Book Review: DeKeseredy, W. S., & Perry, B. (Eds.). (2006). Advancing Critical Criminology: Theory and Application. Latham, MD: Lexington Books. viii, 273 pp

• Published date: 01 June 2009
• Author: Matthew G. Yeager
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808325719
• Date: 01 June 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

258

Book Reviews

DeKeseredy, W. S., & Perry, B. (Eds.). (2006). Advancing Critical

Criminology: Theory and Application. Latham, MD:

Lexington Books. viii, 273 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016808325719

This is a notable collection of articles by two well-known critical criminologists, both of

whom are presently ensconced at the Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, Ontario.

As a matter of interest, the criminology program at Ontario Institute of Technology is

expanding in an effort to become a center for critical scholarship on crime and social justice

in North America.

From a critical standpoint, there have been a number of very good collections published

in the past, including Understanding the Criminological Imagination: Critical Readings in

Criminology (2007); Thinking Critically About Crime (1997); Critical Criminology: Issues,

Debates, Challenges (2002); and Controversies in Critical Criminology (2003). This rela-

tively new text makes an effort to advance both theory and application in critical criminol-

ogy. However, there is a dearth of applied work in the collection—most of the authors do

not have an applied sociology background—and the theoretical contribution is actually a

fairly good synopsis of some of the major trends in critical criminology.

For example, authors DeKeseredy, Alvi, and Schwartz take us on a journey into left realism

in an effort to defend this perspective from recent critiques—that, among others, an emphasis

on the nuts and bolts of criminal justice policy downplays a more structural critique of the

stratified market system and its repressive components. The authors rightly ask, “Is it appro-

priate to completely ignore criminal justice reforms for fear that they will only serve to ‘rein-

force the existing structure’?” (p. 29). Most critical criminologists, certainly mainstream

researchers, acknowledge the importance of addressing current problems of street crime,

woman abuse, and other harms. Indeed, there is a long history within Marxist criminology of

insisting on praxis to accompany theory.

Two excellent additions to the literature can be found in Michelle Brown’s “The New

Penology in a Critical Context” and Donnermeyer, Jobes, and Barclay’s piece titled “Rural

Crime, Poverty, and Community.” Here, Brown adds something that is often missing in crimi-

nology textbooks, which is a discussion of the sociology of law. She focuses on those elite

interests that create hegemonic discourses such as risk assessment, actuarial justice, and the

resulting reproduction of class, racial, and gender inequalities. “No longer are the instrumental-

ist perspectives of rehabilitation or deterrence viable ends,” (p. 113) observes Brown. One can

certainly dispute whether contemporary notions of deterrence or rehabilitation have actually

disappeared. In fact, they have not, and there is a lot of resistance within the punishment indus-

try and from the outside free community to the so-called new penology. Importantly, Brown

concludes that “actuarial techniques deny the moral and political significance of race, class, and

gender, instead of arguing these differences are no longer problematic” (p. 118).

The Donnermeyer article is worth the purchase of this text strictly on its own merits. The

authors resurrect “social disorganization” theory to help explain patterns of rural crime, and

then advance that classic perspective in sociology to suggest that what underpins social

Criminal Justice Review

Volume 34 Number 2

June 2009 258-306

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