Description:
Winner of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Christine M. Alder Book Award 2025.
Ten percent of the world's population lives on islands, but until now the place and space characteristics of islands in criminological theory have not been deeply considered. This book moves beyond the question of whether islands have more, or less, crime than other places, and instead addresses issues of how, and by whom, crime is defined in island settings, which crimes are policed and visible, and who is subject to regulation. These questions are informed by 'the politics of place and belonging' and the distinctive social networks and normative structures of island communities.
Brief description: Zoe Staines is ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Social Science at The University of Queensland, Australia.
Review Quotes:
"Immensely readable, deeply sociological, and charting a course for a whole new area of criminological inquiry, this is a book that reminds us what makes 'a space a place' and how history makes some places a paradise and others a prison." Nigel South, University of Essex.