When Children Kill Children

• Tackles penal populism and the media through the lens of two specific and controversial cases in a unique treatment of this subject
• Discusses the role played by political culture in explaining the different press, political, and public responses to high-profile crimes
• Proposes reform strategies for improving the adverserial nature of English political culture, in contrast to the more descriptive approaches of other texts dealing with the topic

Readership: Criminologistsm Socio-legal and media scholars; sociologists; psychologists; policy makers.

David A. Green, Assistant Professor of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Dr David A. Green is Assistant Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York. Prior to this he was a postdoctoral Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, University of Oxford. His main research interests involve the interrelationship between crime, media, public opinion, and politics in a comparative perspective. His work has appeared in The British Journal of Criminology, Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, European Journal of Criminology, and Crime, Media, Culture. His first book, When Children Kill Children: Penal Populism and Political Culture, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008 and won the 2009 British Society of Criminology Book Prize. He was selected as a Straus Fellow at New York University's Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice for 2010-11.

"Many people talk of the need for comparative method in criminology, few have attempted it and even fewer contribute so imaginatively to the forefront of scholarship as does David Green in this study." - Jock Young, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Author of The Criminological Imagination

"David Green uses comparative analysis of two high-profile child-on-child homicides to explore the complex interconnections between media processes, public opinion and political culture. It would be impressive enough to achieve Green's analytical sophistication in just one of these areas. The extraordinary achievement of When Children Kill Children is to demonstrate theoretical and empirical sophistication, resulting in compelling and cogent analysis, across all three. A remarkable feat of critical scholarship. A genuinely enlightening book." - Chris Greer, City University London

"A master class in comparative criminology, this study proves there is an alternative to demonization in response to child-on-child homicide." - David Downes, London School of Economics

1: When children kill children
2: Culture, politics in the media in Norway and England
3: Crime and punishment in Norway and England
4: The constraints and effects of political culture
5: The constraints of discourse
6: Media constraints and the formation of political opinions
7: Contextualizing tragedy
8: English penal policy climates and political culture
9: Political culture, legitimacy, and penal populism
10: Public opinion versus public judgment
11: Effecting penal climate change