Chapter 42 Essay questions

  1. According to the sociologists Loic Wacquant (2005) “gaining membership in a group— whether boxers, baritones, or bartenders—is never a warrant for studying it, it can be an invaluable methodological springboard, provided it is theoretically controlled and pragmatically implemented.” Explore the implications of this observation for convict criminology.
  2. Choose one of the following quotes and consider its’ relevance to convict criminology:
    1. “In order to explain a cultural product it is necessary to know it. And to know it, in matters of thought and emotion, is to have experienced it.” Bronislaw Malinowski (Anthropologist) 1962,
    2. “You must learn to use your life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine and interpret it. In this sense craftsmanship is the centre of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you work.” C. Wright Mills (sociologist) 1959
  3. How does gender impact on convict criminology?
  4. Compare the social dynamics involved in criminalisation and racialisation and consider their relevance to convict criminology.
  5. Examine the turn towards ‘lived experience’ in the social sciences, analyse the positive and negative aspects of this movement for convict criminology.
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