‘Wider and deeper’? Reflections on the challenges of doing European criminology in a demagogic age

Over 20 years ago, in the inaugural issue of the European Journal of Criminology , David Smith identified the rising profile of crime control, criminal justice and security in European politics as one of three key processes driving the development of criminology in Europe. His 2014 exhortation to go ‘wider and deeper’ in this regard – to embrace ‘the sociology and politics of punishment’ as worthy ‘subjects for a journal of criminology’ as well as closer engagement with the humanist tradition – raises some interesting questions for the discipline in the turbulent times in which we now live. In a global and European context increasingly dominated by various alliances on the right, sometimes referred to as the ‘far’ or ‘alt’ right, what adjustments to the criminological lens are required to capture the full spectrum of exclusionary policies, practices and institutions that Smith (and others) view as so fundamental to the discipline? How – in a climate which has possibly never been more hostile to ‘epistemic crime control’ – to ‘create the conditions for a wider, more critical and more constructive debate’? Against this background, this think piece offers some brief reflections on the role of European criminology in an increasingly partisan and polarised society.