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.

Hi everyone,
We now have our list of Division on Critical Criminology leadership nominees and will be turning the election process over to the elections committee, Gregg Barak and Patrik Olsson.
Thanks to Bonnie Berry, Chris Mullins and Walter DeKeseredy for working on the nominations and thanks to all of the nominees for agreeing to run. I emailed a PDF document with the nominee bios to the email addresses on file with Susan Case at ASC.

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.

Hi,
Please take a moment to check that your DCC dues are paid and your correct email and mailing information is on file with Susan Case so that you will be able to participate in the DCC elections.
And please keep the nominations coming! Send them to molly.dragiewicz@uoit.ca
Best,
Molly Dragiewicz
 

 
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

CC folks,
There are several good introduction to criminology books out there from a critical perspective.  I'd like to think the book Hugh Barlow and I just published makes that list.  More information here: http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742561860&thepassedurl=[thepassedurl]
Thanks,
Dave
 

The web hosting service formerly used for critcrim.org was recently sold to a larger company. Problems began immediately. For a brief period this site was unavailable. Moving to another server has provided an opportunity to update the site. Some features have changed and others will be added as the upgrade process continues. As always, please post announcements of interest to the critcrim community.

Attached is a copy of the page proof's for Hal Pepinsky's "Peacemaking: Reflections of a Radical Criminologist." While this file has been available on the critcrim.org site for several years, the original intent was to provide only limited access. We now have permission for broader access.