Series Editor: Andrew Millie, Edge Hill University, UK
New Horizons in Criminology provides concise, authoritative texts which reflect cutting-edge thought and theoretical development with an international scope. Written by leading authors in their fields, the series has become essential reading for all academics and students interested in where criminology is heading.
Coming soon in paperback:
Visual Criminology
Bill McClanahan
Out now in the series:
Redemptive Criminology
Aaron Pycroft and Clemens Bartollas
A Criminology Of Narrative Fiction
Rafe McGregor
Transnational Criminology
Simon Mackenzie
Wildlife Criminology
Angus Nurse and Tanya Wyatt
Imaginative Criminology
Lizzie Seal and Maggie O’Neill
A Criminology of War?
Ross McGarry and Sandra Walklate
Find out more at
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/new-horizons-incriminology
new horizons in criminology
John Scott and Zoe Staines
Bristol University Press
University of Bristol
1–9 Old Park Hill
Bristol
BS2 8BB
UK
t: +44 (0)117 374 6645
e: bup-info@bristol.ac.uk
Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk
© Bristol University Press 2023
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-5292-2031-5 hardcover
ISBN 978-1-5292-2033-9 ePub
ISBN 978-1-5292-2034-6 ePdf
The right of John Scott and Zoe Staines to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press.
Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher.
The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the authors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication.
Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality.
Cover design: Bristol University Press
Front cover image: Gettyimages.co.uk/James Gentles gentles360
Bristol University Press use environmentally responsible print partners.
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Professor Andrew Millie, School of Law, Criminology and Policing, Edge Hill University, UK
I first became aware of John Scott and Zoe Staines’ work on the place of islands in criminology after reading an article they produced for Theoretical Criminology, published in 2021. This article provided a case study of Pitcairn in the Southern Pacific, one of the world’s more remote island communities and a place that in the early 2000s became synonymous with child sexual abuse. Scott and Staines had identified a truly new horizon for criminology, and I wanted to read more as they developed an island criminology. I was delighted when they agreed to produce this important new book that pushes the spatial, temporal, and imaginative boundaries of criminology.
The New Horizons in Criminology book series provides concise authoritative texts that reflect cutting-edge thought and theoretical developments in criminology and are international in scope. They are written so that the non-specialist academic, student, or practitioner can understand them by explaining ideas clearly before going deeper into the subject. For this book Scott and Staines chose not to produce an administrative account of what works in criminal justice in various island settings. Rather, they have fashioned an engaging text that uncovers a ‘politics of place and belonging’. The book takes the reader on a journey to parts of the planet often overlooked by criminology, including the Caribbean, Iceland, Greenland, the Torres Strait Islands and back to the Pacific and Pitcairn where we learn about insularity, the possible negatives of social capital, and the ‘normative nature of crime’. The definition of islands is also pushed, by considering desert, or land-locked ‘islands’ of the Australian interior.
At a time when there are calls to decolonize criminology, some of the islands featured in this book couldn’t be further from the metropoles of the Global North. Scott and Staines are interested in definitions of crime and deviance in island settings, in what gets policed – and what does not – and processes of governance, discipline, and Othering. Colonialism and history play their part, but so too do notions of islandness, including the creation of
Alongside relevance for corporate and green criminology, the book is timely for those with interests in rural, cultural, transnational, indigenous, Southern, post-colonial, or decolonized criminologies. It is a rare book that is also useful for the rest of criminology, and beyond – including those with interests at the intersection between criminology and human geography. By studying lives at ‘the periphery of peripheries’, Island Criminology also tells us some disturbing truths about ‘us’, wherever we may live, and concludes by highlighting the importance of social integration and belonging rather than exclusion and Othering. The book is highly readable, challenging, and recommended.
John Scott is a Professor and Head of the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. His current research interests are in the areas of sexual and gendered crime and crime in remote places. He has published widely, including 24 books and major research reports and over 100 papers and book chapters, many with leading international journals and publishers. He has also had sustained success in attracting nationally competitive grants and industry funding. He is currently a member of the Australasian Research Council College of Experts, edits the Routledge Series Crime and Justice Studies in Asia and the Global South, co-edits The Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, and is Vice President of the Asian Criminological Society.
Zoe Staines is an Australian Research Council DECRA Senior Research Fellow in the School of Social Science, University of Queensland (UQ). Her research interests include welfare conditionality, neoliberal subjectivities, and decoloniality. She is particularly interested in exploring how social and penal policies combine to regulate, discipline, and punish those socially constructed as ‘deviant’, especially in settler colonial contexts, including remote spaces and places. Zoe has published in top-tier national and international criminology, sociology, and social policy journals, is co-author of Compulsory Income Management in Australia and New Zealand (Policy Press, 2022), leads the UQ Inequalities and Social Action Research Cluster, and is also Associate Editor of the Australian Journal of Social Issues.