Researching Punishment ― Critical Reflections

This book is concerned with the practical, ethical and political realities of critical research around state punishment. By definition, critical research is a dynamic and political process which recognizes the broad structural contexts within which human action takes place. Critical researchers argue for a more dynamic and reflexive approach to research, and have duties to expose oppressive structures and practices, make audible voices that are habitually silenced, and empower and emancipate marginalized groups and individuals.

Based on a series of interviews conducted with researchers within and outside of academia, this book aims to capture the personal challenges, ethical dilemmas, practical obstacles, positive rewards and (potential or actual) harmful effects of undertaking critical research concerned with state punishment. It will also explore the different mediums used to disseminate research findings and how such findings are received by peers, the public and the state.

Researching Punishment is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of criminology, media, sociology, journalism, film studies, and cultural studies.

Alana Barton is a Reader in Criminology at Edge Hill University. Her research and teaching interests include the politics of punishment, critical histories of crime and punishment, and gender and research. Her book Fragile Moralities and Dangerous Sexualities: Two Centuries of Semi-Penal Institutionalisation for Women (Ashgate, 2005) was nominated for the Hart Socio-Legal Studies Award and the British Society of Criminology Book Prize. She is co-editor of Expanding the Criminological Imagination: Critical Readings in Criminology (Willan, 2007). She has worked on large-scale Home Office funded research projects and has published work in journals such as The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, the British Journal of Community Justice and the Liverpool Law Review. She contributed to the American Encyclopaedia of Prisons and Correctional Facilities (Sage, 2005) and has presented papers at numerous academic conferences in the UK, USA, Canada, Greece and Russia.

Karen Corteen is Programme Leader in Criminology at the University of Chester. Her research and teaching interests include the construction and management of sexuality, violence, and sexuality and research. Her PhD thesis is entitled The Sexual Ordering of Society: A Critical Analysis of Secondary School Sex and Relationship Education. She is co-editor of Expanding the Criminological Imagination: Critical Readings in Criminology (Willan, 2007). She has worked on a substantive ESRC research project 'Violence, Sexuality and Space' which explored violence and safety in 'gay friendly' spaces. In 2004 she managed a research project concerned with the economic cost of domestic violence on Merseyside. Her work has been published in chapters in books, on the internet, and in journals such as Sexualities and Sex Education. She has also contributed to the American Encyclopaedia of Sociology (Blackwell, 2006). She has presented at academic conferences in the UK, Canada and Germany.