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This study examines the connections between subculture theory, symbolic interaction and the work of David Matza with a special focus on exploring alcohol consumption by young adults in the UK. We apply Matza ideas of the “techniques of neutralization,” “subterranean values,” and “drift” within an ethnographic study on alcohol to suggest that young people's “calculated hedonism” can be understood as a strategy of agency in the context of a subcultural setting. This article adds to the literature of symbolic interaction, subculture and the discipline of sociology by critically focusing on the work of David Matza from its reception in the 1960s to today as a central element of the new paradigm of cultural criminology. For us the sociological imagination is “alive and well” through Matza's advocacy of naturalism whereby he sought to integrate the work Chicago School under Park and Burgess with his assessment of the so-called Neo-Chicago School. In the literature Matza's work is often defined as symbolic interactionist we see his ambition in a wider sense of wanting sociology to recover human struggle and the active creation of meaning. Our approach is to understand the calculated hedonism of young adult use of alcohol through their humanity.

Purpose: To critically explore the implications of the August 2020, decision by Carleton University’s Institute for Criminology and Criminal Justice (ICCJ) to end to its intern program with the Ottawa police, the RCMP, Correctional Services Canada and Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre starting in Fall 2021.

Findings: In contrast to the negative reaction of Kevin Haggerty to this decision, the authors offer a strong but qualified endorsement of the ICCJ’s move to put an end to its internship with coercive institutions. The ICCJ strategically mobilized discourses of anti-Blackness and inclusion in response to the murder of George Floyd and the individual and communitarian traumas of Black, First Nations and Metis and students colour in its program. The ICCJ did not, however, substantively engage with the ways that criminology, sociology and the university are complicit through the legitimation practices and processes of ideology, professionalization and research in the ‘violence work’ of the state. The critique, ethics and logical conclusion of abolitionism are obfuscated.

Methodology/Approach: The authors explicitly draw on the Black Radical Tradition, Neo-Marxism and radical neo-Weberianism to sketch research possibilities that resist the university as a space of violence work, both in criminology and in the professionalization of policing.

Originality/Value: The debate between the ICCJ and Kevin Haggerty is an important opportunity to critically analyze the limits of critical criminology and lacunae of a debate about abolitionism, anti-criminology and university-state nexus as a site for the production of ideological and hardware violence work. Grounded in the Black Radical Tradition, neo-Marxism and radical neo-Weberianism, the authors sketch a framework for a research agenda toward the abolition of criminology.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an insider account of the establishment of Hong Kong University (HKU’s) Master of Social Sciences in Criminology.

The paper is biographical in approach, based on the author’s recollections and departmental documentation relating to the establishment of the MSocSc criminology degree.

The author argues that for all the practical complications, a distinctive criminological tradition was forged in the early years that has had a lasting influence. The paper concludes by considering the challenges faced by criminology in contemporary Hong Kong.

The paper provides an account of the origins and development of academic criminology in Hong Kong.

Purpose – This chapter explores the nature of feminist research and its contributions to criminology, with a specific focus on intersectionality and intimate partner violence (IPV) research.

Methodology/approach – Feminism, feminist criminology, and intersectionality are used to consider approaches to research and criminological knowledge-production broadly, and IPV research specifically.

Findings – An analysis of feminism and feminist criminology in early movement and contemporary contexts demonstrates the necessity of intersectionality to feminist praxis. Feminist criminology, as a reflexive and evolving field, maintains a commitment to progressive social change and addressing inequality. In the context of IPV, this commitment tasks feminist criminology with examining the consequences of historical, carceral feminist approaches related to the over-policing and criminalization of racialized, Indigenous, and immigrant communities. In working to prevent IPV, feminist criminology should prioritize interdisciplinary work and engage broader social movements, recognizing the interconnectedness of gender justice with racial, economic, and health justice.

Originality/value – Through a consideration of feminist approaches to research and the importance of intersectionality to IPV research specifically, this analysis links broader feminist research principles and intersectional understandings with contemporary anti-carceral movements and interdisciplinary, public health-driven understandings surrounding IPV.