Crime and Social Change in Middle England

Evi Girling has a D.Phil. in Social Anthropology and is a Lecturer in Criminology at Keele University., Ian Loader is co-author of Cautionary Tales (Avebury, 1994) and author of Youth, Policing and Democracy (Macmillan, 1996)., Richard Sparks is author of Television and the Drama of Crime (Open University Press, 1992) and co-author of Prisons and the Problem of Order (Oxford, 1996).

Crime and Social Change in Middle England offers a new way of looking at contemporary debates on the fear of crime. Using observation, interviews and documentary analysis it traces the reactions of citizens of one very ordinary town to events, conflicts and controversies around such topical subjects of criminological investigation as youth, public order, drugs, policing and home security in their community. In doing so it moves in place from comfortable suburbs to hard pressed inner city estates, from the affluent to the impoverished, from old people watching the town where they grew up change around them to young in-comers who are part of that change. This is a book which will give all students of crime a rare and fascinating insight into how issues at the heart of contemporary law and order politics both nationally and internationally actually play out on the ground.

Chapter 1 Speaking of crime; Chapter 2 About Macclesfield; Chapter 3 The common places of crime; Chapter 4 Youth, disorder and inter-generational conflicts; Chapter 5 Anxieties of affluence in Prestbury village; Chapter 6 Policing and demands for order; Chapter 7 Some meanings and futures of security; Chapter 8 Conclusions;