Caribbean Crime and Criminal Justice ─ Impacts of Post-colonialism and Gender

Despite high crime rates among men in the Caribbean, rising rates of violence against women in the region, and a significant number of Caribbean nationals incarcerated abroad due to drug smuggling, existing research has yet to offer explanations that are tailored to the unique Caribbean societies and the individuals in them.

This edited volume adds to the existing body of scientific, empirical and theoretical work on crime (victimization), and criminal justice in the Caribbean, with a specific focus on impacts of post-colonialism and gender. To investigate these impacts on a developing Caribbean criminology, the contributions in this volume focus on how impacts of post-colonialism, associated racial stereotypes, and/or gender throughout the Caribbean impact on (a) types of offending, (b) victimization, and (c) criminal justice system responses and policies.

Bringing together a broad range of experts, this book sheds light on key criminological topics in the Caribbean, including victimization, risk factors for offending, subcultures of violence and particularly gendered violence, and the role of motherhood within matrifocal societies. It is essential reading for those engaged with Caribbean - or decolonial - Criminology and those engaged with comparative and international studies in crime and justice more generally.

Katharina J. Joosen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the NSCR, the Netherlands. She has coordinated the project Caribbean Women & Crime on pathways to offending among Dutch Caribbean women for which data has been collected in the Netherlands, Curacao and Aruba.

Corin Bailey is a Senior Research Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies on the UWI, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. He has been working on issues related to crime and violence in the Caribbean for approximately 13 years.