Deary, Melissa. Making Sense of Evil

Should criminologists take evil seriously as a cause or explanation of crime, criminality, deviance and/or social control? This book seeks to answer this question by exploring a range of interdisciplinary approaches to evil from theology, philosophy, literary and cultural studies and anthropology to social psychology, political theory, law, radical feminism and criminology. Through applying and adapting theories and concepts from interdisciplinary sources for the purpose of criminological inquiry, Dearey presents an argument for why criminologists should begin to take this vexatious and highly controversial concept much more seriously in the development of future criminological theory and as a way to be more participative and engaged in public debates about crime. From racism and police brutality in the Rodney King beating to sexual deviancy in “Fifty Shades of Grey”, Dearey asks: what can the study of evil teach us about ourselves, society and reality?

Deary, Melissa. Making Sense of Evil: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.