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Text Box: The Critical Criminologist

Text Box: It is with some joy that I can report that my term of office is coming to an end. This is a joy, of course, because it means that someone else will be in charge. But, looking back, it has also been a time of achievement, although some serious work is being left for the next set of officers. The nominations committee, under Shahid Alvi, has put together a wonderful and expansive (very expansive!) list of nominees, and I urge you to take seriously voting on the next set of officers to bring us to another level of accomplishment. It is a good sign that the nominations committee was overwhelmed with people who were nominated and agreed to run, and from my perspective there isn’t a loser in the bunch – the Division will win no matter what the outcome of the election. One of our most important accomplishments, albeit slower and with more potholes than we expected, has been getting the journal back together. I have been engaged in numerous negotiations for two years with publishers, and we now have a good contract with Kluwer Publishing of Holland. We now have a great editorial team with Jeff Walker and Paul Leighton on the North American side, and Jock Young on the European side, and book review editors John Fuller in North America and Jayne Mooney in the UK. Our new 30-member editorial board is extraordinary, and includes the best critical criminologists in about 10 countries. We have an issue in production, and another close. It has been slow: we have run into every roadblock imaginable, including an almost unknown clause in the ASC constitution forbidding divisions from having journals. The simple solution? The ASC changed the constitution. Our thanks to Ron Huff, Chris Eskridge and Todd Clear for working with us on that one. We have, with the leadership of Bob Bohm, set up a Section on Critical Criminology at

Text Box: ACJS. I am temporary head of it, and we need to do some movement on setting up permanent camp there. Volunteers to work with Bob and me would be most helpful, especially as I will be on sabbatical this year. I am particularly happy to have worked with the officers of this group over the past two years, all of whom have been helpful in everything. Jeff Ferrell has been vice-chair, Jeff Walker secretary/treasurer, and Bob Bohm and Becky Tatum have been board members. All have taken on particular tasks and done them well. We have left for Becky to arrange a “buy your own” dinner Saturday night at the ASC meetings, so look for a sign- up sheet there. We will also need some people, including graduate students, who might put in a few hours sitting at a table recruiting members. Write me (Schwartz@ohio.edu) if you can volunteer (or volunteer someone else!). The next group of officers has the potential to be more diverse than seen for many years in this group. We have more women running than ever before, more internationals running, and a fine mix of “big names” and people devoted to the division. I can’t imagine a bad set of officers coming out of this election. The next set of officers will, if they want my advice, want to deal with membership issues, including trying to expand our core of white male lefties into a division that provides an umbrella for all critical criminologists. We have never left that goal, but we are less an umbrella than we were when Susan Caringella-MacDonald and others did the initial work to start this division (a subtle piece of self-promotion since I was vice-chair under Susan!). I wish the best of luck, more success, and a lot less problems to the next set of officers.

Why is a Photographer at an Execution a Criminal? Paul Leighton	2
The American Public and Attitudes About Crime Causation Barbara Sims	3
Table of Contents: Critical Criminology 10(1) Announcements	4 5
The Meaning of Our Discontent: A Reply to Butler Lynch et. al	6
Letter to the Editors Michael G. Santos	9