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Introducing the New School of Convict Criminology

Richards and Ross introduce a “convict criminology” as an emerging school and social movement concerned with the humanitarian reform of criminal justice. The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the Western world. If legislators, practitioners, researchers, and scholars are serious about addressing the corrections crisis, we must be more honest and creative with respect to the research we conduct and the policies we advocate, implement, and evaluate. This essay reviews the theoretical and historical grounding, current initiatives, and dominant themes of this emerging school of convict criminology as a social movement. Covered are our interrelated movements, factors, and methodologies that led to the birth of convict criminology: theoretical developments in criminology, the failure of prisons, the authenticity of insider perspectives, and the centrality of ethnography.

prison, prison theory, criminal justice, criminology, prisoners, prisons — United States

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 28, No. 1 (2001): 177-190