Rod Earle
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447323648
- eISBN:
- 9781447323662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447323648.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This chapter sets out the emergence of convict criminology in the USA through a discussion of the life and work of John Irwin. It traces Irwin’s progression from prisoner to professor via Soledad ...
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This chapter sets out the emergence of convict criminology in the USA through a discussion of the life and work of John Irwin. It traces Irwin’s progression from prisoner to professor via Soledad Prison and the University of California, Los Angeles. His subsequent academic work on prisons, with prisoners and contributions to prison reform provide the archetype for convict criminology. Irwin’s trajectory after completing his five-year sentence for robbing a petrol station as a teenager is compared to that of black power activist George Jackson’s for a similar youthful offence. Jackson was controversially killed in prison in 1971. The central position of race in the USA’s penal politics is emphasised through this and the ensuing discussion of the US convict criminology group. The published work of members of this group are critically discussed, as are their wider contributions to criminology in the USA.Less
This chapter sets out the emergence of convict criminology in the USA through a discussion of the life and work of John Irwin. It traces Irwin’s progression from prisoner to professor via Soledad Prison and the University of California, Los Angeles. His subsequent academic work on prisons, with prisoners and contributions to prison reform provide the archetype for convict criminology. Irwin’s trajectory after completing his five-year sentence for robbing a petrol station as a teenager is compared to that of black power activist George Jackson’s for a similar youthful offence. Jackson was controversially killed in prison in 1971. The central position of race in the USA’s penal politics is emphasised through this and the ensuing discussion of the US convict criminology group. The published work of members of this group are critically discussed, as are their wider contributions to criminology in the USA.
Rod Earle
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447323648
- eISBN:
- 9781447323662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447323648.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
The final chapter draws from George Orwell’s reflections on England and Imperialism to reflect on the state of contemporary criminology and struggles for social justice in the increasingly fragile ...
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The final chapter draws from George Orwell’s reflections on England and Imperialism to reflect on the state of contemporary criminology and struggles for social justice in the increasingly fragile and fractious entity known as the United Kingdom. The potential of convict criminology to develop and make critical contributions to both, forms the substance of this summary discussion. Focussing on the recent emergence of convict criminology in the UK, the author traces some of the contours of what it might become, and looks forward to some of the paths it might take.Less
The final chapter draws from George Orwell’s reflections on England and Imperialism to reflect on the state of contemporary criminology and struggles for social justice in the increasingly fragile and fractious entity known as the United Kingdom. The potential of convict criminology to develop and make critical contributions to both, forms the substance of this summary discussion. Focussing on the recent emergence of convict criminology in the UK, the author traces some of the contours of what it might become, and looks forward to some of the paths it might take.
Rod Earle
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447323648
- eISBN:
- 9781447323662
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447323648.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
Convict criminology is the study of criminology by those who have first-hand experience of imprisonment. This is the first single-authored account of this unusual perspective. It begins with an ...
More
Convict criminology is the study of criminology by those who have first-hand experience of imprisonment. This is the first single-authored account of this unusual perspective. It begins with an overview of the idea that direct experience of incarceration furnishes a criminologist with distinctive resources to analyse and critique ideas about crime, punishment, law and order. The book goes on to critically evaluate the emergence of the perspective within the USA. Key figures, such as Frank Tannenbaum and John Irwin, are identified, and their particular contributions to criminology are discussed before the accounts move across the Atlantic to Europe. The Russian anarchist theorist, Peter Kropotkin, is identified as the first ‘convict criminologist’ on the basis of his 19th century study of French and Russian prisons that combined his own experiences of incarceration with extensive empirical studies. The author, by drawing on his own experience of imprisonment in the early 1980s, demonstrates how such experience can be developed academically to widen the horizons of criminology. Taking inspiration from feminist intersectional scholarship his account foregrounds gender, race, colonialism and class as central features of men’s penal experience. The reflexive autobiographical style of the book offers methodological insights, creative theoretical synthesis and a compelling narrative.Less
Convict criminology is the study of criminology by those who have first-hand experience of imprisonment. This is the first single-authored account of this unusual perspective. It begins with an overview of the idea that direct experience of incarceration furnishes a criminologist with distinctive resources to analyse and critique ideas about crime, punishment, law and order. The book goes on to critically evaluate the emergence of the perspective within the USA. Key figures, such as Frank Tannenbaum and John Irwin, are identified, and their particular contributions to criminology are discussed before the accounts move across the Atlantic to Europe. The Russian anarchist theorist, Peter Kropotkin, is identified as the first ‘convict criminologist’ on the basis of his 19th century study of French and Russian prisons that combined his own experiences of incarceration with extensive empirical studies. The author, by drawing on his own experience of imprisonment in the early 1980s, demonstrates how such experience can be developed academically to widen the horizons of criminology. Taking inspiration from feminist intersectional scholarship his account foregrounds gender, race, colonialism and class as central features of men’s penal experience. The reflexive autobiographical style of the book offers methodological insights, creative theoretical synthesis and a compelling narrative.
