Elizabeth Comack

Elizabeth Comack is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. She received her Ph.D in sociology from the University of Alberta, her M.A. from Queens University and B.A.(Honours) from the University of Winnipeg.

Elizabeth’s research interests fall within two main areas: the sociology of law and feminist criminology. Over the past three decades she has written and conducted research on a variety of topics: the origins of Canadian drug laws; the capital punishment debate; the legal recognition of the ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’;  the abuse histories of women in prison; violence, inequality, and the law; safety and security issues in Winnipeg’s inner-city communities; and masculinity, violence, and prisoning.  Her current research projects stem from her involvement in a SSHRC/CURA project, under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba (CCPA-MB), entitled “Transforming Aboriginal and Inner-City Communities.”  In one of these projects, now underway, she and Nahanni Fontaine of the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) are interviewing Aboriginal peoples about their experiences with the police.

Elizabeth’s teaching regularly includes third-year courses in the department’s Criminology Program (Sociology of Law, and Women, Crime and Social Justice) as well as graduate seminars in the Sociology of Law and Feminist Criminology. She has also taught Feminism and Sociological Theory, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as the Honours Thesis Seminar.

Books by Elizabeth Comack

Women in Trouble

Women in Trouble

Connecting Women’s Law Violation to their Histories of Abuse

Elizabeth Comack

This book addresses one of the more alarming findings to emerge about women in prison: the fact that 80 percent report histories of physical and sexual abuse. “Elizabeth allows the women in this book to speak their own truth. It’s a graphic, shocking, depressing and absolutely necessary account of the connections between histories of abuse and trouble with the law.” - Karen Toole-Mitchell, Winnipeg Free Press (more information)

The Power to Criminalize

The Power to Criminalize

Violence, Inequality and Law

Gillian Balfour, Elizabeth Comack

Law’s power to criminalize—to turn a person into a criminal—is formidable. Traditional legal doctrine argues that law dispenses justice in an impartial and unbiased fashion. Critical legal theorists claim that law reproduces gender, race and class inequalities. The Power to Criminalize offers an analysis that acknowledges the tensions between these two views of law. Drawing from crown attorneys’ files on violent crime cases and interviews with defence lawyers, the authors… (more information)

Racialized Policing

Racialized Policing

Aboriginal People’s Encounters with the Police

Elizabeth Comack

“This book delves deep into the psyche of society’s attitudes towards racism, towards the racialization of issues, of social structures, and, importantly, of the police. It exposes the human element of justice, the attitudes and subconscious generalizations that culminate in differential justice, differential treatment, and the imbalance of socio-economic and criminal circumstances between peoples of Canada. Whether the abuse is racism, sexism, or discrimination on any other abhorrent… (more information)

Out There/In Here

Out There/In Here

Masculinity, Violence and Prisoning

Elizabeth Comack

Elizabeth Comack explores the complicated connections between masculinity and violence in the lives of men incarcerated at a provincial prison. Moving between the spaces of ‘out there’ and ‘in here,’ the discussion traces the men’s lives in terms of their efforts to ‘do’ masculinity and the place of violence in that undertaking. In drawing out these connections, similarities with the lives of other men become apparent. In the process, we also learn that… (more information)

Locating Law (Second Edition)

Locating Law (Second Edition)

Race / Class / Gender / Sexuality Connections (2nd Edition)

Edited by Elizabeth Comack

One primary concern within the study of law has been to understand the law/society relation. Underlying this concern is the belief that law has a distinctly social basis; it both shapes and is shaped by the society in which it operates. This book explores the law/society relation by locating law within the nexus of race/class/gender/sexuality relations in society. Recognizing that inequalities along these lines exist in society raises important questions: What role has law historically played in… (more information)

Criminalizing Women

Criminalizing Women

Gender and (In)justice in Neoliberal Times

Edited by Gillian Balfour, Elizabeth Comack

This book introduces readers to the key issues addressed by feminists in their engagement with criminology over the past four decades. It explores the narratives of women’s lives as “errant females,” sex trade workers, “gang” members and drug traffickers to map out the connections between the choices women make and the conditions of their lives. It shows how criminalized women and girls have been disciplined, managed, corrected and punished as prisoners, patients, mothers… (more information)