Expanding the Criminological Imagination: Critical Readings in Criminology

Edited by Alana Barton, Karen Corteen, Davis Scott and David Whyte
Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing, 2007

Chapter 1, page 1, begins with these words:  “Future generations of social scientists will look back critically at this period and ask why liberal democracies continued to expand their apparatuses of criminal justice when, at the same time, officially measured and defined rates of ‘crime’ had been in steady decline…” 

One may question whether this belief is correct, as do penal populists.¹  Indeed, whatever views one may hold in this respect, one may question whether it is possible to even ascertain the true extent of criminal wrongdoing.  On the one hand, a lengthy multi-contribution text such as Crime and Justice in Western Countries 1980-1999 (Volume 33)², edited by Michael Tonry and David P. Farrington, sets out the latest in relevant data and provides signal assistance in comparing and contrasting information from a variety of jurisdictions as to the rate of criminality. A thorough study of the text may lead to the conclusion, however, that certain types of wrongdoing that are quite damaging to the core values of our communities are not less prevalent than was the case previously.  At all events, the preface to Crime and Justice A Review of Research (Volume 34)³, written by the editor Michael Tonry includes these valuable remarks on pages vii-ix:

[American crime patterns and policies have been out of synch for most of the last forty years.  Policies became steadily more punitive from the early seventies through the late nineties, after which they stabilized at historically severe levels.  The number of prison inmates quintupled and continues to increase.  Official crime rates rose from the late sixties through the early eighties, fell through 1986, climbed again through 1991, and have declined substantially since. […] Anyone predisposed (many are) to believe that severe crime control policies caused the clines in crime rates or that rising crime rates produced rising prison populations need look no further than across the border to Canada to see it isn’t so.  Rises and falls in Canada’s crime rate have closely paralleled America’s for thirty years.  A look across the Atlantic Ocean is similarly chastening.  Crime rates everywhere rose steeply from the late sixties through the early to mid-nineties and have since fallen steadily.  Imprisonment rates display every pattern imaginable, from steady increase (the Netherlands), through broad stability (Germany, most of Scandinavia, and Switzerland) and up-and-down gyrations (France and Italy) to steady decline (Finland).  Go figure. [Emphasis added]

To conclude these introductory remarks on the theme of the rise of the criminal law apparatus, a text entitled The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories, Perspectives, edited by Professor John Pratt,⁴ includes a useful contribution by Professors Dawn Moore and Kelly Hannah-Moffat entitled “The liberal veil: revisiting Canadian penalty” pp. 85-100).  The authors make plain that it appears that the ‘Canadian model’ of punishment operates under a liberal veil of a quite distinct nature from the ‘punitive turn thesis’ described in the book being reviewed and in so many other texts. 

Be that as it may, the nature of the controversy in this vein is such that it is far from being resolved⁵ and it is therefore imperative to study the factors and conditions that promote reflective and contemplative penal policies in response to such punitive measures and policies and Expanding the Criminological Imagination  Critical Readings in Criminology advances a number of quite useful suggestions and areas of research in this vein.  As noted by the editors with commendable insight on page 2: “Given the ascendancy and consolidation of a state-driven agenda within and outside criminology, a critical and creative imagination is necessary now more than ever.  It is time for criminologists to reflect upon the utility of the discipline in order to reawaken, revive and expand the criminological imagination.”  Hence, it is a worthwhile purchase for the reasons that follow.

A first point to be made is that the foremost lesson to be drawn from this richly-textured set of essays and contributions is that we must cease to focus upon the individualized or family-centred causes of crime, and focus attention on understanding the social, economic and political contexts that produce both crime itself and state responses to crime.  In this respect, I found this text valuable for the focus it casts upon the boundaries placed upon everyday interactions, choices, meanings and motivations of criminals and deviants through these contexts. 

Secondly, Chapter 2, “Critical criminology and the intensification of the authoritarian state”, by Professor Reece Walters of the Open University, pursues many of the criticisms advanced in The New Punitiveness text but from a far more “engaged” perspective.  As we read on page 16, it is imperative that sight not be lost of the increasing commodification of criminology and the increasing rise of embedded criminological genres.  The author also argues that “critical criminology must continue to avoid the lure of relevance that is so frequently used to define the only ‘legitimate and useful’ regime of truth.”  As a result, what is advocated is a ‘criminology of resistance’.  In fact, pages 32-33 capture the author’s conviction that what is needed “... is an increase and a vocal outpouring of the critical voice or what I call ‘deviant knowledge’ (that which is critical of contemporary forms of governance and challenges the existing social order)…”

I would point out, however, that in criticizing the “crime science” literature on the grounds that it discusses rational choice theory and crime pattern analysis, etc., one must question how white collar crime and other crimes of the rich and powerful are to be addressed and combated.    

