Abstract
It is with great pleasure that we announce that Rachel Noah Hefetz has won the 2023 Theoretical Criminology Best Article Prize for her article ‘Understanding conflict penality: Dominant themes and the case of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict’. This clearly written account contributes new insights to our understanding of how and why prisons are used in conflict. Through original research and documentary analysis, the author makes clear what is at stake in the differential treatment of Palestinian security prisoners. In so doing, it invites punishment and society studies to engage with extreme systems of moral authoritarianism where so-called liberal regimes are hitting legal limits of what is acceptable in terms of detention spaces. It is a profound piece in the context of the violence in Gaza. Congratulations to Dr. Noah Hefetz!
This year has been busy for all our reviewers. The journal received 222 total manuscripts from 34 countries. Of those countries, 12 are from the Global South. We appreciate the assistance we receive from our colleagues around the world and we acknowledge the efforts that keep the journal going, even as everyone is extremely busy with teaching, service, and research. While it is sometimes harder to find reviewers for certain topics, Theoretical Criminology is fortunate in the generosity of our academic community.
Moving into 2024, we welcome two new members onto the International Advisory Board—Marion Vannier, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Manchester, and Tony Cheng, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duke University. We are grateful to our current members for their insight and input about the journal and look forward to working more closely with you all in the coming year.
We would also like to thank Erica Dorfler Schweppe, our editorial assistant, for her work on the journal. Erica has been so integral in the smooth functioning of the journal, and her dedicated effort has not gone unnoticed.
This year we look forward to a Special Issue on ‘Dismantling the Shadow Carceral State’, with the guest editors of Brittany Friedman (University of Southern California), April Fernandes (North Carolina State University) and Gabriela Kirk-Werner (Syracuse University). This issue is expanding on the ideas in the 2012 article published in this journal, ‘Mapping the shadow carceral state: toward an institutionally capacious approach to punishment’ by Katherine Beckett and Naomi Murakawa—who will contribute a reflection piece for that issue. Then in 2025, Katja Franko and Heidi Mork Lomell from the University of Oslo, will edit a Special Issue on ‘Private Economies of Knowledge in Criminal Justice’. We will be accepting proposals for the 2026 Special Issue with the same deadline of 15 April (see the submission guidelines on our website). As with last year, we particularly encourage proposals from underrepresented regions, groups and scholarship.
At the time of writing, along with everyone else, we are grieving the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, as well as in the continuing war in Ukraine and so many other conflicts raging across the globe. As the piece by Rachel Noah Hefetz makes clear, war and conflict, although in important respects separate spheres to criminology, are inherently connected to systems and principles of law, punishment and justice. As we enter in this new year of 2024, let us remain committed to research that provides important nuanced perspectives to these complex matters, as well as to never lose sight of the subjects of our research: human beings deserving of respect, dignity and fair and equal treatment under the law.
We look forward to another exciting year at Theoretical Criminology.