Posted by: Michael J. Lynch, Area Chair, Critical and Cultural Criminology, 2009 American Society of Criminology Program Committee. With the 2008 ASC meetings behind us, it’s time to plan for the 2009 meetings in Philadelphia. As Area Chair for Critical Criminology, I am calling your attention to the 2009 panel, paper, abstract and poster submission notice issued by the American Society of Criminology (www.asc41.com/Annual_Meeting/2009/2009_Meeting_Call_for_Paper.pdf). There are a few changes to the ASC program for 2009 that I would like to call to your attention. These are reviewed below. In addition, futher information on the ASC program for 2009 is also provided. First, please note that I have slightly modified the sub-areas that fall under the "Critical and Cultural Criminology" area to include a new sub-area: Environmental/Green Criminology. Paul Stretesky will act as chair of this sub-area. Environmental/Green Criminology has been added to reflect the fact that criminological research on environmental and green harms, laws and justice has grown in recent years, and it is increasingly important that we provide a unique place for these studies within critical criminology. We should also consider that the major problems facing the world today are, despite what some suggest, environmentally based. These issues include but are not limited to: global warming and its associated harms, its implications for new forms of social control, and the need to reconceptualize criminal justice processes in response to global warming; the curtailment, particularly in the US, of laws that provide for environmental protection; expanded recognition of the scope of environmental harms and the prevalence of environmental toxins and their effects; concern for environmental justice and equal protection issues; the expanded ability to track and count environmental crimes and harms; accelerated species extinction; theoretical explorations of green harms such as those impacting human and non-human species; and concern with more specific manifestations of environmental harms such as deforestation, mountain top removal mining and its consequences, and the relationship between capitalism and the scope of environmental harms. Given the gravity and extent of these harms, it is important that critical criminologists continue to address matters of Environmental/Green Criminology. Second, I have asked Susan Carlson to serve as sub-chair of general papers on critical criminology, and had a specific objective in mind in doing so. As part of her task, Susan is seeking papers, panels and especially empirical research that specifically examine crime, law and justice from the perspective of political economic theory. Political economic explanations once provided an important foundation for research within critical criminology, and served as the basis for the emergence of this approach. Over the past two decades, as critical criminology has expanded its scope, critical criminologists have neglected the study of the political economic basis of crime, law and justice. This neglect has important ramifications for critical criminology, especially since political economic explanations also yield empirical studies that support the theoretical basis of critical criminology and which serve as the basis for empirical situated critiques of traditional criminological assumptions and studies on crime, law and justice. It is important to bear in mind that without the kinds of empirically based studies political economic approaches help generate, critical critiques of orthodox criminology have little impact and tend to be dismissed by orthodox criminologists as ideologically situated. Moreover, there have been many extensions of political economic theory during the past two decades that fill economic journals such as the Review of Radical Political Economics. Critical criminologists have not been widely engaged in exploring how these new political economic approaches can be applied to the study of crime, law and justice. Finally, given the current world wide economic crisis that has emerged in recent years, it seems fitting that critical criminologists pay greater attention to the political economic basis of this problem and its implications for crime, law and justice and reconsider the importance of political economic explanations. Third, ASC has modified its submission policies for the 2009 meetings. Special submission procedures have been added for participants who wish to engage in panels devoted to investigating policy proposals. Participants who wish to submit proposals for featured policy panels are required to submit abstracts by Friday, March 13th – a deadline that is two months earlier than those poster sessions or roundtables. Policy abstracts will be reviewed by policy sub-area chairs (on the ASC 2009 Program call for papers, those listed under “Category I: Special Sessions in Criminology and CJ Policy”). Participants submitting abstracts accepted for the 2009 ASC under this provision will then be required to submit completed papers for peer review by Friday, May 15th. Authors of peer reviewed submissions will be contracted with a final decision before July 1st. It would be useful if members of the Division submitted papers on policy issues consistent with the focus of the conference in order to provide critiques of orthodox policy positions. The policy papers “Special sessions in criminology and CJ policy” include the following broadly defined topical policy areas: (1) crime; (2) policing; (3) penal; (4) terrorism; (5) immigration; (6) drug; (7) domestic violence; (8) justice. A limited number of policy panels will be included at the 2009 ASC meetings. These panels will be "featured", and scheduled to enhance attendance. Additional information on deadlines for submission is provided below. Also listed below are the names and email addresses for critical criminology sub-area chairs. Please feel free to contact these individuals if you are unsure if your submission is appropriate for a particular sub-area. Remember that all ASC conference submissions must be made through the ASC website at: www.asc41.com/Annual_Meeting/2009/2009meeting.html. Submission deadlines: Complete Panels, submission deadline, Friday, March 13th, 5 PM, P.S.T. Individual Papers, submission deadline, Friday, March 13th, 5 PM, P.S.T. Poster, submission deadline, Friday, May 15th, 5 P.M., P.S.T. Roundtables, submission deadline, Friday, May 15th, 5 P.M.. EST Reminder: ASC policies allow for one (1) first authored presentation and one (1) additional appearance on the program as either a chair or a discussant on a standard panel. Appearances on the program as a coauthor, poster presenter or roundtable participant are unlimited. Category VI: Critical and Cultural Criminologies Area Chair, Michael J. Lynch, mlynch@cas.usf.edu Sub-area chairs: 34. Cultural Criminology, Jeff Ferrell, j.ferrell@tcu.edu 35. Critical Criminology, Susan M. Carlson, susan.carlson@wmich.edu 36. Peacemaking Criminology, John Wozniak, jf-wozniak@wiu.edu 37. State and Corporate Crime, Raymond J. Michalowski, raymond.michalowski@nau.edu 38. Convict Criminology, Stephen Richards, richarsc@uwosh.edu 39. Postmodernity, Bruce Arrigo, barrigo@uncc.edu 40. Environmental/Green Criminology, Paul Stretesky, pstretes@lamar.colostate.edu