Disease and Crime: A History of Social Pathologies and the New Politics of Health (Routledge Studies in Cultural History)

Disease and crime are increasingly conflated in the contemporary world. News reports proclaim "epidemics" of crime, while politicians denounce terrorism as a lethal pathological threat. Recent years have even witnessed the development of a new subfield, "epidemiological criminology," which merges public health with criminal justice to provide analytical tools for criminal justice practitioners and health care professionals. Little attention, however, has been paid to the historical contexts of these disease and crime equations, or to the historical continuities and discontinuities between contemporary invocations of crime as disease and the emergence of criminology, epidemiology, and public health in the second half of the nineteenth century. When, how and why did this pathologization of crime and criminalization of disease come about? This volume addresses these critical questions, exploring the discursive construction of crime and disease across a range of geographical and historical settings. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title Page......Page 7 Copyright Page......Page 8 Table of Contents......Page 10 List of Figures......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 13 Biology, Society, and Crime-Disease......Page 14 Case Studies: East Asia and the West......Page 21 A ‘New’ Politics of Health?......Page 35 Notes......Page 40 Part I......Page 51 1. Hong Kong’s Floating World: Disease and Crime at the Edge of Empire......Page 52 Open Borders, Loose Women......Page 57 Women on the Edge......Page 63 Male Informants and Chinese Agents......Page 68 Defining and Knowing the Chinese......Page 73 Conclusion: Crime, Disease, and Colonial Desire......Page 78 Notes......Page 80 2. Sexual Deviancies, Disease, and Crime in Cesare Lombroso and the “Italian School” of Criminal Anthropology......Page 90 Parallelism between Homosexuality and Criminality......Page 93 Crime as Disease......Page 98 Same-Sex Desire as Disease......Page 105 Conclusion......Page 110 Notes......Page 111 Introduction: Homesick in the City......Page 121 Cholera and “Social Murder”......Page 127 Wrecked Lives, Broken Houses......Page 132 Abject Space: Inside the Slum......Page 139 Conclusion: Contagious Deliriums......Page 146 Notes......Page 152 4. Morality Plays: Presentations of Criminality and Disease in Nazi Ghettos and Concentration Camps......Page 164 Punishment and Treatment, Prisoner and Patient......Page 169 Ghettos, Camps, and Quarantines......Page 171 Conclusion......Page 182 Notes......Page 185 Part II......Page 191 Introduction: Medicalization in China......Page 192 The Deviant Only Child or Deviance by Majority......Page 197 ‘Boundary Crisis’: The Deviance of ‘Premature Love’ (Zaolian)......Page 203 ‘Internet Addiction’ and Iad......Page 212 Conclusion......Page 215 Notes......Page 218 Introduction: ‘Sentinels’......Page 228 From Avian Flu to Suburban Riots......Page 234 Health and Society: Journalists at Le Monde......Page 239 TV and the Principle of Participation......Page 244 Conclusion......Page 250 Notes......Page 251 Introduction: Industrial Crime......Page 259 The Asbestos Trials in Japan......Page 265 The ‘Village of Asbestos’......Page 268 A Succession of Medical and Epidemiological Studies......Page 271 Medical Expertise in the Dock......Page 276 Conclusion......Page 280 Notes......Page 289 8. Crime Between History and Natural History......Page 304 The Walking Dead......Page 312 The International Necronautical Society......Page 318 The Uncanny Valley......Page 322 The Loyalty Card......Page 329 Notes......Page 332 Bibliography......Page 338 Contributors......Page 381 Index......Page 384 This work investigates, across different pathological sites, the shifting assumptions that have informed debates about where 'crime' is located, what factors produce it, and how it is managed. The book considers how and why disease -- and, in particular, infectious disease -- has come, reciprocally, to be framed as 'criminal.' Edited By Robert Peckham. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 169-184) And Index.