CrimeTalk

An educational resource for students and staff studying the sociology of crime, deviance and social censure, criminology, sociology of law and socio-legal studies;  the intriguing stuff that made the subject fascinating in the first place. So much of this has now become political that we also discuss politics.

Editor's Blog

Back after unfinished genocides

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Category: Editor's blog
Last Updated: Wednesday, 03 June 2026 17:45
Published: Wednesday, 03 June 2026 15:59
Written by Colin Sumner
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CrimeTalk is back after maintenance and editorial breaks. From 2012 it had been tied to my last academic employment (in the Republic of Ireland) but I left that in 2019 and retired at 70 angry with academia and its lack of ethics, proper management, a sense of its own value as a search for truth, and a growing authoritarianism. Returning to Covid in Northern England, my home territory, closely followed by humanity's disgrace in Israel, I lapsed into deep depression. Then Trump got re-elected and the shitshow he inaugurated left me lacking in hope for the species. Why bother writing about immorality, crime, ethics, and abnormality when the world was upside down and the lunatics had control of the asylum? 

The last major publications here in 2021 were Eleni Dimou's lament about the lack of democracy in Greek universities and my own about the likley huge impact on truth and university life as we'd known it once Trumpian crass gangsterism became the global beacon of evil it is still today. Our last book review was about Degrees of Freedom and our InBrief section observed that liberty could not breathe. All 'chroncles of a death foretold' you might say, and personally I noted Umberto Eco's quote on teaching in your sixties and later as only worth it if you had hope - to motivate younger people. To boot, the lack of correspondence from corresponding or associate editors pointed to developments that could not be ignored, such as university departments wanting control of where and whether academics should publish critical stuff and a general intellectual malaise revolving around the need for paid work, job retention, leaving scholarship behind and discovering a new popular 'journalism' in 'new' media. And more....it was time for a rethink and a reset. I discovered that retirement did mean something today, it meant myself being in my own private sector and that privacy was liberating in unexpected ways, notably not having thought and behaviour being regimented maliciously and negligently by others in service of state.

So why come out to write again and in what form in a world that doesn't read social science, or believe in truth, or understand methodology and epistemology? New hope?  Not a chance in an uncivilised world rendered mostly hopeless for youth and the relatively deprived. Have I discovered a new philosophy to combat Eco's? No. I actually hold to some very traditional values about truth, methods of establishing any, and the need for genuinely public zones of free speech protected from destruction by fascisms of various types. I could say a lot about fake news and free speech, but one thing I did in my last job gave me a huge insight 'going forward' [as they say meaninglessly] but one I only recently recognised. As Head of Criminology choosing to do admissions myself for our very popular new BA, in contact with UCC's Mature Students' Office, I discovered there was a pool of mature students, defined as over 23, that were being ignored. I then discovered Ireland's archaic provision in the 1937 Constitution stating that women's primary obligation was to "duties in the home" in order to sustain "durable relationships". Apparently, this clause had been weaponised to keep women out of universities for decades after. Because of political shenanigans, and despite Citizens Assemblies' progressiveness, the clause was retained in 2024. (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2024/mar/12/no-no-referendum-ireland-constitution-women .

So, given plentiful applications to study Criminology in 2014, I steadily increased the number of 'mature' students in our cohort so that when I went it was almost 20% of the cohort and nearly all female. When I left, around 85% of our students were female. The 'mature' ones were particularly grateful for their opportunity to study a critical criminology. I should add that I had been a member of President Higgins' committee meeting in the august Cabinet room discussing the re-ethicization of Ireland [ his speech was published here https://www.crimetalk.org.uk/index.php/library/section-list/965-morality-economy-and-society] and I confess to advocating the importance of popular consultation about ethical issues.

I personally had not lost hope therefore but can now see that the key point is that the university system and the whole sphere of truth production were exclusionary or exclusive and kept out huge sections of the population. For all their faults, new media have opened up new streams of public discourse and forums for debate or just play. It seems wrong to cut ourselves off from this new world when many are only just now being enfranchised or let in to the public sphere.

Nevertheless, at 76, I only want to complete the CrimeTalk project with, first, some much needed technical maintenance, and then the publication of my obscurely published or unpublished essays. Others, that is all of you, are very welcome to submit writings to CrimeTalk and they will be treated with care and sensitivity by a very experienced editor. Shortly, I will launch a new website covering a wide range of social matters and personal experiences of general interest. Find me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you want to join in.

 

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