8 Ch. 8 Conflict and Feminist Theory

Ch. 8

Critical/Conflict/Feminist Perspectives of Crime

Introduction

Conflict/critical criminology is a theoretical perspective that focuses on the social, economic, and political inequalities that contribute to crime. It is rooted in the idea that laws and norms are created to serve the interests of the powerful and to maintain their dominance over marginalized groups. Examples of conflict/critical theory would include the War on Drugs in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The War on Drugs created laws that disproportionately punished certain groups, reflecting the interests of those in power than attempting to reduce the harm of drugs or crime. Specifically “crack” cocaine was criminalized at a much higher rate than powder cocaine, theoretically because poor, urban people of color were more likely to use crack cocaine. As powder cocaine is more expensive, it is used by more affluent “white” people, which resulted in lesser charges for possession and use of powder cocaine. For example, possessing 1 gram of crack cocaine carried the same penalty as possessing 100 grams of powder cocaine.

In this chapter we will examine aspects of conflict/critical criminology, including a discussion of the Feminist viewpoint of crime.

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6223&context=jclc

The Rise of Critical (Conflict) Criminology

Authors: Kevin Walby and Kelly Gorkoff

Given our contention that defining critical criminology is a difficult task, we claim that critical criminology scholarship represents a break from the orthodoxy or custom of the discipline of criminology (Tierney, 2006; Martel et al., 2006; Ratner, 1984, 2006). Critical criminology initially evolved alongside criminological theories loosely called “new deviancy” that proposed new theories of crime such as labeling theory (see 8.6 Labelling Theory), social  reaction theory, transactionalism, and interactionism, and was a significant part of a general move in the social sciences away from the dominant positivistic paradigm of criminology (Tierney, 2006; Garland & Sparks, 2000; Hargreaves et al., 1976). In general, this dominant paradigm focused on identifying and studying causes of crime that could then be corrected, and the assumed purpose of criminological knowledge was to control crime. Lynch (2000) takes this further and suggests that traditional positivist criminology has had the effect of legitimizing control of the lower classes and normalizing punishment. This dominant knowledge was rarely questioned and became standardized in criminology/criminal justice language, practice, and research (Lynch, 2000). Critical criminology questioned this often taken-for-granted, normalized idea of crime and justice as well as its connection to crime control and punishment and encouraged research that questioned this a and focused on thinking more broadly about crime in society (Martel et al., 2006). Ratner (2006) refers to this as “the push to construct an alternative to the ruling paradigm of a state-saturated field” (p. 648). By this, Ratner means we should question what crime means in society and the government’s power to punish “criminals.”

Most critical criminology adopts a critical social science position that is anti-positivist. A critical social science examines/critiques normative boundaries of criminological knowledge and its use.  Critical social science research focuses on the big picture or social structures instead of individual determinants of people’s behavior (trauma, upbringing, psychological traits). This focus allows scholars to deconstruct taken-for-granted or dominant knowledge. It also allows one to engage in social change by questioning established ways of thinking or knowing. Sayer (2009) discusses denaturalizing dominant knowledge as a way to propose that another world is possible and to re-think and re-constitute accepted ideas about how to administer justice (Kraska & Newman, 2011). For us, critical criminology is an attempt to investigate power relations and domination as they occur in social systems and social structures while providing alternatives to existing power relations and dominant social institutions. Critical criminology involves research and investigation, and it calls for activism and attempts to change things.

In what follows in this chapter, we examine the key thinkers critical criminology draws on, beginning with Marx, as well as a few emergent elements of critical criminology.

Marx and the basis of Critical Criminology

Authors: Kevin Walby and Kelly Gorkoff

The tendency of critical criminology to investigate and attempt to transform the world begins with Karl Marx and subsequent Marxist criminological scholars.

Marx and the Critique of Capital

Most people would probably not identify Karl Marx as a criminologist, though he is often seen as a political economist, a critical historian of economics, and a sociologist. Marx’s writings were concerned with the rise of social institutions during industrialization which included the development of criminal law, the power of police and prisons, and processes of criminalization. At the core of his work, Marx rejected the idea that societies operate based on a consensus (see 1 What is Crime?). Instead, he suggests that societies are full of conflict, which is often reflected in, and stems from, its relations of production (the social relationships involved in producing the things we need to survive such as food, and shelter).

To provide some examples, in Capital, Volume One, Marx (2004) addresses these critical issues in chapters 26, 27 and 28. As he examines the capitalist mode of production, he explores the social formation that occurs alongside it. In chapter 26 on the secret of so-called primitive accumulation, Marx argues there is nothing natural about the creation of private property (e.g., owning land or factories), the extraction of resources from the land (e.g, cutting trees or drilling oil), or the extraction of value from those resources (e.g., paying for lumber/gas or profiting from selling lumber/gas). Marx argues that our capitalist order is a political and economic one formed through various attempts at social control of these processes of private property, extraction and value. He claimed that the process of so-called primitive accumulation and the extraction of value from the resources found in land is only possible through the development of a state apparatus (e.g., government) that supports capitalist exploitation. Part of that state apparatus, perhaps the main part, is social control agents such as police and prisons.

In chapter 27 of Capital, Volume One, which is on the expropriation of the agricultural population from the land, Marx (2004) argues that, instead of land being collectively governed and people benefiting in a collective way from the value of resources and land, the capitalist mode of production requires the expropriation of people from their land, their territory, and the resources found there. This goes for populations in the English countryside, and it could be further extended to colonial relations with Indigenous peoples in British colonies such as Canada. To achieve control of resources and land, social control agents of the state apparatus forcibly expropriate populations from the land to privatize it and its resources (such as lumber, oil, and minerals) for capitalist landowners. The example of establishing Indigenous reserves in Canada is an example of the expropriation of people from their land, a process that continues today.

In chapter 28 of Capital, Volume One, Marx (2004) writes about bloody legislation, a swath of laws passed by the state apparatus in the 18th and 19th centuries in the Commonwealth countries that do two things. First, they enable the creation of private property, enabling the privatization of wealth, value, resources, land, thereby creating a powerful capitalist class. Secondly, they are used against the working class and against the lumpenproletariat who cannot work or choose not to work. These laws allowed for the expropriation discussed above. These laws also force persons to work in the capitalist mode of production in factories. If people choose not to work, bloody legislation is applied to them, to criminalize and punish them. If persons are unhoused and move from region to region or from the country into the city because their land has been stolen from them by the capitalist class, they too have bloody legislation applied to them, specifically laws of vagabondage. Laws are also passed to dissuade labor organizing and resistance (Poulantzas, 1975; Griffin et al., 1986; Kuriakose & Iyer, 2021).

