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	Alternative Law Journal

The problem with criminologists

An original approach to examining the relevance and importance of criminology

Richard Edney

Richard Ebney is a solicitor with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.

Criminologist: What is the function of criminologists you ask? The Oxford Dictionary definition of criminology provides the answer: ‘the branch of knowledge dealing with crime’.

Interviewer: But surely everyone has an idea about what causes crime and possible ways to solve it?

C: Yes, that is true; but only up to a point. You must understand that we have the methods, or means, to turn common sense ideas about crime into theories and in that way can prove the truth or falsity of those theories. In this way we turn a community’s ideas about crime into truths because our theories are tested logically through the utilisation of scientific and empirical methods.[1] Put simply, if the community’s ideas turn out to be incorrect we can explain to them rationally and objectively why that is the case.

I: So the criminologist has a special relationship with crime?

C: Special would not have been the word I would have chosen; however it must be borne in mind that to be a criminologist is no simple thing. If anything, I would say it is a difficult relationship in that what we deal with is a most disturbing and complex part of the human condition that is immensely difficult to study.

I: I believe that you have misunderstood what I was asking. By using the word ‘special’ I was trying to establish what collectively do criminologists possess that allows them to speak about crime?

C: I apologise for misunderstanding your question and forgive me if this answer fails to satisfy your obvious interest in matters criminological; because I too have questioned our ability to provide the truth about crime. It is not through lack of trying for criminologists have a proud history of researching the problem of crime all over the world.[2] Throughout this intellectual history we have conducted countless research projects, sat on innumerable government committees, published scholarly journals,[3] written text books,[4] taught at universities, of course, and sometimes my colleagues appear in the occasional newspaper or television report. So to that extent we have been busy and, although I can only speak for myself, I believe that what we have achieved has been worthwhile.

I: The reason for the previous question, and it was merely intended to develop further the claim that criminologists have a special understanding of crime, was to raise fundamentally what you mean when you say you are a criminologist. That is to say that criminologists seem to spend a lot of time talking about people involved in crime and suggesting answers to their problems. Yet to talk about something as traumatic as crime and to talk about offenders’ experiences and to argue for measures for their alleged benefit seems, at best, paternalistic[5] and at worst insulting to their dignity. That may be too strong a way of putting it, but the point it raises is crucial, I believe, because the experience of crime is best expressed in my opinion by those who have been subject to the coercive, and possibly violent,[6] power of the state. In short, how can criminologists justify a special relationship with crime when those individuals involved intimately with the criminal justice system and a life of criminality seem more ideally situated?

C: Well, it is not, I suppose, a special relationship with crime or criminals, but rather an attempt by us to collate all these individual experiences in a systematic way to provide a more complex understanding of the phenomena that we know as crime or deviance. In this way we give meaning to actions or behaviour that individually may seem inexplicable and ...

I: Sorry to interrupt, but all this talk sounds very psychological and more the province of psychologists whose brief is to explain the peculiarities of the mind. Indeed, one never sees criminologists in a court attempting to explain why a particular defendant has engaged in criminal behaviour. And if one takes seriously the title ‘criminologist’, does it seem peculiar to you that other professionals such as psychologists are more likely to talk with authority about crime than criminologists? I would have thought that with such a dramatic title as ‘criminologist‘ you would be supreme in all matters criminal, and my question is do you think criminology is vulnerable to other professions that may talk about crime?

C: I believe the issues you are raising are not so much to do with criminologists, but with the role of intellectuals in a community. It is an important issue and I subscribe to Chomksy’s idea that the primary responsibility of intellectuals is ‘to speak the truth and to expose lies’.[7] And although he was writing about different concerns than what we do as criminologists, I believe it holds up fairly well when applied to us for our role is to speak the truth as far as it can be known about crime. As part of that enterprise and in pursuit of the truth we expose many myths and ill-informed notions concerning crime. What we do when we develop theories is to debunk the lies that are told about crime. For instance, a lot of us say that the answer to a burgeoning crime rate is not as simple as imprisoning more people for longer periods of time. This, as you would understand, is not the view held by most members of the community. To convince the community we attempt to amass evidence and thereby formulate what a sophisticated approach to the problem of crime would be like. We attempt to explain to the community why we believe they are wrong and thereby to influence the practices and policies that inform the criminal justice system.

I: And what if the community believes that the criminologists have got it all wrong?

C: You seem to be questioning the value of pursuing the study of crime at all, and ...

