Convict’s voices have traditionally been ignored and marginalised in scholarship and policy debates, but how can we improve if we don’t learn from these lived experiences?
Richard Kemp speaks with Jeffrey Ian Ross, author of Introduction to Convict Criminology, about why listening to convicts is essential to positively impacting corrections, criminology, criminal justice, and policy making.
They discuss the origins of convict criminology as a discipline, the importance, and difficulty, of receiving higher education during incarceration, and the policy decisions that are necessary to improve our criminal justice systems.
Listen to the podcast here, or on your favourite podcast platform:
Scroll down for shownotes and transcript.
Introduction to Convict Criminology is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £27.99.
Jeffrey Ian Ross is Professor in the School of Criminal Justice and Research Fellow with the Center for International and Comparative Law and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy at the University of Baltimore. Follow him on Twitter: @jeffreyianross.
SHOWNOTES
Timestamps:
1:41 – What was the literature on prisons before convict criminology, and what does convict criminology do differently?
4:08 – What is prison life like and why is it important for us to understand it?
7:08 – Was convict criminology ‘rocking the boat’ when it came to be?
9:31 – Education in prisons is important, so how did it end up in the state it’s in?
15:56 – What’s the financial support for inmates doing education?
18:56 – How achievable is it for educated inmates to write academically about their experiences?
25:30 – What do you say to people who disagree with inmates being educated?
28:35 – What are the impacts of race, gender and class, and what are the dangers of activism?
32:22 – How does convict criminology want to influence policy?
Transcript:
(Please note this transcript is autogenerated and may have minor inaccuracies.)
Richard Kemp: You’re listening to the Transforming Society podcast. I’m Richard Kemp. And on today’s episode, I’m joined by Jeffrey Ian Ross, professor in the School of Criminal Justice and Research Fellow with the Center for International and Comparative Law and the Schaeffer Center for Public Policy at the University of Baltimore. Before beginning a lengthy and highly successful academic career in criminal justice, Jeffrey spent almost four years working at a correctional institute.
Prisons and the criminal justice system appear regularly in our media, often for entertainment from the Shawshank Redemption and Cool Hand Luke to the Green Mile, Blackbird and Orange is the New Black. And then there are documentaries, news reports and social media. We’re so often exposed to images of the prison system. And yet how much do we actually know about it?
In his new book, Introduction to Convict Criminology, published by Bristol University Press, Jeffrey explores the academic approach to this based on the belief that the convicts’ voice has been traditionally ignored or marginalized in scholarship and policy debates. He says that its inclusion can positively impact the fields of corrections, criminology, criminal justice and policymaking. Jeffrey Ian Ross, welcome to the Transforming Society podcast.
Jeffrey Ian Ross: Happy to be here.
RK: Thanks so much, Jeff. I’m really, really looking forward to our conversation today. Thanks so much for coming on. In your book, you quote Stephen C Richards, a professor of criminal justice and a former convict. Richards says convict criminology was born out of the frustration ex-convict, graduate students and ex-convict professors felt reading the academic literature on prisons.
What was the academic literature on prisons before convict criminology? And also, what does convict criminology do differently?
JIR: Yeah. So just to put things in context, Steve and I were, you know, the original primary co-founders of Convict Criminology. So we shared a lot of similar ideas about criminology, criminal justice, academia and corrections, particularly the academic field of corrections. And so a lot of the academic literature on corrections and we say corrections, we’re talking about jails and prisons, we’re talking about probation, parole.
A lot of that material that was published between the 1960s and the 1990s, the kinds of things that graduate students were reading during those three decades was dominated by quantitative studies. And those quantitative studies lacked a sense of realism. Also they seemed as if the people who were doing the studies, the research, had not set foot inside a correctional facility or if they had set foot inside a correctional facility, it was not for a long time. Now a lot of stuff’s changed during those three decades, whether we’re talking about, you know, the United States, Canada, the U.K., Australia, we had an increasing number of people who were, you know, charged, you know, convicted, sentenced to prison, a lot of people coming out too, this is the era of mass incarceration, particularly in the United States, the war on drugs.
But this research seemed to be divorced from what was really happening. That was one of our major criticisms. And there were people who were in the field of criminology and current justice. When I say that in the field, I’m talking about scholars who were had that firsthand experience and some of them were contributing to our knowledge of correctional facilities and correctional practices.
