Why are certain methods of punishment adopted or rejected in a given social situation? To what extent is the development of penal methods determined by basic social relations? The answers to these questions are complex, and go well beyond the thesis that institutionalized punishment is simply for the protection of society. While today's punishment of offenders often incorporates aspects of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology, at one time there was a more pronounced difference in criminal punishment based on class and economics.

This text offers an overview of anxieties about crime in Europe and the U.S. and the public and political responses to it. It compares a European reliance on the 'state' to the U.S. system of social control.

In the globalized world an extensive process of international migration has developed. The resulting conundrum of issues when examining crime and migration makes for a bitterly complex and intriguing set of debates.

In this compelling account, Dario Melossi provides an authoritative take on the theory and research examining the connection of crime, migration and punishment. Through a socio-historical and criminological approach, he shows that the core questions of migrants' criminal behaviour are tightly related to the rules and practices of migrants' reception within the various...