Chapter 12: Contemporary Critical Criminology PDF

Chapter 12 Contemporary Critical Criminology by Bryan Hogeveen University of Alberta...

Chapter 12 Contemporary Critical Criminology by Bryan Hogeveen University of Alberta Andrew Woolford University of Manitoba Slides prepared by Stephen Schneider Saint Mary’s University Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-1 Learning Objectives Explain what it means to be “critical” in critical criminology. Identify the origins of critical criminology in Canada in the New Criminology and the efforts of the Human Justice Collective. Understand Michel Foucault’s approach to the concept of power and its importance to critical criminology. Describe how risk and actuarialism are prevalent in contemporary criminal justice practices and how this relates to the notion of the “risk society.” Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-2 Learning Objectives (cont.) Discuss cultural criminology and its contribution to critical criminology. Explain Pierre Bourdieu’s “field theory” and its application to crime in the work of Loïc Wacquant. Define Giorgio Agamben’s concept of the “state of exception” and explain its relationship to sovereignty. Describe Jacques Derrida’s notion of “deconstruction” and how it is used in critical criminology. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-3 Introduction Some schools of criminology have adopted an administrative approach to the question of crime:  which focus on minimizing criminal opportunities rather than explaining criminal motivations.  governments and criminal justice organizations can safely adopt this brand without fear that these suggestions and programs will significantly change existing mandates or practices Criminal justice institutions that receive critical criminological approch  invite their own destruction.  practice a transformative brand of critique that confronts inequalities and social suffering with promises of more just outcomes. Introduction Critical Criminology Draws attention to hidden and overlooked injustices Attempts to highlight inequalities, discrimination, and suffering, and to relate these to the discipline of criminology. Attends to the processes through which the social world restricts human freedom and choice. Attempts to assemble and create more “just” worlds with less or no misery. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-5 What Is Critical about Critical Criminology? Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-6 What Is Critical about Critical Criminology? It promises “to take the system to task, rather than tinker with its parts” (Ratner, 1971, n.p.). It practices a transformative brand of critique that confronts inequalities and social suffering. Thus, the “critical” in critical criminology implies transformation through promises of justice. The critique is a means to a transformative (just) end. To be critical is not simply to be judgmental. Critique, as it is practiced in mainstream criminology, is typically only judgmental (not transformative). Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-7 What Is Critical about Critical Criminology? Critical criminologists call for an approach that goes beyond judgment. They call for destabilizing existing relations into new patterns—“other” ways of being in the world. Critical criminology does not judge existing policy, programs, institutions, or societal structures. It suggests “other” (just) ways of being in the world. It does not seek ways to better manage the poor and dangerous classes. It promises justice to those who are Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-8 marginalized and discriminated against. Critical Criminology in English Canada Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-9 Critical Criminology in English Canada Identified starting points for a “new” criminology Criticized conventional Taylor, criminology for: Walton, & o Supporting the political and Young, The economic status quo o Ignoring the structural causes New of crime Criminology o Focusing on biological and (1973) psychological factors Called for a “fully social” criminology Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-10 Critical Criminology in English Canada Taylor, Walton, & Young recommended a “fully social” criminology that: Understands crime within a wider sociocultural context Examines structural and political-economic dimensions that produce criminal behaviour (Crime is result of structural conditions that produce unequal opportunities, stigmatized populations, real and relative deprivation, and other concepts that criminologists often credit as motivations for crime) Examines the relationship between crime and the mode of production(capitalist economic system, where wealth is concentrated among a small number of corporations and individuals, while many others are left without access to good jobs or educational opportunities) Questions the role of power in crime and criminal justice (crime is not simply the reflection of a societal consensus; instead, it is defined by the powerful and punished in a manner that suits their interests) Engages in a materialist analysis of the development of laws in capitalist societies (certain drug habits, such as alcohol and coffee, are tolerated if not encouraged. In contrast, others, such as cocaine and heroin, may be viewed as unproductive and criminalized) Takes a dialectical approach to analyzing how individuals both influence and are influenced by dominant social structures. