What's Queer About Queer Criminology?

The term ‘‘queer criminology’’ is increasingly being used in criminological discussions, though there remains little consistency with regard to how it is used and to what it refers. It has been used broadly to describe criminological research on LGBTQ people and their interactions with the justice system, more specifically to describe those analyses that identify and critique the heteronormative knowledges or binarized understandings of gender and sexuality within criminal justice research, and also to label theoretical and conceptual pieces that argue for a greater connection between queer theory and criminology. However, there are some important distinctions between ‘‘queer criminology’’ and ‘‘queer theory’’ more widely, particularly the deconstructive approaches of the latter. This chapter explores the engagements between queer theory and ‘‘queer criminology,’’ specifically focusing on whether ‘‘queer criminology’’ adopts an understanding of ‘‘queer’’ as an attitude, and as signifying a deconstructive project—a position that features in many strands of queer theoretical work. It will argue that while there are different ways of engaging with ‘‘queer’’ as a concept, and that each of these engagements produces different kinds of ‘‘queer’’ projects, ‘‘queer criminology’’ does not always engage with the deconstructive approaches drawn from queer theory. Ultimately, this can limit the ways that ‘queer criminologists’’ are able to address injustice.

Queer criminology, critique, and the "art of not being governed"

This article builds on previous work that argues that a useful path for a ‘‘queer/ed criminology’’ to follow is one that takes ‘‘queer’’ to denote a position. It suggests that one way of developing such an approach is to adopt a particular understanding of critique—specifically one that draws from Michel Foucault’s view of critique as ‘‘the art of not being governed.’’ It then charts some of the possible directions for such a ‘‘queer/ed criminology.’’ While such an approach to critique has previously been discussed within critical criminologies, this article suggests that it is useful for queer criminologists to explore the opportunities that it affords, particularly in order to better appreciate how ‘‘queer/ed criminology’’ might connect to, draw from, or push against other currents among critical criminologies, and help to delineate the unique contribution that this kind of ‘‘queer/ed criminology’’ might make.

The use of 'queer' in criminal justice discourses

Within criminological literature, there are growing references to a 'queer/ed criminology'. To date, ‘queer criminology’ remains a loose collection of studies and criminal-justice related commentary that uses the term 'queer'. Amid the growing calls for the more substantial development of these criminological studies, it is timely to reflect on the ways that the term ‘queer’ has been used in these discourses, to what ends, and with what effects. This paper considers the manner in which the term 'queer' has been used in these criminological and criminal justice discourses. It suggests that ‘queer’ has been used in two dominant ways: as an 'umbrella' term for lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, and queer-identified people; and to signify the use of theoretical tools with which to represent sexuality- and gender-diverse people more effectively within criminological research. The paper will argue that these ways of using ‘queer’ have a variety of implications and effects. Specifically, using ‘queer’ as an umbrella term has the potential to reinforce identity categories and the politics that surround identities (a critique that has often appeared in queer contexts), while using it as a theoretical tool potentially reproduces various investments in criminology and criminal justice institutions. Both uses may preclude other productive avenues for critique opened up by the term ‘queer’. The paper will conclude by suggesting that using ‘queer’ as a verb to signify a more deconstructive project directed towards criminology is a possible direction for these discussions. While this approach has its own effects, and articulates with existing deconstructive approaches in criminology, it is important to explore these possibilities at this point in the development of a ‘queer/ed criminology’ for two reasons: it highlights that multiple, and often competing, ‘queer/ed criminologies’ exist; and it expands the diverse possibilities heralded by the notion of ‘queer’.

Queering Criminology

Queer criminological work is at the forefront of critical academic criminology, responding to the exclusion of queer communities from criminology, and the injustices that they experience through the criminal justice system. This volume draws together both theoretical and empirical contributions that develop the growing scholarship being produced at the intersection of 'queer' and 'criminology'. Reflecting the diversity of research that is undertaken at this intersection, the contributions to this volume offer a deeper theoretical and conceptual development of this field alongside empirical research that illustrates the continued relevance and urgency of such scholarship. The contributions consider what it means to be queering criminology in the current political, social, and criminological climate, and chart directions along which this field might develop in order to ensure that greater social and criminal justice for LGBTIQ communities is achieved.

Policing LGBTIQ people in rural spaces: Emerging issues and future concerns

This article argues identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and/or questioning (LGBTIQ) in rural spaces can produce specific types of policing experiences. While some literature examines the experiences of LGBTIQ people with police, very little has focused on how rurality explicitly shapes these experiences. This is significant considering research highlights how rurality can be connected to pronounced experiences of homophobia and trans-phobia. The article highlights examples from three research projects that explored: LGBTIQ young people's interactions with police; LGBTI people's interactions with police liaison services; and LGBTIQ-identifying police officers. The examples demonstrate the need for further research to examine how policing “happens” with rural LGBTIQ people to ensure more accountable policing policies and practice, and to highlight the complexities of localized, rural policing contexts that can both support and marginalize LGBTIQ people.

