ACTIVIST CRIMINOLOGY: CRIMINOLOGISTS’ RESPONSIBILITY TO ADVOCATE FOR SOCIAL AND LEGAL JUSTICE

Similar to many criminologists, my interest in pursuing this career was driven by a desire to improve responses to injustices, on both small and large scales. I believe that among criminologists, this dedication to effect changes in social and legal justice disproportionately drives those of us historically kept out of the academy due to our race, gender, class, sexual identity, and/or other marginalizations. Fortunately, there is a growing diversity among criminologists and this has had a powerful impact on expanding the scope and depth of the field. At the same time, I am concerned that academic training and university climates frequently work against our commitment to advancing social and legal justice changes, what I refer to as “criminology activism.” This address is a call to action, stressing criminologists’ responsibility to advocate for social and legal justice on small and large scales. Numerous types of criminology activism are identified (e.g., in research, service, and teaching), including the requisite to continue diversifying the representation of criminologists.     

Ethnic minorities,culture conflicts and crime

Since the mid-sixties debate among German criminologists has centered around the impact of cultural conflict on deviance and crime. Research in this area is restricted to individual level explanations of behavior. There is, however, another avenue provided by culture conflict theories. This paper describes the contemporary German situation and suggests that shared values and collective morals are no longer the nucleus of stability in modern industrial societies; they have been replaced by a material culture. When large proportions of the population are denied access to this material culture, the potential for a collective reaction increases. Violent behavior is then justified by the assertion that culture or national identities are being defended. Thus, collective reactions might lead to cultural conflicts between groups and go beyond individual violent acts or other types of deviance.     

BEYOND ADOLESCENCE‐LIMITED CRIMINOLOGY: CHOOSING OUR FUTURE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2010 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

For over a half century, criminology has been dominated by a paradigm—adolescence‐limited criminology (ALC)—that has privileged the use of self‐report surveys of adolescents to test sociological theories of criminal behavior and has embraced the view that “nothing works” to control crime. Although ALC has created knowledge, opposed injustice, and advanced scholars’ careers, it has outlived its utility. The time has come for criminologists to choose a different future. Thus, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in life‐course criminology, brings criminologists closer to offenders and to the crime event, prioritizes the organization of knowledge, and produces scientific knowledge that is capable of improving offenders’ lives and reducing crime.     

The Life of an Academic: Examining the Correlates of Job Satisfaction Among Criminology/Criminal Justice Faculty

This research examined job satisfaction among members (N?=?1,057) of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and the Academy of Criminal justice Sciences (ACJS). In particular, the research looked at what factors are related to job satisfaction (enjoyment). We explored substantive personal and professional correlates such as stress, family life, and scholarly productivity. A host of demographic factors including gender, race and income, were also included in the analysis. The multivariate analysis revealed that those criminologists with more journal article publications, and devote more time to family and friends, had high job satisfaction. Conversely, criminologists living in the south had low job satisfaction compared to those living in other parts of the country. The paper ends with a call for the continuing exploration of the personal and professional correlates of job satisfaction among criminologists.     

THE DECLINE OF ELITE HOMICIDE

Criminological research consistently shows that interpersonal homicide is largely confined to low-status people. Yet, anthropological and historical materials reveal that in earlier and simpler societies homicide was found throughout the status hierarchy. Using theory developed by Donald Black, I argue that a critical factor in the decline of lethal conflict among social elites is the increased availability of legal means of handling conflict. An implication is that since a focus on modern societies and their developed legal systems yields a limited and even distorted empirical picture of lethal violence, criminologists should strive to formulate theories that are cross-cultural and historical in scope.     

CHANGING CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS Implications for Criminology Theory

This article examines both traditional and contemporary conceptualizations of professional criminals as viewed by criminologists. Traditionally, criminologists have viewed professional criminals as being involved in full-time, nonviolent. highly skilled specialties. Contemporary conceptualizations stress professional criminals as being no specialized, less skilled, and involved in violent behavior. These conceptual changes reflect an emphasis upon observations rather than theoretical development among criminologists examining professional crime. As long as an observational emphasis persists, theories concerning professional criminals will not progress either rapidly or in an orderly fashion. Changing conceptualizations of professional criminals can be viewed as an example of insufficient theoretical development existing within the discipline.     

