Law and Order: Images, Meanings, Myths

by Mariana Valverde

Overview

In an innovative departure from the much-studied field of 'crime in the media', this lively book focuses its attention on the forces of law and order; how they visualize and represent danger and criminality and how they represent themselves as authorities.

After two chapters covering basic terms and tools in the study of culture and representation, the book covers such topics as the history of justice - system methods for visualizing criminality, from fingerprinting to DNA; the emergence of a 'forensic gaze' that begins with Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes and culminates in the American television show Crime Scene Investigation and the rise of ways of seeing urban space that constantly divide the city into 'good' and 'bad' areas. The final chapter uses some recent conflicts regarding the legal admissibility of 'gruesome pictures' to reflect on the importance of the visual in our everyday experiences, both of safety and of danger.

Shortlisted for the Hart SLSA Book Prize 2007

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813538808
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	12/06/2006
Series:	Critical Issues in Crime and Society
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Mariana Valverde is a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto and author of Law’s Dream of a Common Knowledge.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Semiotic Tools for Analyzing Representations. Sociological Questions about Representations. Police Pictures. The Forensic Gaze: The World as a Set of Clues. Visualizing Criminogenic Spaces. Crusading Lawyers, Crooked Lawyers: American Litigiousness and Representation. The Prison as a Movie Set. Gruesome Pictures