Crime, violence, justice and social order. Monitoring contemporary security issues (GERN Research Paper Series, nr 1)

This book contains a selection of papers, which were presented and discussed at
the first GERN Summer School for PhD students held in September 2012 at Ghent
University, Belgium.

This collection of essays is the result of an intensive reflection
and engagement between the authors and the editors. The essays in the book
coalesce around four overarching themes: the use and meaning of violence; policing
the informal economy and tackling social disorder; methodological issues in
research on crime; and contemporary penal institutions. It is a rich compilation of
new work by emerging European scholars in the field of ‘Crime, Violence, Justice
and Social Order’.

With the inauguration of this new Research Paper Series, GERN intends to monitor
and disseminate cutting-edge studies into European security issues, reflecting
the result of doctoral research in the framework of the GERN. This series provides
an excellent platform from which to survey key emergent topics in the field.

With
this new series the editors and authors are contributing to a better understanding
of contemporary questions, presenting recent research results and scientific
reflection, by devising new approaches and by re-evaluating the heritage of social
sciences in this domain. It implies a new openness with regard to other disciplines
and to the normative questions arising from the commission of crime and the formal
reaction to it by actors in the criminal justice system and beyond.