Criminology Goes to the Movies

A “deftly written and absorbing” look at how films reflect concepts in criminology and affect our perceptions of criminal behavior (Richard Rosenfeld, coauthor of Crime and the American Dream).

From Psycho to Double Indemnity to Thelma & Louise, Nicole Rafter and Michelle Brown show that criminological theory is produced not only in the academy through scholarly research, but also in popular culture through film. Criminology Goes to the Movies connects with ways in which students are already thinking criminologically through engagements with popular culture, encouraging them to use the everyday world as a vehicle for theorizing and understanding both crime and perceptions of criminality.

The first work to bring a systematic and sophisticated criminological perspective to bear on crime films, Rafter and Brown’s book provides a fresh way of looking at cinema using the concepts and analytical tools of criminology to uncover previously unnoticed meanings in film, ultimately making the study of criminological theory more engaging and effective for students while simultaneously demonstrating how theories of crime circulate in our mass-mediated worlds. With chapters focusing on films including Do the Right Thing, Capturing the Friedmans, and more, the result is an illuminating new way of seeing movies and a delightful way of learning about criminology.