2020 will be a memorable year for a number of reasons.  The big news of course was people across the world going into lockdown and staying home in order to stop the transmission of a coronavirus Covid-19.  Suddenly we started counting; people infected, people in hospitals, people dead.  The social agenda changed and our priorities altered overnight.  During this time, we are trying to come to terms with a new social reality, going for walks, knitting, baking, learning something, reading or simply surviving, hoping to see the end of something so unprecedented.     

People are still observing physical distancing, and everything feels so different from the days we were discussing future developments and holiday plans. During the last days before lockdown we (myself and @paulaabowles) were invited to the local radio by April Dawn to talk about, what else, but criminology.  In that interview we revealed that the course started 20 years ago and for that reason we shall be having a big party inviting prospective, current and old students together to mark this little milestone.  Suffice to say, that did not happen but the thought of celebrating and identifying the path of the programme is very much alive.  I have written before about the need to celebrate and the contributions our graduates make to the local, regional and national market.  Many of whom have become incredibly successful professionals in the Criminal Justice System. 

On this entry I shall stand on something different; the contribution of criminology to professional conduct, social sciences and academia.  Back in the 1990s Stan Cohen, wrote the seminal Against Criminology, a vibrant collection of essays, that identified the complexity of issues that once upon a time were identified as radical.  Consider an academic in the 1960s imagining a model that addresses the issue of gender equality and exclusion; in some ways things may not have changed as much as expected, but feminism has entered the ontology of social science. 

Criminology as a discipline did not speak against the atrocities of the Nazi genocide, like many other disciplines; this is a shame which consecutive generations of colleagues since tried to address and explain.  It was in the 1960s that criminology entered adulthood and embraced one of its more fundamental principles.  As a theoretical discipline, which people outside academia, thought was about reading criminal minds or counting crime trends only.  The discipline, (if it is a discipline) evolved in a way to bring a critical dimension to law and order.  This was something more than the original understanding of crime and criminal behaviour and it is deemed significant, because for the first time we recognised that crime does not happen in a social vacuum.  The objectives evolved, to introduce scepticism in the order of how systems work and to challenge established views. 

Since then, and through a series of events nationally and internationally, criminology is forging a way of critical reflection of social realities and professional practices.  We do not have to simply expect a society with less crime, but a society with more fairness and equality for all.  The responsibilities of those in position of power and authority is not to use and abuse it in order to gain against public interest.  Consider the current pandemic, and the mass losses of human life.  If this was preventable, even in the slightest, is there negligence?  If people were left unable to defend themselves is that criminal?  Surely these are questions criminology asks and this is why regardless of the time and the circumstances there will always be time for criminology to raise these, and many more questions.