Doing Time for Convict Criminology

Earle, Rod (2021). Doing Time for Convict Criminology. In: Ross, Jeffrey Ian and Vianello, Francesca eds. Convict Criminology for the Future. UK: Routledge.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003016458-4

Abstract

This chapter draws reflexively from the author’s professional trajectory as a criminologist, experiences of prison research and imprisonment. I consider the difficulties and potential of crafting a collective criminological project in the United Kingdom from disparate and profoundly personal experiences of imprisonment. The chapter combines autoethnography and methodological reflections on the use of vignettes as a means to an end: establishing collective narratives from personal stories. Convict criminologists often draw inspiration from Charles Wright Mills’ classic text, The Sociological Imagination. For Mills, the special craft of sociology rested on the insight that ‘personal troubles cannot be solved as mere troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues’. By bringing together people with direct experience of imprisonment and criminological expertise, Convict Criminology can develop this craft to expand the criminological imagination and make the troubles of imprisonment a more public issue. This involves accommodating the diversity of experience and the ambiguities of the different meanings that prison experiences generate.

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