FAITH,PUBLIC POLICY,AND THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE*

Recent interest on the part of criminologists in the “faith factor” has made possible a contemporary argument for faith‐based interventions in crime prevention: if faith “works,” then government should support faith‐based initiatives because in doing so, government is not endorsing religion, but science. Drawing on the ideas of Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and others, this essay reviews this argument within the framework of the philosophy of social science. The discussion reviews such concepts of falsification, structural causality, objectivity, and evidence‐based policy making to affirm the place of both faith and science in public life.     

State Crime,the Prophetic Voice and Public Criminology Activism

State crimes are, by far, the most destructive of all crimes. The use and threat to use nuclear weapons, the aerial bombardment of civilians, wars of aggression, torture, the failure to mitigate global warming and adapt to climate change ecocide, along with myriad other state-corporate crimes, fill the world with death and devastation, misery and want. This article argues that criminologists have a responsibility to act as public criminologists by speaking in the “prophetic voice” concerning these crimes and their victims, and then acting in the political arena in an attempt to control and prevent these harms. The paper briefly describes three approaches to engaging in what Belknap (Criminology 53:1–23, 2015) calls “criminology activism” on these issues. The first approach is for criminologists to counter the cultures of denial and normalization that usually cover state crimes. The second involves contesting the global corporate capitalist system and the power of the American capitalist state in an effort to achieve specific progressive policy reforms and structural changes in the global political economy. Finally, criminologists can work to enhance the democratization of the international political community and strengthen the ability of specific international legal institutions to control state crimes.     

The power of oppression: Understanding the history of criminology as a science of oppression

Conclusion Following, or perhaps even being swept away by the propositions and suppositions of science, criminologists have written a rather sanitized, carefree history of the origins of their discipline. This discipline has much to hide, however, and criminologists' strict adherence to principles and claims of ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ have helped hide the unspoken task that is criminology from view. There is a need to excavate the hidden history of criminology from the basement of scientific criminology. This excavation requires the use of tools sensitive to oppression and conflict. Using such tools to recover, rewrite and explain the history of criminology, I have argued that criminology should be (a) interpreted as one of the many ‘sciences of oppression’ that (b) emerged following the Enlightenment (c) whose purpose was to help legitimize and place into practice principles that justified the oppression of the dangerous classes, (d) which had emerged as the primary threat to the ‘rational’ societies based upon capitalist social, economic and political relations. I suspect that this will not be a popular conclusion. The traditions of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. Karl Marx,The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte     

The things a man once saw (and was): an appreciation of Richard Quinney

Richard Quinney ranks among the noted criminologists of the twentieth century, especially among progressives. He is also a photographer of note, drawing on scenes from his native Wisconsin to reflect his deep inner life. Things once seen, published in 2009 by Borderland Books, is a 40‐year retrospective of his photographic work. It is a deeply religious work that celebrates the requirements of life lived by a “radical realism”. In June 2009 Doctor Quinney was presented with the Sullivan–Tifft Vanguard Award at the annual meeting of the Justice Studies Association.     

Queer Contestations and the Future of a Critical “Queer” Criminology

It is intuitive to include critical criminologists in early conversations about “queering” criminology given that the paradigms and methods of critical criminology can be employed to challenge subordination and inequality in its several dimensions. The first part (and main focus) of this article problematizes this intuition, which is easy to accept at face value, by reflecting backwards and explaining how early influential critical criminological views perpetuated damaging stereotypes and representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people as sexual deviants. The second part reflects forward, and discusses the difficulties of carving a space in the discipline for critical queer perspectives. Drawing on critical and critical race theories, this article advocates a relational, intersectional approach to conceptualize sexual orientation and gender identity in criminological theory and research. This approach considers the connections among sexual orientation or gender identity and other differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, gender, etc.) without assuming or attaching fixed meanings to those differences.     

