Crime and Social Change in Middle England

Questions of Order in an English Town

Evi Girling, Ian Loader, Richard Sparks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780415183352
• eBook ISBN: 9781134671755
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1 Speaking of crime: towards a sociology of public sensibilities
• 2 About Macclesfield: social change and a sense of place
• 3 The common places of crime: crime in local talk
• 4 Youth, disorder and inter-generational conflicts
• 5 Anxieties of affluence in Prestbury village
• 6 Policing and demands for order
• 7 Some meanings and futures of security
• 8 Conclusions: from east Cheshire to the wider world
• Glossary of place-names
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index