Book Review: Crime and Insecurity: The Governance of Safety in Europe
| DOI | 10.1177/026975800401000306 |
| Date | 01 January 2004 |
| Published date | 01 January 2004 |
| Author | Alan Phipps |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
283
Is
this
a
book
that
offers
practitioners,
policy
makers,
students
and
researchers
new
visions
of
victimisation
that
challenge
conventional
wisdom
and
traditional
paradigms?
Or
does
the
title
simply
offer
traditional
notions
in
a
new
frame?
Some
of
the
articles
definitely
challenge
assumptions
and
conventional
norms
of
study.
Regardless
of
the
bias
and
the
few
misplaced
articles,
this
book
is
a
worthwhile
addition
for
the
academic,
student
and
practitioners.
Dr
Thomas
Underwood
Joint
Center
on
Violence
and
Victim
Studies,
Washburn
University,
Kansas,
USA.
CRIME
AND
INSECURITY:
THE
GOVERNANCE
OF
SAFETY
IN
EUROPE
Edited
by
Adam
Crawford,
Uffculme,
Willan
Publishing,
2002.
ISBN
903240
48
4.
£30.
This
collection
deals
with
a
range
of
issues
generated
by
the
burgeoning
lit-
erature
on
community
safety.
The
papers,
which
have
arisen
from
a
one-day
colloquium
at
the
University
of
Leeds
in
March,
2000,
focus
on
the
themes
of
fear,
risk
and
insecurity
in
a
European
context.
It
covers
some
of
the
same
ground
as
some
other
recent
volumes
(e.g.
Hope
and
Sparks,
2000;
Hughes,
McLaughlin
and
Muncie,
2001)
but
contains
useful
and
original
papers
of interest
to
victimo-
logists.
Insecurity
is
examined
in
a
broad
conceptual
framework
and
with
relevant
national
comparisons.
The
twelve
papers
are
arranged
under
the
headings,
Crime and Insecurity,
with
two
broad
statements
by
Adam
Crawford
and
Zygmunt
Bauman;
The
Governance
of
Crime and Insecurity,
in
which
the
main
focus
is
upon
EU
concerns
with
internal
security
as
this
is
seen
as
compromised
by
organised
crime
and
migration
from
outside
its
boundaries;
and,
The
Local Governance
of
Crime and Insecurity.
Papers
under
this
latter
heading
deal
with
a
variety
of
issues,
including
the
approach
to
crime
and
insecurity
in
France,
by
Sebastian
Roche,
the
threat
of
political
violence
to
City
of
London
institutions,
by
Clive
Walker
and
Martina
McGuinness,
and
on
CCTV
surveillance
in
a
police
custody
suite
in
Kilburn,
London,
by
Tim
Newburn.
Crawford
summarises
the
thesis
that
crime
and
insecurity
are
now
key
aspects
of
political
and
social
discourses
and
that
it
is
through
these
that
we
are
increasingly
governed.
Such
issues
are
in
the
forefront
of
the
public
imagination
and
greatly
influence
individual
lives
and
social
relationships.
These
over-riding
concerns
with
security
are
also
linked
to
the
changing
role
of
the
state
vis-a-vis
individual
citizens
and
the
emergence
of
different
forms
of
governance.
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