Bloomsbury Emotions, Crime and Justice (Oñati International Series in Law and Society)

The return of emotions to debates about crime and criminal justice has been a striking development of recent decades across many jurisdictions. This has been registered in the return of shame to justice procedures, a heightened focus on victims and their emotional needs, fear of crime as a major preoccupation of citizens and politicians, and highly emotionalised public discourses on crime and justice. But how can we best make sense of these developments? Do we need to create 'emotionally intelligent' justice systems, or are we messing recklessly with the rational foundations of liberal criminal justice? This volume brings together leading criminologists and sociologists from across the world in a much needed conversation about how to re-calibrate reason and emotion in crime and justice today. The contributions range from the micro-analysis of emotions in violent encounters to the paradoxes and tensions that arise from the emotionalisation of criminal justice in the public sphere. They explore the emotional labour of workers in police and penal institutions, the justice experiences of victims and offenders, and the role of vengeance, forgiveness and regret in the aftermath of violence and conflict resolution. The result is a set of original essays which offer a fresh and timely perspective on problems of crime and justice in contemporary liberal democracies. Review "...the book is a must read. It presents a series of state of the art chapters on various subjects that are critical in criminology. The chapters are deeply rooted in the patrimony of criminological literature; many of them offer an excellent balance of theoretical reflection and empirical work; the empirical methodology ranges from insightful qualitative observation, even introspective reflection, to clever quantitative measuring and sophisticated statistics; all chapters witness a critical concern for the instrumental, social, political and moral implications. In short, the book is an example of what I have called 'criminology as I see it ideally' (Walgrave, 2008b). ... if I were still active as a teaching professor, I would urge my students to read this book. They can learn about the broad field of criminology, they can also see how methodological seriousness is the indispensible ground for good scientific work if it is completed by wise and good reflection, and they can experience how important criminology is as a social science for the better understanding of social life and for reflecting on how to improve it." --Criminology and Criminal Justice, 13(1)"Emotions, Crime and Justice is a major step toward a more theoretically and practically nuanced conversation. As this book reveals in a series of original essays of great range, depth and sophistication, criminology has much to gain by investigating the emotions underlying crime and punishment. The collection spans a range of theoretical, ethnographic and experimental approaches, a range of criminal justice institutions and roles, and a range of cultures...Perhaps its greatest strength lies in the range of emotional experience it reveals and explores, including the emotions that accompany violence and that animate attitudes toward crime, the emotional experience of obeying or resisting the law, the implicit rules governing the display or feeling of emotions by employees of police departments or prisons, the emotional roots of collective violence and collective reconciliation, and the moral sentiments and public emotions animating democratic discourse on crime and punishment. These are questions that ought to keep scholars occupied for quite some time. For a rich and provocative introduction to the field, read this book." --Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books"..the authors provide useful insights into the role of emotions in the criminal justice system-a topic that has received limited attention. ...the essays are generally organized in a coherent way. Each piece adds somethi