Criminology. Its not enough to condemn crime we need to understand the causes.

MSc Criminology and criminal psychology. (DL) Unit: Criminology.

Student ID 252447

“It is not enough to condemn crime we need to understand its causes.” Critically analyse this statement from the perspective of right wing criminologist and one other criminological theory.

Criminological theory is not constructed in a vacuum. The historical developments in criminology are inextricably entwined with the profound shifts in the social, political and the cultural climate of the past four decades. Tierney (1996, p.218) aptly cites Garland (1985) who points this out when he refers to the distinction of a disciplines internal and external history. The basic tenet is that criminological knowledge is influenced and connected to the broader social, political, cultural and economic ideologies of the time.

In order to critically analyse the statement it is necessary to consider the broader political context. This essay will situate the reader by outlining the post-war philosophies of the welfare correctionalist perspective. We will examine the political backdrop to the shift in criminological thinking that occurred in the late 1970’s which influenced the revival of neo-classical, right-wing criminological thinking. We will then contrast this with left-wing, or a critical perspective. We will conclude by bringing the debate up to date by examining the recent crime policies of New Labour. But first it is necessary to offer a definition of right-wing and left-wing criminological perspectives.

According to Garland and Sparks (2000, p.10) there has never been distinct ‘right-wing’ criminology in Britain. Right-wing theories are more in line with political conservative ideologies. However, for the purposes of this essay, we will define right-wing perspectives as those that have common distinctive features that unify them as a commitment to pragmatic approaches and policy developments with less interest in armchair theorising and critical analysis. Right-wing criminological perspectives encompass neo-conservative and administrative rationalities. Neo-conservative rationalities call for the return to traditional values and norms of society. They condemn crime vigorously, as deviation from human morals with a lack of self-control and self-regulation as the cause.

In contrast, left-wing criminological thinking searches for the causes of crime in the structure of society. Although there are many strands and perspectives they are unified by a commitment to a number of common assumptions. They fervently reject the correctionalist stance of orthodox criminology and the methods of positivism. They question the orthodox definitions of crime and its measurement by the official statistics. Left-wing criminological theories are committed to critical analysis of the state, the agents and the institutions of social control. (i.e. prisons, police, courts). They vigorously condemn the legal definitions of crime and look at how the inequalities in social power and social order are linked to the causes of crime.

From the 1950’s until the late 1970’s there existed a vigorous political development of the welfare state, penal welfarism and a correctional crime control philosophy. Full employment, core entitlements to receive mainstream public services, a mixed economy and economic growth based on Keynesian assumptions were the shared goals. Consequently, criminological knowledge was entrenched in some specific ways of thinking and acting in relation to crime, its causes and its controls. This ideological world view is termed social democratic positivism (Young, 1994, p.73). Post-war social democratic positivism held the view that crime was a result of external and environmental factors. The broad consensus, both political and criminological, was that crime was a symptom of impoverished conditions and the cure lay in the provision of social welfare. The standard response to crime and other social problems were met with a barrage of social workers, psychiatrists, and other treatment professionals (Garland, 2001, p36). The primary criminological concern was to focus on the individual offender, their environment, and to discover causal variables that might provide clues to their aetiology and treatment (Garland, 2001, p.40). The role of the state is to intervene in deviance in order to assimilate the deviant into the main body of society. It is an inclusive world that does not view the deviant as an enemy to be condemned but as a person to be cured (Young, 1994, p.5). So embedded was this philosophy that the Labour government in 1964 declared that “It is not enough to condemn crime we need to understand its causes” (Garland, 2001, p.36).

By the late 1970’s an increasing antagonism towards the welfarist stance began to be noticeable. The antagonism was fuelled by the relentless rise in the crime rates and by what was seen as the failure of the social democratic welfarist programme. Despite the decades of social reform that addressed poverty, housing, and employment rates. Despite the post-war economic boom years in which employment, mass production and affluence reached its zenith. The crime rates continued to rise. They not only increased, they positively exploded in what Jock Young (1994, p.73) terms the ‘crisis of aetiology’. The widely held belief of social democratic positivism, that crime was caused by bad social conditions, was clearly contradicted (Young, 1994, p.74).

