Modernity is all about the industrial world - the modern age begins around the late 1700s.

Mass production; urbanisation; state bureaucracy; ordered, rational thinking; science NOT religion.

Modernist theories explore the world from a scientific perspective (functionalism, Marxism)

Weber - 'iron cage of rationality'

World has progressed
work is flexible; consumption; pluralism; globalisation; states declining importance; technology

Identity - is about consumption
Meta- narratives cannot explain society, therefore all other theories are, in essence, redundant!

Postmodernists view crime as a series of one-off events, each one unique.

Crime can be seen as part of a lifestyle choice - creating an identity.

Policing should be matched to the areas policed.

Consumption not production, specifically the consumption of 'signs'

Signs don't relate to reality; no agreed definition of reality

Very critical of the media; television helps to create this situation

If we don't know what's real we can't improve society

Ignore class, ethnicity, gender etc. which would seem to have a great impact on the experience of crime and deviance.

Ignores influencing social factors. Appears to celebrate criminality.

Policing differently would perhaps reinforce the challenges of policing where different groups are already sometimes treated differently, young, poor, minority ethnic groups.

General view of society - ignores relationships between people/social institutions; ignores inequalities

Self-contradictory - if there is no one theory then how can postmodernism be 'true'?

Giddens 1990/1991 - late modernity which is a continuation

Changes to work and consumption are accelerated - reflexivity; disembedding (social media) - no more face-to-face contact

Culture is unstable

Juggernaut - out of control

Beck 1992 -more individual = more reflexive = more responsibility for own actions = minimisation of risk