This swath of laws is created to control the working class and the lumpenproletariat, and to enforce the capitalist mode of production. Although Marx is usually not identified as a criminologist per se, even this one work, Capital, Volume One, offers a rich history and analysis of the way the state apparatus was formed to support the capitalist mode of production and how criminal law in its origin emerged as a tool of control for elites. Criminal law, police and prisons from a Marxist perspective, exist to control the population, to force people to work, and to prevent people from collectivizing (or equally sharing) land, resources and wealth.

Using Marx

A significant figure in early critical criminology, William Chambliss (1964), drew on Marx’s ideas to analyze the origin of vagrancy laws (some enacted as early as 1349) and concluded that these laws were created to force people to work in factories and other places, by criminalizing those who did not. These laws were pivotal in capital expansion and Chambliss (1964) notes how different categories of “the criminal” were created as capitalism expanded. These included individuals who made and sold goods in traveling shows, those who organized gambling events, and those who took goods that were in transit from one factory to another. Chambliss (1964) defined crime as “conduct that is defined and controlled by agents of the dominant economic class in a politically organized society, to benefit capitalism” (p. 71). To enforce these laws, policing, courts and prisons are obviously necessary.

Another Marxist, Louis Althusser (1969, 1971), named this set of agencies “repressive state apparatuses” and defined them as bodies granted the legal right to use physical force to control the masses. This includes the military, the police, the judiciary, and the prison system. It is argued that these bodies are used to enforce laws and to demand obedience to laws based on unfair expropriation. Generally, the presence of these institutions is enough to gain compliance, but when the unfairness of capitalist/worker exchanges is questioned or laid bare, these bodies engage in explicit legalized violence. Gordon (2005, 2006) examines how the rise of law-and-order policing, and the over-policing of poverty and the poor, coincided with changes in the capitalist order. He identifies governmental changes in policing alongside shifts in economic policies such as the shifts from Keynesianism (pre-1960s) to monetarism (1960-80s) to neo-liberalism (1980s-present).

As Marx traces this out in detail in chapters 26, 27 and 28 of Capital, Volume One and as critical criminologists such as Chambliss and Althusser argued, the criminal justice system is essentially a tool of the capitalist class. However, this view that the system always operates as an arm, or instrument of, capitalism has been critiqued as overly conspiratorial. Some Marxist criminologists debate whether things are really so instrumental.

Karl Marx depiction from pixabay.com

A Marxist criminologist named Richard Quinney (1978) argued that there are instrumental and structuralist Marxist positions. An instrumental Marxist position continues the understanding put forward by Marx, that the state apparatus and criminal law exists as a direct result of capitalism to uphold capitalism and the capitalist mode of production. A structuralist Marxist position argues that governments are somewhat autonomous and are not simply installed by the owning class. For example, structural Marxists Leo Panitch (1977) and Nicos Poulantzas (1975) argue that the state acts on behalf of capital, not at its behest. Theorists such as these suggest that although governments might pass laws that appear to help protect the population (i.e., minimum wage, labor law) and reduce the power of the owning class, overall, police and corrections operate to maintain the capitalist economy (which as discussed above is, at its base, unequal and supports the wealth and power of a small number over the majority).

Structural Marxists agree that law works to ensure capitalist accumulation and to maintain conditions where the generation of wealth is possible. This is often called the structural imperative or the way social structures create reality. Louis Althusser (1969, 1971) was also interested in how law and criminal justice are legitimized or normalized in the thoughts of the general population. Therefore, structural Marxists focus less on the coercive nature of law alone and more on the ideological function of law. Quinney and others examine how ideas of crime and criminals are shared in the general population. Marx and Engels wrote in The German Ideology (1947) about how the mode of production of capitalism gave rise to people’s false beliefs about society and their role in it. They referred to this as “phantoms formed in the human brain that appear upside down….. that sublimate material life processes.” Contemporary Marxists argue ideologies are necessary to support and legitimate the actions of the state to enforce definitions of crime in law, policing and corrections. These ideologies are often detached from the broader social system and individuals are thought to be responsible for their behavior. Ideologies are comprised of all the ideas we form about crime and criminals that are communicated by social institutions from family, school, media and politics, but are essentially about supporting ideas that hide the coercive nature of the capitalist mode of production.

Althusser (1971) called these institutions the ideological state apparatus. These concepts about crime include ideas like criminals are bad, punishment is good and helpful, and law is equal. However, according to Marxist theory, laws are created to make sure capitalism continues to thrive and to control the conduct of individuals who might threaten it. This is also known as hegemony, or when the ideas of the dominant class become the ideas of everyone (Gramsci, 1971).

Structuralists offer a compelling set of arguments about the law-society relationship. This includes how ideas of human rights and democracy become used to justify and legitimate oppressive law. Anatole France, a French novelist, captured this ideology of equality in his quote “the Law in all its majestic impartiality forbids both rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” This quote speaks to the ideological dimension of law, which often clouds the exploitive relations of law itself. This ideology of capitalism and crime is the illusion that capitalism is noncoercive; therefore, the law itself is an ideological form (Reiman, 2013, p. 229).

Another dimension of Marxism we find in critical criminology is the study of corporate crime or crimes of the powerful (see 15 Crimes of the Powerful).  Sutherland (1949) distinguished between working class crime and crimes of the elite or “white-collar crime.” The criminalization of both categories of acts are related to capital accumulation: working class crimes such as theft uphold private property relations, assault upholds the need of a healthy body to work, and crimes of the elite such as fraud or insider trading uphold “proper” relations of capital accumulation. However, it is more difficult to criminalize wrongdoings of the powerful. Laureen Snider and Steven Bittle study Canadian corporate crime and its legislation. Their research shows that police rarely enforce legislation such as Bill C-45 (Bittle, 2012). Bill C-45, often referred to as The Westray Bill, amended the Criminal Code to outline the criminal liability of organizations/corporations. The Westray Disaster saw 26 miners in Nova Scotia die in an explosion in 1992. The disaster was said to be the fault of the corporation that owned the mine, but they could not be criminally charged under the legislation of the time. Bill C-45 defines criminal liability for corporations. However, Bittle (2012) contends the new legislation is rarely enforced for several reasons including the contention that criminalizing actions of capitalists is dangerous and could harm capital accumulation, thereby affecting jobs and profits (Bittle & Snider, 2015). For more on the dangers of exposing these crimes see 15 Crimes of the Powerful.

