Book review: DARIO MELOSSI, Controlling Crime, Controlling Society: Thinking About Crime in Europe and America. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008, 310 pp., ISBN 9780745634296, £16.99 (pbk)
| Author | Gemma Flynn |
| DOI | 10.1177/09646639110200030706 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
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law. And, once there, it may help to ensure that they properly serve their more vulnerable
clients, saving them from the fate of Paddy Hill and others by practising with a deeply
held belief in access to justice. If prospective lawyers were exposed to the client-centred
approach exhibited here, there need be little concern about mislaid values or under-
developed ethics; the public service ideal shines through.
References
Francis A (2005) Legal ethics, the market place and fragmentation of legal professionalism. Inter-
national Journal of the Legal Profession 12(2): 173–200.
Hattenstone S (2002) I’m dead inside. The Guardian, 17 June.
Maharg P (2007) Transforming Legal Education. Hampshire: Ashgate.
McConville M, Hodgson J, Bridges L and Pavlovic A (1994) Standing Accused. Oxford: Claren-
don Press.
Naughton M (2001) Wrongful convictions: Toward a semiological analysis of the tradition of
criminal justice reforms. Radical Statistics 76: 50–65.
Dan Newman
University of Bristol
DARIO MELOSSI, Controlling Crime, Controlling Society: Thinking About Crime in Europe and
America. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008, 310 pp., ISBN 9780745634296, £16.99 (pbk).
Controlling Crime, Controlling Society is modestly billed as a re-examination of the
interactions between control and deviance (p. xi). In reality, however, Dario Melossi’s
broad-ranging approach to ‘thinking about crime’ goes far beyond this understated asser-
tion to provide an authoritative and skilfully expounded history of criminological
thought. This book contains not only a definitive outline of the key theoretical
approaches to understanding deviance, but also a concerted effort to further investigate
and critically engage with the core intellectual frameworks that criminologists are so
familiar with. Furthermore, this account is enhanced by the inclusion of a reconsideration
of Rusche and Kirchheimer’s Punishment and Social Structure (1939) which provides an
innovative reflection on the outlined...
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