The criminology of mobility

This chapter considers how criminological interest in migration and crime has been taken up by critical scholars within an emerging part of the discipline known as ‘the criminology of mobility’. It also considers where has the criminology of mobility come from? In answering the question, the chapter identifies three interdependent lines of scholarly enquiry: criminological concern with identity; scholarship on mobility and the border; and research on the global migration control industry. It traces mobility in criminology, considering how this early work approached the study of migration and the shifting categories of migrant, citizen and non-citizen in order to understand the recent turn to mobility. The chapter examines how the border has come to be central in criminological work concerned with mobility. It argues that where is the criminology of mobility heading? To answer this question the chapter identifies silences in the criminology of mobility literature as well as some of its challenges.