But a lot of them were very reluctant to sort of come out and say, hey, listen, not only am I talking about this field based on the scholarship that exists, the studies that I’ve conducted, but also on my personal experience.
RK: Thanks so much, Jeff. I spoke a tiny bit earlier about how film and television, they sensationalize prisons. You say that the reality of prison life is actually very boring and it’s important for voting citizens to understand this. Can you give us more of an idea of what prison life is like? And also why is it important that citizens understand this?
JIR: It’s a great question. And I wholeheartedly agree. Well, you know, I said this, you know, the films and television series, majority of them that are set in a correctional facility or have some element where the protagonist goes to a correctional facility. You’re going to see something, you’re going to see the same sort of predictable tropes.
You’re going to see somebody who is assaulted on the yard, maybe shivved shanked on the yard. You’re going to see maybe one or more prison rapes. You’re going to see the smuggling or passing of contraband. But the reality of most prison life is that it’s monotonous. You basically do the same thing. You see the same people every day, day in, day out.
You get up at the same time, you go to bed at the same time and your privacy is severely limited. The food, there’s variety in the food, but it’s fairly limited. It’s institutional food. And over time, that gets that gets boring. Now, for some people who, you know, who are homeless on the streets, having what they say, you know, three, you know, three hots and a cot is a relief to them.
But that monotony is amplified if you share a cell with the same person. And that’s why, you know, convict criminology advocates that higher education should be mandatory behind bars. And if somebody has a high school diploma or in the United States, a GED, which is an equivalency kind of achievement, then education in the form of university courses or a trade is a good thing, not because it will necessarily- not only because it might prepare them for a well-paying job on the outside, but it certainly breaks the monotony.
You’re always learning new information, you’re questioning the ideas, or you should be questioning the ideas that you’re learning in a sort of classroom setting, or even it’s through correspondence or through some sort of video kind of instruction. So that monotony is broken. You’ll look forward to your next class. You will try to maybe excel in your studies. And it also gives you a sense of hope for something better on the outside.
That’s why, you know, that was a natural pathway for many people who were released from prison and completed a bachelor’s, master’s and maybe even a Ph.D. in criminology and have adopted the convict criminology approach or praxis in their life and in their career.
RK: Thanks, Jeff. Is it when, when bringing in convict criminology? If I remember rightly, it was about 25 years ago, was it was it quite a like kind of rocking the boat kind of kind of thing when it when it came when it came to be?
JIR: Most definitely. I mean, I think there was a bit of… by pairing both convict and criminology, that was in some respects a provocative move and it was attention seeking. I think it was also a kind of a rebellion against mainstream criminology. We were almost immediately became part of the critical criminology movement theory in the academic field of criminology.
So, yeah, we said, hey, listen, you know, we have experience of incarceration or we are justice impacted. We have an opinion. Our opinion is not necessarily the same as what mainstream, you know, almost immediately we were adopted by the critical criminology approach to the academic field of criminology. Our panels at the American Society of Criminology were sponsored by the Division of Critical Criminology.
And, you know, we found we found a welcoming bunch of colleagues in that in that venue. So and, you know, many of the people who are attracted to convict criminology, such as myself, had one foot in critical criminology along with another foot in convict criminology. So it was a natural sort of symbiosis there. And, you know, critical criminology, as one of its main tenants, is to question, you know, the mainstream criminology approach to understanding crime, justice and things like victimization, violence against women, crimes against the environment, that sort of thing.
RK: Education, you said a bit about education there and education in prisons is a huge factor in keeping convicts from re-offending. However, you depict in your book, some correctional workers consider educated prisoners as less willing to accept authority, and therefore they respond with increased cell searches and solitary confinement. Prisoners can study, but are regularly looking over their shoulders.
And then and then some of the degrees that are offered by institutions to inmates aren’t actually accredited, which former inmates find out only once they leave prison. I was just kind of flabbergasted by like, you know, if it’s such an integral part of development, how is education in prisons kind of got into this state?
JIR: Good question. I mean, the provision of education in prisons varies based on, you know, type of prison. And also, you know, whether it’s at the city, at least in the United States, city or county or state or at the federal level. And you have different entities providing education in these facilities. You know, whether we’re talking about any of the Anglo-American democracies, there’s considerable variation.
