{"id":1283,"date":"2011-01-27T01:34:38","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T07:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2011-01-27T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T07:34:38","slug":"perils-of-public-criminology-and-public-sociology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2011\/01\/27\/perils-of-public-criminology-and-public-sociology\/","title":{"rendered":"perils of public criminology and public sociology"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our paper<\/a> on public criminologies, Chris and I wrote about some of the perils of making your research accessible to a wide audience:<\/p>\n

We also should acknowledge the potential costs of practicing public criminology. Making one\u2019s work and perspective visible in the media opens the possibilities for threats and hate mail, loss of credibility, or worse from detractors. It can lead to close identification with the populations one studies; for example, attempts to discuss the low recidivism rates of sex offenders can be derailed by venomous attacks from a fearful public. (Uggen & Inderbitzin, 2010: 743)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The latest – and perhaps scariest – example of vitriolic threats and electronic hate mail is the targeted attack against sociologist Frances Fox Piven.\u00a0 Based largely on a piece of work<\/a> that was published 45 years ago, Glenn Beck has suggested that Frances Fox Piven is an enemy of the Constitution.<\/a> Examples of the threats made against Dr. Piven can be found in this article<\/a>; the author then points out:\u00a0 “One thing that I think has not been adequately highlighted amid this fiasco is Piven\u2019s own response: the professor has been calm, fearless, and articulate, providing a model of how a public intellectual should behave in such a situation.”<\/p>\n

Officers of the American Sociological Association issued a public statement<\/a>, ending with these words:<\/p>\n

Thus, the right to free speech does not ever include rhetoric that encourages violence against one\u2019s opponents, especially in the current atmosphere of heated political mobilization. We call on Fox News and other responsible media to set the appropriate standards of accurate and honest debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frances Fox Piven, herself, has been graceful under pressure, and as a true public intellectual, she is using this unwanted publicity to point attention back to the larger structural issues.\u00a0 She offered this comment:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for people to understand what\u2019s going on in a complicated society. Democracy requires that people have some understanding of what\u2019s going on, of what their own interests are, who their enemies are. But it\u2019s a very complicated society. And moneyed propagandists have taken advantage of that to create a demonology in which it is the left, the Democratic left, that is the source of many of our troubles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, one more thing, in case you haven’t heard much about this case or followed any of the links in this post, Frances Fox Piven is 78 years old…and apparently more relevant than ever.\u00a0 With her her courage and continuing efforts to educate the public, Dr. Piven offers a positive model for public sociologists\/public criminologists to learn from and emulate.\u00a0 It is appreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our paper on public criminologies, Chris and I wrote about some of the perils of making your research accessible to a wide audience: We also should acknowledge the potential costs of practicing public criminology. Making one\u2019s work and perspective visible in the media opens the possibilities for threats and hate mail, loss of credibility, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1285,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}