Assistant Professor, Critical Criminology

Office: STH 427
905-688-5550 x4196
smcaleese@brocku.ca

Education:
PhD, Carleton University
MA, University of Ottawa
B.Hon Soc.Sc, University of Ottawa

Samantha McAleese is a critical criminologist and qualitative researcher whose work focuses on the collateral consequences of punishment in Canada and the role of the non-profit sector in supporting people impacted by the criminal legal system. She is a leading expert on record suspensions (formerly known as pardons) and collaborates with other researchers, legal professionals, advocates, and people with lived and living experiences of criminalization and punishment to push for policy and program changes in the area of criminal records management in Canada. She is a member of the Fresh Start Coalition, the International Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector Research Network, and a Board member at large for the St. Leonard’s Society of Canada.

Samantha’s ongoing research interests stand at the intersection of critical criminology, feminist sociology, penology, digital criminology, and abolition, and her research agenda and advocacy work seek to deepen understanding of how people identify, navigate, resist, and strive to eliminate structural stigma and the harms of criminalization and punishment. Samantha currently teaches in the areas of community engagement and critical criminology.

General research areas/topics:

Sociology of punishment, processes of criminalization, the non-profit sector/penal voluntary sector, homelessness industrial complex, prison(er) education, structural stigma, administrative burden, collateral consequences of punishment, transformative justice, alternatives to punishment and incarceration, pardons and record suspensions, surveillance studies, public criminology and sociology, penal abolition and abolitionist feminism, digital media literacy, digital criminology and digital stigma, advocacy and activism, community-academic relationships, qualitative research methods.