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The political response to the aetiological crisis was that right-wing politicians on both sides of the Atlantic began to argue that the welfare state had created a generation of feckless, lazy, and irresponsible citizens. Subsequently, the Thatcher administration managed to convince wide sections of society that crime was not caused by a widening poverty gap, unemployment and deprivation. Instead crime is caused by evil self-serving individuals. These were usually young people who lacked parental controls and responsibility. Any reference to structural inequalities, oppression, social and economic exclusion was seen as excuse making and damaging to the ethos of personal responsibility. As the Thatcher administration progressed it set its sights on welfare claimants, young offenders, ‘the short sharp shock’ of military style policing and detentions centres. The new-right espoused a return to Victorian values and referred to a mythical golden age of social stability and morality. The conservative consensus as far as offenders were concerned is that ‘we should understand less and condemn more’ (John Major, 1993, cited by Downes & Morgan, 2007, p.226).

The political shift to the right was mirrored in criminological thought. For example, Murray’s (2001, p.127-141) concept of the underclass recapitulates the sentiments of right-wing politics on both sides of the Atlantic. According to Murray’s analysis the crisis of aetiology is pin-pointed to a growth in an underclass which he identifies by the increase in illegitimacy, increasing numbers of barbaric young males and a culture of welfare dependency. In his view crime is directly related to a generation who have grown up without the civilizing institution of marriage and without a moral awareness brought about by family responsibilities. Poverty, depravation and unemployment are seen as a culture of excuse making. For Murray, the over indulgence of the welfare state had created a climate of hedonism and permissiveness. For Murray, welfare interventions, social work and rehabilitation are determinedly rejected (p140).

It is interesting to note at this juncture Newburn’s (2002, p.172) concept of ideological proximity. Ideological proximity is the notion that that the USA and the UK share a particular world-view, namely the shared agenda of neo-liberalism. According to Newburn’s analysis, the shared neo-liberal philosophies of the Thatcher and Regan administrations may have been a conduit for the rise in the new-right criminological thinking in the UK. In particular the work of Charles Murray (an advisor for the Regan administration) was highly influential on both sides of the Atlantic. The Thatcher government clearly adopted the rhetoric of welfare dependency from the United States. According to Newburn, the Thatcher and Regan administrations were close on not only on a political and ideological level but also on a personal level and during the Thatcher administration criminological theory took its inspiration from the US.

Subsequently, the 1980’s saw a resurgence of right-wing neo-classical theories in the form of rational choice theories, routine activity, administrative criminology and the closely related situational crime prevention. The starting point of rational choice theory (Cornish & Clarke, 1986) is that offenders seek to advantage themselves by their criminal actions. Criminal behaviour involves the individual making a rational choice based on a simple cost-benefit analysis. If the benefit of the crime outweighs the chance of detection or punishment then crime occurs. The emphasis is on the criminal as a free, rational decision-making agent. Under this rationale if the individual is responsible for crime then the penal system should be used as a deterrent and rehabilitation should take the form of moral education (Tierney, 1996, p.276). This model of calculation conceives that by increasing the probability of detection and the severity of punishment then the individual will be deterred. Nevertheless this model assumes that the individual is risk-aversive and does not take into account that for some offences (ie. joy-riding) the risk taking is part of the pleasure.

Similarly, the notion of crime as a routine activity (Felson, 2001, pp.160-166) situates crime in the normal practices of the social world. For crime to occur there is a convergence in time and space of a motivated offender, a victim and the absence of a suitable guardian. Contemporary capitalist society invites high crimes rates by increasing numbers of portable possessions. Also, people are more likely to be away from their homes thus reducing the number of guardians. Situational crime prevention is simply concerned with reducing the opportunities for crime. This is achieved by localised strategies to change the immediate environment and increased surveillance (Clarke, 2001, pp.357-366).

A related strand of right-wing neo-classical theories is administrative criminology. Administrative criminology is a product of the direct research carried out by the Home Office and is thus characterised by its commitment to the new-right politics. This is the embodiment of orthodox, establishment criminology, or what Garland terms the governmental project (Garland, 1994, p.18.). Felson and Clarke’s (1998) Opportunity Makes the Thief, is a brief but influential thesis commissioned by the Home Office. It is symbolic of right-wing theories as it appeals to common-sense. Felson and Clarke insist that criminology need no longer be concerned with abstract theorising. Attempts to discover causal relationships do not deal with the here and now of everyday life. The implication is that discussion of demographic or socio-economic factors are of little consequence for those engaged in the hard reality of controlling crime. For Felson and Clarke (1998) the root cause of crime is opportunity. By accepting this common-sense notion they can deal with the crime problem immediately, simply and cheaply by opportunity reduction.

