Of Big Tents and Handmaidens: The Origins and Evolution of Criminology at Simon Fraser University

Abstract

There are long-standing concerns that, due to the subject matter, university-based Criminology and Criminal Justice programs are at risk of becoming too closely aligned with criminal justice agencies and other agents of the State. It is feared that these affiliations will compromise the academic integrity of the programs while at the same time legitimizing the more coercive and oppressive features of the criminal justice system. An examination of the creation and evolution of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University provides the opportunity to consider the dynamics that surrounded the development of a multi-disciplinary program that has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on the academic and applied landscape both in Canada and internationally. Using archival documents and interviews with the founding Director of the now School of Criminology and nearly all of the subsequent Directors of the School during its forty year (1974-2014) history, the study considers the personalities and politics that have defined the School, the challenges it has faced in erecting, and sustaining a “big tent” approach to the study of Criminology, the evolution of the curriculum, and the issues that it continues to encounter. Among the findings of the study are that the issue of whether the School of Criminology has been, or is, a “handmaiden” of the State has been less of an issue than the commitment on the part of the School’s leadership to maintain among the faculty a balance in orientations and methods. This approach has largely prevented the program from slipping either too far to the Left or to the Right, while respecting the disciplinary and theoretical orientations of the faculty. In this respect, the School has generally been successful in maintaining the delicate balance between the theoretical and applied dimensions of Criminology.