Positive Criminology

Safety and security are often seen in light of crime, disorder and fear. This fuels a political and social climate obsessed with a negative logic of ‘fighting’ criminals, ‘controlling’ populations, and ‘excluding’ unwanted others. Other, more positive or constitutive, discourses and practices about safety and security have fallen out of fashion. But what alternatives to contemporary processes of securitization and criminalization can be imagined when starting from a positive critique of security? Which theoretical and empirical resources support and inspire more positive notions of security?

This multidisciplinary volume brings together a team of renowned scholars to stress that security also includes notions of care, trust and belonging. By taking the concept of security beyond traditional criminal law, the scholars in this volume bring cuttingedge theoretical and empirical analyses on the importance of human connectedness, community building and feelings of solidarity as a way to resist hegemonic and negative meanings of security. This volume will appeal to researchers in the fields of criminology, political science, sociology, philosophy and security studies.

“Given that the field of Criminology has become saturated with the defense and critiques of ‘law and order,’ ‘the punitive turn,’ and ‘the exceptional state,’ the case for a Positive Criminology is refreshingly innovative and imaginative. The book invites us to explore how safe communities might be built upon principles of interdependence, community, and cooperation. Drawing upon a wide variety of disciplines, the authors rescue Criminology from its theoretical provincialism. With lively and coherent contributions, this book is a must read for practitioners and academics looking for new ways of thinking about old problems.” – Tony Platt, member of editorial board of Social Justice; visiting professor in Justice Studies, San Jose State University

“This book counters the common focus of previous studies in viewing security as a negative, by focussing on the very different ways security can and does engender good. It engages with a wide array of disciplines, including those not typically associated with security, and introduces and reevaluates a wide range of theories. Most importantly, this book offers new insights and introduces a road to new ways of thinking. The editors are to be commended for bringing such a diverse range of writers together around a theme in such urgent need of development.” – Martin Gill, Professor in Criminology and Director of Perpetuity Research & Consultancy International

“This book provides a blend of philosophical inquiry and sociological analysis that occasions rethinking of the criminological enterprise. The editors make the case for a critical criminology that embraces a robust notion of security and rejects the development of exclusive societies. What is made evident is that neo-liberal ideology has compromised the social sciences, especially Criminology, where ideas about order and justice are typically vaguely related or unrelated. Re-establishing the intrinsic relationship between order and justice is part of what makes this a great book.” – Louis Kontos, Assistant Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice