Criminal Justice and Political Cultures National and International Dimensions of Crime Control

The development of ideas and policy on the control of crime has become an increasingly international affair, necessarily so as crime increasingly crosses national boundaries and as international cooperation in the form of police cooperation, international treaties, protocols and conventions takes firmer shape. Much less well understood, however, is the process whereby ideas about crime control developed in one context are transferred into different countries or regions, and in doing so are then shaped, naturalized and changed in their new context. This book addresses this range of issues, examining this process of policy transfer and reception. How are particular slogans ("zero tolerance policing"), gadgets, technical vocabularies ("electronic monitoring") and rhetoric ("war against crime") spread from one place to another, and what new meanings do they take on when this takes place? How are these ideas changed when they meet resistance and counter discourses, and encounter strong loca

As crime increasingly crosses national boundaries, and international co-operation takes firmer shape, so the development of ideas and policy on the control of crime has become an increasingly international and transnational affair. These developments call attention not just to the many points of convergence in the languages and practices of crime control but also to their persistent differences. This book is concerned both with the very specific issue of 'policy transfer' within the crime control arena, and with the issues raised by a more broadly conceptualized idea of comparative policy analysis. The contributions in the book examine the different ways in which ostensibly similar vocabularies, policies and practices are taken up and applied in the distinct settings they encounter.

1. Criminal Justice and Political Cultures byTim Newburn and Richard Sparks 2. Durkheim, Tarde and Beyond: The Global Travel of Crime Policies bySusanne Karstedt 3. Globalising Risk? Distinguishing Styles of 'Neoliberal' Criminal Justice in Australia and the USA byPat O'Malley 4. Policing, Securitisation and Democratisation in Europe bylan Loader 5. The Cultural Embeddedness of Social Control: Reflections on a Comparison of Italian and North American Cultures Concerning Punishment byDario Melossi 6. Controlling Measures: The Repackaging of Common-sense Opposition to Women's Imprisonment in England and Canada byPat Carlen 7. The Convergence of US and UK Crime Control Policy: Exploring Substance and Process byTrevor Jones and Tim Newburn 8. Youth Justice: Globalisation and Multi-modal Governance byJohn Muncie 9. Importing Criminological Ideas in a New Democracy: Recent South African Experiences byDirk van Zyl Smit and Elrena van der Spuy 10. Policy Transfer in Local Crime Control: Beyond Nave Emulation byKevin Stenson and Adam Edwards 11. Containment, Quality of Life and Crime Reduction: Policy Transfers in the Policing of a Heroin Market byDavid Dixon and Lisa Maher

Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, and Head of the Social Policy Department at the London School of Economics, UK. Richard Sparks is Professor of Criminology and Co-Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, UK.