Summary

Marx himself and later Marxists provide an important foundation for thinking about critical criminology and for thinking about the role of law, police and prisons in our society. By examining how the relations of capitalist production create systems such as police, courts, and corrections to maintain and legitimate the expropriation and exploitation of land and people, as well as studying ideologies that cloud this exploitive dynamic, Marxist conceptions of critical criminology are an important foundation of critical criminology.

Authors: Kevin Walby and Kelly Gorkoff

Foucault, Marx and Power

Another key figure in critical criminology is Michel Foucault. While not a Marxist, the influence of Marx is evident in his work. As discussed above, for Marx, power is always connected to economic power and how it manifests at the level of the state. Marx’s contemporaries focus on how bloody legislation and state repression to uphold capitalist relations of production/capitalist social structures. Foucault reconsidered how power works, and he has been called a post-structuralist. He argued that simply focusing on power as equal to the law creates a kind of “sterilizing political consequence” (1990, p. 79). Instead, he views power via language and how we think and know about things, or in other words, how power works between people, not on people.

What makes Foucault’s work important is that he extends or broadens the analysis of power away from economic re/oppression into thinking about power existing flowing/circulating between people and groups/institutions. A student of Althusser, Foucault rejected the idea that people were duped into submission by ideology, arguing instead that people actively engaged with power on a daily basis. For Foucault, power operates like a network of relations that we are all a part of. This encompasses more than economic power, and includes power in the form of language and action. He argued that thinking about power this way encourages us to understand power similar to a building block in how things get made, composed or constituted. As critical criminologists, if what we are interested in is investigating power relations, turning to Foucault helps broaden our scope of analysis.

Phases of Foucauldian Thought

Foucault’s arguments changed over time. Although it is difficult to periodize or categorize Foucault’s work, some have argued that there are three movements or phases to Foucault’s thinking. The first is called the archaeological phase, the second is the genealogical phase, and the third is the phase of ethics.

In the archaeological phase, Foucault (1972) is interested in the emergence of discourses and how these are translated into techniques or methods of power. In this case, power is not thought of as repressive but is based in knowledge and takes the form of charts, maps, diagrams and tables that make human activity understandable.. A discourse is the general domain of all statements and classifications about some topic or issue, such as the discourse of child development (e.g., benchmarks of biological, emotional, and psychological changes occurring in young people as they grow) or discourse of victimhood (e.g., the condition of being hurt, damaged or made to suffer) (Gorkoff, 2011). Grounded in this way of thinking, rather than seeing law simply as a bloody mechanism or a mechanism of force, Foucault understands law as a discourse or a mechanism for categorizing and classifying people, and he uses developments in the human and natural sciences to do this.

Discourse is like a system of categories captured in language that creates the way we perceive reality. Foucault said discourse is both an instrument and an effect of power. In the study of criminology, discourse is important. Discourses that come from and are used by courts, tribunals, commissions of inquiry, and the law itself operate as a machine for trying to produce truth out of complexity and for trying to categorize human beings in particular ways. Discourse therefore becomes a transfer point of relations of power between groups (such as prisoners, advocates, and politicians) and how a social issue/occurrence gets framed or thought about as a problem.

For instance, the criminal is a key discursive category. Public discourses about the criminal as immoral, violent, troubled, abnormal, and to be feared or avoided appear commonsense. These discourses become entwined with discourses of law, punishment, and justice. Foucault would encourage us to examine these descriptors and their relations, and how they create particular realities. This language extends beyond the criminal justice system and we can examine how the criminal is amplified and reinforced in crime literature and television/movies that feed on the fascination with the sensationalistic imagery of criminal life.  We can focus on how these notions of criminality inscribe meaning and play a central role in historical and contemporary social and cultural life (see 12 Cultural Criminology), as well as the role these discourses play as mediators of social debates and crises (Atack, 2001).

Many other categories and classifications are important for Foucault as well. In this archaeological phase of his work, Foucault is trying to locate or dig up where these classifications and categories we take for granted today emerged.

In the second phase of Foucault’s work, which we can call genealogy, Foucault (1975) is interested in not only techniques of classification, but how these types of classifications or discourses turn into different mechanisms of discipline and normalization.  For instance, he examines how techniques of discipline and normalization that developed in the criminal justice system developed and operated in parallel ways in other institutions such as in education,  factories, hospitals, and asylums. He details the historical development of timetables that organize one’s day and discipline one’s activity. In prisons, prisoners are subjected to a timetable that structures their day, requiring them to rise, eat, work, and sleep at certain times. This disciplinary timetable was used in numerous social institutions that developed around the same time. Schools used timetables to organize the day and discipline students into routines. Factories used timetables to order shifts and ensure the discipline of workers. Foucault argues that all these places tend to resemble one another to the extent that they deploy similar techniques of discipline and normalization. Foucault uses the term the carceral to articulate the multiple networks of diverse elements and the power of normalization that extends into the entire social body, how these things are tethered to one another, and how they reinforce one another over time.

In his key genealogical work, Discipline and Punish (1975), Foucault focuses on a detailed history of how punishment changes from the body of the condemned (hanging, beheading) to the soul of the convicted (therapy, reflection, confinement, etc.). In the primary punishing institution, prison, the soul of the convicted is no longer tortured in public, but instead is subjected to hierarchical observation, normalizing judgements, and practices of discipline. These practices and techniques of punishment eventually become normalized. These techniques of disciplinary power are not about the use of the bloody power of the state on the individual, but how things such as a daily schedule, self-control over posture and bodily functions, and the use of surveillance become the mechanisms people find themselves exposed to, and how institutions, programs, and polices are created. This approach is nuanced enough to understand how domination operates and develops in different ways in various social settings. For Foucault, power and domination are not limited to the state. There are power relations operating that do not simply stem from law or from the state apparatus, but are actually located in individual relationships (e.g., guard/prisoner; lawyer/accused) though they may reinforce them at some points in time. The terms and processes Foucault advances allow for critical criminologists to locate power relations and domination in a multitude of sites and further, in a genealogical way.

