Abstract
This article reviews Matthews’ (2014) Realist Criminology as an opportunity to address larger shortcomings within critical criminology, which is the failure to develop an alternative theory of crime and place to the mainstream theories of social disorganisation and collective efficacy. It uses rural criminological work related to violence against women and substance use, production and trafficking to illustrate the importance of place for development of a realist criminology that can consider localised expressions of power and inequality, and the multiplicity of networks and roles by which people can simultaneously be involved in both conforming and deviant/criminal behaviours. The article also suggests that a critical theory of crime and place would be useful to the synthesis and re-interpretation of criminological literature that is either theory-less or lacks a critical perspective.
Highlights
I begin with a simple claim: most critical criminologies ignore the reality of place, leaving place‐ based criminological scholarship hostage to the theoretical stumbles and methodological monotony of social disorganisation theory and the theory of collective efficacy (Donnermeyer 2015; Donnermeyer and DeKeseredy 2014; Donnermeyer, Scott and Barclay 2013)
Kept whispering under my breath, continuously, in regard to the concept of place, ‘you’re so close, Roger, but you missed it again’. It is to take advantage of the shortcomings in Matthews’ (2014) Realist Criminology to bring special consideration to what ought to be the pivotal role of a realist, critical theory of place within criminology and, of place in critical criminology
I eventually recognised the important role that critical criminology has to play in our understanding of crime in a world in which urbanisation and globalisation may be pervasive, but that is a world in which over 45 per cent of its population experiences these macro forces outside the metropolis
Summary
I begin with a simple claim: most critical criminologies ignore the reality of place, leaving place‐ based criminological scholarship hostage to the theoretical stumbles and methodological monotony of social disorganisation theory and the theory of collective efficacy The tradition of keeping place in its ‘place’ – secondary, subsidiary, and not quite visible – continues with the newest attempt to revive and re‐write an important strand of critical criminology, this time by Roger Matthews (2014) in his new book Realist Criminology. The book itself was mostly enjoyable to read, even though I kept whispering under my breath, continuously, in regard to the concept of place, ‘you’re so close, Roger, but you missed it again’ Instead, it is to take advantage of the shortcomings in Matthews’ (2014) Realist Criminology to bring special consideration to what ought to be the pivotal role of a realist, critical theory of place within criminology and, of place in critical criminology. I begin this essay with a brief discourse on criminological theories of place and my own epiphany about crime in the context of a rural locality
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