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Ontario Tech acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

Learn more about Indigenous Education and Cultural Services

A portrait of Professor Wesley Chrichlow

Wesley Crichlow
PhD

Professor

Critical Race Intersectional Theorist

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities

Transforming criminal justice rehabilitation and elevating human rights for globally marginalized populations.



  • PhD - Critical Pedagogy Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario 1998
  • MED - Sociology and Equity Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario 1990
  • BA - Sociology and Law & Society York University, Toronto, Ontario 1988

Student Evaluations, Race and Workplace Discrimination and Harassment

Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto, Ontario April 15, 2016

OCUFA Grievance Committee Training

Racism, the Black Professoriate & Collective Agreements

Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario February 19, 2016

The Anti-Black Racism Network Conference

Human Rights, Intersectionality & Black LGBTQ Institutional Invisibility

Toronto, Ontario February 16, 2016

Ontario Human Rights Commission – Racial Profiling Policy Dialogue

Localized Intersections of Oppression: Black LGBTQ

AIDS Committee of Durham – One Voice Conference 2016

The Black Professoriate, Racism and Grievances

CAUT Forum for Senior Grievance Officers, Defending a Diverse Membership 2015

Black Youth Adoption from Residential School to Prison-Pipeline

New Orleans, Louisiana May 25, 2015

Adoption, Youth and School Violence. Caribbean Studies Association Conference

Queer Challenges to the Hegemony of Heteronormative Criminological and Sociological Discourses

New Orleans, Louisiana May 25, 2019

Queering the Moral Politics of Home and Exile. Caribbean Studies Association Conference

The Sexual Politics of Black Leadership in Toronto: A Commentary

Halifax, Nova Scotia May 21, 2015

2nd Biennial Black Canadian Studies Association Conference Community, Empowerment & Leadership in Black Canada

Critical Race Theory & Storytelling: A Strategy for Framing Discussions Around Social Justice & Democratic Education

Dublin, Ireland March 30, 2015

Higher Education in Transformation

LGBTQ Gang Involved Youth in a Multicultural Context

San Francisco, California November 19, 2014

Roundtable: Emergent Research in Queer Criminology, American Society of Criminology

Introduction: Towards Arts and Physical Activity as Mindful Alternative

Published in Rehabilitation Alternative Offender Rehabilitation and Social Justice: Arts and Physical Engagement in Criminal Justice and Community Settings Palgrave Macmillan January 1, 2015
Crichlow, Wesley

The criminal justice system is replete with challenges to rehabilitation. Traditional responses to treating violence and aggression, including incarcerating offenders, are ineffective. This is particularly true when dealing with youth, for whom the intersections of low socio-economic status, mental health issues, and race can create a pressing crisis and high rates of reoffending. Increasingly punitive strategies to reduce crime have not produced desired results.

View more - Introduction: Towards Arts and Physical Activity as Mindful Alternative

Concluding Remarks: Challenges and Prospects of an Alternative Rehabilitation

Published in Alternative Offender Rehabilitation and Social Justice Palgrave Macmillan January 1, 2015
Crichlow, Wesley

This book brings together multiple perspectives on alternative rehabilitation as a contested and contestable space for youth and adults. In doing so, this edited volume highlights the complex interplay of social, creative, technical, economic and political factors that construct the landscape for alternative rehabilitation.

View more - Concluding Remarks: Challenges and Prospects of an Alternative Rehabilitation

Editorial: Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities: An Introduction

Published in Caribbean Review of Gender Studies December 1, 2014
Wesley Crichlow, Halimah A.F. DeShong and Linden Lewis

The study of Caribbean men is by no means new. However, the emergence of men and masculinities studies in the Caribbean, or what Rhoda Reddock refers (2004) to as the study of men as “gendered beings,” can be located within a larger body of gender and sexuality studies research produced within the last three decades. This Caribbean Review of Gender Studies special issue on Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities represents a series of critical conversations intended to track a range of concerns related to gender, sexuality, men and masculinities in the Caribbean. This issue has been in the making for a very long-time and indeed persistence pays off. The study of Caribbean men and masculinities is an interdisciplinary research field focusing on non-western masculinities studies. The current special issue reflects the diverse sub-themes that have characterised men and masculinities research in the Caribbean to date.

View more - Editorial: Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities: An Introduction

Weaponization and Prisonization of Toronto's Black Male Youth

Published in International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy December 1, 2014
Wesley Crichlow

Informed by Galtung (1969), Anderson (2012) and Wacquant (2001), this paper argues that a lifetime of spiralling and everyday state structural violence and overtly racist criminal profiling principally targeted at young Black men living in the Toronto Community Housing Corporation prepares them for prison. Moreover, it contends that interpersonal violence, transmitted from generation to generation and producing a vicious cycle, is a manifestation of institutionalized and systemic inequity.

