The Criminalisation of Fashion

The Research Updates aim to provide busy teachers and students with summaries of research published over the past 10 years. This Update is based on:

Treadwell, James (2008) “Call the (Fashion) Police: How fashion becomes criminalised”: Panel Paper, British Criminology Conference

Treadwell’s arguments key into a range of useful sociological concepts (from moral panics to police socialisation and labelling) and provide a more up-to-date set of examples that have more relevance to contemporary students than many of the examples currently used in A-level sociology.

Key Points covered:

• Identity

• Style

• Selling crime

• Fear of crime

• Fear of surveillance

• Media and Moral Panics