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14 Criminology & Crim. Just. 3 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/crmcj14 and id is 1 raw text is: Themed Section: Emerging Issues of Crime and justice in Africa Emerging issues of crime and criminal justice in sub- Saharan Africa Criminology & Criminal justice 2014, Vol. 14(1) 3-7 @ The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1748895813510009 crj.sagepub.corn OSAGE justice Tankebe University of Cambridge, UK Alice Hills Durham University, UK Bankole Cole University of Northumbria at Newcastle, UK Introduction and Aims of a Themed Section References to Africa often conjure up an image of 'the strange and the monstrous - of what, even as it opens an appealing depth before us, is constantly eluding and escaping us' (Mbembe, 2001: 1). The particulars of this image are taken to be corruption, violent conflicts, coup d'6tats and underdevelopment. However, if we consider the scale of transformations in sub-Saharan Africa (hereafter Africa) - transformations occasioned by decades of complex political, economic and social processes of change - we see an image that is less malleable to stereotypical depictions. Changes in the last four decades are especially noteworthy, not least for the student of comparative criminology. The 1980s witnessed the adoption and implementation of structural adjustment pro- grammes at the insistence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a key facet of which was a move away from centrally planned economies to the pursuit of neo- liberal economic policies. Economic 'liberalisation and the accompanying requirement Corresponding author: justice Tankebe, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK. Email: jt340@cam.ac.uk