Drawing on research conducted in over a dozen post conflict and post authoritarian societies, Kieran McEvoy will speak on role of criminology in transitional justice. In particular, his talk will focus on the intersection between criminology, law and human rights and the role of criminology as a framework to explore punishment and redress for past acts of extreme violence – focusing in particular on the role of apologies and acknowledgement.

The dearth of international criminological expertise in regions not sitting within the so-called Global North and Global South binary is becoming increasingly apparent and necessarily problematic in Criminology; and at a time when it is needed the most. One such nation is Russia, which is a striking omission given the Russian penal system was the largest penal culture of the twentieth century. In this short presentation Laura Piacentini examines this omission by situating nearly thirty years of conceptual and empirical work on Russian penal culture in a wider geo-carceral context of colonialism, war, political erasure and authoritarianism. Laura asks what next for Criminology now that Russia’s absence has re-emerged?