Thug Criminology: A Call to Action

Thug Criminology is a book that combines the voices of former gang/street-involved people and academics to challenge and disrupt mainstream knowledge about urban youth gangs and the streets. It seeks to give voice to scholars with lived experience of street or gang life, reclaiming the terms thug and gang to reconstruct the narrative around street-involved youth as survivors of historical oppression and trauma.

Format: Hardback
Length: 284 pages
Publication date: 07 August 2023
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Thug Criminology is a groundbreaking work that brings together the urgent and often unheard voices of former gang/street-involved individuals who have transitioned into academia, along with their allies, to challenge and disrupt mainstream and academic knowledge about urban youth gangs and the streets more broadly. The book raises critical questions about how the streets, and the racialized and marginalized urban communities that inhabit them, are researched, taught, and subsequently politicized. It examines who has the power to produce such knowledge, who benefits from it, and whose voices are privileged within dominant academic and public policy discourses.

Drawing on decolonizing methodologies, Thug Criminology seeks to give voice to scholars with firsthand experience of street or gang life. Adam Ellis, Olga Marques, and Anthony Gunter reclaim the terms "thug" and "gang" to reimagine the narrative surrounding street-involved youth, viewing them not as criminals but rather as survivors of historical oppression and trauma. By challenging the colonial structure of criminology and other disciplines that focus on street crime, Thug Criminology aims to disrupt and disentangle the knowledge that has been produced on gangs and urban violence.

This book is a powerful testament to the resilience and agency of marginalized communities, and it provides a valuable contribution to the field of criminology and beyond. It challenges us to think critically about the ways in which our knowledge systems are shaped by power and privilege, and it offers a vision for a more inclusive and equitable society.

Weight: 490g
Dimension: 235 x 159 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781487545574