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| Anarchist criminology | 3/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_criminology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:21:34.365131+00:00 | kb-cron |
Ferrell also writes: Anarchist criminology certainly incorporates the sort of "visceral revolt" that characterizes anarchism itself, the passionate sense of "fuck authority," to quote the old anarchist slogan, the comes from being shoved around by police officers, judges, bosses, priests, and other authorities one time too many. Moreover, anarchists would agree with many feminist and postmodernist theorists that such visceral passions matter as methods of understanding and resistance outside the usual confines of rationality and respect. But anarchist criminology also incorporates a relatively complex critique of state law and legality which begins to explain why we might benefit from defying authority, or standing "against the law."
== Anarchist criminologists == Prominent anarchist criminologists since the 1970s have included Randall Amster, who has explored anti-authoritarian forms of conflict resolution in anarchist communities; Bruce DiCristina, whose work draws on the thought of Paul Feyerabend in order to critique criminology and criminal justice; Jeff Ferrell, whose work examines the relationships between legal authority, resistance and criminality; Harold Pepinsky, who in 1978 published an article on "communist anarchism as an alternative to the rule of criminal law", which introduced an approach that later came to be known as peacemaking criminology; Dennis Sullivan; and Larry Tifft, who argued for the replacement of state law with a face-to-face form of justice grounded in humans' needs. David Gil and Richard Quinney have also published similar critiques and proposals to those that feature in anarchist criminology.
== Evaluation == Eugene McLaughlin argues that anarchist criminology furnishes criminologists with "an uncompromising critique of law, power and the state; the promise of un-coercive social relationships; the possibility of alternative forms of dispute settlement and harm reduction; a form of political intervention that may be appropriate to an increasingly complex and fragmented world where conventional forms of politics are becoming increasingly redundant; [and] the basis to develop both libertarian and communitarian criminologies." Michael Welch argued in 2005 that although its application to the study of lawlessness remains limited to a handful of works, anarchist criminology offers the field a valuable framework for deconstructing the state, its authority, and its machinery of repressive social control, as well as the resistance it evokes .... Anarchist criminology has the potential to further advance critical penology by offering a fluid approach to law and justice, inviting scholars to incorporate an array of sociological concepts into their analyses of the state, the criminal justice system, and the corrections apparatus. Stanislav Vysotsky argues that anarchist criminology's emphasis on restorative justice, as a set of methods applied after crimes or violations of norms have occurred, has resulted in it lacking accounts of how to prevent crime, and that militant anti-fascism, understood as an unorthodox form of policing, can serve as a model for such a preventive approach. Such methods, Vysotsky suggests, are in keeping with the central tenets of anarchism, and so "represent a challenge to the pacifist orientation of anarchist criminology". Anarchist criminology has also been criticised for its perceived romantic idealism, conceptual confusion, lack of a theoretical foundation for its opposition to punishment, and lack of a practical strategy for dealing with dangerous individuals.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading == Seis, Mark; Nocella, Anthony J. II; Shantz, Jeff (2020). "Introduction: The Origins and Importance of Classic Anarchist Criminology". In Nocella, Anthony J. II; Seis, Mark; Shantz, Jeff (eds.). Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology: A Historical Dismantling of Punishment and Domination. AK Press. pp. 5–17. Seis, Mark; Vysotsky, Stanislav (2021). "Anarchist Criminology: On the State Bias in Criminology". Journal of Extreme Anthropology. 5 (1): 143–159. doi:10.5617/jea.8949.
== External links == Criminology reading list, Anarchist Studies Network