Rick Sarre – författare

This book arises from a research project funded in Australia by the Criminology Research Council. The topic, bail reform, has attracted attention from criminologists and law reformers over many years. In the USA, a reform movement has argued that risk analysis and pre-trial services should replace the bail bond system (the state of California may introduce this system in 2020). In the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, there have been concerns about tough bail laws that have contributed to a rise in imprisonment rates. The approach in this book is distinctive. The inter-disciplinary authors include criminologists, an academic lawyer and a forensic psychologist together with qualitative researchers with backgrounds in sociology and anthropology. The book advances a policy argument through presenting descriptive statistics, interviews with practitioners and detailed accounts of bail applications and their outcomes. There is discussion of methodological issues throughout the book, including the challenges of obtaining data from the courts.

This edited collection presents current research dealing with crime involving information and communications technologies in the months immediately before, during and following the coronavirus pandemic since 2019. Information and communications technologies played a pivotal role during the pandemic in communicating information across the globe on the risks and responses to the pandemic but also in providing opportunities for various forms of illegality. This volume describes the nature and extent of such illegality, its connection to the pandemic and how digital technologies can assist in solving not only the health crisis but also the associated crime problems. The contributors are established academic scholars and policy practitioners in the fields of cybercrime and computer forensics. This book provides a ready source of content including technological solutions to cybercrime, legal and legislative responses, crime prevention initiatives and policy discussions dealing with the most critical issues present during and following the pandemic.

This book draws together leaders in science, the health sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences to investigate the role of religion, its meaning and relevance, for their area of specialization. It provides a much-needed fresh perspective on the way in which religion operates within the modern, neo-liberal world. 

The book approaches the topic by way of a critical engagement between religion, broadly defined, and the individual disciplines in which each of the contributors is expert. Rather than simply taking the dogmatic position that religion offers something to every possible discipline, each of the chapters in this collection addresses the question: is there something that religion can offer to the discipline in question? That is the value of the book – it takes a truly critical stance on the place of religion in contemporary society.  

This book summarises the latest findings of Australian and international crime prevention researchers and suggests how future policies based upon their evidence could and should be better shaped and employed by policymakers. Governments all over the world are constantly endeavouring to make their communities safer and the lives of their citizens less fearful. For decades now, criminological researchers, challenged to assist in this task, have been asking: “What is working to reduce crime?” “What could work better in preventing crime before it erupts?” “What have we not tried, but could try in the field of crime control?” Pleasingly, the research outputs on this subject are voluminous and growing. They regularly inform policymaking in productive ways. This, in turn, has led and continues to lead to good crime prevention outcomes, but a lot more could be done. The author sets out twelve key priorities, designed to reduce victimisation, and tackle street crime and white-collar crime especially, each of them based upon a social justice framework. These priorities draw upon his extensive writings on the topic of law and criminology over the past forty years. There is, he concludes, far more value in tackling the societal factors that allow crime to emerge, grow and persist than applying a strict application of the criminal law and the justice system that feeds upon it.

This book constitutes the second volume of ''Religion Matters: The Contemporary Relevance of Religion'' (Springer, 2020). Offering a fresh and much-needed perspective, it explores the role of religion in the modern, neo-liberal world. The book acclaims that ''religion'' is a contextual and contested term, which is extensively discussed in the Introduction.

Designed to be read selectively, this book allows readers to delve into topics and traditions of specific interest without the necessity of reading the entire volume. In contrast to volume 1, where contributors critically engaged with religion and various disciplines, this book poses a fundamental question: Can religion contribute to the discipline under consideration?

Authors were selected based on their ability to address this question. Some chapters concluded that religion may offer very little to the discipline under consideration, highlighting the value of volume 1''s critical stance on the place of religion incontemporary society. However, the project''s overall aim remained somewhat unfulfilled, leading to the creation of this second volume.

The primary omission from the first book was a comprehensive exploration of the sciences and health sciences, which this second volume aims to rectify. Furthermore, additional authors were chosen to investigate the nature of connectedness facilitated by religion, horizontally through membership within wider communities, societies, cultures, or religious traditions, and vertically by examining historical relationships within a particular faith tradition, culture, community, or society. This volume also broadens its focus to include non-Christian perspectives, Indigenous perspectives, and an increased representation of female contributors.