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Emotions, crime, and justice. By Susanne Karstedt, Ian Loader and Heather Strang, eds (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011, 380pp).

Seal, Lizzie
June 4, 2015

Source: (2012) British Journal of Criminology. 52(3):671-673.

Emotions, as any novel reader, theatre-goer or film and television viewer knows, are central to the ways in which humans experience crime and punishment. However, as *672 Karstedt notes in her introduction to this collection, criminologists have historically been ‘suspicious’ of the emotions provoked by crime and criminal
justice (although, as King and Maruna point out, this applies less to work on punishment). Emotions, Crime and Justice ably demonstrates that this is no longer the case in the twenty-first century. A key strength of this book is the diversity of its contributions, which show the multifarious ways in which emotions are highly relevant to researching issues of crime and justice. These range from the feelings that precede acts of violence, to the role of different emotions in ensuring the success or failure of certain criminal justice interventions, to the affective dimensions of working in the criminal justice system. (excerpt)

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