British Society of Criminology

WCCJN

BSC Women Crime and Criminal Justice NetworkWord Cloud

About

The Women Crime and Criminal Justice Network has its own website – https://wccjn.wordpress.com/

Chair
Marian Duggan – M.C.Duggan@kent.ac.uk

Podcast – Listen to this podcast where Marian Duggan discusses the Network, its work and its aims for the future.

Crime, victimisation and control are profoundly gendered issues. Since the 1970s, research has documented the significance of gendered inequalities as they affect women as offenders/lawbreakers, victims and criminal justice professionals. Such scholarship is also underpinned by feminist theory and politics and seeks to document and challenge gendered inequality, especially in relation to criminal justice institutions. The network exists to support scholarship on women, crime and criminal justice, and to foster research of the highest standard. In addition to promoting scholarship on women, crime and criminal justice, the network also aims to support women as criminological scholars.

The specific aims of the network are:

  • To foster research and scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of women, crime and criminal justice, nationally and internationally.
  • To promote scholarship on women, crime and criminal justice within the network, the British Society of Criminology and in public debate.
  • To engage policy makers and practitioners to ensure that cutting edge research can inform decision-making and practice within government and non-governmental organisations.
  • To support the career development of its members, cognisant that challenges faced by women are also cross cut with other social inequalities (for example, ethnicity, sexuality, and age).


BSC WCCJN Paper Prize 2021 

Have you written or read a recent journal article on issues relating to women, crime and criminal justice? Think it’s brilliant? Great! Read on…

It’s that time of year again where BSC members show their collegiality and support in helping us spotlight our WCCJN members’ recent innovative and valuable contributions to criminological scholarship. We need you to give that fabulous colleague of yours a boost by nominating them (with their consent) for our prize. No colleagues? No problem – authors can self-nominate too!

Criteria: All nominators must be members of the BSC, and nominees must also be members of the WCCJN. Articles need focus on women, crime and criminal justice issues and been published between 01/01/2020 and 31/12/2020. Entries can be made by emailing a PDF copy of the article to Marian Duggan (m.c.duggan@kent.ac.uk) along with a short supporting statement outlining how the nomination meets the eligibility criteria. The competition closes at 5pm Wednesday March 31, 2021. The WCCJN steering committee would like to thank Sage for kindly sponsoring this prize again in 2021.

Further details can be found on our website

 

WCCJN Prize 2020

The winner of the WCCJN Paper Prize 2020 is Dr Alexandra Fanghanel:

Fanghanel, A. (2020). Asking for it: BDSM sexual practice and the trouble of consent. Sexualities, 23(3), 269–286.

A (blended and edited, to avoid repetition) synopsis of the reviewers’ comments are:

This is a really interesting article on a significantly under-researched area, which ably synthesises a range of literature in providing the broader context for the investigation. Fanghanel evaluates the concepts of consent, trust and risk – and the critical grey area in between – in relation to BDSM practices through her case study of 40 kinkers. Drawing on interviews conducted with a diverse sample of participants, the paper does a really good job of adding complexity to an otherwise well-established body of work on ‘consent’. Her findings, written with a detailed level of analysis and commentary, reveal the tensions between negotiating ‘consent violators’ and nurturing an important sense of community ethic. Ultimately, Fanghanel asks us to consider the concept of consent using a more nuanced lens. It is a really well written piece of work.

Media

Podcast – Listen to this podcast where Marian Duggan discusses the Network, its work and its aims for the future.

Video – Connecting Criminologists: Jennifer and Hannah
September 15, 2020

Hannah Marshall interviews Dr Jennifer Fleetwood

In this session, Hannah Marshall interviews Dr Jennifer Fleetwood about gender, crime (particularly the drugs trade) and narrative criminology. Also featured in this discussion is their experiences of doing ethnography, race and criminal justice, globalisation and decolonising criminology.

Bios:

Dr Fleetwood is a criminologist and sociologist based at Goldsmiths University, whose research and writing centres on women, gender, and crime/law-breaking. She has used an array of research methods, including ethnography and interviews to understand women’s involvement in drug trafficking as mules and as street level drug dealers. Her PhD, completed at the University of Edinburgh, formed the basis of her book titled Drug Mules: Women in the international cocaine trade (winner of the British Society of Criminology Book prize, 2015). She is an active member of the British Society of Criminology and former steering group member for the Women’s Network. Dr Fleetwood currently co-chairs the British Society of Criminology Southern Branch.

