Crime, Punishment and the Drinking Offender

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. The Intoxication Excuse: a Challenge to Reason?

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 1-11

3. Theories of Intoxicated Crime

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 12-45

4. Techniques of Neutralisation: the Appeal to Alcohol

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 46-71

5. Responsibility and Mitigation

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 72-88

6. Introduction to City Magistrates’ Court

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 89-102

7. Simple Schemata and Offender Characterisations

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 103-135

8. Making the Most of the Intoxication Excuse

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 136-165

9. The Professional Theorist: Probation Officers at Court

   • Judith Rumgay

   Pages 166-199

10. Intoxication: Our Favourite Excuse

    • Judith Rumgay

    Pages 200-208

11. Back Matter

    Pages 209-234

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Judith Rumgay explores theoretical explanations of the alcohol-crime relationship, critically analyses their empirical support in research, and develops a perspective based on 'expectancy theory', which suggests that alcohol facilitates offending less through its real pharmacological effects than through the variety of common sense beliefs about those effects which are embedded in everyday life. An empirical study of magistrates' sentencing decisions illuminates the diversity of explanations for crime based on intoxication, through the appeal to common sense beliefs about alcohol's effects.

• alcohol
• Common Sense
• crime
• Everyday Life
• punishment
• research

• Department of Social Policy and Administration, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

  Judith Rumgay

JUDITH RUMGAY began her professional career as a probation officer in 1978. In 1985 she was appointed to teach on the social work course at the London School of Economics, where she specialised in probation training. She is currently a Lecturer in the Social Policy and Administration Department at London School of Economics, where her particular teaching and research interests include rehabilitation of offenders and criminological aspects of substance misuse problems.

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