This accessible text enables criminology and criminal justice students to understand and critically evaluate the criminal law, in the context of criminal justice and wider social issues.

The book explains criminal law comprehensively, covering both general principles and specific types of criminal offence. It examines criminal law in its social context, as well as considering how it is used by the criminal justice processes and agencies which enforce it in practice.

The book covers all the different theoretical approaches that the student of criminology and criminal justice will need to understand. It provides learning tools such as:

Chapter objectives - making the structure of the book easy to follow for students; Questions for discussion and student exercises - helping students to think critically about the ideas and concepts in each chapter, and to undertake further independent and reflective study; ‘Definition boxes’ explaining key concepts - helping students who are not familiar with specialist criminal law terminology to understand what the key basic concepts in the criminal law really mean in practice

It is accompanied by a companion website which incorporates a range of resources for lecturers and students.

The book is written for undergraduate criminal justice and criminology students, and will also appeal to law students whose course takes a socio-legal approach.