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Convict Criminology (Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice Series)

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As part of the Wadsworth Series on Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice, this edited volume attempts to go beyond the coverage of typical classroom texts. The contributors, many of whom are ex-convicts-turned academics, are critical of assumptions used to justify incarceration, their central difficulty being with the way prisons dehumanise. This volume critically examines the prison institution from the perspective of the `other.'

Part 1, "What's Wrong with Corrections," sets the stage in three chapters. Austin argues that the current criminological research focus, much of which is misinterpreted, on predators, persisters or the truly dangerous, has resulted in the uncritical acceptance of incarceration as the solution. According to Ross, misrepresentations and stereotyping are the consequence of uncritically accepting of the media's take on corrections and reinforce existing crime-control practices, preventing discussions of alternative ways of doing crime control. Fisher-Giorlando reminds us that criminologists' successes, including her own, rests on the lives of men and women prisoners and that we owe it to them to devise and implement relevant policy.

Part 2, in six chapters, sets out "Convict Experience and Identity." Tromanhauser and Terry discuss the current state of conventional criminological research. Using his own life as an example, Tromanhauser reminds us that there is no simple explanation of crime causation. Terry concurs with Tromanhauser, adding that most criminological research is dominated by factor analysis and multivariate correlations' having little relevance with people's real life situations. Richards and Newbold discuss the state of social support for convicts. While Richards points out that corrections workers, more often than not, fail to interact with convicts in any meaningful or relevant fashion, Newbold argues that recidivism rates are high because many have no outside social support and reincarceration often occurs for breech of parole conditions. Thus, Newbold adds, life inside becomes easier because people learn how to adjust to life in prison. Lanier and Jones deal with adjustment to life inside and outside the prison walls. While Lanier points out that the increasing number of fathers in prison has negative psychological impacts due to their having long-term consequences for their institutional adjustment, Jones argues that adjustment back into society is subject to inmates' interpretations of past events and their current problem-solving skills. How prisoners face these challenges, Jones points out, can tell us a lot about what might be done to help them. The final chapter in Part 2 (by Mobley) argues that a fiscally responsible penology may mean better prisons may look completely different from prisons as we know them now. But Mobley, as an ex-convict, points out that suggestions made by him and his fellow convict criminologists face resistance from both convict and academic communities because the suggestions come from ex-convicts.

The final six chapters (Part 3), a somewhat eclectic collection, are about "Special Populations"-women, the physically and mentally ill, American Indians and juveniles. wen argues that we need to understand women's experiences from their point of view, conceptualising their behaviour as expressions of oppressive social contexts both outside and inside prison walls. On the issue of caring for the physically ill, Murphy suggests that overshadowing health care with security concerns poses danger to the inmate population and ultimately the community-at-large in terms of fiscal and resource burn-out. Arrigo points out that mental health offenders are effectively silenced because they are the subjects of transcarceration between mental hospitals and prisons. Thus alternative (more positive) interpretations/labels of their behaviours are effectively negated. The legal label `Indian' has social implications in terms of access to both constitutional rights and relevant institutional programming inside which has implications for preventing recidivism, according to Archambault. Tregea, a little off topic, deals with preventing recidivism, arguing for relevant programming that enhance inmates' chances for productive citizenry. In addition to vocational skills, quality educational programs that teach writing, oral, critical thinking and problem solving skills are needed. He further argues for both sentencing and recidivism guidelines to reduce the prison population in the long run. When examining how juveniles understand their carceral experience, Elrod and Brooks assert that the official version of the institution is a sanitised and at best, simplified version of realities experienced by those who live there, and that many juveniles do not see the point of much of what goes on inside.

The concluding chapter (Richards and Ross) invites readers to think about listening to the clientele of prisons so as to make relevant prison policy that may have a better chance of reducing the prison population in the long run.