The third phase of Foucault’s work is often referred to as the phase of ethics, where Foucault (1990) turns from an interest in the genealogy of disciplinary institutions to self-control or self-discipline and ultimately to how individuals engage in “care of the self” or makes themselves up as people or what he called an “ethical self.” In The History of Sexuality, Volume One, and elsewhere, Foucault (1982) shifts from studying technologies of institutions to technologies of the self. In his book, he examines how sex is spoken about and how it is known, then how individuals who engage in sexuality form themselves as sexual beings based on this knowledge. This includes understanding how we conduct ourselves as people. It is focused on how we make ourselves good students, good workers, good athletes, good partners, etc. In other words. Foucault was interested in how people governed themselves in a free society, how we make ourselves into members of society, and how we control our own behavior.

Foucault is careful to note that self-governance does not happen in a vacuum. It may happen in relation to those forms of knowledge (discourses) Foucault uncovered in his archaeological work, or in relation to the discourses Foucault investigated in his genealogical work. This raises a number of interesting questions such as how we make ourselves into subjects of law (juridical subjects) including being, or not being, a law-abiding citizen. He thought that although we seemingly have the freedom to control our own actions (e.g., freely obey the law), Foucault outlined that these choices are not truly free, and that we are “governed from a distance” by the discourses and knowledge that we experience.

Foucault’s work allows us to think about power as an intersection between a knowledge about something, and techniques of organizing the behavior of others and/or ourselves. He gives this the term governmentality, which is the analysis of who can govern and who is governed but also the means by which our own and others activities are shaped (Foucault, 1990, 2005, 2011). In his final lectures, Foucault offers this concept as a tool for looking at the intersection of these different phases of his work. The goal is to examine how a governmental rationality or some kind of classificatory system intersects with the way a whole population starts to govern itself or make itself intelligible.

Locating Foucault

Again, these are simply our musings about Foucault’s work. Not everyone will agree with this distilling of Foucault’s whole corpus into these movements of thought and there have been some interesting adaptations and debates. For example, Alan Hunt (1992), an important Marxist figure in legal studies and criminology, suggested that by broadening the scope of what power means, and at times offering multiple fluid definitions of power, Foucault expels law from his analysis. Remember, according to Foucault, equating power with law and the state creates a sterilizing political consequence meaning that it stops any other way of thinking about law except as oppressive. However, Hunt suggests it might be equally sterilizing to argue that power is so fluid that it is found everywhere, including in one’s own governance of their thoughts and bodily practices. Hunt (2004) has further developed this into the conceptual framework of law as governance, bringing Foucault and Marx together, in some ways. His work on governing consumption brought together how law (around food, clothing, etc.) and self-regulation (deciding what to eat and how to dress) work together to construct dominant and normative moral positions.

Foucault remains incredibly important for a critical criminologist because he allows for a more open analysis of power and domination, that is not reducible to the state apparatus, law or capital. Some Marxists, including Alan Hunt (2004), found it appealing, and fruitful to work with Foucault and Marx together, seeing as how they complement one another. Foucault’s work has led to a whole area of study referred to as governmentality studies. Scholars such as Mariana Valverde (2010), Nicholas Rose (1993), and David Garland (2001) have identified themselves as governmentality scholars and contributed much to critical criminology in this vein. David Garland’s work on cultures of control could be construed as a type of governmentality studies. We discuss his work below.

Garland, Governmentality and the Culture of Control

David Garland picked up on Foucault’s concept of governmentality and his method of genealogy or history of the present to write several articles (1997) and a book (2001) analyzing how crime is problematized and controlled by examining the structure of the crime control apparatus that has emerged out of cultural, social, and economic shifts in society. Garland linked Foucault’s idea of the self-governing subject and how power creates people, to a history of crime control policies (both governmental rationalities and technologies of crime control) in the United States and Britain between 1970 and 2000.

He was particularly interested in how the penal welfare state that was designed to assess, diagnose, and treat offenders changed into a third sector of crime control characterized by the rise of prevention and security apparatuses. He details how the system moved from a system of punishment and rehabilitative justice (where those convicted of crimes received treatment for what caused their offending) to one of safety and risk management (the management of spaces and people who were risky). He details the rise of victims’ rights movements and interest groups such as women’s groups calling on the criminal justice system to address rape and domestic violence and neighborhood groups asking for more police presence or safety programs in their community.

Garland details how this creates a new culture of crime control focused on three things: first, the transformation of penal welfarism/rehabilitative punishment; second, a criminology of control; and third, one that uses economic styles of reasoning (risk) over social reasoning.

In the transformation of penal welfarism, Garland outlines how rehabilitation gets redefined away from the offender’s needs to the safety of the victim and protection of society. For instance, whereas an offender who may have committed a crime because they suffered from addiction would be given community treatment under penal welfarism, if that prisoner rates as high risk on a risk assessment tool, they could be incarcerated where they could be more easily managed.

This transformation affects how prisoners are treated in prisons, where they are tracked, monitored, and controlled based on the risk they are said to pose to society at large. This process often includes the use of tools and knowledge such as abstract risk categories, which Garland suggests are ways to “govern offenders from a distance” and engage them in their own self-responsibilities. This is accompanied by a change in normative criminology to study the criminology of everyday life and the criminology of the other, which is based on the desire for expressive justice, zero tolerance and individual safety. Such interventions are assessed based on cost-benefit analyses and techniques of managerialism in which the point of crime control is to manage risk.

Garland details how these changes occur as political, cultural and economic structures take on a neo-liberal form, similar to the way Gordon (2005) talked about changes in policing we discussed earlier in this chapter. These changes result in different forms of governmental power (e.g., new types of punishment) how we govern our own conduct and the conduct of others, and how we make ourselves up within these new sets of social relations. For the criminal justice system, he argues that new culture of crime control changes the way we think about people who break the law; we begin to see them not as people who need rehabilitation, but as others that pose risk and as delinquents to be feared, controlled, and responsivities.  This changes the way we think about crime and the criminogenic situation as one to be managed using law and order practices, securitizing places and spaces using more aggressive individualized surveillance practices. We can see examples of this in the many security or CCTV cameras in the spaces and places we go such as shopping malls, parking lots, and schools. Garland argues that this new culture of control does not  help communities become safe spaces but instead makes us afraid of those around us.

