ABSTRACT
This chapter will analyse colonial legacies that structure the criminological discourse as it pertains to West Africa. The argument is that the pervasive conflict in West Africa, and the militarisation of social control that accompanies it, is the consequence of imperialism in the colonial and post-colonial eras. I refer to the kind of criminology that grows from this seedbed of conflict as ‘gunboat’ or ‘gunslinger’ criminology and suggest that it is not possible to apply the techniques of comparative criminology to this region without an understanding of the longstanding transnational practices of imperialism. I contend that, like the colonial regimes of the past, contemporary post-colonial regimes in West Africa (and much of sub-Saharan Africa generally) have lost the struggle to legitimise themselves through intellectual and moral leadership and have therefore resorted to the well known authoritarian strategies of regimes facing crises of hegemony (Hall, 1996; Gramsci, 1971).
