Thinking Critically About the Next Decade of Convict Criminology

Authors

  • Jeffrey Ian Ross University of Baltimore

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18192/jpp.v33i1.7022

Abstract

Convict Criminology (CC) is a quarter-century old. During those years, this combined approach, group, organization, school, theory, and network has produced scholarly literature and mentored actual and aspiring doctoral students who have been incarcerated and released from carceral custody, assisting them in their careers and engaging in corrections-related policy debates and activism. As the academic fi elds and real-world practice of Corrections and Critical Criminology have changed, and the people who have been involved in CC have come and gone, Convict Criminology has evolved. This paper briefl y reviews the aims and history of CC, then applies a strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis to Convict Criminology with the goal of suggesting ways that the leadership, members, and allies of the CC approach might best further its mission.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Ian Ross, University of Baltimore

Jeff rey Ian Ross, PhD is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, College of Public Affairs, and a Research Fellow in the Center for International and Comparative Law, and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy at the University of Baltimore. He has been a Visiting Professor at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany and the University of Padua in Italy. Professor Ross has researched, written, and lectured primarily on corrections, policing, political crime, state crime, crimes of the powerful, violence, street culture, as well as crime and justice in American Indian communities for over two decades. His work has appeared in many academic journals and books, including most recently the Routledge Handbook of Street Culture (2021) and Convict Criminology for the Future (2021). Ross is a respected subject matter expert for local, regional, national and international news media. He has made live appearances on CNN, CNBC, Fox News Network, MSNBC, and NBC. Additionally, Ross has written op-eds for The (Baltimore) Sun, the Baltimore Examiner, The (Maryland) Daily Record, The Gazette, The Hill, Inside Higher Ed, and The Tampa Tribune. Professor Ross is the co-founder of Convict Criminology, and the former co-chair/chair of the Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice (2014-2017) of the American Society of Criminology. In 2018, Ross was given the Hans W. Mattick Award, “for an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to the field of Criminology & Criminal Justice practice”, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2020, he received the John Howard Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ Division of Corrections. The award is the ACJS Corrections Section’s most prestigious award, and was given because of his “outstanding research and service to the field of corrections”. In 2020, he was honored with the John Keith Irwin Distinguished Professor Award from the ASC Division of Convict Criminology. During the early 1980s, Jeff worked for almost four years in a correctional institution.

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Published

2023-11-16

Issue

Vol. 33 No. 1 (2024): Marking the 25th Anniversary of Convict Criminology

Section

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