How listening to convicts can transform justice

Update: 2024-06-14

Description

Convict’s voices have traditionally been ignored and marginalised in scholarship and policy debates, but how can we improve if we don’t learn from these lived experiences?

Richard Kemp speaks with Jeffrey Ian Ross, author of ‘Introduction to Convict Criminology’, about why listening to convicts is essential to positively impacting corrections, criminology, criminal justice, and policy making.

They discuss the origins of convict criminology as a discipline, the importance, and difficulty, of receiving higher education during incarceration, and the policy decisions that are necessary to improve our criminal justice systems.

Jeffrey Ian Ross is Professor in the School of Criminal Justice and Research Fellow with the Center for International and Comparative Law and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy at the University of Baltimore. Follow him on Twitter: @jeffreyianross.

Find out more about the book: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/introduction-to-convict-criminology

The full transcript of the podcast is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2024/06/14/podcast-how-listening-to-convicts-can-transform-justice/

Timestamps:

1:41 - What was the literature on prisons before convict criminology, and what does convict criminology do differently?

4:08 - What is prison life like and why is it important for us to understand it?

7:08 - Was convict criminology 'rocking the boat' when it came to be?

9:31 - Education in prisons is important, so how did it end up in the state it's in?

15:56 - What's the financial support for inmates doing education?

18:56 - How achievable is it for educated inmates to write academically about their experiences?

25:30 - What do you say to people who disagree with inmates being educated?

28:35 - What are the impacts of race, gender and class, and what are the dangers of activism?

32:22 - How does convict criminology want to influence policy?