Cultural Criminology and the Politics of Meaning

Cultural criminology focuses on situational, subcultural, and mediated constructions of meaning around issues of crime and crime control. In this sense cultural criminology is designed for critical engagement with the politics of meaning, and for critical intervention into those politics. Yet the broader enterprise of critical criminology engages with the politics of meaning as well; in confronting the power relations of justice and injustice, critical criminologists of all sorts investigate the social and cultural processes by which situations are defined, groups are categorized, and human consequences are understood. The divergence between cultural criminology and other critical criminologies, then, may be defined less by meaning than by the degree of methodological militancy with which meaning is pursued. In any case, this shared concern with the politics of meaning suggests a number of innovations and interventions that cultural criminologists and other critical criminologists might explore.     

A Level Playing Field: Conceptualizing an Empowering Research Framework for Criminologists Who Engage with Marginalized Communities

Some criminologists use empowering research approaches but fail to deliver on their promise to empower marginalized populations. This article explores the origins of such failures, identifies deficit perspectives as the main culprit, and explains how deficit narratives in participatory research advance marginalization processes. Distinguishing key channels of power in research—power of knowledge, power to self-direct, and power of socio-political influence—reveals that (contrary to deficit discourses) marginalized social groups are not powerless, criminologists wield less socio-political influence than frequently suggested, and power in research relationships distributes inconsistently, incongruently, and heterogeneously. To counteract deficit thinking, empowerment is defined from a counter-imperialist perspective. Given that the opposite of imperialism is self-determination and that the concept of empowerment origins in self-determination theory, the latter is used to conceptualize an empowering research framework, which is designed to enhance knowledge of all research parties and meet their need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.     

THE STATE OF CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY*

After nearly 20 years of ferment in criminology, the reactive conception of criminality is the most intractable issue. It can be circumvented only if criminologists use official data to compute crime rates and to identify criminals or delinquents. That proposed strategy does not necessarily entail acceptance of the reactive conception, especially in light of an argument about etiological theories that purport to answer two of the four major criminological questions, those having to do with variation in the crime rate and with individual differences as regards criminality. Any such theory will be empirically indefensible unless it encompasses (1) some etiological condition as the independent variable; (2) the frequency of some type of behavior as an intervening variable; (3) an official criminality variable (for example, an official crime rate); and (4) a reactive variable, one which pertains to the behavior of legal officials and supposedly determines the connection between the intervening variable and the dependent variable. The argument bears on Marxist and conflict criminology only insofar as advocates of those perspectives genuinely pursue etiological theories about crime. Finally, apart from any substantive consideration, criminological theories will remain defective until criminologists adopt formal theory construction. The more general and important point is that some 20 years of ferment will not culminate in a new theory without some special strategy—if not the one proposed here, then another.     

Improving the evaluation of anticrime programs: There’s work to be done

The summary version of the National Research Council’s report, Improving the Evaluation of Anticrime Programs, published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, was accompanied by eight commentaries from distinguished criminology researchers. This paper responds to those thoughtful and provocative commentaries by further discussing the two broad questions that they raised: What anticrime programs should be evaluated and what methods should be used to evaluate them. The main themes of this response are that (a) evaluation is needed for the programs, practices, and policies in actual use, not only those developed by criminologists; (b) programs developed and tested by criminologists are more likely to be used if they build on existing programs and give as much attention to “implementability” as to theory; and (c) evaluation of practices, policies, and area-wide programs will be limited unless credible applications of observational and quasi-experimental methods can be developed.

ADHD and criminality: A primer on the genetic, neurobiological, evolutionary, and treatment literature for criminologists

Objective

This state of the art review of 102 studies is a primer on ADHD and its major comorbidities for criminologists unfamiliar with the genetic, neurobiological, and evolutionary literatures.

Materials and methods

Neurological, genetic, medical, and criminal justice data bases were keyword searched for articles on ADHD and/or articles using ADHD as a major independent variable.

Results

ADHD is a disorder that is closely connected to externalizing behaviors, conduct problems, and criminal behavior across the life course.

