This book focuses upon the breaking of rules and taboos involved in 'doing crime', including violent crime as represented in fictive texts and ethnographic research. It includes chapters on topics of urgent contemporary interest such as asylum seekers, sex work, serial killers, school shooters, crimes of poverty and understandings of 'madness'.

Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain in 1965. At this time, the way people in Britain perceived and understood the death penalty had changed - it was an issue that had become increasingly controversial, high-profile and fraught with emotion. In order to understand why this was, it is necessary to examine how ordinary people learned about and experienced capital punishment.

Drawing on primary research, this book explores the cultural life of the death penalty in Britain in the twentieth century, including an exploration of the role of the popular press and...