Roundtable: Generative Justice: From Alienation to Amity

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘amity’ means ‘friendship, friendliness, cordiality; friendly relations’. In criminology, ‘friendly relations’ (or ‘peer associations’) among justice-involved people have often been seen as problematic, because of their supposed criminogenic effects. For this reason, parole orders (or their equivalents) in many jurisdictions seek to prohibit such associations. Yet Beth Weaver’s (2015) seminal work has shown how the same friendships that were once associated with offending can become key relational resources for desistance and social integration.

In a growing global network of people interested in Generative Justice (meaning, in essence, places, practices and processes that somehow generate solidarity in the wake of both crime and punishment), we have begun to notice the ways in which amity develops, how it feeds both solidarity and belonging, and how this can support long-term change in the lives of justice-affected people and their communities.

In this roundtable, we aim to dig deeper into the natures, meanings, qualities and effects of the friendships that develop in GJ spaces.

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chair

• Fergus McNeill, Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow

Discussants

• Gabe Rosales, University of California, Irvine

• Kelsey Timler, University of British Columbia

• Sergio Grossi, Sorbonne Paris 1

• Alison Urie, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, University of Dundee

• Mary Corcoran, Keele University, UK