Building on the shoulders of Bhaskar and Matthews : a critical realist criminology

Building on the insights of the late Roy Bhaskar and the late Roger Matthews, as well as some recent developments in ultra-realist criminology, this article introduces and delineates some core intellectual contours of a Critical Realist Criminology (CRC) based on the principles of:1. The ‘emergent,’ stratified ontology of crime and of the offender;2. the full critical realist account of the dialectics of being and becoming, including the spiritual turn in critical realism, applied to processes of criminal justice and reform;3. maximal inclusion of diverse theoretical research positions and the primacy of ontology in methodological selection;4. a ‘serious’ critical relationship of criminologists with professionals, institutions and policy-makers of criminal justice.These principles are directed at developing a criminology that ‘underlabours’ the recovery of human flourishing for the victims and perpetrators of crime and for society at large, including in-depth inquiry into what counts as crime and the purposes of incarceration