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-11 Critical Criminology in English Canada This approach inspired several Canadian criminologists to critically assess the liberal foundations of Canadian criminology. 1984: R.S. Ratner: Canadian criminologists guilty of Ignoring social structures, Failing to challenge state definitions of crime, and Believing CJS could be easily adjusted to address injustices. 1985: Thomas O’Reilly-Fleming edited The New Criminologies in Canada; 1986: Crime & Social Justice, journal dedicated to Canadian critical criminology (R.S. Ratner, ed.) Late 1980s: Human Justice Collective formed 1990s: internal conflict in the Canadian movement stifled further development (e.g., left Copyright © realists 2020 by Top Hat vs. left idealists) 12-12 Critical Criminology in English Canada The growing critical criminology has produced a group of scholars who are difficult to unify under a single label. Two groups defined as “left realists” and “left idealists” Begin their inquiry into crime from Left abstract premises (for example, Marxist theory) rather than empirical work Idealist Have been criticized by realists for minimizing the harm that crime causes to the working class and for romanticizing s criminals as a potentially revolutionary force Left Worked through local surveys of crime and victimization to move beyond partial criminological understandings Realist Aim to take the fear of crime among the working classes seriously and to oppose s the work of “right realists” who implemented punitive sanctions Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-13 Governmentality and Power: Foucault and Criminology Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-14 Foucault Power Known for his Is not a quantity that work can be possessed, Is relational, evident examining only when exercised, power and It Produces reality, and governmental Is thus not just ity negative, but creative. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-15 Foucault Power operates on us everywhere, always: Micro-powers: small relations of governance affecting human behaviour. Almost everywhere we turn, everywhere we go, power operates on our bodies and souls (Assuming that you are driving a vehicle, think about all the ways your behaviour is controlled while you drive. Traffic lights, signs, painted lines, photo radar, and the presence or absence of police all affect how we go about our drive) Discipline: operates at the smallest level of detail. Ensures constant subjection and obedience which operates through surveillance Surveillance: observation of individual functioning so as to increase the efficiency and usefulness of human actions. The direct or indirect observation of conduct toward producing a desired outcome (that is, conformity) Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-16 Foucault Governmentality “Any attempt to shape with some degree of deliberation aspects of our behaviour according to particular sets of norms and for a variety of ends” Critical scholars have used Foucault’s writings on governmentality to understand a wide range of state and nonstate domains of governance.  The myriad technologies of governance and their operation across diverse social fields” such as immigration control  Mechanisms outside the traditional state governmental machinery that structure and contour human behaviour. Recent years have witnessed the rapid increase of private security firms that police a variety of venues, including the local mall, construction sites, and, as the upsurge in alarm companies continues, private dwellings. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-17 Foucault Critical scholars have used Foucault’s writings on governmentality to understand a range of state and nonstate domains of governance. One example is how the rise of private security affects our social world Critical criminology has been limited by its focus on the state, and state-centred constructions of criminality; and by failing “to come to terms with how social injustices are reproduced through private institutions and modes of expertise that operate on the margins of the state and in the shadow of the law” (Lippert & Williams, 2006). Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-18 Actuarialism, Risk, and the Risk Society Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-19 Actuarialism, Risk, and the Risk Society Foucault’s greatest impact on critical criminology is the consideration of how the treatment of offenders has been increasingly affected by the governance of risk. Actuarial (or insurance-based) technology: risk is a mode of treatment of certain events capable of occurring to a group of people, but this can result in increased surveillance of certain groups, which is unjust. Risk-based strategies do not take into account the context in which different risks developed. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-20 Actuarialism, Risk, and the Risk Society Beck’s conception of the risk society was a society organized around the management of risk. It influenced critical criminology: 1. Social problems become risks to be managed, not solved (that is, structural causes were not considered). Individuals are encouraged to become responsible for protecting themselves from opportunistic crimes for example, by installing alarm systems in their homes or in their cars 2. Risk thinking transforms CJS practices. Risk management strategies infiltrate judicial, correctional, and law enforcement institutions, tasking criminal justice professionals with the collection of aggregated risk data and with administering risk assessments to their charges. For example: police officer investigating a traffic accident The “risk society” thesis serves critical criminology by showing how shifts toward increased insecurity influence how we think about and react to crime. