Policy Press

Criminalisation and Advanced Marginality

Critically Exploring the Work of Loïc Wacquant

Edited by Peter Squires and John Lea

Published

May 15, 2013

Page count

304 pages

ISBN

978-1447300007

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

May 9, 2012

Page count

304 pages

ISBN

978-1447300014

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press
Criminalisation and Advanced Marginality

This book represents the first full-length critical and interdisciplinary assessment of Loïc Wacquant's work in English. Wacquant's challenging critique of the neo-liberal government of crime and the punitive culture to which this is related has shaken criminology to its foundations. In a bold political analysis he describes how the US-led revolution in law and order has dismantled the welfare state, replacing it with a disciplinary and penal state. Wacquant's analysis also details the spread of neo-liberal crime control measures and the underpinning 'pornographic' discourses of crime across the developed world, although critics have questioned the extent to which this model of criminal justice really is gaining the worldwide dominance alleged.

Written by criminologists and policy analysts, Criminalisation and advanced marginality offers a constructive but critical application of Wacquant's ideas. The contributors welcome the opportunity presented by Wacquant's work to re-engage with a radical politics of law and order, criminalisation and marginality, whilst raising issues of gender, resistance, conflict and history which, they argue, help to enrich and further develop Wacquant's analyses.

The book concludes with a chapter from Professor Wacquant himself responding to the commentaries upon his work. It fills an important gap in the existing literature and will be exciting reading for academics and students of criminology, social policy and the social sciences more broadly.

"this volume holds great potential for future research and collaboration. Overall, the overwhelming impression is that the range of disciplinary viewpoints on offer – criminal justice, critical race theory, feminism and welfare studies, amongst others – stands as testament to the immensely varied implications of Wacquant’s work and to the burgeoning development of cross-cutting perspectives in the study of social and penal policy." LSE Review of Books blog

“This volume is to be welcomed as in many ways a refreshing reminder and change of voice” – Studies in Social Justice

"Loïc Wacquant is, without question, one of the most significant critical social scientists of the present period. By exposing his work to rigorous analysis and providing Wacquant with a right of reply, Criminalisation and Advanced Marginality comprises a riveting read." Professor Barry Goldson, The University of Liverpool

Peter Squires is Professor of Criminology and Public Policy at the University of Brighton, UK.

John Lea is Visiting Professor in Criminology at the University of Brighton, UK.

Introduction: reading Loïc Wacquant - opening questions and overview ~ Peter Squires and John Lea; Section 1: Theory and politics: Bringing the state back in: understanding neoliberal security ~ John Lea and Simon Hallsworth; The state, sovereignty and advanced marginality in the city ~ Kevin Stenson; The third time as farce: whatever happened to the penal state? ~ John Pitts; Section 2: Welfare, agency and resistance: Loïc Wacquant and Norbert Elias: advanced marginality and the theory of the de-civilising process ~ John J. Rodger; Beyond the penal state: advanced marginality, social policy and anti-welfarism ~ Lynn Hancock and Gerry Mooney; Loïc Wacquant, gender and cultures of resistance ~ Lynda Measor; Women, welfare and the carceral state ~ Denise Martin and Paula Wilcox; Section 3: Urbanisation, criminality and penality: Illicit economies and the carceral social zone ~ Vincenzo Ruggiero; The universal and the particular in Latin American penal state formation ~ Markus-Michael Műller; Neoliberal, brutish and short? Cities, inequalities and violences ~ Peter Squires; Response: The wedding of workfare and prisonfare in the 21st century: responses to critics and commentators ~ Loïc Wacquant.