The Enemy of My Enemy is not My Friend: Liberal and Radical Criminologies in the US

• In Event: Radical Criminology: What's Left?

Abstract

Observed retrospectively after forty years of draconian penal policies that have turned the United States into the world leader in incarceration, the liberal and radical criminological traditions of the 1960s and 1970s appear much less distant from each other than they both were from the penal catastrophe that would unfold over the following decades. In this paper, I will revisit some topics of debate between liberal and radical criminologies to suggest that, despite the undeniable elements of proximity they shared vis à vis the hegemonic penal populism that would dominate the political landscape of the US during the last quarter of the twentieth century, significant differences remain between the two criminological traditions. I will focus specifically on three areas of differentiation between radical and liberal criminologies, pertaining respectively to the fields of genealogy, epistemology, and political strategy; finally, I will argue that a critical reflection on these differences is particularly important as we try to imagine possible breakouts from the current penal crisis.

Author

• Alessandro De Giorgi, San Jose State University