This three-volume set is the definitive reference tool for criminology and criminal justice students, researchers, and practitioners worldwide. John Muncie presents a comprehensive collection of classic and contemporary pieces that define the study of crime. Each volume includes an introduction by the editor, to contextualize the historical, theoretical, and empirical significance of the articles contained therein. Volume 1: The Meaning of Crime: Definition, representation and social construction This volume introduces key issues in the definition of `crime′, examining legal, historical, moral and social constructions of crime. Volume 2: The Causes of Crime Explanations of crime are various, diverse and contradictory. This volume brings together some of the major criminological paradigms (biological, psychological and sociological) which have attempted to locate the causes of crime. Volume 3: Radical and Critical Criminologies This volume introduces how radical, feminist and critical schools of criminology started to address the issue not of why offending occurred, but of how particular images of crime were constructed and maintained. Collectively, the volumes provide ready access to the key debates about and disputes within the academic study of crime as they have emerged over the past 120 years. John Muncie is Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the Open University, UK. He is the author of Youth and Crime (5th edition, Sage, 2021), and he has published widely on issues in comparative youth justice and children’s rights, including the co-edited companion volumes Youth Crime and Justice and Comparative Youth Justice (Sage, 2006). He has produced numerous Open University texts and readers, including Crime: Local and Global (Willan, 2010), Criminal Justice: Local and Global (Willan, 2010), The Problem of Crime (2nd edition, Sage, 2001), Crime Prevention and Community Safety (Sage, 2001) and Imprisonment: European Perspectives (Harvester, 1991). He has also contributed nine volumes to the The Sage Library of Criminology (Sage, 2007–2009). He is co-editor of the Sage journal Youth Justice: An International Journal.