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PERSONAL
REFLECTION ON MY BACKGROUND
source: Michael Bailey, Richland
Correctional Institution
Introduction
Michael Bailey’s picture, which shows Lady Justice has
left the court building and has taken off her blindfold to go to the streets of
our communities to mend the wounds, restore the peace, and bring hope where
there is despair, represents and exemplifies my wide schooling in Social
Sciences and the Law and my firm commitment to social justice based on an appreciation
of social and intellectual diversity and an awareness of social inequality.
Educational background
I have had a privileged well-rounded undergraduate and
graduate education. While theoretically varied, my undergraduate and graduate
works have been interdisciplinary in nature, which has permitted me to be
exposed to a wide range of disciplines within the social science field, and to
an even wider range of –classical and modern- criminological, sociological, and
legal theories and perspectives.
I did my undergraduate degree in Social Sciences and
Law, where I first embarked on the systematic study of sociology, political
science, and law. The simultaneous and methodical study of social science and
law gave me a unique insight into the understanding of crime and society,
together with -criminal and non criminal- justice institutions, and the main
justice actors. I repeated this experience in the interdisciplinary study of
Law and Social Sciences both at the doctoral -Catholic University of Cordoba-
and postdoctoral –University of Ottawa- levels.
My work in my second doctorate at McGill University
let me specialize in Law Reform and Participatory Theories in the international
field and to design a theoretical framework, which I have since been using to
develop a broad mosaic of research endeavors related to crime, aerospace
security, terrorism, and human rights, among others. Additionally, my doctoral
and master’s programs at McGill gave me the necessary tools to understand
Canadian society, its justice institutions, constitutional protections, and
main legal debates.
My theoretical approach
I focus the study of legal issues, crime, justice
institutions, and social problems from a multi-disciplinary standpoint,
searching for the connections among the legal, political, economic, and
cultural elements in society.
The goal of my teaching and research is to locate the
genesis of crime, legal, and sociolegal problems within a structure of class
and status inequalities. I see laws –both criminal and non criminal- and
prosecuting practices as deeply connected to a system of social inequality,
which tends to reproduce the social injustices of the capitalist system.