The disappearance of nine year-old Shannon Matthews in 2008 was genuinely one of the strangest crime cases in recent memory. Missing child cases like this are awfully grim because they rarely have a happy ending. The police, media, and everyone who was anxiously looking on and following this case all The disappearance of nine year-old Shannon Matthews in 2008 was genuinely one of the strangest crime cases in recent memory. Missing child cases like this are awfully grim because they rarely have a happy ending. The police, media, and everyone who was anxiously looking on and following this case all feared the worst during the search for Shannon. They had braced themselves for a tragic outcome. When the police actually found Shannon alive there was indescribable relief and jubilation. As soon as the search for Shannon ended though a new criminal case began. To the surprise and genuine bafflement of the watching public, Karen Matthews, who had been a weepy fixture on the nightly news appealing for information about her missing daughter, was now implicated in Shannon's abduction. feared the worst during the search for Shannon. They had braced themselves for a tragic outcome. When the police actually found Shannon alive there was indescribable relief and jubilation. As soon as the search for Shannon ended though a new criminal case began. To the surprise and genuine bafflement of the watching public, Karen Matthews, who had been a weepy fixture on the nightly news appealing for information about her missing daughter, was now implicated in Shannon's abduction.

What are the psychological factors in operation when we form groups or crowds, and how are these affected by socio-historical circumstances? History offers endless examples of different forms of human collectivity, both private and public, small-scale and large: from the primal horde to the modern nuclear family, from the Athenian polis to virtual internet communities. Within the context of shifting social bonds in global culture, this book brings together debates on the left from political philosophy, psychoanalysis, social psychology and media and cultural studies to explore the logic of the formation of collective identities from a new theoretical perspective. Challenging liberal-capitalist models of individualism, as well as postmodern identity politics, analysts here turn to Continental philosophy (Lacan, Derrida, Agamben, Laclau, Badiou, among others) in order to re-think collectivity in relation to questions of agency, alterity, affect, sovereignty, the national imaginary and the biopolitical. In the aftermath of the great mass movements of the twentieth century (Marxist-Leninism, Mao), which resulted in bureaucratic submission and the cult of the State, the fate of our collective identity today raises urgent questions about the future of collaborative activity, the role of mediating institutions in shaping mass psychology, what is at stake in a radical democracy, and what happens in a crowd.

This in-depth book examines the horrific case of an evil mother who betrayed her daughter, deceived friends and neighbours and wasted huge amounts of police time, at a cost of GBP3.2 million to the taxpayer. It looks at the background of the family, the court case and the aftermath of one of the most notorious deceptions in recent history.

In modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs. In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth.” Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient figleaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality. Based on a wealth of original research, Chavs is a damning indictment of the media and political establishment and an illuminating, disturbing portrait of inequality and class hatred in modern Britain. This updated edition includes a new chapter exploring the causes and consequences of the UK riots in the summer of 2011.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Religion and Crime: Theory, Research, and Practice" that was published in Religions

The murder of Tia Sharp by Stuart Hazell in 2012 was such a sad and grim tale that even hardened court reporters were left shaken and upset at the conclusion of the Old Bailey trial. Why was Hazell so trusted by Tia's family? How much did the police suspect Hazell? Did the support of the Sharp family make Hazell less suspicious to the police? Was he always destined to kill Tia? What actually happened the night she died? All of these questions and more will be examined and discussed in The Vanishing of Tia Sharp.

An exploration of white working-class English men, showing how and why some have been captured by the far-right and what the left can do about it. IS THE WHITE WORKING CLASS RIGHT-WING? AND IS IT RIGHT-WING TO EVEN SPEAK OF A "WHITE WORKING CLASS"? In recent decades, as class consciousness has been suppressed and eroded, many white working-class men have turned their backs on the left in favour of the right and the far-right. Why is this? A Small Man's England is a polemic aimed at the structures of hierarchy that ceaselessly maintain power across Britain and elsewhere, and a call for multicultural solidarity amongst the working class. In analysing the roles that class, race, masculinity and nationality play in neoliberal Britain, Sissons offers a solution to the indoctrination of white working-class English men by the right and the far-right, and explores how working-class people can collectively shape a "Common England" -- a country based on equality and justice for all.