Against marginality

Abstract

Despite its accumulated theoretical and empirical heft, the discipline of criminology has had distressingly little impact on the course of public policy toward crime and criminal justice. This article addresses the sources of that troubling marginality, with special emphasis on the powerful disincentives to greater public impact that operate within the discipline itself and the research universities that mainly house it-including the pressure to publish ever more narrow research in peer-reviewed journals at the expense of efforts at synthesis and dissemination that could serve to educate a broader public. Achieving a greater voice in the world outside the discipline will require a concerted move toward a more explicitly public criminology, and seeing to it that the work of such a criminology is more reliably supported and rewarded within the universities and the profession as a whole.

Potential Partnerships: Progressive Criminology, Grassroots Organizations and Social Justice

“…Indeed, we can expect a backfiring of our stated efforts and, in short, we are falling down on the job. (Belknap 2015: 2) We find this and similar arguments compelling (see also Currie 2007; Uggen and Inderbitzin 2010). And we see working more closely with social justice organizations -which are protesting the same subjects many of us teach and write about -as one way for progressive criminology to engage with the important changes that need to be made.…”

‘I'm Making a TV Programme Here!’: Reality TV'SBanged Upand Public Criminology

“…The latter part of this article has looked at some of the reaction to the series and seeks to generate still more. In particular we have suggested that while we accept that reality TV might be a very mixed blessing and may not be the ideal vehicle for Barak's ‘newsmaking’ criminology, we nonetheless believe that in doing our criminology in public – the wider and now narrower academic public (see Currie 2007) – we have, at least forwarded a ‘viewsmaking’ criminology. By this we mean that Banged Up stimulated a lively debate about prison and young offenders and in doing so created an audience for some broader, less‐easily accessible criminological ideas that are not normally found within the media.…”

On the Road: The Challenges and Benefits of Agency Research

“…However, this approach does not always resonate with practitioners who tend to value research that is discussed in a straightforward manner and provides meaningful and practical implications (Bolton & Stolcis, 2003). Failing to address the "so what" question when presenting research findings can limit their impact as audiences may fail to appreciate the value of the results (Currie, 2007).…”

“…Junior faculty might feel quite apprehensive at undertaking work that can impact practice, but may dampen their efforts toward obtaining tenure. They might feel the pressure to publish in journals that have a high impact factor rather than practitioner bulletins that are routinely read and valued by individuals working in the field (Austin, 2003;Currie, 2007;Pesta et al, 2019).…”