Globalisation, reflexivity and the practice of criminology

This paper examines recent theorising of broader social and political trends in modern societies and discusses their implications for the practice of criminology. Globalisation has facilitated the "free trade" of criminological knowledge and ideologies and accelerated the deterritorialisation of culture and politics. Under "reflexive modernisation", the scientific authority of criminology is being challenged, not only from within the discipline in the form of academic critique, but also from without, in the arena of law and order politics.At the same time, criminologists and criminal justice policies are increasingly being "governed" by "technologies of performance" and the "technologies of agency" as part of"reflexive government" in advanced liberal societies.