Many academic organizations hold annual conferences where participants present papers to colleagues working in the same field.
But no learned society that specializes in the scholarly area of graffiti and street art studies, that could hold annual meetings, exists.
Although selected colleges and universities have held one-off conferences on this subject, over the past few decades a handful of independent meetings have occurred where scholars presented papers on graffiti and street art.
Unlike large annual meetings held in hotels or convention centers with multiple simultaneous sessions, these graffiti and street art conferences are typically smaller and last a couple of days.
Thus there are more opportunities for interaction among participants than with the larger conferences. Moreover, these meetings often include joint dinners and one or more graffiti and street art tours organized as part of the program.
Over the past two decades, scholars, including professors and graduate students, have presented papers at these gatherings. Occasionally, graffiti writers and street artists attend and present on their work too.
Four conferences have done so with some regularity. They are reviewed below.
NUART Plus
The NUART Plus scholarly conference grew out of the NUART street art festival in Stavanger, Norway. Founded in 2001 by Martyn Reed, NUART later expanded to Aberdeen, Scotland, where a related festival and NUART Plus program, with the assistance of Susan Hansen, were also developed. The symposium became one of the leading international forums for scholarly and critical discussion of street art, bringing together academics, artists, curators, journalists, and activists. NUART also publishes Nuart Journal, a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to street art research and criticism.
Although the Stavanger archive documents eight NUART Plus symposia between 2012 and 2019, earlier scholarly gatherings may have occurred. Following a pandemic-related interruption, NUART Plus returned to Aberdeen in 2022. As of June 2026, no publicly available information indicates that a future NUART Plus symposium has been scheduled.
TAG
The TAG Conference (“Name Writing in Public Space”) is one of the principal international scholarly gatherings devoted specifically to graffiti writing and tagging. Founded in 2018 by Javier Abarca and an evolving network of collaborators, the conference does not follow a fixed annual schedule. Meetings are organized periodically when a host institution and local organizing team are in place. Past conferences have been held in Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Groningen, Hamburg, Linz, New York City, and Vienna, bringing together researchers, artists, writers, and practitioners to discuss the history, theory, and contemporary practice of name writing in public space. The conference has also generated scholarly publications, including edited volumes drawn from conference presentations.
Art and the City
Founded in 2018 by Tijen Tunali, Art and the City is an interdisciplinary conference series exploring the relationships among art, aesthetics, and urban politics. The conference aims to facilitate dialogue and collaboration among scholars working at the intersections of art, culture, and the urban environment, and has served as a platform for broader scholarly projects, including exhibitions, special journal issues, edited books, and grant-funded research. Since its founding, conferences have been held in Aarhus, Amman, Göttingen, Nice, Nicosia, and Tours. More recently, Vittorio Parisi and Konstantinos Avramidis, both graffiti and street art scholars, have co-organized the most recent two editions of Art and the City with Tunali, bringing a stronger graffiti dimension to the program.
Unlike the TAG Conference and NUART Plus, which focus primarily on graffiti, street art, and related forms of urban visual expression, Art and the City takes a broader approach, encompassing urban art, public space, architecture, visual culture, and urban studies.
Urban Creativity
Since 2014, the Urban Creativity conference series has brought together scholars, artists, and practitioners interested in graffiti, street art, urban visual culture, and related subjects. Organized primarily through the efforts of Pedro Soares Neves and affiliated with the University of Lisbon and related institutions, the conference is typically held in Lisbon in late June or early July. Participants come from a range of disciplines and countries, and European scholars have generally been well represented. Presentations are delivered in person and, in some years, online as well.
The conference is part of a broader Urban Creativity research and publishing network overseen by Neves. Participants are often invited to submit revised versions of their papers to associated journals, edited volumes, and other publications devoted to graffiti, street art, and urban culture. Like Art and the City, Urban Creativity takes a wider view than the TAG Conference, encompassing street art, public art, urban interventions, creative cities, and related forms of artistic engagement with urban space.
Scholars wishing to present a paper at these conferences are best advised to periodically check the websites for each of these conferences, as schedules and locations can change. Reaching out directly to the organizers is also worth doing if you want to stay current or explore participation.
