ABSTRACT
Crime and criminality have not been central to Giddens' sociological con cerns, though in his more recent work they do make some selective appear ances, usually in relation to male violence against women or the sexual abuse of children. Equally, criminology has made little use of Giddens, a fact that will surprise only those who are not aware of the discipline's gen eral isolation from the main strands of recent social theory. In this chapter I want to attend to the second of these points first, and note what limited uses criminologists have made of Giddens' work. I will then address the first point, examining the ways in which Giddens treats problems of crime, and suggesting that what is known empirically about the distribution of crime and victimisation, and the social problems associated with them, argues for a more thorough-going recognition than Giddens provides of the realities of inequality and social exclusion in the urban environment. Finally, I will suggest some lines of thinking which would allow crimino logical studies to make more productive use of Giddens' work, by connect ing it with some of the themes in recent criminological theory and research that seem to me to offer the most hope for theoretical and practical progress. The focus in most of this will be on Beyond Left and Right (Giddens 1994a, hereinafter BLAR), since it is here that Giddens has addressed issues of crime and criminality most explicitly, though still tangentially, and has tried to develop the policy implications of his analysis of late modernity. In com ing to terms with the arguments of BLAR I should say that I have moved from initial irritation and impatience to a position of greater sympathy and respect, a movement that is mirrored in the structure of this chapter.