Despite a few editorial errors, the no-nonsense writing style of some of the contributors may be unpalatable for some. The shifting levels of analysis among section chapters make this volume odd and eclectic in ways. However, this volume represents a significant and valuable contribution to the field of criminology making a strong argument for qualitative research in prisons. This volume offers a view of the prison institution and its effects, from the point of view of its clientele-the inmates- and is appropriate for senior undergraduates and criminal justice policy makers and administrators.

In the United States there is a tendency to reduce human life to numbers, and base social policy on statistical analyses. The problem with this approach is that it can undermine important historical lessons, and, as Charles M. Terry points out, strength is gained by recollecting the past.

Convict Criminology presents a strong historical lesson on our failure to understand the real-life situations of a large segment of our population-the incarcerated. This failure may explain why we have grown comfortable with practice of demonizing and warehousing so many members of our society. Yet, as suggested in Convict Criminology there is probably less than six degrees of separation between those of us who have not been detected by the criminal justice system and warehoused for our deviant acts and those of us who have.

Unlike most empathetic commentators on the state of corrections in the United States, the collective writings contained in Convict Criminology convey a commitment to bringing about needed change within our correctional system in the short run; and improvement within our society in the long run. The commitment to social change conveyed in the book may seem ironic, given the fact that most of the writers are ex-cons who have experienced the brutality of our attempts to "correct" deviant behavior. What these writers demonstrate, however, is that kindness, compassion, and validation are, in fact, our strongest weapons against crime

RICHARDS AND ROSS EDIT A FASCINATING WORK ON THE LIVES AND OBSERVATIONS OF VARIOUS SCHOLARS WITH DIRECT EXPERIENCE IN THE PENAL SYSTEM. THIS EASILY DIGESTIBLE BOOK SERVES AS AN EXCELLENT REFERENCE WORK ON VARIOUS ASPECTS OF CRIMINOLGY, AND IS RECOMMENDED BOTH GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. THE BOOK FEATURES 9 CHAPTERS BY EX-COVICTS THAT ARE NOW PROFESSORS OF SOCIOLOGY, CRIMINOLOGY, OR CRIMINAL JUSTICE.

CONVICT CRIMINOLOGY IS AN EDITED BOOK THAT FEATURES SOME OF THE BEST KNOWN ACADEMIC SCHOLARS IN THE FIELD. I especially enjoyed the chapters written by the ex-convict professors. They are the real experts on crime and corrections. The reading is cutting edge, state-of-the art, a new paradigm in criminology. This book will blow the cob webs off the walls of the ivory tower. This is a new criminology!

This book must be read by people working in the justice system at all levels, and given to accused and convicted persons. It provides a looking glass for those who want to do a better job, to understand the lives of the accused and convicted. It provides appropriate information, discussion of needed services and advice. What do the accused and convicted need, to improve their lives and the conditions around them? How can people come out prepared to face the world again, and to be successful? How can men and women protect themselves from further damage, physical and emotional?

I have been a student of Dr. Richards for five years, and this is by far the best work he has done on the subject of convict sociology and the norms of convict life. His work is sociologically precise and he writes in the very real and now of the state of convict life with true to life language. I would recommend this book to anyone with a sociological interest in corrections or criminology.

I have a new and emerging interest in criminology and have been ordering textbooks to survey the field and to find material for a class on the topic which I will be teaching in the near future. The background I bring to this assignment is a bit unusual, social theory, race and ethnicity (especially American Indians), gender, and ethnographic fieldwork -- and 9 semester of a very involved teaching assignment in a federal prison. Because of this experience I do not find most of the existing textbooks appropriate for my perspective of teaching such a class. To find a book like this one that integrates experiences and theory, that does not come from a rigid, punative, individualistic perspective, but includes the inmates' views will help me to take on the challenge to create at least an opening for some compassion and criticism in my students -- quite a challenge in rural Wisconsin.

Convict Criminology is part of The Wadsworth Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice System, and I would hope that the editors and Wadsworth will consider issuing a second edition. Still, seven years later, the challenges presented in the excellent introduction have not been resolved. In fact, within the US criminal justice system, they have intensified whether it is concerning the rapid overall increase in prisoners' rates (especially concerning women of color, undocumented immigrants, Black men and Middle Eastern men facing increased scrutiny due to the War on Terror), privatization of prisons and detention centers, and the rather minimal efforts spent on re-entry.