Further, the various contributors shed valuable light to the signal issue of the importance of collective or global reasons for crime; stated otherwise, the context for criminal misconduct ought not to be the individual but the collectivity.  To refer to an example and an image not found in the text, one might argue persuasively that Feodor Dostoevsky’s (1866) infamous Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment would have committed his misdeed even without the letter from his mother which had, as noted at the outset of Chapter Four, “tortured him”.  But to view that element as the impetus for murder would be to ignore his abject deprivation, his lack of hope, etc., and how these despairing realities were shared by all others in his class. 

Chapter 3, Roy Coleman’s contribution, “Confronting the ‘hegemony of vision’: state, space and urban crime prevention” is twinning matters of interest surrounding the use of CCTV, crime prevention partnerships coupled with spatial regeneration strategies.⁶  As made plain on page 53, the author advocates by means of a clear and compelling réquisitoire that a discussion of crime prevention moving beyond conventional criminological thinking and moving towards a multidisciplinary exploration of the key relationships between ‘crime prevention’, the production of spatial order and state power.   In my view, however, the important work of Jeff Ferrell and his colleagues, to wit: Cultural Criminology Unleashed,⁷ is referred to only by footnote reference when it warrants far greater interest (p. 58, footnote 6). 

Chapter 4, “The ‘worse’ of two evils? Double murder trials and gender in England and Wales, 1900-53” by Anette Ballinger is also of interest.  “The search for the truth but whose truth?” might be a better way of explaining her perspective for the author seeks to demonstrate, and succeeds ably, in demonstrating that factual findings of juries are quite dependent upon the charge they receive and that these explanations of law and fact have often been attacked as quite tributary to the particular class values of the presiding judge.  In effect, factual findings are discussed and dissected, and often shown to be quite value-driven.  A complementary article is People and Place Historical Influences on Legal Culture,⁸ edited by Jonathan Swainger et Constance Backhouse, and in particular to the latter’s chapter “’Don’t You Bully Me … Justice I Want If There Is Justice To Be Had’: The Rape of Mary Ann Burton, London, Ontario, 1907”. 

The next contribution, by Mary Corcoran, is perhaps the most significant in terms of an actual, ‘let us change a sad state of affairs today’ perspective.  Styled “’Talking about resistance’: women political prisoners and the dynamics of prison conflict, Northern Ireland”, it presents a fascinating number of insights into the plight of female prisoners and lays bare the dynamics of prison punishment and resistance experienced by Republican women prisoners.  Interested readers are encouraged to read the full account of this scholarly endeavour in Out of Order The Political Imprisonment of Women in Northern Ireland 1972-1998.⁹

“Changing focus: ‘drug-related crime’ and the criminological imagination” is the title of Chapter 6, by Margaret S. Malloch.  The author’s goal is to pursue recognition of the need for a strategy in this area of state defined criminality (as opposed to health intervention, by way of limited example) which is based on social justice.  Stated otherwise, we may better achieve true justice in this field by resorting to a critical criminological approach respecting the so-called ‘war on drugs’.  A related study of this issue is found in Chapter 4 of Creating Criminals Prisons and People in a Market Society, by Vivien Stern.¹⁰

Howard Davis is the author of the next chapter, “Taking Crime Seriously? Disaster, victimization and justice”.  This is a singularly imaginative contribution, one that I found not only worthwhile by reason of the erudition shown by the writer but by reason of the scope of the suggestions advanced for promoting true social justice by criminalizing harms that are major in effect and yet unlikely to be considered as worthy of the attention of the police at present.  Not only does the author focus our attention away from individual responsibility for criminal wrongdoing in a refreshing fashion, he does so by means of a rigorous analysis focusing on large-scale victimization.  Consider only the example on page 144 of some 13,000 deaths of elderly French citizens in one year by reason of a heatwave.  In sum, the contention is that a ‘disaster crime’ must come to be recognized is one well worth further time and debate.  In this vein, I refer to a dated but no less valuable and somewhat prophetic group of essays edited by Frank Pearce and Laureen Snider under the title Corporate Crime Contemporary Debates¹¹, notably Chapter 7 “Corporate Crime and New Organizational Forms”, on pages 132-145.

