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First published in 1966, The Delinquent Solution presents a study of crime associated with the nature of subcultures. The book discusses issues such as the concept and theory of subcultures, the life of delinquent gangs, and the English experience of delinquent subcultures. It also takes an in-depth look at the Stepney and Poplar survey on crime from 1960, analysing both statistical data and more informal observations. Although the book was written over forty years ago, the issues discussed remain relevant and strong areas of interest.

The rise of mass incarceration in the USA is related to the historic character of American exceptionalism and the abandonment, over the past few decades, of policies of rehabilitation and radical social reform. The components for a compararable penal expansion are, with the exception of high rates of lethal violence, in process of assembly in some European societies: rates of serious property crime surpassing those in the USA; a shift in the politics of law and order towards `governing through crime' and populist punitiveness; and rising anxieties about risk and insecurity, in particular relating to ethnic minorities and crime. The distinctive character of social democratic societies, which has so far shielded them against mass incarceration and which already face challenge due to globalization, face further adverse comparison with the more deregulated US economy in terms of unemployment rates which are significantly distorted by the size of the American prison population. Economic debate should be better informed of the unprecedented extent to which the penal factor has come to exert a hidden influence on cross-national images of socioeconomic success and failure, and of the costs and benefits of social-democratic relative to more deregulated market economies.

Criminology is well enough stocked with theory and evidence to offer governments important leads on how to address problems of crime and criminal careers more effectively. Three basic assumptions can be made: that informal social controls are more influential in regulating conduct than formal measures; that social, economic and cultural sources of crime are more potent than either genetic or criminal justice variables; and that, following Beccaria, certainty of punishment is more effective than severity. These assumptions, combined with five basic data on the prevalence of crime, are the context for recommending eight sets of priorities for governmental action.