Understanding Crime and Criminology PDF

1 Understanding crime and criminology 4 1 · Understanding crime and criminology CHAPTER In this chapter we begin the study of criminology. What is this subject, what SUMMARY are its origins and what is its focus? Having considered these questions we...

1 Understanding crime and criminology 4 1 · Understanding crime and criminology CHAPTER In this chapter we begin the study of criminology. What is this subject, what SUMMARY are its origins and what is its focus? Having considered these questions we move on to look at what is meant by the term ‘crime’. Although it might be tempting to think that the term is straightforward, and indeed that is how a lot of people talk and think, as we will see, there is a range of ways in which crime can be understood. It is, for example, both a legal concept (we have criminal laws which indicate which acts are illegal) and a socially constructed one (who becomes labelled ‘criminal’ and under what circumstances?). We examine these and other ideas. The chapter concludes by looking briefly at the history of criminology in Britain, its institutional origins and its recent expansion. can be distinguished from other ways of talk- What is criminology? ing and thinking about criminal conduct. Thus, for example, criminology’s claim to be an This is a question that is deceptively simple in empirically-grounded, scientific undertaking appearance, but really quite tricky to answer with sets it apart from moral and legal discourses, great certainty. It is tricky partly because, as we while its focus upon crime differentiates it from will see, criminology is a mixture of different disci- other social scientific genres, such as the sociol- plines, differing objects of study and some dispute ogy of deviance and control, whose objects of over where, precisely, its boundaries actually lie study are broader and not defined by the crimi- and should lie. Importantly, however, the fact that nal law. Since the middle years of the twentieth we begin with this question assumes that you are century, criminology has also been increasingly new to this subject. Indeed, that is the underlying marked off from other discourses by the trap- assumption. This book is designed as an introduc- pings of a distinctive identity, with its own jour- tion for students who are studying criminology. nals, professional associations, professorships, I have endeavoured not to make too many assump- and institutes. tions about pre-existing knowledge of the subject and, wherever possible, I will hope to begin from In this history, Garland argues that modern crimi- basics and work progressively toward more com- nology is the product of two initially separate plex ideas or arguments. streams of work: Criminology is a strange beast. With origins in applied medico-legal science, psychiatry, a scien- O The ‘governmental project’ – empirical studies tifically oriented psychology and in nineteenth- of the administration of justice; the working century social reform movements, for much of the of prisons, police and the measurement of second half of the twentieth century British crim- crime. inology was dominated by sociology or at least a O The ‘Lombrosian project’ – studies which sought predominantly sociological approach to criminol- to examine the characteristics of ‘criminals’ and ogy. Times are changing again, however, and a ‘non-criminals’ with a view to being able to new strand of technical and highly policy-oriented distinguish the groups, thereby developing an ‘scientific’ criminology has been emerging more understanding of the causes of crime. recently. During the course of this book you will meet all these variants and should learn how to During the twentieth century, he suggests, these assess their competing claims. gradually merged and changed to form the basis In a masterly analysis of the emergence and for what we recognise these days as criminology. development of criminology in Britain, David The term criminology seems first to have been used Garland (2002: 8) introduced the subject in the fol- by Paul Topinard, a Frenchman studying the body lowing way: types of criminals, though the invention of the term itself is generally credited to an Italian academic I take criminology to be a specific genre of dis- lawyer, Raffaele Garofalo. Both are associated with course and inquiry about crime – a genre that the second stream of work identified above – which has developed in the modern period and that Garland names after the Italian scholar, Cesare  What is criminology? 