ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the lessons that criminology could learn by paying attention to the struggle for reparations by people of African descent in connection with crimes of slavery. It intends as a criminology primer because it could help to introduce African scholars to a discipline of criminology in a transgressive way that is capable of transforming the imperialistic discipline and making it more sensitive to the needs of the victimized. The chapter highlights the lessons for criminology and identifies a theoretical framework suitable for the development of reparative justice. It attempts to develop a critical application of the insights that criminology could gain from the struggles for reparations. The chapter addresses the discussion of arguments for and against the demand for reparations has implications for criminological theory. What the demand for reparations teaches criminologists is that punishment is not always the most effective response to crime.
