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Poverty, Regulation & Social Justice

Poverty, Regulation & Social Justice

Readings on the Criminalization of Poverty

edited by Diane Crocker and Val Marie Johnson

Exploring issues such as homelessness, social assistance and single mothers, and written from a diversity of perspectives from academics to frontline workers, policy-makers and those affected first hand by these practices, this book aims to help readers imagine a more compassionate future.

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About the book

Emerging from a public colloquium on the criminalization of poverty, this volume critically interrogates how state and private practices have increasingly come to over-regulate people with severely limited economic resources, and understands this regulation as part of the dynamics of liberal capitalism. Exploring issues such as homelessness, social assistance and single mothers, and written from a diversity of perspectives from academics to frontline workers, policy-makers and those affected first hand by these practices, this book aims to help readers imagine a more compassionate future.

Class Inequality Crime & Law

Authors

Diane Crocker

Diane Crocker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Saint Mary’s University. She is interested broadly in the criminalization of social problems and has focused research mainly issues relating to violence against women. Over the years Diane has been involved in several agencies dealing with problems of violence and poverty including the Community Services Council in St. John’s and the North End Community Health Centre in Halifax. Her current research involves a partnership between academic research, government and non-governmental agencies exploring the principles and practices of restorative justice.

Val Marie Johnson

Val Marie Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Saint Mary’s University. She has been involved in anti-poverty work through organizations such as the Nova Scotia Poverty Reduction Strategy Coalition. Her teaching interests include how we govern the self, others, group dynamics, and social spaces and institutions. Val’s research has centered on women’s and men’s citizenship production through conflict over prostitution in late-19th and early 20th century New York City; how law, policing, “crime,” and their popular representation, are grounded in broader governance dynamics; and the history and theoretical relevance of Canadian youth justice law reform and liberal ideas and practices in the 1960s.

Introduction: Reading the Criminalization of Poverty (Val Marie Johnson)
Understanding the Role of Law and Order Politics in Canadian Cities (Todd Gorden)
Social Assistance and the Politics of Welfare Fraud Investigations: The Case of Alberta (Trevor W. Harrison)
Homelessness after 9/11: Some Reflections on How Our Society Treats Homeless Individuals (Wayne MacNaughton)
“The Streets Belong to People Who Pay for Them”: The Spacial Regulations of Street Poverty in Vancouver (Mario Berti and Jeff Sommers)
The Intersecting Experiences of Racialized Poverty and the Criminalization of the Poor (Grace-Edward Galabuzi)
The Criminalization of Poverty ... and the Impoverishment of Everything Else (J Grant Wanzel)
The Penis Police: Regulating, Punishing and Excluding Single Mothers on Social Assistance (Jeanne Fay)
Apprehensive Wives and Intimidated Mothers: Women, Fear of Crime and the Criminalization of Poverty in Toronto (Amanda Glasbeek)
It Is Not a Crime (Amy Collins)
Street Kids as Delinquents, Menaces and Criminals: The Criminalization of Poverty in Canada and Guatemala (Jeff Karabanow)
Young and Feared (Greg X)
Homeless in Halifax: The Criminal Justice System Takes Aim at the Poor (Claire McNeil)
Squat the City, Rock the Courts: Challenging the Criminal Marginalization of Anti-Poverty Acvtivism in Canada (Lisa M. Freeman)
On the Streets There’s No Forgetting Your Body (Jeff Shantz)
References