CONTEMPORARY THEORIES

OF CRIMINOLOGY
(CRIMED 602)

VENUS B SABATE
TOPICS:

•Southern Theory and Criminology

•Critical Race Theory
•Green and Species Criminology
•Bio Critical Criminology
•Abolitionism and Convict Theory
 WHAT IS A THEORY??
• theories are explanation of a natural or social behavior event or
phenomenon.
• supposition or a system of ideas intended t explain something,
specially one based on general principles independent of the thing
to be explained.
• are set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based.
 SOUTHERN THEORY AND CRIMINOLOGY

• Seeks to modify the criminological field to make it more inclusive of

histories and patterns of crime, justice and security outside the global North.
• Violence and organized crime are intimately related to problems of
governance and poverty and environmental destruction.
• Punishment is an instrument for projecting imperial power and culture across
the globe,.
 CRITICAL RACE THEORY

• A theoretical framework that helps us understand on how it is that structural

and racial disparities in our society.
• Aims to interrogate the discourses, ideologies and social structures which
have produced and maintained conditions of racial injustice.
• It is grounded in the lived experiences, unique experiential knowledge and
narrative voice of racialized and subordinated communities.
 GREEN SPECIES CRIMINOLOGY

• Analysis of environmental harms from a criminological perspective, or the

application of criminological theory to environmental issues.
• Requires us to think about offences, offenders commit crimes against the
environment and victims.
• Non-human or biocentric discourse which emphasizes the importance of non-
human rights.
 BIO CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY

• Integrated and modern approach which attempts to synthesize the

sciences of life, of the psyche and of the social.
• Actions of human beings from the baseness of their crimes to the
heights of their altruism can be reduced ultimately to genetics.
• Adverse childhood experiences are being problematically used as
a predictive model to forecast outcomes of abused and harmed
children.
 ABOLITIONISM AND CONVICT THEORY

• Abolition of prison and replace them with systems of rehabilitation that do

not place focus on punishment and government institutionalization.
• Convict criminology is a controversial perspective which provides an
alternative view to the way crime and criminal justice problems are usually
seen by researchers, policymakers, and politicians, many of whom have had
minimal contact with jails, prisons and convicts.
Thank You Very Much!!