Another perspective from the right contains elements of control theory combined with the Lombrosian positivist tradition. For example, Murray’s later criminological theory has been recast as neo-positivism (Young, 1994, p.98). The basic principle is that both biological and conditioning factors play a role in the individual’s ability to assess rewards and punishments. The punishments are not those that the state may impose, but the internalised conscience that the individual has learnt from the family. The conclusion is that biology sets the person at risk of becoming criminal while the lack of socialisation contributes (Young, 1994, p98). Similarly, Gottfedson and Hirschi, (1990, p.274) conclude that crime is a result of the lack of self-control due to poor socialisation and child-rearing practices.

Right-wing theories appear limiting in that the central focus is on the crimes and incivilities of those in the lower socio-economic spectrum of society and to put the blame on one-parent families ignores the wider social issues. Additionally, it is a criminology that neglects to consider corporate crimes or crimes of the powerful and its central focus is on street crime. Furthermore, right-wing theories appear to accept official definitions of crime unquestionably. They neglect the social economic, structural and materialistic ideas. There is little engagement in critical enquiry and theoretical reflection. Any attempts to understand the root causes of crime are replaced by anti-theoretical pragmatic policy-oriented approaches. The focus is solely on the individual and the behavioural conditioning. The decline of urban areas due to economic factors are ignored, any discussions of class, or race are rejected as academic indulgences.

Apart from these criticisms one thing that is remarkable about these theories is that crime is viewed as normal, commonplace and an accepted aspect of contemporary society. To commit an offence does not require any special dispositions, pathologies or social deprivations. Crime results from the normal open windows of opportunity that were left open by the irresponsible citizen. We are all potential criminals and we are all potential victims. Right-wing theories seem to have stripped away all theoretical notions of the causes of crime bar one. That crime is part of human nature and as a consequence only punitive measures will work to reduce the crime rates. (Downes & Rock, 2004, p.353)

Young, (1994, p.102) points out these theories are not concerned with addressing the causes of crime, but they are more concerned with the cost-effective management and administration of crime and its control. Crime is vigorously condemned, yet there is a disengagement from seeking causes. Instead, there is a revival of the classical notions of crime as voluntaristic. Crime is a course of action freely chosen by calculating rational individuals who lack self control or responsibility.

So entrenched is this new mode of thinking and rationalising the crime complex that it has lead to a new form of crime control. Garland, (2001, pp.124-127) refers to this as the responsibilization strategy which involves central government withdrawing direct responsibility for crime control through state agencies (police, courts, prisons, social workers) by acting indirectly. The message is clear. We are all responsible for crime and its control from property owners, manufacturers, schools and the individual.

Moreover, the right-wing theories of administrative criminologies, the zero tolerance of incivilities and the concept of the underclass legitimises social exclusion, criminalises the poor and creates a world in which the poor are scapegoated as irresponsible (Young, 1999, p.27). For example, being poor and living on the breadline is viewed as a personal choice. Refusing employment offers, despite low-pay and poor conditions, is viewed as personal choice. Being destitute and resorting to desperate measures is portrayed as personal choice. Thus, it could be argued that the responsibilization strategy is extended to encompass poverty, unemployment and the marginalised. The poor are classified as irresponsible and thus undeserving. By criminalising, blaming and condemning the poor for their own predicament, society is freed from any moral obligation towards them.

By contrast, left-wing sociological theories search for the causes of crime in the inequalities of the structure of society. In a recent attempt to revitalize left-wing and thus critical criminological enquiry, Jock Young’s, the exclusive society (1999) open’s up the discourse on the political and cultural structures of post-modernity. According to Young (1999, p.1) the transition from modernity to post-modernity is characterised by a transition from an inclusive society which sought to assimilate the deviant, to a society that separates and excludes. Young (1999) attributes this to the structural changes in the market economy. The Fordist regime of production that provided stable employment and state welfare from cradle to grave gave way to the post-Fordist predicament of chronically high and unstable employment, deskilling and the rise of the service sector that drew increasing numbers of women into the labour market (p.15). The destabilising of the labour market, coupled with welfare reduction has created the persistent presence of a marginal 30 per cent without employment or opportunity (p.8) Moreover, among those that do have employment, there exists a fear and insecurity (ontological insecurity). This leads to punitive scapegoating of the poor on the one hand and a perception of relative deprivation on the other (p.9).