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-21 Cultural Criminology Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-22 Cultural Criminology Crime viewed as a cultural (not a legal) construct. Cultural criminologists do not accept crime simply as state-defined illegality; instead, they view it as a culturally negotiated phenomenon through which people create social meaning. Hayward & Young (2004) identified five motifs: 1. Crime is motivated by feelings and how the act is felt (as an adrenaline rush) by the offender. The attraction of car theft may stem more from the desire to alleviate boredom through risk taking. 2. The “soft city”—This refers to the “underlife” of the city that hides beneath structured and rationally planned urban space. Whereas urban planning attempts to direct our everyday lives through policing strategies, the design of defensive urban space, and other modalities of social control, the “soft city” bubbles up as a realm of creativity and street-level possibility. While it may seem that we are free to go and do as we please in space, careful design contours our actions in very definite directions (IKEA and Critical Mass participants define their collective bicycle rides not as traditional political protests, but as do-it-yourself celebrations by music, decoration and play) Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-23 Cultural Criminology 3. Acts of transgressions and rule breaking challenge the justness of laws (pro-cannabis protesters sparking joints on Parliament Hill not simply as individuals seizing the opportunity for public criminality, but also as a collective act designed to challenge the criminalization of one leisure pursuit while others (e.g., alcohol, tobacco) go uncontested) 4. The approach employs an “attentive gaze” ethnographic methodology to identify the experiential and interpretive dimensions of crime rather than sit back in their offices and peruse quantified crime data. 5. It also produces “dangerous knowledge,” because its purpose is to question all knowledge, including the status of criminology as an objective science ( culturally constructed and delimited by a particular world view) Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-24 Field Theory of Criminology Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-25  Field Theory of Criminology Bourdieu provides insight into the cultural and economic conditions in which crime and our understanding of crime are produced. Field Theory The social world is divided into many fields (“artistic” field, “economic” field, etc.) Each field is a space of conflict and competition where competitors compete for control. However, the field and the rules are tilted to favour the powerful. An actor’s ability to display competence in a field depends in part on his or her habitus. This is one’s “feel for the game”—that is, one’s set of habits, skills, and dispositions acquired through experience that allow one to navigate challenges without having to overthink or plan every step Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-26 Field Theory of Criminology Some actors have greater capital Those have with greater quantities of the forms of capital valuable within the field (e.g., economic, symbolic, cultural, or linguistic capital) will be more capable of transmitting an aura of competence. Thus, within a specific “game” or market situation, actors come pre-equipped with differing amounts of capital, depending on their position(s) in the structural arrangements of society (e.g., level of education, occupation, age), and based on these factors are predisposed towards certain behaviours or practices. Field Theory of Criminology Wacquant’s critical criminological take on Bourdieu’s theory: It does not accept “criminalized” identities as constructed through criminal law. Instead, it seeks to identify the symbolic, cultural, and economic factors that empower dominant actors to create and apply criminal categories, while disempowering subordinate groups from resisting this criminalization because they lack the necessary “capital” to achieve “profit” within various arenas of social action (“fields”). Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-28 Agamben: Sovereignty and the State of Exception Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-29  Agamben: Sovereignty and the State of Exception The central concern is the modern conditions of sovereignty, repression, and loss of rights in the name of security since 9/11  to think about the massive numbers of suspected terrorists being detained at Guantanamo Bay without ever being charged with an offence Sovereign: is the one who holds the power to declare a state of exception  Declarations of this sort are typically issued after natural disasters, during wartime, and, especially, when the state is confronted by civil unrest.  