Professor of Sociology, Law
Ph.D. 1984 (Socio-Legal Studies), University of Edinburgh; M.A. 1978 (Criminology), University of Sheffield; LL.B. 1977, University of Edinburgh.

Email:

Research Interests:

The American Death Penalty; the legal institutions of punishment and control; history and sociology of criminological knowledge; social solidarity; the welfare state; social theory; the work of Michel Foucault.

Fellowships/Honors:

J.S. Guggenheim Fellow, 2006-7; Fellow of the American Society of Criminology; Elected a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford 1997 (Visit TBA); Honorary Visiting Professor, Edinburgh University 1998- present; Board of Trustees of the Law and Society Association, class of 1997; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; a founding editor of Edinburgh Law Review, 1997; Founding Editor-in-Chief of Punishment and Society: The International Journal of Penology.

Selected Works:

Books

	2001	The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society University of Chicago Press
	2001	Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences London, Sage Publications (Edited)
	2000	Criminology and Social Theory Oxford University Press (Co-edited with Richard Sparks)
	2000	Ethical and Social Perspectives on Situational Crime Prevention Oxford, Hart Publications. (Co-edited with A. von Hirsch and A. Wakefield)
	1994	A Reader on Punishment Oxford University Press (Co-edited with A. Duff) 350 pages
	1990	Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory Co-published by the University of Chicago Press and Oxford University Press 312 pages
	1985	Punishment and Welfare: A History of Penal Strategies Heinemann/Gower 297 pages
	1983	The Power to Punish Heinemann (Co-edited with Peter Young) 238 pages

Articles and book chapters (‘f.c’ indicates forthcoming)

2009    “A Culturalist Theory of Punishment?” Punishment & Society: The International Journal of Penology vol 11(2) 259-269

2008    “On the Concept of Moral Panic” in Crime, Media, Culture vol 4 No 1 pp 9- 30

2007    “The Peculiar Forms of American Capital Punishment” in Social Research Vol 72 No 4 pp 435-466

2006    “Concepts of Culture in the Sociology of Punishment” in Theoretical Criminology vol 10 No 4 pp 419-447

2005    “Penal Excess and Surplus Meaning: Public Torture Lynchings in 20^th Century America”, in Law & Society Review, vol 39 (December) pp 793-834 

2005    “Capital Punishment and American Culture” in Punishment & Society 7(4) (October 2005).  

2004    “Beyond the Culture of Control” in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy Vol 7 No 2 (Special issue on Garland’s The Culture of Control) pp 160-89 

2004    “The Work of Theory” in Perspectives (April 2004), ASA Theory Section newsletter.

2002    “The Cultural Uses of Capital Punishment” in Punishment & Society: The International Journal of Penology vol 4(4) 2002 pp. 459-487 

2000    “The Culture of High Crime Societies: Some preconditions of recent ‘law and order’ policies” in the The British Journal of Criminology  (volume 40, No. 3, 2000).  

2000    “Criminology, Social Theory and the Challenge of Our Times” (jointly with Richard Sparks) in The British Journal of Criminology (2000) vol. 4 no. 1, 2000 pp 189-204.

Recent presentations and interviews

Interview on “the culture of control” for Brazilian online magazine, Com Ciencia

“America and its Death Penalty”, Tercentenary Lecture, Edinburgh Univerity Law School, Center for Law and Society, April 18^th 2007 – podcast – on Edinburgh Law School website

“Moral Panics”, Special session on “Moral Panics Then and Now”, with Stanley Cohen and Stuart Hall, chaired by Adam Kuper, at the British Academy, London, March 9th 2007 – podcast – on British Academy site

“American Capital Punishment: Law in the Shadow of Lynching”, Distinguished Speaker Series Lecture, East Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, 1st March 2007

Radio Broadcasts

“Capital Punishment and American Culture” BBC radio 4 programme, Thinking Allowed, with Laurie Taylor, featuring my current research. 1^st October, 2003

 Update your faculty profile

 Back to Top