And then prisoners can reach out to educational institutions on the outside. I know in the U.K., you know, Open University is very big on providing education to inmates. And there’s different universities that had programs in prisons, though that’s been attenuated a little in the UK. In many respects education behind bars is no different than what one might encounter in the outside, quote unquote, free world.
There are better and worse educational institutions that operate in all countries. Some of them are accredited and others are not. And some of those accrediting agencies have higher bars than others or the kinds of things that they would be accredited for. So I tell my students in the free world and convicts and ex-convicts to be very, you know, you know, buyer beware, make sure that your organization, the place from whom you’re receiving education.
And sometimes people you know, they get in debt too through education, make sure that you do your due diligence and don’t assume that the promises that the educational institution is going to that makes to you is reality. And then there’s also that adage too that I tell, you know, lots of people, including my students, it’s not what you got, it’s what you do with it.
So and, you know, again, you and I have met numerous people who’ve earned degrees from very prestigious institutions, and they’ve made, you know, minimal contributions, you know, to their family, community. And likewise, we’ve heard stories about people who, you know, dropped out of public school at an early age but they’ve done great things in their life and, you know, made huge contributions to society.
So everything, not everything is relative, but a lot of things are relative and education is no different. So just like you, you know, you might check out the reviews of a restaurant, you know, online, then it’s important to do the same thing, too, with an educational institution that you will spend, at the very least your time, which is a resource going through, you know, going through the lessons and so forth.
RK: Mm hmm. If you’re an inmate and you’re trying to find out the best, kind of the best educational institute that is available to you to study with when you’re when you’re behind bars, like, I’m just trying to imagine how much time you would really have to even do that research. It doesn’t seem like you’d have any.
JIR: Yeah, if you’re a short timer, you know, don’t really don’t count on being able to do some, you know, sophisticated due diligence. And also, you know, in the UK, the Open University has certain criteria as to whether or not they will allow you to enroll in their courses in terms of how much time you can be is left on your on your sentence, too.
So, I mean, it’s important to use your network, but not completely necessarily trust your network so you can reach out to if you’re still in contact with your with your family or friends and many people, they cease to have any contact with their friends and families before and during the time that they’re behind bars. But many correctional facilities do have an education officer or an education department, and it’s wise to consult them if you can, if you’re on good terms with them.
And if you’re not, why not? And you should, you know, develop a rapport with them and to try to find out what realistically are what are realistic options that you might pursue in terms of education and you know, as much as possible, try to reach out to people on the outside to get their opinion and also, you know, judge the quality of their sources.
Again, people who are in your network may not may not have good a good idea about what’s a good educational institution. Spread your net wide, but do your due diligence and you may not be able to do it while you’re behind bars. But if you’re going to be released relatively soon, then you can do a better search when you’re when you’re on the outside and things change, too.
So let’s say you’re behind bars for six months to, you know, seven years. The educational institution that you thought you wanted to enroll in, you know, two years ago, maybe really radically changed by the time you’re released, they may no longer be teaching face to face. They may be teaching online or disproportionately online. They may close down a program that you wanted to enroll in.
People who you wanted to study under may long longer be at those educational institutions. Education, as it is, is changing. Higher education is changing very rapidly due to all sorts of forces, including technology. And so the assumptions you had going in may not be the assumptions. It may may be you may have a different kind of environment when you’re released.
So some things to keep in mind.
RK: Absolutely. What’s the financial support system for prisoners, for inmates when they’re trying to do education? How do they get support in that or how do they pay for it?
JIR: Yeah, good question. And it varies from type of prison and from country to country, at least in the United States. The country that I’m most familiar with, the the majority of states do have a program that’s for free where you and it may be even mandatory that they earn a high school diploma. So if they don’t have a high school diploma, which many of them don’t, but many of the inmates don’t, then they it’s mandatory that they start taking classes to work towards a high school diploma or a GED, which is the equivalent here in the United States.
If you want to do a trade or a university degree, you may have to self-fund that. And that’s when things get tricky. So you may make money doing work behind bars, a minimal amount. That money is put in your commissary account and then you transfer money from your commissary account to or the institution does that for you to a educational provider that may have a contract with the correctional facility or the correctional system or they may just be operating independently.
Some and these kind of programs, some of these programs, they sort of they come and they go based on all sorts of things, usually finances. If the educational institution finds that they’re not making money or that they can’t get some of their benefits, so maybe public relations benefit by providing education to a correctional facility there, there’s a strong likelihood that they’re going to terminate it.
