Henkeman, Sarah15/05/201615/05/20162013Henkeman, S. (2013). 'Pale face'/ 'pointy face': SA criminology in denial. South African Crime Quarterly, 45: 5 - 112413-3108https://hdl.handle.net/10566/2196This paper responds to key aspects of Bill Dixon's article, Understanding 'Pointy Face': What is criminology for? It suggests that criminology should unambiguously be 'for' social justice in South Africa's transhistorically unequal context. South African prison statistics are used as a conceptual shortcut to briefly highlight racialised constructions of crime, the criminal and the criminologist. A trans-disciplinary conceptual approach, as a more socially just way to understand violent crime in South Africa, is proposed. A methodological framework, which draws on the notion of cultural-structural-direct violence and intersectional theory, is presented. These extend Bill Dixon's call for criminology to include history, structure, human psyche and biography5 and resonates with Biko Agozino's call for a 'counter-colonial' criminology. The paper ends by returning the Eurocentric gaze of most South African criminologists, calling them out on their denial about trans-historical violence that implicates 'Pale Face' in the violence of 'Pointy Face'.enThis journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.CriminologySouth AfricaViolent crimeArticle