5 ª Lombroso (see Chapter 6). This work, in various precisely to capture the fact that it is an area of CH6 forms, was concerned with attempts to identify study that brings together scholars from a variety physical and other characteristics that set criminals of disciplinary origins, who meet in the territory apart. Such work varied from the measurement of called crime, and this seems to me a more than sat- physical characteristics such as head shape and the isfactory way of thinking about it. Indeed, we do shape and size of the jaw and cheekbones, through not need to spend a lot of time discussing the vari- to work that focused more upon the environmental ous positions that have been taken in relation to it. conditions that produced criminality. Though, by It is enough for current purposes that we are alerted and large, crude attempts to identify and measure to this issue and that we bear it in mind as we cover characteristics that distinguish criminals from oth- some of the terrain that comes under the heading ers have largely disappeared, Garland’s argument criminology. is that one very significant stream of criminology There is a further distinction that we must briefly has continued to be concerned with identifying the consider, and it concerns criminology on the one individual, social and environmental factors that hand and criminal justice on the other. Although are associated with offending. the study of the administrative responses to crime is generally seen as being a central part of the crimi- nological enterprise, sometimes the two are sepa- An interdisciplinary subject rated, particularly in the United States. In America Thortsen Sellin, an American criminologist writing there is something of a divide between those who in the 1930s, once observed that the ‘criminologist think of themselves as doing criminology and those does not exist who is an expert in all the disciplines who study criminal justice. In fact, the distinction which converge in the study of crime’ (Sellin, 1970: 6). is anything but clear. Criminological work tends to As a criminology student you will quickly discover be more theoretically informed than criminal jus- just how many disciplinary approaches are utilised tice studies and also more concerned with crime in studying crime and criminal justice. In this book and its causes. Both, however, have clear concerns you will come across work by psychologists, sociol- with the criminal justice and penal systems. In ogists, political scientists, lawyers, historians, geog- discussing this distinction, Lacey (2002: 265) sug- raphers and others, all working within the subject gests that criminology ‘concerns itself with social of criminology. That they do so is one of criminol- and individual antecedents of crime and with the ogy’s great strengths. nature of crime as a social phenomenon’, whereas Different disciplines have been dominant at dif- criminal justice studies ‘deal with the specifically ferent points in the history of criminology, and institutional aspects of the social construction of there are differing orientations to be found within crime’ such as policing, prosecution, punishment criminology in different countries. Nevertheless, as and so on. We will consider what is meant by the you will see as this book progresses, criminology is social construction of crime in more detail below. influenced by, and draws upon, psychology, sociol- Before we do so, let us look once more at the param- ogy, legal theory, history and other subjects besides. eters of criminology. This raises a number of issues. It means that not only will you find a number of different approaches being taken to the subject matter, but that some- Defining criminology times these approaches will appear rather at odds Even the very short discussion so far should have with each other. This is one of the great challenges alerted you to the fact that criminology is a com- within criminology and, though it can occasionally plex subject which has a number of historical roots seem daunting, it is one of the characteristics which and, as we will see, a number of quite different I think makes the discipline attractive. Linked with approaches in its contemporary guise. On this basis, this is the question of whether it is appropriate to coming up with a definition of our subject matter is use the word discipline at all. Criminology, as I have almost not only a difficult task but, quite probably, suggested, draws from disciplines such as psychol- an impossible one. However, in order to bring a tiny ogy and sociology, and there has been quite some bit more certainty to this rather uncertain terrain, debate about whether criminology can lay claim to I will borrow an approach to our subject matter first such status itself (I tend to think not). offered by one of the towering figures of twentieth- This is not an argument we can resolve here. The century criminology. British criminologist David Downes once described Edwin Sutherland – someone who you will get criminology as a ‘rendezvous subject’. He did so to meet regularly throughout this book – defined  6 1 · Understanding crime and criminology criminology as the study of the making of laws, unproblematic. The continued attempts to the breaking of laws, and of society’s reaction to explain the causes of crime are illustrative of this. the breaking of laws. Whilst this is by no means O Crime consists of many petty events – A great many a comprehensive definition of criminology – ‘criminal acts’ create little physical or financial criminologists may be interested, for example, in harm and often involve no victim. various forms of behaviour that do not involve the O Crime excludes many serious harms – Many things breaking of laws but, nevertheless, bring forth some which result in fairly sizeable harm are not dealt form of social sanction – it does help point us in with via