Island Criminology

Ten per cent of the world’s population lives on islands, but until now the place and space characteristics of islands in criminological theory have not been deeply considered. This book moves beyond the question of whether islands have more or less crime than other places, and instead addresses issues of how, and by whom, crime is defined in island settings, which crimes are policed and visible, and who is (or is not) subject to regulation. These questions are informed by a ‘politics of place and belonging’ and the distinctive social networks and normative structures of island communities. At the crux of these projects is an understanding of power structures, both within island communities and at a broader geo-political level. Drawing widely on diverse sociological and criminological literatures, including decolonial and post-colonial critiques, this book explores deviance and crime on islands as sites of production (agriculture, industry), consumption (tourism, extractivism), exploitation (invasion, colonization), and exclusion (detention centres, prisons). As the book conveys, islands are complex and interesting localities, situated on the periphery of peripheries and regularly overlooked in criminological theorizing. They are sometimes akin to ‘hyperreal’ versions of containment that enable non-island spaces to be understood as ‘free’, while at other times becoming enclaves for resistance and protection from the mainstream/mainland. Drawing on diverse cases and examples, this book re-examines how fundamental concepts for understanding crime and regulation, such as social integration, community and belonging, as well as exclusion and Othering, are practised in the often closed and bounded networks of island ecologies.

2023