Herman and Julia Schwendinger have published a new book, BIG BROTHER IS LOOKING AT YOU, KID! IS HOMELAND FASCISM POSSIBLE which thay are making available free of charge.

The book is a political treatise but it may be interesting academically
because of its analytic constructs. It employs their "Janus model" of
governance and a category entitled "customary repression," referring to the
normalized century-old repression of left-wing ideas and policies. It
chronicles the qualitative changes in customary repression from the 1970s
and employs "parallels" (with the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy, Chile,
etc.) to realistically evaluate neofascist developments in the USA. It
points out that "bullshit" is the modus operandi of archconservatives
reviving McCarthyism in American universities. It describes, among other
things, the astonishing expansion of surveillance technology, the "Miami
model" of police brutality, the rise of Occupy Wall Street, and Obama's

In September of 2011, Lisa Jackson, head of the US EPA, released a statement on enhancing the ozone pollution requirements in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (http://www.epa.gov/glo/actions.html) to better protect public health. In that statement, she noted that the under the Obama Administration, the EPA has worked to enhance environmental protection. And while Lisa Jackson may be working hard to protect the public's health, President Obama hasn’t been cooperating. In a meeting with Jackson on November 16th, Obama told Jackson that the Administration could not afford to support a stricter ozone pollution standard at this time because of its potential effect on the President in the upcoming election. Obama said that the rule, set for reconsideration in 2013, would be on the table if he were re-elected. For more details see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/science/earth/policy-and-politics-coll...

In this post I examine the recent data on carbon dioxide pollution, the meaning of that data, and discuss the issue of global warming and environmental pollution from a critical criminological perspective.....

"In early November, 2011, the United State Deportment of Energy . . .released its most recent data and survey updates on world carbon dioxide emissions . . . .The news contained in that report isn’t good: carbon dioxide pollution emissions jumped 6% in 2010 compared to 2009. About 50% of those emission increases can be linked to emissions in the US and China. The graphs at the end of this article depict the trend in carbon emissions since the 1950s, and show a current map (2010) of carbon emission levels by nation."

Michael J. Lynch
Professor, Department of Criminology
Associated Faculty, School of Global Sustainability
University of South Florida

The Hosue has passed HR 2018 in an effort to limit the powers of the EPA, and that's not good for the health of Americans, nor is that consistent with their effort to undermine the specific intent of the Clean Water Act. Read why.

For those interested in the area of green criminology, the International Green Criminology Work Group has been formed. The groups meets at ASC and other major venues. At this point the group members' primary form of communication and the main thrust of the group is a listserve. If you are interested in joining, email Paul Stretesky
at: paul.stretesky@ucdenver.edu
with the subject heading: Joining Green Crim Work Group

New Incinerator Rule Implementation Postponed By EPA: Obama’s New Conservative Environmental Approach.

Michael J. Lynch
Department of Criminolgoy and
School of Global Sustainability
University of South Florida

The G.W. Bush Administration is widely regarded as having established the worst environmental record of any Administration since the founding of the EPA during Nixon’s presidency. The election of Obama brought great hopes for a redirection in environmental policies in the US. In some ways, the Obama Administration has delivered on those hopes revising, for example, the outdated and fairly stagnant fuel economy standards.

Historically, babies born in Kettleman City, CA have been healthy. But in the past three years, eleven babies have been born with birth defects, and three have had serious enough defects to lead to their deaths. Many of the residents live below poverty, and a number are migrant workers regularly exposed to pestides and pesticide pollution. Kettleman's water sources are also contaminated. There is also a nearby landfill, the largest landfill in the US west of Alabama. These two large landfills in Kettleman and Alabama are both operated by Waste Management Incorporated. Waste Management has proposed extending the size of the Kettleman landfill by 50%. Residents have attempted to block Waste Management's request, and this endeavor is an excellent example of environmental justice in action.

For further details see:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/07/kettleman-city-toxic-birth-de...

Bjorn Lomborg, a noted critic of global warming research and author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has altered his position, recently noting that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront". In his newest book, to be released new month, Lomborg details the need to invest in policies that address global warming, which he argues could solve the problem by the end of this century. Lomborg argued that as much as half of the needed funds can be generated by taxes on carbon emissions.

For further details see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate-...

critcrim.org visitors and friends

Many of the books that have been highlighted on this site were written by members of the Division or Section. In some cases links were added at the request of the author. These links were removed in a previous version of this site, and I was encouraged to bring them back, so I want to explain the recent decision to remove the links.

The following article describes the wider issues, but the short version is that I have never been totally comfortable with these advertisements and am reluctant to continue directing sales to this particular company. I am working on alternatives that will allow us to continue the effort to highlight books of interest to critical criminologists.

The following, by David Serota, helps explain the context of this decision:

Ashgate Publishing will produce a new book series, Green Criminology, to promote original scholarlship
contributing to the expanded study of environmental harm, crime, law and justice from a criminological
perspective. Michael J. Lynch and Paul B. Stretesky will serve as series editors. The series is expected to
publish between three to twelve books per year. See attached annoucement for further details.

Keeping it Radical: Exploring Income, Income Inequality and Poverty Data for the US.
 
Michael J. Lynch (Department of Criminology, University of South Florida)
 

Here I try to make a connection between critical pedagogy and music.
http://musingsbydave.blogspot.com/2009/11/music-and-knowledge-part-i-of-ii-i.html?spref=fb

Let me know what you think!
Dave

Here is a list of all sessions found while searching the ASC program for Critical Criminology:
 
1. "A 'Critical' Approach to Teaching White Collar Crime: Challenges and Objectives", *William Calathes, New Jersey City University

Whether or not we are willing to admit it, the world is hurling to its demise much more rapidly than we would like to admit. This is due, in large part, to our modern state of ignorance about the state of the environment and the fact that, as Bill McKibben wrote in The End of Nature, that we have spoiled nature. And while we were spoiling nature with what appeared to each of us tiny little acts, we never saw the big picture, never connected all the “little” incidents of pollution together, never imaged the mass of what we were doing. As McKibben noted, “We never thought we had wrecked nature.

When we incarcerate people for petty offenses and trifling conduct which we disapprove, we not only deprive them of liberty and virtually ensure that they will never be permitted to rejoin our society as respected, responsible citizens. We rob ourselves of the talents and contributions that might otherwise help to meet the challenges of our time, and those that lie ahead. We deplete public coffers of much-needed revenue in a wasteful, destructive spiral of reckless ruination.

Is it constitutional to execute an innocent person? That's nothing the legal system needs to worry about, says Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Sounds outrageous, but as Scalia pointed out in an opinion last week, the court "has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas (reviewing) court that he is 'actually' innocent.

The court has managed to avoid the issue for decades. In 1993, a majority said a Texas man who couldn't point to any legal flaws in his trial wasn't entitled to a hearing based on his claim of new evidence of innocence. But in that same ruling, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said he assumed that it would be unconstitutional to execute someone who came up with a "truly persuasive demonstration" of innocence.

Mike Presdee, who has died of cancer aged 64, was a sociologist of international acclaim and great personal magnetism. His work focused on the sociology of youth and cultural criminology. He was fascinated by the way in which young people can be criminalised and controlled, and of youth being seen as a problem, rather than young people being the locus of the problems of the system. In later life, he attempted to understand and explain New Labour's neurotic obsession with antisocial behaviour.

 
Steve Richards and Jeff Ross were interviewed on NPR on their new book:
 
Great job!
 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106550398