A state of exception exists when the sovereign declares the suspension of civil liberties to restore social order Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-30  Agamben: Sovereignty and the State of Exception How can a government suspend your rights? It is only by virtue of citizenship that modern states offer protections via human rights. At the same time, citizens are subordinated to the sovereign, who can decide at any time to suspend those rights. The sovereign establishes the conditions under which society returns to a state of naked life—life unprotected by law and rights. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-31  Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction Is Justice Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-32 Derrida: Deconstruction is Justice Deconstruction: opening up It intends to encounter the hidden language to the and excluded elements of language, silent, background meaning, and experience. suppositions (belief) It intends to expose what is really that give words and going on in and through language. phrases their meaning Underlying all language is a trace: the silent or Comet Analogy: when we observe a absent element of comet we are not privy (aware of) to language that gives its essence—the nucleus (core) words an essential remains hidden. part of their meaning Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-33 Derrida: Deconstruction is Justice Deconstructing “community” The term “community” in the Youth Criminal Justice Act is inherently exclusionary. It designates divisions between and among people. Gated neighbourhoods exclude the “other,” while shoring up a privileged lifestyle. The rich and upper middle class are positioned as victims vs. the poor and socially marginalized as offenders. Community can contribute to exclusionary practices that limit inclusive patterns of harmony. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-34 Derrida: Deconstruction is Justice Deconstructing the word justice Most commonplace understanding is vengeance— punishment that delivers obvious signs of unpleasantness to offenders. We live in an era during which war, prison overcrowding are justified in the name of justice. Many injustices are done in pursuit of justice Justice is not an existing reality or entity; justice is not found within the law or contained by law. Justice is an ideal; a promise that is incalculable, infinite, and undeconstructable. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-35 Criticisms of Contemporary Critical Criminology Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-36 Criticisms of Contemporary Critical Criminology Obscure and abstract Does critical criminology nature of fetishize theory and disguise critical meaning behind difficult criminological language? theorizing Critical criminology must have What are the implications for the real world of crime, crime control, and practical social justice. implications of Some find it difficult to critical perceive a call to action in the criminology? theoretical language of critical criminology. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-37 Table 12.1: Contemporary Critical Criminology Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-38 Summary Critical criminology attempts to draw attention to overlooked injustices. It seeks to highlight inequalities, discrimination, and suffering. Early critical criminology in Canada focused on how economic power is implicated in the operations of criminal justice. Today’s critical criminology does not maintain this dedication to a political economic approach to crime. The critique is not a form of judgment but a means to disrupt and destabilize assumptions about and approaches to crime. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-39 Summary Foucault contributed to critical criminology through his work on power. Power is not just repressive, it is also productive. Through the tactics of discipline, surveillance, and governmentality, power shapes individuals so that they are transformed into more governable subjects. Actuarialism, risk, and the risk society are terms used to understand the use of evaluations of risk and harm in contemporary criminal justice practices. Through an understanding of the larger social context producing the “risk society,” critical criminologists challenge the logic of various risk management approaches to criminal justice. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-40 Summary Cultural criminology examines the cultural production of crime and our understandings of crime It also questions popular notions about crime and criminal justice. Bourdieu’s “field theory” focuses on the many forms of power and the role it plays in the domination over and the definition of excluded and criminalized classes. Crime is a consequence of economic domination but also of symbolic, cultural, and social domination. Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-41 Summary Agamben examines the power of the sovereign to define individuals as being outside of law. Built into law is the state of exception—that is, the sovereign’s ability to suspend rights and protections. Criminal law is vividly revealed as a source of exclusion. Derrida’s concept of deconstruction provides critical criminologists with a powerful tool for evaluating what is hidden or unspoken within social life and criminal justice practices—for example, unpacking the meanings hidden in criminal justice jargon, such as “community,” “safety,” and “security.” Copyright © 2020 by Top Hat 12-42