This proposal is for an introductory textbook in criminology.
Its approach and coverage are designed to meet the needs of the ever-expanding undergraduate market in this subject in the United Kingdom, with some appeal to our major export markets, and in terms of the issues it addresses a resonance in the well established but more parochial US market.
The book will begin with a general introduction to the problem of crime, defining crime, and measuring it, including the various data sources available and how they are used.
It will explore theoretical perspectives including sociological theorising about crime, considering its relevance for an understanding of criminal justice practice through the influence of ideas about risk and risk assessment, and its impact on policy (together with the New Public Management of the delivery of policy).
There will be four chapters in the second section covering the police, the courts, the question of punishment and crime prevention and community safety.
The focus of each of these chapters will be on how the system works in practice and the extent to which criminology has cast light on those working practices. Each chapter will be set against the more general theoretical and empirical questions raised in section one.
Cumulatively, from sections one and two the text will have demonstrated that the key work of both criminology and the criminal justice process has to date focused primarily on the socially excluded.
The next four chapters in section three will be designed to unravel the extent to which this process operates in relation to sex and gender, race and ethnicity, age and social class.
Inevitably each chapter will recognise the complex interplay between class, race, age and gender in the workings of the criminal justice process, not just in relation to victims and offenders but also in relation to criminal justice professionals.
Attention will be paid to the relative importance of these variables comparatively.
Additional issues that will be addressed by the book include attempts to explain the role of crime in the cultures of everyday life, from the possible impact of media representations of crime on our beliefs and behaviour to the seductive appeal of criminality in popular culture. Also addressed will be the increasing concerns with crimes that transcend national boundaries and traditional conceptions of the role of the nation state, both physically (in the case of organised crime, corporate and transnational crimes, state crime, and terrorism) and virtually (in terms of the rise of virtual or cyber-crimes).
The book will be pitched primarily at first year undergraduate and generalist introductory courses in criminology (and will for example act as a precursor to the successful Walklate: Understanding Criminology, an introduction to criminological theory), with strong secondary markets such as in sociology.
Its main focus will be the UK market but will set the issues relevant to the UK agenda within a wider international setting.
It will aim to appeal to both the European and to a lesser extent the North American market by demonstrating, through the use of examples, the pertinence of the questions it raises across international boundaries (Walklates work is already well recognised internationally).
This book will be unashamedly sociological in orientation, providing a concise and lively alternative to the Oxford Handbook of Criminology. It will concern itself with breadth and depth of coverage, providing a more comprehensive textbook compared with rivals other than the Oxford Handbook, and will be teaching oriented.
At appropriate points each chapter will be punctuated with questions for reflection and further discussion.
Each chapter will also end with features such as suggestions for further reading, questions for discussion, and ideas on how to use the Internet for further enquiry.
The book will also contain a glossary.
