This book is one of the most powerful and well written sociological treaties on power and criminalisation of this decade. It demonstrates the inherent weaknesses of much of mainstream sociology, advocating with great force and empathy the need for critical analysis of the forces of marginalisation and exclusion and for seeing the criminal justice system "from below".' Professor Thomas Mathiesen, Professor of the Sociology of Law, University of Oslo, Norway An important contribution to criminological theory, grounded in the author's deep knowledge of troubling public issues and long-time commitment to social justice.' Professor Emeritus Tony Platt, California State University, Sacramento, USA This latest book by Phil Scraton represents the culmination of many years of activism and intellectual work across a range of contemporary political and social issues that inform critical criminology. This book is dangerous' scholarship in the best sense of the word: it takes us on a critical journey through policing, deaths in custody, and the rise of new forms of control over working class and marginalised young people. From working with Irish travellers in the 1970s to working with women in prison today, Scraton draws on his experience of the importance of critical research. The book challenges intellectuals to speak truth to power', to excavate the logic and language of control and at the same time to forge links with marginalised and oppressed groups. This book is critical research at its finest.

It deserves not only to be widely read, but to be understood and acted upon.' Professor Chris Cunneen, NewSouth Global Chair in Criminology, University of New South Wales, Australia Phil Scraton has worked at the cutting edge of critical criminology for more than a quarter-of-a-century. Power, Conflict and Criminalisation both synthesises his work and defines new directions. Passionate and scholarly, the book is a tour de force. It is an essential read for teachers, researchers and students alike. In fact, anyone with a concern for "big questions" of justice and injustice will want to read this book'. Professor Barry Goldson, The University of Liverpool, UK Scraton's scholarship is responsible intellectualism at its best; this is critical social research that provides original insights about the consequences of authoritarian state polices on people's lives. His interviews powerfully account the pain and difficulties experienced by those labeled by such regimes as outsiders.

These poignantly told stories of outsiders, in prisons and marginalized communities, reveal the unheard voices of the powerless and expose the secrets of the powerful. Scraton's work follows from the classic scholarship on the outsider' by Becker, Cohen, Fanon and others, and it goes beyond this scholarship in its capacity to simultaneously expose the often unrecognized truths about people subjected to state coercion and the strategies of the powerful to hide their responsibility for furthering their repression. Indeed, the aspirations of critical sociologists and criminologists of the 1970s for politically engaged and meaningful social science research is finally realized in Scraton's path breaking studies - each shows what it means for a scholar to be fully responsible to people who have become the subject of academic research and for the consequences of his intervention into the institutions that control them. In his efforts to enrich critical theory and practice, Scraton always remains deeply humane, courageous, and true to the interests of real people and their life situations.' Professor Kristin Bumiller, Professor of Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies, Amherst College, USA This book is critical scholarship at its best. It is a provocative and persuasive account of how state sanctioned regimes of truth are corrup.