The Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology

The editors and contributors are to be congratulated for providing an urgent and much needed critical response to the global politics of harm and the local practices of violence that swirl around, in, and through our collective psyches and our interdependent humanity. This Handbook is an indispensable criminological resource for activists, academics, policy professionals, and students of justice.

-- Bruce A. Arrigo, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA

This groundbreaking book sets the tone for the criminological debate, making it clear that science can no longer be understood in isolation from social change. Crime, punishment and social control shape the lives of the most vulnerable sections of society, and their voices demand to be included in any transformative project that genuinely seeks to overturn existing injustices. The book raises this demand from a decolonial and intersectional perspective that includes Indigenous, abolitionist, transfeminist and Southern perspectives that make clear that Western-centred solutions are neither epistemically nor empirically sufficient to promote real transformation.

-- Valeria Vegh Weis, Researcher, Konstanz University, Germany

This Handbook constitutes a fundamental milestone and essential reading for all those in the criminological field who, beyond traditional views, claim a style of knowledge production politically committed to the current struggles for transformation and social justice.

-- Máximo Sozzo, National University of Litoral, Argentina

The Emerald International Handbook of Activist Criminology is a timely collection of cutting-edge contributions by established and emerging activist researchers and advocates. These are bold and creative interventions from a range of diverse perspectives, all unified with the common objective of resisting the epistemic violence of a discipline traditionally tethered to state and increasingly corporate research agendas that continue to be implicated in and directly reproduce social injustice, violence and harm. Together, they compose a bold and comprehensive response to a frequently asked question: should criminology be abolished? This book is an important, instructional and heartening manual for the growing number of radically oriented and activist researchers struggling on the margins of the discipline to build meaningful community, solidarity and intervention that result in genuine structural change and the dismantling of injustice and social harm.

-- Bree Carlton, University of Melbourne, Austr