The Culture of Control charts the dramatic changes in crime control & criminal justice that have occurred in Britain & America over the last 25 years. It then explains these transformations by showing how the social organization of late modern society has prompted a series of political & cultural adaptations that alter how governments & citizens think & act in relation to crime. The book presents an original & in-depth analysis of contemporary crime control revealing its underlying logics & rationalities & identifying the social relations & cultural sensibilities that have produced this new culture of control. In developing a history of the present" in the field of crime control David Garland presents an intertwined history of the welfare state & the criminal justice state a theory of social & penal change & an account of how social order is constructed in late modern societies. Drawing on extensive research in the UK & the USA he shows in detail how the social economic & cultural forces of the late 20th century have reshaped criminological thought public policy & the cultural meaning of crime & criminals. The Culture of Control explains how our responses to crime & our sense of criminal justice came to be so dramatically reconfigured at the end of the 20th century. The shifting policies of crime & punishment welfare & security
- & the changing class race & gender relations that underpin them
- are viewed as aspects of the problem of governing late modern society & creating social order in a rapidly changing social world. Its theoretical scope empirical range & interpretative insight make this book an indispensable guide to one of the central issues of our time."