McClanahan is Critical Criminologist of the Year
Bill McClanahan has been recognized as Critical Criminologist of the Year for his published research and teaching.
Assistant Professor Bill McClanahan, Department of Sociology, is a co-recipient of the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Critical Criminology & Social Justice (DCCSJ), 2025 Critical Criminologist of the Year Award.
McClanahan’s contributions was honored at the DCCSJ Awards Ceremony, Thursday, November 13, 2025, during the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology in Washington, DC.
The award is the highest honor in critical criminology, recognizing scholars whose work exemplifies exceptional creativity, intellectual rigor, and lasting impact on the field. Among outstanding nominations, McClanahan’s work stood out for its originality, theoretical depth, and significant contribution to advancing critical perspectives within criminology. The award selection committee noted that McClanahan’s work has helped transform criminology and inaugurated research traditions on key topic areas.
“Because this award has previously been granted to many luminaries in the field, including several whom I am lucky to call friends and mentors, to be given this award is to be recognized for my own place in that legacy,” said McClanahan. “It is, in short, deeply humbling.”
The selection committee specifically cited McClanahan’s 2014 co-authored article “Toward a green-cultural criminology of ‘the rural,’” which explores the intersections of green, cultural, and rural criminologies, and his 2021 book Visual Criminology, which examines visual perspectives on prisons, policing, the environment, and drugs, highlighting their social and ethical implications.
“Awards like these that offer support in the field are deeply meaningful,” said McClanahan. “Critical criminology is a very small niche within the broader contexts of criminology, sociology, and social sciences and the humanities. I anticipate that this will allow me to continue to push my own work forward by attracting attention to my research.”
Recognition Shared: UT Sociology
McClanahan also sees the award as an acknowledgement of UT sociology as a leader in critical criminology.
“I feel that this award is recognition not only of my own work, but of the work of my colleagues,” he said. “Most notably Michelle Brown, Lois Presser, Tyler Wall, and Stephen Wulff—plus my non-criminology colleagues in UT sociology and all of the wonderful graduate students that I have been fortunate enough to work with. They have worked tirelessly in ways that have informed, supported, and inspired me.”
In bestowing the award, the committee also noted that McClanahan’s teaching and supervision show his “commitment to students and his will to sustain, through mentorship and giving, the ecology of support proper to the critical tradition in which he was formed.”
“This will support my teaching by helping to attract graduate and undergraduate students to UT,” said McClanahan. “It will support the mission of the Department of Sociology, the concentration in criminology, and the new Justice Studies interdisciplinary program by offering further empirical proof of the productivity, impact, and influence of our faculty and students.”
By Randall Brown