The penultimate chapter, penned by Elizabeth Stanley, touches upon the subject of the application of criminology to enforce and protect human rights.  Drawing upon the experiences of Timor-Leste (East Timor), the author seeks to direct the criminological imagination towards the norms of human rights, especially on the analytical plane which might best ensure that the label of crime will not avoid being placed on actions that result in suffering and death by reason only that the State is involved.  Reference could also be made to the related study of “State harms” found in Chapter 6 of Beyond Criminology Taking Harm Seriously,¹² penned by Tony Ward and the work of Wayne Morrison in this respect, notably “What is crime? Contrasting definitions and perspectives” found on pages 3-19 of Criminology.¹³  I commend in particular the discussion surrounding the issue of defining crimes to reach beyond the nation-state on pages 15-16. 

The concluding chapter was written jointly by the editors and seeks to bring together the various strands of the suggested expanded criminological imagination in order to pave the way for a more coherent, less arbitrary and ultimately far more just understanding of the rights and wrongs that are susceptible of recognition and of punishment, respectively, chiefly by means of the adoption of a ‘social harm’ perspective.  I can do no better by way of a concluding passage than to quote the following from page 210: “The criminological imagination must act as a replacement counter-hegemonic discourse, providing an alternative way of thinking about the problem of crime and promoting an alternative vision of morality and justice …  An expanded criminological imagination must provide a holistic account of social harms, troubles and problematic behaviours that facilitates a joined-up and multidisciplinary analysis of social problems and wrongdoings.”

¹ The leading text in respect of this issue is Penal Populism and Public Opinion Lessons from Five Countries, by Julian V. Roberts, L.J. Stalans, David Indermaur and Mike Hough, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.  Refer to my review in (December 2003) Vol. 41(3) Alberta Law Review, on pages 797-799.  A recent and valuable addition to this school of thought is Penal Populism, by Professor John Pratt, New York: Routledge, 2007.  In particular, I wish to commend the valuable discussion on pages 152-158 on the “barriers to penal populism” that seem to be in evidence in Canada.

² University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2006.

³ University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2006.

⁴ In collaboration with his colleagues David Brown, Mark Brown, Simon Hallsworth and Wayne Morrison Portland, Oregon: Willan Publishing, 2005.  Reviewed by myself in Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, April 2007, Vol. 49(2), p. 279.

⁵ In one respect, perhaps, it might be said that neither Penal Populism nor Penal Populism and Public Opinion Lessons from Five Countries has considered sufficiently the “penal populism” associated with the rapid enactment of anti-terrorist legislation in Canada in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001.  In this vein, the scholarship of University of Toronto Law and Criminology Professor Kent Roach might be studied with profit (refer to September 11  Consequences for Canada, Montréal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003, and an earlier text published within three months of the terrorist attacks, The Security of Freedom  Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill, edited together with R.J. Daniels and P. Macklem Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 2001.  I reviewed both texts:  the former in (2003-2004) 35(2) Ottawa Law Review on pages 320-323; the latter in (2004), 8(3) Can. Crim. L. Rev., on pages 423-425).

⁶ Interested readers may profit from reading City Limits: Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience by Dr. Keith J. Hayward, London: Glasshouse Press, 2004.  Reviewed by the writer in Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice (July 2005) Vol. 47(3), p. 613.

⁷ Edited by J. Ferrell, K. Hayward, W. Morrison and M. Presdee, GlassHouse Press: London, 2004, reviewed by the writer in (2005), Vol. 1(1) International Journal of Punishment and Sentencing, pp. 70-78.

⁸ Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003.

⁹ Willan Publishing: Cullompton, 2006.

¹⁰ Fernwood Publishing Ltd., Black Point, Nova Scotia, 2006.

¹¹ Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

¹² Edited by Paddy Hillyard, Christina Pantazis, Steve Tombs and Dave Gordon, Pluto Press, London, 2004, pp. 54-100.

¹³ Edited by Chris Hale, Keith Hayward, Azrini Wahidin and Emma Wincup, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2005.  See my review in Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, April 2007, Vol. 49(2), p. 279.