These three elements of control become entwined in a way that cannot be reduced to a single formula. Instead, they constitute a field of power relations that draws attention to the impact of new knowledges and technologies upon the power relations between governmental actors as well as between the rulers and the ruled (Garland, 1997, p. 188).

Summary

Foucault gave critical criminologists concepts that expand the ways we think about law, control, and power. By engaging the subject, he outlines the ways in which knowledge itself becomes a form of power by which laws get created and maintained, how people interact with discourses to regulate their own conduct and the conduct of others, and how this translates into systems of carceral control. Foucault’s concepts have been taken up in a variety of ways in critical criminology, and he remains a key figure in these discussions.

Foundations of Feminist Criminology

Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian

It is helpful to begin with a brief definition of feminism. A central definition can be challenging, because as the Break Out Box below illustrates, there are many kinds of feminism, each with their own unique focus. However, there are features common to every type of feminism that we can use to establish a solid foundation when exploring feminist criminology. Primarily, feminism argues that women suffer discrimination because they belong to a particular sex category (female) or gender (woman), and that women’s needs are denied or ignored because of their sex. Feminism centers the notion of patriarchy in understandings of inequality, and largely argues that major changes are required to various social structures and institutions establish gender equality. The common root of all feminisms is the drive towards equity and justice.

Break Out Box: Different Feminisms

Feminist perspectives in criminology comprise a broad category of theories that address the theoretical shortcomings of criminological theories which have historically rendered women invisible (Belknap, 2015; Comack, 2020; Winterdyk, 2020). These perspectives have considered factors such as patriarchy, power, capitalism, gender inequality and intersectionality in the role of female offending and victimization. The six main feminist perspectives are outlined below.

 Liberal Feminism

According to Winterdyk (2020) and Simpson (1989), liberal feminism focuses on achieving gender equality in society. Liberal feminists believe that inequality and sexism permeate all aspects of the social structure, including employment, education, and the criminal justice system. To create an equal society, these discriminatory policies and practices need to be abolished. From a criminological perspective, liberal feminists argue that women require the same access as men to employment and educational opportunities (Belknap, 2015). For example, a liberal feminist would argue that to address the needs of female offenders, imprisoned women need equal access to the same programs as incarcerated men (Belknap, 2015). The problem with the liberal feminist perspective is the failure to consider how women’s needs and risk factors differ from men (Belknap, 2015).

Radical Feminism

Radical feminism views the existing social structure as patriarchal (Gerassi, 2015; Winterdyk, 2020). In this type of gendered social structure, men structure society in a way to maintain power over women (Gerassi, 2015; Winterdyk, 2020). Violence against women functions as a means to further subjugate women and maintain men’s control and power over women (Gerassi, 2015). The criminal justice system, as well, becomes a tool utilized by men to control women (Winterdyk, 2020). It is only through removing the existing patriarchal social structure that violence against women can be addressed (Winterdyk, 2020).

Marxist Feminism

Like the radical feminist perspective, Marxist feminists view society as oppressive against women. However, where the two differ is that Marxist feminists see the capitalist system as the main oppressor of women (Belknap, 2015; Gerassi, 2015). Within a classist, capitalist system, women are a group of people that are exploited (Winterdyk, 2020). Exploitation in a capitalist system results in women having unequal access to jobs, with women often only having access to low paying jobs. This unequal access has led to women being disproportionately involved in property crime and sex work (Winterdyk, 2020). Like other Marxist perspectives, it is only through the fall of capitalism and the restructuring of society that women may escape from the oppression they experience.

Socialist Feminism

Social feminists represent a combination of radical and Marxist theories (Belknap, 2015; Winterdyk, 2020). Like radical feminists, they view the existing social structure as oppressive against women. However, rather than attributing these unequal power structures to patriarchy, they are the result of a combination of patriarchy and capitalism. Addressing these unequal power structures calls for the removal of the capitalist culture and gender inequality. Socialist feminists argue these differences in power and class can account for gendered differences in offending – particularly in how men commit more violent crime than women (Winterdyk, 2020).

Post-modern Feminism

Ugwudike (2015) outlines how postmodern feminism focuses on the construction of knowledge. Unlike other perspectives outlined above, which suggest there is “one reality” of feminism, postmodern feminists believe that the diversity of women needs to be highlighted when one considers how gender, crime and deviance intersects to inform reality (Ugwudike, 2015, p. 157). For postmodern feminists, they acknowledge the power differentials that exist within society, including gendered differences, and focus on how those constructed differences inform dominant discourses on gender. Of importance is the focus on “deconstructing the language and other means of communication that are used to construct the accepted ‘truth’ about women” (p. 158). Also of importance is the acknowledgement of postmodern feminism regarding how other variables, like race, sexuality, and class, influence women’s reality (Ugwudike, 2015).

 Intersectional Feminism

Winterdyk (2020) notes that some academics add a sixth perspective. Intersectional feminists address the failure of the above perspectives to consider how gender intersects with other inequalities, including race, class, ethnicity, ability, gender identities, and sexual orientation (Belknap, 2015). Some of the above theories attempt to paint the lived experiences of all women as equal, whereas intersectional perspectives acknowledge that women may experience more than one inequality (Winterdyk, 2020). There is an inherent need to examine how these inequalities intersect to influence a women’s pathway to offending and/or risk of victimization. Recently, Indigenous Feminism has emerged as a critical discourse on feminist theory that considers the intersection of gender, race, as well as colonial and patriarchal practices that had been perpetuated against Indigenous women (Suzack, 2015).

