Do criminal cultures generate drug use? Crime, Drugs and Social Theory critiques conventional academic and policy thinking concerning the relationship between urban deprivation, crime and drug use, and outlines an innovative constructionist phenomenological perspective to explore these relationships in a new light.

Contents: Introduction: on the question of being and crime; Crime, drugs and social research; Crime, drugs and social theory; Being and crime (and drugs); 'Natural attitudes' towards recreational crime and drugs; Becoming a problematic drug user; Criminological consequences of 'becoming' a problematic drug user; Confrontations with the 'soiled self'; Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

Chris Allen is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Chris is the author of 30 articles in peer-reviewed social science journals since 1997 as well as 22 research reports, 20 articles in the national and professional media and 2 commercially published books.