Canada’s criminal justice landscape has been shaped by contrary trends in recent years. As the crime rate declines, policy-makers continue to push for tough-on-crime legislation, and university criminology programs continue to expand. Given these trends, what does the future hold for criminology and criminal justice?

This book presents the work of a new generation of critical criminologists who explore the geographical, institutional, and political context of the discipline in Canada. Breaking away from mainstream criminology and popular law-and-order discourses, the authors present a spectrum of theoretical approaches to criminal justice – from governmentality to feminist criminology, from critical realism to anarchism – and they propose novel approaches to topics such as genocide, white-collar crime, and the effect of prison sentences on families. By posing crucial questions and attempting to define what criminology should be, this book will shape debates about crime, policing, and punishment for years to come.