Combined, these events, like the recently established Routledge book series Advances in Graffiti and Street Art Research, contribute to the maturation of graffiti and street art scholarship.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_1530.jpg622598Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2026-07-05 11:09:132026-07-05 11:09:13Conferences Shaping Graffiti and Street Art Scholarship
Although textbooks, journal articles, and lectures are important, movies are one of the most effective teaching tools available to criminology and criminal justice instructors.
They can communicate ideas, emotions, institutional realities, and ethical dilemmas in ways that the written word often struggles with.
Throughout my teaching career, I have selectively incorporated narrative films into my classes. But every semester, I need to decide which movies to assign because not all films are equally useful. Some do a much better job of illustrating criminological concepts and stimulating discussion than others.
In general, I avoid documentaries. Although many are excellent, I find that students are more willing to engage with narrative films and more likely actually to watch them.
Depending on the course, I typically require students to watch three or four movies during the semester and devote at least some class time to discussing them.
Films also give a course something that readings rarely provide: a shared reference point. Many students don’t complete all of their assigned readings. A movie, however, is more likely to hold their attention and give everyone who shows up to class that day something concrete to discuss.
Before the rise of streaming services and online instruction, I owned a DVD collection of relevant movies and frequently screened them during class. Today, things are more complicated. Licensing restrictions, asynchronous instruction, and varying student access to streaming platforms can make screening films more challenging. Nevertheless, I continue to find that movies remain one of the most effective ways to increase student engagement with course material.
Not every film belongs in every course. The entries below reflect the classes where I have found each film most useful. Some appear on multiple syllabi; others fit a narrower set of topics. Instructors teaching different courses will naturally draw from this list differently.
Another caveat is in order. The following are not necessarily the “best crime movies” ever made. Rather, they are films I have found particularly effective in helping students understand important criminological and criminal justice issues.
The Films
1. Cop Land (1997)
Starring Sylvester Stallone, this movie remains an excellent introduction to police culture, corruption, loyalty, and accountability. The film explores the difficulties of challenging misconduct both from within and outside a law enforcement organization and raises important questions about the so-called “blue wall of silence.”
Best suited for: Introduction to Criminal Justice, Policing, Police Deviance and Corruption
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
This film, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, raises issues surrounding wrongful conviction, institutional corruption, prisonization, and the psychological effects of long-term incarceration. The movie enables discussions about hope, adaptation, and what it means to maintain identity under conditions of total institutionalization.
Best suited for: Introduction to Criminal Justice, Corrections, Punishment, and Society
3. American Me (1992)
Directed by and starring Edward James Olmos, American Me traces gang involvement from adolescence through adulthood and imprisonment. The film illustrates how prison gangs emerge, maintain power, and shape criminal behavior both inside and outside correctional institutions. It also raises questions about race, identity, and the relationship between street organizations and prison culture that go beyond what most textbooks cover.
Best suited for: Gangs, Corrections, Race, and Crime
4. Dead Man Walking (1995)
This movie, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, explores the emotional impact of violent crime on victims’ families, questions of offender accountability, and the moral and legal controversies surrounding the death penalty, and the impact of people who want to assist those behind bars.
Best suited for: Corrections, Punishment and Society, Criminal Law, Introduction to Criminal Justice
5. Serpico (1973)
Based on the experiences of New York City police officer Frank Serpico, this film examines the challenges faced by whistleblowers within law enforcement. Starring Al Pacino, the movie remains one of the most powerful portrayals of how institutional loyalty can be weaponized against the people most committed to doing their jobs honestly.
Best suited for: Policing, Police Deviance and Corruption, Criminal Justice Ethics
6. American History X (1998)
This film examines radicalization, hate groups, violence, and the social factors that draw young people into extremist movements. Starring Edward Norton, it also provides one of the more nuanced portrayals of desistance available in popular film: the conditions under which people change, and the obstacles they face when they try to.
Best suited for: Criminological Theory, Gangs, Victimology, Introduction to Criminology
7. The Godfather (1972)
This film, which is overfifty years old, is about Italian-American organized crime and remains relevant. It does. The Godfather is still the most effective single film for introducing students to the structure, norms, internal discipline, and economic logic of criminal organizations. It illustrates concepts including hierarchy, loyalty, succession, and the relationship between legitimate and illegitimate enterprise, concepts that transfer directly to contemporary discussions of organized crime, whether the subject is the mafia, cartels, or other criminal networks.
