Time for Criminology: The Established is not Enough

Jeff Shantz

Abstract


[Editorial, Radical Criminology #5]

The present period has a certain premonitory feel about it. A sense of historic promise. There is a real air of change. The mood is one of resistance, of uprising.

In terms of social sciences, it could be said that the current period of austerity and state violence, and resistance to them, is a period of criminology.

[...]

Once again criminology must throw itself unequivocally against the systems of injustice that we too often take as mere objects of study. These are not systems of justice; they are not eternal, they are not natural, they are not neutral, they are not legitimate human endeavors. We must be unflinching and uncompromising in our analysis and in our actions. At the same time we must work to develop alternatives. And in the present period, happily, many are thinking about this too.

 


Keywords


criminology; mentors; austerity; policing; incarceration; racism; Ferguson; Charleston;

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References


Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.

Ford, Matt. 2014. “The Benefits of Fewer NYPD Arrests.†The Atlantic Dec. 31. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-benefits-of-fewer-nypd-arrests/384126/

Hager, Eli. 2015. “Life Without Police.†The Marshall Project. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/01/08/life-without-police

Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. Critique of Everyday Life. London: Verso

Schenwar, Maya. 2014. Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler

Schwendinger, Herman and Julia Schwendinger. 2014. Who Killed the Berkeley School?: Struggles Over Radical Criminology. Brooklyn: punctum

Shantz, Jeff. 2014. “Punishing Bad Thoughts: Next Generation Canadian State Repression.†Toronto Media Co-op http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/punishing-bad-thoughts-next-generation-canadian-st/32901


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