Crime Justice and Social Democracy: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference, 9-10 July 2015

We are pleased to present these selected papers from the proceedings of the 3rd Crime, Justice and Social Democracy International Conference, held in July 2015 in Brisbane, Australia. Over 350 delegates attended the conference from 19 countries. The papers collected here reflect the diversity of topics and themes that were explored over three days. The Crime, Justice and Social Democracy International Conference aims to strengthen the intellectual and policy debates concerning links between justice, social democracy, and the reduction of harm and crime, through building more just and inclusive societies and proposing innovative justice responses. In 2015, attendees discussed these issues as they related to ideas of green criminology; indigenous justice; gender, sex and justice; punishment and society; and the emerging notion of ‘Southern criminology’. The need to build global connections to address these challenges is more evident than ever and the conference and these proceedings reflect a growing attention to interdisciplinary, novel, and interconnected responses to contemporary global challenges. Authors in these conference proceedings engaged with issues of online fraud, queer criminology and law, Indigenous incarceration, youth justice, incarceration in Brazil, and policing in Victoria, Australia, among others. The topics explored speak to the themes of the conference and demonstrate the range of challenges facing researchers of crime, harm, social democracy and social justice and the spaces of possibility that such research opens. Our thanks to the conference convenor, Dr Kelly Richards, for organising such a successful conference, and to all those presenters who subsequently submitted such excellent papers for review here. We would also particularly like to thank Jess Rodgers for their tireless editorial assistance, as well as the panel of international scholars who participated in the review process, often within tight timelines.

International legal norms on the right to sexual orientation and gender identity: Australian reforms contextualised

At a time when the international momentum for sexual orientation and gender identity rights is strong it is important that scholars and activists remain vigilant to ensure that the discourses framing sexuality rights do not intentionally, or inadvertently, deepen incursions on the rights of individuals of sexual and bodily diversity. This chapter offers a critical examination of selected Australian case law and legal reform for the putative progress t offers sexual minorities. Identifying the entrenched binary determinism at the heart of the law, this chapter echoes the call of queer criminology, concluding that challenging invisibility is but part of the project. Queer scholars need also remain vigilant about the law’s constitutive power, and its role in producing sexual minorities as objects of pathology, perversion and criminality.

Identifiable, queer and risky : the role of the body in policing experiences for LGBT young people

This paper explores how visibly non-heteronormative bodies mediate policing experiences of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) young people, an area that has been mostly ignored in research about policing young people. Informed by interviews with 35 LGBT young people in Brisbane, Queensland, this paper addresses this gap by exploring how the non-heteronormative body mediates policing experiences of LGBT young people. Drawing on Foucault (1984), Butler (1990a), and other queer theory, the paper argues young non-heteronormative bodies visibly perform ‘queerness’, are read by police, and shape police-LGBT youth interactions. While this is complicated by looking at-risk (in terms of risk factors like homelessness, substance abuse), and looking risky (in terms of risk-taking or criminalised activities), the paper concludes noting how youthful LGBT bodies are regulated by police as non-heteronormative and deviant.

Queer cops in Queensland : exploring LGBT narrative histories in the Queensland Police Service

This chapter reports on a narrative project recording the experiences of LGBT former and current police officers in the Queensland Police Service (QPS), Australia. It begins by examining the historical and research contexts of LGBT police officers, followed by a discussion of the methodology employed for the project. The chapter then examines and analyzes key themes emerging from the data about coming out, macho police culture, and the double life syndrome often experienced by LGBT police officers. Finally, it suggests that further research might uncover a more widespread application of these findings.

Queer Youth Research/ers: A reflexive account of risk and intimacy in an ethical (mine)field

In contemporary Western societies, the years between childhood and young adulthood are commonly understood to be (trans)formative in the reflexive project of sexual self-making (Russell et al. 2012). As sexual subjects in the making, youthful bodies, desires and sexual activities are often perceived as both volatile and vulnerable, thus subjected to instruction and discipline, protection and surveillance. Accordingly, young people’s sexual proximities are closely monitored by social institutions and ‘(hetero)normalising regimes’ (Warner 1999) for any signs that may compromise the end goal of development—a ‘normal’ reproductive heterosexual monogamous adult.

Queer penalities: the criminal justice paradigm in lesbian and gay anti-violence politics

Building upon the renewed attention to the ways in which criminology may be ‘queered’ (or not), this article explores how a criminal justice paradigm has influenced lesbian and gay politics through an investigation of anti-homophobic research and lobbying focused on violence and harassment. It asks: What place does criminal justice occupy within sexual politics? Using the Australian state of Victoria as a case study, the article examines how the lesbian and gay anti-violence movement has utilized criminal justice theories, methodologies and approaches to explain and attempt to remedy ‘homophobic hate’. It provides three inter-connected examples of the permeation of criminal justice logics: (1) the victimization survey method, (2) the focus on police reform, and (3) elements of a punitive public discourse surrounding homophobic hate crime. These examples are nevertheless complicated by the persistence of institutionalized violence and state failure to ‘protect’ lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) lives. These discursive practices contribute to ‘queer penalities’, a term used to describe the ways in which lesbian and gay movements shape and contest the social meaning of terms such as ‘crime’, victimization and punishment.