Elizabeth Comack

Elizabeth Comack is a distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Sociology and Criminology where she held a tenured appointment from 1990 to 2020. She previously taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Winnipeg. She is a longstanding member of the Manitoba Research Alliance, a consortium of academics, students and community partners engaged in research addressing poverty in Indigenous and inner-city communities. In addition to numerous journal articles, book chapters and reports, Elizabeth is the author or editor of 14 books. Her work in the sociology of law and feminist criminology has been instrumental in setting the course for Canadian scholarship.

• PhD (Sociology), University of Alberta, 1984
• MA (Sociology), Queen's University, 1976
• BA (Honours), University of Winnipeg, 1974

Research Summary

Dr. Comack's research can be located within two areas: the sociology of law and feminist criminology. Over the past four decades she has written and researched on topics as diverse as: the origins of Canadian drug laws; the capital punishment debate; the legal recognition of the 'Battered Woman Syndrome'; the abuse histories of women in prison; violence, inequality and the law; safety and security issues in Winnipeg's inner-city communities; masculinity, violence and prisoning; racialized policing; Indigenous street gangs; the criminalization of women; gender-based violence against Inuit women and the criminal justice response; and men's pathways out of drugs and crime.

Research affiliations/groups

• Co-leader, Justice, Safety and Security stream of the Manitoba Research Alliance

• Comack, E. 2023. Realizing a Good Life: Men’s Pathways Out of Drugs and Crime. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing. 
• Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada and E. Comack. 2022. “Meeting Survivors’ Needs: Gender-Based Violence Against Inuit Women and the Criminal Justice Response.” Phase II–Final Report (177 pp.). 
• Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada and E. Comack. 2020. “Addressing Gendered Violence against Inuit Women: A review of police policies and practices in Inuit Nungangat.” Report prepared for Public Safety Canada (131 pp.). 
• Comack, E. 2019. “Feminism and Criminology” (revised). In R. Linden (General Editor), Criminology: A Canadian Perspective (9th edition). Toronto: Nelson, pages 156-185.
• Comack, E. 2018. Coming Back to Jail: Women, Trauma, and Criminalization. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.
• Comack, E. 2018. “Corporate Colonialism and the ‘Crimes of the Powerful’ Committed against the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.” Critical Criminology 26, 4: 455-471.
• Balfour, G. and E. Comack (editors). 2014. Criminalizing Women: Gender and (In)Justice in Neo-Liberal Times. (2nd edition). Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.
• Comack. E. (editor). 2014. Locating Law: Race/Class/Gender/Sexuality Connections (3rd edition). Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing. 
• Comack, E., L. Deane, L. Morrissette, and J. Silver. 2013. “Indians Wear Red”: Colonialism, Resistance, and Aboriginal Street Gangs. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing [Recipient of the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction, Manitoba Book Awards, 2013]. 
• Comack, E. 2012. Racialized Policing: Aboriginal People’s Encounters with the Police. (Foreword by Donald E. Worme, Q.C.) Winnipeg and Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.