So University of Baltimore is part of a consortium with other universities providing university courses at a correctional facility in the state of Maryland. And it’s a sort of a I would say a kind of a precarious kind of relationship. It gets money from the university through the state. It’s… occasionally there’s private funders like a foundation that will give money to these kinds of programs.
And it depends a lot on the dedication of the staff to provide these kinds of courses. And after a inmate has acquired a number, has earned a number of courses credit hours and if they’re released, then they may transition into a bachelor’s program upon release at our university or other universities in the state of Maryland or wherever they want to go.
So, yeah, that’s that’s all that’s that’s at least that’s the model that’s closest to where I. I work.
RK: Mm hmm. You talk about allowing educated convicts to write academically about their experiences in journal articles, book chapters, and newspaper articles. You say that it helps to lift the caricature of a boogeyman and exposes the public to those inmates who are wasting away behind bars. It’s… yeah. I find it amazing that the convicts can study for degrees at all, let alone also conduct academic research and write papers.
It seemed unbelievable to me reading that. How achievable is this? You talked a little bit. I’d like to hear a bit bit more about that. How achievable is it and what are the issues in convicts being able to do that?
JIR: Right. Well, it’s incredibly difficult, no question about it. But it is doable. And so how do they go about doing this? Initially, one of the best things to do, is speak to your education officer or other people from the outside, like instructors or professors who may be one in the same, asking them about the possibility of writing and getting their work published in academic venues.
Some of the instructional staff who come in from the outside may welcome these kinds of questions and the opportunity to coauthor with convicts. Others, this is not in their wheelhouse. This is not something that they do, like or aspire to, to engage in. So if that strategy doesn’t work or help, then, you know, it’s in many respects no different than what someone might do outside of prison.
And that is to start contacting people who they think they would like to work with or associate with. And there is a reluctance, a fear, a sense of timidity about approaching people who are published academics. And I can understand that. And this is going to require, you know, committing oneself to, you know, pen and paper and writing and tracking down the addresses of academics and writing them.
Some of them will respond. Some of them will not respond, some of them will… a lot of them will not respond favorably in the sense that this is not something that they want to engage with. But that’s okay. And I think in many respects it’s a numbers game. And then some of the people who you may want to work with are not good people to work with.
So this is nothing to… what’s the word? I’m not going to say It’s not a no brainer. But I’m also going to say, yes, there’s a stigma surrounding people who are behind bars. And many people who are in the Convict Criminology Network are approached on a regular basis through a variety of communication channels. You know, typically, you know, phone or email, if the institution allows email, you know, inmates to use email and if they can get a handle a hold of your email address and also through through letter and they ask all sorts of questions, very few of them are questions about, you know, hey, can I publish with you?
But, you know, so that’s how I’ve established relationships with people who are behind bars, who are interested in academic writing. They reached out to me or I’ve done a visit to a prison, given a lecture. Somebody approached me and and, you know, I’ve willingly given them my email address or my university address. And then they’ve reached out and we’ve established some sort of communication and then we take it from there so that that’s how things proceed.
Some of the people who are part of this convict criminology, you know, approach are people who we’ve mentored, networked with who were behind bars and we’ve we’ve helped them complete their bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degree, and many of them are thriving academics. So this is a that’s a good thing. That’s a you know, that’s a that’s a great thing when it happens, many people drop off for one reason or another.
Life becomes challenging when they’re on the outside. There’s a lot and there’s a whole new set of challenges for people beyond. Once an individual is released from correctional custody, there are a large number of issues that they must contend with beyond simply earning a bachelor’s degree or master’s or Ph.D. You know, they will have to deal with family issues, child care issues, transportation issues, work, where they’re going to live, the educational institution where they want to go to may be too far away from where they get a job and where they need to live.
So then what happens is earning the bachelor’s or master’s or Ph.D. takes the backseat until they get stabilized in those other kinds of challenges. And even if they get a or earn a bachelor’s or a master’s, that it doesn’t always protect them from discrimination in the job market and advancement in the job market or job security that they may wish or want in the in on the job market.
So lots of stuff is relative. There’s always new challenges that need to be negotiated. And so one of the good things about convict criminology, in addition to being an approach to praxis, is that we provided a network for individuals who are released from prison but who want to earn a bachelor’s master’s and mostly a Ph.D. because that was our original origins, so that they can thrive and flourish and negotiate the rough waters that they may encounter in that particular, you know, institution, that educational institution that we call a university or college.
