Critical Criminology in Canada

Canada’s criminal justice landscape has been shaped by contrary trends in recent years. As the crime rate declines, policy-makers continue to push for tough-on-crime legislation, and university criminology programs continue to expand. Given this context, what does the future hold for criminal justice and criminology in the twenty-first century? To answer this question, this book presents the work of a new generation of researchers and thinkers in critical criminology. The authors examine the place of criminology in English and French Canada, the politics and ethics of criminal justice and criminology in a conservative climate, and the role of professors in ever-expanding criminology programs. Breaking away from mainstream criminology and popular law-and-order discourses, the authors offer a spectrum of approaches to criminological theory – from work influenced by Michel Foucault to feminist criminology, from critical realism to anarchism – and they propose novel approaches to topics such as activism, genocide, white-collar crime, and the effects of prison sentences on families. By posing crucial questions for a new generation and attempting to define what criminology should be, Critical Criminology in Canada: New Voices, New Directions will shape debates about policing, crime, and punishment for years to come.