Learning about the Illegal and the "Lawful yet Awful": Progressing Public Criminology in the University Classroom. Issue 4 (30th November 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gacek, James; McClanahan, Bill
• Is Part Of: Journal of criminal justice education. Volume 32:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 495
• Page End: 512
• Publication Date: 2021-11-30
• Subjects: Public criminology -- green criminology -- popular criminology -- education -- university; Criminal justice, Administration of -- Study and teaching (Internship) -- United States -- Periodicals; Criminology -- United States -- Periodicals; 364.071
• DOI: 10.1080/10511253.2021.1916051
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1051-1253

Abstract

Abstract: In this article, we focus on the teaching of criminology in the university classroom. Considering the recent debates on "public criminology, " we examine teaching as a method of reaching more "publics." As university educators we recognize "students are our first public" (Burawoy, 2008, p. 8) and as criminologists we want to rethink the form of instruction and the means of delivery of a criminological education. Yet this pedagogical picture is not complete without understanding how students interact with content material beyond the formal study of crime, criminals, and criminality – namely, the issues of environmental and "green" harm circulating around illegal and "lawful yet awful" behaviour in society. To further understand these experiences, we reflect upon our teaching of undergraduate and graduate green criminology courses, specifically examining the merits of reorienting criminological teaching to focus upon green issues that brings in students' experiences and how they make connections with the content and material we provide them. Our article presents an opportunity for criminology and criminal justice instructors to reconsider curriculum reform and conventional criminological education. Criminological curricula ought to contextualize criminology and its green impacts. By drawing upon aspects of green criminology and popular criminology, we argue that educators and students can work together towards a critical ecopedagogy which benefits the teaching and the learning of criminology, as well as advances a more public criminology in the process.