4th September 2023
11th July 2016
Two Scottish researchers have won the British Society of Criminology’s Criminology Book Prize.
The SCCJR’s Dr Alistair Fraser, of the University of Glasgow, and SCCJR associate Dr Beth Weaver, of the University of Strathclyde, were recognised for their titles on two wide-ranging topics: youth gangs and desistance.
Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City by Dr Fraser tells a story of young people, gang identity, and social change in Glasgow, challenging the perceptions of gangs as a novel, universal, or pathological phenomenon. It has been widely acclaimed, and earlier this year was nominated for the prestigious Ethnography Award.
Dr Weaver’s book, Offending and Desistance: The Importance of Social Relations, looks at the role of a co-offending peer group in shaping and influencing offending and desistance, by examining the social relations and life stories of six Scottish men in their forties.
Previous SCCJR-linked winners of the book prize include Jennifer Fleetwood (2015) for Drug Mules: women in the international cocaine trade, Simon Mackenzie (2006) for Going, Going, Gone: Regulating the market in illicit antiquities, and Laura Piacentini (2005) for Surviving Russian Prisons.
The SCCJR extends warm congratulations to both of this year’s very worthy winners.