Crime and Risk

It is into this muddy conceptual terrain that Pat O'Malley treks, unabashedly pairing 'crime' and 'risk' in the title of his book, and undertaking to untangle their ambiguous meanings and contradictory connections... O'Malley carefully demonstrates, risk and its relation to crime are not self-evident at all; they are defined differently by neo-conservatives and neo-liberals, by risk-takers and those who would govern them, and in turn attributed variously to individual decision making, social dysfunction, or the logic of the market. Once defined in a particular way, risky situations are then policed through particular forms of measurment that produce data sets and statistical predictions, all seeming to confirm that such risk is indeed a real and measurable phenomenon.

Jeff Ferrell
Theoretical Criminology

Pat O'Malley has produced an important book... In just four chapters, he offers a critically informed 'tour de force' of the criminological embrace of risk... O'Malley's book has provided a fertile breeding ground for pursuing questions such as these and challenging the powerful presence of the concept of risk within criminology.

Sandra Walklate
Theoretical Criminology

In this remarkably short and readable volume, O'Malley delineates with precision what has been so productive about the largely dystopian pictures of risk-based crime governance, while identifying the complex shades of gray so often overlooked by others, and ultimately points to 'lines of flight'.

Jonathan Simon
Theoretical Criminology

In his well-researched, balanced, and thoroughly engaging book, Crime and Risk, Pat O'Malley takes on some of these big-picture questions about risk as they apply to the nature of modern day (personal and property) crime and crime policy. The starting point for this analysis is the idea that risk is a dynamic, fluid concept, not something that should be simply cast as perpetuating a 'culture of control'.

Brandon C. Welsh
Theoretical Criminology

"O’Malley, in this beautifully simple, insightful and erudite book, locates risk within a variety of mentalities that have been, and are being, deployed to “govern crime” -- in doing so he places risk, where it should be, at the very centre of criminological thought and practice. This is an important book."

Pat O'Malley's approach to risk, crime and criminal justice is stimulating and provocative. He points out that in criminology risk is seen almost entirely in negative terms, in marked contrast to other social spheres, where risk is regarded much more positively, as for example in business innovation and entrepreneurship. O'Malley says that risk-taking is an aspect of criminal behaviour that is generally overlooked by criminology, and directs his readers' attention to Katz and to the cultural criminologists who look at risk-taking as a source of excitement for offenders. O'Malley's highly original 'risky criminology' reconnects risk with criminological theory, and challenges those concerned with punishment and crime prevention to develop constructive, imaginative measures and strategies concerned with the reducing harm caused by criminal and anti-social risk-taking behaviour rather than trying to control risk through repression and exclusion.