Crime and Governance
Aims and objectives:
This thematic group brings together TASA members with interests in processes of criminalisation, the sociology of deviance, criminology, governance and social control. The group will participate at annual conferences with themed papers and encourage lively debate amongst members. It will also be used as a platform for the wider stimulation of interest in these fields of sociology. The group will meet to discuss current issues and research in Australia, as well as plan future activities of the group.
Rationale:
The sociology of crime and deviance has long been a traditional and yet dynamic part of the sociological field dating back to seminal figures such as Emile Durkheim (1895) and prior to this ‘moral statisticians’ such as Adolphe Quetelet and A. M. Guerry. While strain (Merton 1949) and social disorganisation (Shaw and McKay 1942) theories influenced public policy throughout the mid twentieth century, more recently work on ‘moral panics’ (Cohen 1972; Young 1971), and indeed the term moral panic, have entered the popular imagination and lexicon giving the field currency with the general public. Recent work in this area (see for example Poynting and Morgan 2007), while highlighting its contemporary significance, also reminds us of the need to encourage development and dynamism (see also McRobbie and Thornton 1995). So while this thematic group would seek to include within it the sociology of crime and deviance it would also encourage members with broader interests in governance – the more recent and developing field of governmentality studies comes to mind here – and other work focusing on crime, social control and social reaction. The need for such a forum is also obvious given current socio-political climates where fear and exclusion combine with historically high levels of some offending behaviours and often result in punitive social control measures. Moreover, there is a need for sociology to reclaim this ground in an era when the psy-sciences and individuation often create individual pathology out of what sociologists would recognise as socially produced or constructed issues. Thus, the group would seek to increase the public profile of this area of sociology while also acting as a forum to move the area forward and apply it to contemporary issues impacting the Australian and world communities.
Preliminary points of focus for the group include but are not limited to:
- Sociology of deviance
- Governance and social control
- Criminology
- Crime
- Historical sociology encompassing these areas
- Crime Theory
- Social reactions to crime
- Crime and the media
- Socio-legal studies
Year established:
2007
Convenors and contact details:
Murray Lee
Faculty of Law | Institute of Criminology
The University of Sydney
Level 12, 173-175 Phillip Street
Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Ph: +612 9351 0251
Fax: +612 9351 0200
E-mail: murray.lee@usyd.edu.au
Tara Renae McGee
School of Justice | Faculty of Law
Queensland University of Technology
GPO Box 2434
Brisbane QLD 4001 Australia
Ph: +61 7 313 87125
Fax: +61 7 313 87123
Email: tr.mcgee@qut.edu.au
Members:
- Murray Lee (University of Western Sydney)
- Tara Renae McGee (Queensland University of Technology)
- Gavin Kendall (Queensland University of Technology)
- Angela Dwyer (Queensland University of Technology)
- Denise Foster (Queensland University of Technology)
- Christine Bond (The University of Queensland)
- Kerry Carrington (University of New England)
- John Scott (University of New England)
- Samantha Jeffries (Queensland University of Technology)
- Matthew Ball (Queensland University of Technology)
- Alyce McGovern (University of Western Sydney)
- Moira Carmody (University of Western Sydney)
- Max Travers (University of Tasmania)
- Travis Anderson-Bond (University of Queensland)
- Lisa Rosevear (University of Tasmania)
- Nicole Asquith (University of Tasmania)
- Grazyna Zajdow (Deakin University)
- Roberta Julian (University of Tasmania)
- Natalie Scerra (University of Western Sydney)
- Stephen Tomsen (University of Newcastle)
- Scott Poynting (Manchester Metropolitan University)
- Rebecca Wickes (University of Queensland)
- Melané White (Edith Cowan University)
- Susan Eley (University of Queensland)
Online forum:
Access the Crime and Governance online forum
Annual reports:
The first annual report will be posted online in July 2008.