Book review: Policing, Popular Culture and Political Economy: Towards a Social Democratic Criminology
| Author | David Dixon |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895813502273 |
| Published date | 01 November 2013 |
| Date | 01 November 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
13(5) 630 –637
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895813502273
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Book reviews
Robert Reiner, Policing, Popular Culture and Political Economy: Towards a Social Democratic
Criminology, Pioneers in Contemporary Criminology Series, Ashgate Publishing:
Farnham, 2011; xxxv + 443 pp.: 9781409426363, £145 (hbk)
Tim Newburn and Jill Peay (eds), Policing: Politics, Culture and Control: Essays in Honour
of Robert Reiner, Hart Publishing: Oxford and Portland, OR, 2012; xvi + 293 pp.:
9781849463003, £47 (pbk)
Reviewed by: David Dixon, University of New South Wales, Australia
Together, these books provide an appropriate celebration of Robert Reiner’s extraordi-
nary contribution to English criminology. Policing, Popular Culture and Political
Economy collects many examples of Reiner’s best writing, from short pieces in the late,
lamented New Society and Marxism Today to more recent major contributions. Policing:
Politics, Culture and Control is a festschrift for Reiner edited by his LSE colleagues Tim
Newburn and Jill Peay. As the title indicates, it focuses particularly on the study of polic-
ing, the subject of Reiner’s most extended and influential work. Both are essential read-
ing for anyone interested in the ways policing is part of contemporary economic, social
and political change. Why study policing? As Reiner argues, ‘The police are like social
litmus-paper, reflecting sensitively the unfolding exigencies of a society. Thus under-
standing policing requires a consideration of the broadest features of social structure and
change’ (‘Policing a postmodern society’, Policing, Popular Culture and Political
Economy, p. 108).
In many ways, the most interesting of the many fine essays in these two collections is
Reiner’s autobiographical introduction to Policing, Popular Culture and Political
Economy. (Some of its themes are developed in Tim Newburn and Paul Rock’s affection-
ate and insightful ‘intellectual portrait’ which opens the festschrift.) Reiner’s is a reflex-
ive, honest account of his intellectual development which provides great assistance in
understanding and contextualizing his work. As the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors,
he had good reason to be sceptical of those on the left who treated the rule of law as
merely a mask of power. He is a social democrat with a firm commitment to social jus-
tice, to the need for collective action and state intervention, and to the responsibility of
academics. His politics (strong commitment to social democracy and equally strong
antipathy to neo-liberalism) are part of strongly held values and ethics which imbue his
work. One reason for Reiner’s excellence is that he is a sociologist of breadth and
502273CRJ13510.1177/1748895813502273Criminology & Criminal JusticeBook reviews
2013
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