the criminal law – i.e. are not treated as the direction of what are arguably the three great ‘criminal’. One of these might be large-scale tax tributaries that make up the subject: fraud, which is rarely prosecuted. O The study of crime. What is clear from this critique is that criminol- O The study of those who commit crime. ogy’s organising focus – crime – is potentially a highly contestable and problematic term. In study- O The study of the criminal justice and penal ing criminology this is something we must try not systems. to lose sight of. It was this, in part, that the well- Sutherland (1937) went on to argue that the ‘objec- known criminologist Stanley Cohen (1988: 46) tive of criminology is the development of a body undoubtedly had in mind, when he said: of general and verified principles and of other [Criminologists] like leeches, live off a very types of knowledge regarding the process of law, large body on which they are wholly parasitic. crime, and treatment or prevention’. Now, hav- In the same way that our courts, prisons, proba- ing indicated that this is the general approach tion officers and police ‘need’ crime, so does the that informs much of what follows in this book, criminologist. The gap, though, between the real I want to pause and look briefly at work that is criti- world of crime and the artificial world of crimi- cal of the very enterprise that is criminology. I do nology is enormous. One reason for this is that so, not because I think the criticisms that are made the mere existence of something called criminol- are sufficient to make us abandon this project (as ogy perpetuates the illusion that one can have a you can tell because there are another 1,000-odd general theory of crime causation. pages to go before the end of the book), but because they should make us think very carefully about the assumptions that underpin criminology and should Understanding crime make us question the limitations of this particular enterprise. Crime, like so many things in our social world, The critique is associated with what we will has a certain taken-for-granted or common-sense come to think of as ‘critical criminology’ and can nature. When we use the term, we assume the cat- be found in various forms since at least the 1970s egory is meaningful; that is, we assume that those ª (see also Chapter 13). Hillyard and Tombs (2004), to whom we are talking will understand what we’re CH13 for example, argue for a change of focus away from talking about and will tend to use the term in the ‘crime’ and toward ‘social harm’ (see also Dorling same way as we do. This, of course, is the basis et al., 2005; Davies et al., 2014). They do so on the upon which the social world operates – on assump- basis of four major lines of criticism: tions about the taken-for-granted meaningfulness of the vocabulary we use and the behaviours we O Crime has no ontological reality – The category enact. Yet, as scores of sociologists have illustrated, ‘crime’ has no reality beyond the application this shared meaningfulness has to be achieved; it of the term to particular acts. The acts is not given. themselves are not intrinsically criminal. The apparent orderliness of our world can fairly Thus, to kill someone during peacetime easily be disturbed. This becomes clear when those may well be treated as murder; to do so on a with whom we are interacting do not share our battlefield will most likely not. We return to assumptions or, alternatively, when they react to this below. what we say or do in ways that we didn’t predict, O Criminology perpetuates the myth of crime – Despite expect or perhaps understand. The word crime is the criticism above, criminology tends to talk used regularly in everyday conversation. That it is of ‘crime’ as if the category were relatively used in this manner implies that there is a sufficient  Understanding crime 7 level of common understanding for it to be mean- total stranger who asks for money. When refused, ingful. On one level this is undoubtedly the case. the stranger becomes violent. The stranger robs However, this masks a number of complexities. As the pedestrian and leaves them needing hospital we will see, identifying the boundary between acts treatment. There is little doubt that most people, that are crimes, and acts which are not crimes is on having this situation described to them, would often far from straightforward. call what happened ‘a crime’. Indeed, in many ways To illustrate this let’s consider a couple of exam- this example represents one of the most common ples involving things that might be thought of fears that many of us have (Stanko, 1990). as crimes, both of which involve assault. The first The second example is more unusual. It arises occurs at night-time. It is dark and a person is walk- out of the seizure of videotapes during a police ing alone and it is late. They are confronted by a raid. One of these videos shows a number of men The Spanner case During a raid in 1987 the police seized a videotape which against the men and would have found it impossible to showed a number of identifiable men engaging in heavy bring any prosecutions. sado-masochistic (SM) activities, including beatings, genital abrasions and