View more - Weaponization and Prisonization of Toronto's Black Male Youth

Hyperheterosexualization and Hypermasculinity: Challenges for HIV/AIDS Intervention in the Caribbean Trinidad and Tobago

Published in International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Volume: 6, Pages 28-41 January 1, 2014
Wesley Crichlow

This work aims to understand how ones’ understanding of Caribbean manhood, hyperheterosexualization, masculinity, and gender shape or impact HIV/AIDS education and one’s understanding of self and feelings. Further, given the colonial and religious nature of Trinidad and Tobago, the study wants to untangle the multilayered complex historical, social and political cannons through which identification/gay profiling, prejudice; homophobia, dominant masculinity, and power are produced, performed and understood. This work is a continued extension of the author’s previously published book titled Buller Men and Batty Bwoys: Hidden Men in Toronto and Halifax Black Communities [2004].

View more - Hyperheterosexualization and Hypermasculinity: Challenges for HIV/AIDS Intervention in the Caribbean Trinidad and Tobago

Co-Chair, Equity Committee

Canadian Association of University Teachers April 1, 2016

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is the national voice of 68,000 academic and general staff at more than 120 universities and colleges across Canada. As a member of the CAUT Executive Committee, Dr. Crichlow has been elected Co-Chair of the Equity Committee, a standing committee of the council. The role of the committee is to make recommendations to CAUT Council and Executive Committee on equity-related policy matters and activities in post-secondary education.

Guest Editor

Caribbean Review of Gender Studies: A Journal of Caribbean Perspective on Gender and Feminism December 1, 2014

Dr. Crichlow served as Guest Editor of the journal issue entitled: Fragility and Persistence of Dominant Masculinities.

Chair

Community Advisory Board, Toronto South Detention Centre March 17, 2014

Dr. Crichlow has been appointed for a three-year term in this role. Collaboration between the Community Advisory Board (CAB) and Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) the director, TSDC management team and staff will improve the CAB’s understanding of the operation of the institution, demystify the operation of the CAB and improve CAB members’ understanding of the administration of the institution.

Rights for Children and Youth Partnership: Strengthening Collaboration in the Americas

SSHRC Partnership Grant April 1, 2015

In partnership with Toronto's Ryerson University, Dr. Crichlow is a co-investigator on this five-year research project to explore ways to improve the human rights agenda for youth in Latin America and the Caribbean. It aims to advance social service organizations and policy makers in Central American and Caribbean countries, who seek to implement the Convention of the Rights of the Child, and to develop and implement strategic processes for the protection of children and youth. ($2,500,000)

Anti-Black Racism: Criminalization, Community, and Resistance

SSHRC Connections Grant April 1, 2015

In partnership with Ryerson University, Dr. Crichlow is a co-investigator on research to address issues of equity within criminal justice and healthcare at an annual conference held in February 2016. ($25,000)

American Society of Criminology – Division on People of Colour and Crime

Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie

DiverseCity: The Greater Toronto Leadership Project

CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre

Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association Division on Political Sociological Social Movements Cluster

Caribbean Studies Association

Black Canadian Studies Association

  • Issues in Diversity (SSCI 2020U)
    Students will identify and critically analyze issues of diversity. The course will incorporate an inclusive approach to diversity, including but not limited to race, gender, class, sexual orientation and disability. Learners will focus on topics pertaining to the achievement of and barriers to equity in various social settings, such as education, employment, and housing. Students will be particularly encouraged to identify strategies for individual and community empowerment
  • Critical Race Theory (CRMN 2831U)
    Critical race theory, a term unknown two decades ago, is now a field with a growing interest, vocabulary, and literature. This course will consider the history, theoretical underpinnings, and implications of CRT. Students will read some of the ground-breaking texts in CRT, as well as some of its precursors. Beginning with readings in legal literature, we will then venture into theoretical constructs in feminism and postmodernism that inform critical race theory.
  • Policing Diverse Communities (CRMN 4052U)
    This course explores issues related to policing culturally diverse communities in Canada. In particular, students will explore the relevance of cultural differences between minority cultures and the assumed dominant culture for policing. Thus, it will introduce students to the origins and manifestation of bias and discrimination in policing, the use of police force, discretionary powers, police ethnic community relationships, and the utility of government appointed race and ethnic relations commissions. Further, it will explore efforts to enhance police/community relations, and their strengths and limitations.
  • Advanced Justice Studies (Crime Masculinities and Prison Subculture) (CRMN 4000U)
    This capstone course will provide an opportunity for critical analysis of specific justice topics. Students will be expected to synthesize material from previous courses and apply it to a social justice issue, demonstrating significant mastery of justice concepts, theory and research.