I: Yes, I am because I believe criminology has lost its way. From where I stand I see an insular profession, so mesmerised by the power of reason, and so imbued with the belief that seemingly rational ideas may change social practices that it has lost, if it ever had, the ability to be relevant. As you pointed out before, criminologists have not been idle and that much is true. There seem to be more journals being published and more students coming through universities and on that score criminology seems healthy. My concern is that there is a lot of talk, but not much more than that. Indeed, Foucault’s barb at criminology — that it amounts to little more than ‘endless repetitions’ about crime,[8] appears to have been quite apt as a description of criminology’s predicament. Would you agree?

C: No, I would not, and I feel that all you have done is to present a gross caricature of what criminology is all about. First, as criminologists we are dedicated, professional and well read. Although we make what may seem to you and the community large and unsupportable claims about what you keep referring to as the ‘truth’ about crime, I can assure you that we do not make such claims lightly. The making of such claims will only be made after lengthy research and careful analysis. In this way I believe we do produce important ‘truths’ about crime. Second, all your questions about criminology have assumed that our profession is a monolithic enterprise without divisions and a plethora of views about crime. I can assure you that it is quite the opposite, and the internal debates and conflicts within criminology are part of the reason there is so much, as you deridingly put it, talk.[9] Finally, you have attempted to represent criminologists as somehow merely sitting on the sidelines as detached observers who, in some perverse way, earn their living on the backs of other people’s suffering. That is manifestly unfair because, in our more radical moments, we have been the most trenchant critics of the functionaries of the state as they trample on the lives of the less fortunate members of our community through the operation of the criminal justice system.[10] Indeed, sometimes we even come up with proposals to transform society.[11]

I: How exactly?

C: That would be another discussion in itself.

I: Perhaps you could explain some of the features of this transformation in broad outline because if what you are saying is true then the implications are significant.

C: To be honest, the ability of criminology to change in any way the nature of society in respect of how it responds to those who threaten our security and wellbeing is difficult to quantify. As I stated before, criminologists have certain methods that permit us access to the truth about crime. What we discover about the nature of crime enables us to provide the community with information that enables it to act in response to crime in a more efficient, and hopefully, just and humane manner.

I: But will that that reduce criminologists to mere technocrats who help to maintain a system which is, in many ways, unjust and inequitable. Could you possibly suggest a more liberating role for criminology than one that conceives it as an adjunct to the state?

C: Of course, the practice of thought, as Aristotle pointed out, is a form of action.[12]

I: And what, if any, mistaken conceptions of criminology about crime?

C: Well, of course, we are not infallible. But I believe we do possess the means to avoid misconceptions to a far greater degree through our collective efforts of research and internal debates about crime.

I: But it still seems that you allocate to yourselves a privileged role by designation of the title ‘criminologist’. You still have not answered what is the source of this access to the truth about crime, and the assertion that you are less likely to possess mistaken conceptions about crime seems unlikely to engender confidence in many people. For instance, why don’t criminologists cede to offenders the authority to talk about criminality on a par with themselves? Indeed, if anyone at all has access to the truth about crime it would seem to be offenders only. Of course, you as a criminologist would argue that through your methods you can, and do, incorporate the perspectives of offenders and these underpin any theories about crime. This may be plausible but there is still the problem that offenders are subject to your power to talk about them. As I argued earlier, I believe this is insulting to the dignity of offenders whose value to you resides in the extent to which they assist in the development and testing of your theories. Put simply, why won’t criminologists get out of the way and let others, especially offenders, talk?

C: Well, of course offenders are an integral part of our discipline. Indeed, without offenders there would be no criminal justice system and no criminology, but to the extent that there is crime and offenders, criminology will be necessary as a way of explaining crime and ...

I: And without explanations?

C: A lack of understanding about crime and, perhaps, a more punitive approach to offenders.

I: So criminologists stand between civilised treatment of offenders and vengeful and disproportionate responses to offending?

C: No, of course not. Criminology would be mistaken to claim such power, but we have made the problem of crime more complex because we have constantly emphasised that simplistic solutions to crime will not work. In this way criminology has impacted on the public consciousness and has raised awareness of the dignity of the offender through rendering a more complex view of human behaviour. We may have, and I know this concerns you greatly, spoken on behalf of offenders and according to you robbed them of dignity, but I ask you: is there a better way?

I: I can see now that we have very different ideas of what the role of criminology should be.

C: I would agree with that.