Best suited for: Organized Crime, Introduction to Criminology, White-Collar and Corporate Crime
8. Brubaker (1980)
Starring Robert Redford as a reform-minded warden who goes undercover as a prisoner to investigate conditions at a rural Arkansas prison, Brubaker is one of the most instructive films available on the realities of correctional administration, institutional resistance to reform, and the gap between official policy and daily practice. It raises questions about power, accountability, and the limits of what individuals can accomplish inside bureaucratic institutions, questions that remain as relevant today as when the film was made.
Best suited for: Corrections, Correctional Administration, Punishment, and Society
9. The Killing Fields (1984) and Hotel Rwanda (2004)
In general, these two films can be used interchangeably. The Killing Fields documents the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Hotel Rwanda examines the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the international community’s failure to intervene. Both films push students to think beyond street crime and consider the most serious harms governments and political actors can commit. They also raise productive questions about bystander responsibility, international law, and the conditions under which ordinary people participate in extraordinary violence.
Best suited for: State Crime, Human Rights and Justice, Comparative Criminal Justice, Crimes of the Powerful
Final Thoughts
Admittedly, some of these films are now several decades old and lack the visual style of more contemporary cinema. Newer releases, however, rarely engage criminological and criminal justice themes with the same depth. With few exceptions, contemporary crime narratives are increasingly tropish in their portrayals of crime, criminality, and criminal justice organizations.
This means that instructors may need to prepare students for what they are about to watch. Why? Because they sometimes struggle with the pacing and visual style of older films. That’s understandable. A film from 1973, however, can depict police corruption in entirely current ways.
No film is perfect. They contain inaccuracies, stereotypes, or dramatic exaggerations. The goal of narrative films is not documentary accuracy. It’s to use film as a starting point for discussion, analysis, and critical thinking about crime and criminal justice.
What films do you use in your criminology or criminal justice classes? I’d be interested to hear what’s worked for you.
If you’re teaching or considering criminology or criminal justice and want to think more broadly about how the profession works, my Letters to a Young Criminologist was written for you.
Photo Credit
Title: Vintage Film Projector
Photographer: StockCake
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2026-06-19-at-9.48.41-AM.png7281306Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2026-06-21 09:42:432026-06-21 12:33:36Eleven Films I use in my Criminology and Criminal Justice Classes
Almost a half-century ago, one of the first purchases I made in preparation for leaving my parents’ house was a Hudson’s Bay Company wool point blanket.
I walked into the HBC department store at suburban Fairview Mall, found the item with its iconic wide green, red, yellow, and indigo horizontal stripes on a white background, and paid what felt like a lot of money at the time.
Most things I owned in that apartment are long gone, but I still have the blanket.
But lately, I’ve noticed an increase in items for sale, including pillows, footstools, outerwear, and luggage, that carry the HBC multistripe wool blanket pattern. Some, including pickleball sets, cornhole games, tote bags, aprons, umbrellas, beach towels, cedar strip canoes, Muskoka chairs, outdoor cushions, and decorative paddles, have migrated into kitsch territory as part of Canadian Tire’s Summer 2026 collection, the first assortment the company designed itself after purchasing the HBC brand assets for $30 million following bankruptcy.
This raises an important question: why do some visual identities outlast others?
The Hudson’s Bay blanket is a useful case. In the late eighteenth century, the HBC (formed in 1670 and granted a monopoly over the fur trade in what would later become Canada) commissioned the production of wool blankets from mills in Witney, England. The pattern was not originally conceived as branding, visual, or graphic identity. It emerged from production realities. Early dyes and manufacturing processes limited what could be reliably produced at scale, and durability mattered more than symbolism. The wool was dyed before spinning, embedding color directly into the fiber and helping the blanket resist fading and wear.
Over time, the pattern migrated beyond the blanket. It appeared on packaging, marketing materials, retail displays, clothing, and eventually a wide variety of products sold under the brand. It became a symbol of the HBC.
About the pattern. The colored bands are comparatively simple, provide a strong contrast with the white background, are legible from a distance, and are recognizable regardless of the item on which they are placed and the size of that item.
