‘Who better to be training them?!’: Renewed Moments of Liberal Carceral Expansion and the Role of Higher Education

Mitra Mokhtari

The British Journal of Criminology, 2025, vol. 65, issue 6, 1298-1314

Abstract: Higher education is consistently offered as a powerful tool of criminal justice reform. Often presumed to be progressive, it is imperative to interrogate the limits of these orientations. I draw from 41 (n = 41) semi-structured interviews with staff and faculty at 36 criminology departments across Canada to uncover how they understand the role of criminological undergraduate education within ongoing projects of CJS reform. Participants emphasize that change happens from within the system: filling the ranks with good apples who are armed with critical social science knowledges. I interrogate this approach to institutional change, focusing on the expansionist formations that carceral liberalism necessitates. I illustrate the limits of this current criminological imagination and offer opportunities for other possibilities grounded in a transformative framework.

Keywords: progressive penalty; criminology; higher education; carceral logics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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