In the last years there has been a growing effort from different theoretical perspectives to interrogate critically the impact of colonialism in the past and present of institutions and practices of crime control, both at the central and peripheral contexts, as well as in the production of knowledge in the criminological field. In this feature piece we examine this debate. We offer a critical account of key themes and problems that emerge from the intimate relationship between colonialism and punishment that directly challenge the persistent neglect of these dimensions in mainstream criminological scholarship. We aim to foreground the relevance of this relationship to contemporary enquiries. We highlight that decolonization did not dismantle the colonial roots of the cultural, social and political mechanisms informing contemporary punishment. They are still very much part of criminal justice practice and are thus also central to criminological knowledge productions.

在过去的几年里，越来越多的努力从不同的理论角度批判性地质疑殖民主义在过去和现在对中心和外围环境以及知识生产中的犯罪控制制度和实践的影响在犯罪学领域。在这篇专题文章中，我们研究了这场辩论。我们对殖民主义与惩罚之间的密切关系中出现的关键主题和问题提供了批判性的解释，这些问题直接挑战了主流犯罪学学术界对这些维度的持续忽视。我们旨在突出这种关系与当代调查的相关性。我们强调，非殖民化并没有消除影响当代惩罚的文化、社会和政治机制的殖民根源。