I: You view criminology’s role as one of liberating the community from its mistaken conceptions about crime as your discipline moves relentlessly forward towards the truth about crime. But I ask you, will this help anyone, and how will it help the person sitting naked, alone in the prison cell or the person at the end of the police baton? What concerns me most about criminologists and your talk about crime is that in your writings one never views the pain and suffering of the people processed through the criminal justice system. It is there, in a way, but it is generally muted and your writings appear detached and clinical.

C: I know there is pain and suffering in the operation of the criminal justice system. However, what you are suggesting is that criminology become a form of journalism which will not systematically capture in a broad way the nature of crime within the community. This type of criminology would not assist anyone and would amount to a whole lot of ‘stories’ that could not form the basis for any practical proposals to assist the operation of the criminal justice system.

I: But that is exactly my point: what do you do now to help them? At best, offenders form interesting case studies for you to impose views of criminality upon. As a result, your profession boils down to being a group of highly educated people talking about the experiences of other people who are so different from you in terms of life histories, that it borders on the absurd for you to claim the authority to speak on their behalf. This may sound harsh, and may very well be unfair, but I ask you to imagine if the same were done to you how would you feel? Imagine if there was a study conducted on criminologists to test for signs of psychopathology. Your whole department was asked to submit to a battery of psychological tests, life histories were collected and, finally, a formal interview was conducted. A group of psychologists then examined all data and a personality appraisal was rendered and then placed on your personnel file. When you question the results after you are labelled psychotic you are told that ‘sorry, this is the truth we have discovered about you and as the truth is the truth it is non-negotiable’. You are shattered not only because you are labelled psychotic, but you also wonder how someone who does not know you can proclaim such a truth about you. The purpose of this example was not to illustrate what labelling can do to people, but to highlight what criminologists do everyday without a second thought. This constant talk about people is the bedrock of criminology and it is also your most significant failing. You believe that the use of reason can permit access to the truth about crime and criminals but you never stop to consider that it may be misplaced and plain bad manners to talk about people you do not know. To assure yourself that everything is all right, you hold up Lombroso[13]and chuckle at how he could be so wrong. Yet you never consider that the mistake Lombroso made is the mistake you still make today in that you and only you can talk sensibly and rationally about crime.

C: Now that you have finished, what would you suggest that criminology needs to do to get itself out of this epistemological rut?

I: I do not believe I can tell you what to do. If I was to do that I would be merely replacing my voice with yours and I do not want that. What I desire are descriptions and not prescriptions. I will leave the grand theories and noble intentions to you. You seem to do this well enough. What I want is perhaps what could be described as a minimalist criminology. A minimalist criminology will be a criminology that is inherently self-conscious and will continually insist that it does not have a privileged access to the truth about crime. This type of criminology is modest in conception and will consistently defer as a matter of practice to offenders to relate their stories about crime. Over time, and as a result of becoming minimalist criminologists, the professional organisation of criminological thought may change dramatically.

C: This minimalist criminology does not seem to allow much of a role for criminologists and, I must confess, some of your ideas seem a little fanciful. Your proposal for such a criminology envisages an entire reorganisation of criminology as we now know it.

I: I think that you are being a little dramatic. Criminologists will still exist but how they perceive their role will have changed. A minimalist criminologist will not claim a monopoly over the truth about crime and will not assert a special relationship with it, but will merely be another witness to how the community comprehends crime.

C: And our theories, what will be their place under a minimalist criminology? In practical terms with all this storytelling going on, how will theoretical frameworks develop? Individual stories in which you place so much faith will not by themselves generate theories and all we will have is a mass of information and no coherency or rationality.

I: I believe you worry too much. I doubt if anything resembling a minimalist criminology will eventuate. I think a minimalist criminology threatens you because it removes your authority to speak about crime.

C: What you want criminology to become is something that it is not. Criminology is not, and should not, be about storytelling; that can be done by someone else. As I have previously mentioned, we have the methods to allow us to study crime from a multiplicity of perspectives. If you would take the time to consider what we do, I know you will have reservations about proposing a criminology, which can only lead to greater confusion and uncertainty.

I: I do see what you do. You do a lot in that you produce many journals and books and you talk about people you do not know and do not really care about. And out of all this effort how many of these articles or books will be read or cited in years to come. And who will read them? Your fellow criminologists – that’s who. And for whom will they have meaning? You again. Why can’t you see that this is your problem? You only talk to each other about crime, and the study of crime becomes a means for you to communicate — your language so to speak. Criminology is written by you, for you, and about you. The assertions of authority by your profession to speak about crime are, in the final analysis, artifacts about how you see crime and to that extent have relevance only for you.

C: I suggest that your reading of what criminologists do is sorely partial and in no way recognises the value of the work that we do.

