In this eye-opening critique, Ronald Kramer and James C. Oleson interrogate the promises of crime science and target our misplaced faith in technology as the solution to criminality. This book deconstructs crime science's most prominent manifestations—biological, actuarial, security, and environmental sciences. Rather than holding the technological keys to crime's resolution, crime sciences inscribe criminality on particular bodies and constitute a primary resource for the conceptualization of crime that many societies take for granted. Crime science may strive to reduce crime, but in doing so, it reproduces power asymmetries, creates profit motives, undermines important legal concepts, instantiates questionable practices, and forces open new vistas of deviant activity.
Ronald Kramer is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Auckland. His previous books include The Rise of Legal Graffiti Writing in New York and Beyond and Culture, Crime and Punishment.
James C. Oleson is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Auckland. His previous books include Criminal Genius: A Portrait of High-IQ Offenders and Fifty Years of Causes of Delinquency: The Criminology of Travis Hirschi.
"A compelling and original critique of our newest form of criminological science ideology."—Jonathan Simon, author of Governing through Crime
"A most welcome disruption of the incantations of crime science! Kramer and Oleson show how contemporary investments in suppressive technologies are ill-founded and highly selective in the forms of harm they aim to neutralize. A passionate engagement with the injustices nurtured by technological crime control fantasies."—Nicolas Carrier, Carleton University
275 pp.6 x 9Illus: 10 b/w illustrations
9780520299580$95.00|£80.00Hardcover
Jan 2022