And there are a lot of similarities between the college and university experience and a prison experience. But there are a lot of things that are different. And so this is important.
RK: Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. Certainly. What do you say to those people who disagree with this? Basically, that like oh the prisoners are getting, they’ve they’ve done crime. They’re being they’re in a punishment institute that should and these people who come from that kind of the frame of reference of just like they shouldn’t be getting given all these opportunities to develop and to improve and to create themselves a better life.
That’s you know, the people who disagree with that. What do you say to them?
JIR: Well, I say I think that I think you need to reexamine your position. And I think you also may not be as well informed as you should be. So the question is, what’s the alternative? So we are sending people to prison, to jail. We provide them with minimal benefits. In theory, they’re supposed to be rehabilitated behind bars. Very few people are rehabilitated behind bars, but they’re going to be released.
And would you rather have a person released from a correctional facility who is angry, who is alienated, who feels no hope and possibly return to a life of crime, or would you like to somehow enable them so that they are not returning to a life of crime? And if we can do that in some minimal way, particularly through education, through helping them, you know, earn a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, do you maybe then what’s necessarily wrong with that?
And I don’t think many people can disagree with that. It’s they’re not necessarily given any special benefits. They’ve certainly done their time. And so it’s time to give them, as they say in the United States, a second chance, maybe even a third chance, a fourth chance. There are some people who are released from correctional custody who are just not good candidates for rehabilitation or for mentorship or for earning a bachelors, masters Ph.D. But it has a lot to do with their character, has a lot to do with their experiences, their attitude.
So it’s kind of foolhardy to assume that once, you know, we can sprinkle some convict criminology gold dust on somebody and they’ll turn into, you know, what’s the word or expression, you know, upright citizens, you know. So I think everybody who, you know, kind of committed to the convict criminology approach hopes for the best.
And they try to do their best and I’d say majority of people respond positively. And we also want to kind of like the new generation tries to pull up the the next generation so they pay it forward. That’s a good thing to see. Makes me feel good. And a lot of other people who are part of this network feel good at the end of the day.
RK: You talk about activists and how their activism works to expose the myths about crime and also the disproportionate impact on race and gender and class. And you explain about how there’s a danger to activism, especially for those who are incarcerated. What are the impacts on race, gender and class, and what are the dangers of activism?
JIR: That’s a great question. And there are I believe there are multiple component parts of that question. My biggest complaint, let me restate what I want to say, and that is convict Criminology is composed of about three major, you know, components. Number one is scholarship always emphasizes the importance of scholarship. Number two is mentorship, teaching individuals who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated.
And the third is activism or some sort of public policy engagement. And we have a number of people or we encounter a lot of people who are prison activists, some of whom are part of the network or not. My biggest complaints about activism, and it’s not limited to prisons, is that although activists are, their heart may be in the right place, but they may not have all the facts.
And so, you know, somebody might say, well, you know, so who has all the facts? That’s that’s not the issue. Or they may misinterpret the facts. And because I see myself as, you know, primarily as a researcher, as a scholar, first, I try to be as rigorous as possible with the information I collect and the rules that I, you know, sort of the methodological rules and tests I apply to that data.
And I want to be as comprehensive as possible and as, you know, nuanced as possible. And I don’t see that with activism. And some people will say, oh, no, you’ve got to shout loud and, you know, and to make it to have people to have people come over to your position. I think there’s a time and place for that.
But I think in the end, it’ll it’ll backfire. So, I mean, convict criminology has been around for almost 30 years and it has faced criticism over the years that we’ve, you know, both constructive and ones that are not that helpful. And we’ve clearly benefited from the constructive criticism in order to refine our approach to lots of issues.
But, you know, in terms of activism, I think one must understand that it’s important to engage in outreach, engage in lobbying, engage in public policy work. We can call that activism if you want. But if you’re going to do that, make sure that what you’re advocating is based on sound empirical research. And that kind of gets us back to the scholarship, you know, and collecting data, analyzing the data, applying certain rules to that data.
And if you find exceptions to the data, then be willing to confront those exceptions and understand that maybe you cannot make generalizations on all of the things you’ve seen, all of the things you’ve experienced, that would be my approach.