Conclusions

To date, ADHD research has been carried out primarily by biomedical researchers and de-emphasized by criminologists whose training is overwhelmingly in the social sciences. The special expertise of criminologists in uncovering environmental correlates of antisocial behavior can benefit biomedical researchers who in turn can assist criminologists in uncovering the individual-level correlates of antisocial behavior.     

Consequences of mental and physical health for reentry and recidivism: Toward a health‐based model of desistance*

During the last few decades, criminologists have identified several adult roles and statuses, including employment, positive family relations, and economic stability, as critical for promoting successful reintegration and desistance. Very few researchers, however, have investigated the conditions that serve to bring about these transitions and successes crucial for behavior change. As a complement to a burgeoning amount of literature on the impact of incarceration on health, we emphasize the reverse: Health has important implications for reentry outcomes and reincarceration. Informed by multiple disciplines, we advance a health‐based model of desistance in which both mental and physical dimensions of health affect life chances in the employment and family realms and ultimately recidivism. Investigating this issue with longitudinal data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) and structural equation models, we find overall support for the health‐based model of desistance. Our results indicate several significant pathways through which both manifestations of health influence employment, family conflict, financial problems, and crime and reincarceration. The findings highlight the need for implementation of correctional and transitional policies to improve health among the incarcerated and avert health‐related reentry failures.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cultural Criminology: An Invitation</Emphasis>… to What?

Since the mid 1990s, a strand of criminology emerged that is concerned with the co-constitution of crime and culture under the general rubric of ‘cultural criminology’. In the titles Cultural Criminology Unleashed and Cultural Criminology: An Invitation, criminologists spearheading this brand of criminology make claims for its originality and its status as a subversive alternative to conventional criminological approaches to studies of crime and deviance. The basis for the ‘new’ cultural criminology is its ostensible ability to account for the culture and subcultures of crime, the criminalization of cultural and subcultural activities, and the politics of criminalization. This paper offers a comparison of cultural criminology to 1960s and 1970s labeling theory to assess whether or not cultural criminology has developed a grammar of critique capable of resolving fundamental contradictions that haunt critical criminology and contesting contemporary administrative criminology. Points of comparison are made through ontological categories of power and criminal identity and a consideration of the epistemological categories of the respective bodies of literature.     

FAMILY RELATIONS AND DELINQUENCY IN ISRAEL

Several theoretical approaches (e.g., psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, and social-disorganization) have led criminologists to the belief that harmony in family life prevents delinquency, while disharmony promotes it. Moreover, several studies suggested that there is interaction between the functioning of the family and social class as causes of delinquency. The present study of 414 Israeli adolescents reveals neither interaction between family relationships and social class, nor any substantive main effect, suggesting that (1) Israel's social conditions render the family a relatively less important role as a crimogenic agent, and (2) that family life has previously been idealized. and their role exaggerated due to the theoreticians’ value bias     

TOWARD THE DIFFERENTIATION OF HIGH‐CONFLICT FAMILIES: AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND CANADIAN CASE LAW

Social science research and the courts have begun to recognize the special challenges posed by “high‐conflict” separations for children and the justice system. The use of “high conflict” terminology by social science researchers and the courts has increased dramatically over the past decade. This is an important development, but the term is often used vaguely and to characterize very different types of cases. An analysis of Canadian case law reveals that some judges are starting to differentiate between various degrees and types of high conflict. Often this judicial differentiation is implicit and occurs without full articulation of the factors that are taken into account in applying different remedies. There is a need for the development of more refined, explicit analytical concepts for the identification and differentiation of various types of high conflict cases. Empirically driven social science research can assist mental health professionals, lawyers and the courts in better understanding these cases and providing the most appropriate interventions. As a tentative scheme for differentiating cases, we propose distinguishing between high conflict cases where there is: (1) poor communication; (2) domestic violence; and (3) alienation. Further, there must be a differentiation between cases where one parent is a primary instigator for the conflict or abuse, and those where both parents bear significant responsibility.