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The struggle against torture and institutional violence has to be practiced in numerous scenarios: in the very places of deprivation of liberty, against workers, administrations and judges who try to hide it or justify it, but also, it’s a struggle against an academy that, too often, has decided to look the other way. In order to be activist, criminology must leave the classroom and enter the places of deprivation of liberty. It must engage with victims and survivors and it has to make political and social denunciations, organising itself and weaving networks with other social organisations that fight for the same goal. Unfortunately, it also has to fight against the very obstacles that the criminal justice system institutions pose; the denunciations and persecution of these same institutions and some police and prison workers groups and unions; the dirty war against terrorism and political dissent; and the criminalisation of some mass media and also of the academic world, where activism against this phenomenon is a minority and marginalised. These two sides of the same coin, involvement in anti-torture activist movements, as well as persecution and criminalisation when challenging state power, is what the authors of this chapter have experienced in Catalonia and Spain. While we fight against torture outside the classroom, we also carry out activism inside the classroom, teaching what other academics do not want to engage with, and pointing out the political elements of criminology and the action of the penal system. In this chapter, the authors highlight the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in custody and prison, and in the context of police activity in Spain. Then, the authors explain the structures of denial (political, judicial and academic) that allow its perpetuation and impunity. The text ends with a journey through the configuration of activist criminology in Spain that unites critical analysis from a legal sociology perspective with collective and activist intervention.

This chapter discusses the confinement conditions that women doing time for federal offenses in Mexico nowadays face. This discussion focuses on two conditions: the evolution of theories about feminine criminal behavior; and the effects that policies against drugs, prevailing in Latin America and other world regions, have on this population.

Some 149 out of 300 women doing time in an Island prison in Mexico were interviewed by the author, who tried to understand the conditions that women faced before committing the crime and once they were in prison.

The study shows that policies against drugs have caused severe damage and brought about few, if any, benefits. A cost-benefit approach and more rational policies are suggested.

The chapter will describe relevant punishment conditions, including involuntary or trickery transfer of women to the Island prison; difficulties to communicate with their families and ill-treatments, humiliation, and abuses from personnel and will hear several of their stories.

This chapter focuses on ways of giving voice to the survivors of institutional abuse and how their contribution can be capitalised in raising community awareness of this phenomenon. The collection of testimonies demonstrates that institutional abuse is a common and widespread phenomenon that in most cases remains unrevealed throughout the life course. The participatory research process we describe is part of an important social and clinical intervention developed in the framework of two projects. The chapter illustrates outputs and outcomes related to disclosure of institutional abuse and its long-term consequences, as well as the meaning and implications of collective trauma. Results confirm the need to promote the voice of survivors to build a new professional and community culture and sensitisation towards children's right to be heard as an essential instrument to prevent and detect institutional ill treatment. Participatory processes can overcome the resistance of individuals, professional communities and politicians to recognising the phenomenon, emphasising institutional responsibilities and the specific effects of a serious form of maltreatment that requires extraordinary and specific interventions in terms of intensity and flexibility. This chapter describes a fieldwork and research experience made possible thanks to a strong alliance with survivors who engaged in a process of reflection and theoretical elaboration that generated both social and clinical impacts.

This chapter examines the dynamic of state-society interaction during the events of the winter 2013–2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolution. Using a new dataset, containing responses from the activists of the dissent movement, the study uncovers the “tipping point” at which revolutionaries were much more likely to support violent tactics. The study adds to the scholarly debate on repression-dissent, showing that social interpretation of state repression is essential in affecting social support for political violence. In addition to the theoretical contribution, this article presents the first systematic scholarly account of the repression-dissent dynamic of the 2013–2014 Ukrainian revolution, implementing original empirical and interview data.

India is the birthplace of four major religions which are Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. It is a country where people of all religions live in peace and harmony. Many tourists experience different forms of harassment during their pilgrimage journey, for example, fleecing, extortion of money, harassment by beggars, persistence by vendors and priests, fraud, sexual harassment, and other unacceptable behaviors. In order to appreciate the extent of harassment encountered by tourists, an in-depth study was conducted on the reviews provided by tourists on TripAdvisor's (Indian) website. This study characterizes harassments through ethnographic research approach of published reviews. A total of 260 reviews of 28 top Hindu temples are considered for all the states and union territories where the top Hindu pilgrim centers are located, (excluding Nagaland) according to TripAdvisor. The concerned reviews are categorized and further investigated through a primary data collection in proportion with the reviews received in respective temple sites in the study. through structural equation modeling (SEM). Important factors have been identified for future policy issues and recommendations in these most crowded places with unique mass tourism practices.

How can a qualitative life course approach inform the analysis of the impact of disability policy on individual lives? This contribution puts forward the concept of policy reception in an effort to apply the key principles of a life course perspective to the study of policy impact, a perspective which is of particular relevance in the case of disability policy. Drawing on a broader qualitative study of the reception of disability policy in France, the paper, focusing on the in-depth analysis of two life stories, makes two main contributions. The first is theoretical, putting forward the concept of policy reception to address the missing link between “the state and the life course,” as pointed out by Mayer and Schoepflin (1989). The second is methodological, detailing how biographical interviews, following this life course approach, can be used to operationalize this concept of policy reception. These contributions are illustrated by study results focusing on the reception of disability-related educational policies.

This chapter delves into the controversy over detention and interrogation in the war on terror carried out by American operatives. While attending to political, legal, and ethical concerns, critical attention is directed at the manner by which certain interrogation techniques have been framed as being “scientific” and therefore effective in extracting truthful disclosures from terror suspects.

Drawing on extensive legal and medical literature, the critique offers a postmodern analysis by raising serious questions over the effectiveness and legitimacy of enhanced interrogation espoused by the Bush administration. By doing so, the conceits of the war on terror are exposed and confronted.

In 2014, the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program) was unclassified and released to the public. Among other revelations, the document clearly shows that interrogators and their psychological consultants committed torture. In doing so, they often relied on medical knowledge for harming, rather than healing. Ethical and legal remedies aimed at correcting those problems are recommended.

The chapter delivers a sophisticated critique that blends recently revealed evidence of torture with postmodern interpretation. While casting doubt on the effectiveness and legitimacy of enhanced interrogation, discussion throws critical light on incidents of human rights abuses committed by health professionals. Paradoxically, those physicians and psychologists opted to use their medical skills and expertise to inflict suffering rather than alleviating it. Those acts constitute egregious ethical and legal violations that warrant prosecution.