RK: Hmm. Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. How does convict criminology want to influence policy to change? To change prisons? Well, and the experiences of convicts. Those who were formerly incarcerated and also their families.
JIR: Also, a good question and that question sort of falls into that third sort of category of what convict criminology does an emphasis on activism, but also an active an emphasis on trying to affect public policy. How do we do that? You know, we do it through, you know, meeting at, you know, an annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology and at the British Society of Criminology.
There are panels or papers given there, and at the European meetings, there are papers that are given there. And we have the every few years there’s a conference on convict criminology. But, you know, dating back, you know, 15, 20 years ago, there was a coauthored chapter in a book that outlined these public policies that we advocated. And are the public policies that we advocate are not that different from what they were back 20 years ago than what they are today into things like reducing the number of people who are incarcerated.
So clearly trying to limit mass incarceration, increasing things like rehabilitative programs, restorative justice, that sort of thing, ending the war on drugs, reexamining the kinds of draconian sentences that people were given, particularly if they were disproportionately targeted to, you know, people of color, poor people, that sort of thing, decriminalizing, demilitarizing the criminal justice system, restoring voting rights for felons and prisoners, closing outdated, unsafe correctional facilities, increasing funding for education in correctional facilities, improving education in correctional facilities, improving medical and health services provided to inmates behind bars.
More better community transition kinds of programs for people who are released behind bars, the residential treatment centers, all that sort of thing. If you look at the literature and the reality of proof of parole of those services that people the kind of that criminal justice agency, at least in the United States, where people must report to after spending time behind bars, a lot of them have become sort of like their job is to monitor.
Their job is to monitor people are released from prison. Yes. But many of because their caseloads are so high, they can’t provide the kind of support that they should be. And a lot of their activities are shifted more towards the kind of punitive kind of side of their role. And that is, you know, fining people who are locked up, sanctioning them, which often means sending them back to jail or to prison.
And so if they were provided with the appropriate kind of resources, not all of them, but many of them if they’re provided with the kinds of resources, you know, quicker types of psychological counseling, drug counseling, debt or finance or financial kinds of counseling, that sort of thing. It would prevent them from re-offending or needing to be sent back to the correctional facility, needing as in that’s what the parole agency has decided.
So those are the kinds of things that are the kinds of policies and practices that convict criminology is advocating.
RK: And as you said earlier as well, I feel like all of those things that you’ve mentioned, that will be improving, the lot of prisoners, of convicts will also have a trickle down effect to the rest of society as well.
JIR: Right, in a perfect world that should improve the health of the community, you know, public safety. It should also mean that we’re spending less money on criminal justice agencies that are designed to, you know, lock people up. And I think a society that, you know, works better is one where we provide appropriate opportunities for people who want to change, who want to, you know, contribute to society.
And there are many people who’ve done time who see that they made a mistake. They want to correct the error of their ways. They want to be able to support their families, want to make a contribution to their community. They don’t want to be dependent upon, you know, welfare or live in public housing, and they want to be able to support themselves, their loved ones.
They want to be good parents to their children. They want to support their aging parents if they are still in the picture. Many of them want to make a contribution to their neighborhood, to their towns, to their cities. And they have feel that perhaps their time behind bars was transformative. They recognize that they had made mistakes.
But it’s time now to kind of give back many, not all, some a significant portion. And so for those kinds of people, convict criminology represents a path forward both for, you know, people who are scholars in the field of criminology, criminal justice, and also people who are aspiring to be.
RK: Thank you, Jeff. Thanks so much for coming on the Transforming Society podcast today. It’s been such a great conversation. Thank you for making the time. I’m going to let everybody know where to find your book in a moment. But first, I just wanted to ask, if people wanted to look you up online, where could they find you?
JIR: They can go to my website, jeffreyianross.com. I’m also on Twitter, Instagram, and if they want to write me, they can write me at University of Baltimore. 1420 North Charles Street. Baltimore 2101. And Baltimore, is in Maryland in the United States. So I will be happy to receive correspondence and I will do my best to respond in a timely fashion.
RK: Thanks, Jeff. Introduction to Convict Criminology by Jeffrey Ian Ross is published by Bristol University Press. You can find out more about the book by visiting bristoluniversitypress.co.uk and also transformingsociety.co.uk.
Introduction to Convict Criminology is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £27.99.
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