Book Review: Deviant knowledge: Criminology, politics and policy

Published date01 January 2005
Date01 January 2005
DOI10.1177/146247450500700110
AuthorIan Loader
Subject MatterArticles
06 048135 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:09 pm Page 100
PUNISHMENT AND SOCIETY 7(1)
References
Brodie, A., J. Croom and J. Davies (1999) The prison experience. Swindon: English
Heritage.
Christie, N. (1993) Crime control as industry. London: Martin Robertson.
Evans, R. (1982) The fabrication of virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foucault, M. (1978) Discipline and punish. London: Allen Lane.
John Pratt
Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Deviant knowledge: Criminology, politics and policy, Reece Walters. Cullompton: Willan
Publishing, 2003. ix + 218 pp. £18.99. ISBN 1–84392–029–8 (pbk).
Criminology today appears to be in a state of rude health. If one takes as one’s measure
student demand, numbers of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, or the
advent of new jobs, conferences and journals, then criminology continues to boom.
Criminologists, moreover, have, in Britain at least, been in great demand of late from
both central and local government who are throwing funds at those willing to evaluate
crime reduction programmes, or put their skills at the service of local community safety
partnerships. Criminological education and research has it seems acquired considerable
market value.
Reece Walters’s Deviant knowledge is a sustained ‘critical examination’ of this super-
ficially healthy condition, offering what its author terms a ‘sociology of criminological
knowledge’ (p. 2). Drawing upon the work of various writers on neo-liberal govern-
ance, his own experience as a criminological researcher, and 36 semi-structured inter-
views with criminologists from Britain, the US, Australia and New Zealand, Walters
sets out to examine the shift from social welfare to neo-liberal/neo-conservative rule and
assess its impact upon the production, forms and uses of criminological knowledge.
This theme is pursued in respect of both the macro contexts that condition crimino-
logical work and the micro politics of the research process, as well as in relation to
‘administrative’...

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