Educating the Criminology Vanguard

Abstract

My aim in these reflections is to offer a personal account of my efforts to bridge the divide between the academic entrenchment of a ‘critical criminology’ and the teaching of its precepts to the daily purveyors of social order least inclined to accept them – those in the law enforcement and corrections community. In portraying this dilemma, I will briefly report on an early positive inspiration on the theoretical side, followed by a disappointing negative one on the applied side. My experience, telling but by no means unique, illustrates the pedagogical challenge lodged in attempts to instill a holistic conception of social justice in the occupational firmament of agents of social control.