The Criminology of Pleasure

by Mike McGuire, Simon Hallsworth

The Criminology of Pleasure offers a new way of thinking about crime and crime control, as it maintains that the very rationale of the criminal justice system lies in the channelling of desire and regulating of pleasure. Criminology has only confronted the importance of the desire/pleasure nexus through the reference to transgression, resistance and edge-work, and in its concern with social marginalization. The Criminology of Pleasure , however, argues for the fundamental importance of desire/pleasure in understanding social order and control. Whilst ostensibly concerned with crime and its control, the criminal justice system is, the authors argue, centred upon a more fundamental project – that of managing desire. Precisely what this means is systematically articulated first, by considering how various pleasures have been regulated in history; and, second, by mapping the key ways in which desire is now regulated. In a political landscape that has witnessed attempts both on the part of the political right and left to attack and replace criminology with something else – a science of crime or a science of social harm – this book not only provides a highly original analysis; but also a radical, innovative and heretical defence of criminology.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2013