Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he has been based since 2002. He served as Head of the Department of Social Policy from 2010 to 2013 and as Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology from 2003 to 2009. Before joining LSE, he held the position of Joseph Rowntree Professor of Urban Social Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London, and served as Director of the Public Policy Research Unit from 1997 to 2002. His research expertise encompasses a wide range of areas, including policing, restorative justice, youth justice, drugs and alcohol policy, comparative policy making, and urban violence.

• Introduction 1. Permissiveness: accounts, discourses and explanations 2. Permissiveness and moral protest: Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association 3. The Wolfenden Report and legislative change 4. Obscenity and the law: the permissive years? 5. Obscenity and the law: backlash? 6. A woman’s right to choose? : Abortion and the law in post-war Britain 7. Morality, the law and contemporary social change 8. Postscript: Thatcherism and the politics of morality

Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he has been based since 2002. He served as Head of the Department of Social Policy from 2010 to 2013 and as Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology from 2003 to 2009. Before joining LSE, he held the position of Joseph Rowntree Professor of Urban Social Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London, and served as Director of the Public Policy Research Unit from 1997 to 2002. His research expertise encompasses a wide range of areas, including policing, restorative justice, youth justice, drugs and alcohol policy, comparative policy making, and urban violence.

• Introduction 1. Permissiveness: accounts, discourses and explanations 2. Permissiveness and moral protest: Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association 3. The Wolfenden Report and legislative change 4. Obscenity and the law: the permissive years? 5. Obscenity and the law: backlash? 6. A woman’s right to choose? : Abortion and the law in post-war Britain 7. Morality, the law and contemporary social change 8. Postscript: Thatcherism and the politics of morality

Tim Newburn is Professor of Criminology and Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he has been based since 2002. He served as Head of the Department of Social Policy from 2010 to 2013 and as Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology from 2003 to 2009. Before joining LSE, he held the position of Joseph Rowntree Professor of Urban Social Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London, and served as Director of the Public Policy Research Unit from 1997 to 2002. His research expertise encompasses a wide range of areas, including policing, restorative justice, youth justice, drugs and alcohol policy, comparative policy making, and urban violence.

• Introduction 1. Permissiveness: accounts, discourses and explanations 2. Permissiveness and moral protest: Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association 3. The Wolfenden Report and legislative change 4. Obscenity and the law: the permissive years? 5. Obscenity and the law: backlash? 6. A woman’s right to choose? : Abortion and the law in post-war Britain 7. Morality, the law and contemporary social change 8. Postscript: Thatcherism and the politics of morality