Feminist activism has proceeded in four ‘waves’ (for a discussion of the waves of feminism, see A Timeline | Aesthetics of Feminism). The first wave of feminism began in the late 1800s and early 1900s with the suffragette movement and advocacy for women’s right to vote. The second wave of feminism started in the 1960s and called for gender equality and attention to a wide variety of issues directly and disproportionately affecting women, including domestic violence and intimate partner violence [IPV] employment discrimination, and reproductive rights. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the third wave focused on diverse and varied experiences of discrimination and sexism, including the ways in which aspects such as race, class, income, and education impacted such experiences. It is in the third wave that we see the concept of intersectionality come forward as a way to understand these differences. The fourth wave, our current wave, began around 2010 and is characterized by activism using online tools, such as Twitter. For example, the #MeToo movement is a significant part of the fourth wave. The fourth wave is arguably a more inclusive feminism – a feminism that is sex-positive, body-positive, trans-inclusive, and has its foundations in “the queering of gender and sexuality based binaries” (Sollee, 2015). This wave has been defined by “‘call out’ culture, in which sexism or misogyny can be ‘called out’ and challenged” (Munro, 2013).

We return to the second wave of feminism, in a time of social change, where feminist criminology was born. The emerging liberation of women meant newfound freedoms in the workforce and in family law, including the availability and acceptability of divorce, but these relative freedoms rendered gender discrimination even more visible. In the 1960s and 1970s, North American society specifically was full of unrest, with demonstrations and marches fighting for civil rights for Black Americans, advocating for gay and lesbian rights, and protesting the Vietnam War. Marginalized groups were calling out inequality and oppression, and demanding change. Feminist activism brought attention to the inequalities facing women, including their victimization, as well as the challenges female offenders faced within the criminal justice system. The breadth and extent of domestic violence, specifically men’s violence against women within intimate relationships, was demonstrated by the need for domestic violence shelters and the voices of women trying to escape violence. Conversations at the national level led to government-funded shelters as well as private donor funding from those who saw the need for safe havens from abuse.

At the same time, the historic and systemic trauma of women involved in the criminal justice system as offenders was being recognized, including attention to their histories of abuse, poverty, homelessness, and other systemic discriminations. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, feminist scholars recognized the absence of women within criminological theory; more specifically, as Chesney-Lind and Faith (2001, p. 287) highlight, feminist theorists during this time “challenged the overall masculinist nature of criminology by pointing to the repeated omission and misrepresentation of women in criminological theory.”

Feminist criminology, mainly driven by American feminist scholars and activists, began with feminist theorists’ call to action to address racism and sexism within criminology and the criminal justice system.

Critiques of Existing Criminological Theory

Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian

When feminist criminology emerged in the 1970s, the focus was mainly on how women were accounted for in criminological theories. Feminist criminologists recognized that theories of crime and deviance regarding women’s offending tended to take one of three paths: (1) theories were openly misogynistic, negatively portraying women or situating them as “less than” men; (2) theories were gender blind and completely ignored gender; or (3) theories took an “add women and stir” approach, meaning that the theory was primarily about men and assumed explanations for crime and deviance could be applied to women without question. Most criminological theories were silent on the victimization of women.

Cesare Lombroso is referred to as the “father of criminology” (Belknap, 2015; Deutschmann, 2007; Williams & McShane, 2010). His theory is openly misogynistic, viewing women as “less than” men and discussing them in a negative manner; thus, Lombroso’s theory serves as an excellent example of the first path theories tend to take regarding women’s offending.

In the late 1800s, Lombroso studied both male and female incarcerated offenders in Italy, examining their physical characteristics to see what differentiated criminals from non-criminals. He developed the concept of the born criminal—individuals who were atavistic, more primitive and less evolved than non-criminals, and thus more prone to engage in criminal activity (Williams & McShane, 2010). Lombroso argued that women were typically less evolved than men, but their criminal tendencies were balanced by their lack of intelligence and passive natures. Deutschmann (2007) summarized Lombroso’s gendered approach:

“The typical woman…was characterized by piety, maternal feelings, sexual coldness, and an underdeveloped intelligence. Criminal women, on the other hand, were either born with masculine qualities (intelligence and activeness) conducive to criminal activity, or encouraged to develop these qualities through such things as education and exercise.” (p. 163)

The second path theories take regarding female offending is exemplified by the original social bond theory by Travis Hirschi, which completely ignored gender and the female experience. Social bond theory examined why people conform to rules and laws, avoiding offending. Hirshi (1969) posited that four key bonds discouraged criminal activities: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. When initially testing his theory, Hirschi focused exclusively on boys, even though both girls and boys were included in his sample (Belknap, 2015). As a result, the female experience is invisible in social bond theory. Hirschi’s exclusive focus on boys and men in research while developing and testing theory was not unique at the time; social bond theory simply represents one example of how a degree of gender blindness was (and still is) common in many criminological theories. Such gender blindness results in theories of criminality based entirely on data and experiences of boys and men, actively erasing the unique perspectives and experiences of girls and women.

Lastly, Cloward and Ohlin’s (1960) opportunity theory demonstrates the “add women and stir” approach in criminological theory, the third path that theories on crime and deviance tended to take regarding women’s offending. Drawing on Merton’s idea of strain as the gap between socially prescribed goals and the inability to achieve those goals, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) argued that there were both legitimate and illegitimate ways to achieve goals, and these opportunities differed based on someone’s race, neighborhood, class, and gender (Deutschmann, 2007; Williams & McShane, 2010). Rather than theorizing how men and women may experience strain differently, Cloward and Ohlin viewed boys as having “legitimate concerns” around money and status, while girls were seen as experiencing “frivolous concerns” related to finding romantic partners (Belknap, 2015, p. 33). While they mentioned gender in their theory, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) made assumptions about the goals of women, and actively ignored the unique strains faced by women, such as discrimination, parenting and childrearing responsibilities, limited education and employment opportunities, and disproportionate victimization.

The many androcentric (male-centered) explanations for crime and criminality not only centered on men as the primary focus of explanations, but were mainly the work of male theorists.  This reality called for a new theorising of women, created by women, related to both victimization and criminalization. Feminist criminologists demanded a centering of gender as a key factor in understanding crime and criminality. Here we see the scholarship of ground-breaking feminist criminologists like Meda Chesney-Lind, Carol Smart, and Karlene Faith, and the theorists and criminologists they have inspired, such as Elizabeth Comack, Gillian Balfour, Joanne Belknap, and others.

