This chapter describes how the sociology of crime originally stemmed from professional and political preoccupations with the problems presented by the practical management of crime and punishment but then evolved and expanded in a rather unsystematic fashion over some two centuries into a semi-detached academic discipline that addresses the various ways in which social order, social control, and social representations of rule-breaking are said to affect the etiology of crime.
Chapter
1. The foundations of sociological theories of crime
Paul Rock
Chapter
8. Cop cultures
Benjamin Bowling, Robert Reiner, and James Sheptycki
This chapter critically examines the concept of cop culture, that is, the world view and perspectives of police officers. It considers the core characteristics of police culture portrayed in empirical studies at many different places and times, relating them to the danger and authority associated with the police role. It then discusses the themes of mission, hedonistic love of action, and pessimistic cynicism that characterize policework and how they relate to other facets of cop culture such as suspicion, isolation/solidarity, and conservatism. Finally, it analyses variations in cop culture and in organizational culture. The fundamental argument is that the structural features of the police role in liberal democratic societies generate tensions and the cultural perspectives that enable police to cope with them, although these have negative features reflecting the fundamental patterns of social injustice and inequality.
Chapter
8. Phenomenology
This chapter examines the phenomenological sociology of crime, deviance, and control. It first discusses the central issues relating to phenomenology, particularly with respect to knowledge, good and evil, and deviant phenomena. It then discusses some of the arguments put forward by phenomenologists, citing the link between experiences and consciousness and how phenomenology relates to social order. It also considers the work of Aaron Cicourel, Egon Bittner, David Sudnow, and others on the phenomenological sociology of crime and deviance, as well as the emergence of phenomenological criminology. The chapter concludes by reviewing some of the criticisms of phenomenological work on deviance.
Chapter
1. Watching the watchers: Theory and research in policing studies
Benjamin Bowling, Robert Reiner, and James Sheptycki
This chapter offers a broad introduction to the study of policing. It first outlines the concepts of police and policing, and the long-term evolution of these processes, with an emphasis on the idea of policing as an aspect of social control. There is discussion of the notion of the police as a body of people patrolling public places in blue uniforms, with a broad mandate of crime control, order maintenance, and some social service and specialist functions. The chapter then considers various sources of police research ranging from journalists and academic institutions to official government-related bodies, think-tanks, and pressure groups. It also looks at the development of police research. The concluding section offers an analysis of the vexed conceptual relationship between policing and politics.
Chapter
6. A fair cop? Policing and social justice
Benjamin Bowling, Robert Reiner, and James Sheptycki
This chapter examines fairness in policing with reference to issues of race and gender. It first defines the terms of debate—justice, fairness, discrimination—then considers individual, cultural, institutional, and structural theories and applies these to various aspects of policing. It considers the histories of police discrimination in relation to the policing of poverty, chattel slavery, racial segregation, colonialism, religious conflict, and ethnic minority communities, to understand their contemporary legacy. The chapter then examines spheres of police activity where allegations of unfairness and discrimination are particularly salient, including the response to women crime victims of rape and domestic violence, the use of ‘racial profiling’ in stop and search powers, and the use of deadly force. It examines the experiences of people from ethnic minorities, women, gay men, and lesbians within police forces. Through an exploration of the historical and contemporary literature, the chapter draws conclusions on whether or not the police act fairly in democratic societies.
Chapter
4. Learning the blues: the establishment and legitimation of professional policing in Britain 1829–2018
Benjamin Bowling, Robert Reiner, and James Sheptycki
This chapter first looks at the history of British professional policing between 1829 and 1856, when the police idea was highly controversial. It compares the new police with the old forms, the motives for police reform, and the social impact of the new police. It also considers the basis of opposition to the police, and describes how the role of policing in social order became recognized. There follows an analysis of the legitimation of the modern British police in the face of widespread opposition. This partly relates to such operational strategies as bureaucratic discipline, subjection to the rule of law, non-partisanship, accountability, a service role, and preventive policing. These were facilitated by cultural changes, notably the incorporation of the working class, into the fabric of civil, political, and socio-economic citizenship. After the 1970s, with the emergence of neo-liberalism, these processes reversed and the police became increasingly controversial and politicized.
Chapter
1. Sociological theories of crime
Paul Rock
This chapter describes how the sociology of crime originally stemmed from professional and political preoccupations with the problems presented by the practical management of crime and punishment in the emerging British state of the early nineteenth century but then evolved and expanded in a rather unsystematic fashion over some two centuries into a semi-detached academic discipline that addresses the various ways in which social order, social control, and social representations of rule-breaking are said to affect the aetiology of crime. It has never stopped swelling, fragmenting, and proliferating, partly because of a tendency for new generations of scholars to forget the past (see Plummer 2011), and partly in response to the emergence of new data, new methodologies (such as randomized control trials), new empirical areas (such as the global South), and new theoretical possibilities and political preoccupations (such as violence against women and girls) and social and ecological problems (such as climate change).
Chapter
22. White-collar and corporate crime
Michael Levi and Nicholas Lord
This chapter covers the changing conceptions of crime and social order in correlation with the character and quality of everyday life in contemporary Britain. It presents elements of change that involve notions of durability and persistence. The contemporary landscapes of sources of harm, uncertainty, or tribulation that attend people’s everyday lives are diverse and bear upon different lives and different habitats in very distinct and unequal ways. As measured by victimization surveys and other means, fear of crime always had as its primary object threats to personal safety in public space. The chapter also considers the contentions surrounding the notion of security and public safety.
