Criminology – Missing in action
| Author | Mark Halsey,Andrew Goldsmith |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865817727238 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
Criminology – Missing in action
2017, Vol. 50(4) 471–472
! The Author(s) 2017
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Andrew Goldsmith and Mark Halsey
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Flinders University, Australia
DOI: 10.1177/0004865817727238
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One of the tasks of an editor of a journal such as this one is to attend criminology
conferences in order to listen to papers by persons working in the field, in part to
monitor what is going on research-wise but also to seek out interesting papers and
persuade their authors to submit them to the journal. One of us (AG) has recently
returned from the British Criminology Conference in Sheffield, UK, where many
papers were offered across a range of areas over the three days of the event. Many of
the papers were indeed interesting and well presented. As is customary, the papers were
organised thematically and based upon the abstracts submitted by those accepted to
present.
What was striking however about this and some other criminology conferences we
have attended in recent years was that a reader of the conference program would have
searched in vain for conference papers that connected in any obvious or useful way with
issues that have been very much in the public eye in recent times and even, in a few
instances, the past few years. It at times seems as if many criminological researchers
never read the newspapers or listen to the news; that what they diligently research con-
tinues unabated and apparently impervious to issues going on around them and that are
fuelling public concerns and political responses. The London Borough Market attack
had occurred in the month prior to the Sheffield conference, the latest in a string of
extremist attacks in England, yet one searched the program in vain for papers that might
add insight into the activities or motivations of such attackers.
Similarly, on 3 July, just a week before the conference, the BBC aired a documentary,
The...
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