Issues that Brought Feminist Criminology to the Surface 

Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian

The key issues that brought feminist criminology to the surface involved domestic violence or violence against women (Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Johnson, 1996; Johnson & Dawson, 2011) and the differential and unequal treatment of women as offenders within the criminal justice system (Britton, 2000; Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004; Comack, 1996). We discuss the issue of women as offenders later in this chapter. We look now to how the contributions of feminist criminology have shaped our understandings of women’s victimization.

Victimization

“Feminist criminology has perhaps made its greatest impact on mainstream criminology in the area of women’s victimization” (Britton, 2000, p. 64).

Gender-based violence is disproportionately experienced by women in Canada (Cotter & Savage, 2019, p. 3) and around the world (World Health Organization, 2021). As Bruckert and Law (2018) note, violence against women stems from a broad range of systemic issues, including those rooted in patriarchal beliefs, such as colonialism, neoliberalism and capitalism (p. 9). Such social structures intersect with aspects of identity (such as sexual orientation, gender expression, age, ability, ethnicity) which can increase risk of victimization.

Female victims account for two-thirds of police-reported family violence in Canada (Conroy, 2021). Women are much more likely to be murdered by their male intimate partners than male partners are to be murdered by their female partners; in fact, women make up approximately 80% of all victims of intimate partner homicide (Conroy, 2021).

The trend of the disproportionate victimization of women grows larger when looking at the victimization of women along intersectional social positions and identities:

While anyone in Canada can experience violence, women, girls and young women, Indigenous women and girls, lesbian, gay and bisexual people, women living with a disability and women living in rural and remote regions, are at greater risk of violence. (Government of Canada)

Specifically, women with disabilities experience double the rate of violent crime compared to women without disabilities (Cotter, 2018). With regards to lesbian, bisexual, transgender and non-binary people’s experiences of violence, there is a lack of comprehensive statistics, but the available evidence indicates that bisexual women and transgender individuals face very high levels of violence compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts (Jaffray, 2020; Langenderfer-Magruder et al., 2016). In particular, bisexual women in Canada have the highest rates of violent victimization and physical assault, and transgender people are more likely to experience violence compared to cisgender people in Canada (Jaffray, 2020). When considering intersections of transphobia and racism, experiences of violence are higher among racialized transgender and non-binary individuals (Chih et al., 2020). While the lack of comprehensive data on transgender women and non-binary people’s experience of victimization is glaring (see Experiences of violent victimization and unwanted sexual behaviors among gay, lesbian, bisexual and other sexual minority people, and the transgender population, in Canada, 2018), as is the lack of available data on Black women’s victimization, what we do know is that Black women’s experiences of violence are rooted in misogynoir, a concept coined by Moya Bailey and defined as “the virulent and often unseen hatred directed at Black women due to the intersections of anti-Blackness, misogyny and racism in society” (Maynard, 2017, p. 130). Feminist criminology critically interrogates statistics such as the ones presented above, and points to the gendered elements of such violence, calling for wide recognition and social and criminal justice reforms.

Indigenous women’s experiences of violence are also situated within intersectional social identities as well as colonial and gendered structural inequities. In particular, Indigenous women’s experiences of violence are directly linked to the colonial history of Canada, beginning with the Indian Act, and permeating through past and present discriminatory policies and practices within various social institutions, including but not limited to health care, criminal justice and education. The intergenerational trauma of the residential school system, as well as pervasive systemic racism, have resulted in higher levels of domestic violence, substance abuse, and suicide (Comack, 2018). Indigenous women are also much more likely to be the victims of violent assaults and victimization than non-Indigenous women, and this violence tends to be more severe (Monchalin, 2016) (see ‘Nobody wants to look for a 40 year-old Native woman down here’). For example, in Canada, Indigenous women are three times more likely to experience intimate partner violence than women who are not Indigenous (Boyce, 2016). A crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls in this country exists, yet too often the victimization of Indigenous women continues to be dismissed and ignored by legal and law enforcement systems.

Sexualized Violence 

Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian

The majority of victims who experience sexualized violence (e.g., sexual assaults, sexual harassment, unwanted touching, revenge pornography) are women. Young women and girls face greater rates of sexual violence, representing nearly nine out of every ten (87%) survivors of sexual assault (Rotenberg, 2017). Age plays a role as well, with 12- to 17-year-olds comprising approximately one-third of victims, and 18- to 24-year-olds comprising 21% of victims (Rotenberg, 2017, p. 13). In data collected from 2009 to 2014 on sexual assaults against men and women, men were the perpetrators of sexual assault in 98% of the cases where charges were laid (Rotenberg, 2017).  As with all other forms of victimization, women’s experiences depend on their interlocking social identities. For example, women with disabilities reported double the rate of sexual assaults in the last 12 months compared to women without disabilities (Cotter, 2018). Moreover, bisexual women were close to four times more likely to experience sexual violence in the past year compared to heterosexual women (Jaffray, 2020). Bisexual women are also more likely to report sexual assault and unwanted sexual behaviors online and in public compared to heterosexual and gay women and men (Jaffray, 2020). Similarly, transgender people are more likely to report unwanted sexual behavior online and in public compared to cisgender people in Canada (Jaffray, 2020).  As with other forms of violence, certain groups of women are more likely to experience sexual violence due to racism, colonialism, transphobia, and ableism (Government of Canada, n.d.; Lyons et al., 2017b). The risk of violence also increases for gender and sexual minorities, particular for those who are Black, Indigenous, or racialized. Griner et al.’s (2020) survey of US college students found transgender people were much more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization and especially sexual assault (p. 5716). The 2018 Statistics Canada Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces shows similar findings that “a higher proportion of transgender Canadians … had experienced physical or sexual assault in their lifetimes than cisgender Canadians” (Jaffray, 2020, p. 12).

