Professor Dick Hobbs is a leading commentator on the culture of crime and criminality. East End born and bred, he is a fascinating dichotomy of the criminal and the intellectual world, allowing him a unique insight into a subject that holds fascination for so many.When he was growing up, the East End was rocking with dock strikes, thievery and the kind of family values practiced by the Krays the Tibbs and a few dozen other outlaw clans. Violence was everywhere Crime was an unavoida...

Geoffrey Pearson, who died in 2013, was one of the outstanding social scientists of the post second world war era. His work spanned social work, social theory, social history, criminology and sociology. In particular, his work has had a huge impact upon studies of youth, youth culture and drugs.This collection is made up of contributions from scholars producing empirical work on some of the key areas upon which Geoff Pearson established his reputation. All of the writers in this co...

Lush Life: Constructing Organized Crime in the UK opens 'the box marked do not open, too difficult to deal with', in the words of one Assistant Chief Constable, to explore the contested notion of British organized crime. The first book to trace the history and policing of British organized crime, it addresses how the interlocking processes of de-industrialisation, globalisation and neo-liberalism have normalised activity that was previously the exclusive domain of professional cri...

The summer Olympic Games are renowned for producing the world’s biggest single-city cultural event. While the Olympics and other sport mega-events have received growing levels of academic investigation from a variety of disciplinary approaches, relatively little is known about how such occasions are experienced directly by local host communities and publics.This ethnography examines the everyday policing of the London Borough of Newham in relation to the London 2012 Olympics. It ex...

Often seen as the host nation's largest ever logistical undertaking, accommodating the Olympics and its attendant security infrastructure brings seismic changes to both the physical and social geography of its destination. Since 1976, the defence of the spectacle has become the central feature of its planning, one that has assumed even greater prominence following the bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Games and, most importantly, 9/11. Indeed, the quintupled cost of securing the first post-9/11 ...

Professor Dick Hobbs is a leading commentator on the culture of crime and criminality. East End born and bred, he is a fascinating dichotomy of the criminal and the intellectual world, allowing him a unique insight into a subject that holds fascination for so many.When he was growing up, the East End was rocking with dock strikes, thievery and the kind of family values practiced by the Krays the Tibbs and a few dozen other outlaw clans. Violence was everywhere Crime was an unavoida...

The Game of Our Lives is a masterly portrait of soccer and contemporary Britain. Soccer in the United Kingdom has evolved from a jaded, working-class tradition to a sport at the heart of popular culture, from an economic mess to a booming entertainment industry that has conquered the world. The changes in the game, David Goldblatt shows, uncannily mirror the evolution of British society.In the 1980s, soccer was described as a slum game played by slum people in slum stadium...

Long established as the market leading textbook on sports law, this much-anticipated new edition offers a comprehensive and authoritative examination of the legal issues surrounding and governing sport internationally. Locating the legal regulation of sport within an explicit socio-economic context, this refocused edition is divided into four core parts: Governance & Sport; Commercial Regulation; Sports Workplace; and Safety in Sport.Recent developments covered in this edition incl...

Global sporting events involve the creation, management and mediation of cultural meanings for consumption by massive media audiences. The apotheosis of this cultural form is the Olympic Games. This challenging and provocative new book explores the Olympic spectacle, from the multi-media bidding process and the branding and imaging of the Games, to security, surveillance and control of the Olympic product across all of its levels.The book argues that the process of commercializatio...

Policing is at a turbulent turning point: the pace of change is accelerating with renewed emphasis on crime reduction yet with austerity. This topical book examines what matters in policing, rather than just what works. It compares the implications of restructuring in the UK and The Netherlands, also in the USA, regarding police systems, policing paradigms and research knowledge. The authors, who cover both academia and practice, focus particularly on dilemmas for police leadership relatin...

Bringing together new and classic work by Tony Harcup, this book considers the development of alternative journalism from the 1970s up until today.Bringing theory and practice together, Harcup builds an understanding of alternative media through the use of detailed case studies and surveys. Including opinions of journalists who have worked in both mainstream and alternative media, he considers the motivations, practices and roles of alternative journalism as well as delving into et...

What is the place of leisure in societies where people complain of ′over-work′? How do personal freedom and choice relate to the inequalities of class, gender, disability and ethnicity?This critical introduction to the field offers a systematic account of the meaning and structure of leisure today.The book:• situates the student in the field• provides a comprehensive account of the leading approaches to leisure• explores the influence of class, race,...