The Blackwell Companion to Criminology provides a contemporary and global resource to scholarship in both classical and topical areas of criminology. Authored by an international group of expert criminologists, these original essays focus on major issues in criminology today, commenting upon key debates and theories, outlining the implications of new topics, studies and ideas, and discussing contemporary developments.

Written accessibly for the student, with an international perspective and drawing on first-rate scholarship, this is truly the first global handbook of criminology.

Colin Sumner is an investment manager and writer. He was Professor and Head of the Law School at the University of East London and for many years a Lecturer at the Institute of Criminology and a Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Barcelona, Hamburg, Berkeley, Simon Fraser, Queen's [Kingston], St. Mary's, and Dar es Salaam. His books include Reading Ideologies (1979), Crime, Justice and Underdevelopment (1982), Censure, Politics and Criminal Justice (1990), The Sociology of Deviance (1994), Violence, Culture and Censure (1996), and Social Control and Political Order (ed. with Roberto Bergalli, 1997). He also edited a book series entitled New Directions in Criminology and, with Piers Beirne, founded and edited the journal Theoretical Criminology.