Queer Criminology Research Articles

Minor Attraction: A Queer Criminological Issue

Despite a cultural tendency to sexualize youth, individuals who are primarily attracted to minors are subject to suspicion and stigma across society, extending into criminology and criminal justice. The prevailing assumption is that minor-attracted persons (MAPs) are mentally ill and predatory. However, there exists evidence that minor attraction is a sexual orientation, and the parallels between the treatment of MAPs and LGBT populations are striking. Employing queer criminology’s use of deconstructionist techniques, we address the current state of criminology and criminal justice, which sees MAPs as a suspect population warranting formal control. We then argue for the use of queer criminology as a framework for future research with minor-attracted populations, which could have important implications for criminal justice practice and policy.

Queer Criminology as Activism

Belknap’s recent call for greater criminological activism in the service of social justice identifies queer criminology as an important site for such activism. Indeed, much of the work undertaken by queer criminologists is already motivated by a concern to address a variety of injustices—whether in the form of discrimination, heteronormativity, gender binarism, or invisibility—experienced by queer communities in the realm of criminal justice, criminology, and beyond. In this paper, I explore the existing and possible future connections between queer criminology and activism. I highlight the ways in which queer politics have always involved social activism, including activism relating to criminal justice issues. I then suggest some possible directions for expanding queer criminological activism within the traditional academic roles of research, teaching, and service. Pursuing such directions, I argue, is necessary in order to set the foundation for further queer criminological activism beyond academia.

Transgender Victims and Offenders: Failures of the United States Criminal Justice System and the Necessity of Queer Criminology

The purpose of this article is to highlight the experiences of transgender people within the criminal justice system as both victims and offenders. We contend that queer criminology is both needed and can assist in exploring the experiences of this unique population who face discrimination within the US criminal justice system and who are often ignored within criminological research. The article will provide an overview of transgender people’s general experiences within the criminal justice system and explore influences of cultural stereotypes about transgender people by examining the cases of three transgender victims of violence—Brandon Teena, Gwen Araujo, and Cece McDonald. This article highlights the importance of concepts such as sex, gender, transpanic, transphobia, victim-blaming, and the responses by key players in the criminal justice system (police, courts, and corrections) to transgender victims and offenders.

Better Left Unsaid? The Role of Agency in Queer Criminological Research

In this article, I review the scant literature on gay men’s involvement in violence, gangs, and crime, which characterizes gay men as having little opportunity for agency. In discussing the popular culture, academic, and political reasons why this population has been neglected from study, I identify existing stereotypes that have shaped representations of gay men. I challenge our societal and disciplinary assumptions by presenting examples from my interview-based and partially ethnographic study of 53 gay gang- and crime-involved men, who both respond to and actively resist stereotypes about them. I also critically reflect on whether a continued lack of attention to queer populations in the criminological and related literatures is desirable today, but conclude the article by providing suggestions for scholars looking to conduct research with LGBT populations, especially within criminology and criminal justice.

Queer Criminology, Critique, and the “Art of Not Being Governed”

This article builds on previous work that argues that a useful path for a “queer/ed criminology” to follow is one that takes “queer” to denote a position. It suggests that one way of developing such an approach is to adopt a particular understanding of critique—specifically one that draws from Michel Foucault’s view of critique as “the art of not being governed.” It then charts some of the possible directions for such a “queer/ed criminology.” While such an approach to critique has previously been discussed within critical criminologies, this article suggests that it is useful for queer criminologists to explore the opportunities that it affords, particularly in order to better appreciate how “queer/ed criminology” might connect to, draw from, or push against other currents among critical criminologies, and help to delineate the unique contribution that this kind of “queer/ed criminology” might make.

On the Possibilities of a Queer Criminology: Homophobia as the Object of Study in the Criminal Sciences—A Perspective Based on the Brazilian Reality

The purpose of this research is to approach queer theories and the critical perspectives of criminology in Brazil by analyzing both the conditions of the possibility and the implications of a queer criminology. Homophobic violence is seen here as the object of study of a queer criminological perspective, whose ambition is the construction of a qualified perspective that is aware of diversity, concerned with human rights and, above all, non-discriminating towards the (positive and negative) political demands of social movements represented by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals.

On the Possibilities of a Queer Criminology: Homophobia as the Object of Study in the Criminal Sciences -- A Perspective Based on the Brazilian Reality

The purpose of this article is to approach queer theories and the critical perspectives of criminology in Brazil by analyzing both the conditions of possibility and the implications of a queer criminology. Homophobic violence is seen here as the object of study of a queer criminological perspective, whose ambition is the construction of a qualified perspective that is aware of diversity, concerned with human rights and, above all, non-discriminating towards the (positive and negative) political demands of social movements represented by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals.