Key Readings in Criminology [1 ed.] 1843924021, 9781843924029

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Key Readings in Criminol

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2023 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/keyreadingsincriOOOOunse

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Edited by Tim Newburn

wp WI LLAN PUBLISHING

Published by Willan Pu blishing Culmcott I10use Mill Street, Uffculme Cullompton, Devon EXIS 3A'I~ UK Tel: +44(0) 1884 840337 Fax: +44(0)1884 8"'0251 e-ma il : info(a'willanpu blish ing.co.uk Website: www.willanpublishing.co.uk Published simultaneousl y in the USA and Canada by Willan Publishing c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Ave, Suite 300, Portland, Oregon 972 13-3786, USA Tel: +001(0)503 287 3093 Fax: +001 (0)503 280 8832 e-mail: inf00isbs.com Website: www.isbs.com © Tirn Newburn in editorial matter, selection and organisation 2009 All rights reserved; no part of thi s publication may be reproduced, sto red in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical , photocopying, recording or o therwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting copying in the UK issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8T5. First published 2009 ISBN 978-1-84392-402-9 paperback 978- 1-84392-403-6 hardhack British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A ca talogue record for this book is available from th e British Library Project managed by Deer Park Productions Typeset by Pantek Arts Ltd, Maidstone, Kent Print ed and bound by Ashford Colour Press, Gosport, Hants

?EFC' PEFCll6-33-366

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Contents List of abbreviations Acknowledgements

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XVI •••

XVIII

General Introduction

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XIX

1 Understanding crime and criminology

1

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

2

1.1 What is crime? Paul W. Tappan

4

1.2 Conceptions of deviance, official data and deviants

7

Steven Box

1.3 The construction and deconstruction of crime

11

John MunCie

1.4 A suitable amount of crime

17

Nils Christie

2 Crime and punishment in history Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion 2.1 Execution and the English people Vic Gatrell

19 20 22

2.2 Eighteenth-century punishment Michael'gnatieH

24

2.3 Prosecutors and the courts Clive Emsley

27

2.4 Police and people: the birth of Mr Peel's blue locusts Michae"gnatieff

31

2.5 The London garotting paniC of 1862: a moral panic and the creation of a criminal class in mid-Victorian England

34

Jennifer Davis

41

3 Crime data and crime trends Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

42

3.1 The social construction of official statistics on criminal deviance

44

Steven Box

3.2 A note on the use of official statistics John I. Kitsuse and Aaron V. Cicourel

v

48

VI

Key Readings in Criminology

3.3 The origins of the British Crime Survey

54

Mike Hough, Mike Maxfield, Bob Morris and Jon Simmons

3.4 Unravelling recent crime patterns and trends

59

Robert Reiner

4 Crime and the media

65

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

66

4.1 What makes crime 'news'? Jack Katz

68

4.2 The media politics of crime and criminal justice

71

Philip Schlesinger, Howard Tumber and Graham Murdock

4.3 On the continuing problem of media effects

75

Sonia Livingstone

4.4 The sociology of moral panics Stanley Cohen

5 Classicism and positivism

79

85

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

86

5.1 On crimes and punishments

88

Cesare Beccaria

5.2 The female born criminal

93

Cesare LombrOSD and Guglielmo Ferrero

5.3 The positive school of criminology

99

Enrico Ferri

6 Biological positivism

105

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

106

6.1 Criminal anthropology in the United States

108

Nicole Hahn Rafter

6.2 The increasing appropriation of genetic explanations

113

Troy Duster

6.3 Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behaviour in children and adults

119

Adrian Raine

6.4 Evolutionary psychology and crime

127

Satoshi Kanazawa

7 Psychological positivism

137

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

138

7.1 Differential association Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald R. Cressey

140

Contents

7.2 Social structure and social learning Ronald L. Akers

142

7.3 Crime as choice

149

James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein

7.4 The link between cognitive ability and criminal behavior

154

Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

8 Durkheim, anomie and strain

159

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

160

8.1 The normal and the pathological

162

Emile Durkheim

8.2 Social structure and anomie Robert K. Merton

165

8.3 Why do individuals engage in crime? Robert Agnew

169

8.4 Crime and the American Dream: an institutional analysis

174

Richard Rosenfeld and Steven F. Messner

8.5 The vertigo of late modernity Jock Young

181

9 The Chicago School, culture and subcultures

187

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

188

9.1 Juvenile delinquency and urban areas Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay

190

9.2 Delinquent boys: the culture of the gang Albert K. Cohen

194

9.3 Subcultural conflict and working-class community Phil Cohen

198

9.4 Subcultures, cultures and class

201

John Clarke , Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and Brian Roberts

9.5 Cultural criminology Jeff Ferrell

10 Interactionism and labelling theory

203

209

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

210

10.1 Primary and secondary deviation Edwin M. Lemert

212

10.2 Notes on the sociology of deviance

214

Kai 1": Erikson

10.3 Outsiders Howard S. Becker

216

VII

vii i

Key Readings in Criminology

10.4 Misunderstanding labelli ng perspectives

220

Ken Plummer

10.5 The social reaction against drugtaking

224

Jock Young

11 Control theories

231

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

232

11.1 Techniques of neutralization: a theory of delinquency

234

Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza

11.2 A control theory of delinquency

236

Travi s Hirschi

11.3 A general theory of crime

241

Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi

11.4 Charles Tittle's control balance and criminological theory

246

John Braithwaite

12 Radical and critical criminology

255

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

256

12.1 Toward a political economy of crime

258

William J. Chambliss

12.2 The theoretical and political priorities of critical criminology

261

Phil Scraton and Kathryn Chadwick

12.3 Radical criminology in Britain

267

Jock Young

12.4 Abolitionism and crime control

271

Willem de Haan

13 Left and right realism Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion 13.1 Reflections on realism

275 276 278

Roger Matthews and Jock Young

13.2 The failure of criminology: the need for a radical realism Jock Young

13.3 The emerging underclass Charles Murray

13.4 Broken windows James O. Wilson and George L. Kelling

282 288 295

Contents

14 Contemporary classicism

301

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

302

14.1 The new criminologies of everyday life

304

David Garland

14.2 'Situational' crime prevention: theory and practice

307

Ronald V Clarke

14.3 Opportunity makes the thief: practical theory for crime prevention

312

Marcus Felson and Ronald V. Clarke

14.4 Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach

318

Lawrence E, Cohen and Marcus Felson

15 Feminist criminology

325

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

326

15.1 The etiology of female crime

328

Dorie Klein

15.2 Girls, crime and woman's place: toward a feminist model of female delinquency

335

Meda Chesney-Lind

15.3 Feminism and criminology

340

Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind

15.4 Feminist approaches to criminology or postmodern woman meets atavistic man

347

Carol Smart

16 Late modernity, governmentality and risk

357

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

358

16.1 The new penology: notes on the emerging strategy for corrections

360

Malcolm M. Feeley and Jonathan Simon

16.2 Actuarialism and the risk society

367

Jock Young

16.3 Risk, power and crime prevention

373

Pat O'Malley

16.4 Say 'Cheese! ' The Disney order that is not so Mickey Mouse

379

Clifford D. Shearing and Philip C. Stenning

17 Victims, victimization and victimology

385

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

386

17.1 On becoming a victim

388

Paul Rock

IX

x

Key Readings in Criminology

17.2 Fiefs and peasants: accomplishing change for victims in the criminal

397

justice system Joanna Shapland

17.3 Violence against women and children : the contradictions of crime control under patriarchy

402

Jill Radford and Elizabeth A. Stanko

17.4 Multiple victimisation: its extent and significance

409

Graham Farrell

417

18 White-collar and corporate crime Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

418

18. 1 The problem of white-collar crime

420

Edwin H. Sutherland

423

18.2 Who is the criminal? Paul W.Tappan

425

18.3 Defining white-collar crime David O. Friedrichs

18.4 Iraq and Halliburton

430

Dawn Rothe

19 Organised crime

437

Introduction, key concep ts and questions for discussion

438

19.1 Organised crime: the structural skeleton

440

Donald R. Cressey

19.2 Fishy business: the mafia and the Fu lton Fish Market

444

James B. Jacobs

19.3 The crime network

449

William J. Chambliss

19.4 The profession of violence: the Krays

453

John Pearson

19.5 Perspectives on 'organ ised crime'

454

Michael Levi

20 Violent and property crime

461

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion 20.1 The social organization of burglary

464

Neal Shover

20.2 American lethal violence Fran klin E. Zi mring an d Gordon Hawkins

462

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470

Contents

20 .3 Modernization, self-control and lethal violence

476

Manuel Eisner

20.4 Racial harassment and the process of victimization

481

Benjamin Bowling

21 Drugs and alcohol

487

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

488

21.1 Booze, the urban night and the human ecology of violence

490

Dick Hobbs, Phil Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow

21 .2 Heroin use and street crime

496

James A. Inciardi

21 .3 Drug prohibition in the United States: costs, consequences and alternatives

499

Ethan A. Nadelmann

21.4 The war on drugs and the African American community

506

Marc Mauer

22 Penology and punishment

511

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

512

22.1 The body of the condemned

514

Michel Foucault

22.2 What works? Questions and answers about prison reform

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51 7

Robert Martinson

22.3 Censure and proportionality

520

Andrew von Hirsch

22.4 The largest penal experiment in Am eri can history

524

Franklin E. Zimring , Gordon Hawkins and Sam Kami n

23 Understanding criminal justice

529

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

530

23 .1 Two models of the criminal process

532

Herbert L. Packer

23.2 Models of justice: Portia or Persephone? Some thoughts on equality, fairness and gender in the field of criminal justice

536

Frances Heidensohn

23.3 The antecedents of compliant behavior

542

Tom R. Tyler

23.4 Defiance, deterrence and irrelevance : a theory of the criminal sanction Lawrence W. Sherman

545

XI

xu

Key Readings in Criminology

24 Crime prevention and community safety

551

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

552

24.1 A conceptual model of crime prevention

554

Paul J. Brantingham and Frederic L. Faust

24.2 The British gas suicide story and its criminological implications Ronald V. Clarke and Pat Mayhew

559

24.3 Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy 563 Robert J. Sampson, Stephen W. Raudenbusch and Felton Earls 24.4 The uses of sidewalks: safety

568

Jane Jacobs

25 The police and pol icing

571

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

572

25.1 What do the police do? David H. Bayley

574

25.2 A sketch of the policeman's 'working personality'

580

Jerome H. Skolnick

25.3 The rhetoric of communi ty policing Carl B. Klockars

585

25.4 The future of policing David H. Bayley and Clifford D. Shearing

592

26 Criminal courts and the court process

601

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

602

26.1 Conditions of successful d egradat ion ceremonies Harold Garfinkel

60,4

26.2 Materials of contro l Pat Carlen

608

26.3 The adversarial system Paul Rock

613

26.4 Understanding law enforcement

619

Doreen McBarnet

27 Sentencing and non-custodial penalties

625

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

626

27.1 Crime, inequality and sentencing Pat Carlen

628

27.2 The punitive city: notes on the dispersal of social control Stanley Cohen

633

Contents

27.3 The dispersal of discipline thesis

640

Anthony Bottoms

27.4 Understanding the growth in the prison population in England and Wales 644 Andrew Millie, Jessica Jacobson and Mike Hough

28 Prisons and imprisonment

649

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

650

28.1 The 'disciplinary' origins of the prison

652

David Garland

28.2 Prisons and the contested nature of punishment

657

Richard Sparks

28.3 The inmate world

664

Erving Goffman

28.4 Women in prison: the facts

669

Pat Carlen and Anne Worrall

29 Youth crime and youth justice

677

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

678

29.1 Present tense: moderates and hooligans

680

Geoffrey Pearson

29.2 The coming of the super-predators

684

John J. Dilulio

29.3 Penal custody: intolerance, irrationality and indifference

689

Barry Goldson

29.4 Comparative youth justice

698

Michael Cavadino and James Dignan

30 Restorative justice

709

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

710

30.1 Conflicts as property

712

Nils Christie

30.2 Restorative justice: an overview

719

Tony Marshall

30.3 Responsibilities, rights and restorative justice

726

Andrew Ashworth

30.4 Critiquing the critics: a brief response to critics of restorative justice Allison Morris

732

XIII

xiv

Key Readings in Criminology

31 Race , crime and justice

739

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

740

31 .1 The racism of criminalization : police and the reproduction of the criminal other

742

Tony Jefferson

31 .2 From Scarman to Stephen Lawrence

747

Stuart Halt

31 .3 In proportion : race, and police stop and search

754

P.A.J. Waddington , Kevin Stenson and David Don

31.4 Deadly symbiosis: when ghetto and prison meet and mesh

759

Loi"c Wacquant

32 Gender, crime and justice

767

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

768

32.1 Women and criminal justice: saying it again, again and again

770

Loraine Gelsthorpe

32.2 The woman of legal discourse

772

Carot Smart

32.3 Women and social control

779

Frances Heidensohn

32.4 Common sense, routine precaution and normal violence

786

Elizabeth A. Stanko

32.5 Hegemonic and subordinated masculinities

791

James W. Messerschmidt

33 Criminal and forensic psychology

797

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

798

33.1 Individual factors in offending

800

David P. Farrington and Brandon C. Welsh

33.2 Adolescent-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy

807

Terrie E. Moffitt

33.3 A sociogenic developmental theory of offending

818

Robert J. Sampson and John H. Laub

34 Globalisation , terrorism and human rights Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion 34.1 Crime control as industry Nils Christie

823 824 826

Contents

34.2 Human rights and crimes of the state: the culture of denial

827

Stanley Cohen

34.3 The new regulatory state and the transformation of criminology

837

John Braithwaite

34.4 Criminal justice and political cultures

844

Tim Newburn and Richard Sparks

35 Doing criminological research

851

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion

852

35.1 The relationship between theory and empirical observations in criminology

854

Anthony Bottoms

35.2 The fieldwork approach

860

Howard Parker

35.3 A snowball's chance in hell: doing fieldwork with active residential burglars

865

Richard Wright, Scott H . Decker, Allison K. Redfern and Dietrich L Smith

35.4 Doing research in prison: breaking the silence?

870

Alison Uebling

35 .5 Feminist methodologies in criminology: a new approach or old wine in new bottles?

875

Loraine Gelsthorpe

35.6 Writing : the problem of getting started

882

Howard S. Becker

Publisher'S Acknowledgements Index

886 893

xv

List of abbreviations ACLU ACI'S ASBO

Ame rican Civil Liberties Union Advisory Council on the Penal System anti-social behaviour orde r

BCS BKA

British Crime Survey Bundeskriminalamt

CASI CIA CJA CO CPA

computer-assisted self-interv iewing Centra llnteJlige nce Agency Criminal Justice Act Carbon Monoxide

Coa lition Provisional Authority

CPPU CPS

Crime Policy Plannin g Unit

CVPA

Children and Young Persons' Act

DNA DFi

deoxyribonucleic acid Development Fund for Iraq

EEG Eses EU EWO

elect roen cep h a Iogra m street corner youths

fAR

FBI

Fede ral Acquisi ti ons Regulati o ns Federal Bureau of Investigation

GHS GST

General House hold Su rvey Gen eral Strai n Theory

HIV HORU

I-I uman i m m un odeficien cy virus

IMF IQ

In ternati ona l Monetary Fund In tell igence Quotie nt

JCA R

JOint Committee Against Racialism

KBR

Kellogg, Brown and Root

Crown Prosecution Service

European Union Education We lfare Officer

Home Offi ce Research Unit

LoeCA P Logistics Civil Augmenta ti o n Program MPA

Minor Phys ical Ano m aly

NATO NAVSS NCIS NCS

No rth Atlanti c Treaty O rga ni za tion National Association o f Victim Support Schemes Na tional Criminal Intell ige nce Service Natio nal Crime Squad US National C rim e Survey Ne igh bor hood Cluste rs National Crime Victim izat ion Su rvey

NCS Ncs NCVS

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list of abbreviations

NEO-PI NI

NO\IS NOVA NYPD

Neurot i(ism-Ext ran>f'iion-Open ne'iS Personal it y lnven tory National Front non-governmental organi'iation~ t-.:ationallnstitute on Drug Abuse Nittional Longitudinal Survey of Youth National Offender Management Service National Organization for Victim A~')htdnce New Yorl-. Police Department

OPCS

Office of Population, Cemm and Survey')

PACE I'HDCN

Police and Crimina! Fvidence Act 1984 Project on Iluman Development in Chicago Neighborhoods

Quango

Qua~i-autonomous

RPU I(SOI

(Home Office) Research and Planning Unit Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration

N(jO ~IJ)A

NLSI

nongovernmental organisations

SAM HS.-\ Substance Abuse and Mental Ilealth Services Administration SCPR Social and Community Planning Research SF( US Securities and Exchange Commission SfS socioeconomic status socialites Socs SOMA State Oil Marketing Organization Social Structure and Anomie SSIe reveialiom would include nearly every institution and association that ha'i ever been subslImed under the canopy 'society'. I!owever, those aetiological accounts which have most pre· oC(lIpied 'iodologists, at least until recently, have been family breakdown, corrupting friends, socially diso rganized neighborhoods and anomieinducing culture. Unfortunately, like their non-sociological counterparts, sociological accounts of deviance have been daz7ling in their rich variety, but disappointing in their substantiveness. They do represent a !lignificant shift of emphasis from a defective individual to defective social circumstances, but their adherents hardly broke with the traditional assumption that, in order to test hypotheses on deviants and deviance, it was adequate to study official deviants and compare them with samples of conform ists. In other wo rds, the holy trinity which had sustai ned writers with a physio logical or psychological leaning had a lso sustained generations of soc iologis ts. When it came to the question of what t hey were study ing, socio logists failed to make distin ct a significan t difference betwee n actors and acts, and t hey refused to accept what they at least im plied they knew, namely that official devirlllts are a hig hly selected popu lation o f dev ian ts and, as suc h, an entirely inappropriate basis from which to ma ke generaliLllions on dev ian ts and deviant behavio r. Th is is why, for so long, soc iological ex plana tio ns remai ned unsubstan tiated. To escape t hi s ca ro use l, it became increasingly clear that the subject-ma tter of the sociology o f dev ia nce needed to be ope ned up fr om th e co ncer tin a'd pos it io n in whi ch it had ori gi nally bee n cast. Du rin g th e la st two decades, th is ha s bee n att emp ted a nd, as a resu lt, the soc iology of devian ce has been compl etely remoulded . It seems clea r no w th at th ere are at feast three distin ct questi ons to be an swered: 1 Why do people engage in deviant behavior?

This is the qu estio n of deviance. 2 Wh y do people with certain attributes, both soc ial an d psychological , appear more

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10

1 · Understa nding crime and criminology

frequently in the official data on deviants? This is the question of official deviants. 3 Why do some people assume a deviant identity? This is the question of deviants.

From S. Box (1981) 'Changing conceptions of deviance, oftkial data and deviants', Deviance, Reality and Society (London: Holt, Rinellart and Winston), pp. 1-5.

References Alexander, F: &: Ross, II. (Ed.) (J 952) Dynamic Psychiatry. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Austin, R.L. (1978) Intelligence and adolescent theft. Criminal II/stice (lml Behavior, 5, 212-225. Can twell, D. ( 1977) The hyperkinetic syn drome. In Child Psychiatry (Ed.) Rutter, M. & Hersov, L. pp. 524-555. London: Blackwell. Davis, N.J. (1975) Sociological Cunstmctio/ls of Deviance. Dubuque, la: Wm C. Brown. Erikson, KT. (1966) Wayward 1)lIritans. New York: Wiley. Eysenck, 11.]. (1964) Crime and Personality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Gibbons, D.C. (1979) The Criminological Enterprise: Theorists a"d Perspectives. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Gibbons, D.C. &: Jones, J.F. (1975) TIle Study of Deviance. New Jersey: Prentice-Ha ll. Hippchen , L]. (1977) Biochemical research: its contribution to criminological theory. In Theory in Criminology: Contemporary Views (Ed.) Meier, R.F. pp. 57-68. London: Sage. Hirschi, T. &: Hindelang, M.J. (1977) Intelligence and crime. American Sociological Review, 42, 571-586. Jeffery, C. R. (Ed.) (1979) Biology and Crime. Beverley Hills: Sage. Menninger, K. (1969) Th e Crime of Punisl/ment. New York: Viking. NetHer, G. (1974) Explaining Crime. New York: McGrawHill.

Net tler, G. (1978) Explaining Crime (2nd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill. Prins, II. (1980) Offenders, Deviants or Patients? London: Tavistock. Reid, T (1976) Crime and Criminology. Hinsdale, Ill: Dryden Press. Richards, B. (1978) The experience of long-term imprisonment. British IOllmal of Criminology. 18, 162-169. Rosenthal, D. (1973) Heredity in criminality, Criminal Justice and Bellavior, 2, 3-2 1. Sapsford, R.j. (1978) Life-sentence prisoners: psychological changes during sentence. British JOllrnal of Criminology, 18, 128-145. Schafer, S. (1969) Theories in Criminology. New York: Random House. Shah , S.A. &: Roth, L.H. (l974) Biological and psychological factors in criminality. In Handbook of Criminology (Ed.) Glaser, D. pp. JOI-173. New York: Rand McNally. Suchar, C.S. (1978) Social Deviance: Perspectives and Prospectives. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Thio, A. (1978) Deviant Behavior. Boston: Houghton Mifnin. Trasler, G. (1962) Explanation Of Criminality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. West, D.l (Ed.) ( 1969) Cri minological Implications of Chromosome Abnormalities. Cambridge: In stitute of C riminology.

The construction and deconstruction of crime

1.3 The construction and deconstruction of crime

John Muncie Defining crime What i$ crime? The O.\fvrd El1SIi\h DiaiolwT) ' states that crime is: An act punishable by law, as being forbidden by statute or injurious to the public welfare .... An evil or injurious au; an offence, a ~in; esp. of a grave character. At first sight, such a definition appears straightforward and uncontroversial: a crime is an illegal act. However, on closer examination things are not so simple. I... J To appreciate fully the complexities of the question 'what is crime', we need to broaden our enquiry to include some understanding of criminal law, social mores and social order.

Crime as criminal law violation The most common and frequently applied definition of crime is that which links it to substantive cri minal law. In othe r words, an act i... only a crime when it vio lates the prevailing legal code of t he juri sd icti on in which it occurs. Michael and Ad ler a re th us ab le to a rgue that t he most precise and leas t a m big uo us de fi nitio n of cri me is 'be havior which is pro h ibited by the criminal code' (Michael a nd Ad ler, 1933, p.S) (DEFINITION I) . [ ... J

Th is logic was taken to its extreme by Tappan 's a rgum ent th at: 'O nl y t hose are crimi nals wh o have been adj udica ted as such by the cou rts. C rim e is an in ten tiona l act in vio lation of th e crimin al law (s tatuto ry and case law), commi tted with o ut defen se or excuse a nd pe nali zed by th e sta te as a fe lo ny o r mi sdemea no r' (Tappa n, 19 47, p. IOO) (DEFINITION 2) . T h is black le tte r law approach - that the appli catio n of a legal san ction thro ugh court processes and practices must be pursued befo re a crime can be fo rmally established to have occurred - maintains that no act can be considered c riminal befo re and unl ess a court ha s meted out some penalty. Again, this may appear clear-cut and un controversial , but two impo rtant con sequen ces now from such formulati o ns . First, there would be no crime without c riminal law. No behavior can be conSidered criminal unless a fo rmal sanction exists

to prohibit it. Michael and Adler (1933, p.S) contend that. 'if crime is merely an instance of conduct which is proscribed by the criminal code, it follow~ that the criminal law is the formal cause of crime'. Second, there would be no crime until an offender iii caught, tried, convicted and puni~hed. No behavior or individual can be considered criminal until formally decided upon by the criminal justice system. By drawing these lines of argument together, Sutherland and Cressey proposed a definition of crime which (at least up to the 1960s) was adopted by most social scientists and legal scholars: Criminal behavior is behavior in violation of the criminal law ... it is not a crime unless it is prohibited by the crimina l law. The criminal law, in turn, is defined conventionally as a body of specific rules rega rding human conduct which have been pro mu lgated by political authority, which app ly unifo rmly to all members of the classes to wh ich th e rul es refer and which are enfo rced by pu n is h ment administered by the state. (Su therland and Cressey, 1924/1970, p.4) (DEFINITION 3)

In a similar vein , a num be r of cond itions must be met before an act can be lega lly defin ed as a crime: • The act must be lega ll y pro hibited at the ti me it is comm itted. • The perpetrato r must have cri minal intent (mens rea). • The perpetrator must have acted voluntarily (actus rea). • There must be some legally prescribed punishment fo r committal of the act. Wh at thi s means is that we can o nl y und erstand crim e by ide ntifyi ng th e di stinctive procedural rul es of evid ence, burdens and standard s of proo f and parti cular fo rm s of trial established within crimin al law. It also assumes that people act with free will and should be made responsible fo r their acti o ns. Yet th e argum ent is circular: crimin al law and co urt procedures claim to respo nd to crime, yet cri me can o nly be defined by loo kin g to th e

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12

1· Understanding crime and criminology

criminal law itself. La cey et al. suggest that , in order to break. out of this impasse and move towards a more adequate answer to the apparently straightforward question, 'w hat is crime?', 'we must enter upon some broader reflection about how our society comes to define "deviance"; how it comes to be decided which deviance calls for a legal response; and what determines that legal response as a criminal as opposed to, or as well as, a civil response' (Lacey et (1/.,1990, pp. 2-3). [... ] We ca n id ent ify a number of other issues and consequences that flow from legally based definitions: • An act can only be considered a 'crime' once it is identified as such by law - thus criminals can only be identified once processed and convicted by the courts. But not all of those who break criminal laws are caugh t and prosecuted. The study of criminal behavior is thus severely hampered , and may be particularly one· dimensional if restricted only to those persons who are convicted of offences. • The approach neglects the basic issues of why and how some acts are legislated as criminal, while others may remain subject only to informal control or rebuke. • A black letter law approach tends to refer only to the formal constitution and enactment of law and underplays the diffe rent ways in wh ich it is enforced. It divorces the crim ina l process from its social context, masking the ways in whic h the law is not simply applied by the courts, but is actively made and interpreted by key court personnel (fo r example, in plea ba rga ining, the quali ty of legal representation, and judicial discretion). In turn, this may have important consequences for what kinds of behavior should be rega rded as tru ly crimina l. Are theft and violence more serious than violations of health and safety codes in the work place? Both may be dealt with by the criminal law, but the tendency to view the forme r as 'rea l crime' and t he latter as 'regula tory offences' may o nly lead us (unj ust ifiably?) to exc lude t hese latter be haviors fro m o ur leg it imate subject matt er.

Crime as violation of moral codes Se llin (1938) a rgued t hat t he conce pt of crime sho uld be extended beyond legal viol atio n s of mom I a nd social codes. He contended t hat eve ry society has its own standa rds of behav io r o r 'con.

duct norm s' , but that not all these standards are necessarily reflected in law. In this context, terms suc h as 'dev ian ce', 'non· confo rmity' and 'anti· socia l conduct' are preferred to that of 'crime', because the latter is incapable of encompassing all acts of wrong.doing. [... ] Although clearly a social, rather than a legal, ca tegory, [the term deviance] suffers from an extreme cultural relativism and is inextricably related to difficulties in establishing what is 'nor· mal'. As Simmons (1969, p.3) found in public responses 10 th e question, 'who's deviant?', the concept can be as readily applied to Christians, pacifists, divorcees, 'know·it·all' professors and the president of the United States as it can to criminals and law·breakers. [... ] Sutherland's (194-9) research into unethical practices among corporate managers in the USA found that, despite th eir serious and injurious nature, such practices were often considered non-criminal: as violations of ci\'iI , rather than criminal, law. As a result, he argued that crime should be defined not on the basis of criminal law, but on the more abstract notions of 'social injury' and 'social harm'. Thus: The essential characteristic of crime is that it is behavior which is prohibited by the state as an ill;lII)' to the state ... The two abstract criteria ... as necessa ry elements in a definition of crime are legal descriptions of an act as sociaU}' harlllflli and legal provision of a penalty for the act. (Sutherland, 1949, p.31 , emphasis added) (D EFINITION 4)

Su t herland implied that some moral criteria of social injury must be applied before any com pre· hensive definition of crime can be formulated. Ilowever, whether morality has any more an objec· tive status than law also remains disputed. Subsequent moral 'readings' of crime have been most forcibly put by those on the right of the po litical spectrum but not confined to them. The American neo·conservative social policy analyst Charles Murray, for exa m ple, has maintained that increases in cri me are directly th e resu lt of a break. down in fam il y rela ti ons h ips and a grow t h in illegit im acy (Murray, 1990). [... j Behavio rs suc h as tak in g t he life o f anoth er, sex ual violence and steali ng for pe rso nal ga in m ay be considered to be particularl y hei nous and abh or. ren t. Eac h th o ugh has at some tim e al so bee n considered qu ite legiti ma te. Crim ina l laws are never static or permanent features of any society. [... j

The construction and deconstruction of crime

As Wilkins (1964, p.46) warns: 'there are no abso lute standards. At some time or another, some fo rm of soc iety or another has defined almost all forms of behavior that we now call "criminal" as desi rable for the functioning of that form of society'. The temporal and cultural relativity of 'crime' ens.ures that 'there is no one behavioral entity whIch we (an call crime, there is no behavior wh ich is always and everywhere criminal' (Ph illipson, 1971, p.5). Si m ila~ly, if there a re no clear and unambiguo us rules to dec ide which actions should be subiect to Illoral and lega l sanction, ca n it be argued that any consensus exists in soc iety? Can the law o r mora l codes be reli ed upon to reveal any such consensus?

Crime as social construct A vast ar ray of behaviors have been (or can be) deemed 'deviant' or 'criminal' because t hey violate legal or normati\'e prescriptions. Bu t t here is no common behav ioral denominator that ties all of th ese acts together. Propositions, such as society is based upon a moral consensus or that the criminal law is me rely a reflection of that consensus, also rema in content ious. The interact ion ist school of sociology, for example, argues t hat t here is no underl yi ng or endur ing consens us in society. [... J Ra th er, crime is viewed as a conseq uence of soci al interacti o n: that is, as a resu lt of a lIegotiated process that involves t he rul e-vio la to r, the poli ce, th e co urts, lawye rs a nd th e law- makers who de fi ne a person 's behavio r as crim inal. Beh av io r may be labelled cri mi na l, but it is no t this be havior in itse lf th at co nstit utes crime. Ra th e r, be h avio r is cri",il1afized by a process of social perception and reacti o n as applied and interpreted by age nt s of th e law. C rime ex ists o n ly when the labe l and the law are successfu ll y applied to an ind ividua l's beh av io r. It is no t what peo pl e do, but ho w th ey are pe rce ived and eval uated by oth ers, that co nstitut es crim e. Wh ereas law-vio latio n approaches argue that the existence of 'crime' depe nds o n th e pri o r exi ste nce o f criminal law, interaction ism logi cally co ntends that, with out the enforcemellt alld enactme/lt of criminal law (or social reacti o n to ce rtain behavi o rs), th e re would be no crime. I... J Social groups create devian ce by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. From this point of

view dl'viance is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an 'oftender'. rhe deviant is one to whom that label has been succe~sfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label. (Ilec'er, 1963, p.9) (llEFINITlON 5) Thus 'crime' has no universal or objective ex istence, but i~ relative to the sub jective contingelKies of social and his torical circumstance. This in turn opens up and expands the range of criminological inquiry away from behavioral questions - Why did they do it? - towards de{i nitio/w/ issues - Why is that rule there? Who created it? In whose interes ts? How is it enforced? What are the conseq uences of th is enfo rce ment? (Co hen, 1973a, p.623). It implies that we wi ll on ly come to understand why an act ion is rega rded as criminal by exam ining both the processes of ru le creati on and law enforcement. 1... 1 The inte ractio ni st app roach refutes t he notion th at crim inality is d riven by some peculiar mo tivation or tha t crimin a ls are a spec ies apa rt. Rather, it co nt ends th a t crimi na li t y is ordinary, /latural and widespread and as a res ult requ ires no mo re expla na ti o n tha n that whi ch mi gh t be att ached to any 'ord in ary' act ivity. However, what does requi re ex pl anatio n is th e complex process by wh ic h agenc ies of socia l cont ro l are ab le to co nstru ct a publ ic identifi cation of certaill peo ple as crim in al, an d how social reactio n and labelling are abl e to produce a nd reproduce a recogn izab le crim in al po pulation . [... J

Crime as ideological censure Con fli ct-based an a lyses of th e social order have ex panded o n th e basic premise of interactio n is m that crime o nl y exists through the labelling of certai n beha vio rs as such - by argu ing that it is essenti al to ground such ge neralities in speci fi c relatio ns of power and domin atio n . It is no t a simpl e ques ti o n of int erest gro ups acting in competitio n with each oth er (as the interactionists would argue), but of the systematic and consistent e mpo we rm ent of som e gro ups to the detrime nt of olhers. [... [ In developing a Marxi st theory of crime and criminal law, Chambliss (1975, p.152) argues that acts are defined as criminal only when it is in the interest of the ruling class to define them so. Crime is a realit y whi ch exists only as it is created by

13

14

1· Understanding crime and criminology

those in society whose int erests are served by its presence. In capita list societies, 'cr ime' performs the vital function of diverting the lower classes' attention away from the condit ions and SOUTce of their exploitation, and enables the bourgeoisie to expand penal law in their efforts to coerce the proleta riat into submission. Behaviors are criminalized in order to maintain political control and to counter any perceived threat to the legitimacy of the ruling cla ss (the clearest examples of such a process being the crea tion of public order offences to curtail political demonstration and trade union legis lation to prevent 'wildcat' strikes): Criminality is simp ly not something that people have or don't have; crime is not something some people do and others don't. Crime is a matter of who can pin the label on whom, and underlying this socio-political process is the structure of social relations determined by the political economy. (Chambliss, 1975, p.165) (DEFINITION 6) Sumner (1990) presents a development of this line of argument which continues to recognize how criminal law (and thus crime) can be a crucial instrument of class power, but also argues that it cannot be simp ly reduced to class relations and class conflict. He prefers to t reat crime and deviance as matters of moral and politica l judgemen t - as social censures rooted in particular ideologies. The concept of crime, then, is neither a behavio ral nor a legal catego ry, but an exp ress ion of pa rticular cultural and political conditions. Nei t her is 'crime' simply a label, but a generic term to describe a series of 'negative ideo logical categories with specific historical applications ... catego ries of denunciation or abuse lodged within very complex, historically loaded practica l conflicts and moral debates ... these negative categories of moral ideo logy are socia l censures' (Sumner, 1990, pp.26, 28) (DEFIN ITION 7).

Crime as historical invention Troub lesome behaviors have been called 'c ri mes' (whethe r or not recognized in law) for so long that the term is habitua lly used to condemn 'unwanted' or 'undes irable' acts or people. If 'cri me' is intrinsicall y tied to 'crim in al law', as va ri ous de fi n itions assume, th en we on ly discover the ori gins of crime in the deve lopmen t of crimi nal law in the eigh teen t h century. Up til l then, the newly emergen t nat ion states in Eu rope lacked the resources to

invest in th e wholesale formulation and enforcement of state law. At the time, many behaviors that are today deemed crimi nal were governed by civil law and religion. In ot her words, there was less 'cri me' and more 'sin', 'civil wrongs' and 'private disputes'. The terms in which crime might be construed as a problem had not yet been formed. [... ] Many explanations of the origins of criminal law have pointed to the symbiotic relationship that ex.isted between economic power and the forging of new legislation tailored to protect the unique interests of domi nant groups. Chambliss (1964) demonstrates how vagrancy laws find their origins in economic circumstance and class power: originating in 1349, these laws made it a crime to give alms to unemployed people. The law was passed following a chronic labour Shortage experienced by landowners as a consequence of the Black Death of 1348. The traditional custom of migratory and free labour was criminalized in order to ensure an abundant supply of local, cheap laboUT. Agricultural labourers could no longer move from county to county to seek higher wages. Once the labour market was full, the laws fell into disuse, but were revived in 1530 to protect the interests of the new mercantile class. The emphasis shifted to controlling the movement of 'rogues' and 'vagabonds' in order to reduce the risk of robberies of commercial goods wh ile in transit. By 1743, a person could be liable fo r prosecution if unable to give a 'good account of the mselves'. The legislation was designed to serve the inte rests of powerful interest groups who needed a stable and static workforce to fill the fields and the emergent factories. (... J From such analyses, 'crime' has been defined as ' human conduct that is created by authorised agents in a politically organised society' and used to describe 'behaviors that conflict with the interests of the segments of the society that have the power to shape public policy' (QUinney, 1970, pp. 15-16) (D EFIN ITION 8). This definition suggests that the identification and delineation of 'crime' is an inherently political process. The law (and thus crime) is created and applied by those who have the power to translate their private interests il1to publi c policy. Crim inal law is coercive and partial, its politica l neut rality a myth. Deve loping th is li ne of argument, De Haa n claims t hat 'crim e' is an ideologica l concept which 'serves to mainta in political powe r relatio ns; justifies in equ ality a nd serves to distract public attention fro m more serious problems and injustices' (De Haa n, 1991, p.ZO?) (DEAN ITION 9). In a similar vein, the h is-

The construction and deconstruction of crime

torian , E.P. Thompson (1975, p.194 ), has asserted that 'crime' is a di sabling and moralistic catego ry. To restrict the analysis of crime to those definitions constructed by property owners and the state can only hinder acc urat e historical research and produce pre-given m o ral interpretations.