Drawing on Merton’s (1938) account of social structure and anomie, Young (1999) points to the cultural expectations of contemporary consumer society. In this sociological classic Merton (1938) locates the causes of (working class) crime in the ‘strain’ between culturally defined goals and the inequality in the legitimate means of achieving these goals. According to Young (1999) in modern consumer society the goals are to define oneself through consumer items. Thus there is added emphasis on individualism and personal gain via the market mechanisms. However, there are those that are excluded and denied the legitimate means to consume. Hence, the combination of exclusion and deprivation of legitimate means leads to disillusionment and strain. Consequently, according to this left-wing theory there is a deep rooted causal connection between structure, social exclusion and crime. The problem is intensified by penal practices to control crime serving to further exclude the already marginalised. (Young, 1999, p.26)

We may be forgiven in thinking that the search for the causes of crime has been completely abandoned by contemporary politicians. Nevertheless, attention to the wider causes of crime has not entirely been absent from the political agenda of the present government. Following the 1997 election, New Labour declared to be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime” (Labour Party Manifesto, 1997, cited by Downes & Morgan 2007, p.210). One may interpret ‘tough on crime’ to indicate target hardening, increased punitiveness and situational crime preventions strategies. ‘Tough on the causes of crime’ implies tackling poverty, unemployment and inequality.

In reality, what followed was a succession of largely punitive penal policies designed to be tough on both the causes of crime and crime itself. However, there is very little evidence to suggest these policies are tackling the causes. For example, there was the removal of doli incapax, the age to which a child can be considered criminally responsible was reduced from age 14 to age 10. Alongside this was the introduction of coercive Parenting Orders designed to make parents of disorderly youth take responsibility for their children. There was the introduction of Child Safety Orders, and local Child Curfew Orders all designed to tackle children who cause alarm or misery to the community. Perhaps the most contentious initiative was the introduction of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBO’s) designed to curtail unruly youth and ‘neighbours from hell’. Furthermore, there was the introduction of the mandatory minimum sentence for repeated burglary, drug trafficking, violence and sex offences and the stepping up of penalties for repeat offenders (Downes & Morgan, 2007, p.215).

It appears that once in the grip of popular punitiveness, New Labour have taken the draconian measures of the Thatcherite authoritarian rule to new extremes. Being ‘tough on crime and the causes’ seems to equate to simply being tough, mostly on recalcitrant and unruly youths. Nonetheless, no one can accuse New Labour of being soft on crime.

Profound cultural and political changes over the past four decade have changed criminology irrevocably. The cultural shift from social welfare forms of governance to a neo-liberalism which emphasises the individual as the responsible agent of their own security has meant that a criminology espousing welfare rationalities will have little to offer government and policy makers. As governments adopt a populist punitiveness stance there is a growing gap between criminological knowledge and public policy. Instead, policy is based on highly political articulations of public sentiments (Garland & Sparks, 2000, p.12)

Right-wing conservative criminological research that is embodied in the administrative criminology of the Home Office is curiously absent of qualitative studies into the causes of crime. The imperative appears to be devoid of critical analysis of the structure of society. Instead, it offers numbers and statistics that whole heartedly condemn the misery of crime. Yet there is a distinct absence of research into the misery of the causes.

Furthermore, the current political trend of popular punitiveness especially targets children and young people. Getting ‘tough on crime’ and antisocial behaviour means use of civil injunctions, particularly ASBO’s that serves to further exclude communities already marginalised by poverty and unemployment. Communities continue to be targeted in neighbourhoods devastated by endemic poverty and structural unemployment. In these areas of exclusion, New Labour appeals to responsibilization and thus expects active civic citizenship from individuals whose lives revolve around survival, exclusion and economic marginalisation.

Finally, the nature of criminal motivations cannot be ignored. A better understanding of the fight against inequality, injustice, oppression and greed may offer insights into the root causes of criminality. Perhaps it is time for politicians, criminologist and society to understand a little more and condemn a little less.

(Word Count 3299)

References

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