These attributes enable the HBC blanket design to survive changing technologies and tastes.
But I don’t believe that these factors alone explain why this pattern has lasted so long. Design strength may get something into the conversation, but something else keeps it there.
In the case of the HBC blanket, the institutional history of the HBC enabled this to happen. The HBC was not simply a retailer. For generations, it occupied a central role in Canada’s economic development and territorial expansion. Throughout the corporation’s 335-year-old history, the blanket remained one of its most visible and continuously sold products. That kind of staying power is not achieved from good design alone. It’s accomplished by being sold by an institution that became inseparable from a national story.
Along the way, the pattern accumulated meanings that extended far beyond its original function. It began as a trade good, evolved into a branded product, and eventually became a cultural symbol that could be detached from the blanket itself and remain recognizable.
Once a visual form reaches that stage, it acquires a degree of independence from its original intent. Thus, the pattern can migrate onto all sorts of items because observers and consumers already understand what it signifies.
There is also a feedback loop at work. The longer a design survives, the more opportunities it has to be reused and reinterpreted. Each new appearance reinforces familiarity. Each new audience encounters it in on different items. Over time, continued visibility begins to look natural, even though it is the product of repeated cultural, commercial, and institutional selection.
This dynamic extends beyond the Hudson’s Bay blanket. The sustained visibility of selected pieces created by street artists like Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and Kenny Scharf, for example, depends not only on the work itself but on the museums, galleries, publishers, collectors, retailers, and media organizations that continue to circulate it. Systems of reproduction sustain recognition. Take those systems away, and most strong work fades into obscurity.
Most visual identities dissipate, not because they are poorly designed but because the institutions, markets, and cultures that sustain them disappear. What the Hudson’s Bay blanket demonstrates, and what I keep coming back to when I see the stripes on so many items, is that visual longevity is rarely a property of design alone. Strong design may make a symbol recognizable. But symbols endure only when successive generations continue to find reasons to reintroduce them into everyday life.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2026-06-02-at-10.53.11-AM.png7401088Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2026-06-07 04:22:392026-06-07 04:22:39Why do the Hudson’s Bay Blanket Stripes Travel So Well?
Conferences Shaping Graffiti and Street Art Scholarship
/by Jeffrey Ian RossMany academic organizations hold annual conferences where participants present papers to colleagues working in the same field.
But no learned society that specializes in the scholarly area of graffiti and street art studies, that could hold annual meetings, exists.
Although selected colleges and universities have held one-off conferences on this subject, over the past few decades a handful of independent meetings have occurred where scholars presented papers on graffiti and street art.
Unlike large annual meetings held in hotels or convention centers with multiple simultaneous sessions, these graffiti and street art conferences are typically smaller and last a couple of days.
Thus there are more opportunities for interaction among participants than with the larger conferences. Moreover, these meetings often include joint dinners and one or more graffiti and street art tours organized as part of the program.
Over the past two decades, scholars, including professors and graduate students, have presented papers at these gatherings. Occasionally, graffiti writers and street artists attend and present on their work too.
Four conferences have done so with some regularity. They are reviewed below.
NUART Plus
The NUART Plus scholarly conference grew out of the NUART street art festival in Stavanger, Norway. Founded in 2001 by Martyn Reed, NUART later expanded to Aberdeen, Scotland, where a related festival and NUART Plus program, with the assistance of Susan Hansen, were also developed. The symposium became one of the leading international forums for scholarly and critical discussion of street art, bringing together academics, artists, curators, journalists, and activists. NUART also publishes Nuart Journal, a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to street art research and criticism.
Although the Stavanger archive documents eight NUART Plus symposia between 2012 and 2019, earlier scholarly gatherings may have occurred. Following a pandemic-related interruption, NUART Plus returned to Aberdeen in 2022. As of June 2026, no publicly available information indicates that a future NUART Plus symposium has been scheduled.