Crime as social harm In the section 'C rime as violation of moral codes' we noted that Sutherland's (1949) pathbreaking study of corporate malpractices led to a recognition among crimin ologis ts of the need to move beyond legally defined conceptions of crime if the existence of ot her more damaging forms of 'i njury' or 'social harm' are to be recognized and incorporated into th e crimin ological agenda. By the 1970s, the critical criminologists, the Schwend inge rs, fo r example, expanded the list of potentially injurious pract ices to in clude th e sys tema tic violation of basic human rights. Working within a theo retical tradition which maintains th at capitalist and imperialist social orders (and the ir state practi ces) contain their own criminogenic tende ncies, they promoted a definition of crime based on a conception of t he denial of ba sic fundamental human rights: The abrogation of these rights certain ly limits the individual's chance to fulfil himself in many sphe res of life. It can be stated that individuals who deny these rights to others are criminal. Likewise social re lat ionships and socia l systems wh ic h regu larly cause the abrogation of these rights are also criminal. If the te rm s imperialism, racism, sexism and poverty are abbreviated signs for theo ries of social relationships or social systems which cause the systematic ab rogation of bas ic rights, th en imperia li sm, racism, sexism and poverty can be ca ll ed crimes. (Schwend inger an d Schwendinger, 1970, p.148) (DEFINITION 10)

And in th e 1990s, a whole range of 'inj urious practices' o r 'no n-cri mes' such as the fail ure to enforce health and safety sta ndards at wo rk, the de liberate marketing of kn own faul ty prod ucts, the 'culpab le negligence' of tobacco and food compa nies knowin gly promoting un sa fe a nd li fe- threateni ng substan ces, th e internati ona l d um pin g o f toxic waste, the abuse involved in th e transpo rtation of live animals, th e extent of violence in the home or th e sys tem ati c fl o utin g of export co ntrols to certain co untries by arm s ma nufactu rers not o nl y

came to ent er public idio m as 'c rim e', but also began to be taken seriously by academic crim inologists. What all such cases reveal is that a legal concept of 'crime' is not o nl y pa rtial but that many of the most harmful acts are actually supported by the law (Tifft, 1994/5). They also suggest that victimization is far more prevalent and widespread than official definitions would have us believe. To ta ck le such partialit y, some autho rs have begun to place 'c rime' within a broader co ntext of social harm in which the visible and th e obscured, the legally recognized and the legally san ction ed can be included in a co mprehen sive, continuous and integrated vision of crimina l and harmful acts. Henry and Milovanovic (1996, p.1-16), for example, work within a broad conception of 'cr im e' as the 'power to deny others': 'crime is the expression of some agency's energy to make a difference on others and it is the exclusion of those ot hers who in the in stant are rendered powerless to maintain and express their humanity' ( DEFI NITION 11). For others, given the vast diversity of behaviors or acts that have been (or can be) conside red 'criminal', there remains no sense in retaining the concept of 'crime' at all. Hulsman (1986, p.71), for example, has argued that 'crime has no ontological reality. Crime is not t he object bu t the prodllct of criminal policy.' He prefers to work wit h the less emotionally cha rged co nce pts of 'trouble', 'problematic situation ' and 'undes irable occurrence'. In a similar vein, De Haan (199 1, p.208) conte nds that 'what we need is not a better theory of cri me, but a more powerful criti que of cri me.' Aga in , th is requ ires an altern ative series of co nceptualizations: 'un fortunate eve nts'; 'mo re o r less serious troubles'; 'conflicts whic h ca n resuit in su fferi ng, harm or damage'. The key poin t is that 'crime' can never be defi ned in an y co nsistent or conc lu sive ma nn er. 'Wha t is crime?' will always remain 'essen ti all y con tested'. [... ] Defin itio ns of crime are neit her objectively rig ht nor wrong: th ey do, however, po in t out t he elusive and th e contested nahlfe of ou r subject matter. l ... J The st reng th of explana tio ns based o n crim e of law prescript io n is that t hey provide an objective criteri a by whi ch 'cr im e' ca n be reli ably identified: 'c rime' is wha tever the law dee ms to be illegal at particu lar times and in pa rticular jurisdictiollS. Such a de finit io n does, neverth eless, bind us to state-generated no ti ons of lawbreaki ng. It narrows o ur atte nt ion to fo rm ulatio ns enshrin ed in legal statutes, and, whil e it may assum e a greater ob jectivity, it ove rl ooks th e fa ct that 'th e law' itself

15

16

1· Understanding crime and criminology

is deeply problematic, as a site of struggle, dispute, construction and con testa tion. In addition, a legalbased definition systematicall y excludes notions of harm, deviance, anti-social conduct, injustices and rule-breaking. We lose sight of how and why it is only certa;1/ behaviors that co m e to be considered deviant and how and why it is only som e harmful practices that are ultimately subject to criminal sanction. In short , we lose sight of 'crime' as a forever shifting co ncept, as a morally and politically loaded term . Importantly, the various conceptions of cr ime appear to be generated from competing accounts of the social order. If th at order is considered consensual (as we discussed earlie r), 'crime' can be defined as the infract ion of legal, moral or conduct no rms. When the socia l orde r is considered p luralist or con fl ict based (as we showed in 'C rime as social construct' and 'C rime as ideologi-

cal censure' above), 'crime' refers not to particular behaviors, but to the social and political processes whereby th ose actions are subjected to criminalization . Accordingly, it can be argued that any definition of crime rests on prior assumptions about the nature of social order and how that order is conceived and maintained. Indeed , this has led some to argue that crime only comes to be a problem when order is a problem. Our key problematic then may not be 'crime', but the 's truggle around order and the products it produces among which are crime and criminal justice' (Shearing,

1989, p. 178).

From

f.

Mlil/cie, 'Tile CO I1StrUCtiOl1 alld decOIlStrllctiOll

of crime', ill /. MIII/cie and E. M cLauglIlin (eds) The Problem of Crime (Lol/doll: Sage), 2001, pp. 9-23.

References Becker, H. (1963) Outsiders: Stlldies ill tile Sociology o( Deviallce, New York, Free Press. (Ext ract reprinted as 'Outsiders' in Muncie el a/., 1996.) Chambliss, W.j. (1964) 'A sociological an alysis of the Jaw of vagrancy', Social Problems, no. 12, pp.67-77. Chambliss, W.J. (1975) 'Toward a political economy of crime', Tlleory and Society, vol. 2, pp. 149-70. (Extract reprinted in Muncie el (1/., \ 996.) Cohe n, S. (1973a) 'The failures of cr imino logy', Tile Listmef, 8 November. De Haa n, W. (1991) 'Aboli tionism and crime cont rol: a contradic ti on in terms', in Stenso n and Cowe ll (1991). (Ex tract repri nted as 'Abolitionism and crime control' in Muncie et al., \ 996.) Henry, S. and Mi lova novic, D. (1996) COl/stitutil'e Crimil/ology, London, Sage. Hu lsman, L (1986) 'Critical crimi nology and the concept of crimc', Contemporary Crises, vo1.10, no. I, pp.63-80. (Extract reprin ted in Muncie et a/., 1996.) Lacey, N., Wells, C. and Meure, D. ( \990) Reco/lstmcti/lg Criminal Law, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Michael, J. and Adle r, M. (1933) Crime, Law and Social Scimce, New York, Ila rcou rt , Brace Jovanovich. Mur ray, C. ( 1990) TIle Emerging British Um/erc/ass, London, In stitu te of Econom ic Affa irs. (Extract repri nted as 'The Underclass' in Muncie el a/., 1996.) Philli pson, M. ( 197 1) Sociologiml Aspects o(Crime and Delillqlle1lCY, London, Routledge and Kega n Pau l.

Quinney, R. ( 1970) Tile Social Reality o(Criml?, Boston, MA, Little Brown. Schwendinger, II. and Schwendinger, j. (1970) 'Dcfende rs of order or guardians of human rights?', Iss/les ill Criminology, vol.5, 110.2, pp.123-57. Sellin, T. (1938) Culture, COllflict alld Crime, New York, Social Science Research Council. Shearing, C. ( \ 989) 'Decriminalising crimino logy', Calladillll jOllma/ o( Crimillology , vo1.31, no.2, pp.169-78. Simmons, J.L. (1969) Deviallts, Berkeley, CA, Glendessary Press. Sumne r, C. (ed.) (1990) Cet/sure, Politics and Criminal justice, Buckingham, Open University Press. Sutherland, E. (1949) lVI/ire Collar Crime, New York, Dryden Press. Sutherland, E. and Cressey, D. (1924/1970) Criminology, 8th edn , Philadelphia, PA, Lippincott. Tappan, P.W. (1947) ' Who is the criminal?', Americall Sociolosica/ Re\'iew, voL 12, pp.96-102. Thompson, E. P. (l975) IVlligs ali(I HI/liters, Londo n, Allen L.1ne. Tifft, L. (1994/5) 'Social harm defi nitions of crime', TIl(' Critical Crim i llologis t , vol. 6, no.3, pp.9- 13. Wilki ns, L. (1964) Social Devia/1ce, Londo n, Tavistock.

A sUitable amount of crime

1.4 A suitable amount of crime

Nils Christie Crime is in endless supply. :\u\ with the potentiality of being 'ieen as crimes are lil...e an unlimited natural resource. We can tal...e out a little in the form of crime - or a lot. ALls are not, they become; their meanings are created a\ th ey occur. To classify and to cvaluate are core activities for human being'). The world comes to u. into their bodies due to other people's guns. Xor do I deny that some are killed due to other people's cars, that money is taken away from people's drawer'i or bank accounts without their consent. And I do not deny that I have strong moral objections to most of these acts, try to stop them, and try to prevent them. Nor do I deny that it might be useful to sec some of these acts as crime. I am interested in hm\" meanings are born and are shaped. But that is no immoral position. My world is filled with values, many of which command me to act and re-act. But that does not hinder a keen interest in how acts get their meaning. With thi s general perspective, there are so me traditional questions in crimin ology I will I/ot ask. Particularly, I will not find it useful asking what is the development in the crime situat ion. This does not mean that crime statistics are without interest. Such statistics inform on phenomena seen and registered by a particular society as crime and also what happens to those see n as major actors. But crime statistics are th e mse lves soc ial phenomena. They tell what the system sees as crime and bothers to cope with, or has ca pacity to cope with. Crime statistics are a social fact in dire need for

interpretation. Thi\ view on uime stati'ltics has consequence.'>. It means that it is not useful to ask if crime is on the incrcase, stable, or on the decrease. Crime doe') not exist as a given entity. To mca'lUfe the variations in the occurrence of a phenomenon that change There was a con~id('rable increa'ie in the proportion of viuim~ reporting burglaries to tile police, and the rea\on h plain from tile GHS. In 1972 tile property ~tol('n w' ,$' ,.$' ,-$' ,$ -I""'~#"'~.#'~~""~ - ...... . Reported (measured bV BCSI

•

Recorded jnot NCRS adjusted)

•

AU BCS

Source: A. Walker, C. Kershaw and S. Nicholas, Crime in Eng/and and Wales 2005/06 (london: Home Office, 2006).

in 1981 . This is the basis of the claims by Labour to have brought crime down subs tanti ally. By contrast , the police figures record increases from 1997 to 2004-5, if no allowance is made for the two major shifts in cou nting rules and procedures in 1998 and 2002 that were discussed earlier. However, if the impact of the new coun ting rules and the National Crime Recording Standard is estimated , there is only a very small increase in recorded crime from 199 7 to 2004, and decline since then. The rise in recorded crime after 1997, at a time of sharp decline in BCS-measured victimization, is thu s largely accounted for by the two changes in counting rul es over this period. From R. Reiner, ' What IIappel1cd? U1IrOl'ellilig crime partems ami trends ', Law and Order (Cambridge:

Polity Press), 2007, pp. 61-70.

Notes 1 Walker Kershaw and Nicholas, Crime ill Ellg/alld ami • Wall's 2005/06, p. 17. 2 Ho me Office, Criminal Statistics (1976), p. 22.

3 Barclay and Tavares, Disest -I, p. 4. 4 Although there are no figures for cri mes that were not prosecuted prior to 1856, o n the basis of the judicial 5talistics historians generally believe that the mid· Victorian levels represent a decline from much higher levels in the early nineteenth cen tury (Gatrell, The decline of theft'; Emsley, 'The history of crime', pp. 204-7). There is some debate about whether the flat trend indicated in figure 3.4.1 is attributable to supply-side rationing of the figures driven both by fiscal parsimony and the wish to presen t an appearance of success for the new police forces and other ninetCrOCCH (/11(/ GOllg Delinq/lency. Chi cago: University of Chicago Press. Sutherland, Edwin (1983) White Col/ar Crime: The UI/Cllt VeniOI/. New Ilavcn: Yale University Press.

Tittle, Charles (1995) Control Balance: Toward a Gmeral Theory orDevi(lnce. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wilson, James Q. (1975) Thinkillg About Crime. New York: Random House. Wollslonecraft, Mary (1995) A Vindication 0rtlle Rights or Mall Witll A Vi"dication or the Rig/Its or Woman al/(I Hints. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wortman, C.B. and l.W. Brehm (1975) 'Responses to Uncon trollable Ou tcomes: An Integrat ion of Reac tan ce Theory and the Learned Helpl essness Model', Adl'anCfS ill Experimenta/ Social Psychology 8: 278-336. Wright, Ri ch ard T. and Scott Decker (1994) Burg/ars 0 " the lob. Bos ton: Northeastern University Press.

Introduction KEY CONCEPTS

abolitionism; aetiological crisis; capitalism; class system; criminalization; critical, radical and administrative criminology/ies; means of production; neo-colonialism; patriarchy; surplus labour

The work in this chapter was much influenced by the political movements of the 19605 and thereabouts. Thi s was a time when some more radically·oriented criminologists began to look beyond ideas of anomie and strain and, rather, were more preoccupied with the structural inequalities they saw around them and the impact of these on crime and criminalization. They built on some of the insights of interactionism and labelling theory and focused on the ways in which people are identified as criminal and what such processes have to tell us about the nature of contemporary social relations. Radical criminological work was much influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and in the opening excerpt William Chambliss (Reading 12.1) focuses on Marx's identification of the contradictions at the heart of capitalist societies and how these relate to criminal activity. At heart, Chambliss suggests that everyone, at some time, commits crime. The fundamental issue is therefore not why people commit crime , but who becomes identified - or if you like, labelled - as criminal. The reality, he goes on to argue, is that it is the poor, the working classes, who are most likely to be criminalized and this reflects the fact that it is the powerful and wealthy in our society that are able to control the use of discretion in law and criminal justice. By no means dissimilar arguments are offered by Phil Scraton and Kathryn Chadwick (Reading 12.2) in their manifesto for 'critical criminology'. At its heart, they argue, lies a class analysis and the notion of 'criminalization': 'a process which has been employed to underpin the repressive or control functions of the state'. The issues they highlight go beyond class relations to take in racism and neo-colonialism , and feminism and patriarchy. The marginalization of ethnic minorities within conditions of neo-colonialism, and women within patriarchy, are further reinforced by differential policing and targeting and by a variety of forms of social exclusion and oppression. In the third excerpt Jock Young (Reading 12.3) provides an overview of radical criminology in Britain. This body of work, he argues, emerged when 'social democratic positivism ' reached something of crisis in the late 1960s. He summarizes the perspective as seeing 'the causes of crime as being at core the class and patriarchial relations endemic to our social order'. In exploring its development, he identifies what he refers to as an 'eKterior history' (the political economy which prompted and provided the context for such work) and an 'interior history' (an aetiological crisis stemming from improving social conditions and rising crime). Young concludes by examining both the flaws and the advantages of radical criminology. Its advantages, he suggests, lie in its critical stance toward the criminogenic features of social structures and the operation of criminal justice and law, and in its moral and normative stance. These features, among others, distinguish it from the other body of work to emerge as a result of the aetiological crisis: administrative criminology. This Young identifies as a

governmental, establishment approach to criminology, little interested in causes and largely uncritical in its approach to crime and justice. At the radical fringe lies what has generally been termed 'abolitionism '. On the surface, as Willem de Haan (Reading 12.4) pOints out, abolitionist crime control appears oxymoronic - a contradiction in terms . However, as he goes on to explain , there is much that abolitionists potentially have to offer within criminology. At heart , he says, abolitionists argue for 'a minimum of coercion and interference with the personal lives of those involved [in the criminal justice and penal systems] and a maximum amount of care and service for all members of society ' . He then goes on to outline abolitionism in a number of forms: notably as a social movement, as a theoretical perspective and as a political strategy. At a time when there are record numbers in prison it may seem something of a busted flush . However, one might reasonably take the opposite view and argue that with ever larger numbers of people being criminalized , the values and priorities of abolitionism have ever greater resonance and relevance.

Questions for discussion 1. What, according to Chambliss, are the main contradictions in capitalist society and how do they relate to crime? 2. What are the main assumptions in a Marxist view of crime and the criminal law? 3 . What are the main priorities of 'critical criminology'? 4 . What does Jock Young mean when he uses the term 'aetiological crisis'? 5. What are the main flaws of radical criminology and how serious do you think these are?

6. Outline three different types of 'abolitionism'. 7. Is abolitionism possible?

8. If yes, in what ways? 9. If no, why not? (And does this mean abolitionist ideas have no purpose?)

•

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12.1 Toward a political economy of crime William J. Chambliss Capitalis t societies, where the means of prod uction are in private hands and where th e re inevitably devel ops a division between the class that rules (the owne rs of the mea n s o f production) and the

class tllat is ruled (those who work fo r the ruling class), create substantial amounts of cri me, often of the Jn 9st violent sort, as a resu lt o f the cont radictions that are inherent in th e st ructure of social relations thai emana te from the capi tali st system . The first co ntrad ictio n is that the ca pitali st

en terpr ise depend s upon creati ng in the mass of the workers a desire for the consumpti on of products produced by th e system. These products need

not contribute to the well being o f the people, nor

do they have to represent co mmodities of any intrinsic va lu e; nonetheless, for the sys tem to expand and be viable, it is esse ntial th at the bulk of the population be oriented to consuming what is produced. However, in order to produce the com modities that are the basis for the accumula· tion of capital and the maintenance of the ruling cla ss, it is also necessa ry to get people to wo rk at tediO US, alienating and unrewarding tasks. One way to achieve thi s, of course, is to make the accumulation of co mm oditie s de pendent on work. Moreove r, since th e system depends as it does on the deSire to possess and consume commodities far beyond what is necessa ry for survival , there mu st be an add ed incentive to perform th e du ll meaningless tasks that a re reqUired to keep the produ ctive process expanding. Th is is accomplish ed by keeping a proportion of the labor force impove ri shed or nearly so.] If th ose who are emp loyed beco me obstreperous and refuse to perform th e tasks requi red by the produ ctive system, then there is a reserve labor force waiting to take their job. And hanging ove r th e heads of the workers is always the possi bility of becoming impoverish ed should they refuse to do their job. Thus, at the ou tset the stru cture of ca pitalism creates both the deSire to consume and - for a large ma ss o f peo pl e - an inabili ty to earn th e mo ney necessary to purchase th e it e ms they have bee n taug ht to want. A second fundamental co ntradiction derives from th e fact that th e division of a society into a rulin g class that ow ns the means of production

and a subse rvien t class that works for wages illevitably leads to confli ct between the two classes. As those co nfli cts a re manifest in rebellions and ri ots among th e proletariat, the sta te, acting in the interests of the owners of the means of production will pass laws designed to control , through th e app li cati on of state sanctioned force, those acts of th e proletaria t which threaten the interests of the bou rgeoisie. In thi s way, then , acts come to be defined as criminal. It follows th at as capita li sm devel ops and conflicts between social classes continue or become more frequent or mo re violent (as a result. for example, of in creaSing proletarianization), more and more acts will be defined as criminal. The criminal law is thu s n ot a reflection of custom (as other theorists have argued), but is a set of rul es laid down by the sta te in the interests of the ruling class, and resulting from the conflicts that inhere in cla ss stru ctured societies; cri minal be havior is, then, the inevita ble expression of class co nfli ct resulting from the in herently explo itative nature of th e economi c re lations . What makes the behavior of some criminal is the coercive power of the state to e nforce th e will of th e ruling class; cri minal be ha vio r results fro m the strugg le betwee n classes whereby those who are the sub· servie nt classes indi vi dually exp ress th eir alienation fro m es tabli shed social rela tions . Criminal behaVi or is a product of the economi c and political system, and in a ca pitalist society has as one of its princ ipal co nseq uences th e advance· ment o f technology, use of surplus labo r and generally the maintenance of the established rela· ti ons hip between the social classes. Marx says, so mew hat face ti ously, in response to the function· ali sm of bourgeois sociologists: . .. crime takes a part of the superfluous po pulati on off th e labor market and thus reduces competition among the la borers - up to a ce r· lain point preventing wages from falling below th e minimum - the st ru ggle against crim e absorbs anothe r part of thi s population. Thus th e crimi nal co mes in as o ne of those natural 'counterweights' which bring about a correct balance and ope n up a whole perspective o f

Toward a political economy of crime

'useful' occupation ... the criminaL.produces the whole of the police and of niminal jmtice, con s tabl es, judges, hangmen, juries, etc.; amid a ll these different lines of busine\s, which form eq uall y many categories of the social division of labor, develop diflerent capacities of the human spirit, neate new needs and new ways of sat isfying them. Torture alone has given rise to the m os t ingenious mechanical inventions, and em pl oyed many honorable craftsmen in the prod uct ion of it s imtruments;:! Paradigms, as we are all well aware. do much more than suppl y us with specific causal nplanations. They provide m with a whole set of glasses through which we view the world. \1ost importantly, they lead us to empha size certain features of the wo rld and to ignore or at least de-emphasize others. The following propositions highlight the most important implicatiom of a Marxian paradigm of crime and cri mina llaw.3

A. On the content and operation of criminal law 1 Acts are d efi ned as criminal because it is in the interests of the ruling class to so define them. 2 Members o f the rulin g class will be able to violate the laws with impunity while members of the subject classes will be punished. 3 As capitalist societies industriali ze and the gap between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat widens, penal law will expand in an efforl to coerce the proletariat into submiss ion . •

B. On the consequences of crime for society 1 Crime reduces surplu s labor by creating employment n ot only for the criminals but for law enforcers, locksmiths, welfare wo rkers, professor .. of criminology and a horde of people who live off of the fact that crime ex ists. 2 Crime diverts the lower classes' attention from t he exp loitation they experience, and directs it towa rd o the r members of their own class rather than towa rds the capitalist class or the econo mi c sys tem .

3 Crim e is a rea lit y wh ich exists on ly as it is created by th ose in th e society wh ose in teres ts are se rved by its p resence.

C. On the etiology of criminal behavior 1 Crimina l and n o n -criminal behavior stem from peo ple acting ratio nall y in ways that are

compatible with their class position. Crime is a reaction to the life conditions of a person's social class. 2 Crime \'arie\ from sotiety to society depending on th~ politkal and economic structures of SOCiety. .\ Sociali')t soc ielie') should have much lower rates o f (Time becau~e the less inten':>e class struggle should reduce the lorces leading to and the function .. of (Time. [... 1 Sutherland asked why some il/{lividl/(I/s became involved in criminal behavior while ot hers did not. My con tention is that this question is meaningl ess. Everyo ne commits crim e. And man y, many people whether th ey arc poor, ri ch o r middlin g are involved in a way of life that is criminal ; and fu rth erm ore, no o ne, not even th e professional thief or racketeer o r corrupt politician commits crime (II/ tile t ime. To be su re, it may be politically useful to say that people become criminal through association with 'criminal behavior patterns,' and thereby remove the tendency to look at criminals as pall10logical. But such a view has little scientific value, si nce it asks the wrong questions. It asks for a psyc holog ical cause of what is by its very nature a socio-politica l event. Criminality is simply not something that peo ple have o r don 't have; crime is not something some people do and others don 't. Crime is a maller of who can pin the label on whom, and underlying thi s socio-political process is the structure of soc ia l relations determined by the political econo my. It is to Sutherland's nedit t ha t he recognized this when , in 1924, he noted that: An understanding of the nature of Criminal law is necessa ry in order to secure an unde rstanding of the nature of crime. A complete exp lanation of the origin and enforcement of laws would be, also, an explanation of the violation of laws.~ But Sutherland failed, unfortunately, to pursue the implications of hi s remark:). li e chose instead to confront the prevailing fu nctionalist perspect ive on crime with a less class-b iased b ut nonet he less inevit ably psychological explanation. The argu ment tha t criminal acts, th al is, acts w hi ch are a vio lation o f cri mi nal law, a re more often comm itt ed by members of the lower cl asses is not tenable. Crim ina l acts are wide ly distribu ted t h rougho ut t he socia l classes in ca pitalist societi es. Th e rich , t h e ruling, the poor, t he powerless and th e wo rki ng classes all en gage in crimin al activiti es on a regu la r bas is. It is in th e en forceme nt o f t he law th at the lower classes are sub ject to the effec ts

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of ruling class domination over the legal system, and which results in the appearance of a concentration of criminal acts among the lower classes in the official records. In actual practice, however, class differences in rates of criminal activity are probably negligible. What difference there is would be a difference in the type of criminal act, not in t he prevalence of criminality. The argument that the control of the state by the ruling class would lead to a lower propensity for crime among the ruling classes fails to recognize two fundamental facts. First is the fact that many acts committed by [owe r classes and which it is in t he interests of the ruling class to control (e.g., crimes of violence, bribery of public officials, and crimes of personal choice, such as drug use, alcoholism, driving wh ile intoxicated, homosexua li ty, etc.) are just as likely - o r at least very likely - to be as widespread among t he upper classes as the lower classes. Thus, it is cruc ial that the ru li ng class be able to control t he disc retion o f th e law en forcement agenCies in ways th at provide them wit h im mu nity. For example, hav ing a legal system enc um bered with procedural rules which on ly the wealthy can affo rd to implement and which, if imple m ented, nea rl y guarantees imm unity from prosecution, not to ment ion mo re direct con t rol t h rough bri bes, coerc ion and t he use of politica l influence. The Marxian paradigm m ust also account fo r the fact t hat t he law will a lso reflect conflic t between members of th e ruling class (or be tween me m bers of t he ruling class and the u pper class 'powe r elites' who manage the bureaucracies). So, for example, laws rest ricti ng the forma tion of trusts, mi sre presen tatio n in advert ising, t he necessity fo r obta ining licenses to engage in bUSiness practices are all laws which generally serve to reduce competit ion among the ruli ng classes and to concentrate capital in a few h ands. However, th e laws also app ly u niversally, and therefore apply to the ruli ng class as we ll . Thus, when they break these laws they are com m itt in g crim inal acts. Again, t he en forcement practices obviate the effectiven ess of the laws, and gua ra ntee th at th e ruli n g class will rarely fee l t he sting of the laws, but their violation rema ins a fact with which we m ust reckon. It can also be conc luded t hat law e n force m en t syste ms are not organized to red uce crim e or to enfo rce t he pub li c m ora lit y. T h ey are organized rather to manage crime by cooperating wi th the most criminal groups and enforcing laws aga in st those whose cri mes are mini m a l. In t hi s

way, by cooperating with criminal groups, law enforcement essentially produces more crime than would otherwise be the case. Crime is also produced by law enforcement practices through selecling and encouraging the perpetuation of criminal careers by promising profit and security to those criminals who engage in organized criminal activities from which the pOlitical, legal and business communities profit. Thus, the data from this study generally support the Marxian assertion that criminal acts which serve the interests of the ruling class will go unsanct ioned whi le those that do not will be punished. The data also support the hypothesis that criminal activity is a direct reflection of class position. Thus, the criminality of the lawyers, prosecu ting attorneys, politicians, judges and policemen is uniquely suited to their own class position in the society. It grows out of the opportunities and strains that inhere in those positions just as surely as the drinking of the skid row dere lict, t he violence of t he ghetto reSiden t, t h e drug use of the middle class adolescent and the white collar crimes of corporation executives reflect different socializing experiences.

From W Chambliss, 'Toward a political emf/omy of crime', Theory and Society, 1975, 2( I): J-l9-170.

Notes I Primary source materials for Marx's analysis of crime and criminal law are: Capital, v . J, pp: 231-298, 450503,556-557,574,674--678,718-725,734-741; Till' Cologne Comlllllll;st Trial, London: Lawrence and Wishart; Tile Gl'rmml Idl'olog,.· (18-15-6), London: L.:1wrence and Wishart 1965, pp: 342-379; Tlu'Qril'S of Surplus Vallie, v. 1, pp: 375-376; 'The State and the Law,' in T. B. Bollomore and Maxmillien Rubel (cds.), Karl Marx; Selected I\'rilillgs III Sociology ali(I Social Pllifosop/lY, New York: McGraw-Hili, 1965, pp: 215-231. 2 INd., TI,eories ofSllrpllls Vallie, pp. 375-376.

3 Fo r an excellent stateme nt of differences in 'order and connict' theories, see John Hortoll, 'Order and Connict Approaches to the Study of Social Problems' Am('ricllll lourlwl of Sociology, May 1966; see also Gerha rd Lenski, Power (llId Privilege, New Yo rk: McG raW- HilI, 1966; Wil liam). Chambli SS, Sociological Rem/hISS ill t//(:, COllf1icl Perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1973. 4 Edwin H. Su therland, Criminology, Philadelph ia: J. P. Lippi ncott, 1924, p. I I.

The theoretical and politic al priorities of critical criminology

12.2 The theoretical and political priorities of critical criminology Phil Scraton and Kathryn Chadwick Establishing a framework for critical analysis Gouldner 's (1969, 1973) devastating indictment of Western sociology establi shed that the 'domain assumptions' of academic disciplines and th eir pre-eminent theoreti cal perspectives had been influenced ma ssively by th ose powerful ves ted in terests who commissi o ned research. Academic research was identified as essential to the management of advanced capitalism 's inherent contradicti o ns and conflicts. For Fou cault , however, power is not uni-dimen sional nor is it restricted to th ose formal relati o ns of dominance in the economic or political spheres. As Sim (1990: 9) remarks, power is 'dispersed through the body of soc iety' and exercised through the processes of 'discipline, survei ll ance, individualization and normalization ' . Crucially the power-knowledge axis pe rmea tes all formal or officia l discourses, their language, logic. forms of definition and class ifi cati on, measurement techniques and empiricism as esse ntial elements in the technology of discipline and the process of normalization. 'Professionals'. as key interventionists in societal relations and in the political management of social arrangements, pursue a 'log ic and language of con trol' reveali ng a daunting ' power to classify' with clear consequences for t he reproducti on of 'bod ies ' of know ledge and for the maintenance of dominant power relations (Cohen, 1985: 196). Fou cau lt's work demonstra tes that the cha lle nges to mainstream th eo reti cal traditions have adopted the agendas of those tradition s, taking th ei r premises as legitimate point s of departure . While starti ng with 'knowledge-as- it-stan ds', that which is 'kn own', a radica l alternat ive must al so contextualize kn owledge - its derivatio n, co nsolidati o n and recog n ition - with in do m inant structural relations. Undoubtedly profeSSionals, be they employed in the caring agencies, the military, the crim ina l just ice system or pri va te indu stry, operate on th e basi s of professional training and work experience enj oyin g discreti o nary powers in accord with their rank and status . Yet whatever the quality and implications of decisions formulat ed and administered at th e interpersonal level of

' agen cy', their recogniti o n and legitima cy a re roo ted in th e determining cont exts of 'stru cture ' and their manifestation in the profess ional ideologies o f co ntrol and po liti cal management (Giddens, 1979, 1984). The dynami CS and vi sibility of powe r, however, are not always so obvious. For, 'power may be at its most alarming, and quit e often at its most horrifying, when appli ed as a sanction of force' but it is 'typi cally at its most intense and durable when running through the repetition of institutionalized practices ' (Giddens, 1987: 9). As power is mediated through the operationa l pract ices of insti tu tions their daily routines become regularized, even predictable. It is important to estab li sh that t he rou tine world of 'age ncy', of interpersonal relations, is neither spontaneous nor random . Personal reputations and coll ective identit ies are asc ri bed and become managed via official discourses, themselves derived within the dominant social relations of production, reproduct io n and neoco lo nia lism. For these represent the primary determining contexts which require and reproduce appropriate rela ti ons of power and knowledge. The structu ral con t radictions of advanced capitali st patriarchies requ ire polit ica l management. While grassroots resistance has remained a persis tent featu re in Western social democracies their grea t achievement has been to contain opposi tio n through relying on 'conse nsus' rathe r than 'coe rcio n'. Rela ti ons of domi nation and ex pl oitation, both material and physical , have become redefined and broadly accepted as the justifiable pursuit of competing interes ts. The smoo th and successful o peration o f power in thi s co ntext is depe ndent on social arrangements, forms of politica l management and cu ltural tradition s which together co ntribute toward s hege mony (Gram sci, 1971). Dissen t and disorde r are regulated by socia l forces and cu ltural transmission rather than by phys ical coercion. To challen ge orthodoxy, to question the establis hed order o r to raise doubts concern ing fo rmal authority are not perceived as acts of progression towards worthwhil e change but are prese nted in official discourses as acts of subve rsion which und ermin e sha red identiti es and common interests.

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While 'power', 'regulation' or 'cont rol ' can be identified in personal action and social reaction as part and parcel of the daily routine of agency, critical analysis seeks to bring to the fore structural relations, involving the economy, the state and id eology, in explaining th e sign ifi cance of the power-knowledge axis and relating it to the processes by which dominant ideas gain political legitimacy. Discrimination on the basis of class, gender, sexua lity and perceived et hnicity clearly ope rates at the level of attitude, on the street, in the home , at th e workplace or at social venues. Once institutionalized, however, class ism, sex ism, heterosexism and racism become systematic and structured. They become the taken-fo r-granted social histories and contemporary priorities which consti tute state institu tions, informing policies and underwriting practices, and which provide legitimacy to interpersonal discrimination. Through the process of institutionalization, relations of dominance and su bju gatio n achieve structural signi fi cance. Criti cal anal ysis of crim e and th e criminal justice process must be grou nded in these theoretical imperatives.

Class analysis and the determining context of production Much of the post-wa r opti mis m ove r capital reconst ru ct ion and econo mi c growth was derived in th e ' l3utske llite' compromises whi ch marri ed Keynesian prin ciples co ncerning state man agement of the economy to a protected progra mme of capital investment and development in the pri vate sector (Taylo r-Gooby, 1982; Ga mbl e, 1981 ). This programme was made possible through the initiation of effective, albeit often illusory, programmes of stat e welfare and social justice. Through in it iatives in public housing, access to health care an d medicine, new ed ucati onal priorities and state benefits the popular assump ti on, also embod ied in academic accounts of welfarism , was that benevolent reformism and its co mm itm e nt to social justice had broken the hold of the free enterprise economy and its market forces over th e social wellbeing of the nation. The era of 'we lfare capitali sm' had arrived, led by entrepre neurs of co nscience who claimed 'peopl e before profi t' . A cursory glance, however, at the relation ship betwee n th e public and private secto rs which emerged during thi s period revea ls the grand illusio n through a se ries of ambiguities and contrad ictions. In all sections of public service and

owne rsh ip - schooling, housing, health and medicine - a strong and privileged private sector, bolstered by the inheritance of wealth, was maintained. Property ow nership cont inued to become more cen tralized and concentrated within fewer hands. The expansion of state interventionism, local and central, ensured that the state became the largest employer and also the primary customer of private capital. Those industries which came under 'state ownership' were those essential to the reconstruction and consolidation of private manufacturing capital yet those deemed to be the least profitable or in need of the most reinvestment: coal, roads, railways, steel, communications, etc. The optimistic portrayal of this new pluralist soc iety - based on equality of opportunity and access, on cradle-to-grave weifarism - disguised the structural contradictions inherent within the social arrangements and relati ons of the new dawn of economic expansionism. [... 1 The 'attack on poverty' meant the virtual end of widespread destitution and starvation and there were ma jor advances in housing, health care, schooling and the general 'quality of life' - but the divisions remained. [... ] The broadsides fired by stratification theorists and 'gra nd theorists ' such as Parsons led to the reappraisal of Marxist analysis. Ten years after Dah rendorf's requiem for Marxism , Miliband (1969) and Quinney (1970) published their infl uenti al analyses of the adva nced capi talist stat e. There followed a decade of impo rtant comme ntary on th e state wh ich picked up and developed the co mplex iti es of Miliband 's centra l thesis. [... ) The reaffirmation of class analysis produced important work on c lass location (Poulantzas, 1973, 1975; Wright, 1976, 1978; Ca rchedi, 1977; Miliband, 1977; Hunt , 1977) in which the process by which classes were co nce ptu a li zed and clas s location established was exp lored . [... ] Marginality, and th e process of marginalization, is an important concept in the stru ctura l analysis of co ntemporary class loca tio n , cla n fragmentation and Wright's discussion of con tra. dictory cla ss locations. Impli ci t in this analysis is the premise that during periods of economic recessio n part of th e to tal workforce is used as th e disposable surplus of wage-labour essential to the reco nstruction of capital. [... J Set within the contex t of the strucrurallocation of cla ss the concept of marginality is both rigorous and significant. Marginality is manifested not only in terms of economic relations but also in terms of the

The theoretical and political priOritieS of cmical criminology

sub!>cquellt political and ilil'ologiGtl responses to those relation". Jm! a~ I.:l'rtain ~roup\ on-upy 'contradictory class locatioll\' \0 grouP\ arc pushed beyond the mar~inal locatiom of the rdatin;~ surplus population. ;\ ran~e of identifiable group... and indi\'iduals, while relying on the c.:apitali'H mode of produl.:tion and social tkmonaq to provide them with an economic opportunity \trllUme, JiH' outside the 'legi timatl" sodal rdatiom of produLlion./ ... 1 The link - unemployment, dl'stitution, crimehas provided an important \tarting point for research whidl ha\ devclopl'd the '\urplus popu lation' lhesh and its relevance in explaining not only certain categories of crime bu t also the process of niminalization of certain groups of people. [... J Crimina lization, the application of the criminal label to .tn identifiable social category, is dependent on how certain acts ilre labelled and on who has the power to label, and is directly limited to the political economy of marginalization. The power to criminalize is not derived necessarily in consensus politiCS but it carries with it the ideologies associated with marginalization and it is within these portrayals that certain actions are named, contained and regulated. This is a powerful process because it mobilizes popular approval and legiti macy in support of powerful in terests within the state. As Hillyard's (1987) discussion of No rth ern Ireland ill ustrates clearly, public support is mo re likely to be achieved for sta te interventi on against 'c rimin a l' acts than for the repress ion o r su ppression of a 'political' cause. Further, even where no purposeful political intention is invo lved, the process of crimi nali za tion can divert attentio n from the social o r political dynamiCS of a move me nt and specify its 'cr imin a l' potential. If bla ck you th is po rtra yed exclusive ly as 'muggers' (lIali et af., 1978) there will be less tolerance of organized campaigns which emphasize that they have legitimat e po lit ica l and econo mi c grievances (Gilroy, 198 7a). The marginali za ti o n o f women who campaign fo r rights o r fo r peace and the qu esti o ning of their sexuality i~ a furth e r example of the process by which meaningful and informed political action can be undermined , de-legitimized and criminali zed (Chadwick and Little, 1987; Young, 1990). Fundamental to th e criminalization thesis is th e propositi on that while pol iti cal motives are downplayed, the d egree of violence involved is emphasized. In industrial rel ations, for example, it is the violence of the pickets which is pinpointed (Scraton and Thomas, 1985; Fine and Millar, 1985; Beynon, 1985), rather than the

importanu.', lor thl' success of a ... trike, of preventing ~lIpplie\ getting through to a factory. '1 he prt'oc.:clIpation with the '"\.·iolence' of political oppo'iition make'i it easief to mobilize popular support fOf Illeil\ure\ 01 c.:ontainment. In ilIillly of thest' ('.'(amples, 'criminalization' i\ .\ pron'\' whj(h has been t'mployed to underpin the rt'IHC''i\ivC' Of lontrol funUions of tht' state. I hiIripped of part ... were European cars such as Volkswagen Cabriole ts with good radios easily interchanged between diffe ren t models. Those IllOSt likely 10 be stolen for resale we re ve ry expen"ive mode ls such as Porsche and Mercedes. (The increased popularity in America of high priced 'sport utility vehicles', such as the Toyota Land Cru iser or the Range Rover, has changed these patterns in recent yea rs.) • Lorries carrying cigarettes and liquor were most likely to be h ijacked in the past, but elect ro n ic goods are now also frequently targeted. • Studies in the retail industry, both of employee theft and shoplifting, have consistently shown that certain items are much more likely to be stole n than ot hers. For exam ple, a Home Office project of a few years ago showed that 'popular' records and tapes were much more likely to be stolen from the HMV sto re in Oxford Street than classica l recordings. • Res id ential burglars usually seek cash, jewellery and electronic goods (a nd guns in America). As di scussed above, the increase in lightweight electro nic goods in people's homes has been held partly responsible for the substantial increase of residen ti al burglary in America during the 1970s. • Cellular teleph ones, poorly-designed ticket machin es o n th e London Undergrou nd, and alu mini u m cas h compartments on public phones have all generated small crime waves. This brief list suggests that hot products might help to ex pl ai n patterns for many kinds of theft, as well as cr im e waves o r in creases in crime. These products might also hel p exp lain repea t victimizatio n , as in cases where someone with a particular mode l of car ha s it repeatedly stolen or when s hops ca rrying goods attra ctive to thieves are repea tedl y burgled. While we may know which products are hot, we know little about why they are hot. Studies are

315

316

14 · Contemporary classicism

needed to understand why particular product brands attract more theft than other brands. For example, why are some brands of sneakers so much more likely to be stolen than other brands which sell equally well? Studies are also needed to elucidate the criminogenic properties of whole classes of products, such as cellular phones.

7 Social and technological changes produce new crime opportunities Technology frequently works to produce new products, but many of these are not especially suitable for theft, since they have no mass market or are too difficult to use. Other products become targets for th eft. E.ven these often go through a life cycle and may become no longer attractive to thieves. In general, mass-produced consume r goods pass through a life cycle of four stages:

• • • •

Innovation stage Growth stage Mass market stage Saturation stage

In the illlioval'ioll stage, the product is sold to a special group of cons ume rs. It may be expensive, difficult to lise, relatively heavy and awkward. That ex plains why the early computers were not likely to be stolen. E.ven th e early home video cassette players were not supported by a wide selection of availabl e movi es from nea rby video stores. So why steal them? In the growth stage, products become easie r to use, cheaper to buy, lighter and less awkward to carry. More people know how to use them and want one, and th efts therefore accelerate. That is just what happened as the desk computer became more popular and as video cassette players and CD players gained ground. In the mass market stage, the product gains further in appeal. More units are sold and theft becomes endemic. By the saturatiotl stage most people who really want the product have it , and thefts decline. For example, video cassette and CD players are now so common that they cost relatively little and offer few rewards to the thief; hand calculators sell for a few dollars and are mostly safe on your desk with the door open. Many products that once fed the crime wave arc now in the satu ration stage, offering little incentive to the ft. As innovations occur, new products enter the same cyde. In addition, valuab le items, such as airbags and laptop computers, provide va luable new targets for easy theft.

8 Crime can be prevented by reducing opportunities If it were not true that reducing opportunities helps prevent crime, no-one would bother to take routine precautions such as locking their cars and houses, keeping their money in safe places, counselling their children to avoid strangers, and wa tching the neighbours' home when they are away. [n fact, we all take these kinds of precautions every day of our lives. These acti ons might sometimes displace the risk of cri min al attack to others. To avoid this and achieve more general reductions in risks of crime, wider action to reduce opportunities must be taken by the pOlice, by government and by other agencies. Simila r thinking gu ides several approaches to crime prevention, including: • problem-oriented policing • defensible spare architecture • crime prevention through environmental design • situational crime prevention. Despite their differences, each seeks to reduce oppo rtun ities for crime for particular kinds of targets, places, and classes of victim s. Each is concerned with preventing very specific kinds of crime. None of the four attempts to improve hum an characte r. Most important, all four seek to block crime in practical, natural, and simple ways, at low social and economic costs.

9 Reducing opportunities does not usually displace crime All these different ways o f reducing opportuni ties for crime have met the same objection , that all they do is move cr ime around, not prevent it. This theory of 'displacement' sees crime as being shifted around in five main ways: • crime can be moved from one location to another (geographical displacement); • crime can be moved from o ne time to another (temporal displacement); • crime can be directed away from one target to another (target displacement); • one met hod of committing crime can be substituted fo r another (tactical disp lacement); • one kind of crime can be substituted for anot her (crime type displacement).

Opportumty makes the thief practical theory for crime prevention

In each case, it is assumed that offenders must commit crime whatever the impediments they face, or to put the point in colloquial terms, 'bad will ou t'. [... 1 Whatever the basi~ of the assumption, it neglects the important causa l roles of temptation and opportunity. 1... 1 Lven in the ca':le of more committed offender~, the displacement theory gives far too little importance to the causal role of opportunity. 1... 1 rhose who assume that displacement is inevitable o\we'itimate its capacity to occu r. This shown by the example of drug markets. It is frequently assumed that closing down a particular drug market will result in dealers si mpl y moving to another nearby location where they can contin ue their trade. But this ignores th e reasons why the original location was chosen in the first place. II might: •

be easy for drug purchasers to reach by car;

• be easy to find and to drive to from distant parts of the city or suburbs; • be near a bus stop for th ose who have to travel by public transport; • be near th e dealers' homes and particularly convenien t for them ; • be near a pub or corne r store that provides dealers with refreshments and a betting shop that provides entertainment; • have a public phone to fa cil itate cont acts between dea lers and purchasers. Most nea rby loca ti o ns will lad. these combined advantages for dealers and purchasers. When suitable locati ons exist nearb y, they may already be drug sites whose dealers will fight to keep control. This shows that the scope fo r displacement may be more limited than is often assumed, but it does not mean that it should be ignored. Rational choice theory predicts that: Offende rs wil l disp lace their preven ted c rimes when t he benefits for doing so outweigh the costs. They wi ll not disp lace their crimes when t he costs outweigh their benefits. [... ] To su m up, displacement is always a threat to preventio n, bu t t here are strong theore tical reasons for believ ing that it is far from inevitable. In addition, th e studies of displaceme nt show th at even when it does occur, it m ay be far from comp lete and that im portant net reductions in cri me can be ach ieved

by opportunity-reducing measures. 10 Focused opportunity reduction can produce wider declines in crime

Apart from show in g that displacement is not the threat once thought, studies of displacement have yielded an additional dividend. They have found that sometimes the reverse of displacement can occur. Rathe r than crime being exported to other tim es and places by prevention measures, it is the benefits of focused prevention measures that can sprea d beyond th e ta rgets of in terven tio n . Many examples now exist, in cluding the following: • When ecrv came ras were introduced to monitor three ca r parks at the University of Surrey, crime declined no t o nly in th ese car parks but also in o ne o ther th at was not given surveilla nce by the ca meras. • When ecrv ca meras were in stalled on five double-decker buses be longing to a fleet of 80 in the North of England , vandalism by schoolchildren dropped for the whole flee t, not just those with ca mera s (three of which were fitted only with dummy ca meras). • When books in an University of Wisconsin library were electronically tagged to sound an alarm if they were removed illegitimately, not only did thefts of books decline but also of video-cassettes and other materials that had not bee n tagged. • When a New Jersey di scount electronic retailer introduced a reg ime of daily counting of valuable merchandise in the warehouse, not only did thefts of these items plummet, but also of those of other items not repeatedly counted . • When 'red light ' cameras were installed at certain junctions in Strathclyde, not only did fewer people 'ru n the lights' at these locations, but also at other traffic lights nearby. • The implementation of a package of situa tional measures for houses that had been repeatedly burgled on the Kirkholt housing estate reduced burglaries for the whole of Kirkho lt, not just fo r those houses given additional protection. • When veh icle tracking syste ms were introduced in six large Ameri ca n cit ies, ri sks of theft decli ned not just for ca r owners who pu rchased the devices, but also city-wide.

317

318 14 · Contemporary classicism

These are all examples of what researchers call the 'diffu sion of benefits' of crime prevention measures. Taken toget he r, these examples suggest that potential offenders may be aware that new prevention measures have been int roduced, but they are often unsure of th e precise sco pe of these. They ma y believe the measures have been impl emented more widely th an they really have, an d that the effort

needed to commit crime or the ri sks incurred ha ve been increased for a wider range of places, tim es or targets than in fa ct is the case. From M. Felson and R. V. G. Clarke, Opportunity

Makes the Thi e f: Practical Theo ry for Crime Prevention (London: Home Office), 1998, pp. 9-35.

14.4 Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson Introduction In its summary report the National Commission on th e Causes and Prevention of Violence (1969: xxxvii) presents an impo rtant socio logical paradox: Why. we must ask, have urban violent crime rates increased substan tially during the past decade when the condi tions that are supposed to cause violent crime have not worsened have, indeed, generally improved? The Bureau of the Census, in its latest report on trends in social and economic conditions in metropolitan areas, states that most 'indicators of well-being pOint toward progress in the cities si nce 1960.' Thus, for example, the proportion of blacks in cities who completed high school rose from 43 percent in 1960 to 61 percent in 1968; unemployment rates dropped significantly betwee n 1959 and 1967 and the median family income of bla cks in cities increased from 61 percent to 68 percent of the median white family income during the sa me period. Also during the same period the number of persons living below the legally-defin ed poverty level in cit ies declined from 11.3 million to 8.3 million. Despite th e general continuation of these trends in socia l and economic cond ition s in the United States, the Uniform Crime Report (F BI, ]975:49) indicates that between 1960 and 1975 reported rates of robbery, aggravated assault, forcible rape and homicide increased by 263%, 164%, ] 74%, and 188%, respectively. Similar property crime rate increases reported during this same period (e.g., 200% for burglary rate) suggest that the paradox

noted by the Violen ce Commi sSion applies to non· violent offenses as well. In the present paper we con sid er these paradoxical trends in crime rates in terms of changes in the 'routine acti viti es' of everyday life. We believe the structure of suc h activities influ en ces criminal opportunity and th erefo re affects trends in class o f crimes we refer to as direct-contact predatory violations. Predatory violations are defined here as illegal acts in which 'someo ne defi nitely and intentionally takes o r damages the person or property of another' (Glaser, 1971:4). Further, thi s analysis is confined to those predatory violations invol ving direct ph ysical contact between at lea st one o ff ender and at least o ne person o r object which that offender attempts to take o r damage. We argue that structural changes in routin e activity patterns can influence crime rates by affecting the convergence in space and time of the three minimal elements o f direct-contact predatory violati ons: (1) motivated o ffenders, (2) suitable targets, and (3) the absence of capable guardians against a violatio n. We further argue that the la ck of anyone o f th ese elements is sufficie nt to prevent the successful compl etion of a direct-contact predatory crime, and that the convergence in time and space of suitable targets and th e absence of capab le guardians may even lead to large increases in crime rates with o ut necessarily requiring any increase in th e structural conditions that motivate individual s to engage in crime. That is, if the proporti on of motivated offender s or eve n suitable targets w.ere to remain stable in a community, changes III routine activities could nonetheless alter the likelihood of their convergence in space and time, thereby creati ng more opportunities for

Social change and cri me rate trends: a routine activity approach

crimes to occur. Control th erefo re becomes critical. If contro ls th ro ugh ro utin e activit ies we re to d ecrease, illegal predato ry acti viti es coul d th en be likely to increase. [... ] Unlike man y cr imino log ica l in q uiries, we do not examin e wh y individu als Or groups arc inclin ed c rim inall y, but rath er we ta ke cri m inal inclinati o n as give n and exa min e th e m anne r in whi ch the spati o· te mpo ral o rgani zat io n o f social activiti es h e lps peo pl e to tran slate th eir criminal inclination s into acti o n . C riminal violati o ns are treated here as ro utine ac tiviti es whi ch share many attributes of, and are interd epe nd e nt with, o ther routine activities.

Changing trends in routine activity structure and parallel trends in crime rates The main thesis presented h ere is that the dramatic increa se in th e repo rt ed crim e rates in the U. S. since 1960 is linlo..ed to changes in the routine activity structure of American society and to a cor· responding increa se in target suitability and decrease in guardian presence. If such a thesis has validity, then we should be able to identify th ese social trends and show how they relate to predato ry crim inal victimization rates.

(fil.S, 1975: Tabl e 11 6), an d a n 184% in crease in overseas travell er.. per 100,000 popul at ion (US BC, 1975: Ta bl e 366). -I h e Na ti ona l Trave l Survey, con· d ucted as pa rt o f th e U.S. Ce nsus Bureau 's Cens us of Transpo rt ati o n, confirms the gen eral trends, tal· lying an 8 1% in crease in t he number o f vacati o ns taken by America ns fro m 1967 to 1972, a five-year peri od (US BC, 1973a: Introduction ).

Table 14.4.1

Proportion of households unattended by anyone 14 years old or over by time of day during first visit by Census Bureau interviewer, 1960 and 1971

November. 1971 Time of day 1960 Census

Current Pop . Survey

Percent Change

8:00-8:59 a.m.

29%

43

+48.9%

9:00-9:59 a.m.

29

44

+58

10:00-10:59 a.m. 31

42

+36

11 :00-11 :59 a.m. 32

41

+28

12:00-12:59 p.m. 32

41

+28

1:00-1 :59 p.m.

31

43

+39

2:00-2:59 p.m.

33

43

+30

Trends in human activity patterns

3:00-3:59 p.m.

30

33

+10

The decade 1960-1970 expe ri enced noteworthy trends in th e activities of the American population. For example, the percent of the population consisting of female college students increased 118% (US BC, 1975: Table 225). Married female labor force participant rates increased 3 1% (USBC, 1975: Table 563), while the pe rcent of the population liv· ing as primary ind ivid ua ls increased by 34% (US BC, 1975: Tab le 5 1; see also Kobrin, 1976). We gain so me further insight into changing routine activity patterns by comparing hourly data for 1960 and 1971 on households IInattended by per· sons ages 14 o r over when U.S. census interviewers fir s t called (see Table 14.4 . 1). Th ese data sugges t that the proporti o n o f h ouseh o lds unattended at 8 A.M. in creased by almost half between 1960 and 1971. One also find s in creases in rates of outof·town travel, wh ich provides greater opportunity for both daytim e and nighttime burglary o f resi · dences. Between 1960 and 1970, there was a 72% increase in state and national park visits per capita (US Be , 1975), an 144% in crease in the percent of plant workers eligible fo r three weeks vacati o n

4:00-4:59 p.m.

28

30

+7

5:00-5:59 p.m.

22

26

+18

6:1XHi:59 p.m.

22

25

+14

7:00-7:50 p.m.

20

29

+45

8:00-8:59 p.m.

24

22

-8

Source: Calculated from USBC (1973b: Table A).

The dispersion of acti vities away from households appears to be a major recent social change. Although thi s decade also expe ri en ced an impo r· tant 31% in crease in th e percent of the populatio n ages 15- 24, age st ru cture ch ange was only one o f many socia l trend s occurring during the period , especially trend s in the circulation of peo ple and property in American society. I Th e impo rtan ce of th e changing activity structure is und erscored by taking a brief look at demographic changes betwee n the years 1970 and 19 75, a period of continuing crime rate

319

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14 · Contemporary classicism

increments. Most of the recent changes in age struc tu re relevant to crime rates already had occurred by 1970; indeed, the proportion of the population ages 15-24 increased by only 6% between 1970 and 1975, compared with a 15% increase during the five years 1965 to 1970. On the other hand, major changes in the structure of routine activities continued during these years. For example, in only five years, the estimated proportion of the population consisting of husband-present, marri ed wo men in the labor force households increased by 11%, while the estimated number of non-husband-wife households per 100,000 populatio n increased fr om 9, 150 to 11 ,420, a 25% increase (US BC, 1976: Tables SO, 276: USBC, 1970-1975). AI the same time, the percent of population enrolled in higher educa ti on increased 16% between 1970 and 1975. Related property trends and their relation to human activity patterns

Many of the activity trends mentioned above norma ll y invo lve significant investmen ts in durable goods. For example, the dispersion of popu lation across relative ly more households (es pecially nonhusband-wife households) enlarges the market for durable goods such as television sets and automobiles. Women participating in the labor force and both men and wome n enrolled in coll ege provide a market for automobiles. Both work and travel often involve the purchase of maj or movable or portable durables and their use away from home. Considerabl e data are available which indicate that sa les of consumer goods changed dramatica ll y between 1960 and 1970 (as did their size and weight), hence providi ng more suitable prope rt y available for theft. For example, during thi s decade, constant-dollar personal consu mer expend itures in th e United States for motor vehicles and parts increased by 71%, while constant-dollar expenditures for other durabl es increased by 105% (calculated from CEA, 1976: Table 8-16). In additi on, electroni c house hold appliances and small houseware shipments in creased from 56.2 to 119.7 milli on units (Electrical MerchandiSing Week, 1964; Merc/wlldisiflg Week, 1973), During the sa me decade, appliance imports increased in value by 681% (U513C, 1975, Table 1368).

Thi s sa me period appears to have spawned a revolution in small durable product design which furth er feeds th e op portunity for crime to occur. Rel eva nt data from the 1960 and 19 70 Sears catalogs on th e weight of many co nsum e r durabl e

goods were examined. Sears is the nation 's largest retailer and its policy of purchasing and relabeling standard manufactured goods makes its catalogs a good source of data on widely merchandised co n· sumer goods. The lightest television listed for sale in 1960 weighed 38 Ibs. , compared with J 5 Ibs. for 1970. Thus, the lightest televisions were 2 ~ times as heavy in 1960 as 1970. Similar trends are obse rved for dozens of other goods listed in the Sears catalog. Data from Consumer Reports Buying Gllide, published in December of 1959 and 1969, show sim ilar changes for radios, record playe rs, slid e projectors, tape recorders, televisions, toasters and many other goods. Hence, major declines in weigh t between 1960 and 1970 were quite significan t for these and other goods, which suggests that the consumer goods market may be producing many more targets suitabl e for theft. In general, one finds rapid growth in property suitable for illegal removal and in household and individual exposure to attack during the years 1960-1975. Related trends in business establishments

Of course, as households and individuals increased their ownership of small durables, bUSinesses also increased the value of the merchandise which they transport and sell as weB as the money involved in these transactions. Yet the Census of Business con· ducted in 1958, 1963, 1967, and 1972 indi cate that the number of wholesale, retail, service, and publi c warehouse establis hm ents (inclu din g estab lishments owned by la rge o rganizations) was a nearly co nstant ratio of one for eve ry 16 persons in the United States. Since more goods and money were distributed over a relatively fixed number of bUSiness establish ments, the tempo of bUSiness activity per establishment apparently was increasing. At the same time, the percent of the population employed as sales clerks or salesmen in retail trade declined from 1.48% to 1.27%, between 1960 a nd 1970, a 14.7% decline (USBC, 1975, Table 589).

Though both business and personal property increased, th e chang ing pace of activities appears to have exposed the latter to greater relative risk of attack, whether at ho me or elsew here, due to th e dispe rsio n of goods among man y more hou se ho lds, whil e co nce ntrating goods in business es tablishm en ts . Howeve r, me rchandise in retail es tablishm ent s with h eavy volume and few employees to guard it probably is exposed to maj or increments in risk of ill ega l remova l than is most other business property.

Social change and crime rate trends: a routme activity approach

Figure 14.4.2 Offense analysis trends for robbery, burglary, larceny and murder; United States, '960- '975 A. Robberies·

1960

1965

1970

52.6

57.0

59.8

Residentia l robbery

8.0

10.1

13.1

Commercial robbery

39.4

32.9

27.1

100.0

100.0

100.0

Residential Residential nightime Commercial

1960 15.6 24.4 60.0

1965 24.5 25.2 50.2

1970 31.7 25.8 42.5

1975 33.2 30.5 36.3

Totals

100.0

99.9

100.0

100.0

1960 6.0 94.0

1965 7.8 92.2

1970 9.2 90.8

1975 11.3 88J

Highway robbery

Total s B. Burglaries

C. larcenies Shoplifting Other Totals D. Murders Relative killings Romance, arguments b Fe lon types t

Totals

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

1963 31.0 51 .0 17.0

1965 31.0 48.0 21.0

1970 23.3 47 .9 28.8

1975 22.4 45.2 32.4

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Source: Offense analysis from UCR, various years.

• excluding miscellaneous robberies. The 1975

distribution omitted due to apparent instability of post-1970 data. b

Includes romantic triangles, lovers' quarrels and

arguments. C

Includes both known and suspected felon types.

Composition of crime trends

If these changes in th e ci rcu lati o n of people and property are in fact re lated t o crime trends, the co mposition of the latter sh o uld reflect thi s. We expect relatively greater in creases in personal and house h o ld victimization as compared with most business victimizations, while shoplifting should increase more rapidly than o th e r types of thefts from businesses. We expect personal offenses at the hands of strangers to manifest greater in c rea ses than such offenses at the hand s of nonstrangers.

Finally, reSid ential burglary rates sh o uld increase more in da ytime than nighttim e. The available lime se ries on the composition of offenses confirm these expectat ions. For example, Table 14.4.2 shows that commercial burglaries declined from 60% to 36% of the to tal, whi le daylime residential burglaries increased from 16% to 33%. Unlike th e o ther crimes against business, shoplifting in creased its sh are. Though we lack trend data on the circumst ances of other vio lent offe n ses, murder data co nfirm o u r expectati o n s. Between 1963 and 1975, fe lon -type murders increased from 17% to 32% of the total. Compared with a 47% increase in the rale of relative killings in this period, we calculated a 294% increase in the murd er rate at th e hands of known or suspected felon types. Thus the t rends in the com po sitio n of recorded crime rates appear to be highly consistent wi th the activity structure trends noted earlier.

Discussion In our judgment man y conventional theories o f cri m e (the adequacy of whi ch usually is eva luated by cross-sectional data, or no data at all) have difficulty accounting for the annual ch anges in crime rate trends in the post-World War II United States. These theories may prove useful in explaining crim e t rends during oth er periods, within specifi c co mmunities, o r in parti cular subgroups of the popula t ion. Longitudinal agg regate d ata for th e Un ited States, however, indicate that the trends for many o f th e presumed causal variables in these theoretical structures are in a direction opposite to those hypothesized to be the causes of crime. For example, during th e d ecade 1960-19 70, the percen t of th e populati on below the low-income level d eclined 44% and the unemployment rate d ecli n ed 186%. Central city population as a share of the whole population declin ed sligh tl y, while the percent of foreign stock declin ed 0.1%, etc. (see U5BC, 1975,654, 19,39). On the other hand, the convergence in time and spa ce of three elements (motivated offenders, suitable targe ts, and th e abse nce of capable guardians) appears use ful for understanding crime rate tre nd s. The lack of any of these elements is sufficient to prevent th e occurrence of a successful direct-conta ct predatory crime. The convergence in time and space of sui table targets and the abse nce of ca pable guardians can lead to large in creases in

321

322 14· Contemporary classicism

crime rates without any increase or change in the st ructural conditions that motivate individua ls to engage in crime. Presumably, had the social indicators of the variables hypothesized to be the causes of crime in conventional theories changed in the direct ion of favoring increased crime in the postWorld War II United States, the increases in crime rates likely would have been even more staggering than those which were observed. In any event, it is our belief that criminologists have underemphasized the importance of the convergence of suitable targets and the absence of capable guardians in explaining recent inc reases in t he crime rate. Furthermore, the effects of the convergence in time and space of these elements may be mult iplicative rathe r than additive. That is, thei r convergence by a fixed percentage may produce increases in crime rates far greater t han that fixed percentage, demonstra t ing how some relat ively modest social trends can contribute to some relatively large changes in crime rate trends. [... ] Wi th out deny ing the im portance of factors mot ivating offenders to engage in crime, we have focuse d speci fi c attention upon violations themselves and the p rerequisites tor th eir occu rren ce. However, th e rout ine activity approach migh t in the future be applied to t h e ana lysis o f offen d ers and th ei r in cl inations as wel l. Fo r example, the stru ctu re of p rimary group activity may affect the li keli hood t hat cu ltural transm ission or social con trol of crim inal inclina t ions will occur, while t he structure of t he co mmu ni ty may affect t he tempo o f crim inogen ic peer g rou p act ivity. We also may ex pect t h at circu mstan ces favorable for carryi n g out v iolati ons contribute to crimi na l in cl inations in the long ru n by rewa rd ing these incli n at iOns. We furth er suggest th at th e rou t in e act iv ity framework may prove usefu l in explain ing wh y th e crim inal jus t ice system , th e co m munity an d t he fa mil y have ap peared so in effect ive in exe rting social con trol since 1960. Substa ntial in creases in th e op portunity to ca rry o ut predatory violati o ns may h ave un dermin ed societ y'S mecha n isms fo r

social control. For example, it may be difficult for institutions seeking to increase the certainty, celerity and severity of punishm ent to compete with structural changes resulting in vast increases in the certainty, celerity and value of rewards to be gained from illegal predatory acts. It is ironic that the very factors which increase the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of life also may increase the opportunity for p reda tory violations. For example, automobiles provide freedom of movement to offenders as well as average citizens and offer vulnerable targets for theft. College enrollment, female labor force participation, urbanization, suburbanization, vacations and new electronic durables provide various opportunities to escape the confines of the household while they increase the risk of predatory victimization. Indeed, the opportunity for predatory crime appea rs to be enmeshed in the opportunity structure for legitimate activities to such an extent that it might be very difficult to root out substantial amounts of crime without modifying much of our way of life. Rather than assuming that predatory crime is simply an indicator of social breakdown, one might take it as a byproduct of freedom and prospe rity as they manifest themselves in the routine activities of everyday life. From L.E. Collen and M. Fe/sorl, 'Social cllange and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach ', Am erican Soc iological Review, 1979. 44: 588-608.

Note 1 While the more sophisticated treatments of the topiC have varied somewhat in their findings, most recent studies attempting to link crime rate increases to the cha ngi ng age structure of the American population have found th at the latter account for a relatively limited proportion of the general crime trend (see, for example, Sagi and We ll ford, 1968; Ferdi nand, 1970; and Wellford, 1973).

•

Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach

References Bureau of Laoor Statistics (BI$) 1975 Halllll'OOk of Labor

Stati5rks 1975 - Re(m!rlc:t' Editioll. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Officc.

Council of Economic ,\dvhors (Cl0\) 1976 TIl(> Fco"omi( Report of the Pre~idl'llt, Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Ollicc. Electrical Merdumdisi"x H'ft'k 1964 Statistical and Marketing Repon Uanuary). New York: Billboard Publications. federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 1975 Crime ill (Ill'

U.S.: U,d(orm Crime Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Prin ting Office.

Glase r, Daniel Markham.

1971

Sod(//

Deviance.

Chicago:

Kobrin, I'ranees E. 1976 'The primary individual and the family: changes in living arrangements in the U.S. since 1940.' /OIlr1wl Marritlse (/tid OIl' Family

or

38,2:\1-9. Merdllllll/i5illS Wet'k 1973 Statistical and Marketing

Report (February). New York: Billboard Publications. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence 1969 Crimes of Violence. Vol. 13. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Bureau of the Census (USBC) 1973a Census of rrampO(tatioll, 1972. U.S. SUII/m(lry. Was h ington, D.C.: U.S. Governmen t Printing Office. 1975- 1976 Statistical Abstract of the U.S. Washington D.C.: U.S. Governmen t Printing Office.

323

Introduction KEY CONCEPTS

atavism; feminist empiricism; objectivity/subjectivity; patriarchy; postmodern feminism; standpoint feminism; status offences

The vast majority of criminologists you will have come across, and by now per~ haps whose work you have read, are almost certainly men. Historically, this has been a male-dominated subject - not just in who its practitioners are, but also in much of its focus. By and large , deviance by women has just not interested (male) criminologists much. The feminist movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century has begun to change that, albeit slowly in some respects. Dorie Klein (Reading 15.1) was one of a number of women at the forefront of this shift in criminological attention from the 19605 onward. In her article on the etiology of female crime she reviews some of the early work in the field , notably that of Cesare Lombroso, w.1. Thomas and Otto Pollak. As was suggested in chapter 5, although now widely discredited, Lombroso's work is of continuing importance. Crucially, she says, 'reading the work helps to achieve a better understanding of what kinds of myths have been developed for women in general and for female crime and deviance in particular'. In relation to Lombroso, these include passivity, amorality together with an inherent deceitfulness: ' bad women are whores, driven by lust for money or for men, often essentially masculine in their orientation' . Later, W.I. Thomas was to link women 's deceitfulness to their physiology - in particularly to their sexuality. Old-fashioned it may be, but you may well find echoes (or something stronger than echoes) in some much more modern discussion of female offending . Meda Chesney-Lind (Reading 15.2) offers a more modern take on female offending. She is highly critical of much criminological theorizing , such as that associated with the Chicago School (see chapter 9) for its preoccupation with boys (indeed its complete failure to even consider girls most of the time), and for strain theorists' identification of what are largely male opportunity structures and blockages. By contrast, she shows that the juvenile justice system in America paid much more attention to the female offender and how in the post-war years there was a particular preoccupation with girls' morals. As a consequence a large number of reformatories and training schools were developed for girls. As feminist scholarship in criminology developed so a series of assumptions or, as Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind (Reading 15.3) put it, 'myths', emerged. They tackle three of these: the idea that feminist analyses are problematically subjective; that feminism is only concerned with women and ignores men; and, finally, the implication that there is a single approach to feminist analysis. They go on to offer a definition of feminist analysis and then to distinguish such approaches from non-feminist analyses. Such approaches are or should be, central to criminology, they argue, in order to allow a fully-rounded explanation of female offending, victimization, and of criminal justice policy to emerge. It helps to reorient criminology away from its overarching focus on white, economically-privileged, male experience and to provide bridges to other social and political theory. However, it is not possible to produce a Single, mono-

lithic 'feminist criminology' for there will always , of necessity, be different perspectives. A more critical approach to this latter question is offered by Carol Smart (Reading 15.4) . As she puts it, 'I have argued that the core enterprise of criminology is profoundly problematic '. Smart uses Harding 's distinction between 'feminist empiricism ', 'standpoint feminism ', and 'postmodern feminism'. Feminist empiricism , she notes , has been highly critical of traditional, empiricist models of scientific inquiry and for the way in which 'what has passed for science is in fact the world perceived from the perspective of men '. Standpoint feminism puts women 's experiences and struggle at the heart of scholarly activity, and feminist postmodernism rejects the philosophical assumption of a single knowable reality. Taken together, these take feminism in very different directions from those she suggests are currently generally being pursued in criminology. To the question, therefore , of the nature of the future relationship between feminism and criminology she suggests that it is very difficult to see what the latter has to offer the former.

Questions for discussion 1 . In what ways did Lombroso consider the female criminal to be 'atavistic'?

2. In what ways might an understanding of Lombroso's, w.1. Thomas' or Otto Pollak's ideas about female criminality be relevant today? Give examples. 3. What are the main fem inist criticisms of the Chicago School, strain theory

and subcultural theory? 4. Outline Chesney-Lind's argument in relation to the relevance and meaning of the post-war juvenile justice system's focus on girls' 'immorality' or 'waywardness'. 5. What are the main distinctions between feminist and non-feminist analyses? 6. What are the advantages of including a feminist perspective within criminology?

7. Why does Carol Smart argue that the 'core enterprise of criminology is profoundly problematic'? 8. What do you think the future relationship between feminist thought and criminology might look like, and why?

15.1 The etiology of female crime

Darie Klein One specific notion of women offe red by Lombroso is women's physiological imm obility and psychological passivity, la ter elabo rat ed by Thomas, Freud and other writers. Anot her ascribed cha ra cteristic is the Lombrosian n otion o f women's adaptability to su rroundings and their capacity for su rviva l as being su pe rior to that of m en. A third idea di scussed by Lom broso is women's amo rality: they are co ld and calculating. This is developed by Tho ma s ( 1923), who describes women's man ipulation o f the male sex urge fo r ulterior purposes; by Freud (1933), who sees women as avenging their la ck of a penis on men; and by Pollak (1950), who depicts women as inherently deceitful. When one looks at these specific traits, o n e sees co ntradi ct ions. The myth of compassionate wo men clashes with their reputed coldness; their fr ailn ess belies their ca pa city to survive. One possible explanation for th ese contradictions is th e duality o f sex ua l ideology with regard t o 'good' and 'bad' women. Bad WOmen are whores, driven by lus t for money or for men, often esse nti a ll y ' wasculine' in their orientation, and perhaps afflicted with a to uch of peni s envy. Good women a re chaste, 'feminine,' and usually not prone to crimin al activity. But when they are, they co mmit cri me in a most ladylike way such as po isoni ng . In more sophisticated th eo ry, all women are see n as having a bit of both tendencies in them . Therefore, wom en can be com passion ate mid cold, frail a"d s turdy, piou s ami amoral, d epending on which path they c h oose to follow. They are seen as ratio nal (a lth ough they are irrational, too!), atomistic indiViduals making c hoices in a vacuum, prompted o nl y by personal, physio logical/ psychologi cal fa cto rs . These choices relate only to the sexlw/ sphere. Wo men have no place in any other sphere. Men, o n the o ther hand, are n ot held sexually accountable, although, as Thomas n o t es ( 1907), they are held responsible in eco"omic matters. Me n 's sex ual freedom is justified by the myth o f ma sculine, irresistible sex urges. Thi s myth, still wo rshi pped tOday, is frequently o ffered as a rationaliza ti on fo r the existence of prostitution and th e double standard. As Davis maintains, this necessitates the parallel existence of classes of 'good' and 'bad' women.

Introduction The c rimin a lit y of women ha s long been a neglected

su bj ect

area

of

crimin ology.

