Creating Criminals

Prisons and People in a Market Society

Vivien Stern

Everywhere, the market society is producing more crime. More acts are being defined as crimes. More people are classified as criminals and more are being locked up in prison. With globalization, the crime and punishment problem is no longer insulated from pressures beyond national borders. The rich may retreat behind their expensive security into gated communities, but the poor are more and more at the mercy of criminals and corrupt policing. Vivien Stern argues that the trends towards more criminalization and more imprisonment are not making for more effective crime control or safer communities. She shows how the poor are criminalized and how commercial interests now shape society’s response to crime. She argues that the prospects for the future are serious without a new movement for reform.

Contents

• Introduction
• Behind the Bars: The Injustice of the Prison
• Crime and its Definition: How Just is Criminal Justice?
• Crime: A Good Business? The Impact of the Free Market
• The ‘War on Drugs’ and Migration
• ‘In the Name of Justice’: Is There a Better Way?
• Criminal Justice and Social Justice
• Selected Further Reading
• Useful Websites
• Index

About the Author

 Dr Vivien Stern is one of the world’s leading authorities on criminal justice issues. For many years she was Director of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) in Great Britain. She is Honorary Secretary General of Penal Reform International; a former Council Member of the Howard League for Penal Reform; an Honorary Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE); holds an Eisenhower Foundation trusteeship; and is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies, King’s College, London. The author of numerous books and reports, her most widely read book has been A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World .