Perspective for criminology in this class will be founded on critical theory, that emphasizes the part of our theories and policies that aren't working and need somehow to be fixed, to take the people who are being excluded, or whose needs are not being met, seriously. That is our relationships to Habermas. Habermas expresses hope that we will somehow find the means to live together without destroying either ourselves or the globe. He believes the best means we currently know to this end is public discourse, or people talking to and listening to one another in good faith, allowing every validity claim to be heard, recognizing the need to balance individual freedome to create and realize our potential without failing to recognize the needs of the community as a whole.

Women, people of color, anyone who is "different," have been excluded for most of our collective histories. For that reason we chose one text on women's relation to criminology. We trust that detailed coverage of how women have been excluded will help you to generalize about how all "difference" leads to some exclusion. The classic readings provide you with theoretical background; the Adler text, which will be discussed on the site, will provide you with a solid overview of criminology as a discipline. The site will provide readings and examples of the ways in which color, ecology, religion, and geography also affect our approach to criminology.

Notes added in March 2001:

Although our texts have changed to reflect the importance of taking an approach to criminology most likely to help us reduce the violence and structural violence of our present situation, our concerns are very much the same.

Henry and Milovanovic's Constitutive Criminology focuses on finding ways to make the system more sensitive to the interdependence of individual and community. Their work emphasizes the extent to which normative expectations and dominant discourse limit our agency. This reflects Habermas' position that legitimacy requires that we listen in good faith to all validity claims. This brings us closer to understanding the real effects of exclusion, and to understanding Gordon Fellman's concern that is time for a paradigm shift away from adversarialism.

And all that brings us closer to an understanding of "crime" as socially defined.