lacerations. The police claim that The law of assault they immediately started a murder investigation because In law, you cannot, as a rule, consent to an assault. they were convinced that the men were being killed. This There are exceptions. For example, you can consent to a investigation is rumoured to have cost £4 million. Dozens medical practitioner touching and possibly injuring your of gay men were interviewed. The police learned that body; you can consent to an opponent hitting or injuring none of the men in the video had been murdered, or even you in sports such as rugby or boxing; you can consent suffered injuries which required medical attention. to tattoos or piercings if they are for ornamental pur- poses. You can also use consent as a defence against a The verdicts charge of what is called Common Assault, where there In December 1990, 16 of the men pleaded guilty on is no significant injury involved. legal advice to a number of offences and were sent to jail, given suspended jail sentences or fined. The men’s The judgment defence was based on the fact that they had all con- The Law Lords ruled that SM activity provides no excep- sented to the activities. But Judge Rant, in a complex tion to the rule that consent is no defence to charges legal argument, decided that the activities in which they of assault occasioning actual bodily harm or causing engaged fell outside the exceptions to the law of assault. grievous bodily harm. These are defined as activities A number of the defendants appealed against their which cause injuries of a lasting nature. Bruises or cuts convictions and sentences. Their convictions were could be considered lasting injuries by a court, even if upheld though the sentences were reduced as it was they heal up completely and that takes a short period of felt they might well have been unaware that their activi- time. Grievous bodily harm covers more serious injury ties were illegal. However the Appeal Court noted that and maiming. Judge Rant introduced some new terms this would not apply to similar cases in the future. The to define what he considered to be lawful and unlawful case then went to the House of Lords. The Law Lords bodily harm. Judge Rant decreed that bodily harm applied heard the case in 1992 and delivered their judgment in or received during sexual activities was lawful if the pain January 1993. They upheld the convictions by a majority it caused was ‘just momentary’ and ‘so slight that it can of three to two. be discounted’. His judgment applies also to bodily marks such as those produced by beatings or bondage. These The evidence too, according to him, must not be of a lasting nature. The evidence against the men comprised the videotape In essence, Judge Rant decided that any injury, pain or and their own statements. When they were questioned mark that was more than trifling and momentary was il- by the police, the men were so confident that their activ- legal and would be considered an assault under the law. ities were lawful (because they had consented to them) Source: www.spannertrust.org/documents/spannerhistory.asp that they freely admitted to taking part in the activities (If you want to follow up more recent case law in this area, you could on the video. Without these statements and the video- start by looking at: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/ tape, the police would have had no evidence to present cmpublic/criminal/memos/ucm40702.htm.) 8 1 · Understanding crime and criminology engaging in fairly extreme sado-masochistic activi- proceeds on the basis of precisely such an approach ties, including beatings and genital abrasions. The to defining crime. Much of what criminologists do police launch an investigation (the men in the tape uses categories derived from the criminal law and, are clearly identifiable) which ends in prosecution moreover, uses statistics taken from the operation of despite the fact that the men involved all argued criminal justice agencies enforcing or administering that they consented to the activities. Indeed, all the criminal law (see Chapter 3). This led the Ameri- © freely gave statements to the police believing them- can sociologist Tappan (1947: 100) to argue that: CH3 selves not to have done anything criminal. Were Crime is an intentional act in violation of the they right? This, in fact, is a real case. In what sub- criminal law... committed without defence or sequently became known as the ‘Spanner case’, excuse, and penalized by the state as a felony 16 men pleaded guilty on legal advice to assault. or misdemeanour [more or less serious crimi- Some were jailed, some received suspended prison nal acts]. In studying the offender there can be sentences and others were fined. The judgment was no presumption that... persons are criminals upheld by the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords unless they also be held guilty beyond a reason- and the European Court of Human Rights. able doubt of a particular offence. So, how are we to approach the subject matter of criminology? What are the different ways in which Does this mean that there is nothing common to we understand crime? An apparently straightfor- all those things that are the