Framing Crime ─ Cultural Criminology and the Image

In a world in which media images of crime and deviance proliferate, where every facet of offending is reflected in a ‘vast hall of mirrors’, Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the Image makes sense of the increasingly blurred line between the real and the virtual.
Images of crime and crime control have become almost as 'real' as crime and criminal justice itself. The meaning of both crime and crime control now resides, not solely in the essential – and essentially false – factuality of crime rates or arrest records, but also in the contested processes of symbolic display, cultural interpretation, and representational negotiation.
It is essential, then, that criminologists are closely attuned to the various ways in which crime is imagined, constructed and framed within modern society.
Framing Crime responds to this demand with a collection of papers aimed at helping the reader to understand the ways in which the contemporary ‘story of crime’ is constructed and promulgated through the image. It also provides the relevant analytical and research tools to unearth the hidden social and ideological concerns that frequently underpin images of crime, violence and transgression.
Framing Crime will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of criminology, crime and the media, and sociology.

Keith J. Hayward is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology and the Director of undergraduate criminology at the University of Kent.

The late Mike Presdee was Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent.

1. Opening the Lens: Cultural Criminology and the Image Keith Hayward 2. Crime, Punishment and the Force of Photographic Spectacle Phil Carney 3. The Decisive Moment: Documentary Photography and Cultural Criminology Jeff Ferrell and Cécile Van de Voorde 4. Hindley’s Ghost: The Visual Deconstruction of Maxine Carr Phil J. Jones and Claire Wardle 5. Screening Crime: Cultural Criminology goes to the Movies Majid Yar 6. The Scene of the Crime: Is there Such a Thing as ‘Just Looking’? Alison Young 7. Imagining the ‘War on Terror’: Fiction, Film, and Framing Alexandra Campbell 8. Framing the Crimes of Colonialism: Critical Images of Aboriginal Art and Law Chris Cuneen 9. ‘Drive it Like you Stole It’: Cultural Criminology, Images and Automobiles in Advertisements Stephen L. Muzzati 10. Staging an Execution: The Media at McVeigh, Bruce Hoffman and Michelle Brown 11. Fighting with Images: The Production and Consumption of Violence among Online Football Supporters Damián Zaitch and Tom de Leeuw 12. A Reflected Gaze of Humanity: Cultural Criminology and Images of Genocide, Wayne Morrison