Peacemaking Criminology

Wayne Gillespie

Peacemaking criminology is a relatively recent and novel approach to understanding both crime and, perhaps more importantly, public and personal reactions to crime. In fact, criminology as peacemaking can be understood as a response to criminal justice policies that were first enacted during the 1960s such as President Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. These broad executive and legislative proposals heralded the War on Crime, a law-and-order, get-tough, and war-making response to criminal and delinquent behavior. As Jonathan Simon observes, the “war on crime” has even transformed American democracy and created a culture of fear by which politicians now govern. Peacemaking criminology was born out of disenchantment with the repressive and socially conservative agenda that gave rise to the war-on-crime political movement. According to Ronald Akers and Christine Sellers, peacemaking criminology advances a utopian, crime-free society with ...

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