Synopses & Reviews
This book introduces the reader to the critical issues, important trends, theories, and various subdisciplines in the current manifestation of radical and critical criminology and criminal justice, including postmodernism, left realism, feminism, and peacemaking. Since its articulation in the 1960s, radical and critical criminology has matured into a diverse body of work encompassing a variety of interesting perspectives. Contributors to this volume examine emerging issues in the theory (the importance of classics in radical theory, the market economy, the introduction of anarchist theory) and traditional concerns of criminology and criminal justice (white collar crime, police, prisons, community corrections, courts/sentencing), but from a critical perspective.
This book showcases current scholarship in this often neglected area of theory and praxis with contributions by respected academics in the field of radical and critical criminology. These individuals represent a diversity of nationalities, races, ethnicities, religions, and genders. The reader will find their conclusions not only thought-provoking and stimulating, but highly accessible as well.
Review
Ross has brought together some of critical criminology's most impressive scholars who write about some of the most pressing and contemporary issues within not only critical criminology but also criminology in general. The book is highly readable: the chapters are light and relatively short. For students in need of a single volume that communicates just where critical criminology currently resides and those issues of central importance, they should look no further than here. This book is especially relevant to those who are not all that familiar with critical criminology for it presents many issues (12 chapters) around the single critical criminology perspective....[T]he book deserves a good look by anyone interested in this once marginal but now central area of criminology.Social Pathology
Review
This provocative book introduces the reader to the fundamental differences between critical and mainstream criminology. Organized in two discrete sections, conceptual and substantive, all twelve well balanced articles engage in rigorous "edge" work; that is, they push the boundaries of inquiry and proffer possibilities for a truly transformative criminology. The most outstanding feature of the book lies in its imaginative and sophisticated critique of contemporary research. Accessibly written, this book investigates crime as a contested terrain. As Dorothy Bracey's Foreword suggests, this book challeges, by incorporating class analysis with insights of feminism, postmodernism, and ethnography, and literary criticism....Ross' book should be required reading since it challenges the congested closures of criminological canons.Canadian Journal of Sociology
Review
Cutting the Edge is thought-provoking look at current issues in criminal justice.Social Problems and Social Welfare
Review
All in all, Cutting the Edge, represents a fine contribution to the field of criminology. If used as a textbook in an upper level undergraduate class, instructors should expect that students will develop a greater understanding of where radical/critical criminology has been, and of its potential future.International Social Science Review
Review
...provides an interesting overview of the current state of affairs in radical/critical criminology.Contemporary Sociology
Review
[A]n excellent introduction to radical/critical criminology &criminal justice.The Literature of Criminal Justice
Synopsis
Over the past three decades, since the early articulation of its theories during the 1960s, radical and critical criminology has matured into a diverse body of work with its material being communicated through a variety of channels. This up-to-date examination deals not only with theoretical and policy issues, but also analyzes the various traditional branches of the criminal justice system from a radical/critical perspective. This volume pulls together the views of well-respected scholars, experts, and activists who represent a diversity of genders, nationalities, races, religions, and ethnic groups.
Synopsis
current manifestation of radical and critical criminology and criminal justice, including postmodernism, left realism, feminism, and peacemaking.
Synopsis
Introduces critical issues, important trends, theories, and various subdisciplines in the current manifestation of radical and critical criminology and criminal justice, including postmodernism, left realism, feminism, and peacemaking.
About the Author
JEFFREY IAN ROSS is Assistant Professor for the Division of Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Social Policy at the University of Baltimore.
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword by Dorothy H. Bracey
Cutting the Edge: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going? by Jeffrey Ian Ross
The Contributions of Marx, Weber, and Simmel: The Common Ground is the Cutting Edge by Thomas O'Connor
Understanding Crime and Social Control in Market Economies: Looking Back and Moving Forward by Robert Bohm
Time for an Integrated Critical Criminology by Gregg Barak
Marxist Criminology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Outline for a General Constitutive Theory of Crime by Bruce A. Arrigo
Stumbling Toward a Critical Criminology (and into the Anarchy and Imagery of Postmodernism) by Jeff Ferrell
New Directions in Critical Criminology and White Collar Crime by David O. Friedrichs
Radical and Critical Criminology's Treatment of Municipal Policing by Jeffrey Ian Ross
Critical Criminology, Social Control, and an Alternative View of Corrections by Michael Welch
Critical and Radical Perspectives on Community Punishment: Lessons from the Darkness by Stephen C. Richards
Razing the Wall: A Feminist Critique of Sentencing Theory, Research, and Policy by Jeanne Flavin
The Similarities in Conservative and Liberal Juvenile Justice Policies: Is There a Critical Alternative? by Preston Elrod
References
Index