Philosophy, Crime, and Criminology

Bruce A. Arrigo, Christopher R. Williams, Bruce A. Arrigo, Christopher R. Williams

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780252072895
  9780252030512
• eBook ISBN:
  9780252090417
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Epistemology in Philosophy
• Index: Social Sciences

Philosophy, Crime, and Criminology represents the first systematic attempt to unpack the philosophical foundations of crime in Western culture. Utilizing the insights of ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, contributors demonstrate how the reality of crime is informed by a number of implicit assumptions about the human condition and unstated values about civil society.

Charting a provocative and original direction, editors Bruce A. Arrigo and Christopher R. Williams couple theoretically oriented chapters with those centered on application and case study. In doing so, they develop an insightful, sensible, and accessible approach for a philosophical criminology in step with the political and economic challenges of the twenty-first century. Revealing the ways in which philosophical conceits inform prevailing conceptions of crime, Philosophy, Crime, and Criminology is required reading for any serious student or scholar concerned with crime and its impact on society and in our lives.

PART ONE

Ontology and Crime

By necessity, questions of ontology explore the nature of reality or existence. In relation to a philosophical criminology, what is examined is the social reality of crime. In this section, this question is posed both theoretically and pragmatically. Chapter 1 investigates the ontology of crime as linked to culture and mass-mediated representations of reality. The contemporary philosophical development of ontology is traced to Karl Marx, the Situationists, and Jean Baudrillard. The argument is made that in the postmodern era, people conspicuously consume media-generated images such as representations of crime that they take to be true, factual, and concrete. However, these images are simulations whose value stems from their “sign-exchange” meaning. Moreover, these meanings are based on other simulations that continuously morph reality, manufacturing a hyperreal, otherworldly state of existence. Thus, the distinction between reality and image, substance and illusion, authentic and counter-feit are obliterated. To ground the more philosophical analysis, the phenomenon of serial murder and the case of Aileen Wuornos are discussed in detail.

The nature of crime’s reality is further investigated in chapter 2. Drawing on social constructionist approaches from de Beauvoir to Foucault, this chapter focuses on a contemporary paradox regarding public perceptions of three social problems: public harassment, school violence, and domestic violence. In theory, prescriptive conceptions of normalized masculinity (and masculinities) are fundamentally related to the genesis of these issues. Yet in practice, as this chapter demonstrates concretely, gender-related ideologies and their “everyday” pervasiveness have not been widely recognized to be at the root of these problems. Thus, while public harassment, school violence, and domestic violence are distinctive in some ways, they also are interrelated through the ongoing sway of normative masculinity(ies).

While the crimes assessed in these two chapters are certainly different, the philosophical lens of ontology draws attention to common core themes of criminological relevance. To what extent is it possible to locate the deeper, taken-for-granted structure of crime via philosophical inquiry? In what ways is crime an artifact of cultural forces (e.g., gender, the media)? How do images of murder and violence undo or reaffirm crime’s social existence? Questions such as these implicate the profound role that ontology assumes when investigating the philosophical foundations of criminological verstehen.

ONE

The Ontology of Crime: On the Construction of the Real, the Image, and the Hyperreal

BRUCE A. ARRIGO

What is the nature of reality, existence, or Being? This is the ontological question that will be systematically examined in relation to crime and criminological theory in the discussion that follows. To situate the overall analysis, the chapter is divided into four sections.

Section 1 reviews the notion of ontology as linked to culture. One expression of culture is crime and, more broadly, criminological theory. This culture-crime-theory relationship is generally discussed, mindful of those mediating forces (e.g., politics, religion) and their corresponding effects (e.g., policies regarding criminal law, interpretations of criminal behavior) that come to typify social reality and criminological verstehen. Section 2 explores how representations of social reality are based on the “consumption” of cultural images. Contributions from Karl Marx, the Situationists (i.e., Guy Debord), and Jean Baudrillard are incorporated into the analysis. Major philosophical transitions in the ontological status of reality are identified. Section 3 applies these insights to the social ontology of crime and examines the phenomena of murder and serial homicide. The manner in which these offenses are founded on collapsing images of the real and the hyperreal are delineated. The highly publicized case of Aileen Wuornos is used to illustrate these matters. Section 4 discusses the conceptual and practical implications of the preceding analysis. Particular attention is directed toward criminological theorizing, the social reality of crime, and the cultural foundations and biases to which criminology proper is ontologically committed. Contributions from postmodern criminology and constitutive theory inform the analysis.

Culture, Crime, and Theory: Assessing the Relationship

Reliance on theory commits us to believe in a certain kind of reality. In this respect, theory becomes a prism through which we interpret and make sense of people, situations, and behavior. This reality, as expressed through and embodied in various cultural manifestations of ongoing interpersonal, institutional, and communal life, is what is meant by social ontology. Whether reflected through parenting skills, a child custody evaluation, or collective procreative practices, for example, social ontology presupposes a particular, often taken-for-granted, regard for the ontology of family and of family life.

Mindful of the relationship between theory per se and social ontology more generally, the philosophical issue here is one of accessing the nature of existence, reality, or Being as personified in the specific context of crime and criminological theorizing. Another way to state this is as follows: crime and theory pertaining to it are artifacts of culture; accordingly, what is the nature of criminological knowledge such that it already presumes a certain regard for the reality/existence of crime? This matter draws attention to the “type” or “level” of reality (Groves, 1993, p. 24) by and through which our understanding of crime is theoretically fashioned (see also Arrigo & Young, 1998).

