POST-CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2009, Critical Criminology, Post-Critical Criminology

The term 'post-critical criminology' refers to a time following the period in which a critical or conflict perspective was dominant.

'Post-critical criminology' perspective would accept the assumptions central to postmodernism or deconstructionism.

A post-critical criminology informed by the work of Foucault (e.g., Foucault 1977, 1991; Miller and Rose 1990; O'Malley 1992; Garland 1997, 2002) emerged from the widespread disenchantment and undercutting of extant radical approaches. For many criminologists coming of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Foucault was a welcome antidote to a "failed" or waffling Marx- and liberal-influenced criminology. Dated to the collapse of the traditional alternative to liberal capitalism, be it the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall or the 1968 failure of the Paris revolts, the so-called "end of history" confirmed for some poststructuralists that emerging real-world movements were in synch with a social theory that had also moved beyond classic binaries and dualities. Moreover, Foucault was embraced against the backdrop of an almost visceral disinclination toward a positive moral position--one that de Haan (1987) and Cohen (1979) had seen in the earlier critical turn in criminology. Foucauldians were Nietzsche-sensitized radicals who rejected the normative project of criminology with the failed projects of humanism and modernism. This is the context in which it could be claimed that critical criminology could be better understood as the study of governance (Caputo and Hatt 1996). - de Lint, Willem, Governmentality, critical criminology, and the absent norm. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice

The Continuing Relevance of Marxism to Critical Criminology
Stuart Russell, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Journal Critical Criminology Issue Volume 11, Number 2 / May, 2002 DOI 10.1023/A:1025560117048
Abstract Since the early 1990s, the ``new directions'' in Critical Criminology have consciously excluded Marxism as being out-dated. This article critically assesses the fundamental theoretical shifts within critical criminology. It argues that Marxism remains as relevant as ever for analysing crime, criminal justice, and the role of the state. There is a great need for critical criminologists to redirect their attention back to Marxist theory by developing and extending its tools of critical theoretical analysis.

"Beyond Critique: Toward a Post-Critical Criminology", in Post-Critical Criminology (T. O'Reilly-Fleming, ed.). Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1996: 410-435, (co-authored with Tullio Caputo). The authors’ suggestion is to replace criminality and the criminal, criminology’s traditional objects, with governance.
Schissel, Bemard (1996) "Post-Critical Criminology and Moral Panics: Deconsuucting the. Conspiracy Against Youths" Thomas O'Reilley-Fleming (eds.).