Southern Criminology Developed By Raewyn Connell

Southern criminology is a critical lens of criminology developed by Raewyn Connell in 2007 which can greatly improve criminology (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). It emphasises the fact that criminology emerged at a period when European imperialists were expanding multiple nations (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). Southern criminology highlights the idea that the world is split into the global north and the global south, or the metropole and the periphery, and that this division is typically based on national wealth (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). The metropole, for example, was the European imperialist, and the periphery was where these imperialists spread (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). As a result, many criminological theories are from the global north and fail to

Human trafficking, for example, entails the movement of humans across borders, with each country involved serving as an origin country, a transit country, or a destination country (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). No one country can handle these problems alone; we need partnerships and collaboration. Thus, in response, scholars around the world have developed the idea of southern criminology and stated, “southern criminology isn’t a theory, it’s a project” (Carrington, 2018; pp. 26). The goal of the southern criminology initiative is to make more voices heard. It seeks to address the power dynamics entrenched in the criminological knowledge hierarchy, which prioritises theories, assumptions, and procedures based mostly on empirical features of the global north (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). The research that gets the highest uptake and predominantly found in prestigious journals is still written by people in Western Europe and North America (Week 1, Part 3 Lecture). Thus, a major focus for the southern criminological project is to make more voices heard through literature by removing the language

Edwin Lement (1951) explained the theory well as he focussed on the primary and secondary deviation. It just comes to show how influential judgements from society can be after one initial act of deviance (Lement, 1951; pp. 603). Both strain theory and labelling theory has changed my stance on issues of crime and deviance around Tasmania, including youth gangs and violent crime. For example, I initially believed that every member of a youth gang was a bad person. There was no question about it in my mind but learning from labelling theory, Marxist theory and strain theory, my stance on this issue has completely changed. Nobody knows what is happening behind closed doors and just because someone has committed an act of crime and deviance, it does not mean that they are bad people. While the theories cannot take away the seriousness of these crimes, they can highlight the motivators behind