Conflict, Crime and Criminology; An Interdisciplinary Approach

Join us for the the launch of York University's Professor James Sheptycki's book "Conflict, Crime and Criminology; An Interdisciplinary Approach."

This is a free event, however, registration is required.

Where there is conflict, there is power; where there is power, control; and where there is control, criminality. This talk introduces Conflict, Crime and Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Wiley, 2026), which uses conflict as a lens to explore crime, its definition, and control. Combining insights from criminology, psychology, sociology, politics, and philosophy, it links the psycho-social, cultural, and economic dimensions of conflict to crime. Structured as a quasi-bildungsroman, the book follows a criminologist’s 30-year journey researching topics such as drugs, domestic violence, organized crime, gun-crime, technopolicing, dissent, and ecocide, tracing criminology’s evolution up to the post–Covid-19 era.

​​​​​​The writer was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and, during early childhood, moved with his family all around western Canada. His primary education was undertaken at Chinook Park Public Elementary School in Calgary, Alberta from 1966 until 1972. After that, he was privately educated at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School in Southern Alberta until 1974. An ‘oil field brat’, he moved along with his parents and sister and attended Iranzamin Tehran International School in pre-revolutionary Iran and eventually graduated from Jakarta International School in Indonesia in 1978. He then moved back to Canada where he completed an undergraduate degree in International Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in 1983. Subsequently, he undertook a Master of Arts degree in the History and Philosophy of Social and Political Science at Essex University, which was completed in 1985. The thesis for his Masters degree was titled ‘The Linguistic-Authority Structure of the North South Dialogue’. After briefly working in the oil industry, during which time he attended classes in social science research methodology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary, he became a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. An initial attempt to do an ethnography of drug takers, drug dealers and drug smugglers was abandoned, after which he successfully undertook field research on the policing of domestic violence in London, England. He completed his doctorate in 1991 and then held a lecturing position at Portsmouth University where he engaged with mid-ranking police officers taking an MA degree in Public Sector Studies. For four years in the mid-1990s, he was a post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law at Edinburgh University in what was then called the Centre for the Criminological, Sociological and Philosophical Study of Law. During that time, he undertook a sustained ethnographic field study of the transnational practices of police agencies in the English Channel Region and began, but did not complete, an LLM which had a primary focus on international criminal law and money laundering. After briefly holding a lectureship at Edinburgh, he became a lecturer at Durham University where he took on various research projects about transnational organized crime, witness protection programs, and intelligence-led policing. In 2003 he transferred to York University in Toronto, Canada where he was promoted to the rank of Professor in 2007. At York he became interested in gun-crime and undertook further research on intelligence-led policing in the Toronto Police Service and other Canadian police agencies, as well as writing on a variety of topics including crime and human rights, crimes of the military and crimes against the environment. Upon his retirement from teaching in 2023 he became a York University Professor Emeritus. During the writing of this book, he lived on Vancouver Island where he enjoyed long walks in natural settings with his dog Rebus. He blogs as The Reluctant Criminologist: (https://thereluctantcriminologist.wordpress.com/)

Please note that our Centre Lounge and CG 265 seminar room are on the second floor of the Canadiana Gallery building, with stair access only as there is no elevator. If you have any access needs or if there are any ways we can support your participation in this session, please email [email protected] and we will be glad to work with you to make the appropriate arrangements.

Photography, audio and video recording may occur throughout this event. Therefore, by attending, you hereby authorize the University of Toronto to take your photograph, video and/or record your voice and grant the university all rights to these sounds, still or moving images in any medium for educational, promotional, marketing, advertising or other such purposes that support the mission of the university. If you do not consent to this, please speak with a university representative upon your arrival.

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