NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: In a world where media images of crime and deviance proliferate, where every facet of offending is reflected in a ‘vast hall of mirrors’, Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the Image by Keith Hayward and Mike Presdee (Routledge, 2010) makes sense of the increasingly blurred line between the real and the virtual. It also provides the relevant analytical and research tools to unearth the hidden social and ideological concerns that frequently underpin images of crime, violence and transgression. To buy this book go to: http://www.routledgemedia.com/books/Framing-Crime-isbn9780415459044;

What is cultural criminology?
Cultural criminology is a theoretical, methodological and interventionist approach to the study of crime and deviance that places criminality and its control in the context of culture; that is, it views crime and the agencies and institutions of crime control as cultural products - as creative constructs.  As such they must be read in terms of the meanings they carry. Furthermore, cultural criminology seeks to highlight the interaction between two key elements: the relationship between cultural constructions upwards and cultural constructions downwards. Its focus is always upon the continuous generation of meaning around interaction; rules created, rules broken, a constant interplay of moral entrepreneurship, political innovation and transgression.