object of our study as ward way is simply to view crimes as being offences criminologists other than they happen currently to against the criminal law. However, even a brief be defined as ‘criminal’? Can we limit our attention analysis shows that such offences vary enormously solely to those things that might lead to a conviction historically and culturally, and that the formal in a criminal court? Edwin Sutherland (1949: 31), application of the criminal law only occurs in rela- one of whose major concerns was ‘white-collar tion to a small minority of behaviours that could, in crime’ thought not: principle, be treated as criminal. The essential characteristic of crime is that it is behaviour which is prohibited by the state as an Crime and the criminal law injury to the state and against which the state may react, at least as a last resort, by punishment. In some senses the most obvious, and most com- The two abstract criteria generally regarded by monly used, definition of crime is simply to view legal scholars as necessary elements in a defini- it as an infraction of the criminal law. Within tion of crime are legal description of an act as the criminal law, a crime is conduct (or an act of socially harmful and legal provision of a penalty omission) which, when it results in certain conse- for the act. quences, may lead to prosecution and punishment in a criminal court. Straightforward as this seems, However, as we will see in relation to white-collar there are a number of problems with it. As Zedner crime (see Chapter 19), he felt that our attention as © (2004) observes, ‘crime’ may be both a criminal criminologists should not be limited to those acts CH19 and a civil wrong simultaneously. The legal classi- that would be punished by the criminal law. There fication doesn’t help tell us why certain conduct is are other forms of punishment and regulation and defined as criminal; it merely helps identify it. it is the fact that acts are ‘punishable’ that makes She continues: ‘To think about crime, as some them fall within our view. criminal law textbooks still do, as comprising dis- crete, autonomous legal categories remote from the social world, is to engage in an absorbing but Crime as a social construct esoteric intellectual activity’ (2004: 61). At its most Writers starting from this position see ‘crime’ as a extreme, a crude legalistic approach to crime implies label applied, under particular circumstances, to that if there were no criminal law, then there would certain acts (or omissions), suggesting that crime is be no crime. In its more extreme version it also sug- something that is the product of culturally bounded gests that no matter what acts someone may have social interaction. As Edwin Schur (1969: 10) once committed, if they are not subject to criminal sanc- noted: ‘Once we recognise that crime is defined by tion, then they cannot be considered criminal. the criminal law and is therefore variable in content, Much of criminology, though aware of some of the we see quite clearly that no explanation of crime problems inherent in legal definitions, nevertheless that limits itself to the motivation and behaviour of  Understanding crime 9 individuals can ever be a complete one.’ Put a dif- and phenomenology – the roots of labelling theory ferent way, Schur was simply observing that if we and related ideas – and it has become fashionable in take the criminal law to be the thing that defines this general area to talk of ‘social constructionism’: what is criminal, then the very fact that the criminal the idea that crime like other social phenomena law varies – often very significantly – from country is the outcome or product of interaction and nego- to country, makes it immediately clear that there is tiation between people living in complex social nothing given about crime. groups. Central to such an approach is the obser- Particularly influential in this regard has been vation that the power to label certain acts, and cer- ª labelling theory (see Chapter 11). Associated with tain people, as criminal is one which is restricted CH11 a number of influential American sociologists such and, indeed, keenly contested. Because it involves as Howard Becker, labelling theory, as its own label the exercise of power, the process of labelling implies, places primary emphasis on the defini- acts and people as criminal – generally known as tional power of the application of labels – in our criminalisation – tends to reflect power differentials, case here, the label ‘criminal’. Labelling theory dis- or particular interests, within society. As we will tances itself from the view that defining someone as see in later chapters, there is a radical tradition in criminal somehow represents some natural order of criminology, influenced by such insights, which events and, rather, analyses such processes as illus- views the criminal law and the operation of the trations of the use of power by the state, and others, criminal justice and penal systems as clear illustra- to define people in particular ways. tions of elite or class interests. Put perhaps rather In recent times, theorists within criminology too crudely, it is one means by which the wealthy have tended not