TAG
The TAG Conference (“Name Writing in Public Space”) is one of the principal international scholarly gatherings devoted specifically to graffiti writing and tagging. Founded in 2018 by Javier Abarca and an evolving network of collaborators, the conference does not follow a fixed annual schedule. Meetings are organized periodically when a host institution and local organizing team are in place. Past conferences have been held in Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Groningen, Hamburg, Linz, New York City, and Vienna, bringing together researchers, artists, writers, and practitioners to discuss the history, theory, and contemporary practice of name writing in public space. The conference has also generated scholarly publications, including edited volumes drawn from conference presentations.
Art and the City
Founded in 2018 by Tijen Tunali, Art and the City is an interdisciplinary conference series exploring the relationships among art, aesthetics, and urban politics. The conference aims to facilitate dialogue and collaboration among scholars working at the intersections of art, culture, and the urban environment, and has served as a platform for broader scholarly projects, including exhibitions, special journal issues, edited books, and grant-funded research. Since its founding, conferences have been held in Aarhus, Amman, Göttingen, Nice, Nicosia, and Tours. More recently, Vittorio Parisi and Konstantinos Avramidis, both graffiti and street art scholars, have co-organized the most recent two editions of Art and the City with Tunali, bringing a stronger graffiti dimension to the program.
Unlike the TAG Conference and NUART Plus, which focus primarily on graffiti, street art, and related forms of urban visual expression, Art and the City takes a broader approach, encompassing urban art, public space, architecture, visual culture, and urban studies.
Urban Creativity
Since 2014, the Urban Creativity conference series has brought together scholars, artists, and practitioners interested in graffiti, street art, urban visual culture, and related subjects. Organized primarily through the efforts of Pedro Soares Neves and affiliated with the University of Lisbon and related institutions, the conference is typically held in Lisbon in late June or early July. Participants come from a range of disciplines and countries, and European scholars have generally been well represented. Presentations are delivered in person and, in some years, online as well.
The conference is part of a broader Urban Creativity research and publishing network overseen by Neves. Participants are often invited to submit revised versions of their papers to associated journals, edited volumes, and other publications devoted to graffiti, street art, and urban culture. Like Art and the City, Urban Creativity takes a wider view than the TAG Conference, encompassing street art, public art, urban interventions, creative cities, and related forms of artistic engagement with urban space.
Scholars wishing to present a paper at these conferences are best advised to periodically check the websites for each of these conferences, as schedules and locations can change. Reaching out directly to the organizers is also worth doing if you want to stay current or explore participation.
Combined, these events, like the recently established Routledge book series Advances in Graffiti and Street Art Research, contribute to the maturation of graffiti and street art scholarship.
Eleven Films I use in my Criminology and Criminal Justice Classes
/by Jeffrey Ian RossAlthough textbooks, journal articles, and lectures are important, movies are one of the most effective teaching tools available to criminology and criminal justice instructors.
They can communicate ideas, emotions, institutional realities, and ethical dilemmas in ways that the written word often struggles with.
Throughout my teaching career, I have selectively incorporated narrative films into my classes. But every semester, I need to decide which movies to assign because not all films are equally useful. Some do a much better job of illustrating criminological concepts and stimulating discussion than others.
In general, I avoid documentaries. Although many are excellent, I find that students are more willing to engage with narrative films and more likely actually to watch them.
Depending on the course, I typically require students to watch three or four movies during the semester and devote at least some class time to discussing them.
Films also give a course something that readings rarely provide: a shared reference point. Many students don’t complete all of their assigned readings. A movie, however, is more likely to hold their attention and give everyone who shows up to class that day something concrete to discuss.
Before the rise of streaming services and online instruction, I owned a DVD collection of relevant movies and frequently screened them during class. Today, things are more complicated. Licensing restrictions, asynchronous instruction, and varying student access to streaming platforms can make screening films more challenging. Nevertheless, I continue to find that movies remain one of the most effective ways to increase student engagement with course material.
Not every film belongs in every course. The entries below reflect the classes where I have found each film most useful. Some appear on multiple syllabi; others fit a narrower set of topics. Instructors teaching different courses will naturally draw from this list differently.
Another caveat is in order. The following are not necessarily the “best crime movies” ever made. Rather, they are films I have found particularly effective in helping students understand important criminological and criminal justice issues.
