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Joanne Belknap’s recent ASC presidential address included a critique of Convict Criminology’s activism. A number of concerns were provided, although of particular importance here are, first, Belknap’s concerns regarding the absence of ‘marginalized voices’ in the Convict Criminology network. Second, the issue of defining how non-con academics function as Convict Criminology group members. This paper responds to these criticisms. Specifically, we discuss the question of ‘representation’ in BCC and our attempts to remedy this issue. We also draw attention to the academic activism that British Convict Criminology is conducting in Europe. This includes a detailed discussion of the collaborative research-activist activities that involve non-con as well as ex-con academic network members. We demonstrate how these collaborations explain the vital group membership role that non-con academics assume in the activism of Convict Criminology.

Despite its original vision of a community of ex-convict criminological and criminal justice experts, Convict Criminology (CC) has had difficulty with international expansion and has remained largely a North American movement. There are many reasons why this has occurred. This article reviews the efforts that have been made to internationalize CC in Europe and discusses some of the barriers it has faced. It also suggests prospects for moving the field forward in a truly international manner and the challenges that this entails.

The study of desistance from crime has generated a wealth of research in the last few decades. Despite the many barriers ex-prisoners face when attempting to ‘go straight’ many successfully lead law-abiding lives. Two key features identified in criminal desistance are a shift to a pro-social identity and worthwhile employment or the development of a new career path. There is, however, little psychological knowledge available on reformed offenders' experiences of self-change. This study focuses on ex-prisoners' experiences of employment and career opportunities. Five male reformed offenders took part in semi-structured interviews. Data collected was subjected to an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Participants demonstrated that desistance involves a shift to a pro-social identity and that self-change was a positive experience. An important aspect to emerge was the conflict experienced by the label ‘ex-offender’, which had a contradictory influence on the men's sense of self.

Recommendation systems are special personalization tools that help users to find interesting information and services in complex online shops. Even though today’s e-commerce environments have drastically evolved and now incorporate techniques from other domains and application areas such as Web mining, semantics, arti- ficial intelligence, user modeling, and profiling setting up a successful recommendation system is not a trivial or straightforward task. This paper argues that by monitoring, analyzing, and understanding the behavior of customers, their demographics, opinions, preferences, and history, as well as taking into consideration the specific e-shop ontology and by applying Web mining techniques, the effectiveness of produced recommendations can be significantly improved. In this way, the e-shop may upgrade users’ interaction, increase its usability, convert users to buyers, retain current customers, and establish long-term and loyal one-to-one relationships.

Recommendation systems are special personalization tools that help users to find interesting information and services in complex online shops. Even though today’s e-commerce environments have drastically evolved and now incorporate techniques from other domains and application areas such as Web mining, semantics, artificial intelligence, user modeling, and profiling setting up a successful recommendation system is not a trivial or straightforward task. This chapter argues that by monitoring, analyzing, and understanding the behavior of customers, their demographics, opinions, preferences, and history, as well as taking into consideration the specific e-shop ontology and by applying Web mining techniques, the effectiveness of produced recommendations can be significantly improved. In this way, the e-shop may upgrade users’ interaction, increase its usability, convert users to buyers, retain current customers, and establish long-term and loyal one-to-one relationships.