Expertise, Evidence and Knowledge Production in Criminology

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

In much criminological research, evidence is assessed in terms of scientific validity and the reliability of results to inform policy. The ability to critically assess claims of evidence based on research confers legitimacy to those with scientific expertise who, in turn, may lay claim to expertise in policy as well. Evidence and expertise are less often examined in criminology as matters of power and the social—rather than straightforwardly scientific—process of knowledge production. Underlying critical engagements with the content of criminological knowledge are processual problematics about how criminology comes to know what it knows. Historical as well as contemporary examinations of the nature of scientific claims, various and contested forms of legitimate expertise, and the social production and diffusion of ideas and emotions in the field of criminology illustrate the larger stakes for theory and policy in the 21st-century.

Sub Unit

• Area VII. Criminal Justice Policy and Practice / 32. Considering Criminal Justice Policies

Individual Presentations

• Criminology and Narrative: A Critical History of Dangerousness Evaluations - Chase Burton, University of California, Berkeley

• New Institutionalism and Theory Building in Criminal Justice - Johann Koehler, University of California, Berkeley; Ashley Rubin, University of Toronto

• Tracing Criminal Justice Development in Transinstitutionalization’s Wake - Natalie A Pifer, University of Rhode Island

Chair

• Anjuli Verma, University of California, Berkeley