Book Review: Masculinities, Crime and Criminology: Men, Heterosexuality and the Criminal(ised) Other
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | David H. J. Morgan |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390000900418 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
their introduction, the resultant ‘revolution in the terms of human social existence’
which biotechnology implies (p. 1).
Not surprisingly, the overall message of the collection is that legal regulation of the
genetic revolution (in whatever form) is a necessity carrying with it the requirement
to facilitate informed discussion among a wide range of participants. The suggestions
as to approaches and strategies that are advocated by the authors are an important
contribution to the ongoing debate. Above all, they highlight that genetic technolo-
gies will not stand still to await legal developments. As such, the time is ripe for a
careful review of the institutions, forms and procedures that are implicated in the legal
regulation of human genetic technologies. This accessible and highly informative
collection is a welcome contribution to this task.
SUSAN MILLNS
Kent Law School, UK
RICHARD COLLIER, Masculinities, Crime and Criminology: Men, Heterosexuality and
the Criminal(ised) Other. London: Sage, 1998, 224 pp., £14.99 (pbk), £45.00 (hbk).
By now ‘the masculine turn’ (as Collier terms it) is reasonably well established within
criminological studies. The obvious fact about the strongly gendered (or, more
specifically, masculine) character of crime is no longer ignored. This is as a result,
Collier reminds us, of the feminist critique of criminology, the development of criti-
cal studies of men and masculinities and the growing number of public or policy
debates about young men and crime.
This book is not, however, another cataloguing of the way in which men and boys
have been involved in criminal and anti-social behaviour. The original insight of the
gendered nature of crime was, Collier seems to suggest, inherently unstable. It could
either lead back into forms of essentialism – men are naturally like this unless the
appropriate social controls are established and internalised at an early age – or repro-
duce well-established dichotomies between good and bad, conforming and non-
conforming and so on. Just as recent discussions of men and masculinities have come
to turn a critical eye on these very terms (including the influential notion of ‘hegem-
onic masculinities’) so too must criminological thinking go beyond ‘naming men as
men’.
One consequence of this development is the range of issues considered in this short
book. Having traced the history of the ‘masculine turn’ in criminology, Collier takes
a critical look at the gendered nation of criminological reasoning both within the prac-
tice of law and the academic discipline itself. Subsequent chapters look at dangerous
youthful masculinities and spree killings (exemplified by the Bulger case and the Dun-
blane killings respectively) and the debates about ‘absent fathers’. The ‘masculine
turn’ cannot simply remain with masculinities for these do not and cannot exist in iso-
lation from other social processes and historical contexts. Similarly, the discussion
cannot remain with the criminal, however defined, but must consider the gendered
others involved in the control, construction and recognition of crime and criminality.
Another consequence of Collier’s approach is to emphasise the need to move
beyond simple gender differences and to consider the ways in which these interact
with sexualities and embodiment. Thus, debates about absent fathers also bring us
back to debates about the family and about the construction of heterosexual identi-
ties. Discussions about dangerous, youthful masculinities are similarly about the
construction of embodied perpetrators, victims and, indeed, controllers of these delin-
quent practices.
604 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 9(4)
06 Reviews (jl/d) 30/10/00 2:47 pm Page 604
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