Paul Takagi

A Garrison State in “Democratic” Society Paul Takagi’s “A Garrison State in ‘Democratic’ Society” (1974) locates his groundbreaking exposé of police violence against black men in the control of “surplus labor” and the rise of new forms of domestic counterinsurgency. police killings of civilians Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, Nos. 1-2 (2013): 118-130

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Herman Schwendinger and Julia Schwendinger

Defenders of Order or Guardians of Human Rights? Originally published in 1970, this path-breaking essay challenged criminology’s dominant managerial paradigm and called for a break with positivist, technocratic definitions of “crime.” definition of crime, human rights Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, Nos. 1-2 (2013): 87-117

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David Stein

A Spectre Is Haunting Law and Society: Revisiting Radical Criminology at UC Berkeley David Stein, an anti-prison activist, provides a detailed account of the syllabus (including readings and bibliography) of a seminar on Radical Criminology at UC Berkeley, which was attended by Berkeley law students and graduate students in Justice Studies at San Jose State […]

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Tony Platt and Cecilia O’Leary, interviewers

Two Interviews with Ericka Huggins Ericka Huggins, an important leader of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and ongoing activist for nonviolent reconciliation, is interviewed about her political development, assessment of 1970s struggles, and views on the prison system. Also included is a conversation with historian Cecilia O’Leary about how she would like the BPP to […]

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Tony Platt, interviewer

Interview with Angela Davis Interview with Angela Davis on the prison movement, political prisoners, women prisoners, reflections on her political past and her ongoing activism with Critical Resistance, a US-based anti-prison organization. interview, Angela Davis Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, Nos. 1-2 (2013): 37-53

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Dario Melossi

1977, Bologna to San Francisco Melossi, a leading figure in radical criminology in Europe, reflects on his time in California in the late 1970s, his work with the editorial collective of Social Justice (then known as Crime and Social Justice), and the Marxist tradition in penal history, to which he has made significant contributions. history […]

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Alessandro De Giorgi

Reform or Revolution: Thoughts on Liberal and Radical Criminologies De Giorgi argues in this essay that despite political affinities and a shared critique of “mass imprisonment,” significant theoretical and strategic differences between liberal and radical perspectives persist. mass imprisonment Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, Nos. 1-2 (2013): 24-31

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Jonathan Simon

A Radical Need for Criminology Simon seeks to “recover some pure strains of the left-liberal criminology of the 1970s,” inviting a reconsideration of the Black Panther Party’s program for self-defense and Susan Griffin’s important essay on “Rape: The All American Crime.” He calls for a regeneration of the criminological imagination and new forms of radical […]

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Susanne Jonas and June Nash

Renaissance Woman: Appreciations of Helen Safa Commemoration of the life and work of scholar-activist Helen Safa after her death in November 2013. pioneering scholarship, Latin American Studies Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, No. 4 (2013): 137-139

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Margaret Randall

Cuban Postcards Author Margaret Randall describes developments in Cuba through her artistic lens using photographs and words. Her intimate knowledge of the country and its struggles give the essay its poinancy and power. Cuba, artists Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, No. 4 (2013): 118-136

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Karen Musalo & Blaine Bookey

Crimes without Punishment: An Update on Violence against Women and Impunity in Guatemala The authors provide an overview of the prevalence and patterns of violence against women in Guatemala, which has one of the highest rates of femicide, or gender-motivated killing of women, in the world. They examine barriers to effective implementation of the laws […]

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Trudie Coker

Dimensions of Democracy in Contemporary Venezuela The heated debate over whether Venezuela is democratic or authoritarian hinges on the various conceptualizations of democracy that are used. Arguments that Venezuela is authoritarian tend to assume that neoliberalism is an essential component of democracy. However, when neoliberalism is detached from this logic, the essence of democracy as […]

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Margarita López Maya

Venezuela: The Political Crisis of Post-Chavismo In the context of the death of Hugo Chávez and the election of Nicolás Maduro, this article describes some of the main causes and features of the political crisis developing today in Venezuela. It shows the continuities and differences of the Chávez era in regard to the previous years […]

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Job Hernández Rodríguez

Mexico: Economic Change without Democracy The article analyses the way in which ceaseless capitalist modernization established the bases for building the legitimacy of bourgeois domination in Mexico during the twentieth century. It explains how the strategy of accelerated modernization ultimately required a controlled reform of the state, directed from above, which was carried out to […]

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Juan Fal

Argentina’s Model of Accumulation: Twenty Years of Ruptures and Continuities Responding to current debates about the nature of Argentina’s economic model, this article analyzes the ruptures and continuities in the country’s model of accumulation and power bloc since the 1990s. The author argues that changes facilitated by the devaluation of Argentina’s currency in 2002 benefited […]

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Pablo Cuevas Valdés and Teresa Rojas Martini

The Neoliberal Chilean Process Four Decades after the Coup The authors argue that in Chile, the process of changing from an economic model based on industrial production to one oriented toward exports of specialized products ruptured the mechanisms of political legitimacy linked to the former. At first, this rupture took the form of violent authoritarianism […]

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