This unique text provides a specialized introduction to the philosophy, law and politics of human rights that is tailored to criminologists and criminal justice practitioners. It integrates human rights and criminological frameworks across a range of subject areas, from criminalization and state crime, to crime prevention and critical analyses of the operation of the police, courts and penal system, highlighting the potential and limitations of human rights to inform new directions in criminological analysis. The book will support the teaching of human rights across a wide range of criminological topics and assist independent readers, such as researchers and graduate students, to incorporate human rights paradigms into their criminological analysis.