Deviance and Crime: Theory, Research and Policy

This book sensitizes the reader to the fact that there is substantial disagreement within the academic community, and among policymakers and the general public, over what behaviors, conditions (e.g., physical attributes), and people should be designated as deviant or criminal. Normative conceptions, the societal reaction/labeling approach, and the critical approach are offered as frameworks within which to study these definitions. A comprehensive explanation of theory and social policy on deviance is constructed.

Canadian Crime Control in the New Millennium: The Influence of Neo-conservative U.S. Policies and Practices

An important issue facing Canadians today is crime control and prevention. Research done in the late 1980s and early 1990s by three sociologists shows that Canadian federal criminal justice policies and practices adopted by the Mulroney government from 1984 to 1990 were inconsistent with US ‘law and order’ models in place at that time. However, since the mid‐1990s, Canadian federal and provincial governments have mimicked some US authoritarian and gender‐blind means of curbing crime. The main objective of this paper is to provide some key examples of criminal justice policy transfer from the USA in Canada. At first glance, Canada may appear to be a ‘kinder, gentler nation,’ but not to the extent assumed by many, if not most, outside observers.

Friedman Economic Policies, Social Exclusion and Crime: Toward a Gendered Left Realist Subcultural Theory.

Left realists contend that people lacking legitimate means of solving the problem of relative deprivation may come into contact with other frustrated disenfranchised people and form subcultures, which in turn, encourage criminal behaviors. Absent from this theory is an attempt to address how, today, subcultural development in North America and elsewhere is heavily shaped simultaneously by the recent destructive consequences of right-wing Friedman or Chicago School economic policies and marginalized men's attempts to live up to the principles of hegemonic masculinity. The purpose of this paper, then, is to offer a new left realist theory that emphasizes the contribution of these two key determinants.

Between the Devil and the Deep-blue Sea: Conceptualizing Victims Experiences of Policing in Domestic Violence in the Singaporean Context

In contextualising victims' experiences of policing in domestic violence situations in Singapore, two extreme but interrelated sets of responses have been observed. At one end of the continuum, criminal justice sanctions are strictly contingent upon victim willingness to initiate criminal proceedings against the perpetrator, and at the other, victims' rights, needs and preferences seem to be usurped by the justice system regardless of victims' choice. Neither of these positions takes victims' interests into account. Nor do they stem from an understanding of the sociocultural, economic and structural circumstances in which victims experienced violence, and continued to experience it, long after a police intervention. Data from the research revealed that criminalisation as an ideological and legally practical tool was not only rendered ineffective but irrelevant to the experiences of women in the Singaporean context.Two factors account for this phenomenon. First, the absence of support structures to achieve criminalisation and address victims' needs in the aftermath of criminalisation; second, the authoritative, paternalistic and patriarchal state impedes processes aimed at the empowerment of women victims.