USA Africa Dialogue Series - Seminar on Race and Criminology

**RACE AND JUSTICE SEMINAR SERIES: TWO EVENTS**

 

 

1)      PROF BIKO AGOZINO (Virginia Tech University, Department of Sociology)

Tuesday 14^th November 15:00-16:30 (GMT)

TO GO TO JAIL TOGETHER: I HAVE A DREAM

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/to-go-to-jail-together-i-have-a-dream-tickets-726630941707?aff=oddtdtcreator

Abstract: The key question in the proposed seminar is whether the history of decolonization poses challenges to Criminologists, Sociologists, Political Sociologists and the general public who approach identity politics with the assumption of zero-sum games - who gets what, when, and how? Groups of people are presumed to be in competition for scarce resources and so, those who feel relatively deprived will organize to secure more resources for their interest groups while those who are privileged will mobilize to defend their privileges and exclude others. I follow Martin Luther King Jr in theorizing that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and I observe that the racist prison industrial complex does not affect only Black people adversely. When I see many White people support the campaign of Black Lives Matter in the US and around the world, I do not see them as doing charitable work for Black people. As Martin Luther King Jr. Prophesied during the march on Washington speech, people of all racial backgrounds will have 'to go to jail together' in racist-sexist-imperialist societies, though Black people remain over-represented.

 

Dr. Onwubiko Agozino, a professor of sociology at Virginia Tech, is a scholar-activist who values inclusive excellence and diversity with critical attention focused on people of African descent and other marginalized groups around the world. He emphasizes race, class, and gender issues in his contributions to learning, discovery, and community engagement beyond the boundaries of the classroom. To learn more about Dr. Agozino, visit http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

2)      DR ESMORIE MILLER (Lancaster University, Department of Criminology)

 

Tuesday 5^th December 13:00-14:30 (GMT)

 

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, JOSE? INVENTING THE BLACK, RACIALIZED YOUTH AS INTRACTABLY DEVIANT OUTSIDERS, IN INTERWAR BRITAIN

 

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/race-and-justice-seminar-with-dr-esmorie-miller-tickets-733302827497?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

Abstract: To date, race's place in early twentieth-century British and Canadian youth penal reform remains unexplored in criminological histories. Yet rich histories of class and gender contribute to our understanding, by linking past and present. Scholars continue to reiterate a need to historicize contemporary concerns about race, crime, and punishment, beyond the American context. Indeed, extant scholarship draw attention to Black youth's increasing rates of incarceration, exposing the normalization of extreme punishment for this demographic. This presentation identifies interwar England as two prescient examples. Against the backdrop of the deviance invention logic well established in youth justice, the presentation offers an expanded explanatory scope in the Intractability, Malleability (I/M) thesis (Miller, 2022). This is an original, integrated social theoretical logic with the capacity to progress the customary analytical scope. The I/M thesis advances a socio-historical account, exploring Black youth's positioning as constitutive of the continuity of racialized people's historic exclusion from the benefits of modern rights, including lenience and care. The I/M logic takes its analytical currency from a combined critical race theory (CRT) and recognition theory. Youth's disproportionately high punishment rates are examined as a greater issue of exclusion.

 

Bio: Esmorie is a Criminology Lecturer at Lancaster University Law School, United Kingdom. She explores the normalization of the disproportionate punishment of Black, racialized youth, in Canada and England, while making wider reference to the racialization of penalty as a global phenomenon. Her research historicizes the role of race and racialization in contemporary youth justice. The research explores beyond crime and punishment, investigating the racialization of punitiveness as continuities of the historic exclusion of racialized peoples from the benefits of modern, universal rights, including but not limited to lenience. Retributive justice has, thus far, decoupled racialized youth's contemporary concerns from relevant histories. Her recent book is Race, Recognition and Retribution in Contemporary Youth Justice: The Intractability Malleability Thesis (Routledge).

 

 

THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE RACE MATTERS NETWORK (BRITISH SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY) AND ORGANISED BY DR MONISH BHATIA (DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF YORK). ALL EVENTS ARE HOSTED ONLINE, FREE TO ATTEND AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.