CONVICT CRIMINOLOGY


About Us

In the late 1990’s, Convict Criminology emerged when ex-convict professors of criminology and criminal justice began sharing their frustration with the misrepresentations and poor science they found in their academic disciplines. Having personally experienced arrest, conviction, and confinement in jail and prisons, they felt that many academic publications about the criminal justice system were flawed, ideal type discussions, and thinly veiled administrative mythology.

The ex-convict professors found many corrections textbooks portraying a prison system that does not exist. For example, reading many of the books commonly used in introductory courses on prisons, students might actually think that prisoners have their choice of excellent vocational and educational programs. The ex-convict professors’ frustrations grew as they attended American Society of Criminology and Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences annual meetings.

Convict Criminology

In brief, Convict Criminology challenges the present understanding of crime and its control; how the problem of crime is defined, solutions proposed, and the devastating impacts of those decisions on the men and women “labeled” criminals. As ex-convicts we know that the record high rates of incarceration in the USA, the overcrowding of penal institutions, and lack of meaningful programming inside and outside of prison, is systematically producing a felony class. The numbers of displaced persons grows because of the structural impediments to successful re-entry, the revolving door criminal justice system, forcing the recycling of millions of men and women. Separated from their loved ones for many years, prevented from reintegrating into the community, they emerge from prison broken and destitute.

Convict Criminology provides for a more informed empirical perspective, informed by the experiences of the people processed through the criminal justice machinery. We use ethnography and qualitative research methodologies to give a voice to defendants and prisoners. This provides an opportunity to describe the circumstances and conditions of those so labeled, and the difficulty and complexity of incarceration, parole, prison, re-entry and reintegration. We allow felons the opportunity to explain and complain about the social discriminations and exclusions they are confronted with daily.

Convict Criminology also analyzes the failed social policies that continue to be practiced and still dominate the criminal justice debate at the state and federal level. For those of us who have been imprisoned, we know only all to well, the devastating impact these policies and practice have on us, our families, and entire communities.

Convict Criminology works to establish a research structure to identify, evaluate, and analyze criminal justice issues, and develop information for discussion, publication, and implementation from an insider’s perspective.

If you would like to know more about Convict Criminology Contact us for more information.