Critical perspectives on crime, deviance, disorder and social harm
Posted on 24 June 2011
The University will host a new National Deviancy Conference entitled ‘Critical Perspectives on Crime, Deviance, Disorder and Social Harm’.
The time is ripe for a renewed commitment to critical scholarship that pushes beyond the restricted, policy-oriented and often somewhat conformist ambitions of mainstream criminology
Dr Simon Winlow
It will provide criminologists in a range of disciplines with an opportunity to exchange ideas about crime and deviance as well as discussing how scholars can address major challenges. The three-day conference starting on 29 June is organised by the Department of Sociology at York.
It comes 43 years after the University was the venue for the world’s first conference to explore the nature of deviancy. The symposium brought together a group of young criminologists who challenged conventional, state-oriented and statistical approaches to crime.
The York conference was a landmark event and is now recognised as one of the key milestones in the development of critical criminology in the UK.
The most significant global recession since the 1930s has placed the retrenchment of social programs and the vilification of particular sections of society at the forefront of political debate on related forms of crime and disorder. This month’s conference will consider a wide range of harms and problems including violence in its various guises, the globalised and pre-emptive actions against terrorism, significant ecological changes and catastrophe as well as traditional concerns around gangs, organised crime, prison systems and policing.
One of the organisers, Dr Simon Winlow said: “In this context, narrow concerns with crime and punitive action feel both overly restrictive and diminish attempts at understanding the expansion of social harms and forms of violence operating globally.
“In the current context of economic collapse and social unease, to say nothing of ongoing globalisation and the complex interconnection of crime and harms across the world, the time is ripe for a renewed commitment to critical scholarship that pushes beyond the restricted, policy-oriented and often somewhat conformist ambitions of mainstream criminology.”
Plenary speakers are: Jock Young, Stan Cohen, Alex Callinicos, Roy Bailey, Frances Heidensohn, Tony Jefferson, Paul Walton, Pat Carlen, Jeff Ferrell, Kester Aspden, Rob White, Steve Hall, Keith Hayward, Sandra Walklate.
More on the York Deviancy Conference at www.york.ac.uk/sociology/about/news-and-events/department/deviancy-conference/
Notes to editors:
- More about the University of York’s Department of Sociology at www.york.ac.uk/sociology/
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