This book brings together ten leading British criminologists to explore the contemporary politics of crime and its control. The volume is produced in honour of Britain's most important criminological scholar - David Downes, of the London School of Economics. The essays are grouped around the three major themes that run through David Downes' work - sociological theory, crime and deviance; comparative penal policy; and, the politics of crime. The third theme also provides the overarching unifying thread for the volume. The contributions are broad ranging and cover such subjects as criminological theory and the new East End of London, the practice of comparative criminology including an analysis of variations in penal cultures within the United States, restorative justice in Colombia, New Labour's politics and policy in relation to dangerous personality-disordered offenders, the legal construction of torture, and the future for a social democratic criminology.

1. David Downes: An Introduction ; 2. Beyond Risk: A Lament for Social Democratic Criminology ; 3. Dangerous People: Beginnings of a New Labour Proposal ; 4. With Respect to Order, the Rules of the Game have Changed: New Labour's Dominance of the 'Law and Order' Agenda, ; 5. East Ending: Dissociation, De-industrialization and David Downes ; 6. Opportunity Makes the Thief-Taker: The Influence of Economic Analysis on Crime Control ; 7. Contrasts and Concepts: Considering the Development of Comparative Criminology ; 8. Historicizing Contrasts in Tolerance ; 9. Contrasts in Intolerance: Cultures of Control in the United States and Britain ; 10. Governance and Restorative Justice in Cali, Colombia ; 11. Neither Honesty Nor Hypocrisy: The Legal Reconstruction of Torture