Many

explanations have been advanced for this, such as women's low o ffi cial rate o f crim e and d eli nquency a nd th e prepo nd e ran ce of male theorists in the field . Fema le criminalit y has often ended up as a footn ote to works 011 Ill en that purport to be works

on cri minality in ge neral. Th ere ha s bee n, however, a small group of writings spec ifi cally con ce rned with women and crime . T hi s paper will explore those works concern ed with th e etiology o f female crime

and delinquency, beginning with the turn-of· the-ce ntury writing of Lombroso and extending to

the present. Writers selected to be included ha ve been chosen either for their influence on the field, such as Lombroso, Thomas, Freud, Davis and Pollak [only Klei n 's overv iew of the works of Lombroso, Thomas and Pollak are included in thi s extract] because they are representative of the kinds of work being published , such as Konopka, Vedde r and Somervi ll e, and Cow ie, Cowie and Slate r. Th e emphasis is on th e co ntinuity between these works, because it is clear that, despite recognizable differences in analytical approaches and specific theories, th e authors represent a tradition to a great extent. It is important to understand, th erefore, the shared assumptions made by the writers that are used in laying the groundwork for their theories.

Lombroso: 'there must be some anomaly... ' Lombroso 's work on female criminality (1920) is important to consider today despite the fact that his methodology and conclus ions have long been successfully discredited. Later writings on female crime by Thomas, Davis, Pollak and others use more soph isticated methodologies and may proffer more palatable liberal theories. However, to va rying degrees th ey rely on th ose sexual ideolog ies based on implicit assumptions about the physiological and psycho logical nature of women that are explicit in Lombroso's work. Reading the work hel ps to achieve a better understanding o f what kinds of myths have been developed fo r women in general and for female crime and deviance in particular.

328

The etiology of female crime

These dual moralities for the sexes are ou tgrowths of the economic, political and social realities for men and women . Women are primarily workers within the family, a critical institution of reproduction and sodaliza tion that services such basic needs as food and \ helter. l..aw~ and codes of behavior for women thus attempt to maintain the smooth functioning of women in that role, which requires that women act as a conservative fo rce in the continuation of the nudear fam il y. Women 's main tasks are sexual, and the law embodies sex ual limitations for women , which do not exist for me n, such as the prohibition of promiscuity for girls. This ex plains why th eorists of female criminality are not o n ly concerned with sex ua l violatio ns by female offenders, but attempt to account for even /lomexl/CII offenses, such as prostituti on, in sexual terms, e.g., women enter prostitution for sex rather than for money. Such women are not o nl)' economic offenders but a re sexual deviants, falling neatly into the category of 'bad ' women. The works of Lombroso, particularly Tile Female O/fmtler (1920), are a foremost example of the biological explanation of crime. Lombroso deals with crime as an atavism, or sUf\'ival of ' primitive' traits in individual s, particularly those of the female and nonwhite ra ces. He theo rizes that individuals deve lop d ifferentially within sexual and racial limi tations which differ hierarchically from th e most highly developed, the white men, to th e most primitive, th e nonwhite women. Beginning with th e assumption that crim inal s must be atavistic, he spen ds a good deal of time comparing the crania, moles, height s, etc. of convicted crimin als and prostitutes with those of normal women . Any trait that he find s to be more co mm on in the 'criminal' group is pronounced an atavistic trait, such as moles, dark hair, etc., and women with a num ber of these telltale traits could be rega rded as potentially criminal, si nce they are of th e atavistic type . He specifically rejects the idea that so me of th ese traits, for example obesity in prostitutes, could be the resu lt of their activities rather than an indicator of their propensity to them. Many of the traits depicted as 'anomalies,' such as da rl\ness and shortness, are characterist ic of certa in racial groups, such as the Sicili ans, who undoubted ly co m pr ise an opp ressed group within Italy and form a large part of the imprisoned popu lation. Lombroso traces an ove rall pattern of evo lutio n in th e hu m an spec ies t ha t acco unts fo r th e

uneven development of groups: the white and nonwhite ra ces, mal es and females, adults and child ren . Women, children and nonW hites share mallY trait s in cOlll mo n . There are fewer variatio ns in their mental capac ities: 'even the female crimi nal is monotonous and uniform co mpared with her male compa ni o n, just as in general woman is in ferior 10 man' (iI/iii.: 122), due to her be ing ' atavi ~ ti ca ll y nearer to her origin than the male' (il/ ill.: 107). The notion of women's mediocrity, or limit ed range of men tal poss ibilities, is a recurrent one in the writings o f th e twen ti eth centu ry. Thomas and o th e rs no te that women comprise 'fewe r geniuses, fewer lunatics and fewer morons' (Thomas, 1907: 45); la cking the imagination to be at either end of the spectrum , they are conformist and dull ... not due to social , poli ti ca l o r economic constraint s on their activities, but because of their innat e physiological limitations as a sex. Lombroso attrib ut es the lower female rate of criminality to thei r having fewer anomalies, which is o ne aspect of their closeness to the lower forms of less differenti ated life. Related cha racteri stics of women are their passivity and conse rvatis m. Lombroso admits that women's traditional sex roles in the famil y bind the m to a more seden tary life. However, he insists that women's passivity ca n be directly traced to the 'immob ilit y o f th e ov ule compared with the zoosper m' ( 1920: 109), falling back on the sexual act in an interesting anticipation of Freud. Women, like the lower ra ces, have greater powers of endura nce and resistance to mental and physical pa in than men . Lo mbroso states: 'denizens of female prisons ... have reached th e age of 90, having lived within th ose walls si nce they were 29 without any grave injury to heal th ' (ibid.: 125). Denying the humanity of women by denying their capab ilit y fo r suffering justifies exploitation of women's energies by arguing for their suitability to hardship. L.o mbroso remarks that 'a du chess can adapl hersel f to new surroundings and become a washerwoman mll ch mo re easily than a man can transform himself under analogous conditions' (ib id.: 272). The theme of women's adaptability to physi cal and soc ial surroundings, which are ma le initia ted, ma le co ntrolled, and often exp ressed by saying tha t women are actually the 'stro nger' sex, is a pe rsis ten t thread in writ ings on women. Lomb roso expla ins tha t because wo men are unable to feel pain, they are insensitive to t he pain of others and la ck mora l refin eme nt. His blunt

329

330 15 · Feminist criminology

denia l of the age-old myth of women's compassion and sensitivity is modified, however, to take into account women's low crime rate:

it was regarded in the primitive periods of human evolution and is still regarded by many uncivilized nations (ibid.: 2 17).

Women have many traits in common with children; that their moral sense is defic ient; that they are revengeful, jealous ... In ordinary cases these defects are neut ralized by piety, maternity, want of passion, sexual co ld ness, weakness and an undeveloped intelligence (ibid.: 151).

One may question this statement on several levels. Can it be assumed to have any validity at all, or is it false that women have a different sense of property than men? If it is valid to a degree, is it related to women's lack of property ownership and nonparticipation in the accumula ti o n of capi talist wealth? Indeed, as Thomas (1907) poi nts out, women are considered property th em selves. At an y rate, it is an interestin g point in Lombroso's book that ha s o nly been to uched o n by later writers, and always in a manner su ppo rti ve of the institution of private property.

Alth ough women la ck the high er sens ibiliti es of men, they are thus restrained fr o m criminal activity in most cases by la ck of intelligence and paSSion, qualities which criminal women possess as well as all mell. Within this fram ework of biol ogica l limits of women's nature, th e female offender is cha racterized as masculine whereas the normal woman is feminille. The anomalies of sku ll , physiogno my and brain ca paci ty o f femal e criminals, according to Lombroso, more closely app roxi mate that of the man , normal o r criminal, than they do those of the normal woman; th e female offende r often has a 'viril e cranium' and considerable body hair. Masculinity in women is an anomaly itself, ra th er than a sign of developme nt, h oweve r. A related noti on is developed by Thomas, who notes that in 'civi li zed' nations the sexes are mo re physically different. What we look for most in the female is femininity, and when we find the opposite in h er, we must co ncl ude as a rule that there must be some anomaly ... Virility was one of th e special features of the savage woman ... In the portraits of Red Indian and Negro beauties, whom it is difficult to recognize for women, so huge are th ei r jaws and cheekbones, so hard and coarse thei r features, and the same is often the case in their crania and brains (ibid.: 112) . The mo re highly developed races would therefore have the most feminized women with the requi site passiv ity, lack of passion, etc. This is a racist and classist definition of femininity - just as are almost all theories of feminillity and as, indeed, is the thing itself. Th e ideal of the lady can only exist in a society built o n the exploitation of labor to maintain the woman of leisure who can be that ideal lady. Finally, Lombroso notes women's lack of property sense, which contributes to their criminality. In their eyes theft is ... an audacity for whi c h account compensation is due to the owner... as an individual rather than a social crime, just as

Thomas: 'the stimulation she craves' The works of W. I. Thomas are critical in that they mark a transition from purely physiological explanations such as Lombroso's to more sophisticated theories that emb race physiological, psychological and SOCial-st ructural factors. However, even the most sophistica ted explanatio ns of female crime rely on implicit assumptio ns about the biological nature of women. In Thomas' Sex and Society (1907) and The Unadjusted Girl (1923), there are important co ntradi cti o ns in the two approaches that are represen tative of the movemen ts during that period between publi catio n dates: a departure from bi o logical Social-Oarwinian theories to complex analyses of th e interaction betwee n society and the individual, I.e., societal repression and manipulation of the 'natural ' wishes of persons. In Sex and SOCiety (1907), Thomas poses basic biological differences behveen the sexes as h is starting point. Maleness is 'katabolic,' the animal fo rce which is destructive of energy and allows men the poss ibilit y o f crea tive work through thi s o utward now. Femaleness is 'anabolic,' analogous to a plant which sto res energy, and is motionless and conservative. Here Thomas is offering his own version of th e age-old mal e/female dichotomy expressed by Lombroso and elaborated on in Freud's paradigm, in the structural -functionalist 'instrumental-expressive' duality, and in other analyses of the status quo . According to Thomas, the dichotomy is most highly devel o ped in the more civilized races, due to the greater differentiation of sex roles. This statement ign o res the hard physical work done by poor white women at home and in the factories and offices in 'c ivili zed ' countries, and accepts a ruling-class definition of femininity.

The etiology of female crime

The cau se of women's relative decline in stature in more 'civilized' countri es is a subject o n whi ch Thomas is ambivalent. At one po int he attribut es it to th e lack of 'a superio r fitness on the motor side' in women (ib id.: 94); at another po int , he regards her loss of sexual freedolll as criti cal, with the coming of monogamy and her confi nement to sexual tasks such as wifehood and motherhood . He perceptively no tes: Women were st ill further degraded by the deve lopme nt of propert y and its contro l by man, togeth er with th e habit of treating her as a piece of property, wh ose value was enhanced if it s purity was assured (ib id.: 297). However, Thomas' underlying assumptions in his expla nati o n s o f the inferior sta tu s of wome n are p/lysi%gical ones. He attributes to men hi gh amounts of sexual energy, which lead them to pursue women for th eir sex, and he attributes to women maternal feelings deVOid of sexuali ty, which lead them to exchange sex for domesticity. Thus monogamy, with chastity for women, is the accommodation of these basic urges, and women are domesticated while men assume leadership, in a true market exchange. Why, then, does Thomas see problems in the position of women? It is because modern women are plagued by 'i rregularity, pettiness, ill health and in serviceableness' (ibid.: 245). Change is required to maintain social Iwrmony, apart from considerations of women 's needs, and women mu st be educated to make them better wives, a th eme reiterated throughout this century by 'liberals' on the subject. Correct ly ant icipating a threat, Th om as urges that change be made to stabilize the family, and warns that 'no civilization ca n rema in the highest if another civiliza tion adds to the intelligence of its men the intelligence of its women' (ibid.: 3 14). Thomas is motivated by considerations of social integrati on. Of co urse, one might question how women are to be able to contribute much if they are indeed anabolic. However, due to the transiti o nal nature of Thomas' work, there are immense contradictions in his writing. Many of Thomas' specific assertions about the nature of women are indistinguishable from Lombroso's; they both delineate a biological hierarchy along race and sex lines. Man has, in sho rt, become more somat ically specialized an anima) than women, and feels more keenly any disturbance of normal condi-

tions with wh ic h he has not the same physiological surplu s as woma n with which to meel th e disturbance ... It is a logical fact, howeve r, that the lower human races, the lower classes of SOCiety, women and children show something of th e same quality in th ei r supe ri or tole ran ce of surgical disease (ibid.: 36). Like Lombroso, Thomas is crediting women with supe ri or capabilities of su rvival because they are further down th e scale in terms of evolu tion . It is signifi ca nt that Thomas includes the lower classes in hi s o bse rvation ; is he implying that the lowe r classes are in their position because of their natural unfitness, or perhaps that th eir situation renders them less sensitive to pain? At different times, Tho mas implies both. Furthermore, he agrees with Lombroso that women are more nearly uniform than men, and says that they have a smaller perce ntage of 'geniUS, insanity and idi ocy' (ib id.: 45) than men , as well as fewer crea tive outbursts of energy. Dealing with female criminality in Sex and Society ( 1907), Thomas begins to address the issue of morality, which he closely links to legality from a standpoint of maintaining social order. He discriminates between male and female morality: Morality as applied to men has a larger element of the contractual, representing the adjustment of his activities to those of society at large, or m o re parti cularly to the activities of the male members of soc iety; while the morality which we think of in connection with women shows less of the contractual and more of the personal , representing her adjustment to men, more particularly the adjustment of her person to men (ibid., 172).

Wh ereas Lombroso barely observes women's lack of participation in the institut ion of private property, Thomas' perception is more profound. He points o ut that women are property of men and that th eir conduct is subject to different codes. Morality, in the most general sense, represen ts the code under which activities are best ca rried on and is worked out in the sc hool of expe rience. It is preeminently an adult and male system , and men are intelligent enough to realize that neither women nor children have passed through this school. It is on this account that man is merciless to woman from the standpoint of personal behavior, yet he exempts her from anything in the way of contractual moral-

331

332

15 · Feminist criminology

ity, or views her defections in this regard with allowance and even with amusement (ibid.: 234) Disregarding his remarks about intelligence, one confronts the critical point about women with respect to the law: because they occupy a marginal posit ion in the productive sphere of exchange commodities outside th e home, they in turn occupy a marginal position in regard to 'con tra ctual ' la w which regu lates relatio ns of property and production. The argu ment of differential treatment of men and women by the law is developed in later works by Pollak and others, who attribute it to th e 'chivalry' of th e system which is lenient to women co mmittin g offe nses. As Thomas notes, however, women are si mpl y not a seri ous threat to property, and are treated more ' lenientl y' because of th is. Certa in women do become threats by transcending (o r by being denied) their traditional role, particularly many Third World women and political rebels, and they are not afforded chi valrous treatment! In fact, ch iva lry is reserved fo r the wo men who are least li kely to ever co me in contact with the crim inal justice system: th e la dies, or white middl e-class women. In matters of sexual conduct, howeve r, which embody the double standard, women are ri goro usly prosecuted by th e law. As Thomas unde rstands, this is the sphere in which women's fun ctions are criti cal. Thus it is not a matter of 'c hivalry ' how o ne is handled , but of differen t forms and thrusts of social co ntrol applied to men and women. Men are engaged in productive tasks and their activities in this area are strictly cu rtail ed. In Th e Unadjusted Girl (1923), Th omas deals with female deli n quency as a ' n ormal' response under certain social conditions, using assumptions abou t the nature of women which he leaves unarticulated in this work. Driven by basic 'wishes,' an individual is controll ed by society in her activities through in stituti o nal transmission of codes and mores. Depending on how they are man ipulated, wishes ca n be made to se rve social o r antisocial ends. Thomas stresses th e institutions that socialize, such as th e famil y, giving people certain 'definiti o ns of the situati o n.' He confidently - and defiantl y - asserts: Th ere is no individual energy, no unrest , no type of wish , which ca nn ot he sublimated and made socially useful. From this standpOint, the probl em is no t the right of society to protect itself from th e disorderly and antisocial person, but the right of the di so rderly and antiSOCial

pe rson to be made orde rl y and socially valuab le ... The problem of society is to produce the right attitudes in its members (ibid.: 232-233). This is an important shift in perspective, from the traditional libertarian view of protecting society by puni shing transgressors, to the rehabilitative and preventive perspective of crime control that seeks to control minds through socia lization rather than to merely control behavior through punishment. The autonomy of th e indi vidual to choose is see n as the product of h is envi ronme nt which the state ca n alter. This is an important refutation of th e Lom brosian biological perspective, which maintains that there are c ri me- pron e individuals who must be locked up, sterilized or otherwise incapacitated. Today, one can see an amalga mati on of th e two perspectives in new theories of 'behavior control' that use tactics such as conditioning and brain surge ry, combining biological and environmental viewpoints. Thomas proposes the manipulation of individuals through institutions to prevent antisocial attitudes, and maintains that there is no such person as the 'crime prone' individual. A hegemonic system of belief can be imposed by sublimating natural urges and by correcting the poor socialization of slum families. In this perspective, the definition of the situation rather than the situation ilSe/fi s what should be changed; a situation is what so meo ne th inks it is. The response to a criminal wo man who is dissatisfied with her conventional sex ua l roles is to change not the roles, wh ich would mean widespread social transformations, but to change her attitudes. This concept of civilization as repreSSive and the need to adjust is later rerined by Freud. Midd le-class women, according to Thomas, co mmit little c rim e because they are SOCialized to sublim ate their natural deSires and to behave well, treasuring their chastity as an investment. The poor woman, however, 'is not immoral, because this implies a loss of m orality, but amoral' (ibid.: 93). Poor women a re no t objective ly d rive n to crim e; they lo ng fo r it. Delinquent girls are mo tivated by the deS ire for excitement o r ' new experience,' and forget the repreSS ive urge of 'security.' Howeve r, these desires are well within Thomas' conception of (eminirlity: delinquents are not rebelling again st womanhood, as Lombroso suggests, but merely acting it out illegally. Davis and PolJak agree with this no ti o n that delinquent women are not 'different ' from nondelinquent women.

The etiology of female crime

Thomas maintains that it is not sexual desire that motivates delinquent girls, for they are no more passionate than other women, but they are manipulating male deSires for sex to achieve their own ulterior ends. The beginning of delinquency in girls is usually an impulse to get amusement, adventure, pretty clothes, favorab le no tice, distinction, freedom in the larger world .. The girls have usually become 'w il d' befo re the devel o pment of sexual desire, and their casual sex relat ions do no t usually awaken sex feeling . I heir sex is used as a condition of th e realization of other wishes. It is their capital (ibid.: 109). Ji e re Thomas is expanding on the myth of the man ipula tive woman , who is co ld and scheming and vain . To him, good female sexual behavior is a protecti ve measure - 'instinctive, of course' (1907: 241 ), whereas male behavior is uncontrollable as me n are caught by helpless desires. This is the commo n Victorian notion of the woman as seductress which in turn perpetuates the myth of a lack of real sex ualit y to justify her responsibility for uphOldin g sex ual mores. Thomas uses a market analogy to female virtue: good women keep their bodies as capita l to se ll in matrimo ny for marriage and secu rity, whereas bad women trade thei r bodies for excitement. One notes, of cou rse, th e familiar di chotomy. It is diffi cult, in this framework, to see how Thomas ca n make any moral distinctions, sin ce m o rality seems to be merely good business sense. In fa ct, Thomas' ya rd stick is soci al harm o ny, necessitating control. Tho mas sho ws an insens itivity to real human relationships and needs . He also shows ignorance of economic hard ships in hi s denial of economic factors in delinquency. An unattached woman ha s a tendency to become an adventuress not so much on economic as on psychologica l grounds. Life is rarely so hard that a young woman cannot earn her bread; but she cannot always live and have th e stim ulati on she craves (ibid.: 241 ). This is an amazing statement in an era of mass starvation and illn ess! He rejects economic causes as a possibility at all, denying its importance in criminal activity with as much certainty as Lombroso, Freud, Davis, Pollak and most o ther writers.

Pollak: 'a different anitude toward veracity' Otto Pollak's Tlu' Criminality or Women (1950) has had an outstanding influence o n the field of women and crime, being the maj o r wo rk on the subject in the postwar yea rs. Po llak advances the theo ry of 'h idden' female crime to account for what he co nSiders unreasonably low official rates for women. A major reason for the exis tence of hidd en crI me, as he sees it , lies in the natllfe of women themselves. They are instigators rath er than perpet rato rs of c rim inal activity. While Po llak admits that thi s role is partl y a sociall y enfo rced o ne, he ins ists that women arc inherently deceitful for pl/ysiological reasons. Man must achi eve an erecti o n in order to perfo rm th e sex act and will not be able to hide his failure. Hi s lack of positive emotion in the sexual sph ere mu st become ove rt to the partne r, and pretense of sex ual respo nse is impossible for him , if it is la cking . Woman 's body, however, permits such preten se to a certain degree and lack of o rga sm does not prevent her ability to part icipate in the sex act (ibid.: 10). Poll ak reduces women's nature to the sex act , as Freud has done, and finds women inherently more capab le of manipu lati on, accustomed to being sly, pass ive and pa ss ionless. As Thomas suggests, women can use sex for ulterior purposes. Furthermore, Pollak suggests that women are innately deceit ful on yet another level: Our sex mores force women to co nceal every four weeks th e period of men struation ... They thus make co ncea lment and misrepresentation in the eyes of women socially required and must condition th e m to a different attitude toward veracity than men (ibid.: 11 ). Women 's abilities al concea lment thus allow them to successfu ll y commit crimes in stealth. Women are also vengeful. Menstruation , in the classic Freudian sense, sea ls their doomed hopes to become men and arouses women 's deSire for vengeance, especially during that time of the month. Thus Pollak offers new rati o naliza tion s to bolster old myths.

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A second factor in hidden crime is the roles played by women which furnish them with oppo rtu nities as domestics , nurses, teachers and housewives to commit undetectable c ri mes. The kinds of crimes women commit renect their nature: false accusation, for example, is an outg rowth of women's t reachery, sp ite or fear and is a sign of neurosi s; shopli fting can be traced in many cases to a special menta l d isease - kleptomania. Economic factors play a minor role; sex ualpSY[/lOfogical factors account for female criminality. Crime in women is personalized and often accou nted for by mental illness. Polla k no tes:

of extramarital sex has 'delivered men who engage in such conduct as practically helpless victims' (ibid.: 152) into the hands of women blackmailers, overlooking completely the possibility of men blackmailing women, wruch would seem more likely, given the greater taboo on sex for women and thei r greater risks of being punished. The final factor that Pollak advances as a root cause of hidden cri me is that of 'chivalry' in th e crimi nal justice system. Pollak uses Thomas' obse rvatio n that women are d ifferent ially treated by th e law, and car ries it to a sweeping conclusio n based on Cllltllral analyses of men's feelings towa rd women.

Robbe ry and burglary ... are considered spec ifi ca ll y male o ffenses si nce they represent the pursuit o f monetary gain by overt action ... Those cases of female robbery which seem to exp ress a tendency towa rd masculinization comes fr om ". [areasl where social conditions have favored the assumptions of male pursuits by women ... The femal e offenders usually retain some trace of femininity, however, and even so glaring a n example of masculinization as the 'Michigan Babes,' an all woman gang of robbers in Chi cago, shows a typically feminine trait in the modus operandi (ibid.: 29).

One of the outstanding concomitan ts of the existing in equa lity ... is chival ry, and the ge neral pro tective attitude of man toward woman. Men hate to accuse women and thus indirectly to send them to their punish m ent, police office rs dislike to arrest them , district attorneys to prosecute them , judges and juries to find them gu ilty, and so on (ibid.: 151).

Pollak is defining crimes with economic motives that employ overt action as mascI/line, and defin ing as feminine those crim es fo r sexual activity, such as luring men as baits. Thu s he is using circular reaso ning by saying that feminine cri me is femi nine. To fit women into the sche me and justify the statistics, he mu st invent the notion of hidden crime. It is important to recogn ize that, to some extent, women do adapt to their enforced sexual roles and may be mo re likel y to instigate, to use sexual traps, and to confo rm to all the other feminine role expectations. However, it is not accidental that theorists label women as conforming even when they are IlOt; for ex ample, by inventing sexua l motives for what are clearly crimes of economic necessity, or by invoking ' mental illness' suc h as kleptomania for shoplifting. It is diffi cult to separate the theory from the reality, since the rea lity of female crime is largely unknown. But it is not difficult to see that Poll ak is using sexist terms and maki ng sexist assumptions to advance th eo ri es of hidden female crime. Pollak, th en, sees criminal women as extending their sex ual rol e, like Davis and Thomas, by usi ng sexua lity for ulterior purposes. !-Ie suggests that the condemnation

Pollak rejects the possibility of an actual discrepancy between crime rates for men and wome n; therefore, he must look for factors to expand the sco pe o f female crime. He assumes that th e re is c hivalry in the crimi nal justice system that is ex tend ed to th e women who come in contact with it. Ye t th e women involved are likel y to be poor and Thi rd World women or white middle-class women who have stepped olltside th e definitions of fem ininity to become hippi es or political rebe ls, and chivalry is /lot likely to be ex tended to them . Chivalry is a racist and c1assist concept founded o n the no tion of women as 'lad ies' which applies o nly to wealthy white women and ignores the double sexual standard . These 'ladies,' however, are the least likely women to eve r come in contact with the criminal justice system in the first place.

Conclusion A good dea l of th e writing o n women and crime being done at the prese nt time is squa rely in the traditi o n of the writers that have been discussed. The basic assumptions and technocratic co nce rn s of th ese writers have produced work that is sexist, racist and c\assist; assumptions that have served to maintain a repress ive ideology with its extensive apparatus of control. To do a new kind of resea rch on women and crime - one that has femin ist roots and a radical orientation - it is necessary to under-

Girls, crime and woman's place: toward a feminist model of female delinquency

stand th e ass umpti o ns made by th e traditional writers and to break awa y from th em . Work that focuses on human needs, rather than those of th e state, will require new definitions of criminalit y, women, the individual and her/his relatio n to the state. It is b eyo nd the scope of this pape r to deve lop poss ible areas of study, but it is nonethe.

less imperative that this work be made a prio rity by wo men and men in the future. Prom D. Kleill, 'Tile etiology of female crime: a

review of Ill e literatllre', Issu es in C rimin ology,

1973,8,3-JO.

References Freud,

S.

(1933) Nell' Illt roductory Lertl/res 0 11 1'5)'( hO{lIIalysi:.. New York: W. W. Norton. Lombroso, C. (1920) The Female Offellf/er. (translation ). New York: Appleton. Originally published in 1903. Po llak , O. (1950) Tile Crimillality of WOlllen .

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press. Thomas, w.I. (1907) Sex a/l(/ SOCiety. Boston: Little, Brown and Com pany. - (1923) Th e Ul1atf;lIs/ed Girl . New York : Harper and Row.

15.2 Girls, crime and woman's place: toward a feminist model of female delinquency Meda Chesney-Lind The romance of the gang or the West Side Story syndrome From the start, th e field of delinquency research focused on visible lower·class male d elinquency, often justifying the neglect of girls in the most cava· lier of term s. Take, for example, th e ex tremely important and innuential work of Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay who, beginning in 1929, utilized an ecological approach to the study of juve· nile delinquency. Their impressive work, partirularly II/venile Delinquency ill Urban Areas (1942) and inten· sive biographical case studies such as Shaw's Brothers ill Crime (1938) and The Ja ckroller (1930), set the stage for much of the subcultural resea rch on gang delinquency. In their ecological work, however, Shaw and McKay analyzed only the offiCial arrest data on male delinquents in Chicago and repeatedly referred to these rates as 'deli nquency rates' (though th ey occasionally made parenthetical reference to data on female delinquency) (see Shaw and McKay, 1942, p. 356). Sim ilarly, their biographical work traced only male experiences with the law; in Brothers in Crime, for examp le, the delinquent and criminal ca reers of five brothers were followed for fifteen years. In none of these works was any justifi· cation given for th e equation of male de lin q uency with delinquency.

Early fieldwork on delinquent gangs in Chicago set the stage for another style of delin· quency research. Yet here too researchers were interested only in talking to and following the boys. Thrashe r studied over a thousand juvenile gangs in Chicago during roughly the same period as Shaw and McKay's more quantitative work was being done. He spent approximately one page out of 600 on the five of six female gangs he encountered in his field observation of juvenile gangs. Thrash er (1927, p. 228) did mention, in passing, two factors he felt accounted for the lower number of girl gangs: 'F irst, the socia l patterns for the behavior of gir ls, powerfully backed by the great weight of tradition and custom, are contrary to the gang and its activities; and secondly, girls, even in urban disorganized areas, are much more closely su pervised and guarded than boys and usually well incorporated into the family groups or some other social structure: Another major theo reti cal approach to delinquency focuses on th e subculture of lower·c lass communities as a generating milieu for delinquent behavior. Here again, noted delinquency researchers concent rated either exclusively o r nearly excl u sively on male lower·class cu lture. Fo r example, Cohen's work on the subculture of delin· quent gangs, w hi ch was written nearly twenty

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years after Thrasher's, deliberately considers only boys' delinquency. Ilis justification for the exc lu sion of the girls is quite illuminating: My skin has nothing of the quality of down or silk, there is nothing limpid or flute-like about my voice, I am a total loss with needle and thread , my posture and carriage are wholly lacking in grace. These imperfections cause me no distress - if anything, they are gratifying because I conceive myself to be a man and want people to recognize me as a full-fledged, unequivoca l representative of my sex. My wife, on the other hand, is not greatly embarrassed by her inability to tinker with or talk about th e internal organs of a car, by her modest attainments in arithmetic o r by he r in ability to lift heavy objects. Indeed, I am reliably inform ed that many women - I do not suggest that my wife is among them - often affect ignorance, frailty and emotional instability because to do otherwise would be out of keeping with a reputation for indubitable femininity. In short, people do not sim pl y want to exce l; they want to excel as a man or as a woman (Co hen, 1955, p. 138). j:rom thi s Co hen (1955, p. 140) concludes that the delinquent response 'howeve r it may be con demned by others on moral grounds, has at least one vi rtue: it incontestably confirms, in the eyes of all concerned, his essen tial masculinity.' Much the same lin e of argum ent appears in Mill er's influential paper on the 'focal concerns' of lower-class life with its emphasis on importance of tro uble, toughness, exciteme nt , and so on. Th ese, the author concludes, predispose poor yout h (pa rt icularly male yo uth ) to criminal mi sconduct. However, Cohen's comments are notable in their candor and probably capture both the allure that male delinquency has had for at least some male theorists as well as th e fact that sex ism has rendered the fema le delinquent as irrelevant to their work. Emph as is o n blocked opportunities (so metimes the 'strain' theo ri es) emerged o ut of the work of Robert K. Merton ( 1938) who stressed the need to consider how some social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in no nco nfo rmist rather than conformist co ndu ct. Hi s work influe nced research largely through the effo rt s of Cloward and Ohlin who discussed access to 'legi timate' and ' ill eg itimate' oppo rtuniti es for male yo uth . No menti o n of female delinquency ca n be found in th ei r Delinque"cy a"d Opportullity except that women are blamed for male delinquency. Here, the familiar

notion is that boys, 'engulfed by a feminine world and uncertain of their own identification ... lend to 'protest' against femininity' (Cloward and Ohlin, 1960, p. 49). Early efforts by Ruth Morris to test thi s hypothesis utilizing different definitions of success based on the gender of respondents met with mixed success. Attempting to assess boys' perceptions about access to economic power status while for girls the variable concerned itself with the ability or inability of girls to maintain effective relationships, Morris was unable to find a clear relatio nship between 'female' goals and delinquency (Morris, 1964). The work of Edwin Sutherland emphas ized the fact that criminal behavior was learned in intimate personal groups. His work, particularly the notion of differential association, which also influenced Cloward and Ohlin's work, was similarly male oriented as much of his work was affected by case studies he conducted of male criminals. Indeed, in describing his notion of how differential association works, he utilized male examples (e.g., 'In an area where the delinquency rate is high a boy who is soc iabl e, gregariOUS, active, and athletic is very likely to come in contact with the other boys, in the neighborhood, learn delinquent behavior from them, and become a gangster' (Sutherland, 1978, p. 1311). Finally, the work of Travis Hirschi o n the soc ial bonds that con trol delinquency (,social control theory') was, as was stated earlier, derived out of research on male delinquents (thoug h he, at least, st udied delinquent behavior as reported by youth themselves rather than studying only those who were arrested). Such a persistent focus on social class and such an absence of interest in gender in delinquency is ironic for two reasons. As even the work of Hirschi demonstrated, and as later studies would valida te, a clear relationship between SOCial class position and delinquency is problematic, while it is clear that gender has a dramatic and consistent effect on delinquency causation (Hagan, Gillis, and Simpson, 1985). The seco nd irony, and one that consisten tl y e ludes even co ntem pora ry delin. que ncy theor ists, is th e fact that while th e acade mi cs had littl e interest in female de linque nts, th e sa me cou ld no t be sa id for the juvenil e justice syste m . Ind eed, work on th e ea rl y hi stor y of th e se parat e sys te m for yo uth reveals that concerns about girl s' imm oral conduct were reall y at th e cen ter of what so me have ca lled the 'child saving moveme nt ' ( Platt, 1969) that set up the juvenil e just ice system .

Girls, crime and w om an's place; tow ard a feminist model of female delinquency

The best place to conquer girls' The movement to establi sh separate in stit uti ons for youthful o ffe nders was part o f the la rge r Progressive move ment , which amo ng o th er th in gs was keenly con cern ed abo ut prostitut io n and other 'socia l evils' (white slave ry an d th e like) (Sch lossma n a nd Wallach, 1978; Raft er, 1985, p. 5-1 ). Childsavi ng was al so a celebrati o n o f wome n's domes t icit y, th o ugh ironically wo men were influential in the move ment (Platt , 1969; Ra ft e r, 1985). In a se nse, p ri v il eged women found , in the mo ral pu ri ty crusades and the establishment o f family courts, a sa fe outlet fo r their energies. As th e legitimat e gua rdi ans o f the mo ra l sphere, wom en we re seen as un iq uely suited to patrol the n o rmative boundaries of the social order. Embracing rath e r than chal le ng in g these stereo types, women carved o ut for th em sel ves a rol e in the poli cing o f wo me n and gi rls (Fe inm a n, 1980; Freedman, 1981 ; Messerschm idt, 1987). Ultimately, many o f th e earl y ch il dsavers' acti viti es revolved around the mo nitoring o f young girl s', parti cularl y immigrant girls', beha vio r to prevent their straying from the path. This state o f affa irs wa s th e direct consequence o f a dis turbing coalition between some feminists and the mo re conservative so cial purity movement. Co ncerned about female victimization and distrustful of male (and to some degree female) sexuality, no table women lead ers, including Susan B. Anth o ny, found co mmon cause with the social purists around su ch issues as oppos ing the regulation of prostitution and rai sing the age of consent (see Messerschmidt , 1987). The con sequences of such a partnership are an important lesson for contemporary femini st movements that are, to some ex tent, faced with the same possible coalitions. Girls were the clear losers in this reform effort. Studies of early family court activity reveal that virtually all the girls who appeared in these courts were cha rged for immorality or waywardness (ChesneyLind, 1971; Schlossman and Wallach, 1978; Shelden, 198 1). More to the point, the sanctions for such misbehavior were extremely seve re. For examp le, in Chicago (where the first family cou rt was founded), one half of the girl delinquents, but only one-fifth of the boy delinquents, were sen t to reformatories between 1899- 1909. In Milwaukee, twice as many girls as boys were co mmitted to training schools (Schlossman and Wallach, 1978, p. 72); and in Memphis females were twice as likely as males to be committed to trainjng schools (Shelden, 1981 , p. 70).

