Crime, Justice and Society: An Introduction to Sociology

Societies define Crime as the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment while justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness, religion and/or equity-justice concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. When society deems informal relationships and sanctions, insufficient to establish and maintain a desired social order, there may result more formalized systems of social control imposed by a government, or by a sovereign state. The book examines how these social realities affect the meanings and intentions of justice, law, policing, judicial processing, punishment, victimization, and media representations of crime and crime control.