Books published by Policy Press

This book examines key philosophical, ethical, legal and professional practice issues in the area of privacy and confidentiality and explores their implications for policy and practice.

"Disadvantaged by where you live?" offers a major contribution to academic debates on the neighbourhood both as a sphere of governance and as a point of public service delivery under New Labour since 1997.

The turn to biographical methods in social science is invigorating the relationship between policy and practice. This book shows how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the development of professionals, and promote more meaningful practitioner - service user relationships.

This book provides a review of the findings of the largest ever programme of cities research in the UK, the 'Cities: Competitiveness and Cohesion programme'. Leading experts present the findings of this wide-ranging programme organised around themes of competitiveness, social cohesion and the role of policy and governance.

'Poverty' and 'social exclusion' have become increasingly important topics on the European research agenda. This book provides an invaluable review of the available literature and presents major new thinking in terms of theory, understanding and data analysis.

This book analyses money, health, place, quality of life and identity, and highlights the gaps of treatment and outcomes between older and younger people, and between different groups of older people. It provides strong evidence of the scale of disadvantage in the UK and suggests actions that could begin to change the picture of unequal ageing.

"The consumer in public services" critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Drawing on empirical research, it challenges existing stereotypes about the 'consumer as chooser' and shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services.

"Securing respect" contains essays from leading academics in the field that consider the origins, current interpretations and possible future for the Respect Agenda. It explores various policy and theoretical discourses relating to 'respect', behavioural expectations and anti-social behaviour.

Taking a broad international perspective, this highly topical book casts light on patterns and processes that either place groups of older adults at risk of exclusion or are conducive to their inclusion.

Written by criminologists and policy analysts, Criminalisation and advanced marginality offers a constructive but critical application of Wacquant's ideas.

Chief police officers are often shadowy enigmas, even to members of their own forces, yet they make far-reaching strategic command decisions about policing, armed responses, operations against criminals and allocation of resources. What is their background? Where do they come from? How are chief officers selected? What do they think of those who hold them to account? Where do they stand on direct entry at different levels and what do they think of a National Police Force? Bryn Caless has had privileged access to this occupational elite and presents their frank and sometimes controversial views in this ground-breaking social study, which will fascinate serving officers, students of the police, academic commentators, journalists and social scientists, as well as concerned citizens who want to understand those who command our police forces.

"Children, politics and communication" questions many of the conventional ways in which children are perceived. It is about how they communicate and engage, how they organise themselves and their lives, and how they deal with conflict in their relationships and the world around them.

'Street capital' is aimed at postgraduates and academics in criminology, race and ethnicity, sociology, social theory and methodology. It will also be of interest to a wider social science audience, particularly those interested in using Bourdieu as a theoretical model.

This timely and thought-provoking collection of writings considers values in crime theory, criminal justice and research practice, uncovering the many different 'sides' that criminologists, policy makers and researchers take.

This timely book examines parental rights to 'welfare state support' and parental responsibilities for child welfare in relation to recent social policy agendas pursued by the Labour government in the UK in the context of child well-being research, state welfare analysis and sociological research about parental perspectives and the multiple contexts of parenting and childhood. It calls for notions of parental rights and responsibilities which are more responsive to the diversity of parental perspectives and parenting contexts. The book is valuable reading for students, researchers and practitioners in social policy and child and family services.

This book examines fathers' perceptions of their domestic violence and its impact on children, their relationships with children and their parenting practices. It is the first UK book to specifically focus on violent fathering, discussing original research in the context of domestic violence and emerging practice literature to address this problem.

Using core concepts of policy analysis "Understanding the policy process" builds up a full explanation of social policy change that can be applied to any aspect of welfare policy, public and social policy. This second edition of the book updates the first edition for the post-Blair era with international case studies from numerous countries.

This book identifies key topics in the policy arena, subjecting them to sustained theoretical and practical appraisal. It shows the advantage of applying a cross-disciplinary lens to the study of 'policy', presenting critical and reflective engagements with theory and practice at all levels of political organisation within a range of contexts.

This book provides a challenging approach to understanding community practice.It offers a much-needed theoretical perspective, setting out an analysis of power and empowerment and exploring new ways of understanding active citizenship.

Citizens' everyday conduct is shaped by governmental action, yet there is much evidence that both front-line public service staff and service users can sometimes act in ways that modify or disrupt intended policy outcomes. This book presents a highly original examination of how policy objectives can be 'subverted' through the actions of citizens.

This original book makes a timely and potentially controversial contribution both to the teaching of social policy and the wider debates surrounding it in Britain today. It offers a critical and theoretically sensitive overview of the role of religious values, actors and institutions in the development of state and non-state social welfare provision in Britain, combining historical discussion of the relationship between religion and social policy in Britain with a comparative theoretical discussion that covers continental Europe and North America. Grounded in new empirical research on religious welfare organisations from the nine major faiths in the UK, the book brings together all of these perspectives to argue for an analytical shift in the definition of wellbeing through a new concept called 'ways of being'. This reflects the moral, ideational and cultural underpinnings of social welfare. Written in a readable style, the book will appeal to students and tutors of social policy, as well as policy-makers seeking to inform themselves about the key issues surrounding faith-based welfare in modern Britain.

Authored by two highly respected and experienced academics, this book demonstrates the rewards of studying social policy from an international perspective by avoiding the constraints of a single-nation focus.

Informed by sociological theory and recent empirical analysis, the new edition of this classic textbook is an accessible account of the major social divisions that structure social life. Written by experts, it covers an unrivalled range of social divisions, diversity and inequalities. This is an invaluable sourcebook for social science students.