A criminology of the domestic

This chapter provides our justification for proposing, developing, and commencing a criminology of the domestic. Building on ideas that emerged from a series of seminars entitled ‘Home’, which we organised at our university, and a subsequent themed section in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice in 2020, this book takes the project further and engages a broader set of ambitions and colleagues in this endeavour. In this first chapter of the book we do a number of things: we provide context and, in doing so, draw on some classic literature sources and well-established concepts. We point out gaps and omissions in the criminological and victimological gaze. We draw on perspectives developed in disciplines that have to date had marginal impact on our own discipline of criminology. Most significantly, we engage in much re-conceptualising around the notion of ‘home’, crime, place and victimisation, public-private spheres, human geography, and relational cartography. The chapter introduces these ideas and provides the reader with further ideas about how our criminology of the domestic might be progressed still further.