Book Review: Queer Criminology
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20662203231180006 |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Review
European Journal of Probation
2023, Vol. 15(2) 162–164
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/20662203231180006
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Book Review
CarrieL. Buist and Emily Lenning (2015) QueerCriminology (2nd edition).New York: Routledge,211 p.
Reviewed by: Aurore Vanliefde, PhD Fellow at the Leuven Institute of Criminology, KU Leuven, Funded
by the FWO (Research Foundation, Flanders)
The second and updated edition of ‘Queer Criminology’by Carrie L. Buist and Emily
Lenning is an accessible and stimulating read for anyone interested in the rapidly growing
field of queer criminology. This subdiscipline of criminology specifically addresses the
personal experiences and structural processes of stigmatisation, exclusion and crimi-
nalisation of queer (LGBTQ+) people within the criminal legal system. This body of
knowledge has substantially grown since the book’sfirst edition in 2016, reflecting the
increasing academic and societal interest in this subfield of criminology.
Despite the broad title of the book, ‘Queer Criminology’doesn’t extensively address
the complex but fundamental definition discussions which often animate queer theory.
Instead, Buist and Lenning present a set of working definitions of queerness, sexual
orientation and gender identity (Gonzalez-Salzberg, 2017, 97). This approach benefits
their aim of introducing a range of topics within queer criminology, guiding the reader
thematically through a thorough overview of international empirical findings. There lies
the strength of the book and the coherency in its approach: it is rooted in the experiences of
queer people with the criminal legal system, leading the authors to address definition
difficulties in a pragmatic way that supports the discussion of the empirical work.
The book provides an excellent introduction to the field of queer criminology and is
accessible to students, practitioners and academics from diverse disciplines (criminology,
law, gender studies and critical, queer or feminist theory applied to issues of the criminal
legal system). Readers already familiar with queer theory may nevertheless feel unsatiated
in their hunger for theoretical and complex epistemological discussions on the inter-
sections between queer theory and criminology. The authors are well aware of this, and
skilfully refer the interested reader to existing literature which actively reflects on these
fundamental and challenging questions (such as Ball, 2014a,2014b,2016;Dwyer et al.,
2016;Woods, 2014).
Although the discussed academic literature is not limited to one specific region, the
book’s main focus is on the United States. This is not surprising, knowing that the
overwhelming majority of queer criminological academic work is US-, UK- or Australia-
based. Nevertheless, the authors also include international findings from other countries
when available (and more so than in the book’sfirst edition). These are sometimes limited
to anecdotal findings and could significantly benefit from more contextual framing,
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