It is this last point that the new school of Convict Criminology has much to say about; after all, for those authors who survived prison and then reentered the education system to obtain their doctorates and found tenure track faculty jobs in academia, the shadow of convict status stays with them; and few institutions do explicitly disallow discrimination based on convict status (Cornell University is one of those noble institutions). Richards and Ross define Convict Criminologists as those who are able to "merge their past with their present and provide a provocative approach to the academic study of criminology, criminal justice, and corrections. These authors, as a collective, are the future of a realistic paradigm that promises to challenge the conventional research findings of the past" (p. 6). The majority of the authors are former convicts who have been incredibly productive, several having published several academic books on their experience.

Some of the critique launched by conventional criminologists has been that their work is not objective or scientific. However such criticism is quite misplaced, especially given that criminologists have not been involved in ethnographic studies of prisoners, many of them undoubtedly for the reason that social control in the USA prison system makes it virtually impossible to get access to prisoners (and human subject review boards might also be raising questions about the real possibility of exploiting vulnerable populations; see Hornblum's Acres of Skin).

What Convict Criminologists uniquely accomplish is to convey an authenticity about what is really going on behind prison walls. Feminist epistemology has long argued that the positivist science ideology that cherishes objectivity is much overrated. Feminist Standpoint Epistemology (Harding, Hill Collins) argues that indeed the first person account of experience, in the case of Convict Criminologist having survived prisons in the USA and reporting on them, actually should be privileged rather than discarded as biased.

In this context I want to highlight CC member Greg Newbold who did time in New Zealand and not only gives a compelling comparative analysis of New Zealand, Australia and USA, but rather frankly shares that New Zealand's system of leniency within corrections does little to rehabilitate prisoners. Nevertheless, Newbold argues that it would be inhumane to disband the educational measures in place, and in fact New Zealand has been able to curb much of the violence and suicide prevalent before their pro-prisoners reform.

Stephen Richards' chilling account of experiencing the federal prison system, thought to be the elite system in comparison to state prisons and county jails, reminds me of the ancient British charge of punishment by transport to Australia. Richards spent not days but weeks and months on the American interstate system being shuttled to different federal penitentiaries. I find his description of the criminal justice system particularly fitting:

The phrase "criminal justice system" is an abstract concept used in the academic literature, and refers to the intended coordination of police, courts, jails, and prisons. In fact, there is no criminal justice system; no address, phone number, or central organization. Instead, there remains a hodge-podge of numerous city, county, state, and federal agencies, jurisdictions, and facilities, operating under different authority and law (Richards, 2003, 148).

Both Richards' and Newbold's contributions among many others would lead to the obvious conclusion that not only do prisons not work, but they should actually be abolished. The final book chapter by the editors offers up important strategies for decarceration, i.e. a gradual emptying of prisons, as some states, notably California, are now ordered to do due to their severe overcrowding or simply due to empty state coffers. What I find missing is an excarceration action plan that would follow quite clearly from Tronmanhauser's historical retrospective that the more things change the more they remain the same; reforms have not worked to transform criminal justice. Every prison that was built since the 1800s was supposed to replace an older one, but it never has happened; there are plenty prisons that have been operating for centuries.

Finally, I'd just raise a minor point regarding language used; CC criticize the term `inmate"--the language of the oppressor that plays down the imprisonization and its effect on body and soul--only to use it uncritically in several chapters instead of using the more appropriate term "convict" or "prisoner."

Still, there are plenty of excellent chapters, including Tronmanhauser's in the anthology which would make for great classroom discussion. And the book should serve as a wake up call to criminologists who still are preoccupied with searching for characteristics of the "super preditor." I would recommend the book highly to anybody who is interested in the voices from the insider's perspective. It is worth it, and should get all of us interested in doing our part in countering this abstract concept of criminal justice system.

