New Criminology Course: Defunding the Police: Rhetoric vs. Reality Being Offered for Fall 2022

A new Criminology course CRIM 4003: Defunding the Police: Rhetoric vs. Reality is being offered this fall. 

Taught by Dr. Sulaimon Giwa, the visiting Endowed Chair in Criminology and Criminal Justice, the course will examine the concept of defunding the police, what defunding the police looks like at the police and community levels, and what implications this call to action has for racialized and Indigenous communities—and for police action within them. 

Dr. Giwa is an associate professor of Social Work at Memorial University who holds degrees in social work (MSW, Carleton and PhD, York) and criminology and criminal justice (BA Hon, Carleton). He brings a wide array of criminal justice experience to the classroom, having previously worked as a community parole officer at an Indigenous healing lodge and a clinical case manager for a gang exit initiative. His research on racial profiling practices in policing has involved invited consultations and internships with Correctional Services Canada and several police forces, including the RCMP, and he was commissioned by the Independent Civilian Review of Missing Persons Investigations in 2020 to examine systemic bias in police investigations related to racialized 2SLGBTQIA+ persons, after the serial murders of several gay men of colour in Toronto between 2010-2017. 

Dr. Giwa is an avid activist and invited speaker on racial, gendered, and cultural diversity and has written about how these experiences are brought into his classroom. 

The course is offered Thursday from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Students must have previously taken CRIM 2233 to register for this course. 

Register now on WebAdvisor.