The overarching substantive argument that links the chapters of the book is "that because imaginary penalities are (amongst other things) obstructive of new knowledge about crime, they should be opposed by more imaginative, open, and pluralistic approaches to the governance of law and order." The main theoretical focus is upon questions of ideology, knowledge, and critique. The empirical thrust focuses on contributing rich and analytical descriptions of how global trends and national policies are realized in imaginary form at a local level, having adverse effects not only on crime control, but also on the quality of justice nationally and internationally. Six of the essays investigate empirically one or more dimensions of the tensions between imaginative approaches to crime, punishment, and security, and the varied manifestations of contemporary imaginary penalities. Three essays analyze a web of imaginaries in relation to seamless justice, prison labor, and rehabilitation. Three other essays focus on the conceptual difficulties of distinguishing between "imagination" and "imaginary." The books final chapter suggests some possibilities for re-imagining justice, a cosmopolitan justice based not on some imaginary unity of interests of already-divided nations, but on a judicial discourse that recognizes and attempts to accommodate the competing values of strangers in a globalized world. Approximately 750 references