JENNIFER K. RUARK From the August 2, 2002 issue of THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION

Criminology Professors Publish Guide to Surviving Behind Bars; Scholars
Urge Reforms in Criminal-Justice Field

PRISON BLUES: If you think prison is something that happens to other
people, think again.

Not just ordinary people, but also the purported experts: criminologists.
The two professors are also the editors of Convict Criminology
(Wadsworth, August), a collection of essays by scholars intent on changing the field.

Half of the scholars -- both established professors and graduate students
are ex-convicts. "Our work is grounded in real-life experience and
observation," says Dr. Richards. "It marks a return to using empirical
data as a foundation for writing theory."

While criminologists have conducted research in prisons since the 1950s,
such studies are few and far between. "I have a hard time choosing books
for my courses because they're filled with fantasies," says Dr. Richards:
They misrepresent or ignore prison conditions, parole, or the difficulties of
re-entry into society, for example.

"One of the problems with criminology now is that it has basically been
serving the government masters," he says, "either overtly or covertly
supporting the growth of the criminal-justice system." Most research is
financed by government grants, and many scholars in the convict-criminology
movement complain that it is nearly impossible to get published in the
field's leading journals, like Criminology.

The editor of that journal, Robert J. Bursik Jr., at the University of
Missouri at St. Louis, could not be reached for comment. But Todd R.
Clear, the editor of another leading journal, Criminology and Public Policy, and
A professor at the City University of New York's John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, edits the Wadsworth series that includes Convict Criminology. He
says the movement is "terrific for the field," and that he agrees with
many of its critiques of the criminal-justice system.

But he points out that his own research, which shows how imprisonment
damages communities, was financed in part by a federal grant. Even if the
flagship journals are more inclined to publish traditional-style
research, he says, they don't dominate the field: Criminologists can make an impact
on their field and succeed professionally by publishing elsewhere.

That's not the point, the editors of Convict Criminology assert in their
introduction. Their contributors "do not write for vitae lines,
promotions, or tenure. They write so that one day the ghosts will sleep."

JENNIFER K. RUARK From the August 2, 2002 issue of THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION

Criminology Professors Publish Guide to Surviving Behind Bars; Scholars
Urge Reforms in Criminal-Justice Field

PRISON BLUES: If you think prison is something that happens to other
people, think again.

Not just ordinary people, but also the purported experts: criminologists.
The two professors are also the editors of Convict Criminology
(Wadsworth, August), a collection of essays by scholars intent on changing the field.

Half of the scholars -- both established professors and graduate students
are ex-convicts. "Our work is grounded in real-life experience and
observation," says Dr. Richards. "It marks a return to using empirical
data as a foundation for writing theory."

While criminologists have conducted research in prisons since the 1950s,
such studies are few and far between. "I have a hard time choosing books
for my courses because they're filled with fantasies," says Dr. Richards:
They misrepresent or ignore prison conditions, parole, or the difficulties of
re-entry into society, for example.

"One of the problems with criminology now is that it has basically been
serving the government masters," he says, "either overtly or covertly
supporting the growth of the criminal-justice system." Most research is
financed by government grants, and many scholars in the convict-criminology
movement complain that it is nearly impossible to get published in the
field's leading journals, like Criminology.

The editor of that journal, Robert J. Bursik Jr., at the University of
Missouri at St. Louis, could not be reached for comment. But Todd R.
Clear, the editor of another leading journal, Criminology and Public Policy, and
A professor at the City University of New York's John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, edits the Wadsworth series that includes Convict Criminology. He
says the movement is "terrific for the field," and that he agrees with
many of its critiques of the criminal-justice system.

But he points out that his own research, which shows how imprisonment
damages communities, was financed in part by a federal grant. Even if the
flagship journals are more inclined to publish traditional-style
research, he says, they don't dominate the field: Criminologists can make an impact
on their field and succeed professionally by publishing elsewhere.

That's not the point, the editors of Convict Criminology assert in their
introduction. Their contributors "do not write for vitae lines,
promotions, or tenure. They write so that one day the ghosts will sleep."