Acknowledgments and origins
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- Last Updated: Tuesday, 08 September 2020 12:43
- Published: Friday, 05 March 2010 16:53
- Written by Colin Sumner
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CrimeTalk is an educational resource for all students of criminology, combining scientific or research-based articles, 'press cuttings', the editor's latest tweets, book/film/tv reviews, vidseo clips and a bookshop. I created it during 2010, during my first retirement from university teaching, but the ideas combined in its formation have much older and deeper roots in my experiences as a research professor, curriculum designer, thesis supervisor, funding council assessor, founding co-editor of Theoretical Criminology - an international journal, editor of a book series, book reviews and The Blackwell Companion to Criminology, and twice Dean or Head of School.
My aim has been to present and collect interesting primary information and key explanations about crime and injustice; the sort of stuff that fascinated me about criminology in the first place back in 1969 when as an undergrad I attended Dr Peter Moodie's class at Birmingham University Law School. I am also trying to create something that went beyond and beneath the many things that irriitated me in teaching, researching and publishing criminology for four decades; to get to the creative roots that have inspired my interest in criminology and still keep me interested. In that way, this is consciously a not-for-profit product carried out in a professional manner. It means publishing interesting work done by any students of criminology whether lecturers, students, professors, journalists, schoolteachers, law enforcement and lawyers as well as members of the public.
Although I did much of the website design myself, any technical sophistication and efficiency should be credited to Tahir Rasul, of Oogloo web design and development, working in Pakistan through the good offices of US-based company ODesk, whose knowledge of the right software and feel for the project made it possible. My thanks to my son Ben Sumner, a director at FeelforMusic, for several valuable comments on my ideas.Throughout this project, my wife, Patricia Sumner, has been ever-supportive, fed me many interesting media reports and made many astute observations. You need faith in a big project like this: the computing world does not make DIY easy.
Full credit should be given to the many people who have contributed over the years to the Joomla content management system which underpins this website, and to the designers of the RocketTheme style template for the site. Most of this software is produced by US companies, and my old web host, HostGator, whose services have been first-class, is also based over there. My new, and excellent, UK web host is 20i.
Any queries should be addressed to the Editor at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Follow @CrimeTalkEd for the info and comment I put out on Twitter.
The picture above is Maxine Noel's Spirits of the Earth, which I always take to be a memorial to Canada's MMIWs. And, yes, I myself am a Virgo, a spirit of the earth.
