Designed as an alternative to conventional texts on criminology, "A Sociology of Crime" departs from the traditional concern with criminal behaviour and its causes to emphasize the socially constructed nature of crime. Taking a perspective from radical sociology, Stephen Hester and Peter Elgin argue that crime is a product of social processes which identify certain acts and persons as criminal. In their exploration of this theme, Hester and Elgin use three leading approaches in contemporary sociological theory - ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, and structural conflict theory. They apply each of these methods to a detailed study of the anatomy of crime, at the same time reviewing other main criminological perspectives on both sides of the Atlantic, including the feminist one. They focus on three main topics: making crime by making criminal law; making crime by enforcing criminal law; and making crime by the administration of criminal justice in the courts. International in outlook, "A Sociology of Crime" contains material from the USA, Britain and Canada which is closely linked to the theoretical approaches discussed.
This book should be of interest to undergraduates and postgraduates in criminology and sociology.