This episode of Radio 4's Thinking Allowed series includes a segment on the way in which unwanted acts can become crimes. The relationship between levels of crime and fear of crime continues to exercise academics and policy makers alike. The question is asked if soaring prison populations accurately reflect the former or the latter. Laurie Taylor is joined by Nils Christie, Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo, who argues that crime is a product of cultural, social and mental processes.
In his latest book 'A Suitable Amount of Crime', Nils Christie examines how the current socio-economic climate makes it easy, and in the interests of many, to broaden the definition of what constitutes criminal behaviour. The segment is second in the audio clip after a segment on credit cards and attitudes to debt.