2 Decolonization and Criminology
Charmine Cortez
Title: Decolonization and Criminology: An Analysis of Knowledge Production
Abstract
Mainstream criminology plays a significant role in the development of our current policies and legislation. This chapter evaluates the influence of a settler-colonial ideology on the shaping of the current criminological structure accepted by academia and, through this latter, on what this means for the Justice System (JS). Using case studies from Southern, Indigenous, and Africana perspectives, this chapter reflects on the entrenchment of contemporary colonial and imperialist processes in the settler-colonial State and how this influences the production of criminological knowledge and, through it, policy and legislation. This is a cycle that continuously harms the Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities. By addressing the injustices and gaps within this aspect of knowledge production, I argue the need for a ‘Post-Colonial Criminology’. Such a discipline would better reflect and respond to society’s views on the precepts of crime, justice, and punishment.
Introduction
The theory offers the means and opportunity to analyze and critique our understanding of the world. Theories are shaped by our realities, belief systems, culture, and worldview. For researchers within the increasingly interdisciplinary field of criminology, the study of crime and criminal behaviour is to engage with a tremendous body of scientific research with the aim of providing a rational explanation to support their theories. If developed effectively, such theories generate potential strategies for designing programs and impacting policies within the Justice System (Williams & McShane, 2018). A good theory can induce positive real-life consequences that improve our social, political, and economic conditions. Our current policies and legislations are almost inevitably guided in part by criminological philosophies. The fact that criminology is partly grounded in the past is what makes a move towards a Post-Colonial Criminology so important. It would consider the influence of socio-historical contexts on current theories and research, on criminal justice culture and society and trace the implications for policy, knowledge, and understanding.
The social and economic injustices towards Indigenous peoples and their current relations to the Canadian Justice System bear witness to the ideological implication that our current Justice System is set up to fail society’s Indigenous people in society and continuously imposes other factors of injustices on marginalized communities. These injustices do not occur in a vacuum; they are brought about by systematic and structuralized forces that maintain the powerful Eurocentric and social-Darwinist ideology of imperialism and capitalism over time (e.g., see Agozino, 2021; McGuire & Palys, 2020; Monchalin, 2015). This paper will argue that the discipline of criminology in the settler-colonial State, is