In Ho n o lulu, dur in g t he pe ri od 1929- 1930, over ha lf o f th e girls refe rred to cou rt were charged with ' immo rality,' wh ic h meant evide nce of sex ual intercourse, in addit io n, ano th er 3QIMI were charged wi th 'waywardn ess.' Evide nce o f immo ralit y was vigo ro usly pu rsued by bo th a rresti ng office rs and soc ial wo rkers thro ugh length y q uestio nin g of the gi rl and, if pOSSi bl e, mal es with who m she was suspected of having sex . Oth er evidence o f 'exposure' was pro vi ded by gy necol ogical ex aminati o ns that were ro utin ely o rdered in vi rtually all girl s' cases. Doctors, who understood the purpose of such examinatio ns, would routin ely note the conditio n of th e hymen: 'admits intercourse hymen rupture,' ' no lacerati o n ,' ' h ymen ruptured ' are typical of th e no tation s on the fo rms . Girls during thi s period were al so twice as likely as males to be detain ed where they spent five times as long on the average as th eir male counterparts. They were also nearly three times more likely to be sentenced to the training school (Chesney-Lind, 1971). Indeed, girls were half of those committed to training schools in Hono lulu well into the 1950s (Chesney-Lind, 1973). Not surprisingly, large numbers of girls ' reformatories and training schools were established during this period as well as places of 'rescue and reform .' For example, Schlossman and Wallach note that 23 facilities for girls were opened during the 1910-1920 decade (in contrast to the 18501910 period where the average was 5 reforma tories per decade (Schlossman and Wallach, 1985, p. 70)) , and these institutions did much to set the tone of o ffi Cial response to female delinquency. Obsessed with precocious female sexuality, the institutions set about to isolate the females from all contact with males while housing them in bucolic settings. The intention was to hold the girls until marriageable age and to occupy them in domestic pursuits du ring thei r sometimes lengthy in carceration. The links between these attitudes and th ose of juvenile courts some decades later are, of cou rse, arguable; but an exam ination of the record of the cou rt does not in sp ire confidence. A few examples of the persistence of what might be called a double standard of juvenile justice will suffice here. A st udy conducted in the early 1970s in a Connecticu t train in g school revealed large numbers of girls incarcerated 'for their own protection.' Explaining th is pattern, one judge exp lain ed, 'Why most of the girl s I co mmit are for status offenses. I figure if a girl is about to get pregnant, we'll keep he r until she's sixteen and then ADC (Aid to

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Dependent Children) will pick her up' (Rogers, 1972). For more evidence of official concern with adolescent sexual misconduct, consider Linda Hancock's (1981) content analysis of police refer· rals in Australia. She noted that 40% of the referrals of girls to court made specific mention of sexual and moral conduct compared to only 5% of the referrals of boys. These sorts of results suggest that all youthful fema le misbehavior has tradition· ally been subject to surveillance fo r ev idence of sex ual misconduct. Gels lhorpe's (1986) field research o n an English police station also revealed how everyday police decision making resulted in d isregard of co mplaints about male proble m be havior in con· trast to active concern about the 'problem be havior' of gir ls. Notable, he re, was the concern abo ut the gi rl 's sexual behav ior. In one case, she describes police persistence in pursuing a 'mo ral danger' order fo r a 14·yea r·old picked up in a truancy fun. Over the objections of both the girl's parents and the Social Services Departmen t and in the face of a writte n confi rmation from a surgeon that the gi rl was still premenstrual, the officers pur· sued the applicat ion because, in one officer's words, 'I know he r so rt ... free and easy. I' m still sus picious that she might be pregnant. Anyway, if the doc tor ca n't provide evidence we' ll do her for being beyo nd the ca re and control of her paren ts, no one ca n d isp ute th at. Runn ing away is proof' (Ge lsthor pe, 1986, p. 136). Th is sex uali za ti on o f female devia nce is highly significa nt and explai ns why crim in al acti vities by girls (parti cular ly in past yea rs) we re ove rl oo ked so lo ng as they di d not appear to signa l defia nce of parental contro l (see Smith, 1978).

In thei r hi stori c obseSSio n abou t precocious female sex uali ty, juvenil e justice wo rkers rarely reflected on the broader nature of fe male m isbe· havior or on the sources of th is misbehavior. It was enough for them that gir ls' pa rents repo rted them out of co ntroL Indeed, cou rt person nel tended to 'sex uali ze' vi rtu ally all female defia n ce th at lent itself to that construction and igno re other mi sbe· havior (C hes neY- Lind, 1973, 1977; Smith , 1978). For th eir part , acade mi c students of de lin q uency were so entran ced with th e noti o n o f the delin· quent as a romantic rogue male challenging a rigid and un equal class stru cture, th at th ey spent littl e tim e on middl e·class delinqu ency, trivia l offenders, or status offenders. Yet it is clear th at th e vast bulk of delinque nt be havior is of th is type.

Some have argued that such an imbalance in theoretical work is appropriate as minor misconduct, while troublesome, is not a threat to the sa fety and well·being of the community. This argu· ment might be persuasive if two additional points could be established. One, that some small number of youth 's pecialize' in serious criminal behavior while the rest commit only minor acts, and, two, that the juvenile court rapidly releases those youth that come into its purview for these minor offenses, thus reserving resources for the most seri· ous youthful offenders. The evidence is mixed on both of these points. Dete rmined efforts to locate the 'serio us juvenile offende r' have failed to locate a group of offenders who specialize only in serious violent offenses. For examp le, in a recent analysis of a national self· report data set, Elliott and his associates noted 'there is little evidence for specialization in serious violent offending; to the contrary, serious violent offending appears to be embedded in a more general involve· ment in a wide range of serious and non·serious offenses' (Elliott, Huizinga, and Morse, 1987). Indeed, they went so far as to speculate that arrest histories that tend to highlight particular types of offenders reflect variations in police policy, prac· tices, and processes of uncovering crime as well as underlying offending patterns. More to the pO int, police and court pe rson nel are, it turns out, fa r more interested in youth th ey charge with trivia l or status offenses than anyone imagined . Efforts to dei nstitu tiona lize 'status offen ders,' fo r examp le, ran afou l of juve nil e justice pe rsonnel who had little interest in releas· ing youth guil ty of nonc riminal offenses (Chesney·Lind, 1988). As has been establis hed, much of this is a prOduct of the system's history that encouraged court officers to involve them· selves in the nonc riminal behavior of youth in order to 'save' them from a variety of social ills. Indeed, parallels can be found between the ea rlier Prog ressive period and current national efforts to challenge the deinstitutionalization co mponen ts of the Juve n ile Justice and Deli nquen cy Preve ntion Act of 197 4. These co me com plete with th eir ce lebrati o n of fa mil y valu es and con ce rn s about yo uth ful indepen de nce. One of th e argu. me nls aga inst th e act has been that it allegedly gave children th e ' freedo m to run away' (O ffi ce o f Juvenile Justi ce and Delinqu ency Prevention, 1985) and that it ha s hampered ' reun io ns' o f ' mi ss in g' children with th eir parents (O ffi ce of Juvenile

Girls, crime and woman's place: toward a femi nist model of female delinquency

Justice, 1986). Suspicions about teen sex ualit y are reflected in excess ive concern about the con tro l of teen prostitution and child pornography. Opponents have al so atlempted to justify continued intervention into th e live s of statu s offenders by suggesting that without such intervention , the youth would 'esca lat e' to criminal behavior. Yet there is lillie ev id e n ce that statu s offenders esca late to c riminal offenses, and the evidence is parti cularly weak when conside ring female delinquents (parti cularl y white fema le delinquents) (Datesman and Aickin, 198 4). Finally, if escalat io n is occurring, it is likely the prod uct o f the justice syste m 's insisten ce o n e nforc ing status offense laws, thereby forcing youth in crisis to live lives of escaped criminals. The most influential delinquency th eories, h owever, have largely ducke d th e iss ue of status and trivial offenses and , a s a consequence neg-

lected the role played by th e age n cies of offic ial cont ro l (po li ce, probati o n officers, juvenile cou rt judges, detention home workers, and training sc h oo l personne l) in the shaping o f the 'delinquency pro blem.' Wh en confronting the less than distinct pi ct ure that emerges from the actual di stributi o n of delinquent behavi or, h oweve r, th e con clu sion that agents of soc ia l control have COI1siderable discretion in labeling o r choosing not to label particular be havior as 'delinquent' is inescapable. Thi s sy mbiotic rela ti o nship betwee n delinquent behavior and th e official respo nse to that behavior is particularly critical when the question of female delinquency is considered.

From M. CI1eslley-Lil1d, 'Girls, crime and womal1 's place: toward a feminist model of female delillquency', Crime and Delinquency, 1989, 35: 5-29.

References

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Chesney-Lind, Meda. 1971. Female Juvenile Delil1quency in Hawaii. Master's thesis, University of Hawaii. ~ 1973 'judicial Enforcement of the Female Sex Role.' Issues ill Crimill%gy 3: 51-71.

1978. 'Young Women in the Arms of th e Law.' In Women, Crime al1(i tile Criminal Jllstice System, edited by Lee H. Bowker. Boston: Lexington. ~ 1988 'Girls and Deinstitutio nalization: Is Juvenile justice Still Sexist?' JOllmal of Crimil/al Jllstice Abstracts 20: 144-165. Cloward, Ri cha rd A. and Lloyd F. Ohlin. 1960. DelinqllerJCY atlll Opportunity. New York: Free Press. Cohen, Albert K. 1955. Delinquent Boys: The ClIltlire of tile Gallg. New York: Free Press. Datesman, Susan and Mikel Aickin. 1984. 'Offense Spec ialization and Escalation Among Status Offenders,' Joumal of Criminal LtlW al1d Crimil/%gy ~

75: 1246-1275.

Ell iott, Delbert , David Huizinga, and Barbara Morse . 1987. 'A Career Analys is of Serious Violenl Offenders.' In Violellt Juvetlile Crime: Wlwt Call W e Do About It? edited by Ira Schwartz. Minneapolis, MN: Hubert Humph rey Institute. Feinman, Clarice, 1980. Women il1/he CriminalJllstice System. New York: Praeger. Freedma n, Estelle. 1981. Tlleir Sisters' Keepers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Gelstho rpe, Loraine. 1986. 'Towards a Sceptical Look at Sexisms.' 1utemational JOllma/ of the Sociology of Law 14: 125- 152,

Hagan, John, A. R. Gilli S, and joh n Simpson. 1985. 'The Class Structure of Gender and Delinquency: Toward

a Power-Control Theory of Common Delinquent Behavior.' AmericallJoumal of Sociology 90: 1151II 78. Merton, Robert K. 1938. 'Social Structure and Anomie.' American Sociologica/ Review 3 (OctOber): 672-682. Messerschmidt, James 1987. 'Feminism, Criminology, and the Ri se of the Female Sex Delinquent, 18801930.' Cotltemporary Crises 11: 243-263.

MorriS, Ruth. 1964. 'Female Delinquency and Relational Problems,' Social Forces 43: 82-89. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1985 . RUllaway Cllildren and tile JuvenUe Justice and De/inqllmcy Preventioll Act: W/wt is tile impact?

Washington, DC: Governmen t Printing Office. ~

1986. America's Missing and Exploited Cllildrell. Report (I/1(i Recolnllle/ldatiol/S of tile U. S. Attomey Gmera/'s AdviSOry Board all Missing Cllildren. Washington, DC:

Government Printing Office. Platt, Anthony M. 1969. TIle C/lilds(/vers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rafter, Nicole Hahn. 1985 . Partial Justice. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Rogers, Kr istine. 1972. 'For Her Own Protection .. .': Conditions of Incarceration for Female juvenile Offenders in the State of Connecticu t', Law and Society Review (Wi nter): 223-246. Schlossma n, Steven and Stephanie Wallach. 1978. 'The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female juvenile Delinquency in the ProgreSSive Era.' Harvard Educational Review 4 8: 65-94. Shaw, Clifford R. 1930. Tile Jack-Roller. Chicago: Un iversity of Chicago Press.

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_

1938. Brotilers in Crime. Ch icago: Un iversi ty o f Chicago Press. _ and Henry D. McKay. 1942. Illvenile Delinquency ill Urball Areas. C hicago: University o f Chicago Press. Sh elden , Rand all . 198 1. 'Sex Discrim inatio n in the juvenile justice System: Memphis, Tennessee, 1900191 7.' In Comparing Female ami Male Offm ders, edited by Marguerit e Q. Warren. Beverly Hill s, CA: Sage. Smith, Lesley Shacklady. 1978 . 'Sexist Assumptions and Female Delinquency.' In Womet/, Sexllality and Social

Control, edit ed b y Caro l Sm a rt and Barry Smart. Londo n : Ro utledge &: Kegan Paul. Sutherland, Edwin, 1978, ' Differential Association .' In Clliltlren of Isllmael: Critical Perspectives 0 11 IllI'enile Ills tice, edit ed b y Barry Kri sberg and j ames Au stin . Palo Alto, CA: Mayfi eld . Thra sher, Fred eric M. 192 7. TIl e Gang. C hi cago : Universi ty o f Chicago Press.

15.3 Feminism and criminology

Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind The last decade has seen an outpouring of feminist scholarship in the academy. Theories, research methods, and pedagogies have been challenged across the disciplines (e.g., Abel and Abel 1983; Bowles and Klein 1983; Cu iley and Portuges 1985; DuBois, Kelly, Kennedy, Korsmeyer, and Robinson 1985; Griffin and Hoffman 1986; Harding and Hintikka 1983; Klein 1987; Sherman and Beck 1979; Spender 198 1; Stan ley and Wise 1983). Feminist thought has deepened and broad ened. Whereas in the ear ly years of seco nd -wave fem ini sm l there was a collective sense of a 'we' to feminist th eo ri zing , today post modern th o ught and ' fra ctured identities' have dece ntered feminism (Ackoff 1988; Flax 1987; Harding 1986). Previo usly the emphasis was on women gaining eq uality with men within existing soc ial institutions, but today feminist th oug ht empha sizes a new vision of the social order in which women's experiences and ways of knowing are brought to the fore, not suppressed (Gross 1986). Theories and concepts rooted in me n's expe ri e nce form erly monopo lized intellectual inquiry, but today disciplinary debates in some fields reflect the impact of feminist thought, albeit uneven, across the disciplines (Stacey and Thorne 1985). How has crimin ology been affected by these developments? With the exception of femini st treatments of rape and intimate violence, the field remains essentially untouched. The time has co me for criminologist s to step into the world of feminist thought and fo r feminist sch olars to move more bo ldly into all areas of criminology. This task will not be easy; we write as fem inists intere sted in problems of crime and justice, and find that we

lead a double life. As feminists,2 we grapple with the many strands of feminist thought and activism , educate ourselves and others about the impact of gender relations on social life, and ponder our role as academics in a social movement. As criminologists, we grapple with the field's many theoretical and policy strands, educate ourselves and others on the conditions and social processes that make crime normal and deviant, and ponder the sta te's role in creating and reducing crime. All t he while we wonder if it is possible to reconcile these double lives.

Myths about feminism One difficulty in educating students and coll eagues about feminism is that myths about the SUbject abound. We address three of these myths: feminist analyses a re not objective, feminist analyses focus narrowly on women, and there is only o ne feminist perspective. Mytil 1: Lock ofObiectivity A major e lement of feminist th ought cente rs on how gende r constructs - the network of behaviors and identities associa ted with masculinity and femininity - are socially constructed from relations of dominance and in eq uality between men and women. Different natures , talent s, and inte rests that define Western notions of manhood and womanhood res t on a number of mal e-ce ntered oppositions to and negations of women and femininity. Masculinity and men are not only defined as not feminine, but also as superior to femininity and to women.

Feminism and criminology

We will not discuss wily gender relations took this form,4 but instead will sketch some of the effects. In Western thought , depictions of men's and women's natures have been made almost exclusively by men (specifically by white, privileged men). As a consequence, tilese men's experience and intellectual stance have dominated explanations of gender difference and men's superiority. This situation led Poulain de la Barre, a seventeenth-century writer, to observe, . All that has been written about women by men should be suspect, for the men are at once judge and party to the lawsuit' (ci ted in de Beauvoir 196 1: xxi). It is plain that men can be no more objective than women (a nd nonfeminist views no more objective than feminist) about the character of gender relations, the qualities of gender difference, or the organization of social life. In fact, some thinkers argue that women's marginality affords them keener insights (Co llin s 1986; Rohrlich-Leavitt, Sykes and Weatherford 1975; Smith 1979), a perspective reminiscent of sociologists' (o r other outsiders') claims to greater understanding because of their marginal status. One consequence of male-centered (or androcentric) systems of knowledge is Inaccurate readings of human history, evolution, and behavior, although these are presented as objective and authoritative depictions of the human condition. The central problem is that men 's experiences are taken as the norm and are generalized to the population. For example, theories of the evolution of ' mankind' are precisely that: theories of how bipedalism and expanded brain size resulted from men's cooperation, toolmaking, and tool use in the hunting of large game. This approach led femin ist anthropo log ists to ask, ' Have only men evolved?' (Hubba rd 1982; Slocum 1975). Si mil arly, feminist historia ns questioned the basis for historical period ization by as king, 'D id women have a Renaissance?' (Kelly-Gadol 1977). Som e sc hola rs propose a way to legitima te wo men 's claims to kn owledge wit h the concep t of 'wome n 's stand poi n t,' which Jaggar (1983: 370) argues is 'e pistemo logica lly advantageo us' and 'provides the basiS for a view of reality tha t is mo re im pa rt ia l t h an tha t of t he rul ing class.' Othe r forms of kn owl edge seeking are used or ad vocated (see Ha rd ing 1986), bu t a ma jo r feminis t pro ject today is to expose th e d istortions and assu mptions of and rocentric scie nce (e.g., Bleier 1984; Fee 198 1; Kell er 1984). Th ese effo rts reveal tha t an ideology of o bj ecti vi ty ca n se rve to mas k men's gender loy-

allies as well as loyalties to other class or racial groups. Thus when feminist analyses are dismissed because they aTC said to lack objectivity or to be biased toward women's viewpoints, we are beWildered and vexed. Bemused by other people's apparent inability to hear alternate accounts of social life, we wonder whether feminists can even be heard. Suc h frustration is compounded by knowing that the dominant paradigms and modes of inquiry are a priori accorded grealer legitimacy. M)'tlJ 2: The NrlrrOw FoCl/s all WomclI

When feminists analyze women's situation and the ways in which gender relations structure social life, they do not ignore men and masculinity, although they may displace men as the central (or sale) actors and may give more attention to women. This approach spawns a perception by men that they are being neglected, misunderstood, or cast as the ignominious 'other,' a reaction akin to that of white people toward critical analyses of race or ethnic relations. Both perceptions express a sense of entitlement about whose social reality is worthy of description and exp lanat ion, and who can be trusted to get it righ t. Much feminist attention has been devoted to the ways in which men think, theorize, and collect and marshal evidence. It is impossible to understand women's situation and gender relations without examining masculini ty, men's lives, and men's viewpoints. The irony is that femin ist scholarship is characterized as be ing only abou t women or as hopelessly biased toward women, when in fact the project is to descri be and change both men's and women's lives. By contrast, nonfemin ist scholar~h i p is more narrow, focusing as it does on the lives and concerns of men withou t problematizing gender relat ions or me n as a social group. Mo reove r, all soc ial ins titu tions anc! social phenomena are 'wome n 's issues' and thus sub ject to feminist in quiry. Furthermo re, as we will arg ue, not all fem inist analyses a re put fort h by women, no r is all research cond ucted on women or on gender di ffe rence ipso facto feminist. Myth 3: Tile Feminist Analysis To talk of tile fe min ist a nalys is of a give n social

phenomenon is to ta lk nonsen se. To assume t hat t here is only one feminist ana lysis reveals a speaker's naivete abou t the diverse views th at charac teri ze co nt em po rary femi ni st t h ink ing and strategies fo r soci al change. A more accurate way to describe fem in ist th oug ht is as a set of perspectives,

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which are linked in tu rn to d iffere nt assumptions about th e causes of gender inequa lit y. These perspec ti ves (or fram eworks) in clude li beral, radica l, Marx ist, an d socia li st fe minist. 1... 1 There are oth er ways to categori ze fe m in ist th oug ht (e.g., Ban ks 198 1); some are h umoro us (Oa kl ey 1981: 336-37), and differences exis t wit hi n anyone fem ini st perspect ive (see, e.g., Eise nste in 1983 on radi cal femi nis m; Sargeant 198 1 o n soc ialist femin is m ). Heca use the domin ant voice of Ameri can femini sm is wh ite, middl e-cl ass, first-wo rld, and heterosexual, modifi ed femin isms (s uch as black, Chi cana , Asian -Amer ican, Jewish, lesbian, and others) reflect ra Cia l, ethni C, cultura l, and se xual spec ifi citi es (Cole 1986; Da rt y and Pott er 1984; Hooks 1981, 1984; Joseph and Lewi s 1981 ; Moraga and Anzaldua 1983; Smit h 1983). In short, the ferment and deba te among fem inist scholars and activist s today can no longe r be contained withi n or characterized accurately as one perspective. In assessi ng these myt hs abou t fe m in ist th ought, we offer a parti a l view of fe m ini sm and fem in ist inq uiry by describing what t hey are not. fe minist investigations are not li mited to wome n, no r a re fe min is t a nal yses any less o bj ective than non feminist . Diffe rent views of ge nd er arrangeme n ts and t he specif ic ways in wh ich cl ass, race a nd eth nicity, reli gio n, sexuali t y, a nd so forth intersect in women's lives yield mul tiple an alyses and visions for social change. Is th ere any com mon groun d, the n, to fem ini st t ho ught ? What d istingu ishes a fe m inist fr om a non femi n ist analysis?

Defining feminism What is feminism?

In th ei r introduction to Wlw t is Feminism? Mitchell and Oakl ey (198 6: 3) suggest that it is 'eas ie r to defin e feminism in its absence rather th an its presence.' Delm ar (1986) offe rs a 'baselin e definit io n' on whi ch femini sts and nonfemini sts might agree: a fem inist holds that women su ffer di scrim ination beca use of th eir sex, th at th ey have needs wh ich are negated and unsati sfi ed, a nd th at th e satisfaction of th ese needs requires a radical change. 'Bu t beyo nd th at,' Del mar says, ' th in gs immed iate ly become more compli cated' (1986: 8). Thi s complicati on ari ses because femini sm is a set of th eo ries abo ut women 's o ppression ami a set of strategies for social change. Cott (1 987) id enti fies the parad oxes of first- wave femin is m (th e 'wo man move ment ' in th e ninetee nth and earl y twentieth centuri es), which reflect the merging of

th ese th eoretical and po liti ca l im pul ses. Th ese paradoxes incl ude acknowledging di vers ity amo ng women but claim ing wo men's uni ty, req uirin g gender co nsciousness but call ing fo r an eradi ca ti o n of ge nd er-based distinctio ns and divis ion s, and aiming fo r indi vidu al freedom a nd au ton om y by mobili zing a mass-based move men t. The sa me paradox ical e le men ts are see n in secon d-wa ve femini sm (th e cont em pora ry women 's movemen t beg innin g in th e 1960s). Un fri e nd ly inte rpreta tions of th ese contra ry te ndencies includ e, 'These women don 't kn ow what th ey want ' or 'They want it both ways.' Yet as Hardin g (1986: 244 ) sugges ts, 'Th e pro blem is that we [fe min ists] do n ot kn o w and should not kn ow just wh at we want to say about a number of conceptual choices with which we are presented - exce pt that th e ch oices th emse lves create no-win dil emm as for our fe mini sms.' Th e task of describing and changing a spectrum of women's expe riences, wh ich have been form ed by particula r and often competing allegian ces to class, race, and other social groups, is not straightforward but a blurred and contingent enterprise. Distinguishing feminist from nonfeminist analyses It is not easy to know when a work or action is femi-

nist. Delmar asks, for example, 'Are all actions and campaigns prom pt ed or led by women , feminist?' (1986: 11). 'Can an action be "fe m ini st" eve n if those who perfo rm it are not?' (1986: 12). She cont ras ts severa l views o f femi nism. It may be d iffuse ac ti vi t y, a ny acti on motivated ou t o f conce rn for women's interests, whet her or not actors or groups acknowledge them as fe m inist. This view empties femi nis m of a ny meaning because all acti ons or analyses having wo men as thei r object fall into t he same ca tego ry. De lmar opt s instead for a not he r approach, wh ich is to 'separate femi nism and fe mini sts from the multiplicity of those concerned with women's issues.' Fe minis m can be defined as a field - eve n though diverse - but femi nists can 'make no clai m to an exclUSive interest in or copyri ght over problems affecting women' (1986: 13). Nei th er a sc ho lar's gende r no r th e foc us of schola rsh ip - wheth er wome n, gend er d ifference, or anything else - ca n be used to di stingu ish fem in is t, nonfemini st, or eve n ant ife mini st wo rks. Scholars' theo retical and meth odologica l points of view are defin ed by th e wa y in which th ey fram e questi ons and inte rpret res ults, n ot by th e social ph en omeno n al o ne. Thu s to Morri s's (1987: 15) questio n - ' Does femini st crimino logy in clude cri mi nologists who are feminist, female crimin olo-

Feminism and criminology

gists, or criminologist'i who ,study women' we reply that research on women or on gender differ~ ence, whether conducted by a male or a female cri m inologist, does not in it!"elf qualify it as feminist. Conversely, femlni'it inquiry i~ not limited to topicS on or about women; it focuses on men as we ll. For criminology, became most offenders and c~iminal IU')tice officials dre men, this point is especmlly relevant; allied social institutions such as the mili tary have not escaped feminist scrutiny (Enloe 1983, 1987). When feminbt, nonfeminist, or no treally-feminist distinu ions are drawn, the main so urce of variation is how inclusively scholars (o r act iv ists) define a con tinuum of feminis t thought. Pateman (1986), for example, compares theori es addressing 'women's issues' with those tha t are 'distinctly feminist.' She terms the former 'domesticated feminism' and sees it in liberal and socialist thought when scholars try to fit women or gender relations IIlto existing theories, making 'feminism ... safe for academic theory' (1986: 4). Such efforts deny that 'sexual domination is at issue, or tha t feminism raises a problem lpatriarchy), which is repressed in other theories' (1986: 5). A more disti nc ti ve femi n ist approach assumes that ind ivid uals are gendered, and that 'individuali ty is not a unita ry abst raction but an embod ied and sexuall y d iffere n tiated expression of the un ity of hum ankin d' (1986: 9). Th e implicatio ns of a d ist inc tive fem in ist approach a re profo und - in Pa tema n 's an d ot hers' wo rds, 'subversive' - for social, poli tical, criminological, and o th er theo ries. It is o ne thin g to say th at wo men have been excluded from general theories of social phenomeno n . It is ano ther matter to wonder ho w th eori es wo uld appea r if they were fas hioned fro m women 's experiences and if women had a central pla ce in th em . In additi o n, it is equ ally im po rtant to q uery the ge nder-specific character of existing theories fa5 hioned from men's experiences. Altho ugh some scholars (typica lly, li beral and Ma rxi st fe min is ts wh o do no t accord primacy to gender or to patria rchal relatio ns) assume that previous theo ry can be co rrected by in cluding wo men, ot hers re ject th is view, argUin g that a reconceptualizatio n of analytic ca tego ri es is necessary. Working towa rd a rei n ve nt ion of th eo ry is a maj o r task for femini sts tOday. Alt houg h tutored in ' mal e-stream ' theory and methods,S they work within and aga inst these structures of knowledge to ask new questio ns, to put old pro bl ems in a fresh li gh t, and to challenge the cheri shed wisd o m o f t he ir disc iplines. Such rethin king comes in ma ny varieties, but these

five elements of feminist thought distinguish it from other types of social and political thought: • (;emler h not d natural fatt but a complex social, historical, and cultural product; it is related to, hut not simply derived from, biological 'iex diffcren('e and reproductive capacitics. • Gender and gender relations order social life and social institutions in fundamental ways. • (;ender re lallons and constructs of mascu li nity and femininity arc no t symmetrical but are based on an organizing principle of men's superiority and soc ial and political-economic dominance ove r women. • Systems of knowledge reflect men's views of the natura l and social world; the production of know ledge is gendered. • Women should be at the center of intell ectua l inquiry, not peripheral, in visible, or appendages to men. These elements take diffe rent spins, depend ing on how a scholar conceptualizes gender, th e causes of gender inequali ty, and the mea ns of social change. Gene rally, however, a fem in ist an alysis dra ws from fe minist theor ies or research, proble matizes gender, and co nsiders th e impli ca tio ns of fi nd ings for empowering wo men o r fo r change in gender relati o ns. Fina ll y, we no te th at scholars may think of the mse lves as femi nists in their personal lives, but t hey may not d raw o n femin is t th eo ry o r regard t hem selves as feminis t sc holars. I:or person al o r professio nal reaso ns (or bo th ), th ey may shy away fro m bein g marked as a particular kind of schola r.

The relevance of feminist thought to criminology What ca n fem inis t t ho ug ht brin g to stud ies of crime and justice? Sop histicatio n in th inking about ge nde r re la ti o ns is o ne o bvio us co ntributi o n . Unfor tunately, most criminologists draw on unexpl ica ted folk models of gen de r and gender difference, o r do not even co nsid er th e impact of gender relatio ns o n men 's behavio r. It is com mon to hear, fo r examp le, that because theories of crime exclude wo men , we ca n rectify t he problem by add ing wom en . It is eve n m o re com mo n to fi nd tha t theories are deve loped and tested using maleo nl y sa mpl es with o ut any refl ectio n o n wheth er concepts o r resuit s may be gende r-specific. We sug-

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gcst first Ihal efforts to overcome these persistent problems must start with a conceptual framework for gender and gender relations. The four feminist perspectives (in addition to the traditional perspective) offer a comparative foothold. Each makes different assumptions about men's and women's relations to each other and to the soc ial order; therefore each may pose different questions, use different methods, and offe r distinctive interpretations. These perspectives have been applied in other areas of sociological, economic, psychological, and political p hilosophical inq uiry (Ande rsen 1983; Jagger 1983; Kahn and Jean 1981; Soko loff 1980; Tong 1984); thus why not in crimin ology, which borrows from th ese d isciplines in va ryin g degrees and combinations? In fact, we would put the case more strongly: we see no oth er means of comparing and eva luating efforts to include gender in theories of crime, to exp lain men's or women's crime, or to assess cri minal justice policy and practices, among other foci of crimino logical inquiry, without explicit reference to these perspectives. We will give examples to illustrate our pOint throughout this essay. Second, crimin ologists need not engage in sur mise or guesswork about women's experiences. Again, it has become com mon to take the fi eld to task for its distorted represe ntations of women (th is situalion also holds true for men, but perhaps to a lesser extent). One obvious remedy is to read feminist jou rnals 6 and books thai offer studies o f women's and men's lives and provide the structural and social con tex ts for their behavior. Criminologists must depart from th e narrow con fines of their disCipline and its journals; otherwise we will continue to su ffer from common-sense and ad "DC interpretations of data, as well as poor ly informed research questions. Third, criminol ogists should begin to appreciate that their discipline and its questions are a product of white, economically privileged men's experiences. We are not suggesting some simpleminded conspi racy theory; conscious intent would be hard to prove, and ultimately it is beside the point. Rath e r, we note si mply who the scholars and practitioners have been ove r the last few centuries. Turning to the ful ure, we wonder what will happen as increasi ng numbers of white women, as well as men and women o f co lor, ente r the discipline and try to find their place in it. One ca nnot expect that the first generation of new scholars wil l be confi den t or sure-footed after cen turies of exclusion from th e academy. One might ex pect,

however, that we will ask different questions or pursue problems which our discipline has ignored. These differences must be heard and nurtured, not suppressed. To be sure, the generational relations of elder and younger white men are also fraught with conflict, but that conflict occurs on a common ground of shared experiences and understandings. It is familiar terrain; the older men see bits of themselves in their younger male colleagues. By contrast, our differences with the mainstream of the diSCipline are likely to break new ground. Finally, paints of congruence exist between feminist perspectives and othe r social and political theories, and conseque ntl y between feminist perspectives and theoretical trajectories in cr imin ology. Much of what is termed mainstream crimino logy easily embraces a liberal feminist perspective. The critical and Marxist criminologies have affinities with radical , Marxist , and socialist feminist perspectives. More can be done to exploit and contrast these points of affinity. j\'ot surprisingly, the sharpest feminist critique today is leveled at the varieties of leftist criminology precisely because they hold the greatest promise for incorporating class, race, and gender relations in theories of crime and justice, This feminist critique has been aired mostly, but not exclusively, in British criminology (see Gelsthorpe and Morris 1988; lIeidensohn 1985, 1987; Messerschmidt 1986; Morris 1987); it may foster a larger coa lition of men and women seeking a transformation, not simply a correction, of criminology.

Can there be 8 feminist criminology? Morris (1987: 17) asserts that 'a feminist criminology cannot exist' beca use neither feminism nor criminology is a 'unified set of principles and practices.' We agree. Feminists engaged in theory and research in criminology may work within one of the feminist perspectives; thus, like feminist thought generally, feminist cri minology cannot be a monolithic enterprise. We also agree with Morris's observation that 'the writings of Adler and Simon do not constitute a feminist criminology' (p. 16). Yet we think it important to identify Simon's and Ad ler's arguments as liberal feminist, to assess th em o n th ose terms , and t o co m pa re them with analyses adopting o th er feminist perspectives. Similarly, in the debates between rad ical and socia list feminist s about controll ing men's violence toward women , one ca n eva luate their di ffere nt assumptions o f ge nd e r and sexua lity. A

•

Femlolsm and crlmmology

single feminist analysis across many (Time and jmtice issues is not possible, but that fact docs not preclude a niminologist who uses feminist theory or research from ca llin g herself (or himself) a feminist c rim inologist. It 's a cOlwenienl rubriC, but only as long as criminologi~h appreciate its mu ltiple meanings. I'eminist theories and research should be part of any criminologist's approach to the problems of cri me and justice. They demonstrate that a focus on gender can be far more than a focus on women o r sex ism in extant theories. They offer an opportunit y to stud y still -un explored features of men's crime and forms of justice, as well as modes of theory construction and verification. In traCing the impac t of feminist thought on studies of crim e and justice, we find that the promise of feminist inquiry barely has been realized.

2

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4

Notes 1 First-wave feminism (termed 'the woman movement') arose in th e United )tates and in some European countries in COnlun(tion with the move· ment to abolish slavery. Its ~g i nning in the United States is typically marked by the Seneca Falls, New Yo rk, convention (1848), and its ending by the passage of the 19th Amendment to the United States Cons tituti on (granting women's suffrage), cou pled with the falling -ou t among women activists over the Equal Rights Amendment proposed in the ea rl y 19205. Set DuBois (1981 ) for the nineteenth·century context , Cot! (1987) for th c early twen tieth -century co nt ex t when th e term 'feminis t ' was fir st used, G idding~ (1984) for black women's social movement activity, Kelly-Gadol (1982) for 'pro-woman' writers in the fou r centuries b€fore the nineteenth century, and Kimmell (1987) for men'~ responses t o feminism. Second-wave American fe minism emerged in the mid- 1960s in conjunction with the civil rights

5

6

movcment, the nl'w left, and a critical mass of profl'~~ional wom('n (!lce ]vans 1979; Hooks 1981, 19tH). It hprud ence and Social Policy Program, Uni versit y of California at Berkeley. Steiner, II.}. (1987) Mom/ Visioll ami Soc;ol Vi5ioll ill Ille COllrt: A Stlldy of forI Arcitfel11 Law. Madison: University of Wi~con~in Press. Stone. C. ( 1975) WllI're Ihe Law Emk New York: lI arper Or Row, Zimri ng, F. and G. lIawkin s (1991) Tile Scale /mpriWJlllllelll . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

or

16.2 Actuarialism and the risk society

Jock Young Actuarialism and the risk society It is extraordinary that the academic discourse on

actuarial justice develops separate ly from the rich vein of sociological sc holars hip concerning the nature of a ' ri sk society' (see Heck, 1992; Gidd en s, 1991). This is parti c ularly 100 in that Jonathan Simon wrote an ex tremely prescient piece entitled 'The Emergence of the Risk Society' in 1987 which has a much wider compass than the now famous se ries of articles on the new penology and actuarial justice (Feeley and Simon, 1992, 1994; Simon, 1993; Simon and Feeley, 1995). But even the original article (quoted above) is concerned with the response to risk rather than risk itself, as its subtitle indicates: 'Insurance, Law and the State'. For Anthony Giddens the concept of a risk society is concerned with the nature of risks in late modern society and with what he ca lls ' the calculative attitude' which individuals and collectivities develop in respo nse to such risk: To live in the 'wo rld' produced by high modernity has the feeling of riding a juggernaut. It is not just that more or less continuous and profound processes of change oCCur; rather, change does not consistently conform either to human expectation or to human control. The anticipation that the social and natural environments

would increasingly be subject to rational ordering has not proved to be valid .... Providential reason - the idea that in creased secular und erstand ing of the nature of things intrinsically leads to a safer and more rewarding existence for human beings - carries reSidues of conceptions of fate deriving from pre-modern eras. Not ions of fate may of course have a sombre cast, but they always imply that a course of events is in some way preordained. In circumstances of modernity, traditional notions of fate may still exist, but for the most part these are inconsistent with an outlook in which risk becomes a fundamental element. To accept risk as risk ... is to acknowledge that no aspects of our activities follow a predestined course, and all are open to contingent happenings. In this sense it is quite accurate to characterise modernity, as Ulrich Beck does, as a 'risk soc iety', a phrase which refers to more than just the fa ct that modern socia l tife introduces new forms of danger which humanity has to face. Living in the 'risk society' means living with a calculative attitude to the open possibilities of action, positive and negative, with which, as individua ls and globally, we are confronted in a continuous way in o ur contemporary social existence. (1991, p. 28)

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What I want to do is diScuss the basis of such a notion of risk in the area of crime and deviance and how this results in a 'calculative' or 'actuarial' attitude in individuals, in institutions and in the criminal justice system itself.

Living with strangers: the six components of risk A 'real' rise in risk As I have documented throughout this book, the vast majority of count ri es in the developed world have experienced a rise in crime in the last 30 years. Such a cri me rate has been accompanied by a penumbra of incivilities and crime has become increasingly internecine in its nature so that predatory behaviour and disorder is more and more implosive within each neighbourhood and social group. Revelation The mass media, the pressure group activities - and even the criminological researcher - have presented to the public a wider range of crime and on a greater scale than ever before. National crime surveys inform us that we can at least double (if not quadruple) the official crime rate, pressure groups indicate abuse occurring within the family often as much (if not more) th an in the world outside, institutions which serve to protect and safeguard the vulnerable are seen to be sites of crime (from homes for the elderly to the orphanages o f the Christian Brothers or the Sisters of Mercy), pOlice and prisons are exposed as prime sites of corruption, violence and drug dealing. And on top of this, the illicit activities of white collar and corporate cr iminals are every day presented on our televisions and in our newspapers. No doubt some of thi s is in accurate and a proportion m isleading and mischievous, but the world which we experience as risky is reveaie(t as risky on a wider and wider scale in all areas and parts of the social fabric. Rising expectations Risk is not a fixed objective thing: it rises or falls as o ur tolerance of a particular behaViOur o r practice changes. The Change in public attitudes over the last 30 years has sh own every indica t ion of the 'c iv ili zing influ ence' of a greater deman d for a refineme nt in o ur behavio u r towa rds eac h other and for an en hanced qua li ty of life. Indeed the rising demand for la w and o rder, which is oft en seen n egati vely as a sign of growing public authori tarian ism may, more positively, be viewed as in creasing demands fo r security, safety and civility in everyday life. One look at the area of violence

confirms thiS, where a whole array of crimes have become a major focus of public concern; for example domestic violence, rape, child abuse and violence against animals. The entry of women into public life, consequent on their incorporation into the labour force, is no doubt a major influence on this, with rising demands being made on the level of civility both in public spaces and within the home. The area of public space is of interest in this respect in that it represents an area where women, because of increased economic and social equality, place themse lves more at risk from male abuse but also demand mo re propriety. The greater use o f pubs by women is a humdrum example of thi s two-way process, and is encouraged by the brewers for precisely these reasons.

