Associate Professor Trent Bax was awarded the 2022 Allen Austin Bartholomew Award, for the best article in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology in 2021 for their Article ‘The life-course of methamphetamine users in Aotearoa/New Zealand: School, friendship and work’.
supported by Sage Publications
The paper that was chosen for this award is part of a larger qualitative-based project I conducted of former methamphetamine users in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This research was inspired by a few childhood friends who saw their lives radically changed following a deep involvement with methamphetamine. This research uses a retrospective life-course approach to identify the trajectories, transitions and turning points into-through-and-out of methamphetamine use. Somewhat like a Netflix drama series, I have sought to present a multiple episode ‘meth drama series.’
In publishing this research, I have followed the life-course method itself by beginning with interviewees’ (adverse) childhoods, and then moved into their schooling, work, friendships, romantic relationships, marriages, parenting and health. Once this ‘life in review’ process was finished, I turned specifically to their methamphetamine use, beginning with onset and tracking it over time. I am currently writing papers that analyse the progression of their methamphetamine use, the role of self-control and impact on moral conduct, and finally desistance from methamphetamine use. Please check the papers that have already been published, and the papers that will appear in the not-too-distant future (wherein you will find application of Laub and Sampson’s age-graded theory of informal social control, Thornberry’s interactional theory, Agnew’s storylines approach, Ronel’s criminal spin theory and Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic theory).
We, the members of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC), acknowledge the traditional custodians of Australia and the sovereignty of the Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand.
ANZSOC would like to acknowledge the ongoing Traditional Custodians of the lands for which our constituents conduct their teaching, learning, and research. We would like to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and the lands, now called Australia, continue to belong to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the Traditional custodians of the lands. ANZSOC would like to pay respects to the Elders who have passed on the legacy of knowledge and culture to the future generations and acknowledge that the future generations hold the hope, the stories and the continued knowledge for current and emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. May this knowledge through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing guide you with wisdom and courage.
ANZSOC also recognises iwi Māori and their unceded right to tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and their expression of mana motuhaka (self-determination). We acknowledge mātauranga Māori (Māori ways of being and knowing) informs both traditional and contemporary knowledge production and its ability to enhance our collective futures.
The Association acknowledges the consequences and harms that continue to be inflicted by the criminal justice systems of Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand on Indigenous peoples in the region and seeks through its activities to address these harms and to work to prevent them from continuing in the future.
