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Book review: Peter Billings (ed.), Crimmigration in Australia: Law, Politics and Society

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 May 2021
DOI10.1177/1362480620969996
AuthorLeanne Weber
Published date01 May 2021
Subject MatterBook reviews
/tmp/tmp-17kcjFi4lsTd75/input Book reviews
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abolished, they are often inspired to advocate for large scale social reforms aimed at
reducing capitalist exploitation of the poor and working classes. Mooney examines the
anarchist roots of critical criminology, drawing through-lines from Emma Goldman in
the early 20th century to early 21st-century scholars such as Jock Young and others.
While mainstream criminology might want to tinker around the edges of incarceration in
order to measure deterrent effect of imprisonment, critical criminologists remain com-
mitted to “instigating structural change” in the economic order because, based on the
economic criminogenic conditions “sitting on the sidelines” is unthinkable (p. 313).
Mooney concludes her exploration of criminological theory by exposing new avenues
for needed development for theory and advocacy: cultural criminology, southern crimi-
nology, green criminology, and queer criminology. The heretofore unacknowledged tra-
ditions of criminology are to be politically engaged and to bring the wisdom of our
research to the improvement of the world in which we live. I concur: to do less is to leave
the lessons on the proverbial shelf, to have wasted our time developing this discipline, or
worse yet, to have become complicit in perpetuating intersecting oppressions. Despite
consistent resistance over time, disembodied mainstream criminology developed as an
apparatus of power. For those of us who routinely excavate and expose the roots of
power, how it is defined, exercised, and resisted, Mooney’s book is a treasure trove of
criminological history. Criminology did not have to become an apparatus of power, and
with awareness and this insightful historical lens, it may yet overcome that association.
References
Cook KJ (2016) Has criminology awakened from its “androcentric slumber”? Feminist Criminology
11(4): 334–353.
Wilkerson I (2020) Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. New York: Random House.
Peter Billings (ed.), Crimmigration in...

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