to refer to symbolic interactionism and powerful discipline and control the poor. A radical version of social constructionism has been outlined by the Norwegian criminologist, Nils Christie (for more about Nils Christie, see Chapter 31). In his book, A Suitable Amount of © Crime, he argues: CH31 Crime does not exist. Only acts exist, acts often given different meanings within various social frameworks. Acts and the meanings given to them are our data. Our challenge is to follow the destiny of acts through the universe of mean- ings. Particularly, what are the social conditions that encourage or prevent giving the acts the meaning of being crime? (Christie, 2004: 3) Historical variation Similarly, we can gain considerable insight into the socially constructed nature of crime by looking at how our treatment of certain behaviours varies, often considerably, over time. The 1960s in Britain are often referred to as the ‘permissive age’. This was intended to convey what was perceived to be a general loosening of moral codes in the period. It was also a time when a series of liberalising laws were passed. The Abortion Act 1967 made it pos- sible for women, under specific circumstances, to have a pregnancy terminated. Prior to 1967 abor- tion was illegal. Similarly, prior to the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, it was illegal in Signs limiting or banning alcohol consumption in public Britain for men of any age to have consensual sex have become increasingly common. together. On the other hand, it was perfectly legal  10 1 · Understanding crime and criminology to take heroin and cocaine up until the time of the conceive of a moral order that spans an interna- First World War. After that, the use of opiates was tional community? The last half-century or so has restricted, but they could still be prescribed by a seen the emergence of international human rights doctor. Those of you that have read Conan Doyle’s law, the establishment of an international criminal Sherlock Holmes stories will know that the great court and, latterly, the prosecution of war criminals detective was an opium user – though even by Vic- using these international treaties and institutions torian times it was quite closely associated with (see Chapter 36). The processes involved in bring- © criminality. Nevertheless, opium consumption ing cases to justice, however, are highly complex CH36 wasn’t a criminal act. and problematic and, in their own way, illustrate One of the best examples of historical variation some of the problems involved in seeking answers in criminal law is the period of American prohibi- to the deceptively simple question ‘What is crime?’ tion. An amendment to the Constitution of the These include: United States – the National Prohibition Act (or O There is no international consensus as to what Volstead Act) – was passed in 1919 and remained constitutes ‘crimes’ in the international arena. in force until 1933, banning the production and Thus, for example, nations such the United sale of alcohol. Now, as is well known, the Act States, India and China, among others, are not neither prevented the manufacture nor the sale even signatories to the International Criminal of alcohol. Indeed, it provided the basis of an Court. extraordinary period in the history of American organised crime. However, what is important for O Securing international cooperation against our purposes here is the fact that for a period of particular states is often very difficult to 13 years the making and selling of alcohol was achieve. illegal, criminal. O Bringing to trial alleged ‘war criminals’ – Let’s consider one final example, again related often people who occupy, or who have to substance use, this time illustrating the way in previously occupied, powerful positions – has which laws change over time, and vary geographi- proved very difficult (for example the cases cally. Until recently it was perfectly possible in of General Pinochet, Slobodan Milošević the United Kingdom to smoke in pubs. However, [Robertson, 1999] and, more recently, Ratko the law has changed and since March 2004 it has Mladic – see Chapter 36). © not been possible to smoke in pubs in the Irish CH36 O The machinery of justice – in this case the Republic, similarly in Scotland since March 2006, International Criminal Court or other ad hoc in Wales since April 2007 and since July 2007 in tribunals – only has a limited capacity. In England, too. cases where genocide is alleged there are often The examples of cultural and historical variation hundreds, if not thousands, of perpetrators. given above all share an implicit assumption: that O Where private corporations are involved is, that the power to determine what is or is not a in alleged war crimes – such as the torture crime resides in the nation state. However, we have of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq – clearly entered a period of history in which the enforcing the criminal law is often even more boundaries between nation states are now rather difficult. more porous than they were, say, a century ago. The processes generally understood by the term Indeed, one of the problems with international ‘globalisation’ mean that the countries