I: Perhaps you are right, but I suggest to you that criminology does not engage in enough self-analysis. The study of crime is accepted by your profession as an end that requires no justification and if it does, by reference to utilitarian arguments about the best way to deal with the crime problem; or, if that argument is unsuccessful, to the value of research as a good in and of itself. This may pass muster amongst yourselves, but to this reader of what you do it seems awfully like justifications for the relevance of your profession. Perhaps this would not matter if all this talk were about something innocuous or inanimate. However, crime is about people who are often in dreadful and traumatic situations. Criminologists talking about crime ought to take seriously the responsibility that this entails. A minimalist criminology would not need to do this as it excludes itself from talking about crime in a manner in which the criminologist assumes a superior knowledge of matters criminal. Its epistemological foundation takes as a guiding premise that those closest to the action, so to speak, are best placed to speak about crime and thereby limits the criminologist’s role to providing a commentary of what occurs when these people speak. Criminologists have been on stage long enough; I believe that it is time for some new actors.

References

[1] For an outline of the research tools available to criminologists see, Jupp, V., Methods of Criminological Research, Unwin and Hyman, 1989. On the relationship between methodology and theories of crime in criminology see, Bernard, T., ‘Twenty Years of Testing Theories: What Have We Learned and Why? (1990) 27 Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency 325. Also see K. Kempf (ed), Measurement Issues in Criminology, Springer-Verlag, 1990.
[2] Criminology, or at least its professional organisation is not worldwide as such, but generally includes only first world countries such as the United Kingdom, North America and Australia. There are other discourses about crime occurring in other regions such as Africa, Asia and South America, but such regions are characterised as seemingly not worthy of criminological investigation. On how a discursive practice such as criminology, can mark out areas of exclusion and inclusion within its thought and thereby construct other countries and cultures mentioned above as the ‘other’ see generally, Said, E., Orientalism, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
[3] For instance, in Australia the preeminent journal for criminologists is the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. In the United Kingdom the corresponding journal would be the British Journal of Criminology and in North America it would be either Criminology or Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency.
[4] For instance, see Muncie, J., McLaughlin E. and Langan, M. (eds) Criminological Perspectives: A Reader, Sage, 1996.
[5] On the principle of paternalism and how it may curb individual autonomy see, Ten, C.L., ‘Paternalism and Morality’, (1971) Ratio 56, especially at 63-4.
[6] On the inherently violent nature of our legal order, see Cover, R., ‘Violence and the Word’ (1986) 95 Yale Law Journal 1601. For a theoretical account of criminology’s failure to incorporate violence by the state and its actors against their own citizens into the dominant theoretical frameworks of criminology see, Cohen, S., ‘ Human Rights and Crimes of the State: The Culture of Denial’, (1993) 26 ANZJ Crim 97.
[7] Chomsky, N., ’The Responsibility of Intellectuals’ in J. Peck (ed), The Chomsky Reader, Serpants Tail, 1987, p.60. Cf. Johnson, P., Intellectuals, George Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988, p.342.
[8] Foucault, M., ‘Prison Talk’ in C. Gordon (ed), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, Pantheon, 1980, p.47.
[9] For an overview of the major schools of criminological thought see Downes, D. and Rock, P., Understanding Deviance: A Guide to the Sociology of Crime and Rule Breaking, Clarendon Press, 1988 and Lilly, J., Cullen, F. and Ball, R., Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences, Sage, 1995.
[10] For some examples of Marxist or critical criminological thought see, Taylor, I., Walton, P. and Young, J., The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973; Taylor, I., Walton, P. and Young, J. (eds), Critical Criminology, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975; Quinney, R., Class, State and Crime: On the Theory and Practice of Criminal Justice, McKay, 1977; Platt, T., ‘ Street Crime: A View from the Left ‘, (1978) 7 Crime and Social Justice 26; Reiman, J., The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, John Wiley, 1979; Box, S., Recession, Crime and Punishment, MacMillan, London, 1987; Greenberg, D. (ed), Crime and Capitalism: Readings in Marxist Criminology, Temple University Press, 1993.
[11] For an example see Pepinsky, H. and Quinney, R. (eds), Criminology as Peacemaking, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1991.
[12] Aristotle, The Politics, translated by T. A. Sinclair, Penguin, 1962, Book VII, Ch III, 1325b14.
[13] For an overview of Cesare Lombroso’s thought and his contribution to criminological thought see, Lilly, J., Cullen, F. and Ball, R., Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences, Sage, 1995, pp.19-26.