To appear in:
Robinson, Matthew B. (2005).  Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice (2nd Edition).  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

 The Convict School of Criminology was formalized in 2001 with the appearance of a journal article and in 2003 with the publication of the book, Convict Criminology (Ian and Richards, 2003). This new “school of thought” within the discipline of criminology came about when a handful of criminologists with criminal records met over time in their graduate school programs, at academic conferences, and through correspondence via email and telephone.

 As criminologist John Irwin (2003: xvii) notes: “It seemed to me that convicts were springing up like toadstools in the clear and pure fields of academe; one of the unintended consequences of laws recently casting a larger and larger net and catching, in addition to the usual suspects, a whole bunch of more educated and educable felons.” As explained by Ross and Richards, Convict Criminology:

consists primarily of essays and empirical research conducted and written by convicts or exconvicts, on their way to completing or already in possession of a Ph.D., or by enlightened academics who critique existing literature, policies, and practices, thus contributing to a new perspective on criminology, criminal justice, corrections, and community corrections. This is a ‘new criminology’ … led by exconvicts who are now academic faculty. These men and women, who have worn both prison uniforms and academic regalia, served years behind prison walls, and now, as academics, are the primary architects of the movement.

 John Irwin’s case is particularly interesting, one that he describes quite well:

 I served five years for armed robbery in the mid-1950s at Soledad Prison in California. Soledad was planned to be the model rehabilitative prison in the California system. We prisoners were forced to participate in educational and vocational training programs. I repeated many high school courses … and earned 24 college units from the University of California Extension Division. Though after release I was discouraged by parole authorities, I immediately entered San Francisco State College, then transferred to UCLA and earned a B.A. in sociology (p. xx).

 Upon graduating with his Bachelor’s degree, Irwin was encouraged to go to graduate school by another notable criminologist, with whom Irwin would ultimately go on to publish. He then received financial assistance and a position with the help of yet another notable criminologist, and ultimately earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, and was hired to be a sociologist who would study crime by yet another criminologist at San Francisco State University.

 Irwin explains the significance of all this: “The point is, I made my transition from the life of a thief, drug addict, and convict to one of a ‘respectable’ professional during a period when there was growing tolerance toward us condemned wrongdoers. The doors were opening. Then, in the mid-1970s, they slammed shut again” (p. xx). Yes, as I claimed in Chapter 9 of this book, prisons are a horrible place with few opportunities for rehabilitation.

 Among the explicit claims of convict criminologists are:
 

• Prisons are being used as a solution to a social problem that does not respond to prison;
• America’s prisons and correctional agencies are clearly flawed;
• Efforts to reform America’s prisons have failed;
• The level of incarceration in the United States is at its highest level ever;
• The major justifications for America’s unprecedented prison expansion are unwarranted;
• Every cell built in a new prison costs approximately $100,000 and is money that is not spent on other vital social services such as education;
• Prisons do not reduce crime;
• Prison expansion has disproportionately affected people of color;
• One dramatic result of mass imprisonment is that as many as 2 million people of color currently are denied the right to vote;
• Prison expansion has disproportionately affected the nation’s poor, especially poor men of color, who are seen as marginal to America’s political economy;
• Most people have not noticed how rapidly the prison population has grown, in part because the people who have the greatest voice in today’s culture are not largely affected by the expansion of prisons;
• Prisoners are extremely demonized and marginalized despite being human beings;
• Vocational programs have been reduced in prisons as privileges simultaneously were reduced so that there is virtually no rehabilitation in American prisons;
• The treatment of prisoners inside is permitted mostly because people (including the academic criminologists who study crime for a living) do not understand what it is like to be inside and the culture that is unique to prisoners;
• Most inmates are normal, relatively harmless people who made bad decisions and committed relatively harmless but bothersome crimes;
• Not only are too many people incarcerated but they are also generally held for too long;
• Even the motivations of serious offenders in prison can typically be understood without invoking negative personality traits or character flaws (this is not to justify their behavior, however, but rather to explain it); and
• When released, prisoners re-enter a society that fears and loathes them, and do so with meager resources and virtually no preparation.

 In essence, most of the claims of convict criminologists match what I have written about in Chapter 9 about America’s prisons and its imprisonment boom. What is most unique about Convict Criminologists is their unique insight into prison life and their way of telling their stories in ways that so clearly cast grave doubts on our entire method of punishment in the United States.

 Although Convict Criminologists appear to be taken seriously within the academic discipline of criminology, it is hard to say how a group of current and former prison inmates (even with doctoral degrees) would be viewed by legislators and general members of society. Given the politicization and intense media coverage of crime, and America’s overall fear of both criminals and the unknown, it is unlikely that any reforms suggested by convicts and exconvicts would be taken seriously. Thus, other conditions in society must be changed prior to implementing the reforms suggested by convict criminologists. For more on such recommendations, see Chapter 13.

 Convict criminologists advocate at least the following reforms:

• Reduce the number of people in prison through diversion to probation and other community sanctions;
• Close large prisons where thousands of inmates are warehoused and forced to live in conditions like animals at the slaughterhouse, and replace them with smaller and safer prisons with individual cells;
• Increase the quality of food and clothing of prisoners to reduce resentment and violence within prisons;
• Better fund prison programs, including for employment, vocational training, higher education, and family skills training;
• Restore voting rights for all exconvicts;
• Provide voluntary drug education therapy;
• Provide inmates with three months of pay for food and rent upon release to give them a fair chance at reform;
• Use victim-offender reconciliation programs and other forms of restorative justice in order to relieve some of the burden on criminal justice; and
• End the drug war.