NCJ Number
182808
Journal
Current Issues in Criminal Justice Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2000 Pages: 327-336
Date Published
March 2000
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This paper argues for the importance of developing genres of criminological critique that continually explore possible alternatives to current explanations of and attempts to solve the "crime problem."
Abstract
Critical voices are currently muted (at least relative to debates in 1970's criminology), partially because critics have not focused on that which distinguishes radical from correctionalist discourses in criminology. Barak rightly notes that the word "critical" no longer has a specific meaning within "critical criminology," other than the generic convenience of providing organizational and social identity for its adherents. The distinguishing feature of radical criminology has thus lost its terms of references, allowing critical discourses to drift ever closer to administrative discourses that focus on solving the crime problem. Radical thinking in criminology has been compromised by failing to analyze the plight of critique in current knowledge-producing arenas. This paper explores genres of critique that refuse to claim knowledge, either on the basis of universal emancipation or technical efficiency. Such genres can be recovered from a particular spirit of radical criminology (especially in the 1970's) and its search of possible alternatives by pointing to paradoxes and contradictions in established ways of doing things. 50 references