About

James Sheptycki is the Reluctant Criminologist.

My general interests are in the history and philosophy of ideas. More specifically, I am really interested in the historical development of human social power and the ways in which the passion for vengeance has been inscribed in the rationality of social organization in different times and places. Empirical study of crime and crime control offers a fundamental view of the human world. All structures of social cooperation offer opportunities for crime, and some are themselves criminal organizations. This produces vocabularies defining crime and practices thought appropriate to its control. Those vocabularies can be analyzed, revealing important clues as to the balance of conflict and cooperation in the transformation of social life. The best that criminology can do is offer a window onto bigger questions about the contested nature of truth, justice and the good society.