Category Archives: Crime Media Art Representation

I am currently reading David Olusoga’s book ‘Black and British’ (Pan, 2016). The book is brilliant and shocking and it is the author’s ability to pick out the human detail from his research that makes the narrative so vivid. Olusoga takes us first to Bunce Island, at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River. Here,Continue reading “30-Jan-21 Beads”

In the week before Christmas, I read ‘Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger (1951). I can remember my old copy, which was the silver cover 1969 Penguin Modern Classics edition. It had the spine ripped away and the front cover hanging precariously: I had probably picked it up in the thrift basket of aContinue reading “14-Jan-21 Catcher in the Rye”

In a Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (2003 [1859], Penguin), there is a character called Jeremiah (“Jerry”) Cruncher, who is a porter at Tellson’s Bank in London. Reading the book last year, it took me a while to twig the nature of the business that he and his young son engaged in atContinue reading “27-Oct-20 Body Snatchers”

“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home” (Hinton, p.1) This opening line will resonate for many who read The Outsiders (London: Penguin Books, 2016; originally USA: Viking Penguin, 1967) as a teenager andContinue reading “05-Oct-20 The Outsiders and Youth Justice”

This week I read for the first time ‘The Stepford Wives’ by Ira Levin (1972, my edition is 2011, published by Corsair). In just 139 pages, Levin weaves a gripping story about Joanna Eberhart who moves with her husband and two children to the perfect suburb of Stepford, full of beautiful home-loving wives and successfulContinue reading “10-Sept-20 Stepford Wives”

In recent years, many of us will have enjoyed TV series such as The Killing, The Bridge or Borgen or read Larrson’s Millennium series or Mankell’s Kurt Wallander books. They form part of cultural genre known as ‘Nordic noir’, a term believed to have been coined by Guardian critic Sam Wollaston in 2012. In JulyContinue reading “12-Aug-20 Nordic Noir”

My current read is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (first published by William Heinemann, 1958 though my copy is Penguin, 2001). Born in 1930 in Nigeria, Achebe studied in London and worked for the BBC, later becoming Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The book has a great back story.Continue reading “24-July-20 Achebe and retributive justice”

Lady Macbeth. […] Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top-fullOf direst cruelty! make thick my blood;Stop up the access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,AndContinue reading “26-June-20 Lady Macbeth and Double Deviance”

Alfred Fagon was a Jamaican-born playwright who came to England in 1955 at the age of 18.  He worked on the railways and joined the army, where he became a boxing champion.  Leaving the army in 1962 to travel and sing calypso, Alfred settled in Bristol, learning the welding trade and starting to act part-timeContinue reading “22-June-20 Alfred Fagon, Policing and Race”

I have been reading Martha Gever’s chapter (reproduced in McLaughlin and Muncie, 2013) on the ‘spectacle of crime’ in relation to the American TV series CSI: Crime Series Investigation.  One phrase in particular set me thinking.  Gever talks of “…the flux of visual imagery that harnesses the quest for scientific truths to scenes of veryContinue reading “12-June-20 Solving Crimes”

I read this morning the BBC article by Nduka Orjinmo about campaigning by women in Nigeria for police, the state and the public to take seriously rape and sexual violence, and bring perpetrators to justice.  The brutal rape and bludgeoning to death of 22-year old student, Uwavera Omozuwa, known as Uwa, is one of aContinue reading “5-June-20 Victim-blaming”

In my last post (Crimmigration 20-May-2020), I said that “a simple stroke of the bureaucratic pen” can create significant suffering. This suffering may ripple through lives and communities for some time, much of it undocumented. In my own research (working also with colleagues at the Centre for Gender and Violence Research), I record and seekContinue reading “27-May-20 Words, Ideas, Harm”

My new bedtime read is The Tesseract by Alex Garland (1998).  It tells the story of gangsters, mothers and children in Manila, through four interweaving story-lines.  I am only a quarter in, just starting the second story-line.  The first introduced the character of Don Pepe, a ruthless gang lord who runs various protection rackets.  WeContinue reading “13-May-20 Fragile Masculinity”

A few years ago now, I read ‘In Cold Blood’ (1966) by Truman Capote. You might also know his earlier book ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, via the 1961 film adaptation starting Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard.  He is an author I am fascinated by and, over time, I making my way through his published work. InContinue reading “6-May-20 In Cold Blood”

Some you may now be watching the new Netflix series on wrongful convictions, ‘The Innocence Files’.  This new documentary considers the cases of individuals (young Black men in the first two episodes) convicted wrongly in the 1980s and 1990s in the US. It focuses on three areas: misuse of forensic evidence, false eyewitness testimony andContinue reading “23-Apr-20 The Innocence Files”

Friday evening I watched the Netflix documentary ‘How to Fix a Drug Scandal’ – a very interesting example of organisational crime and harm.  The four-part series tells the story of two (unconnected) lab chemists, one in Amherst, West Massachusetts and one in Boston, East Massachusetts.  Each were from stable homes, were academically successful and tookContinue reading “3-Apr-20 How to Fix a Drug Scandal”