Teaching Prison Abolition to Criminology Students: Critical Reflections on a Pedagogy of De-Initiation

Catello, Roberto (2024) Teaching Prison Abolition to Criminology Students: Critical Reflections on a Pedagogy of De-Initiation. Critical Education. ISSN 1920-4175 (Accepted for Publication)

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Abstract

The abolitionist movement is gaining momentum in the United States and the United Kingdom and calls to shrink the carceral state have become a staple of grassroots movements and activist groups fighting for a more just world in the 21st century. The role played by higher education (HE) educators in this struggle for a world without prisons is an important and yet difficult one, as they can expose university students to abolitionist ideas but have to do so in the context of a HE sector that is increasingly governed by neoliberal logics of marketization and professionalization. In this article, I reflect on my own experience teaching prison abolition to criminology students at Liverpool Hope University (LHU). The article revisits Richard Stanley Peters’ notion of education as initiation to show how an abolitionist pedagogy grounded in critical perspectives on punishment can be practiced to de-initiate students from criminological common sense and reformism.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	abolitionist pedagogy; criminal justice reform; critical pedagogy; education as initiation; neoliberal university; prison abolition
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Business, Law and Criminology > School of Law and Criminology
Depositing User:	Roberto Catello
Date Deposited:	19 Nov 2024 09:50
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2024 09:50
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4438

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