Hannah is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Community, Gender and Social Justice at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. Her research interests include youth justice, criminal exploitation, drug-related crime, and participatory, decolonizing and feminist approaches to research. You can read more about Hannah’s research here:

https://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/People/marshall18

Or by following her on Twitter @HJ_Marshall_

 


Forthcoming Events

 

Future events are announced in the BSC bi-monthly bulletin.


Previous Events

Gendering Green Criminology

November 26, 2020

Co-hosted by the British Society of Criminology Women Crime and Criminal Justice Network and the Green Criminology Research Network

How can feminism engage meaningfully with environmental harm? Why should those concerned about environmental harm also be concerned with issues of gender? This one-day conference joins feminism, gender studies, and green criminology, to explore the intersections between gender, environmental, non-human animal, and wildlife crimes and harms.

Event held via Zoom Twitter hashtag #GenderGreenCrim

Speakers

  • Dr Stephen Burrell (Durham University) — The climate crisis and men’s violence: Exploring the connections between masculinities and environmental harm
  • Dr Ana Leite (Durham University) — Conspiracy theories, feelings of threat, and attitudes towards animals and the environment
  • Dr Francis Masse (Northumbria University) — Gendered dimensions of wildlife crime
  • Professor Kay Peggs (Kingston University) — Veganism, crime and consuming animals
  • Dr Corey Wrenn (University of Kent) — Vegan feminist activism then and now
  • Professor Tanya Wyatt (Northumbria University) — Gender and environmental harm

This event was rescheduled from April 2020

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Event flyerCritical Conversations on Criminology and Gender: Innovations in Research

April 12, 2019

Inspired by burgeoning developments in creative and innovative methodologies in criminology, the third annual WCCJN ‘Critical Conversations on Criminology and Gender’ event explored contemporary and  innovative ways of doing and communicating criminological research via visual methods, arts and documents and the positioning of the researcher therein.

Since its inception, researching women in criminology has demanded careful and critical attention to issues of power and politics. This event continued this critical tradition by tackling questions such as: how can we make research that is meaningful? How can research representations contest marginalisation, stigmatisation and injustice? How can innovative and creative approaches to research help us better capture intransigent concepts like justice or harm?

See website for further details

Download pdf of flyer here

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BSC Conference, July 2018

The WCCJ Network prize was awarded to Wendy Fitzgibbon and Camille Stengel for their paper:

Fitzgibbon, W., & Stengel, C. M. (2018). Women’s voices made visible: Photovoice in visual criminology. Punishment & Society, 20(4), 411–431.

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May 1, 2018

Women Criminology & Criminal Justice: Practitioners Victims & Criminalised

BSC Postgraduate Committee in association with BSC Women Crime and Criminal Justice Network, Tuesday, 1 May 2018 from 11:00 to 17:00 (BST), London, United Kingdom

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April 30, 2018

This one day conference on ‘Women as Victim-Offenders: Negotiating the Paradox’  was part of our Critical Conversations in Criminology and Gender series.

This conference provided a space for academics and practitioners working with women offenders to discuss and negotiate the paradox of victimization and offending. This was a free event and was open to both members and non-members of the WCCJN.

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BSC Conference, July 2017

The WCCJ Network prize was awarded to Anastasia Chamberlen  for her paper:

Chamberlen, A. (2016). Embodying prison pain: Women’s experiences of self-injury in prison and the emotions of punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 20(2), 205–219.

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Members only event

WCCJN – 8th May Flyer

Joining and staying in touch

Membership of the network is open to anyone interested in making women visible in the criminal justice system and within the discipline of Criminology.

We have a website, please give us a visit – https://wccjn.wordpress.com/

The WCCJ JISCmail list provides information about forthcoming events and facilitates discussion amongst Network members and we are beginning a termly newsletter to showcase WCCJ members’ activities. Content will include news on recent publications, research projects and events which members may be involved with. Each newsletter will also feature a spotlight on a member of the network highlighting their research and background. In addition, we are also open to suggestions for other types of content. If you have anything that you’d like to contribute please email: WCCJNnewsletter@gmail.com

Contact the Network

Chair
Marian Duggan – M.C.Duggan@kent.ac.uk

Websites of interest

Voices of Feminism (US-based site) – http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/vof-intro.html

The Women’s Room – http://thewomensroom.org.uk/

Feministing – http://feministing.com/

LeanIn – http://leanin.org/