The Films
1. Cop Land (1997)
Starring Sylvester Stallone, this movie remains an excellent introduction to police culture, corruption, loyalty, and accountability. The film explores the difficulties of challenging misconduct both from within and outside a law enforcement organization and raises important questions about the so-called “blue wall of silence.”
Best suited for: Introduction to Criminal Justice, Policing, Police Deviance and Corruption
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
This film, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, raises issues surrounding wrongful conviction, institutional corruption, prisonization, and the psychological effects of long-term incarceration. The movie enables discussions about hope, adaptation, and what it means to maintain identity under conditions of total institutionalization.
Best suited for: Introduction to Criminal Justice, Corrections, Punishment, and Society
3. American Me (1992)
Directed by and starring Edward James Olmos, American Me traces gang involvement from adolescence through adulthood and imprisonment. The film illustrates how prison gangs emerge, maintain power, and shape criminal behavior both inside and outside correctional institutions. It also raises questions about race, identity, and the relationship between street organizations and prison culture that go beyond what most textbooks cover.
Best suited for: Gangs, Corrections, Race, and Crime
4. Dead Man Walking (1995)
This movie, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, explores the emotional impact of violent crime on victims’ families, questions of offender accountability, and the moral and legal controversies surrounding the death penalty, and the impact of people who want to assist those behind bars.
Best suited for: Corrections, Punishment and Society, Criminal Law, Introduction to Criminal Justice
5. Serpico (1973)
Based on the experiences of New York City police officer Frank Serpico, this film examines the challenges faced by whistleblowers within law enforcement. Starring Al Pacino, the movie remains one of the most powerful portrayals of how institutional loyalty can be weaponized against the people most committed to doing their jobs honestly.
Best suited for: Policing, Police Deviance and Corruption, Criminal Justice Ethics
6. American History X (1998)
This film examines radicalization, hate groups, violence, and the social factors that draw young people into extremist movements. Starring Edward Norton, it also provides one of the more nuanced portrayals of desistance available in popular film: the conditions under which people change, and the obstacles they face when they try to.
Best suited for: Criminological Theory, Gangs, Victimology, Introduction to Criminology
7. The Godfather (1972)
This film, which is over fifty years old, is about Italian-American organized crime and remains relevant. It does. The Godfather is still the most effective single film for introducing students to the structure, norms, internal discipline, and economic logic of criminal organizations. It illustrates concepts including hierarchy, loyalty, succession, and the relationship between legitimate and illegitimate enterprise, concepts that transfer directly to contemporary discussions of organized crime, whether the subject is the mafia, cartels, or other criminal networks.
Best suited for: Organized Crime, Introduction to Criminology, White-Collar and Corporate Crime
8. Brubaker (1980)
Starring Robert Redford as a reform-minded warden who goes undercover as a prisoner to investigate conditions at a rural Arkansas prison, Brubaker is one of the most instructive films available on the realities of correctional administration, institutional resistance to reform, and the gap between official policy and daily practice. It raises questions about power, accountability, and the limits of what individuals can accomplish inside bureaucratic institutions, questions that remain as relevant today as when the film was made.
Best suited for: Corrections, Correctional Administration, Punishment, and Society
9. The Killing Fields (1984) and Hotel Rwanda (2004)
In general, these two films can be used interchangeably. The Killing Fields documents the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Hotel Rwanda examines the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the international community’s failure to intervene. Both films push students to think beyond street crime and consider the most serious harms governments and political actors can commit. They also raise productive questions about bystander responsibility, international law, and the conditions under which ordinary people participate in extraordinary violence.
Best suited for: State Crime, Human Rights and Justice, Comparative Criminal Justice, Crimes of the Powerful
Final Thoughts
Admittedly, some of these films are now several decades old and lack the visual style of more contemporary cinema. Newer releases, however, rarely engage criminological and criminal justice themes with the same depth. With few exceptions, contemporary crime narratives are increasingly tropish in their portrayals of crime, criminality, and criminal justice organizations.
This means that instructors may need to prepare students for what they are about to watch. Why? Because they sometimes struggle with the pacing and visual style of older films. That’s understandable. A film from 1973, however, can depict police corruption in entirely current ways.
No film is perfect. They contain inaccuracies, stereotypes, or dramatic exaggerations. The goal of narrative films is not documentary accuracy. It’s to use film as a starting point for discussion, analysis, and critical thinking about crime and criminal justice.
