ABSTRACT
Hope is a concept not usually associated with academic criminology. A long tradition of ‘miserablism’ (Brown 2013, p. 27) within the field has tended to block and undermine attempts to imagine ways forward. Ian Loader and Richard Sparks have captured this sensibility in blunt terms:
[M]uch criminological thinking is either rather glum and fatalistic, or else excitedly apocalyptic, in content and tone. Neither of those registers are the most helpful or incisive ones with which to think about the future.