Not only do women experience sexualized violence at disproportionately higher rates than men, women are also much more likely to be blamed for their own victimization, such as in cases of sexual assault.  One of the more glaring examples of the pervasiveness of victim-blaming can be seen in the judgment delivered by Robin Camp, an Alberta judge who asked a sexual assault complainant in a sexual assault trial why she couldn’t simply “keep her knees together.”  Camp subsequently resigned his position as a judge because of the social outcry over his attitude towards sexual assault victims (for more on this case, see ‘Knees together’ judge in sexual assault trial says he will resign from the bench), however he was reinstated as a lawyer in Alberta less than a year later (see ‘Knees together’ judge Robin Camp wins bid to be reinstated as lawyer in Alberta). Victim blaming has also been found to be pervasive when women report sexual assaults to police. The Globe & Mail Unfounded investigation (see Unfounded: Police dismiss 1 in 5 sexual assault claims as baseless, Globe investigation reveals) revealed that police dismiss 20% of sexual assault claims because they do not believe a crime has been committed (Doolittle, 2017). Fear of victim blaming is also one of the reasons for the underreporting of sexual assaults (and other forms of sexualized violence). Assessing self-reports of victimization from the General Social Survey, Conroy and Cotter (2017) reveal that over 8 in 10 sexual assaults are not reported to the police, a proportion that has remained constant over several decades. Reasons for the lack of reporting include feelings of shame, guilt, and worry about what people will think of them should their assault be known (Conroy & Cotter, 2017).

What feminist criminology does, then, is point to the role of patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism and other social structures and relationships in our broader society regarding the disproportionate victimization of women. While patriarchy privileges men and the male experience over women and the female experience, establishing men as more important and more valued and positioning women in a perpetual state of vulnerability, third wave feminism, which spans from the mid-1990s to approximately 2010 (Delago, 2021), and critical race scholars established the vital importance of intersectional analyses of gender-based violence (Bruckert & Law, 2018).

Feminist criminology challenges social institutions including police, courts, and corrections within the criminal justice system to acknowledge and address the disproportionate impact of gender on women’s victimization. Feminist criminologists acknowledge that due to systemic factors, including violence, colonialization, and inequality, women are much more likely to suffer from childhood sexual abuse than men. They also acknowledge that alcohol or substance use is often a coping mechanism that may result in increased likelihood of contact with the criminal justice system. Lastly, they understand that there is a high proportion of incarcerated women who have experienced trauma (Comack, 2018; Shdaimah & Wiechelt, 2013). In essence, feminist criminologists ask us to examine how the criminalization of women is intertwined with the victimization of women. The question becomes: how can the criminal justice system respond to the unique needs of women given this victimisation-criminalisation continuum (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004; Comack, 1996)?

Criminalisation of Women  

Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian

Comack (2020) argues that criminology has focused on men as offenders. This focus has been justified because the majority of police-reported offenders are men (Comack, 2020; Savage, 2019). While comprising a much smaller proportion than male offenders, female offenders are still represented in adult, youth, and violent offence statistics (Belknap, 2015). Accordingly, we must consider the unique pathways of women as offenders to inform criminal justice system responses to women as offenders.
Traditional criminological theories rarely account for female offending (Belknap, 2015). With the rise of feminist criminology in the 1970s, a variety of theories have attempted to explain female offending. For example, Adler and Simon’s liberation thesis (1975, cited in Belknap, 2015) accounted for female offending by connecting the women’s liberation movement with what was believed to be an increase in female crime rates in the 1960s and 70s. This theory attempted to address the gender-ratio crime problem, as well as account for changes in women’s crime rates (O’Grady, 2018). While both Adler and Simon connected their theory to women’s liberation, they differed on the overall effect on crime. Adler posed that violent crime would increase, while Simon suggested that only property crime would increase for women (Belknap, 2015). On the other hand, according to Simon, female violent crime would decrease because women would be less frustrated as they gained equal access to opportunities (Belknap, 2015). This theory, in its simplest form, argued that women’s liberation leads to convergence in gender roles, and increased opportunities for employment for women. Adler and Simon claimed increased employment also increased opportunities for crime including corporate and white-collar crime, ultimately leading to a convergence in crime rates (Tavcer & Dekeseredy, 2018). While a substantial gender gap in offending remains, the theory was important because it considered women and located women’s engagement in crime within social systems and outside of the biological realm.
Hagan and colleagues’ power control theory (1985, cited in Belknap, 2015) outlined the role of social control in accounting for gendered differences in crime. They theorized that the gendered power dynamic between parents was often replicated with their children. In a patriarchal home, where women had less power, children were socialized into gendered roles where boys were encouraged to take risks and given more freedom, while girls were more restricted in their activities and socialized to be obedient and quiet. In such households, girls had fewer opportunities, to engage in deviance.  According to Hagan and colleagues, in egalitarian households,  with equal power between parents, relatively equal freedoms and levels of parental supervision, were given to daughters and sons, which allowed for more opportunities for girls to engage in deviant behavior (Belknap, 2015). Note that while this theory does least attempt to explain female offending, it is not without its critics.  Of particular concern is how the theory blames mothers who work outside of the home for their daughters’ delinquency (O’Grady, 2018). The theory has also been criticized “for its simplistic conceptualization of social class and the gendered division of labor in the home and workplace, and for its lack of attention to racial/ethnic differences in gender socialization and to single-parent families, most of which are headed by women” (Renzetti, 2018, p. 78).
Feminist theories have also attempted to account for female offending through the cycle of violence and pathways theories. Widom (1989) examined the relationship between trauma and offending in their cycle of violence theory (cited in Belknap, 2015). This theory posits that girls and women who experience trauma are more likely to be arrested later in life. For example, some evidence suggests that when faced with a traumatic experience, a person may turn to substance use as a coping mechanism (Barker, 2018). This type of coping method can lead to increased involvement with the criminal justice system if individuals are utilizing illegal substances, are engaging in illegal activity to support their substance use (e.g., theft), or engaging in illegal activity due to their substance use (e.g., driving under the influence) (Barker, 2018). Support for this theory of offending has been mixed, at best (Belknap, 2015). Pathways theory focuses on the route for offending among female offenders. Not unlike the cycle of violence theory, pathways theory considers the role of childhood abuse and trauma in female offending, which is particularly important as evidence shows that female offenders report higher rates of childhood trauma than the general population (Comack, 2018; Shdaimah & Wiechelt, 2013).

Summary

A special thank you to Dr(s) Stevenson, Kusz, Lyons and Fabian for their work on this chapter. As we examine crime, there are various aspects of structural and power inequalities this chapter points out. This chapter explores the viewpoints of crime regarding the poor, powerless and a variety of disenfranchised groups.

Attribution

Introduction to Criminology Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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Dr. Rochelle Stevenson; Dr. Jennifer Kusz; Dr. Tara Lyons; and Dr. Sheri Fabian

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