This book provides a comprehensive introduction to criminal justice theory, examining the theoretical foundations of criminal justice in the modern era, while considering the areas of legal philosophy and ethics, explaining criminal behaviour (criminological theory), policing, the court process and punishment or penology, and discusses these in the context of socio-economic debates about the risk and surveillance state. The constituent parts are linked by a guiding left realist theoretical thread which provides a hybrid of the social progress, conflict and carceral models of criminal justice but which recognises our interest and collusion in the creation of the increasingly pervasive socio-control matrix which characterises contemporary society. These complex theoretical issues are nevertheless addressed in an accessible student-friendly style in a text which is relevant for students studying a wide range of undergraduate criminal justice modules and for those commencing postgraduate studies in the disciplines of criminal justice, criminology and law.