Reserve The greater mobility of people in modern society results in a decline of communities where people live most of their life and which centre around their workplace. This results in a significant drop in information, about neighbours, acquaintances, or chance encounters in the street. One has less direct knowledge of fellow citizens and thiS, together with living in a much more heterogeneous society, leads to much less predictability of behaviour. Unpredictabili ty combined with risk generates a greater wariness in an actuarial stance towards others. Reflexivity: the uncertainty of uncertainty A key aspect o f the late modern world, over and above the sensitiza ti o n to risk, is the problematization of risk itself. Not only is the metropolis an uncertain world of dangers, but the level of ri sk itself is uncertain. In contrast to the modern world of predictable anxieties and dangers it is a world of uncertainty in that each level of risk will be questioned by experts and public alike. The fears come and go: carjacking, BSE, AIDS, road rage. They flicker on the screen of consciousness, something is going on but we are not sure who or what to believe. Whereas experts once concurred, they now seem to make a point of disagreement. From globa l warming to the ozone laye r, from BSE to satanic ch ild abuse, disagreement is the norm to an exte nt th at th e expe rt s themselves begin to look sha ky and to p urvey just another opin io n. But this is n ot a phantas ma go ri a, as So me writers wou ld have it (e.g. Furedi, 1997); city life is sca rce ly an Arcadian dream; if there was not a ratio n a l core o f u nease the images wou ld not be able to find any purchase in the public consciousness.

Actuanalism and the risk society

Refraction The mass media carry a plethora of images of crime and deviance gleaned from across the world. These media commodities are characterized like all news by their atypical nature - they are 'news' because they surprise and shock. Without doubt such imagery in its sheer quantity and in its garishness must cause 'fear' of crime disproportional to actual risk. Yet it is only one factor out of Six, but it is often presented as tile factor which determines public assessment of risk - as if fear were merely a metaphenomenon of television viewing.

Umwelt and the management of risk The awareness of risk generates an actuarial atti· tude in the citizen of late modernity. This is an attitude of wariness, of calculation and of reflec· tiveness. Some of these calculations will involve seeking for opportunities: urban life is full of excitement and pleasure as well as risk. The citizens of all the great First World megalopolises London, ew York, Paris, for example - share the same habits of reserve, of abraSiveness with strangers, of 'ducking and diving': of avoiding trouble and seeking gain. Anthony Giddens discusses the way in which human beings generate around themselves a feeling of bodily and psychic ease. 'If we mostly see m less fragile,' he notes, 'than we really are ... it is because of long·term learning processes whe reby potential th reats are aVOided or immobilized' ( 1991, p. 127). He builds on Goffman's notion of an Umwelr: a core of accomplished normality with which individuals and groups surround themselves. Taking inspi ration from studies of animal behaviou r, Goffman begins the section of Relatiolls ill Public designated 'normal appearances' with this remarkab le imagery of the Umn!elt: Individua ls, whethe r in human or animal fo rm, ex h ibi t two basic modes of activity. They go abou t their bUSiness graZing, gaZing, mothering, d igest ing, b uilding, resti ng, playing, placidly att e nd ing t o easily ma naged matters a t hand, Or, fu ll y mob ili zed, a fu ry of intent, ala rm ed, th ey ge t ready to attack or to stalk or to fl ee. Ph ys io logy itse Ir is patt ern ed to coin cide wit h this duality. Th e indi vi du a l med iates be twee n th ese two te nd en Cies with a ve ry pretty capacity fo r di ssoci ated vigil a nce. Sme ll s, sou nd s, Sig ht s, to uches, press ures - in va ri o us co mbinati o ns, d epe nding o n the spec ies - p rovid e a running reading o f the situatio n, a co nstant mon itoring

of what surrounds. But by a wonder of adapta· tion these readings can be done out of the furthest corner of whatever is serving for an eye, leaving the individual himself free to focus his main attention on the non·emergencies around him. Matter') that the actor has become accus· IOmed to will receive a flick or a shadow of concern, one that decays as soon as he obtains a microsecOIl(1 of confirmation that everything is in order; should something really prove 10 be 'up', prior activity can be dropped and full orientation mobilized, followed by cop ing behaviour .... (197 1, p. 238) The Ul1Il\'e/f has two d imensions: the area which one fee ls secure in and the area in which one is awa re·, the area of apprehension. The lioness sleeps tranquilly on the ve ldt, her eye eve ry now and then taking in the activities in the distance. In human society it is a moving bubble which shrinks and expands wherever one is: whether, for example, one is at home or in the urban street. The nature of the Umwelt varies by social category. It is strong ly gendered: Goffman noted that the Umwelt of women differed from men. Clearly, recognizing predato ry sexual signs as well as signals of poss ible vio lence from men both in public and in t he home is an important pari of the social repertoire of women. Anyone who has conducted a crim inal victi mi zat ion survey knows t hat it is possible to identi fy and different iate, 'blind ', between women and men merely by looking at t heir aVOida nce behaviour pat terns. Researchers talk of t il{' 'cu rfew' at n ight o f urban women (see Painte r et a/., 1989). The Umwe!t is strongly racialized: ethnic groups are aware of areas of safety and danger and in racist d iscourse, minori· ties are represented as signals of fear and danger to the majority population. It has strong dimensions of age: schoolchildren have a vivid sellSe of space and safety (see Anderson et al., 1994); whilst street gangs and home boys act ive ly police their turf, providi ng both secu rity fo r themse lves and alarm for others. Lastly, Uti/weft is, of course, cruciall y consti tu ted by class: the middle class by virtue o f the cost of area, by the use of motor car, by priva te club and fa ncy restau rant seck to se para te t hemse lves fro m the undes irables, t he 'dange rous classes', even when in t ransit th roug h t he busy city cen tres of Man hattan and Lo ndo n. The signs o f dan ger need not be crime itself o r th e threat o f it, b ut more su btl e pe rceptio ns o f poss ible ri sk and til e escala tion o f danger. Goffma n was perh aps th e fi rst academ iC to note the probl em o f in civiliti es, way ahead of Wil so n and Ke llin g's famous 'Broken Windows' (see p.295, th is volu me].

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Thus: When an individua l finds persons in his presence act in g improperly or appearing out of place, he can read this as evidence that although the peculiarity itse lf may not be a threat to him, st ill , those who are peculia r in one rega rd may well be peculiar in other ways, too, some of which may be threaten in g. For the individ ual , then, impropriety on the part of others may fun cti o n as an ala rmi ng sign. Th us, th e min or civilities of everyday life ca n function as an early warning system; conven tio nal courtesies are seen as mere conventi on, but non-performance ca n cause alarm. (1971, p. 241) He cites an example of sexua l harassme nt which graphically indi cates th e continuum nature of crim e. This is fr om Meredith Tax's articl e in Women's Liberation: Notes from tile Second Year: A young woman is walking down a city street. She is excrucia tin gly aware of her appearance and of th e reaction to it (i magined or real) of every person she meets. She walks through a group of co nst ructi on workers who are eating lunch in a line along th e pavement. Her stomach tightens with terror and revulsion; her face becomes co nto rted into a grimace of self-control and fake unawareness; her walk and carriage become stiff and dehumanized . No matter what they say to her, it will be unbearable. She kn ows that they will not physically assault her or hurt her. They will only do so metaphoricall y. What they will do is impinge on her. They will use her body with their eyes. They will eva luate her market price. They will co mm ent on her defects or compare them to those of other passers-by. They will make her a participant in their fantasies witho ut asking if she is willing. They will make her feel ridiculous, or grotesquely sexual, or hideously ugly. Above all, Lhey will make her feel like a thing. (Tax, 1970, p. 12) Goffman is co nvin ced that the co ndition of 'uneventfulness' is a mo ral right of a citizen (see 1971 , p. 240); such a level of tru st is part of the nature of civilized life. And he detects an overall deterioration in this quality of life: The vulnerability of publi c life is what we are coming more and mo re to see, if only because we are becoming more aware of the areas of intricacies of mutual trust presupposed in publi c order. Ce rtainly circum stances can arise which undermine th e case that individuals have

within their Umwelt. Some of these ci rcum stances are currently found in the semi-p ubli c places within slum housing developm ents .... Certain ly the great public forums of our society, the downtown areas of ou r cities, can come to be uneasy places. Militantly sustai n ed an tagonisms between diffusely intermingled major population segments - young and old, male and fe mal e, white and black, impoverished and weJloff - can cause th ose in public gatheri ngs to distrust (and to fear they are distrusted by) the persons standing next to th em. The fo rm s of civil inattention, of pe rsons circum spectl y treating o ne another with polite and glancing co nce rn while each goes about his own separate business, may be maintained, but behind these normal appearances individuals can come to be at the ready, poised to flee or to fight back if necessa ry. And in place of unconcern there ca n be alarm - unt il, that is, th e streets are redefined as naturally precarious places, and a high level of risk becomes routine. (1971, pp. 331-2) The a rea of secu rity, of the Umwe lt, shrinks apace as we en ter the latter third of th e twentieth century: it shrinks because of actual ri sk but also, as we saw in the last section, because sensitivity to risk rises whilst knowledge of othe rs diminishes. But what can one say of the area of apprehension? Here the paradox of a drop in knowledge of immedi ates is associated with a globalization o f knowledge of the wider outs id e world. Tile area of security, of tile Umwe lt, lIlIIs decreases whilst at tile same time the area Of apprelletl5iorl vastly increases. Lastl y, there is another side of Umwelt, not touched upon by Goffman, but with obvious relevance and with parallels in animal behaviour. The lioness gazing fleetingly across th e ve ldt is ma pping o ut not on ly an area of secu rity and one of apprehension but also looking for indications of prey and the poss ibili t ies of predation. In human terms the city is not on ly an area of security and insecurity but of o ppo rtunities for exc itement , interest, ga in and action. The Soft- City of Jonathan Raban is an emporium of possibility as we ll as a labyrinth of danger.

Recalcitrant modernity and the critics of risk There is a body of thought which sees fear of crime and perceptions of likely risk as a phenomenon quite sepa rate from the actual risk of crime itself. Indeed ' fear ' of crime is regarded sometimes as a

Actuanalism and the risk society

problem autonomous from crime. Fear and can. cern about crime th en become metaphors for other typ~s of urban unease (e.g. urban development), or a d~ splacement of other fears (e.g. racism, psycho. logICal dIfficulties). Thc 'real' or 'true' fears are separated from cri me it self and this exercise is achieved by contrasting th e 'gap' be tween the 'real' risk of crime and the evidence of 'disproportionate' fears. Women a nd o ld people are the most fre. quentl y cit ed examp les of evidence that such a di sproportion alit y exists. This is not the place to en ter into a discussion of th e concealment of risks of crim e against th ese groups eithe r by und er· reporting or by avoidance behav iour which, so to speak, 'artifi cially' lowers the rat es. I have analysed thi s ex tens ively elsewhere (see Young, 1988, 1992). What is vital to reiterate, however, is that groups vary in th ei r evaluation of the grossness of cr im e and that each item of risk is weighted differently by th em. Women tend to view violence with greater abhorrence than men, but it is grotesque masculinism to suggest that because they worry more about violence, they are suffering from a form of irrationality which necessitates an expe rt unravelling th eir 'real' causes of discontent. Crim e, then, is refracted through the subculture of a group; it can never be perceived 'objectively' as naive ' realists' and their critics seem to believe. But there is more to it than this: within the noti on of crime as a metaphor for other forms of urban unease is implicit the belief that crime is somehow separate from the other problems of society. Yet in fact, as numerous theorists have pointed out, crime is part of a continuum with other forms of antisocial behaviour and, indeed, as radical criminologists have never ceased to argue, the val· ues which und erli e much criminal beha viour are not distin ct from conventional values but are closely related to them (see, e.g., Curri e, 1997a). To talk, then, of crime as a metaph or for urban unease is a bit like saying that fire is a metaphor for heat; that it is somehow unrelated, but excessive heat is the real problem and that the fascination with these flames that flicker around us is merely a distractio n brought upon us, no doubt, by th e mass media and th e c rim e con trol industry (e.g. Baer and Chambliss, 1997). My argument is that because human behaviour is always a subject of evaluation and assessment there can be no onc-to·one relationship between ' risk' and 'fea r': arguments which are based simply on the level of correlation, for or against, are positivist blind alleys which lead

nowhere. What is necessary is to enter into the subculture in order to discover the significance of (Time within it. To conduct qualitative research on the group is the only way to work outlines of causality (Sayer, 1984). In some cases almost metaphorica l relationships wil l be found (but even here they are metaphors grounded in reality), in others the relationship will be sta rk and close (see Young, 1992).

Iluman evaluation takes tim e, it does not happen in an instant, as jf we were talking of parti cles collidi ng with eac h other in the physica l scie nces. This mistake befuddl es the debate about public attitudes to crime in the present period, par· ticularly in th e United Sta tes. Even such sophist icated commen tato rs as Simon and Feeley can constru ct a false puzzle about public attitudes to crime: What accounts for such intense fear? And what accounts for th e dramati c in crease in fear in recent yea rs? Shifts in levels of fea r of crime are not well-understood, and the an swers to such questions are both co mpl ex and incomplete. But one important pi ece of the puzzle is well· charted if not well·understood: the intensity of pu blic conce rn with crime is not directly or strongly related to the magnitude of crime. Indeed in recent years, co ncern about crime has in creased despite a decline in overall rates of victimization. To be sure, so me groups have experienced significan t increases; young people from twelve to fift ee n years of age, for examp le, experienced a 34 perce nt increase in vio lent crime victimizations during the 1980s. And citizens of our poorest inner-city neighborhoods, in particular young Afri ca n·America n males, have expe rien ced ~ignificanl increases in violence over the past decade . Still, the groundswell of support for more and more punitive crime measures in recent yea rs has come after a decade of steady or declining crime rates for suburban middle·class whites, that segment of the popula. ti on from which the strongest suppo rt for new get-tough measures comes. Why is this group which in other respects seems relatively insensi· tive to th e well-being of people in communities distanced from themselves by poverty and race, and which is otherwise so sceptical of increases in government expend itures, so responsive to threats that in an objective sense affect them less now than at any tim e in recent memory? And why, when they generally resi st increased

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16 · Late modernity, governmentality and risk

Figure 16.2.1

The murder rate in the US, 1995- 93 (Archer and Gartner, 1984; Maguire and Pastore, 1995)

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government spending, are th ey willing to support vast new ex pe nditures for crime control measures of dubious efficacy? Fear by itself is an inherently unsatisfying explanation for the formation of recent crime policy. Indeed, it is difficult to explain the fear itself, in its own ri ghl. And the very lack of any clear correspondence between objective risk and fear suggests that discourse, including the dis· course of crime and penality, must be fundamental input to fear itself, along with fac· tors such as neighborhood disorder, economic anxiety, and changes in racial demographics. (1995, p. 154) I have quoted this at length, although such views are echoed regularly elsewhere (e.g. Chambliss, 1994a, 1994b; Platt, 1996) because it most thoroughly describes this perplexity. Briefly in response to thi s it shou ld be noted that a central plank of the conundrum is that in the recent years the crime rate for th e United Sta tes has levelled: for exa mpl e th e homicide rate (one of the more reliable statistics) was 10.2 per 100,000 in 19 74 and 9.5 in 1993. In between this it has fluctuated , sometimes being as low as 8.0 (1985) (see Figure 16.2.1). William Chambliss quite correctly posited that the FBI has often capitalized on these fluctuations by claiming increases in violence when over

the longer period there was, if anything, a slight decline (see Chambliss, 1994b). This rosy positivistic vision is dependent on public memory being extreme ly short , yet it is undoubtedly longer than these authors allow fo r. Any middle-aged person in the United States will be o nly too a\.,'are that over the last third of the cen tury (the period that concerns us here) there has been a dramatic increase in violence. In 1966, for example, the homicide rate was only 5.9 per 100,000 and the simple fact is that those who are careless enough to be mystified by publi c attitudes confine themselves to the plateau of the pos t-1973 period. For example. Chambliss' graph to illustrate this ( 1994a, Figure 2; 1994b, Figure 3) commences at this point but if he had started it just a few years earlier it would have shown a period of rapid growth up to this exceptionall y high plateau (the present homiCide rate is seven times that o f Fngland and Wales, and that of young men is a staggering 52 times). Could it not be that the American public is sick to its back teeth with this inordinate slaug hter of its you ng people? Could it not be that they are willing to back intemperat e policy and imprisonment in order, they hope, to achieve some abatement of the problem? From /. Yout/S, The Exclusive Society (Loll dOll: Sage), 1999, pp. 68-77. - -_ _ _----.J

Risk, power and crime prevention

References BaN, J. and C h ambli 5s, W. (1997) 'Generating Fear: The Politics of Crime Reporting', Crime, La\\ (llId Sodal ClUII/Xf 27, pp. 87-107. Beck, U. ( 1992) Risk 50dl.'~'. London: Sage.

C hambliss, W. ( 1994a) 'Profili ng the Ghetto Underclass: The Politics o f Law and Order Enforcement', Su!"i(11 Problems 41 (2), pp. 177-194. C hambliss, W. (1994b) ' Don' t Co nfuse Me Wit h Facts. 'C lint on Just Say No', New Left Rel'iew 204, pp. 113- 128. Currie , E. ( 1997a) 'Market, Crime and Communi ty ', Tlleoretim/ Crimillology 1(2), pp. 14 7- 172. Feeley, M. and Si mon, J. ( 1992) 'The New Pen ology:

Notes o n the Emerging Strategy of Correction s and its Implicatio ns ', Crimil/%sy 30(4), pp. 449-4 74. Fee ley. M. and Simon, J. (1994) ' Actu ari al Justice: The Emergi ng New C riminal Law ' in D. Nelken (ed.) Tile Futures of Criminolo.'O·. London: Sage. Furedi, F. (1997) Tlu.' Culture of Fellr. Lo ndon: Cassell. Giddens, A. ( 1991) \fudemih ' (111(/ SeI(- ldelltitv. Cambridge: Polity. Goffman, E. ( 1971) ReICitiOIl~ ill Public. Lo ndon : Allen La ne. Painter, K., Lea, J., Woodhouse, T. and Young, J. (1989) Tile Hammersmith lIml FlllJlIlm Crim e Survey. Middlesex University: Centre for Criminology.

Platt , A. (1996) 'The Politics of Law and O rder', Social lustice 2 10), PI'. J- H . 'iayer, A. ( 1984) Method ill Soeilll Sciellce: A Rea/i.st Appro.l( I,. London: lIutchinson . Sim on, J. ( 1987) ' Th e l:.m erge n ce of a Risk SOciety: Insurance, Law and the State', Sooor Di~dplille. C hicago: University of Chicago Press. Simon, J. and Feeley, M. (1995) 'True C rim e: The New Peno logy and Publi c Di scou rse on Crime' in T. Blomberg and S. Cohen (cds) Plll/islllnent and Social COlltrol. New York: Aldine de G ru yter. Tax, M. ( 1970) 'The Woman and Her Mind: The Story of Everyday Life' in A. Koed t and S. Firestone (eds) Women's Liberatioll: No tes from the Seco"d Year. New York: Justice Books. Young, J. (1988) ' Ri sk of C rime and Fear of Crime' in M. Ma guire and S. Painting (eds) Victim s of Crime: A New De(Ii. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Young, J . (1992) 'Te n Point s of Realism' in J . Young and R. Matthews (cds) Rethillki"g Crimi1lology. Londo n : Sage.

16.3 Risk, power and crime prevention

Pat O'Malley Situational crime prevention as risk management Situational c rime p revention may be understood as quintessentially 'actua ria l'. It deals hardly at all with individual offenders, is uninterested in the ca uses o f c rim e, and generally is h os tile or at best agnost ic toward co rrectio nali s l11. It s conce rn is with c rime control as risk manage m e nt (Reichman 1986). In a fairly aggressive sel f-d esc riptio n , the National C rime Prevention Ins titut e o utlin es the following basic assumptions of what it grandly calls ' the cont emporary perspective' in crim in ology: •

Prevention (and not rehabilitati o n) should be th e major co n cern o f criminologists;

•

No o ne is sure h o w to rehabilitate o ffenders;

•

Punishment and/or impri sonment may be relevant in controlling certain o ffenders ;

•

Crimin al behav io ur ca n be controlled primarily through the direct alteration of the environmen t o f po tential v ictims;

•

Crime contro l progra m s must focus on crime befo re it occurs rather than afterward; and

•

As crim in a l op po rtunity is reduced, so too will be the num ber o f c riminals, (National C rime Prevention Institute 1986: 18)

As Cohen also indicates (but see too Bo ttoms 1990; O'Malley 199 1; King 1989; ladicola 1986; Hogg 1989) situational c rime p revention is enjoying a period o f ext ra o rdin ary success in Britain, the United States, Australia and elsewhere - at least in the political sense of its innuence as a program of crim e control. Ce rtainl y it is tempting to follow earlier arguments and regard thi s as due to the in c rea sed e ffi cie n cy o f actuarial techniques. But

373

374 16 . late modernity, govern mentality and risk

the rap id ity of its rise to prominence can scarce ly be attributed to evidence of its superiority ove r correctionalism and causal/social crimino logies. Rather what emerges, as might be expected from Cohe n's (1985) original account o f the ' politics of failure' , is a political strugg le over th e d efi niti on and the crit eria of failure and success. This may be seen in several ways. First, advocates of situa tiona l crime prevention take inexorably rising crime rates as its evid ence of the failure of cr imin o logy (e.g. Geason and Wilson 1988, 1989).1 Yet while this may be a politi call y persuasive a rgument, it is scarcel y an indisputable fact, si nce between the 1960s and 1980s soc ia l crimin ologies progressively undermined the validity of crim e rates in thi s respect. The meani ng and validity o f cr im e rates in other words is part o f tile politics o f failure rather than a neutral gauge for the measurement of efficiency.2 Second, the assault o n social and ca usal criminologies' ineffectiveness, even where accepted, is read il y turn ed aside by the argument that at no po int ha ve the insights of these theories been translated properly in to policy. This point is o ne seized upon by Miller and Rose (1990) who point o ut that all polic ies ' fail ' for this reason because no policy is ever unadulterated in practice. Perhaps more to the point is the fa ct that no matter how 'pure' is the theoretical lineage of a poli cy, among adherents th ere will always be disputes over the 'correct' mea ns of im plementing the programs on which it is based. 'Fa ilure ' is always attributable to the mode of impl emen tati on rather than to the policy it se lf. Third, situational crime prevention 's own claims to success are undermined by counterclaims that it achieves merely the displacement of crime to softer targets (e.g. Wilson 198 7; Cornish and Clarke 1986). More vitally, it is coun tered that it reacts only to symptoms, and thus fails to address the enduring social problems that crime merely manifests (King 1989; Bottoms 1990; MacNamara forthcoming). At thi s paint, of course, the two approaches rather cease to co nverge - for the goals of each are regarded as misguided to the other, and the already disputed criteri a of success and failure therefore lose the se mblan ce o f sha red standards. Such debates are endless. Th ey reveal only that the politics of success and failure normally are struggles ove r the status of criteria , and can rarely be reduced to any universally accepted scale of efficiency. If this is the case, then the question of why

situa t ional crime prevention has proven so influe nti al a techn iqu e will need to be answe red in terms of its relationship to political programs and st rategies, and especially to those currently in ascendance. I believe that the broader political and ideologica l effects of situatio nal crime prevention reveal that its attractions to economic rationalist, neo-conservative and New Right programs provide such an answer (although not unrelated attractions to police forces are also significant ). The pr im a ry attractions, I wi ll argue, link directly with core ideolog ical assumptions o f the New Right, and through these with the two d irecti o ns of population management - inc reaSing punitiveness with respect to offende rs, a nd with respect to vict ims, th e displacement of socialized risk management with privatized prudentialism. While it is by no means the case that this is the only possible con st ru ction of situational crime prevention (oth ers will be discussed briefly toward the end of thi s paper), for a va ri ety of reasons it is a particularly d urab le and readily mobilized version under current conditions.

Neo-conservative readings of crime prevention Situational crime prevention and the offender

Situational crim e prevention destroys the disciplin es' biographical individual as a category of cri minologica l knowledge, but the criminal does not disappea r. Opportunities only exist in relation to potential cr iminals who convert o pen windows into windows of o pportuniti es for crime. To insta ll such an agent, situational crime prevention replaces the biological crim ina l with a polar opposition - th e abstract and universal 'a biographical' individu al - the rati o nal choice' actor (see also Geason and Wilson 1989; Heal and Laycock 1986; National Crime Prevention Institute 1986). However, while abstract and abiographic, this rational choice individual nevertheless is clearly structured . It thinks in cost-benefit terms - weighing u p the ri sks, po tential gains and po tential costs, and then committing an offence on ly when the benefit s are perceived to ou tweigh the losses. This co nstruction may be tho ught of as having a sou rce very close to the foundations of actuarialism. It is of co urse the amoral rational choice individual be loved of classica l economics, the IlOmo eCOllomicliS which inhabits the world of insur-

Risk, power and crime prevention

ance - the home basc of risk management discourses, and an industry of women and children; we mu'lt not separate women's experiences of violence and danger from unknown and known men; and we must not forget that men's sexual violence i\ part of the backdrop of all women's lives and not something experienced by a minority who can be labellsion of the fix as it exis ts today; however, there is no doubt that the fix is stil1 used in nirnina! CJ'>es. Bul there is real doubt about how often it i~ avai lable to the burg lar. My own views o n the con temporary availability of the fix are qu ite ~jmi l ar to thme e.'p ressed by Gould et al. (1968) and Jalkson (1969).

References Braly, M. (1967) 0 " til(' Yanl. Bosto n: Little, Brown . Byrnes, T. (1969) Professional Crim inals of AmeriC(l. New Yo rk : Chelsea House (original publi shed in 1886). Carlin , J. ( 1966) Lawyer's Ethics. New York; Russell Sage Foundation. Davis, C. B. (1944 ) Til e Rebellion of Leo McGuire. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.

DeBau n, E. ( 1950) 'Th e heist: The theory and practice of armed robbery.' Ha rpers (Febru ary): 69-77. Einsladter, w.J, ( 1969) 'The soci,, ] ors "n ization of armed robbery.' Sodal l'roblel//5 17 (Summer): 64-82. Go ffm an, E. (1 963) Stigma. En glewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice- Ilal!.

469

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20 · Violent and property crime

Goldfarb, R. ( 1965) Ransom. New York: Harper and Row, Gould, L., E. Bittner, S. Chaneles, S. Messinger, K. Novak, and F. Powledge (1968) Crime As (I Profession. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Law Enforcement Assistance. Hall, J. (1952) Tlleft, Law (11/(1 Society (revised edition). Indianapolis: Babbs-Merrill, Hapgood, II. (1903) Autobiography of a Thief New York: Fox , Duffield. Hollingshead, A.B. (1939) 'Behavior systems as a field for research,' Americall Sociological Review 4 (October): 816-822. Irwin, J. (1970) Tile Fdol1. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, Inc. Jackson, B. (1969) A Thief'S Primer. New York: Macmillan. Katz, F.E. (1958) 'Occupational contact networks.' Social Forces 37 (October): 52-55.

Lerner!, E. (\958) 'The behavior of the systematic check forger.' Social Problems 6 (Fall): 141-149. Malcolm X (with the assistance of Alex Haley) (1964) Tile AlltohiograpllY of Malcolm X. New York: Grove Press. Martin, J.B. (1953) My Life jll Crime, New York: Signet Books.

Morton, J. (Big Jim) (with D. Witala) (1950) '] was king of the thieves.' Satmday Evening Post (August 5, 12, and 19): 17-19,78-81; 28, 92, 94-96; 30,126,128, 130-132. Shover, N.

(1971) 'Burglary as an occupation.' Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Unive rsity of Illinois (Urbana). Suther land, E. (1937) The Professiollal Tlder. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Yoder, R.M. (J 954) 'The best friend a thief ever had.' Saturday Evelling Post 227 (December 25): 18-19; 72-73.

20.2 American lethal violence

Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins Other indust rial democracies have rates of crime comparab le to those found in the United States. Even rates of violent c rime in European and Commonwealth nations are closer to U.S. levels than had been thought. But the death rates from all forms of violence are many times greater in the United States than in other comparable nations. Lethal violence is the distinctive American problem. [... ] The distinctive feature of the analysis lherej is the focus on risk of death as an organizing principle for examining all forms of violent crime. On this dimenSion, assault is the most life-threatening of all American crimes, no more common in the United States than in other nations but much more deadly. Robbery is the other major killer among Ame ri can crimes. Burglary and rape are much less dangerous. Does the American reputation for violence survive U1is new type of statistical analysis? For the most part, yes. The singular reputation of the United States for violence is justified, but requires qualification in two important respects. The first qualification is that rates of life-threatening violence in the United States are much higher than those of other nation s of COIllparable industrial and socia l development. They are, however, not much higher and in some cases they are lower than the rates of violence expe rienced in some less developed nations. What is striking about the quantity of lethal violence in the United States is

that it is a third world phenomenon occurring in a first world nation. The second major qualification is that the large difference between American rates of violence and those of other developed nations is most pronounced only in regard to the. most serious forms of v iolence. Low-grade assaults, barroom brawls, the abusive disciplining of children, and the like are distributed broadly throughout the industrialized nations of the West. American rates of those behaviors place the United States at the higher end of the distribution for those events, but there is no pattern of singular predominance. It is for types of interpersonal violence likely to lead to death or serious bodily injury that the U.S. rate is four to ten times as high as other developed nations. That distinction between types of violence is a significant defining characteristic of the distinctively American violence problem.

Homicide: a profile During ] 990 the United States reported 23,438 crimi nal homicides, which represents a rate of 9.4 h omicides per 100,000 citizens, or approximately one killing in that year for every 10,000 persons. The American homicide rate is quite high by most international standards, but the relative position of the United States in terms of homicide

American lethal violence

varies substantially depending on the (o untri es chose n fo r co m pariso n . Il om ic id e in th e Un ited States is greatly in excess of all the nations of Europe, averaging betwee n three and ten times the homi(ide rates reported in Western Luropean and more than t hree times the averdge homicide rates reported by the Eastern European nations. I... ] The moral to be drawn from international co mparisons of lethal vio len(e depends upon the standard of reference. When the (Omparison is mad e with nations of comparable social and economic developmen t the contrast is d rama tic. Figu re 20.2.1 illustrates this by profili ng rates of criminal homicide for th e seve n indust rial and financia l giants that constitute the Group of Seven (G7).

Figure 20.2 .1

10

Homicide rate (per 100,000), G7 countries, 1990

U

• • •

"

2

"

II

,

Canada

Fr.n"

Germ,ny

01

0.'

Unrted K,ngdom

Japan

0

Un,led Stalts

lilly

Source: World Health Organization 1990.

When the basis for comparison is broadened, the national experience of the United States, while still not typical of any region or stage of development, is neve rth eless less extreme than in the G7 frame of refe rence. It s current rates of intentional homicid e place the United States in the upper third of the distribution of underd eve loped countries, but by no means at the top of that list. Figure 20.2.2 begins th e tas'- of placing data on homicide in a public health context by showing the distribution of fatalities in the United States by cause of death for 1989. [... ] Intentional homicide is the tenth leading cause of death in Figure 20.2.2 and accounts for a total of 1.1 percent of all th e deaths that occurred in the United States in 1990. When compared with the major fatal diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, the death toll from homicide appears modest. All forms of heart disease were responsible for about thirty times as many deaths in the United States as intentional homidde.

But two re lated characteri~tics of homicide dea th ", inueased the social cmts of homicide: in tenti onal killing usually strike':! down persons without any major disease, a nd it also produces, disproportionally, the deaths of younge r victims. In thi'i regard homicide is sim ilar to fatal au tomobile accidents and different from the major categories of disease. Trends over time Hgure 20.23 attempts to put homicide rates in longt{'fm perspective by reporting trends in intent ional homicide throughout the twe nti et h ce ntury; This nine-decade range i~ not achieved without some sacrifice of the comparability and reliability of the data. Prior 10 1933 th e data o n deaths in the United Sta tes are confined to a collection of death reporting states, while fro m 1933 o nward the data are available for all states. Info rmati o n provided after 1932 should thus be regarded as more representative of the country as a whole. Moreover the data for each yea r after 1932 should be regardec) as mote validly comparabl e with other post-I 932 observations. A long-range time series of ho micide deaths in the Un ited States produces some useful perspectives o n recent trends . The fir st of these is the relatively narrow range within which criminal homicide rates ha ve flu ctuated. Putting aside the pattern fo r reporting states only from 1900-1909, rates of intentional homicide have fluctuat ed between a low of 4.5 per 100,000 populat ion and a high of 10.7 per 100,000 over eight decades . Within thi s range, the death rate trended upward in the reporting states through the first third of the ce ntury, reached a peak in 1933 - the first year of comprehensive reporting - and fell off gradually 10 the end of the Second World War. Ilomicide rates then remained stable to the ea rly 1960s. From 1964 to 1974 the national homicide rate doubled, felt off slightly in the middle of the decade, then rose to its century high of 10.7 per 100,000 population in 1980. Through the first half of the 1980s the homicide rate fell back, but it then moved up again from 1986 to 1991. Viewed in this long-term perspective, there are three significant eras in American homicide since 1933: a long downward drift to the century's lowest sustained homicide rat e in the 1950s and early I 960s; a sharp and sustained increase during the period 1964 to 1974; and variations around the new high levels ever since. The long-term perspective is both reassuring and discouraging. It is reassuring to note that one reason why the increases of the 1960s and 1970s looked so dramatic is because they were starting

471

472 20 · Violent and property crime

Figure 20.2 .2 Causes of death, compared by percentage, 1989

, 34 .1

Heart Disease

23.1

Malignant Neoplasm

6.8

Cerebrovascular Disease Accident

4.4

Pulmonary Disease

3.9 3.6

Pneumonia/Influenza

1.1

Diabetes Mellitus Suicide Chronic liver Disease Homicide

{}. -

1.2

-

L1 ,

o

10

5

15

10

15

30

35

Source: US Department of Health and Human Services 1991 .

Figure 20.2.3 US homicide rate (per 100,000)

"

The circumstances and demography of American lethal violence

' . .

,-' " .,..:

• 6

,

.-'

•"

,,"'" ,,,

• ,

,

•

°191X1

1910

1920

1930

ward trend over time during the past three decades. Also, even the lower rate periods sin ce 19 74 have involved co nsis t ently high rates of homicide by historic standard s.

