Criminology and Democratic Politics

Tom Daems is Professor of Criminology at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven, Belgium. Stefaan Pleysier is Professor of Criminology at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC), KU Leuven, Belgium.

This compendium of original essays has been written in honour of Richard Sparks’s voluminous and exceptional contributions to scholarship. With contributions from across the globe this edited collection will appeal to many and hopefully stimulate debate about the critical role of criminology in democratic politics. Kerry Carrington, Queensland University of Technology, AustraliaThis is a deeply personal book, but also an original and exciting contribution to the fields of democratic politics and public criminology. It honours, represents, and develops Richard Sparks’ professional work beautifully, amongst many other things. The editors should be congratulated on this project: a work of originality, collegiality and love.Alison Liebling, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Cambridge, UKThis is a superb book on an urgent, important topic. Building on Richard Sparks seminal work on "public criminology," a distinguished group of international contributors presents a wide-ranging discussion of criminology’s role in the democratic process and considers how we can go about creating a better politics of crime and control. This is an edited collection that deserves to be read and re-read. David Garland, NYU, USA

• 1. Introduction 2. A conversation with Richard Sparks 3. Authoritarian under-labouring? 4. Criminology’s plausible worlds: Ideologies, crime control, and the practice of democratic under-labouring 5. Public and southern criminologies: A possible encounter 6. Desistance research and penal policy 7. Understanding comparative penality: Some continuing conceptual and analytical challenges 8. Punishment and epistemological politics in Europe 9.Outrage marketing and deceptive campaigning: Populist and epistocratic pathologies of an anti-political era 10. Epistemic public criminology: The fallacies of evidence-based policing 11. Public perceptions of the seriousness of crime: A valid indicator of actual crime seriousness? 12. Dark sides and black holes: A study of criminological research utilization in two sex offender policies 13. Reflections on knowledge exchange and democratic under-labouring: Encounters, brokering, and the collective impact of engagement 14. Different worlds: Police, police research, and policy in Belgium 15. 90 years of criminology at the KU Leuven: Political, theoretical, and institutional considerations 16. What are we going to do now? Criminology and democratic politics all over again