Convict criminology is a new school within the field of criminology that is based on the insider perspectives of the criminals themselves, and the researchers and analysts are often former or current convicted criminals (Newbold & Ross, 2013). In this way the experiences of convicts become grounded in theory and research and can be included in scholarship on that subject. It was declared as a new school within criminology beginning in the 1990s (Newbold & Ross, 2013). It has been the subject of much controversy since that time (Newbold & Ross, 2013).
The positive aspects of convict criminology are that it balances the field of criminal justices studies by providing a perspective which is not biased towards authority in the criminal justice system, by including the point of view and empathy for criminals and how they are processed and treated by the system (Richards & Ross, 2001). Prisons and the criminal justice system have ultimately been a failure in terms of rehabilitating prisoners or resolving problems of crime, and this insider view helps to provide the reasons for that (Richards & Ross, 2001).
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The consequences of convict criminology have been fear by many academic circles as well as the criminal justice establishment (Richards, 2013). Despite this, new research and knowledge is growing and becoming grounded in theory and emerging concepts of better approaches to criminals and justice (Richards, 2013).
Without convict led criminological studies the overpowering voice in research and theory on the criminal justice system comes from a conservative ideology of former authorities and persons who worked in that field, and this has been criticized by those who have experienced the justice system as overlooking the conditions and the experience of imprisonment as well as insight regarding why the criminal justice system does not achieve its intended objectives.
- Newbold, G., & Ross, J. I. (2013). Convict Criminology at the Crossroads Research Note. The Prison Journal, 93(1), 3-10.
- Richards, S. C., & Ross, J. I. (2001). Introducing the new school of convict criminology. Social Justice, 28(1 (83), 177-190.
- Richards, S. C. (2013). The new school of convict criminology thrives and matures. Critical Criminology, 21(3), 375-387.
