Critical Criminology, Canadian Edition

Abstract

According to scholars of public criminology and public sociology, our classroom teaching – including our lectures, course material, and syllabi – are forms of public criminology. If we take this to be true, a scholarly examination of these spaces is imperative. Critical criminology has operated since its inception as a subfield without clear boundaries, and within undergraduate curriculums it has been consistently marginalized as a central topic of study and teaching. In this urgent context, we provide an analysis of the dynamics of the field. Using course syllabi data and departmental data, we examine what constitutes the current critical criminology curriculum in Canada. As such, we explore (1) where it is; (2) what it is; (3) and who it is. Our analyses indicate that critical criminology is understood in both unifying and contradictory ways, is both topical and theoretical, and remains geographically varied. We outline some exploratory analyses about the place of critical scholarship in Canadian undergraduate curriculums and about the field more broadly.