Visions of Social Control is a wide ranging analysis of recent shifts in ideas and practices for dealing with crime and delinquency. In Great Britain, North America and Western Europe, the 1960's saw new theories and styles of social control which seemed to undermine the whole basis of the established system. Such slogans as 'decarceration' and 'division' radically changed the dominance of the prison, the power of professionals and the crime-control system itself. Stanley Cohen traces the historical roots of these apparent changes and reforms, demonstrates in detail their often paradoxical results and speculates on the whole future of social control in Western societies. He has produced an entirely original synthesis of the original literature as well as an introductory guide to the major theoreticians of social control, such as David Rothman and Michael Foucault. This is not just a book for the specialist in criminology, social problems and the sociology of deviance but raises a whole range of issues of much wider interest to the social sciences. A concluding chapter on the practical and policy implications of the analysis is of special relevance to social workers and other practitioners. This is an indispensable book for anyone who wants to make sense of the bewildering recent shifts in ideology and policy towards crime - and to understand the broader sociological implications of the study of social control.

Where does perversion begin? Who is perverse? Ever since the word first appeared in the Middle Ages, anyone who delights in evil and in the destruction of the self or others has been described as 'perverse'. But while the experience of perversion is universal, every era has seen it and dealt with it in its own way. The history of perversion in the West is told here through a study of great emblematic figures of the perverse - Gilles de Rais, the mystical saints and the flagellants in the middle ages, the Marquis de Sade in the eighteenth century, the masturbating child, the male homosexual and the hysterical woman nineteenth century, Nazism in the twentieth century, and the complementary figures of the paedophile and the terrorist in the twenty-first. The perverse are rarely talked about and when they are it is usually only to be condemned. They are commonly viewed as monstrous and cruel, as something alien to the very nature of being human. And yet, perversion can also attest to creativity and self-transcendence, to the refusal of individuals to submit to the rules and prohibitions that govern human life. Perversion fascinates us precisely because it can be both abject and sublime. Whether they are sublime because they turn to art or mysticism, or abject because they surrender to their murderous impulses, the perverse are part of us because they exhibit something that we always conceal: our own negativity and our dark side. -- Back cover.