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Summary

McEvoy, Kieran and Ellison, Graham (2002). Criminological Discourses in Northern Ireland: Conflict and Conflict Resolution In, Kieran McEvoy and Tim Newburn,eds., Criminology, Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK and New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Pp. 45-82.

According to Kieran McEvoy and Graham Ellison, despite the centrality of the criminal justice system to political conflict, criminological literature in general has had very little to say about such conflict. Stepping boldly into this lacuna, McEvoy and Ellison assess the significance of criminological discourses both during the Northern Ireland conflict and in the subsequent era of peace processes. They assert that some of the central tenets of criminological thought provide useful tools for analyzing and understanding the conflict and the conflict resolution processes in Northern Ireland. In particular, they employ criminology’s emphasis on the role of the state as a key constitutive actor in the study of crime as a lens for studying a conflict where the role and responsibilities of the state are politically and ideologically charged issues. They then assess the role of the criminal justice system during the conflict and criminological praxis during the processes of conflict resolution in Northern Ireland.

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