42. Convict criminology without guarantees: Proposing hard labour for an unfinished criminology

Abstract

This chapter examines the key concepts of convict criminology. It explains that convict criminology is largely involved with criminological and penological research produced by people who combine first-hand experience of imprisonment with criminological training and insight. Moreover, convict criminology offers an alternative perspective on criminological issues grounded in lived experience while reshaping the degraded image of the prisoner in the public imagination. The subfield subverts the abject status of the convict or prisoner as an object of suspicion circulating darkly in the social depths. The chapter mentions that convict criminologists should be wary of the reductionist convenience of their social position to their epistemological position