and peoples criminal law is – in some respects like domestic of the world are now increasingly interdependent criminal law – that there is not necessarily any ª (see Chapter 36). What happens in one part of the consensus as to what constitutes ‘rights’ on the CH36 world has greater and more immediate significance one hand, or ‘crimes’ on the other. One of the for other parts of the world. criticisms sometimes levelled at international Since the Second World War, and the realities of endeavour in this area is that rather than reflecting the Holocaust became visible, one question that has universal values, it is actually another instance of repeatedly been asked is under what circumstances the West seeking to impose its values and priorities is it appropriate or necessary for one or more states on the world. In such circumstances, we are asked to intervene in the affairs of other states? And, to acknowledge that politics lies behind much of linked with this, to what extent is it possible to this activity. Discussions of crime, the operation  Criminology in Britain 11 The British Journal of Delinquency was established by ISTD in 1950. It had three joint editors, two psy- chiatrists and Hermann Mannheim. The journal was renamed the British Journal of Criminology in 1960, though it had the subtitle ‘Delinquency and Deviant Behaviour’. According to its editors this was ‘to indicate that criminology must be based on the broadest studies of the individual and social determinants of character and conscience’. It was some considerable time before British criminology took its sociological turn. Terry Mor- ris’s The Criminal Area was published in 1957 but, Slobodan Milošević, at one time President of Serbia, and arguably, it was not until the publication of David later President of Yugoslavia, was eventually indicted for Downes’s The Delinquent Solution in 1966, fol- war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. lowed by a number of other important works, that criminology influenced by American sociological theory really began to flourish. There were also a number of important institutional developments of criminal justice processes, the application of around this period that contributed to the further labels – such as ‘(war) criminal’ – are not neutral development of British criminology. In the late activities, but are, in important respects, linked 1950s the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge with institutions of power and authority – be those was established. In 1957 with both Mannheim domestic or international. and Grünhut about to retire, the Home Secretary, R.A. Butler, approached London and Cambridge universities in order to explore the possibility of establishing a new institute. London University Criminology in Britain turned him down, but in 1959 the new Institute of Criminology opened in Cambridge under the The first lectures under the banner of ‘criminology’ direction of Radzinowicz. In addition, Butler also in Britain were delivered in 1921–22 in Birming- helped the university secure independent finan- ham to postgraduate medical students. At that time cial support for the creation of the first chair in ‘criminology’ in the UK primarily involved psy- criminology. Thus was established the Wolfson chiatrists. It was quite unlike the much more socio- Chair in Criminology, held for many years by logically influenced subject that it became by the Radzinowicz and, after his retirement, by Tony 1970s and, to a significant extent, remains today. Bottoms. The journal, Sociological Review, was established in The second major institutional development was 1908 and carried nothing that was obviously crimi- the creation of a research unit within the Home nological until the late 1930s. Office. The Criminal Justice Act 1948 had given The first professional organisation in the area the Home Secretary the power to spend money on was established in 1931. Initially called the ‘Asso- research. The sum initially allocated was £2,000. ciation for the Scientific Treatment of Criminals’, The first external grants were made to the three it became the ‘Institute for the Study and Treat- eminent émigrés: £250 each to Radzinowicz and ment of Delinquency’ (ISTD) later in the decade Grünhut, and £1,500 to Mannheim to begin his (a name it retained until relatively recently). In famous borstal study. By 1956 the external expen- 1933 it founded the Portman Clinic as the base for diture on research had risen to £2,500. In 1957 the the practice of psychoanalytic and psychiatric treat- Home Office Research Unit was established, later ment. Criminology was still not a widespread sub- becoming known as the Research and Planning ject of academic study. By 1948 only three people Unit – and now the Home Office Science, Research held jobs in British universities teaching what might and Statistics Directorate (with other researchers be thought of as criminology: Leon Radzinowicz at working in research directorates in the new Minis- Cambridge, Max Grünhut at Oxford and Hermann try of Justice). There are now hundreds of research Mannheim at the LSE. staff and a budget of millions. 