Themed Section: Introduction: ‘Home’ Environments: Crime, Victimisation and Safety
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | PAMELA DAVIES,MICHAEL ROWE |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12361 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
The Howard Journal Vol59 No 2. June 2020 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12361
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 117–119
Themed Section: Introduction:
‘Home’ Environments: Crime,
Victimisation and Safety
PAMELA DAVIES and MICHAEL ROWE
Professors, Northumbria University
For some, a place of safety and security, for others a place of fear and
harm – ‘home’ can be a physical place or a state of mind. Criminology
has given considerable attention to space and location in relation to crime,
offending, and victimisation and this has seen space as socially constructed
as well as physically shaped and bounded. This attention has extended
to consider the domestic sphere as significant, but on the whole this has
focused on domestic violence and abuse where the home has become a
place of unsafety. In this respect, criminological attention on the home
environment has been considerable and such work emerges out of feminist-
influenced concerns about women and children and the gendered nature
of such abuse.
This themed section extends the concept ‘Home’ such that it has a wider
criminological and victimological reach to it. The articles focus on other
aspects of the home that are worthy of criminological interest. We consider
the way ‘home’ has an elastic meaning. At times as emphasise the unsafe,
insecure, conflictual and contested space and environment that is home
for many. In other contexts ‘home’ is increasingly seen as significant in
terms of safety, security, well-being, and rehabilitation. Space precludes
including an even wider variety of articles that more fully reflects the dif-
ferent conceptualisations of home that we have thought about. Homes
where people are cared for – and sometimes abused within – by non-
family members for example, or institutions which become people’s home
away from home. Prisons, educational establishments, hospitals, clinics and
reform institutions, sanctuary and refuge provisions which provide tempo-
rary accommodation as a place of safety, might all fall within the ambit of a
themed section with the title ‘Home’ Environments: Crime, Victimisation
and Safety. This themed section offers three original articles that begin to
illustrate how ‘home’ conjures up a variety of criminological imaginaries.
The 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower – a multiple occupancy accommoda-
tion block – in London, resulted in the deaths of 72 people. In the first
article in this themed section, Steve Tombs illustrates how ‘home’ can be
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2020 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League
and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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