Liamcrime

On the 11 th September 2001, two American airliners plummeted into the world trade centre towers, causing the towers to fall and over 3,000 lives to be lost. The series of events was described by Peter Dale Scott, author of ‘the road to 9/11, as being the worst case of homicide in all of America’s history. This statement cannot be argued against, there were over 3000 lives lost on the day of 9/11, which devastated families, communities and the world. However, there are many questions which can be raised as to the perpetrators of this act of terror, and what fuelled the attacks of 9/11 to take place in the first instance? Since the advent of 9/11, the world as we know it had drastically changed. The theory and practise of security both on a national and local level has arguably become tighter, we are now living in a society which favours suspicion, surveillance and monitoring of those who we believe pose a threat to our society and our way of life. These are usually presumptuous an...

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani- A critical analysis. On January 3 rd 2020, at around 1am local time to the region of Baghdad Iraq, Top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed by a drone airstrike orchestrated by the US, but more namely Donald Trump. It can be argued that this offensive military decision has led to heightened insecurity and rising tensions between the USA and Iran. The USA who according to the CNBC, ( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/21/trump-signs-738-billion-defense-bill.html ) stated that Trump had committed $738 billion dollars to defence spending for fiscal year 2020. Meanwhile Iran is expanding its nuclear weapons programme and is growing stronger in the Middle East. This blog aims to uncover the events from a historical and political perspective which led to the assassination and to explore why in my opinion, our Prime Minster Boris Johnson has been so slow to respond and what this could mean for the rest of us on the world stage, who can only ...

‘Criminological research for beginners—A student’s guide’ is written by Laura Caulfield and Jane Hill who are both experts in criminological research and have conducted research themselves on a range of interests including criminal psychology, restorative justice and community approaches to crime and deviance. This book is in my opinion, an essential read for those such as myself who are new to the field of criminology and find use in reading about the learned experiences and empirical conclusions made from those who have conducted academic research as well as those who may wish to re cap on key skills and philosophical theories surrounding the methodologies and routines within criminological research. It can be argued that throughout reading the book, we are provided with a space to critically reflect upon our own epistemologies, ontologies, methods and attitudes to criminological research and how we can apply them to a real life, day to day framework when researching society, ind...

From villain to hero delves into the more insightful and integrative elements of Criminology. The comic recently published by Kevin Hoffin and Dr Adam Lynes answers some questions around rehabilitative practises for offenders who have faced high levels of institutionalism and incapacitation. The narrative explores a typical criminal offence which is realistic in today’s social and economic climate. A jewellery shop heist.   The heist takes place and the comic critically explores the mental conflictions between some of the offenders, in terms of their rationale and thinking behind their crimes. This underpins several theoretical paradigms such as rational choice, differential association and relative deprivation theory which have been made accessible for not only a non-academic audience, but possibly individuals who may not have a typically high reading and writing capability. This newly founded mechanism for education provides a fresh approach to learning, teaching and rehabilita...

Dunkirk explores the historical, social, societal and political context behind the award winning movie Dunkirk. Joshua Levine explores the plight and efforts from those who fought in the land, sea and air. The story from the sides of Britain, America and Germany were explored in depth, as well as the economic and political systems sustained in the build up to one of the biggest evacuation’s known to history. Throughout reading Dunkirk, many historical elements became apparent. Firstly the book humanised the men and women who so bravely fought for liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation. Case studies, exploring the life of a British and German soldier were explored. There was a realisation that many were not ready to fight and sacrifice their lives, but yet the persistence and resilience which endured was sure to be recognised. Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain, gave his famous speech in 1940. ‘We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall figh...

Zizek’s violence is a fresh and intriguing outlook onto the concept of violence. Violence is often perceived as being just physical, however Zizek proposes the compelling notion that the violence we see can be epistemologically understood by exploring political and economic systems. More namely, exploring consumer capitalism and Liberalism as systems which have generated systematic violence. The typologies of violence as being objective, subjective, systematic and symbolic are identified and throughout the book, you can begin to see where these terms of violence can be applied to the jigsaw puzzle that is society and individualism. Empirically speaking, Zizek explores current examples of where violence is displayed on a wider scale. Violent political outbreaks in Israel and Palestine are named examples, as well as drawing conclusions from global terrorism. Political philosophers such as Marx and Engels are also referred too throughout. I cannot help but agree with the notion...

It has been all over the news that Boris Johnson has put £3.6 Billion into the funding of 20,000 new police officers and has ‘created’ 10,000 more prison spaces. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49318400 ). This blog aims to critically examine the portrayal of violence with its causations and solutions through the Neo- conservative lens and its distorted realities as well as methods of Conservative retention of power through these right realist approaches concerning crime and justice. It can be argued that this right realist approach is deeply flawed and problematic. Firstly this policy simply is a case of exploring the issue of a rise in violent crime as being an issue to tackle with punitive measures. The individual is to blame entirely and rational choice is where we must lie our societal blame. However it is apparent that structural issues and social harms fuelled through consumer capitalism and Neoliberal social policy is not considered here. Since the Conservatives have come...