Crime and Muslim Britain

'This book merges together the study of criminality with diasporic studies, concerns with citizenship and multiculturalism. Building on the long standing tradition of academic work on 'race and crime' this book offers a more cultural studies approach to criminality within a specific community. In this sense, it is ground breaking work that moves the field of criminology out of its comfort zone and connects it with other useful traditions of thought. Based on an 'insider's informed account', the book presents rich data that analyses how practical concerns, cultural and religious beliefs and moral dilemmas play a part in the construction of the idea of crime in the community. The book will speak to those already immersed in studies in this area as well as anthropology, sociology and criminology in general. Such in-depth, long-term projects are becoming increasingly rare and 'Crime in Muslim Britain' is outstanding, both empirically and as a written piece of work.' - Teela Sanders, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Crime and Deviance, University of Leeds 'This is an anthropologically driven community story, underpinned by themes of ethnicity and criminality, about Pakistani Muslims in the particular locale of Bradford. Utilising a wide range of semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation the book provides a wealth of interview data, which is its great strength. This book will attract a number of audiences as it is rooted in a number of literatures, particularly crime and ethnicity, and is accessible. Showing how crime comes to be understood by participants as well as institutional actors, and offering an anthropological methodology towards the study, not so much of actual crime, but of its perceptions and effects, this book offers a counterpoint to the 'taboo' of talking about crime and race in cultural terms.' - Virinder S Kalra, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Manchester