Criminal Artefacts
Governing Drugs and Users
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of British Columbia Press
Published:7th Nov '07
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Attitudes toward crime, criminals, and rehabilitation have shiftedconsiderably, yet the idea that there is a causal link between drugaddiction and crime prevails. As law reformers call for addictiontreatment as a remedy to the failing war on drugs, it is also time toconsider the serious implications of joining legal and therapeuticpractices in an assumedly benevolent bid to cure the offender.
Drawing on theoretical tools inspired by Foucault, Latour, andGoffman, Criminal Artefacts casts doubt on the assumption thatdrugs lie at the heart of crime. Case studies from drug treatmentcourts and addiction treatment programs illustrate the tensions betweenlaw and psychology, treatment and punishment, and conflicting theoriesof addiction. By looking curiously on the criminal addict as anartefact of criminal justice, this book asks us to question why thecriminalized drug user has become such a focus of contemporary criminaljustice practices.
This interdisciplinary book will appeal to students, academics, andpractitioners in law, social theory, criminology, criminal justice,addictions, cultural studies, sociology, and science studies.
Criminal Artefacts is an important book for the simple fact that it offers unparalleled insight into current practices of governing the criminal addict in Canada. More than this, Criminal Artefacts is an elegant and concise study of the criminal justice system in action, from the postwar period to the present day; focusing on the criminal addict, the book offers a close look at the therapeutic/rehabilitative project and its evolution in the wake of neoliberalism. Moore bases this discussion on solid theoretical and empirical ground and, as a result, Criminal Artefacts will be an important source for critically minded sociologists, anthropologists, and criminologists interested in drug law and addiction, as well as theoretically minded counsellors, therapists, and legal professionals.
It provides readers with useful background information on the rise of therapeutic initiatives to treat drug and alcohol addiction within the Canadian criminal justice system. It also offers a unique analysis of the role that cultural perceptions of drugs and their users play in the formation of governing strategies. The book is most compelling, however, due to Moore’s critical analysis of new and relatively unexplored criminal justice interventions like DTCs.
-- Fiona S. Martin, Dalhousie University * Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2008, Vol. 33, IssueISBN: 9780774813860
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 420g
208 pages