Book Review: Paul Knepper, Jonathan Doak, and Joanna Shapland Urban Crime Prevention, Surveillance, and Restorative Justice: Effects of Social Technologies Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2009. xiii, 223 pp. $89.95. ISBN 978-1-4200-8437-5

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016810364473
• Author: James L. Williams
• Published date: 01 December 2010
• Date: 01 December 2010
• Subject Matter: Articles

Criminal Justice Review
35(4) 533-549
Book Reviews
ª 2010 Georgia State University
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Paul Knepper, Jonathan Doak, and Joanna Shapland
Urban Crime Prevention, Surveillance, and Restorative Justice: Effects of Social Technologies Boca Raton, FL: CRC
Press, 2009. xiii, 223 pp. $89.95. ISBN 978-1-4200-8437-5
Reviewed by: James L. Williams, Texas Woman’s University, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0734016810364473
Crime prevention, surveillance, and restorative justice offer a significant challenge to mainstream
criminal justice policy, which remains largely oriented toward the conventional mechanisms of
police, courts, and corrections. However, although each of these approaches has engendered a sub-
stantial body of research, they have traditionally been studied in isolation from each other. This book
addresses this gap in the criminal justice literature.
This edited collection addresses crime prevention, surveillance, and restorative justice as
instances of a ‘‘social enterprise’’ with common features. Developed from a collection of articles
originally presented at a 2006 conference in the United Kingdom, the contributors explore these
issues within the common framework of ‘‘social technology,’’ defined as coordinated action, derived
from an organized field of knowledge, to achieve particular results. Divided into three parts, with an
introduction and preface, Part 1 addresses crime prevention, Part 2 focuses on surveillance, and Part
3 examines restorative justice.
The editors pursue three specific themes. A central theme is the role of the media in shaping pub-
lic discourse about crime and crime control. This theme is developed in two chapters concerning,
respectively, the role of print culture in public discourse about crime in 18th century London and
20th century discourses about representations of crime in fictional media such as films. These chap-
ters illustrate the role of the media in affecting...