Short Introduction is a quick overview of the justice process and suits a first week before Part 4.

The advanced books build on particular parts. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Liebling and colleagues) collects research-level essays by specialists and is the natural next step for any topic in Parts 2–4. Easton and colleagues' Sentencing and Punishment goes much further into the penal questions of Chapters 28–31, and Richard English's Terrorism: How to Respond develops one of the transnational themes of Chapter 14.

How to Use This Book

The book suits first-year and second-year criminology undergraduates, including those on joint law or social science degrees; no prior criminology is assumed.

• First year: Chapter 1, then Chapters 2–6 for foundations, a selection of Chapters 7–14 matched to the module, Chapters 15–18 and 20 for theory, and Chapters 23–25 for criminal justice.
• Second year: the remaining theory (Chapters 19, 21–22), crime prevention and control (Chapters 26–27), the punishment chapters (28–31), and the global and green chapters.
• Final year: Chapters 32–33 when planning a dissertation and applications.
• Working method: answer the "What do you think?" questions before reading on, and use the "Controversy and debate" boxes as seminar preparation; the online resources add multiple-choice questions and notes on the end-of-chapter questions for self-testing.
• Alongside it: follow each chapter's leads into the Oxford Handbook or the primary studies for essays, and keep a note of current cases and statistics for the jurisdiction being studied.