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This book locates the rise of illicit drug use within the historical development of late industrial society and challenges the prevailing view. Highlighting key areas of continuity and the on-going value of classic criminological theory, it is argued that recent trends do not constitute the radical departure that is often supposed

AbstractRecent developments in the drug field have prompted claims that criminal justice has displaced health from its formerly dominant position and have also been used to support general claims about the criminalisation of social policy. This article critically assesses such claims and offers an alternative interpretation, arguing that British drug policy has been shaped and reshaped by the broader workings of the modern state. Early controls reflected the influence of medicine and public health over emerging forms of state interventionism, while subsequent arrangements were consistent with the penal-welfare tradition that dominated criminal justice for much of the last century. More recently, it is the transformation of this tradition that has played a key role in reshaping the drug field, producing evidence of both continuity and change. What others have attributed to 'criminalisation', therefore, is said to reflect broader changes in the nature of criminal justice itself. Whilst the transformation of penal-welfarism helps to explain the development of more punitive and coercive forms of drug control, this is only part of the story. As with criminal justice more generally, the limitations of the sovereign state have given rise to various adaptive strategies and it is here that considerable continuity can be seen, particularly in relation to the on-going importance of drug treatment and harm reduction.

Increasing numbers of social scientists, policy makers and other social commentators suggest that drug use has become a relatively common form of behaviour among young people who accept it as a `normal' part of their lives. Although there is quite strong empirical evidence that the proportion of young people using drugs at some point in their lives is growing, there is little evidence to support the contention that it is so widely accepted as to be normal. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, we develop a critique of what we term the `normalisation thesis'. In doing so we argue that this thesis exaggerates the extent of drug use by young people, simplifies the choices that young people make, and pays inadequate attention to the meaning that drug use has for them. Crucially, we argue that in their reliance on large-scale survey data the main proponents of the normalisation thesis pay insufficient attention to the normative context within which drug use occurs.

AbstractPolice in England and Wales are invested with specific legal powers to detain a person—who is not under arrest—and search them or their vehicle for unlawful items. The exercise of this coercive power has long been a source of tension and mistrust, particularly among minoritised and other marginalised communities, and has been repeatedly implicated among the causes of serious public disorder. Although concerns about the misuse of stop and search have created a recurring cycle of crisis and reform—stretching back over more than four decades—the fundamental problem remains unchanged. How did this happen and what should now be done about it? These questions will be addressed by considering how the policy problem has been framed over time, reviewing evidence on the impact of stop and search and identifying policy challenges associated with regulating the powers, including lessons that can be learnt from previous attempts at reform.