This book unpacks how effective boxing actually is in reducing violent attitudes, and how to ensure that the messages in the gym environment do not support negative attitudes often found outside the ring. Using classic desistance literature, case studies, and life history interviewing drawn from a psychosocial perspective, it builds on techniques that uncover the more clandestine reasons for choosing boxing. Using case studies, it reveals stories of men’s victimhood, either via gang violence, domestic violence, or structural disadvantage, and tells the story of how boxing reshaped their identities and self-concepts, and how the gym came to represent a fraternity and a ‘island of stability and order’. Additionally, it presents arguments that suggest that boxing is not all that it seems in the eyes of the criminal justice system, and while it has its benefits, it also has a darker side that is coterminous with hyper-masculine discourses of violence, respect, and avoidance of shame.

The Criminology of Boxing, Violence and Desistance PDF

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