The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society

David Garland

Why did crime control in Britain and America move in a direction almost nobody expected a generation ago?

At a glance

You will notice how mandatory sentences, private prisons and street cameras came to feel normal, though each would once have shocked
You will learn how overloaded police and courts quietly stop pursuing minor offences, away from media and political attention
You will question the idea that harsher policy simply follows rising crime, since social change does not dictate political responses