194n

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

- - - Reporting Slates All States

Source: US Departmen t of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1976; US Department of Health and Human Serviecs 1991.

from h isto ri ca ll y low homicide rates. It is also reassu ring to know that recent American homicide rates have not increased sign ificant ly when co m pared wi th previous peak pe riods: 1933, 1974, and 1980. Th e discourag ing feature of the long- range pe rspecti ve is th e absence of any susta ined dow n -

Police stati stics provide two types of informa ti o n about the circumstances, motive and information about the prior relati onship beh·veen the victim and the o ffender. Figure 20.2.4 provides the police classification of precipitating circu mstances of homicide of the cases reported in the Supplementary Homicide Reports for 1992. Wh en the precipitating circumstances are known, the bulk. of all homicides stem from conflicts that eme rge from social relations. About 15 percent o f the homicides are byproducts of collateral felonies where the hom icide results fro m an interaction that began as a robbery, burglary, arson, or rape. Does th is mean that most hom iCides result from noncrimina l social relations? In one se nse, all attacks that resul t in criminal ho m icide are properly classified as cr im inal when the a ttack takes p lace. But the socia l processes that generate a rgumen ts that result in homicides are not d istin cti vely crim in al in most cases. Many of the same con fli cts

American lethal violence

Figure 20.2.4

US homicides, by circumstances, 1992

Argument

32%

Felony and Suspected Felony

16%

Vice {Narcotics,

9%

Prostitution, Gambling)

Youth Gang

4%

Other

12%

Not Known

28%

, 0%

5%

10%

15%

10%

25%

30%

35%

Source: US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1994b.

that produce non life-threatening o utcomes in most cases also lead to homicides. In one sen se then , social conflict is a cause of lethal violence. But this will rise and fall with the gross amount of social conflict. Argumen t s over money, sexual jealousy and male honor number in the millions in the United States, but also in every othe r indust rial d emocracy. There is no reaso n to suppose that variat ions in t he gross number of conflic ts are a maj o r explanation o f variations in homicide. Our guess is that th e rate o f domestic argument is simi lar in England and in the United States, and that the rate of barroom arguments is as hig h in Sydney as in Los Angeles. f... ] One o t her routine ly repo rted dimension of ho mi cide circumstance is the relationship between vict im an d offender, as shown in Figure 20.2.5 The re lat ionship between victi m and offender can be specified by the po lice in six out of every ten cases when t he Su pplementary Homic ide Reports a re fil ed. Where t he relationship is known, the o ffen der a nd victim were acquainted in more than ha lf th e cases and were connected by family ties in an ad d it io n a l 15.3 perce nt of all ho m ici d es. The poli ce judge th at v ictim and offender were strangers in 13.5 percent o f all cases or 23 percent o f all cases where the police ma ke a relationship claSSi fi cation. What can we say fr o m t h ese data about th e nature o f v i c tim ~o ffe nd e r relat io n ships in hom i-

cide? To estimate the total volume of stranger homicides in th e United States as about 14 percent is certainly an undercount because the police report that they cannot identify the relationship between victim and offender in 39 percent of all homicides. But a controve rsy has emerged regarding how to treat the 'relationship unknown ' grou p of cases when estimating the total proportion of lethal violence that does not involve prior acquaintances. One theory is that the police can usually spec ify the relationship in homicides involv ing domestic and romantic intimates. Since the 'relati onship unknown' category will involve few such intimate homicides, it is best to add all 'relationShip unknown' cases to the know n stranger cases to estimate t he tr ue proport ion of st range r cases. Such a procedure could produce an estimate that a ma jority o f U.S. homicides involve st range rs (Walinsky 1995; U.S. Departme n t of Justice, Federa l Bureau of Investigation, 1994b). But the logical founda ti on on whic h this p rocedure res ts is fallac ious. T h ere is no reason to doub t t h at ki ll ings by fa m ily members are not often included in the 'relationship unknown' category o f homicides . Bu t to conclude that all unsolved ki ll ings a re committed by st range rs is u nwarran ted because the la rgest category of homicides in t he United States is killing wh ere the re is some prior acquain tan ce betwee n victim an d

473

474

20 · Violent and property crime

Figure 20.2.5 Victim-offender relationship in US crim inal homicide, 1992

15.3%

Familv/Domestlc

31.7%

Acquaintance

13.5%

Stranger

Relationship Not Known

to Police

0%

39.1%

5%

10%

20%

15%

:::r. 25%

30%

35%

40%

Source: US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1994b.

o ffender, and th ere is no reason to suppose th at homicides involvi ng friends o r co nfli cts betwee n casual acquai ntances are easy for po lice authorities to solve. Perhaps th e best provisional estimate of st ran ge r killings ca n be obtai ned by distributing the unknown rel ationshi p killings accordin g to the proportions of th e known relationship cases other than th ose involving family and domestic disturbances. Thi s would p roduce an estimate of 2S percent strange r killings in the Un ited States when the 13.5 percent o f co nfirm ed stra nge r cases are added to the estimated 12 percent of cases that probably involve st range rs.

Figure 20.2 .6 us homicide risks by race and gender,1989

50 40

20

10 1.8

0-1---

The demography of homicide The consistent th eme in o ur account o f the demography of violence is th at the most lethal subtypes of viole nce are also the most co ncentrated in pockets of social disadvantage, while th e less lethal forms of violence are more evenly distributed. (... 1 Figure 20.2.6 begins the analysis by reporting rates of ho micide sepa rately by gender and ra ce for American s classified as white and black. Excluded from this ana lysis are some major racial and ethnic classifications, including Hi spani c, ASian, and Pacifi c Islanders. The aggregate hom iCide rate for the United States in 1989 was 9.4 per 100,000, but only one of

•

Wholice. London: Vi rago. Fa rrell, G. (1992), 'Mu lt iple Victi misa ti on; It s Ex tent and Sign ificance', IlIlem(1tioll(l1 Review of Victim%gy, Z, 85- 102.

485

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20 · Violent and property crime

FitzGerald, M. (1989), 'legal Approaches to Racial lIarassment in Cou n cil Housing: The Case for Reassessment', New Comml/nity, 16/1: 93-106. Forbes, D. ( 1988), Action 0" Racial Harassmellt: Legal Reme,/ies al/(/ Local Authorities. London: Legal Action Group. Fryer, P. (1984), StayillS I'ower: TI,e History of Black People ill Britaill. london: Pluto. Genn, 11. ( 1988), 'M ultiple Victimiza ti o n ', in M. Maguire and J. Poi n ting, ed s., Victims of Crime: A New Deal? 90- 100. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Ginsburg, N. ( 1989), 'Racial Ha rassment Policy and Practice: The Denial of Ci ti zensh ip', Critical Social Policy, 26: 66-81 , G LC ( 1984), Raci(l/ H(lrc/ sslllell/ ill Londoll: Report of a Panel of '"quiry Set Up by tile GLC Police Committee. London: Grea ter London Council. Go ldste i n , H. ( 1990), Problem-Oriel/tui Policillg. New York: McGraw-Hili . Gordo n, P. (1984), White Law. London: Pluto. Gordon , P. ( 1990), Racial Violence 011(/ Harassmefll, 2nd edn , Run n ymede Research Report. london : Runnymede Trust. G rim shaw, R., and jeffe rson , T. ( 198 7), Interpretillg Policework. London : Allen and Unwin. Hall , S., C rit che r, c., Jeffe rson, T., Clarke, j ., and Roberts, B. ( 1978), IJolicing tile Crisis: Mugging, tile State, (md Law a/1(l Order. London: Macmillan . Hesse, B. , Rai , O.K., Bennett, c., and McGilchrist , P. ( 1992), Belleath ti,e Surface: Racial Hara ssment. Aldershot: Avebury. Home Office (1981 ), Racial Attacks: Reporl of a Hom e Office Stlldy. London: Il ome Office. - (1989), TIle Respollse to Racial Attacks alld Harassmellt: Gllidallce for till' Stalu/ory Asencies, Report o f the Inter-Departmental Racial Attacks Group. London : Home Office. House of Comm ons (1982), Ho me Affairs Committee, 2nd Report, Racial Attacks. London: HMSO . - (1986), Hom e Affairs Committee, 3 rd Report, Racial Attacks ali(I Hamssment. London: HMSO. Husbands, C. (1983), R(lcial ExC/usionism and Ole Cit)': Tile Urb(l1I Support for till' National Frolll. London: Allen and Unwin. Institute of Race Relations (1987), Policing against Black People. London: Institute of Race Relations. jones, T., Maclean , B.D., and Young, J. (1986), T/J e Islingtoll Crime Survey: Crime, Victimisa tioll ami PoliCing ill I,,"er-City Lom/oll, Aldershot: Gower. Kelly, L. (1987), 'The Continuum of Sexual Violence', in J. Hanmer and M. Maynard , cds., Womell, Violence ami Social COlltrol. 46-60. London: Macmillan. Kinsey, R., Lea,)., and Young, J. ( 1987), Losillg the Figllt AgaillSt Crime. Oxford: Blackwell. Klug, F. (1982), Racist At/acks. London: Runnymede Trust.

Layton-Ilenry, Z. (1984), Tile Politics of Race ill Britain. London: Allen and Unwin . Maclean, B.D. ( 1986), 'Crit ical Criminol ogy and Some Limitations of Traditional Inquiry', in B.D. Maclea n, cd., The Political Economy of Crime: Readings (or a Critical Crimi/lology. Scarborough, Ontario: PrenticeHall. Manning, P.K. (1988), Symbolic Communication. London: MIT Press. Newham Monitoring Project (1990), New/Jam MOllitoring Project Antlllal Report 1989. lo nd on: Newham Monitoring Project. Pearson, G. ( 1976), " Paki-bashing " in a North Eastern Lancas h ire Colton Town: A Case Study and its Ili sto ry', in J. Mungham and G. Pearson, Workillg Cf(IS~ YOIltlJ Culture. Lo ndon: Routledge. Pearson, G., Sa mpson , A. , Blagg, H., Stubbs, P. , and Smith, D.J. ( 1989), ' Policing Racism', in R. Morgan a n d D.). Smith, cd s., Comillg to Terms willi PoliCing: Perspectives all Policy. London: Routledge. Reeves, F. ( 1989), Race and 80rollgll Politics. Alde rsh ot: Avcbury. Rock, P. (1990), Helpillg Victims of Crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sa mpso n, A., a nd Phillips, C. (1992), Multiple Victimisatioll: Racial Attacks OIl a" East London Estate, Police Research Group Crime Prevention Unit Series Paper 36. London: Home Office Police Department. Shapland, J., Willmore,)., and Duff, P. (1985), Victims iii tile Criminal lustice System. Aldershot: Gower. Skogan, W.G . ( 1986), ' Methodological Issues in th e Study o f Victimisat ion ', in E. Fatlah, ed., From Crime Policy to Victim Policy. 80-1 16. London: Macmillan. Smith, D.J., a nd Gra y, J. ( 1983), Police (lnd People ill Londoll , vol. 4: The Police in Actiol/. l on don : Policy Studies In stitute. Smith, j .c., and Hogan , B. (1983), Criminal Law. London: Butterworth. Solol11os, j. (1989), Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain. Londo n: Macmillan. Stanko, E.A. ( 1987), 'Typical Violence, Normal Precau ti ons: Men , Wo men and Interpersonal Violence in England, Wales, Scotland and the USA', in). lianmer and M. Maynard , eds., Womell, Vio!fIIC(> (1/111 Soci,,1COlltrol. Lond o n: Macmillan . - ( 1988), ' Hidden Violence Against Women', in Maguire and Pointing, eds.: 40-6. - ( 1990), EVeF}'Llay Violellce. London: Pandora . Tompson, K. (1988), Ullder Siege. Racial Violfllce ill Brita;II Today . Harlllondsworth: Penguin . Walklate, S. ( 1989), Victimology: Tile Victim and OIl' Criminal/ustice Process. London: Unwin Hyman. Walsh , D. ( 1987), Racial Harassment in Glasgow. Glasgow: Scotlbh Ethnic Minorities Research Un it. Young, M. (1990), A" Imide lob. Ox ford: C la re n do n Press .

Introduction KEY CONCEPTS

crimes without victims; deregulation; interdiction; liminal zones; mandatory penalties; night-time economy; prohibition; routine activities; war on drugs

Drugs and alcohol frequently appear in discussions of crime ; either straightforwardly because purchase and sale of various substances is prohibited by law, or more indirectly as perceived causes of criminal activity. Criminological work in this area covers a broad range of issues ranging from the history of social policy in relation to the regulation of substance use and sale to explorations of the rela· tionship between different substances and levels and types of crime . Because of a preoccupation with illicit drugs in recent decades there has been, until relat ively recently, much less discussion of alcohol, its consumption and its impact. This is changing , in part because of what appear to be changing patterns of consumption , many of which are linked to the changing nature of what has become known as the ' night-time economy' . Dick Hobbs and colleagues (Reading 21.1) explore the role of alcohol in the urban night and, in particular, what they refer to as the 'human ecology of violence ' . They review some of the evidence from accident and emergency records that indicates what proportion of incidents resulting in injury appear to have involved alcohol and go on to explore those aspects of modern (post-industrial, they suggest) consumption that might plausibly be connected to high levels of violence. If alcohol has an association with vio lence then it is often assumed that there is a connection between heroin use and acquisitive crime. James Inciardi (Reading 21.2) looks at the relationship between heroin use and street crime based on a study of 356 heroin users. He found that early involvement in criminal activity was common, with burglary being the most common initially committed crime. Most users had been arrested and a very substantial proportion had been incarcerated. According to Inciardi, the extensive criminal involvement tended to be connected to their drug habit. He outlines what seem to be very high numbers of offences committed by his sample of heroin users, but argues that a significant proportion of those crimes were 'crimes without victims'. Attempting to control drug use is a major headache for governments. Ethan Nadelmann (Reading 21.3) looks at the history and some of the consequences of American drug prohibition policy. He examines American government policies in relation to overseas drug control and outlines the major barriers that exist, both practically and politically. Indeed, he argues that the major consequence of US drug interdiction policies has been the counterproductive one of increasing the availability of potent cocaine whilst limiting the availability of comparatively benign marijuana. Moreover, such action is extraordinarily expensive - the bill for drug enforcement over 20 years ago being as high as $10 billion. He concludes that the 'most unfortunate victims of drug prohibition policies have been the poor and law-abiding residents of urban ghettos'. This argument is picked up by Mark Mauer (Reading 21.4) who looks at the impact of the so-called 'war on drugs' on the African-American community. He shows how it is African-Americans who have been disproportionately caught up in the huge increase in arrests as a result of drugs crackdowns - despite the fact that the data suggest that the ethnic differences in drug use are relatively

488

minor. One of the best known , and most discriminatory, elements of American drugs policy IS the extreme mandatory sentences linked to crack cocaine offences compared wIth the more liberal sentencing regime for powder cocaine offences. The outcome of these and other drugs policies has seen a very rapid expansion in the number of African-Americans in prison and gaol in the US. Indeed, it is drugs policy more than any other, Mauer suggests, that is responsible for so many Black Americans behind bars.

Questions for discussion 1. What are some of the main changes in the pattern of alcohol consumption outlined by Hobbs and colleagues? 2. In what ways might these changing patterns of consumption be linked with a tendency toward violence? 3. Describe the general characteristics of the criminal histories of Inciardi's sample of heroin users. 4. What does Inciardi mean by 'crimes without victims '? In what ways, if any, might thiS idea be problematic? 5. What have been the main barriers to American government attempts to prevent the export of drugs from other countries? 6. For what reason does Nadelmann argue that 'the greatest beneficiaries of the drug laws are organized and unorganized drug traffickers'? 7. How does the mandatory sentencing system for crack cocaine work, and how does it affect African-American communities disproportionately?

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21 .1 Booze the urban night and the human ecology

of viol~nce Dick Hobbs, Phil Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow

Truth be to ld, the drug that really did the busi· ness was Stella Artois. (Wilson, 2002: 179) Alcohol is the vit al lub ri cant that aids the propul sio n o f yo ung peop le into this carnival esqu e and consumer-orien tated world. It also frames th e 'grounded aesthetic' (Willis, 1990:102) of possibilities that langu ish in young peoples' passionate embrace of risk. In purely comme rcial terms, alcoh ol is the commod it y that draws peo ple into our city cent res after dark, and in addition, sustai n s associated, comple ment ary markets . In cultural terms it provides an accepted means of altering the mund ane, pressurized, regiment ed, and unattractive world o f daylight co mportme nt, realigning meaning and understanding to fit a more seductive and alluring world o f hedonism and carnival. Rather than alcohol consumption revealing a cul ture-free ' natural ' se lf, the soci al element of drunkenness is lea rn ed be haviour like any other (MacAndrew and Edgert on, 1969), and the cultural expectation o f alcohol's 'disinhibitor effect' (Room and Co llins, 1983) aids consumers in abandoning their regulated and co nstrained daylight personas and immersing th emse lves in the co mparatively ambiguous and chaotic culture of the night. Alcohol consumption provides both a culturall y and lega lly sa nctioned way of altering behaviour, and it is this opportunity to enjoy legitimized ' time out' in the form of hedo nistic forms of experien tial consu mption and identification, that renders the night-ti me economy so alluring to young people. Indeed, without the acceptance of certain nighHime forms o f di sorderly int ox ica ted behaviour, th e night -tim e economy would be Jess attractive to contemporary youth; for it provides an excuse to 's tart breaking down ', loosen sensibilities, and abandon oneself to behaviOur which would otherwise be contained. The switch from industrial to post-industrial, from an emphasis o n production to consumpt ion, also marks a shift from the problematic p roducer to the problemati c consumer (Ritzer, 2001:233-235). There is a wealth of evidence to suggest tllat violence is a major byproduct of this mass transgression in the

form of 'cultural understandings of the connections between rowdy and violent group drinking, the const ruction and project ion of empowered masculine ide ntity, and the symbolic rejection o f respectable social values' (To msen, 1997:100), which li e at the core o f the enacted, as o pposed to marketed nighttime econo my. Yet, this by-product is, in itse lf, fa r from a homogeneous phenomena, and any sim plistic conception of 'alcohol-related violence' should be prefaced by a rider differentiating between context and phannacology (Derney and Hobbs, 2003). However, evide nce compiled from a huge sample of Accident and Emergency departments around the country (Hutchinson et ai., 1998), indica tes th at 24% of facial injuries were caused by assault, and that 90% of facial injuries in bars, and 45% of facia l injuries in the street were associated with alcohol consumption. The busiest period for alcohol-related injuri es was found to be between 21.00 hours to 03.00 ho u rs. The 15-25 age group suffered th e grea test number of assaults, and 79% of patie nt s assaulted were mal e, although where injuri es in volvi ng bottl es or g lasses had occurred, 83% of th e victims were male. Most o f th e assa ults took place in th e st ree t (43%), and pubs and bars were the sites o f 2 1%. The peak t im es for assaults coi ncided with the closing times o f licensed premises, with Friday and Sa turda y the busiest days. Assault with a blunt in strument (i ncluding parts of the body) was the most common form of interpersonal violence (89%), bottles or glasses were used in 8% of cases, and knives in 2%. Just over half of th e assaults with bottles or glasses occu rred in bars. Much male violence is associated with drinking in bars (Ho me l et ai., 1992), and th ose most likely to become the victims of bar related violence are also young males (Langley et af., 1996). In addition to th ese contextual relation ships between alco hol and violence, an association has been established between alcohol and violent crime (Graham and We st, 200 1). Fo r exa m ple, alcohol has been causally implicated in aggression (Bushman, 1997; Lipsey et al., 1997), and t he level of male intox ication has been associated wit h fr equency of aggreSSion (llomel and Clarke, 1994).

490

Booze, the urban night and the human ecologv of violence

Crowded and smoky environmcnts (Graham et Ill., 1980; Home1 and Clark, 199-1), where large intoxicated groups mingle Iibid., 1994), are venues for displays of aggression (lang dill., 1995; \1artin et al., 1998), and in terms of the compulsive dramas (Willis, 1990:105) ritually played out in the local night-time economy, alcohol inspires the drinker to focus upon the present (Graham t't 111., 2000), to become impulsive (Berkowitz, 1986), and to overestimat e personal power (Gibbs, 1986; Pernanem, 1976), while crucially eroding the ability to contrive non-violent resolutiom to pCf(ei\"ed provocations (Sayette et Ill., 1993). I-"urther, research indicates that so me males have concerns with their personal power when th ey drin" (McClelland et al., 1972), are easily provoked (Guftanson, 1993)' and become sensitive to the behaviour of third parties (Wells and Graham, 1999). Resean.:hers have also found that retaliat ory aggression often constitutes a means to settle grievances (!'elson, 1982; Tedeschi and Felson, 1994) and is often linked to going to the aid of a friend (Archer et elf., 1995; Berkowitz, 1986). The alcohol-fuelled night-time economy also provides an ideal environment for those who regard fighting as an expressive hobby (Burns, 1980; Dyck, 1980; romsen, 1997), providing a common thread linking current generations of drinkers to the hard case cobblestone fighters of yesteryear (Morton, 1993 : chapter I; Pearson, 1973: chapter 1; Samuel, 1981 ; Winlow, 2001). However, the key difference between these muscular urban legends of the past and the current crop of 'weeke nd warriors' (Marshall, 1979) is the sca le, sheer power and pre-eminence in political and economic terms, that th ei r arena, the night-time economy, has attained in contem porary Britain. Drawing upon the concept of ' routine activities' (Cohen and relson, 1979), quantitative research within the ecological tradition has long demon strated the way in which various forms of crime have a tendency to be highly concent rated in space and time (Bottoms, 1994; Hope, 1985; Sherman et al., 1989). Such studies have identified urban centres with a high density of licensed premises as the 'hot spots', and weekend evenings as t he 'hot times' for incidents of assault and disorder (Feison, 1997; McClintock and Wikstrom, 1992; Phi lli ps and Smith, 2000; Roncek and Maier, 199 1). Clea rl y, the li nks between alcoho l consumption and va rious fo rms of crime and disorder have long been acknowledged. However recent research has u ncovered m o re about how, why, when, and

where .. kohol-related incidents in public places occur. In England and Wales, approximately 71Y~) of crime audits published in 1998 and 1999 identified 'alcohol a~ an issue, particularly in relation to publi( order' (liome Office, 2001a:I). The majority of hot-spots for violence and disorder (in public) werc located in areas containing high concentrations of licensed premises with the number of incidents peaking between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Friday nights/~alurday mornings and Saturday nights/Sunday mornings. Of COllr')c, whiht simple correla tions do not explain causation, and the relationship between venue density/proliferation and associated violence and disorder is complex, evidence from deregulated city cent re night-time economies such as Manchester, Hull, and the West End of London, many smaller English towns such as Oswestry, Worthing, Macclesfield, and Newcastle under Lyme, and also from Scotland would suggest that increases in the number of licensed premises and in their total capacities and terminal trading hours, are often accompanied by rises in assaults and public order offences, particularly in areas which have a high density of licensed premises. In Manchester City Cent re for example, the capacity of licensed premises increased by 240% between 1998 and 2001, whilst the number of assaults reported to th e police increased by 225% between 1997 and 200"1 (I-lome Office, 200 I b:5 7). Manchester's 2001 crime audit recorded ] ,277 assaults in and around the Gay Village (an area with a particularly high dens ity of licensed premises); this figure was more than double the number record ed in any other part of the city centre (Mee, 2001). The same audit identified the Peter Street/Quay Street area as a hotspot for 'assault and wounding'. This area had not appeared in the two previous Manchester audits, however, during 2000 a large multi-leisure complex and a number of licensed premises opened in the vicinity, transforming a compara tively quiet street into an extremely busy drinking circuit. Similarly, the total number of recorded incidents of violence and disorder in Newcastle upon Tyne city centre fell between 1997 and 2001, however significant rises were recorded in the Quayside area which co rresponded with the redeve lopment of this area as the North East's most popu lar nightlife destination. Between 1997 and 2001 there was a 19% increase in the tota l capacity of Quayside licensed premises, a 38% increase in drunk and disorder ly offences, a

491

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21 · Drugs and alcohol

38% increase in assaults and an 18% increase in cr iminal damage (McWilliams, 2002). Further, an 18-month survey of patients attending the Accident and Emergency department of Hereford General Hospital found that 44% of alcohol-related night-time assault victims received from the county of Herefordshirc as a whole, were assaulted in just one street, known locally as 'alco hol alley' (Comme rcial Road, He reford ) which contains a small, but densely concentrated, number of licensed premises (Ballham, 2002). Evidence from the eva luation of a Home Office-funded Targeted Policing initiative to reduce alcohol-re lated violence and diso rder in Ca rdiff found that during the peri od Ju ly 1999 to June 2001, vi rtually all the rise in di sorder 'was accounted for by one street (St Mary's Street) which contained the densest concentration of pubs and clubs and where a number of new premises opened over a short period' (Maguire and Nettleton, 2003:52). The evaluators note that. Where violellt incidents were concerned, St Mary's Street showed a rise of 42 per cent, compared with a rail elsew here of 15 per cent. And for in cidents of disorder, St Mary's Street showed a rise of 99 per cent compared with a rise elsewhe re of 38 per cent. Moreover, the increases were seen in all locati ons in th is area - incidents ins id e premises here rose by 66 per cen t, incidents o ut sid e named premises more than doubled (a ri se o f 151%), and incidents elsewhere in the st reet rose by 46 per cent. It is almost ce rtainl y relevant that the south ern end of the street has see n the grea tes t growth and concent ra tion of new licensed premises over the past few years. (Magu ire and Nettleton, 2003:45) The eva luators of a concurrent inter-agency initiative providing data to th e project rega rding the ci rcumstances of viole nce obtained from assault patients attending the Accident and Emergency department Unive rsity Hospital of Wales concluded that: There was a stat istically Sig nifi cant, positively corre lated, relationship between city cen tre licensed premise capacity and street assault ... An increase in the number and particularly capaci ty of licensed premi ses 0 11 a parti cu lar street was associated with a disp roportionate increase in the number of assaults in that street... There was a highly significan t increase in assault in St Mary's St ree t, des pit e a well-funded targeted polici ng project, whi ch focussed o n alcohol-related vio-

lence during the study period ... city centre violence prevention should be highly responsive to drinks licence applications, new licensed premises, levels of street violence and changes in character of existing licensed premises. (Warburton and Shepherd, 2002:27) Our analysis of violent crime data recorded by the police in 'Eastville' (see Hobbs et af., 2000) reveals a distinctly Similar pattern. For example, one particular road in Eastv ille, 'Lager Street', had developed between 1996 and 1999 into an archetypal'nightstrip'. Within a stretch of two hundred yardS there were two licensed nightclubs, one 'superpub' with a special hours licence, a furth er six pubs and a restauran t-bar, and also a further three applications pending for specia l hours certificates. Over thi s period, Lager Street witnessed an inc rease in recorded violent crime of 106% with 79% of recorded violence occurring between the hours 21.00 and 03.00. Analysis of the above trends is hardly a matter of 'rocket science', the most obvious and simple explanation being that wilen tile actidty fe\ 'efs of an intoxicated IIight-time COflSumer base increase, tllen, as olle miglit expect, more crime arid disorder will be gellerated in the streets and public spaces of our

night-time leisure zones. However, once a large intoxicated consumer base is formed, such problems do not remain rest ri cted to these distinct leisure locales, but also impact upon late-night pedestrian and vehicular exit routes throughout the area, which become, in the early hours of the morning, the si tes of further violence, disorder, anti-social behaviour, cri minal damage, vandalism, and noise (Bromley and Nelson, 2002; Hadfield, forthcoming a; Nelson et (1/., ZOOt). Further, as the tracing of such incident patterns is based primarily upon policerecorded crime statistics it will undoubtedly underestimate the total number of incidents that actually occur (Tierney and Hobbs, 2(03). Our research (i nterviews with doorstaff, observational fieldwork with police public order patrols, and examination of 'Eas tville' ACCident and Emergency records) indicates that recorded crimes rep resen t only a frac ti on of the problem (see Lister et af., 2000). However, as others have demonstrated (Cut hbert, 1990; Shepherd, 1990; She ph erd et a l ., 1989; Shepherd and Li sles, 1998), medical data ca n reveal additional po rtions o f th e 'dark figure' of unrecorded viole n ce and it s relati o nship to alcohol con su mpti on. Such statistics hi ghli ght the po tential for violence that has long

Booze, the urban night and the human ecology of violence

existed within o ur n ig ht-time leisure zones (Hope, 1985; Tuck, 1989). Nonetheless, th ey reveal litUe abo ut th e enacted e llvi ronme nt of th e night-time economy and its decidedly c rimin ogenic situational and ex perien tial d y n amics. Whilst a small number o f et hnogra phic accounts have se rved to highlight th e ' recreational' or carniva[esque dimensi ons of alcohol-fuelled, night-time di sorder (Dyck, 1980; Gofton, 1990; To m sen, 1997), we would suggest that the problems o f 'friction produc in g encounters between intoxicated stran gers and acquaintances' of ten ci ted as central to the aetiology of alcOh ol-re la ted violence (Homel e( al., 1992; Wikst rom , 1995), are being exacerbat ed within th e conte mpo rary night-time economy as the leisure industry targets a mainstream audience of young high-spending consume rs. A va riety o f promotional tools and marketing st rategies are being employed which invite experiential tran sgress ion and are shrouded in promises of quasi-liminality (Ho bbs et al., 2000). The breakdown o f o ld rules has been h as ten ed by th e marketing s trategies of entrepreneurs who put together special o ffers and packages aimed at both attracting customers to the ir premises and keeping th em th ere. Scantily-clad bar sta ff, striptea se a rtistes, organized drinking games, hen nights, stag nights, and special nights for nurses, students, and evell police officers (the wonderfully entitled '999 Disco') are offered, together with '£lO- in - and-allyour-drinks-free' nights , and the inevitable three shots of whatever is not sell ing well for a pound. Cheap drink and other bait are usually offered on mid-week evenings to maximize profits outside of the weekend d el uge that signifies peak business, when drink prices can rem ain high without fear of dissuading custom. During the week cus tom must

be a ttracted, and it is here that drinks' promotions work their charms. Th e promise of half-priced bottl es o f lager, or two o r three shots of spirit for the price of o ne, a free Tequila wit h every pint, or a free cocktail upon admi ttance to a nightclub is often enough to sed uce custom away from t he television a nd mid-week hibernation, and back to til e ci ty centre to spend money. Hars o ft en offer chea p drinks on th e same night as their competito rs, not as a form o f direct competition , but to create a varied and cheap drinking e nvironment , multiplying custo m rather than compe ting for it, thus acknowl edging the culturally informed attractions of ci rcuit drinking . While selling drinks for half of their wee ke nd price may seem like bad busin ess, ba rs are boosting custom to premises wh ic h would in all likelihood remain relatively empty were it not for th ese marketing strategies. Thus, co nsumers of the night-tim e leisure experien ce are encou raged to regard our urban centres as liminal zones: spatial and temporal locati o ns within which the familiar protocols and bonds of restraint which structure routine social Ufe loosen and are replaced by conditions of exciteme nt, uncertainty, and pleasure (Turner, 196 7, 1969). Within such milieux, interpersonal tensions and conflicts emerge (Ara ntes, 1996), aggressive hedonism and disorder is normalized (Gofton, 1990; To msen, 199 7), and violence and intimidation become the blunt instruments of social control.

From D. Hobbs, P. Hadfield, 5. Lister mId 5. Williow Bouncers: Violence and Governance in th e Night- time Economy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2003, pp. 36-43

References Arantes, A.A. (1996) The war of places: Symbolic boundaries and liminalities in urban space. Theory, Culture and Society, 13(4): 8 1-92. Archer, J. Holloway, R., and McLoughlin, K. (1995) Selfreported physical aggression among young men. Aggressive Behaviour, 21 :325-342. Ballham, A. (2002) Wi tn ess Statement by AED Consultan t in Hereford General Hospital in Hereford Community Sa fety Partnership a. J.D. Wetherspoon pic, Hereford Magistrates Court, 31 May 2002.

Berkowitz, L. (1986) Some varieties of human aggression : Crimin al violence as coercion, rule-fOllow ing, impression management and impulsive behavior. In Campbe ll, A. and Gibbs, J.J. (Eds. ) Violellt Tralls(lctiollS. Tile Limits of PersO/wlity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,87-103. Bottoms, A. E. (1994) Environmental criminology. In Maguire, M., Morgan, K. and Reiner, K. (Eds. ) Tile Oxford Handbook ofCrimi/lology, (1st edn.) Oxford: Cla rendon Press.

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Bromley, R. and Nelson, A. (2002) Alcohol ·related crime and disorder across urban space and tim e: Evidence from a British city, Geo(oml1l, 33:239-254. Burns, T.F. (1980) Getting rowdy with the boys. JOllmal o( Dmg Isslles, 10:273-286. Bushman, B.). ( 199 7) Effects of alcohol on human aggression: Validity of proposed mechanisms. In Galanter, M. (Ed.) Recent D£'Velopmetits i/l Alcollolism. New York: Plenum Press, 13:227-244. Cohen, L.E. and Felson, M. (1979) Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach. America/l Sociological Review, 44(4):588-608. Cu thbert, M. (1990) Investigation of the incidence and analysis of cases of alleged violence reporting to St. Vincent's Hospital. In Chappell, D., Grabosky, P. and Strang, H. (Eds.) Allstraliall Violence: Contemporary Perspectives. Ca nberra: Aust ralian Institute of Criminology. Dyck, N. (1980) Booze, barrooms and scrapping: Ma scu linity and vio lence in a Western Canadian town. Ca/1{u/iall l our/wi o( A IIthropology, 1: 191-8. Felson, R.B. (1982) Impressio n management and the escalation of aggression and violence. Social PsycilOlogy, 45:245-254. Felson, R.B. (1997) Routine activities and involvement in violence as actor, witness, or target. Violence alld Victims, 12(3 ):209-22 1. Gibbs, J.J. (1986) Alcohol consumption, cognition and context: examining tavern violence. In Campbell, A. and Gibbs, ).). (Eds.) Viole"t Transactiolls.· T/,e Limits o( Persol/ality. Oxford: Blackwell. Gofton, L. ( 1990) On the town: Drink and the 'new law· Jessness'. YOlltll am/ PoliCY, 29, (April): 33-39. Graham, K., LaRocquel, L, Yetman, R., Ross, T). and Gu istra, E. (1980) AggreSSio n in bar room environ· ments. Journal o{Sllldies 0/1Ako/IOI, 41: 227- 292. Graham, K., West, P. and We ll s, S. (2000) Evaluating theories of alcohol· related aggression using observa· tions of young adults in ba rs. Addiction, 95(6): 847-863. Graham, K. and West, P. (2001) Alcohol and crime: exam in ing t he link. In Heat her, N., Peters, T.). and Stockwell , T. (Eels) llltema/iollal Halldbook o( Alcollol Dependence aI/(/ Probh'ms. Sussex: Wiley & Sons, 439-470. Guftanson , R. (1993) Alcoh ol-rela ted expected effects and t he des irability of these effects for Swedish college students measured with the Alcohol Expectancy Q uestionna ire (AEQ). Ako/IOI {/1/(/ Alcoholism, 28:469-475. Hadfield, r. (for t hcomi n g, a) Nigh t as Con tested Timespace, Un published PhD thesis, Un iversity of Durha m. Hobbs, D., Lister,S., Hadfield, P., Win low,S., and Hall, 5. (2000) Receiv ing sh adows: Governa nce and li m in ali ty in th e night-time economy. Britis /I lOllmal o( Sociology, 5 1(4): 70 1-7 17. Home Office (200 1a) Assessing Local Alco/IOI-Relaletl

Crime: A DemonstraliOIl Proiecl ill Crime (lml Disorder !)artf/erships: n'lIder Documel/t. London: Home Office. Home Office (2oolb) Fig/ltillg Violent Crime Together: All Actiolll)lml. London: Home Office.

110mel, R. and Clark, J. (1994) The prediction and prevention of violence in pubs and clubs. In Clarke, RV (Ed.) Crime Prevelltion Studies, vol 3, Monsey, New York: Crimina l Justice Press. Homel, R., Thomsen, S. and Thommeny, ). L.(1992) Public drinking and v iole n ce: Not just an alcohol problem. 10l/fllal o( Dmg Issues, 22(3):679--697. Hope, T. (1985) Drinking and disorder in the city centre: A policy analysis. In Implemelltillg Crime Prevelltion Measures. Ilome Office Research Study No. 86, London: HMSO. Hut chin son, J.L., Magenni s, P. Shepherd, ).P., and Brown, A.E. (1998) B.A.O.M.S United Kingdom su rvey of facial injuries, Pt 1: Aetiology and the association with alcohol consumption . British lOllrnal o( Maxillo(acial Surgery, 36:3-13. Lang E., Stockwell, T, Ryan, P. and Lockwood, A. (1995) Drinking settings and probl ems of intoxication. Addiction Research, 3: 14 1-1-49. Langley, J., Chalmers, D., and Fanslow, ). (1996) Incidence of death and hospitalization from assault occurring in and around licensed premises: A comparative analysis. Addiction, 91 :985-993 . Lipsey, M.W., Wilson, O.B., Cohen, M.A. and Derzon, J.H. (1997) [s there a causal relationship between alcohol and violence? In Galanter, M. (Ed.) Recetlt Del'elopmellts ill A/cO/lOlislll. New York: Plenum Press, 13,245-282. Lister, S., Hobbs, D., Hall , S. and Winlow, S. (2000) Violence in the night time economy: Bouncers: the reporting, recording and prosecution of assaults. Policillg (m d Society, 10: 383-402. McClelland, D.C., Davis, W.N ., Kah n , R., and Wanner, E. (1972) TIle fJrillkillg Mall: Alcoltol and Hllmall Motil'Cltioll. Toronto: Collier Macmillan. McClintock, Ell. and Wikstrom, P-O. H. (1992) The co mparative study of urban violence: Criminal violence in Edinburgh and Stockholm. British Journal o(Crimill%sr, 32(4):505-520. McWilliams , T. (2002) An analysis of crime and disorder trend s in Newcastle city centre 31.12. 1997-31.12.2001, personal correspondence with the authors. MacAndrew, C. and Edgerton, R.B. ( 1969) Drullkell Comportmellt: A Social Explanatioll. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. Magui re, M. and Nettleton, H. (2003) Redllcillg AlcollOlrelated Vio/ellce a//(/ Disorder: All El'alllatiOIl o( t he 'TASC ' Proiect. Lo ndon: Home Office. MCC(2001) Crime (llId Disorder: Working i / I Partnership (or a Sa(l'r Ma li c/lester. Audit Ma rch 200 1,

Manchester: MCC. Marsha ll , M. (1979) ' Weekell(l Warriors': Alcohol Microllesiml Cliiture, Palo Alto, CA.: Mayfie ld.

