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Prison gangs are a growing problem in prisons. In recent times, Skarbek’s (2011, 2014) governance theory has become increasingly popular in explaining their emergence. Yet, this theory downplays the role that deprivation and importation theories can play in understanding the emergence and behaviour of these gangs. This chapter seeks to address this shortcoming by demonstrating how the inclusion of these theories, alongside the governance theory, can enhance our understanding of prison gang emergence and when gang fragmentation or consolidation may occur. Drawing on research conducted in the US and beyond, this chapter argues that a holistic understanding of prison gangs and their monopolisation of power requires a consideration of the importation and deprivation theories, together with Skarbek’s (2011, 2014) governance theory. Special attention is paid to the wider role political and social processes may play in influencing whether monopoly power by prison gangs is supported and legitimised or not.

The increasing permeation of social media into people’s daily lives is playing an important role in (re)shaping attitudes and behaviours (Annisette & Lafreniere, 2016; Greenfield, 2014). Whilst online activity has huge potential to enhance the quantity and quality of communication between people across the world, it is also raising some serious challenges. This chapter focuses on one of these challenges in particular, namely, the links between gang-related activity in the virtual world and gang-related violence in the real world.

This chapter reviews recent research on gender differences in attitudes towards ‘honor’ based violence and killings in collectivist cultures. A divergent pattern is emerging from these studies that do not align fully with the established attitudinal research into victim blame attributions for other forms of violence against women. While these more recent studies confirm that females are less approving of violence compared to their male counterparts, it is notable that a proportion of females endorsed the abuse and killing of women in the name of ‘honor’. The chapter concludes by discussing psychosocial explanations for these findings, including sexism and religiosity.

School bullying is a serious social problem, which has received widespread public, media, and research attention over the years. The first study of bullying was published in 1969 by a school physician named P. P. Heinemann (Olweus, 1999), which was subsequently followed by extensive empirical inquiry since the 1970s in Scandinavia led by Dan Olweus (Vaillancourt et al., 2008). In subsequent decades, social scientists have developed a rich theoretical and empirical body of knowledge with regards to children and adolescents’ experiences in bullying. Scholars conceptualise bullying as a sub-category of aggression (Smith et al., 2002), characterised as being purposeful, including an imbalance of power, and being repetitive (Hunter, Boyle & Warden, 2007; Smith, 2014). Bullying has for the most part been explored from a psychological perspective, providing insights into proximal risk factors, such as individual traits and behaviours. However, bullying is a complex, multifaceted problem, and consideration of theoretical frameworks from outside psychology is necessary to fully explain why certain individuals (or groups of individuals) are involved in bullying. Scholars have therefore come to realise the importance of integrating psychological theories with social environmental perspectives (sociological, anthropological, political-economic; Lawson & King, 2012). This has the potential to broaden perspectives on the etiology and outcomes of bullying, introduce innovative methodologies, and raise important questions about new approaches to prevention and intervention (Holt et al., 2017).This chapter will provide an overview of multiple social science theories and perspectives in explaining bullying. It is divided by theories and perspectives represented by four major branches of social science: psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political-economics.

About the repository: This book brings together chapters by academics, researchers and practitioners to analyse how crimes such as sex work, domestic violence and rape and sexual assault have risen up the Government agenda in recent years. For example, the 'Paying the Price' consultation exercise on sex work in 2004, and recent legislation around sex crimes, including the Sex Offences Act (2003). This is a multi-disciplinary, social scientific, pro-feminist collection, which draws upon practice, empirical research, documentary analysis and overviews of research in the areas of sex work and sexual violence. Within Sex as Crime there are two distinct sub-sections: 'Sex for Sale' and 'Sex as Violence', but the broader and overriding link of sex as crime remains a paramount theme that spans the collection.\ud \ud Chapters include discussions of the impact of new regulations on street sex workers, and of street sex work on community residents, the use of the internet by men who pay for sex and men who sell it, sexual violence and identity, sex crimes against children and protecting children online and working with sex offenders. Other chapters explore reasons for such offending behaviour.

As with its female counterpart, male sex work (MSW) has generally been regarded as deeply problematic, either because of negative societal attitudes to the selling of sex or the prevalence of psychosocial and economic problems amongst those attracted to MSW and the attendant health risks and dangers encountered whilst engaged in it. While the phenomenon of female sex work has received a great deal of criminological scrutiny, there has been comparatively less attention paid to male sex workers (MSWs). The research which we report on in this chapter aimed to further our understanding of the motivations of MSWs, the risks they face, their engagement with support agencies and their intentions for the future.