Aaron Pycroft and Clemens Bartollas have been working together for several years and have previously edited a collection on the application of complexity theory for criminal justice and social work (2014). In this new book they take complexity theory and marry it with insights from theology, philosophy, mathematics and quantum mechanics – and of course criminology – to argue for a redemptive criminology. Many criminologists take a narrow view of their subject, drawing inspiration from only sociology or social policy. But, as British criminologist David Downes once famously noted, criminology is a rendezvous subject (see Garland and Sparks, 2000) and therefore it applies knowledge and wisdom from all sorts of disciplines to the subjects of crime, harm or justice. This new book is most definitely criminology at the edge, seeking new understandings from subjects not often associated with criminology. It is a place where I often find myself with my own work, and Aaron has contributed to a recent collection that I have edited on criminology and public theology (Pycroft, 2021). Despite the social sciences often keeping their distance from religion, there is much we can learn from theology about responses to transgression. In fact, criminologists may find themselves already using the language of religion, with punishment sometimes interpreted as a ‘secular penance’ (Duff, 2003) or desistance as a form of repentance (Bottoms, 2021).

With redemptive criminology, Pycroft and Bartollas draw on Judaeo-Christian traditions to argue for forgiveness as the starting point of redemption. The book suggests that through forgiveness we allow the other to engage and repent. It is proposed that the other ought to be accepted as an individual, with the whole person embraced. The focus of the book is often the practitioner, for instance the probation officer who ‘opens a space of possibility through loving kindness […] discernment and testing and the thinking of the impossible’. Key influences include the work of René Girard, especially on scapegoats, and the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The book overlaps with peace-making criminology and will be of interest to those concerned with how we treat others who have done wrong by society’s standards, who have breached society’s laws, norms and values.