There are two kinds of criminology conversations I get embroiled in these days!  Those with people who read criminology where we discuss many social/cultural phenomena under a specific lens or those with people who find criminology interesting, but consume popular crime instead.  The first group with varying level of engagement is beginning to decode some tell-tell signs in current events, using their knowledge of the discipline, as a deciphering mechanism.  The second group is quite different.  Their understanding of crime is based on dramatisations and literary conventions around plots and characters.  Even real crime is harbouring under the guise of some “exclusive” journalistic exposé…far from any basic criminological understanding. 

Years ago, a colleague from Sociology told me a story regarding a family event.  They were completing their PhD in the discipline, and they were questioned by an elderly person, as to what they would do when they finished their thesis.  They responded in the usual way many graduate students tend to, about hoping to get into academia or get some funding for some further research.  The elderly person didn’t seem satisfied…. they prompted further.  What will be your specialism?  What will you be able to tell people that you are proficient in?  Society and people, the colleague replied!  That’s hardly a skill, the old relative replied; we all live in society!  The colleague was equally intrigued and offended.  They thought that by offering a succinct response it would have helped their relative to understand without being confounded with notions on symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology.  This was a little anecdote that resonates with many social scientists, criminologists included, that whilst they try to explore people and culture around them, they are becoming distant to the actual people around them. 

The degree of challenge in recent years seems to increase for disciplines where people in general have a vague idea of what it is.  Many try to use psychological terms to explain other people’s behaviours, without realty appreciating, the clinical and scientific conditions of the term.  That is relevant to criminology too.  The representation of crime for public consumption has introduced some of the discipline’s terms into everyday parlance.  From forensic terms on profiling, to the origins of criminality, expectations on crime are forged.  A criminologist’s reaction to popular criminology pundits tends to be, well not quite, only to be met with disbelief of the criminology they know! 

One of the ways to appeal to those interested in popular criminology and take them to the discipline will be to add some facts and figures that promote reality.  Perhaps but that has been done before but only to give a gloss of “legitimacy” in fiction.  It makes it more compelling, but it doesn’t really offer the depth of knowledge.  To understand criminology, one must read criminology.  The history is filled with colleagues who brought their imagination to the discipline. From Bonger’s Criminality and Economic Conditions to Jock Young and The Criminological Imagination there are books and papers that are waiting to be read by a new audience to try to figure out these ideas. 

Maybe we all live in society and heard about crime and even experienced it, but to understand it we need some criminology.  The discipline, as with all social sciences, is a dialogue between people ready to carry forward the next constructs that shall appear as crimes.  If we read them and take part in these conversations maybe the area of harsh punishments, exclusion and persecution may not be as appealing.  We are an academic discipline but at the same time we open the discussion to our community.  So if you are neither a student, graduate, nor fellow academic and you are interested in criminology, why don’t you come to visit? https://www.northampton.ac.uk/about-us/contact-us/open-days/