Doing Public Criminology with the Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector: Methodological Reflections and Considerations
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12331 |
| Author | SAMANTHA McALEESE |
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 3. September 2019 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12331
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 366–383
Doing Public Criminology with the
Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector:
Methodological Reflections and
Considerations
SAMANTHA McALEESE
PhD Candidate, Sociology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Abstract: Criminological literature outlines various roles for public criminologists and
reflects on both the form and purpose of public criminology. This article reviews this lit-
erature and considers institutional and political activist ethnography as methods through
which criminologists can address critique, and better combine social justice research and
advocacy work. Such methodological considerations demonstrate that, for some, ‘doing’
public criminology means actively engaging in advocacy work alongside research partic-
ipants and other activists. Examples and reflections from the author’s own work with the
criminal justice voluntary sector (CJVS) in Canada demonstrate that a public criminol-
ogy informed by institutional and political activist ethnography is especially important if
we want to: (i) better understand the role of the sector in supporting people with criminal
records; and (ii) strengthen the relationship between academics, policymakers, advocates,
practitioners, and people with lived experience of criminalisation and punishment.
Keywords: advocacy; criminal justice voluntary sector (CJVS); institutional
ethnography; political activist ethnography; public criminology
Asking ‘what is criminology?’ is a favoured pastime among criminologists,
other social scientists, practitioners, and people outside of the academy
interested in issues like crime and punishment (Liebling 2011, p.519).
This question, apart from being used as an icebreaker in most introduc-
tory courses, gives criminologists an opportunity to situate themselves,
and their epistemological and ontological orientations, within disciplinary
boundaries. In an edited volume by the same name, Bosworth and Hoyle
(2011) highlight efforts among criminologists to maintain the relevance
of their work. The contributions demonstrate the plurality of theories,
methodologies, and motivations that comprise the criminological approach
to social problems internationally, but also speak to the ongoing domina-
tion of administrative, or mainstream, criminology that often takes priority
over more critical, qualitative, and feminist approaches to researching the
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2019 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 3. September 2019
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 366–383
complex issues of criminalisation, victimisation, and punishment. Ques-
tions and considerations about the purpose and form of criminological
research are important, particularly among those contributing to newer
and burgeoning areas in the field – such as literature on the criminal
justice voluntary sector (CJVS) (Hucklesby and Corcoran 2016; Maguire
2012; Tomczak 2014, 2017b; Tomczak and Buck 2019).
While ‘[c]riminology is booming’ (Bosworth and Hoyle 2011, p.1) within
the university through professional associations, international conferences,
and specialised journals (Chancer and McLaughlin 2007), many share a
concern that criminology,especially in its more critical forms, is losing cred-
ibility in the public realm (Currie 2007; Doyle and Moore 2011; Hannah-
Moffat 2011; Loader and Sparks 2011; Uggen and Inderbitzin 2010):
[T]oo often our work has been ignored in the making of policy,even when we have
accumulated a formidable body of evidence that could make a strong case for or
against certain kinds of action or intervention. (Currie 2007, p.177)
Because of this perceived exclusion from public conversations,1political
processes, and social movements, many criminologists are striving to be-
come more ‘useful in the pursuit of social justice’ (Richie 2011, p.215) in
addition to maintaining the relevance of the discipline.
In efforts to revive criminology, some have called for a break from
‘administrative criminology, which is typically positivistic in language and
method’ (Kilty, Felices-Luna and Fabian 2014a, p.5) to embrace a crim-
inology that is sometimes described as more messy (Bosworth and Hoyle
2011; Lumsden and Goode 2018; Mopas and Moore 2012; Munn 2014).
This messiness involves letting go of disciplinary boundaries (Braithwaite
2011) and, instead, working alongside ‘a broad rainbow of academics who
research, question, and challenge current criminal justice institutions and
practices’ (Doyle and Moore 2011, p.4). Getting messy also means ‘[formu-
lating] questions that are not necessarily in line with institutional agendas’
(Hannah-Moffat 2011, p.448) and adopting research methods that are
more collaborative and innovative. For some criminologists, this shift in
the approach to, and the purpose of, criminological research means being
more engaged, more involved, or more political and they insist that ‘we
must have a greater public presence if we are to have any impact on the
socio-political landscape of crime control’ (Mopas and Moore 2012, p.184)
and other social issues. Overall, calls for a public criminology create space
for a more pluralistic notion of the role of criminologists and their research
(Loader and Sparks 2010) both inside and outside of the academy.
The idea of ‘doing’ public criminology is certainly not something new,
but critiques within the literature (Carrier 2014; Cr´
epault 2017; Nelund
2014; Pich´
e 2015a; Turner 2013) indicate a need for reflection and new
considerations. In this article, I briefly review the literature on public crim-
inology, along with critiques of it, and consider institutional ethnography
(D.E. Smith 2005) and political activist ethnography (G.W. Smith 2006) as
methods through which criminologists can respond to critics and better
combine their research projects with their advocacy work. These method-
ological reflections, which have been essential in my own work on, and
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2019 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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