//I

a

Booze, the urban night and the human ecology of violence

Martin, J.. Nada-Raia, \., Langley, J.. Feehan, M., McGee, R., Clarke, J., Begg, D., lIut chinson-Cervantes, ".1., Moffit, T., and Rivara, L (1998) Physical assault in New Zealand: -I hl' c.'-pcrieIH.:e of 2 I year old men and women in a community sample. 1\'e" Zt"IIUlUI Medical lVI/mal, III : I S8--460. Morton, J. ( lqqJ) ('lIl1gllllld: 10Ildo" .. U"df'n\"Orld. London : \-Varner. Nelson, A., Bromley, R., alH.I Ih ollldS, C. (200 1) Identifying micro-spatial and tl'mporal patterns 01 vio lent cri me emd disorder in a Britbh dt\" centre. AI'plkd (ieogrllpll)', 21 :2--49-274. Pearson . J. (1973) Tilt' l'roleHioll

01

\'iulf'llCt,. l.ondon:

Granada. Pernanem, K. (1976) Alcohol and crimes of ,"iolenc£,. In Kissin, B. and \leglt' irer, H. \l.ds.) Tile BioloS}, of Afcoholi.",". f\:l'w York Plenum Press, .~51-4--t4. Phillips, T. and Smith, p, (2000) Police violence occas ioning police complaint: An empirical ana!vsis of time-space dynamics, Briti~III()lImal 01 Crimillolog}', --40:--480-496,

Ritzer, C, (2oo 1) E'plf)flltiolH ill till' Sodolog)' of C;omllml'ri~m. California: Sa!l.c. Roncek, D. Wand \1aier, P.A. (19911 Bars, blocks, and crimes revisited: Lin!..ing the theory of routine activities to the empirici~m of ' hot spots' Crimillology, 29(4),725-75) Room, R. and Collim. (j fF-ds.) (1983) Ako/iol and Disillilihitiou: r\ atllre awl Meal/i"g 01 ti,e Link, Research Monograph No. 12, Rockville, MD.: National institute of Alcoho l Abuse and Alcoholism. Samuel, R. (198 1) East Ellil Ullden\'orld: Tile Life alld Times 01 Arthur lIardillg. Lo nd on: Routledge a nd Kcgan Paul. Sayette, M.A., Wilson, T., and Elias, M.J. (1993) Alcohol and agg reSSion: A social info rmat ion processing analysis. IOllmal of Stlldie~ Oil Alcohol, 54:399-407. Shepherd, J. (1990) Violent cr im e in Bri stol: An ACcident a nd Emergency perspective. British Journal o(Criminology, 30 (3):289-305. Shepherd, J. and Lisles, C. (1998) Towards multi-agency violence prevention a nd victim suppo rt. British

I Ollmal o(Crimillolosy, .38(3):35 1-370. Sheph e rd , J.p., Shapland, M., and Scully, C. (1989) Reco rding of violent offences by th e police: An

Accident Jnd l:meT}~ency department perspective. Mclihil/!', ,\,;1"1111' allli tilt' LIIIV, 29:251-257. Sherman, I.W., Gartin, P.R., and Buerger, M.E. (1989) Hot 'iPO" 01 prL'"tIatory crime: Routine activities and the uimino!ogy of place. Crimino/v,fY, 27:27-55, ledcschi , J I. ,lIld I-'elson, K.B. '199--4) Viall'lIce, As..~res~iOtI 111111 Cm'nin' Aft;oll\. Washington, DC: American Psyt ho\ogica \\ ~~rocess (To ron lo, Univ. o f Toront o Press, 1982),205. For the importance of face, a nd particularly of presenting oneself as 'ha rd' in the everyday life of young wo rking-class males, see P. Willis, Commoll Cu/ture (Milton Keynes, Open Univ. Press, 1990), 103. Such di')credi ting was not disfavoured. Those in the prosecu to r's ret inu e te nded to regard defen ce wit -

20 21

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23 24

2S 26 27

28

nesscs with some suspicion. A police officer reflected: 'A lot of prosecution witnesses are there because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time a year ago, whereas the defence witness is there because they were a mate of the defendant's in the boozer.' D. Pannick, llIllg(,5 (Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1987), 53. M. McConville, 'justice in the Dock', Times Higher Education Supple/l/(,nt, 8 Feb. 1990. See M. Pollner, 'Mundane Reasoning', Pllilosopllyof tile Social Sciellces, 4( I ) (1974). That argument characteristically took the form that failure to win a prosecution case reflected the heavy burden o f proof, a burden that demanded that juries must be sure about the defendant's guilt. Witnesses were n ot necessarily to be seen as liars. Ra th er, it was said, the jury had probably been unable to arrive at a state of certainty about a case. See G. Simmel, 'The Triad', in K. Wolff (ed.); The Sociology of Ceors Simmel (New York, Free Press, 1950), 146-7. M. McConville et "I., 'The Case for the Prosecution' TS, n.d., 22. And it shou ld be noted that that counsel had a reputation in the court for being unusually emotional and theatrical in her conduct. See 'Live rpool Crown Cou rt', CotlStfllctio/l, july 1979, 30. See K. Manasian, 'O n Trial', Iflterior Desi8", Apr. 1981,20--1. A barrister was reported to have sa id of a tria l lawyer's pe rformance in the American case o f William Smit h , 'She became too emotionally e n gaged. Th e more p rofessional you are, the m o re you keep that unde r wraps.' 'Kennedy's Ve rdict o n Ken nedy Case', SII/ulay Times, I S Dec. 199 1. As it is of th e criminal justice system a t la rge. See e.g. M. Young, AI/ II/side lob (Oxford, Oxford Un iv. Press, 1991), esp. 111.

29 Tile Of/leri,,:.: oflustict', 14. 30 Giving a different inflecti on t o much the same pOint, M Feeley o b served of the American court: 'Language in the courtroom is extremely arcane and formal, and it can eaSily accommodat e the most bitter denunciations and sa rcas m in a way that does not unduly strain the rituals of court procedures', Tile l'roc('H i5 the Plll/ishme"t (New York, Russell Sage Fo undation , 1979), 68.

•

Understanding law enforcement

26.4 Understanding law enforcement Doreen McBarnet Understanding law enforcement: a new perspective Thi s study se t out to analyse the role of legal form s, powers, privil eges, limitations, and rulings on th e process of constructing conv iction in cou rt - conviction in both the sub jective sense of how a judge or jury comes to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt of ib verdict, and in the legal sense of a finding o f gUilt; for that, stati sticall y, is the likely ou tcome of a foray into the criminal courts. The problem for the sociolog ist is how that is possible when all th e rhetoric of the d emocrati c ideology of justice proclaims th at in th e battl e betwee n th e state and the accused the sys tem is heavily biased in favour of the latter. By examining the law n ot just in terms o f the general principles of its own ideol ogy, but in term s of the details of its specific stru ctures, proced ures, and d ec isio ns, this analysis has tried to sh ow that the law gove rning th e production, preparat io n, and presen tation of evidence d oes not Jive up to its own rh etori c. The rhetori c of justice requires incrimina ting evidence as the basis fo r arrest and search; the law allows arrest and search in o rd er to es tabli sh it. Justice requires that no-one need incriminate himself; the law refuses to cont ro l the production o f confessions and all ows silence as a fact o r in proving gUilt. Justice requ ires equality; the law discriminates against the homeless, th e jobless, the di sreputab le. Ju sti ce requires each case be judged on its own facts; the law makes previo us convicti o ns grounds for defining behaviour as an offence and eviden ce against the accused. Justice places the burden of proof on the prosecu tor; the law qualifies th e standard and method o f proof required and o ffers th e prosecutor opportunities for making a case which the accused is denied. Ju stice proclai ms the righ t to trial by one's peers; the legal syst em ensures that 91 per cent of all defendan t s plead guilty, and of the rest most are tried without a jury. If, then , th e process of conviction is eas ier than the rh eto ric o f justice would have us ex pect and easier sti ll the lowe r the stat us o f the defendant - it is hardly surpri sing. A wide range of prosecu ti o n evidence can be legally produced and presented, des pite the rhetoric of a syste m geared

overwhelmingly to safeguards for the accused, precisely because legal stru cture, legal procedure, legal rulings, 1101 legal rhetoriC, govern the legitimate practi ce of criminal justice, and there is quite simply a distinc t gap between the substa nce and the ideology of the law. This concl usion has two direct and immediate implications. First it pla ces the co nt empora ry po li cy debate over law and order in a new light. Th e police dema nd for mo re powe rs, for th e removal o f t he hamstrings of the right to si len ce, the limitation s on arrest and search - and indeed the civil liberties camp's agitated response that the legal checks of Bri ti sh justice must be uph eld begin to appear rather odd . Both sides of the debate arc fram ed in terms of the ideology of civi l rights, n ot in terms of the realities of legal procedure and case law which , as [ hope this analysis has amply sh ow n, have all too often already given the police and prosecution th e very powers they are demanding. The law does not need reform to remove hamstrings o n the police: they exist largely in the unrealised rhetoric. Second, more theoreticall y, thi s analysis has implications for th e explanation of law-enforcemen t and its outcomes. A whole range of excellent sociological studies has poin ted out si tuati onaJ, informal, non-l egal factors in police- citizen encounters and courtroom interaction to exp lain WilD is arrested or conVicted , and to exp lain why the system so often seems ;11 practice to be weighted agai nst the accused. Their answer lies essentia ll y in the com plex nature of social interaction and motivation; in th e fa ct that peopl e do not merely administer the law but act upon and alter it as th ey do so. This study offers a su pplementary pers pective, making the law rather th an the activities of its administrators problematic. The concl USio n is quite differen t. Given the formal procedures and rules of the law and the structu re of arrest, investigation, plea and trial, one could not even if human beings acted entirely as legal automato ns - expect th e outcomes to be other than they are. If the practice of criminal justice does not li ve up to its rh etoric o ne should not look only to the interactions and negotiations of those who put tile law into p ra ct ice but to the law itself. One should not look just to how th e rhetoric of justice is sub-

619

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26· Criminal courts and the court process

verted intentionally or otherwise by policemen bending the ru les, by la\vyers negotiating adversariness out of existence, by out-of-touch judges or biased magistrates: aile mu st also look at how it is subve rt ed ill the law. Police and court officia ls need not abuse the law to subvert the principles of just icei they need only use it. Deviation from the rhetoric of legality and justice is institutionalised in the law itself. Coming back to Packer's two polar types for describing law enforcement, due process and crime control, empirical ana lysis o f the process reveals them as a fal se distinct ion. The law on criminal procedure in its cu rrent form does not so much set a standard of legality from which the poli ce deviate as provide a li ce nce to ignore it. If we bring due process down from the dizzy heigh ts of abstra ction and subject it to empirical scruti ny, the conclusion must be that due process is (or crime control. This perspective offers quite a different ideological gloss o n the nature of crimina l justice and a shift of focus for its study. Focusing on the subversion of justice by its petty administrators, on the gap between the law in the books and the law in action, in effect whitewashes the law itself and th ose who make it. Front-men like the police become the ' fall guys' of the legal system takin g the bla me for any in justices in the operation of the law, both in theory (i n the ass umpt ion like Skolnick's th at th ey break the rules) and indeed, in the law. The law holds the individual policeman personally responsible for contra ve ntions of lega lity that are successfully sued, while at the same time refu si ng to make clear until after the eve nt exactly what the police are su pposed to do. It is no coi ncid ence that the police themselves asked for the o riginal Judges' Ru les. Shifting the focus to the substance of law places responsibili ty for the operation of criminal justice - and the need for the spo tlight o f stud y - sq uare ly on the judicial and political eli tes who make it. Tracing a gap between the rh eto riC of justice and the substa nce and structure of law is not, however, just the e nd of a piece of indi gna nt expose resea rch (Taylor, Wal ton, and Young 1975, p. 29). It opens up a whole comp lex of further issues. If the co ntradi cti o ns between rh e to ri c and practice in law-enfo rcement ca nn ot simpl y be exp lain ed away as th e unint ended co nsequen ces o f the action of petty o ffi Cial s, th en we are faced with contradiction s within the co re of the state betwee n th e ~de~lo~ an~ substance o f the la w. Why d oes such IIl stltutl onalised deViation occur? How is the ideo-

logica l gap managed? What implications does it have for the idea of the rule of law? Th ough these are ma jor iss ues which each require a full-scale study in themse lves, the sections that follow offe r some speculative beginnings.

Rhetoric and law: why the gap? It is too simple to diSCUSS the gap between the rhetoric o f justice and the substan ce of law as unproblematic, as the inevitable and self-eviden t consequence of a class soc iety in which the rhetoric of justi ce is necessarily mere illusion. Some more sophisticated analyses have been sugges ted. Hall and his coll eagues (1978) have tri ed to offer a materiali st ex planati on of a particular move in the 1970s to a more repressive crime-con trol oriented use of law and steady erosion of civil liberties by relating it to a crisis in the hegemony of the bourgeois state, and that in turn to economic crisis. At another level of contextual analysis a series of sociologists, I including indeed Hall et al., have demonstrated how a moral paniC and campaign for the repression of a particular social problem - mugging, football hooliganism, drugs, mods and rockers - can lead to more crime-contTol o riented judicial decisions, and so help explain why particular swings in the orientation of law to or away from the rhetori c o f justice take place. It might also be pOSSible, however, that a tendency one way or the o th er ex ists in the law itself. From examining the legal stru cture it would seem th at there are also forces with ill the law wh ich might well lead routinely - when there are no moral panics in either di rection - to a development of case law that favours crime control rather than due process. Case law and judiCial discretion could as readily be used - and indeed have been - to condemn police practices as to condone them. But case law emanates, to state the obvious, from par· ticular tri a ls. There is no public interest law in Britain, no way in which a point of law can be b ro ugh t to court as an abstract issue of public concern. A point o f law can o nl y be clarified in th e con tex t of a dispute in a rea l case, either directly at a Hi gh Court tri al from the deciSion taken by th e j ~d ge o n a dispute ove r a point of law, o r indirectly via appea l fr o m the trial court t o the Court of Appeal o r House of Lo rd s. Loca ting the dispute over .la w in the facts o f a concrete case might well , d espi te the di st in cti o n drawn in legal theory between issues o f fact and issues of law, mean that the fa cts of th e case affect the finding in law by

Understanding law enforcement

providing the context in which the decision has to be made. What this whole study has suggested is ~hat that conte.>.:t, if the point of law is being raised III the Course of a trial, h one in whidl the accused is likel)" to 1001... guilty If it i~ being raised on a.ppeal,. then he will already have been loulld guilty Slllce, III the main, only defendants can appeal, and only defendants with a grievance - that is, those who have been (on vic ted ~ \Vhal is more , because re-tria ls of fact, or the introduction of new evidence, are rarely allowed on appeal, thrcletermi"ed: its aims may be simultaneou~l)' imtmmellta/ (com:ernt!d with the suppression of crime and the control of beha\'iour) and 5ymbo/k or ideoiosiwl (concerned with the vindication of the law and its claims to e.\.ercise justice in the (1efence 01 the authority and legitimacy of the state). Historically, it is more common than not for retributive and deterrent prin ciples to stand side by side in tile armoury of possible se ntences , eve n when purist advocate~ of each insi~t that they are logically incompatib le.

The penal range and the choice of punishments With the notable e:,ception of the USA (see Zimring and Hawkins , 1986), the Western liberal democracies have abandoned the use of capital punishment. Even in the USA, where it is a highly politically charged issue, the death penaltv is actually carried out only in a relative handful of cases each year (th ere were 14 e\ecutions in 1991), although the numbers executed have increased (31 in 199-1); the number of persons under sentence of death, howeve r, is very much larger (2,500 in 1991; 2,870 in 1994) (figu res for 199 1 from United States Depa rtm en t of Justice, 1992; for 1994 from Amnesty Int erna tional, 1995, p.302). In o ther respects the 'penal range ' (the variety of availab le penalties ) in all such soc ieti es is broadly compa ra ble, albeit organized and applied in very different ways. It ex te nd s from va ri ous forms of token penalty or admonition (in th e UK, absolu te and co nditional discharges, binding ove r) thro ugh financial penalties (fin es, co mpensa ti o n orders ) and varieties of no n-custodia l o r 'commu nit y' supervision (p roba tion , co mmunity se rvi ce, in some cases 'c urfew o rd ers ') to imprisonment. In most systems, and certainly in the UK. financial penalties are by some margin th e most commonly used. This has led so me co mmentators (notably Young, 1989; see also 130ltoms, 1983) to argue that in fact it is the 'cash nexus ' of th e fine that is the most characteristic form of contemporary punishment rather than the more drastic but mo re rarely used sanction of imprisonment. Nevertheless, it is impri so nm e nt which has probably received th e lion 's share of media debate, academic attention and political controversy. The reasons for thi s preoccupation are perhaps not too

difficult to detect. Th l..' scale of puni

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• " • " • " :I\· Annual report. . c If we ha ....e mh\l'd \ol11ethin~ i.lboUI law making, we ha .... e Ignorcd l'H'n morc thl' fact'> of .... ictimhation .•\g;'lill, there i\ a ritudlistic a(knowlcd~l'ml'l1t of the dilllltlgl', harm and .... ioll'l1ce that are otl\"iom l'omequenccs ot state (riml' . and Ihl'n \..\"1..' rl'turn to easier topics. It is as it we don't want to la(t,~ thl' fact'i; a .. iI- to antilipatl' the \Uh\taIlLl' 01 thl' \l'LOncj part of my Il'cturl' - \H' ha .... l' llL-nil'd thl'ir implications. I am aware that phril\l'\ \ULh a\ 'crimes 01 the twentieth century' ... nund homba'ltil' - but for \'a'>t populatiom 01 thl' \\orlt1. thi'i \'iolation\ of human righte shape when the intellellual avallt gllrllt' invent a form of denial so profound, that serious people including progres':>ives - will have to debate whether the Gulf War JUlially took place or not. (2) Acknowledgement

Denial has it o pposites. What has to be understood are the conditions under which denial does not oClur, in which the truth (even if this concept is disappearing down the post modern black hole) is acknowledged, not just its existence but its moral implications. After all, in the Milgra m experiment, some· where around 3(}1)() of t he sub jects (depending on the conditions) did not push t he button. In Kelman and Hamilton's public opinion surveys, again another 3()1)6 would not obey o rders to shoot innocent women and children. In t he midd le of even the most grotesque of state crim es, such as genocide, there are ex t raord ina ry ta les of courage, rescuing and resistance. Acts o f altruism, compassion and pro-social be haviour are woven in to the social fabric. Above all, there is the whole hu man righ ts movement itself, whi ch ove r the las t t hree decades has mobilised an extraordi nary number o f peo ple int o wholly sel fl ess beh aviou r to alleviate the suffe ring of o thers - whether by givi ng money, writing to a priso ner of consc ience o r join ing a campaign. In my in it ial interviews wit h hum an righ ts organisations, I was surp ri sed to hear a sense of opti mism. Yes, the re are some people (referred to in the t rade as the 'o~tric h es') who do not want to know. But most organisa ti ons were certai n that t heir poten ti al pool has no t been reached. I mentioned to one of my int erviewees the cynica l notion o f 'compassio n fatig ue' - th at peo pl e are just too ti red to respond, they can't bear seei ng an y more pictures of th e ho meless in th e st reets, victims o f AIDS, chil dren starvin g in So mali a, refug ees in Bos nia. Her res po nse wa s th at th e co ncept was a jo urnalisti c inventio n; what there is, is med ia fati gue. Thi s is wh ere we return to th e state o f hyperrea lit y whi ch post mod ernist theories have so well exposed. The questi on is right open: Will the type o f manipulatio n and simulati o n seen in th e Gulf War do minate, crea ting indeed a cultu re of denial?

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34· Globalisation, terrorism and human rights

Or can we conceive of a flow of information which will allow people to aCknowledgereality and act accordingly? This might seem a pretentious question for us humble criminologists to consider, but I hope that you will allow me to get away with it.

From S. Collell, 'HI/mall rights and crimes of the state: tile wllllre of denial', Australian and New Zealand Journal o f Criminology, 1993, 26(2): 97-

115.

Notes 1 I have examined elsewhere the move in alternative criminology from 'idealism ' to 'realism ', see Cohen (1988; 1990). 2 On rape and sexual abuse in custody, see Amnesty Internati o nal reports in 1992, especially on India, Turkey, Philippines, Guatamala and Uganda. 3 For a nuanced historical reconstruction of the perceptions of Villagers living next to the Mauthausen concentration camp complex, see Horowitz, 1992. 4 My minor personal involvement in this debate - as the object of a radical post-modern critique for foolishly using objective standards of knowledge (in a report on torture in Israel) is recorded in Cohen (1991).

References Baudri llard, J. (199Ia) The reality Gulf. Tile Gllardiall, 11 January. Baudrillard, J. (l991b) La guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu. LiberaliQII, 29 March. Cohen, S. (1988) Agaillst Criminology. New Brunswick: Transaction. Cohen, S. (1990) Inlellectua l sceptic ism and political commitment; The case of radical c riminology. Bonger Memorial lectu re. University of Amsterdam. Cohen, S. (1991) Talking abou t tort ure in IsraeL Tikkull, 6, 23-30, 89-90. Edelstein, E.L. et (I I (£ds) (1989) Dellial: A Clarificatioll of COllcepts (md Research. New York: Plenum Press. Goleman, D. (1985) Vital Lies, Sill/pie Trutl,s: 011 tile Psychology of Self Deception. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ho rowitz, G. (Ed.) ( 1986) Tile Slwdow of Deat/I: LiI'iIlS Oulside a,e Gates ofMalltJul/lsen. New York: Free Press. Hovanissian, R.C. (Ed.) (1986) Ti,e Anumiall Gellocit/e ill Perspeail'e. New Brunswick: Transaction.

JOllmal of Social Isslles (1990) Special issue on 'moral exclusion',46. Kelman, H.C. and Hamilton, V.L (1989) Crimes of Obediellce. New l-Iaven:Yale University Press. OIiner, S. and Oliner, P. (1988) Ti,e Altrllistic Personalit)": Resmen of Jews ill Nazi Ellmpe. New York: Free Press. Schwendinger, II. and Schwendinger, J. (1970) Defenders of order or guardians of human rights. Issues ill Criminology, 7, 72--81. Sheleff, L. (1978) Tile Bystallder. LeXington. Steiner, J. (1985) Turning a blind eye: The cover up for Oedipus. IlllemaliOllfl1 Review of Psycho-Analysis, 12, 161-72. Steiner, J. (1990) The retreat from truth to omnipotence in Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus. II/lematiol/al Rel'il'w of Ps)'c1IO-Allal)'sis, 17, 227-37. Sykes, G. and Matla, D. (1957) Techniques of neut ralization: A theory of delinquency. Ameria", Sociological Rl'I'itw, 22, 66+-70.

•

The new regulatory state and the transformation of criminology

34.3 The new regulatory state and the transformation of cri ology John Braithwaite !he forms of government and social relations that I~ c ~easil~gly dlaft mOVl'd towards addressing il">elf to the (ommomeme meanings a('to rs give to reality. But this is not the best of pmsible worlds and my view of sociology cannot allow the crippling limitaliom the ethnomethodologists demand. Sodology is also political and the sociologist needs to communiGlte to others outside his aCademi( world. If he waits until he is absolutely sure about the truth of what he is saying, and work':> out in detail alt tile necessary qualifications ami phenomenological brackets, he will never say anything but become like the Greek philosopher Cratylucllion 2.\ 7 higher court , tri,11In 29 highway rohbt.' ry 24, j.'i hippie~ 81 , 82, Ri , 199, 202 lIirsc hi , T. 2.\6, 241 Ilirschi's ("Cntrol tlll'ory 724 history of crime and puni5hment 22- .19 llitler, Adolf 248, 249 IIIV 501 lIohh", I). 490 Ilob~bawm, Eric 181 Home Offiee 54, 55 Ilomcless Pcrsons Act 1977 29.3 hom icide 128, 172,566 see also American lethal violence h OOligan" 678, 680-3 Hoover, J. Edgar 248 hot products 305, 3 15 hot spots 252,305,314,390, 4 11,49 1 'hot times' 491 Hough, M. 54,644 house arrest programs 364-5 Hughes, Howard 250 'human agcncy' 857 human anatomy and deviant behaviour 8 huma n nature 127 b u man r igh ts 596-7,726-30,824 and crimes of the state 827-36 violation of as dC'fin it ion of cri me 15 humiliation 249 Huxley, Aldous 382 hyperactivity, as a facto r of offending 803 hyperghetto 762--4 instit utio ns 762-3 loss of 'bu ffering functions' 763 loss of positive econo mic function 762 segrega tion 762 see also ghetto id eal t ypes, cri minal process models 530,532-5 Ig n a tieff, M. 24,31,37 ill repute, fea r of 783 Illegi timacy 12,289-90 imitatio n 138, 14 1,1 42 immediat e g ratification, of crim inal acts 242 ' imm igrants/'foreigners', in court 611 - 12 impartiality 727, 728-9 im prisonment 659--6 1 in eighteenth century 24, 29 stigmatizi ng conS('(luences of 45 im pul siveness, as a fa ctor of offend ing 803-4 Incapacita tion 362, 657--62, n o incarceratio n rat es 11 6 Inciardi, J .A. 496 indefinite discipline 638, 64 2 indeterm inate sentencing 525 In fanticide Act 1623 777 Informal social control 552, 553,5 63-7 injurio us practices 15

899

900

Key Readings in Criminology

inmates 664-8 innovation 160,167 instinctive criminal 110 institution of privacy 46,47 institutional racism 748,751-2,754 in stitutionalized intolera nce 69 1 institutionalized norms 165-6 insurance cover 61 int elligence IS4--8,800-1 ofbom criminals 109 of female born criminals 96 genetics and 114 as a preventative 154-5 of women 330 intelligence-led policing 458 intensive su pervision programs 364-5 interactional theory 819 in teractionist school o f sociology 13 interdiction 488, 499-505 internal social organisation 464-6 internalization of n orms 237 International Covenant on Civil and Poli tical Rights 729 [Q 154--8,800,801 black and white differences 114, 11 6 delinq uents and non-delinquen ts 131 , 154 and frequency of o ffending 1S4 size of gap I S4 and types o f criminal behaviour 155-6 Iraq and Halliburton 430-5 /tlckrolle" Tile 335

jacobs,j . 568 jacobs, j .B. 443 jacobson , J. 644 Jackson, Michael 250 Jagger, Mlck 202 jefferson, T. 742 Jenki n , Patrick 682 Jim Crow 761 Jo int Com m ittee Against Racialism UCAR) 48 1-2 Joseph, Sir Keith 680, 682 judges, dual functi o n o f 62 1 judicial bias 45-6 juniOr criminal courts 700 juridical crimina ls 110 luridicallJUnishment 626, 640-3 juries 6 15 justice by geography 727 justice model of sen ten cing 628-9 youth justice 700- 1 justice fo r women 536-8 juvenile d eli nquen cy 49, 132, 234 in urban areas 190-3 see also deli nquent subculture jm'el1i1e Delinquency il/ Urbml Are{ls 335 Juveni le Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act 1974 338 Kamin, S. 524 Kanazawa, S. 12 7 Katz, j. 68 Kelling, G ,L. 295

Keynesian state 837,838,840 kickbacks 434 Klrkholt Burglary Prevention Project 412- 13, 414 Kitsuse, J.1. 48 Klein, D. 328 Kloc kars, C.B. 585 Kornhauser, Ruth 175-6 Kray hvins 453-4 labelling 210,220-3,307,701 biases and limitations of 220 irrelevance of to certain problem areas 221 'man on his back' bias 221 neglect of becoming deviant 220-1 neglect of power 222-3 neglect of structure 223 larceny 24,26,28,77,172 lat e modernity 160, 181-5 t..aub, jobn 818,85+-8 Law and O rder society 202, 203 law enforcement 45-6,6 19-23 gap bet\\.'een rheto ric and law 620-1 managing the ideological gap 621-3 rhe to ric of ju stice 6 19-20 Lawrence, Stephen 747--8,750 laws interpretation of 89 obsurity of 90 learned helplessness 250-1 left idealism 285, 286 left realism 276, 282--8 legal discourse, women of 772--8 example of law as a gendering strategy 776-8 law as a gendering strategy 774-6 law is gendered 774 law is male 773-4 law is sexist 772-3 legalization of controlled drugs 501-5 legitimacy 542-4, 661-2 Lernert, E.M . 212 lesson-drawing 844 Levi, M . 454 lethal violence see American lethal violence; moderniz.ation, self-control and lethal violence lice nsed premises and increase in assaults 491 Liehllng, A. 8 70 life-course persistent anllsoclal behaviour 809, 810-12 link with neuropsychological deficits 8 11 resemblance of parents and children 811 'li fe-course' theory 854--8 ' lifestyle analysis' 304 Legitimatiotl of Power, Tile 661 liminal zones 488, 493 Lister, S. 490 Uttle Red School Book affair 202 Livingstone, S. 75 loan sharks 468 Loca l 359 443, 445, 446 domination o f by Cosa Nostra 445 Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCA P) 431 Lombroso, Cesare 93, 328-30

Index

London Garrotting p.lniC 1862 .H-8 magistrates and judges role in .10 police's role in -ib Longford Report 202 'low self-control' 854 McDarnct , I). 619 'mach i5ll1O' 19q Macpherson , Sir William 747,757 Macpherson inquin 747-8,750-3 mafia 438, HQ, 442, 44.1-8, 451-2, 456, 45 7 ' magica l' solutlolls, ~ubcultu r('s and 188 , 198 magistrates ' courts 608-12 acou~tics 609 beyond absurdity 6 12 humiliation 609 interrogation 609 plaCing and spacing 608-9 time saving 609-10 Major, John 689, 690 male violent'e 782 mandatory Ilcnalties/sen t ences S09, 513, 524-----8 Maori Justice 721 marginalization 262-.3 of women 264 mariluana 499, 502 for medical purposes 501 smokers 500 marl.;eting of fault}' products 15 markets, organl7ed c rime 438 Marriage Act 1753 777 Marshall, T. 719 Martins on, R . 517 Marx, Karl 258-9 Marxian paradigm 259-60 Marxist theory of crime and criminal law 13 mass media 66 distortion of crime 282-3 Matthews, R. 278 Matza, I)avid 228, 234 Mauer, M. 506 Ma.dlcld, M . 54 Maybew, P. 559 McKay, H.D. 190 mean.'l of production 256, 258 me.pan'>ion of 691-2 racism 692 reductionist agenda 689 rus h to custody 690 penallustice, ne .... age of 514-17 penal range 659-61 penal seve rit y 5 12,5 16-28 penalties, fall in number 292-.\ penetration , sodal control and 636-8 penitentiary 20, 37 perceived coercion 729 permissive revolution 202 permissive SOCicty 79,80,680 Perry Preschool projcct 800 Persephone model 54~1 persistent young offendcr5 689-90 personality, as a factor in offending 801 -2 'petty' criminals 4, 421 Philadelphia Quakers and capital punishnwnt 23 physiological defect and deviant behaviour 8 Pilkington, flugh 34 pillory 26, 516 pious perjury 20, 26 Pitt's Police Bill of 1785 n Pittsburgh Youth Study 80] Plummer, K. 220 plunder 250 Poisson model of victimisation 410 police foot patrol 295-6, 298 organizing principles In the administration of justice

45-8 performance measurement regime 62 powers 37,458 role of 297-8 see also policeman's 'working personality' p olice, activities of 574-9 criminal investigation 576-7 other work 578 patrol 574-6 traffic 577-8 variations in police work 578-9 Poli ce and Criminal evidence Act 1984 (PACE) 754 Police Bill 1829 32 polici n g 592-9

alTountahility 597 civilian l'lllplo},l'c'\ 594 l'quny 596 human right~ 596-7 moonlighting 594 pluraliling 5(N, 595, 596, 597 private \elurity 59j 5afl'ty S9S~6 \carlhing for identIty 59_i~5 wt'liho commulllly polking 1'01i(ill:O; tilt' Cri\i~ 268 lu,liccJttiln ''i ' working I,ersonality' 580-5 (()rrelate~ of 50ci al bolation 583 polilc solidarity 5B 1 pol icc \olidarity and danger 58 1-2 ~oc i al isolation 581 ~ocial isolation and au thorit y 582-3 ~ymbolk assailant and police culture 580 IlOlicy transfer 844-8 I,ollll cal cultures 844-8 political economy of crime 258-60 Pollak, Otto 333-1 polygamy 127-8,131 ' Portia ' model of rights 536,539 positive school of criminology 99~103 three causes of crime 100 pos itivism 86,93-103, 106,267, 268,269,347-8 biological 106, 108-33 psychological 14~58 postmodern feminism 326, 3 4 7~55 postmodernj~Il\, debate over 349-50 pustmodernity 358 poverty 100,420- 1,563 power, d yn:lmics and visibility of 261-2 Power £Iite, TIle 411

Powers of the Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 691 predation 250-2 press reaction to crime 34-8 presumption of gui lt 533-4 presumption of innocence 533-4 prevention 302, 552, 553, 554-70, 587-8 primary and Sl."Condary deviance 2 12-13 sequence leading to secondary 213 primary and sceriodictll Ul/'Tature 1i3 Reaffirmillg RelwbUittltioll 630 Reagan, Ronald 759 ' rea l crime' 12 realism 278-300 a nd feminis t criminology 279-80 left a nd righ t 278 and modern ism 279 na ture of left 282-8 not empiricism 284 square of crime 280-1 see also radical realism rebellion 160, 168, 229 recidivism 361,5 12,5 17-20 recon Cilia tion, victim·offender projects 70-1 recorded crime 59-63,368 Redfern, A.K. 865 roouctionist agenda 689 Rces, Merl yn 683 re prod uctio n and crime 127-33 reflexivity 368 refo rm, unwilli ngncss to deal with 268-9 Reform Act 1832 23 refraction 369 ' regu lar villains', in court 6 11 ' regulatory offen ces' 12 reg ulato ry state and transfo rm atio n o f crim ino logy 837-42 KeyneSian state to n ew regu lato ry state 838-41 nightwatchrnan state to Keyn esian state 838 risk society and the n ew regul ato ry state 841 -2 rehabilitation 5 12,517-20, 628-33 reh abilitation \st pen o logy 628 Reiner, R. 59

Index reinforcers 138,1-19,150-1 reintegration 6H-8, 710, 719-~6 reintegrative s haming 723-4 religion, a~ a meam to stop super-predators 687-8 research \l'e fieklworli. and rC'IeaRh reserve 368 respect 548, 609 respectable crime -125 respectable fears 678, 080-3 respectability, and white-lOlldr crime -128 Re~potlSibilitr fur Crime 110 restorative justice 726--]0, 8-\ I 'default setting' 729-30 definition and prlntlpJes 719 development of 720-1 empowerment of communities 727 model 703-4 limitations to 722 primary obJectives 719-20 relationship to legal lustice 721 responsibilities of the state 726 rights and responsibilities of the victun 727-9 theories related to 722---\ restorati\e ]ustite, response to criti("S 732-6 encourages vigilantism 735 erodes legal rights HZ extends polite powers H+-5 fails to pro\"ide justice 735-6 lads legLtunacy 735 leaves po..... er imbalances untouched 735 fails to effect real change 73-1 falls to ' restore' victims and offenders 733----\ results in discriminatory outcomes 734 results in net -widening 7]2-3 trivializes crime 73.1 retaliatory aggression -\91 retreatlsm 160, 168 retrihutlon 629, 658 'revolving door' effect 4] 1 rewards for return of property 28 of crime 149-53 right realism 276,278 Riot Act 25 rising expectations 368 risk 358, 360-78 recalcitrant modernity and critics of 370-2 power and crime prevention 373-8 six compone nts of 368-9 and white-collar crime 428-9 risk and protective facturs 800-5 risk management 358,363, 373-8, 841 risk society and the new regulatory state 841 -2 ritual, capital IJUnbhent as 24-6 ritualism 160, 167-8 robber barons 422, 423 Rock, p, 388, 613 Rosenfeld, R, 174 Rothe, D_ 430 'rallon apples' theory 748 ruugh music 20, 27-8 routine activities 488, 491 routine acllvity theory 302,304,318-22

COlllIX'lSill0n of tnnH.' trl'lld~ :121 relall'd property tTends and relatIOn to human 'lCtl\'ity patterns HO rdated trcnd\ in buurvey 286 viet imology 828 victims mo\'cme nt 390 VictIm-Offender Reconciliatio n Pro jects (VORPs) 704,72 1, 722

Victim Support (volunt ary o rganisation ) 406, 412 victim su p!X'rt 397-40 1 legislation o r pe rsuasio n 399-40 1 'rights'-base ap proach to -126-7 in polit ies 422 white collar criminal 423-5 Wh iteho use, Mary 202 Wh itelaw, William 689 Wilkes and Liberty rioters 24 Wilki ns, L. 13, 225 Wil lis, Paul 182 Wilson, Edward 114 WlIson, J.Q. 149,295 Wi ndrush celebra tio ns 747 Winlow, S_ 490 witnesses 6 15,6 17 Wo ll stonecraft , Mary 24 7,248 women Lombroso on 328-30 Po llak o n 333-4 sentencing o f 770-- 1 Thomas o n 330 vio lence agai nst 402-8 women in contro l 779-81 angel in the house 779-80 patriarchal feminine and sem i-professio ns 780-1 wisewo men and their kin 780 see (i/so contro l o f women

women in prison 670-5 age and motherhood 673 average population 671-2 disciplinary offences 674 discrimination and section 95 publications 671 drugs, sexual abuse and mental health 675 ethniC group and nationality 673 number of 672 offences and previous convictions 673-4 rates of prisoners 672 recept ions 67 1 rc