Kritische criminologie en politiek engagement

What role do political commitment and activism play in today’s academic thinking and praxis? After a period in which academics tended to prefer an allegedly ‘apolitical’ position, this changes around 2020, when new social movements against mainly environmental destruction and institutional racism and sexism gain broad support in society. In this context, also academics increasingly demonstrate ‘whose side they are on’. In this article we first examine the current role of critical criminology, and which are the key-developments in the political arena, and then we analyse what this means for the political engagement of academics, and indeed for the way we do research. In this context, we also point at some epistemological, methodological, and societal implications.