Ian Loader - Public Criminology?

What is the role and value of criminology in a democratic society? How do, and how should, its practitioners engage with politics and public policy? How can criminology find a voice in an agitated, insecure and intensely mediated world in which crime and punishment loom large in government agendas and public discourse? What collective good do we want criminological enquiry to promote?

In addressing these questions, Loader and Sparks offer a sociological account of how criminologists understand their craft and position themselves in relation to social and political controversies about crime, whether as scientific experts, policy advisors, governmental players, social movement theorists, or lonely prophets. They examine the conditions under which these diverse commitments and affiliations arose, and gained or lost credibility and influence. This forms the basis for a timely articulation of the idea that criminology's overarching public purpose is to contribute to a better politics of crime and its regulation.

Public Criminology? offers an original and provocative account of the condition of, and prospects for, criminology which will be of interest not only to those who work in the fields of crime, security and punishment, but to anyone interested in the vexed relationship between social science, public policy and politics.

Ian Loader is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford. He is author of Civilizing Security, with Neil Walker (2007) and is currently researching and writing about markets for security commodities.

Richard Sparks is Professor of Criminology at the University of Edinburgh and a co-director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (www.sccjr.ac.uk). His current interests include comparative and transnational aspects of public policy on crime and punishment.

KEY IDEAS INCRIMINOLOGY

Key Ideas in Criminology explores the major concepts, issues, debates and controversies in criminology. The series aims to provide authoritative essays on central topics within the broader area of criminology. Each book adopts a strong individual line, constituting original essays rather than literature surveys, and offers lively and agenda-setting treatments of its subject matter.

These books will appeal to students, teachers and researchers in criminology, sociology, social policy, cultural studies, law and political science.

SERIES EDITOR TIM NEWBURN is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology, London School of Economics and past President of the British Society of Criminology. He has written and researched widely on issues of crime and justice.

Other titles in the series:

Ian Loader and Richard Sparks

First published 2011

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX144RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Ian Loader and Richard Sparks

The right of Ian Loader and Richard Sparks to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Typeset in Garamond and Scala Sans by
Book Now Ltd, London

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Loader, Ian.

Public criminology?/by Ian Loader and Richard Sparks.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Criminology. 2. CrimeGovernment policy. I. Sparks, Richard, 1961 II. Title.
HV6025.L58 2010

364dc22

2010006189

ISBN: 9780415445498 (hbk)

ISBN: 9780415445504 (pbk)

ISBN: 9780203846049 (ebook)

NOTES

Writing this short book has taken rather longer, and proved rather harder, than we originally anticipated and now that it is complete we may stick in future to the easier task of writing long books. We have, however, been helped in our efforts over the last few years by a great many people to whom we would like to express our gratitude. Thanks are first due to Tim Newburn who cannily spotted that our nascent ideas on the public roles of criminology might benefit from coming together in a book. During the course of writing of it, we have benefited from the excellent research assistance of Robert George (who now knows more about public sociology than he thinks is good for you), as well as from the criticisms and advice of several friends and colleagues who have been kind enough to comment on draft chapters or else engage us in discussion of the questions with which we have been preoccupied. They include (and we hope, as usual, not to have neglected anyone): Christina Boswell, Mary Bosworth, Tony Bottoms, John Braithwaite, Pat Carlen, Harry Collins, Elliot Currie, Adam Edwards, David Garland, Benjamin Goold, Willem de Haan, Alistair Henry, Carolyn Hoyle, Gordon Hughes, Richard Jones, Alison Liebling, Dario Melossi, Julian Roberts, Jonathan Simon, Rene van Swaaningen, Loc Wacquant and Lucia Zedner. Our deepest thanks, however, are due to and reserved for Albert Dzur, who has over the last year or so become a critical and welcome friend to our slowly emerging book, offering more encouragement, advice and detailed, incisive comment than any author is reasonably entitled to expect. Many thanks.

We would like to reserve a special note of thanks for the late Ian Taylor. Ian almost certainly would not have agreed with everything we say in this book. It was a fair bet with Ian that he never would have agreed with everything one said, and that was part of what made him such stimulating company. Nevertheless we hope he would have recognized his influence in these pages.

We first presented our ideas on the explicit theme of public criminology at the Scottish Criminology Conference in Edinburgh back in2005. Since then we have given presentations on our work to the annual meetings of the American, British and European Societies of Criminology, as well as at invited seminars or lectures in Cardiff, Edge Hill, Edinburgh, King's College London, Leiden, Leuven, Limerick, Manchester, the Open University, Oxford and Sheffield. We are grateful to all concerned for the invitations to speak and to those who participated in the ensuing discussions (thanks especially to colleagues in Manchester for the loan of an office at a critical stage). The final text is much the better for the comments and help we have received; its remaining flaws are of course our fault and we take full responsibility.