12 1 · Understanding crime and criminology No doubt it was this which, in part, led a group of British sociologists to establish the ‘National Deviancy Symposium’, later the National Deviancy Conference (NDC). It held its first conference in autumn 1968 and then for a period of years pro- vided a location in which a more radical British criminology could thrive. David Downes said of the NDC that its great appeal ‘was not only to sociolo- gists of crime in search of a congenial forum, but also to younger sociologists who saw in deviance an escape route from the positivist methods and functionalist orthodoxy of much British sociology’. A large number of people were recruited into crimi- nology in the 1960s and 1970s – what Rock (1994) called the ‘fortunate generation’ – and thereafter recruitment declined substantially. Since that time, British criminology has expanded massively and also changed in character and focus. Whereas much early, and classic, Brit- ish criminology took offenders as its focus, there has been a profound shift over the past 30 years or so towards a preoccupation with the operation of the criminal justice system – the rise of what Jock Young (see Chapter 14) called ‘administrative © criminology’. Arguably, there has also been some- CH14 thing of a shift away from theory and theorising. Sir Leon Radzinowicz (1906–99), appointed first It is increasingly difficult to characterise British director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge in 1959. A commanding figure in the criminology, however; the sheer scale of the expan- history of British criminology, he was also the author sion now means that it is all the more difficult to of a five-volume History of English Criminal Law and its grasp, capture and summarise its character. The Administration from 1750. BSC held its first conference in 1987 – and there were concerns at the time about how much inter- The third of the developments – though they est there would be. It now hosts an annual confer- all occurred at roughly the same time – was the ence at which there are usually around 400–500 establishment of the British Society of Criminology delegates. The Society has close on 1,000 members. (BSC). ISTD had established a ‘Scientific Group for There are upwards of 70 higher educational institu- the Discussion of Delinquent Problems’ in 1953. tions offering degrees (half or full) in criminology However, not everyone was happy with its activi- and a further 40 or more running master’s degree ties and discussions, in particular with the contin- programmes. By any standards this is remarkable ued dominance of psychiatric and other clinical growth. In the chapters that follow I will endeav- perspectives. A number of members broke away our to take you through many of the major issues in the late 1950s and established the BSC. Though and debates in contemporary criminology, and to this was intended to herald a shift in perspective, it explore with you many of the most important ques- would not do to exaggerate it. In a paper to the 1971 tions that people working within this discipline British Sociology conference, Stan Cohen observed have grappled with. It is – I hope you will find – an that the BSC was multidisciplinary, ‘with a heavy exciting journey. We move next to looking at crime bias in a clinical direction’. and justice in history.  Criminology in Britain 13 Further reading If you want to learn more about the emergence and On understanding what is meant by crime, a very fine development of criminology, then David Garland’s introduction and overview can be found in the first (2002) essay, ‘Of crime and criminals’ in the 3rd edition section of: Muncie, J. (2001) ‘The construction and of The Oxford Handbook of Criminology is undoubtedly the deconstruction of crime’, in Muncie, J. and McLaugh- place to start. The essay is available online at: www.oup. lin, E. (eds) The Problem of Crime, 2nd edn, London: com/uk/orc/bin/9780199205431/01student/chapters/. Sage. There is also a wonderful essay by Roger Hood, entitled A more focused and developed treatment of the relation- ‘Hermann Mannheim and Max Grünhut’ (2004) British ship between crime and law is: Lacey, N. and Zedner, L. Journal of Criminology, 44, 469–495. (2012) ‘Legal constructions of crime’, in Maguire, M. On more recent developments in British criminology et al. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 5th edn, you should look at the range of essays in: Rock, P. (1988) Oxford: Oxford University Press. A History of British Criminology, Oxford: Oxford Univer- Lucia Zedner’s (2004) Criminal Justice, Oxford: Oxford sity Press. University Press, provides a thorough grounding in the I would also suggest consulting: Downes, D. (1978) major philosophical debates (and is probably especially ‘Promise and performance in British criminology’, valuable for those studying law). British Journal of Sociology, 29, 4, 483–502; and Rock, P. Finally, the really keen might like to follow up some (1994) ‘The social organisation of British criminology’, of the essays in Bosworth, M. and Hoyle, C. (eds) in Maguire, M. et al. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Crimi- (2011) What is Criminology?, Oxford: Oxford University nology, 1st edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Press.