What films do you use in your criminology or criminal justice classes? I’d be interested to hear what’s worked for you.
If you’re teaching or considering criminology or criminal justice and want to think more broadly about how the profession works, my Letters to a Young Criminologist was written for you.
Photo Credit
Title: Vintage Film Projector
Photographer: StockCake
Why do the Hudson’s Bay Blanket Stripes Travel So Well?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossAlmost a half-century ago, one of the first purchases I made in preparation for leaving my parents’ house was a Hudson’s Bay Company wool point blanket.
I walked into the HBC department store at suburban Fairview Mall, found the item with its iconic wide green, red, yellow, and indigo horizontal stripes on a white background, and paid what felt like a lot of money at the time.
Most things I owned in that apartment are long gone, but I still have the blanket.
But lately, I’ve noticed an increase in items for sale, including pillows, footstools, outerwear, and luggage, that carry the HBC multistripe wool blanket pattern. Some, including pickleball sets, cornhole games, tote bags, aprons, umbrellas, beach towels, cedar strip canoes, Muskoka chairs, outdoor cushions, and decorative paddles, have migrated into kitsch territory as part of Canadian Tire’s Summer 2026 collection, the first assortment the company designed itself after purchasing the HBC brand assets for $30 million following bankruptcy.
This raises an important question: why do some visual identities outlast others?
The Hudson’s Bay blanket is a useful case. In the late eighteenth century, the HBC (formed in 1670 and granted a monopoly over the fur trade in what would later become Canada) commissioned the production of wool blankets from mills in Witney, England. The pattern was not originally conceived as branding, visual, or graphic identity. It emerged from production realities. Early dyes and manufacturing processes limited what could be reliably produced at scale, and durability mattered more than symbolism. The wool was dyed before spinning, embedding color directly into the fiber and helping the blanket resist fading and wear.
Over time, the pattern migrated beyond the blanket. It appeared on packaging, marketing materials, retail displays, clothing, and eventually a wide variety of products sold under the brand. It became a symbol of the HBC.
About the pattern. The colored bands are comparatively simple, provide a strong contrast with the white background, are legible from a distance, and are recognizable regardless of the item on which they are placed and the size of that item.
These attributes enable the HBC blanket design to survive changing technologies and tastes.
But I don’t believe that these factors alone explain why this pattern has lasted so long. Design strength may get something into the conversation, but something else keeps it there.
In the case of the HBC blanket, the institutional history of the HBC enabled this to happen. The HBC was not simply a retailer. For generations, it occupied a central role in Canada’s economic development and territorial expansion. Throughout the corporation’s 335-year-old history, the blanket remained one of its most visible and continuously sold products. That kind of staying power is not achieved from good design alone. It’s accomplished by being sold by an institution that became inseparable from a national story.
Along the way, the pattern accumulated meanings that extended far beyond its original function. It began as a trade good, evolved into a branded product, and eventually became a cultural symbol that could be detached from the blanket itself and remain recognizable.
Once a visual form reaches that stage, it acquires a degree of independence from its original intent. Thus, the pattern can migrate onto all sorts of items because observers and consumers already understand what it signifies.
There is also a feedback loop at work. The longer a design survives, the more opportunities it has to be reused and reinterpreted. Each new appearance reinforces familiarity. Each new audience encounters it in on different items. Over time, continued visibility begins to look natural, even though it is the product of repeated cultural, commercial, and institutional selection.
This dynamic extends beyond the Hudson’s Bay blanket. The sustained visibility of selected pieces created by street artists like Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and Kenny Scharf, for example, depends not only on the work itself but on the museums, galleries, publishers, collectors, retailers, and media organizations that continue to circulate it. Systems of reproduction sustain recognition. Take those systems away, and most strong work fades into obscurity.
Most visual identities dissipate, not because they are poorly designed but because the institutions, markets, and cultures that sustain them disappear. What the Hudson’s Bay blanket demonstrates, and what I keep coming back to when I see the stripes on so many items, is that visual longevity is rarely a property of design alone. Strong design may make a symbol recognizable. But symbols endure only when successive generations continue to find reasons to reintroduce them into everyday life.