The modern view of legal penalty is of a process concerned with the correction and rehabilitation of offenders. In Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture, Claire Valier argues that crime control and punishment in fact perform cultural work that is deeply entwined with our identities and notions of boundaries and belonging. Exploring both popular cultural forms and changes in crime policies and criminal law, Valier elaborates new modes of critical engagement with the politics of crime and punishment, and in particular with the return to retribution. In doing so, the book discusses: the...

Today, questions about how and why societies punish are deeply emotive and hotly contested. In Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture, Claire Valier argues that criminal justice is a key site for the negotiation of new collective identities and modes of belonging. Exploring both popular cultural forms and changes in crime policies and criminal law, Valier elaborates new forms of critical engagement with the politics of crime and punishment. In doing so, the book discusses: * Teletechnologies, punishment and new collectivities * The cultural politics of victims rights * Discourses on...