At the outset, I note that the nature of criminological theory, as a tangible expression for or interpretation of the reality of crime, is linked to manifold forces. In brief, these include political, economic, biological, legal, psychological, theological, and sociological conditions with their corresponding effects. In the Western world, these conditions run the gamut from the privileging of capitalism and democracy, to the value assigned to physical health and psychiatric wellness, to the changing norms surrounding law, social control, and punishment. These illustrations are not exhaustive; rather, they remind us that theory about crime does not emerge in a vacuum. Instead, criminological verstehen is inexorably linked to and mediated by sundry forces that are themselves expressions of culture in a given and mostly self-referential historical period.

Although perhaps self-evident, this last point should not be under-estimated. Consider, for example, theorizing about the insanity defense and definitions of crime in the wake of the attempted assassination of former president Ronald Reagan by John W. Hinckley. As Tighe insightfully observed, when Hinckley pled “not guilty by reason of insanity in answer to the indictment for his March 1981 attack …, he rejuvenated a movement which has become almost a tradition in the United States: that of reforming the insanity defense” (1983, p. 224; see also Steadman, McGreevey, Morrissey, Callahan, Robbins, and Cirincione, 1993).

What is interesting about this reformulation is the relationship between cultural dynamics (especially public outcry for policy alterations fueled by protracted media reporting and intense political wrangling), definitions of crime with respect to insanity and mental illness, and criminological theory pertaining to both (Arrigo, 1996a). Indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, “Hinckley’s acquittal [produced] a massive reform [the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984], designed to limit the constitutional (especially due process) protections of insanity acquittees…. In the wake of this clamor for reform, some states (e.g., Montana, Utah) implemented legislation effectively abolishing the insanity doctrine as an affirmative defense in all criminal cases” (Arrigo, 2002, p. 130). In this illustration, cultural forces (the political maneuvering to restrict the constitutional rights of psychiatrically disordered defendants and the media frenzy surrounding the attempted presidential assassination) produced major federal policy changes in our treatment of mental illness and crime, expressed through theoretical reformulations for both. Not surprisingly, this same logic regarding the culture-crime-theory relationship is an unspoken but felt staple for much of what passes as sound research in the academy today (e.g., Altheide, 2002; Barak, 1994, 1996; Ferrell & Websdale, 1999).

If cultural representations of reality (e.g., the politically charged and media-manufactured depictions of mental illness in the wake of the attempted assassination of Reagan) delimit our understanding of crime and, by extension, criminological theory, then these representations and images are themselves the basis on which the ontology of crime takes on philosophical and practical significance. By representations and images, I mean those signs and sign systems of culture (Best & Kellner, 1997; Smith, 2001), whether written or spoken, that function as a shorthand for the reality on which they are premised. Some explanation here is warranted.

Images about crime, the criminal law, and criminal behavior abound (Surette, 1998). Whether reading about, listening to, or watching the police apprehend a suspect, the jury deliver a verdict in a criminal case, the imprisoned riot over confinement conditions, or juveniles undergo transfer to the adult system, a “text” about actors, events, and behaviors in the criminal justice system is continuously being constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed (Arrigo, Milovanovic, & Schehr, 2005). This text is itself an assemblage of images where multiple (and often discordant) voices are brought together signifying something approximating a coherent narrative. In this way, print, television, and radio accounts about crime, criminals, and the criminal law have as much to do with the social ontology of crime as do such things as the author’s conscious or unconscious intent; his or her selection of words or phrases used to convey meaning; the recipient’s political and religious predilections; his or her conscious or unconscious interpretation of what was written or spoken; the unique standpoint or perspective of both the sender and receiver of the message; and the settings, costumes, and props employed in the story’s unfolding. These dynamics make the meaning of crime a complex, multifaceted endeavor (Arrigo, 1995; Manning, 1999). Moreover, they redirect our attention to what the ontological status of crime is.

Each of the previously articulated elements in the interpretive process is an emblem of or sign for the reality it ostensibly represents (e.g., the existence, status, or value of crime). As a collection of sign meanings for the specific actor, event, or behavior in question, these facets of the crime text are always and already saturated in a cultural logic (e.g., political, economic, ideological) that communicates the reality of wrongdoing through this specialized and circumscribed lens. Consequently, these images, as culturally conceived, are a convenient, taken-for-granted stand-in for the reality of crime.

Given the preceding observations, the sign images of crime, as artifacts of culture, are the source of criminological knowledge. Mindful of this chapter’s purpose, the ontological question can be formulated more specifically as follows: what is the nature of criminological theory and knowledge, as mediated by culture, signs, and sign systems, such that they presuppose a certain regard for the existence of crime? Stated differently, the question is, how does culture manufacture criminological verstehen wherein the effect is the social ontology of crime? If culture names and defines the conditions that give rise to criminological theory and the existence of crime, then the manner in which culture and representations of it are produced, disseminated, and consumed in society are fundamental to understanding crime’s reality. This issue draws critical attention to the relationship between culture, consumption, and social ontology and is the focus of the next section.

Culture, Consumption, and Social Ontology

It is difficult to identify the place at which an analysis of culture, consumption, and social ontology can best commence. However, it is useful to examine the work of Marx (1978), especially his critique of “labor power and the abstraction of the worker in the dialectical struggle of usevalue versus exchange value” (Arrigo, 1996b, p. 124; Kellner, 1989).

For Marx, the capitalist mode of production signifies the triumph of objects (i.e., exchange-value) over subjects or workers and the inherent use-value of their labor. In this process, “the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities” (Marx, 1978, p. 70). This is because the capitalist mode of production nurtures “de-personalized” consumable products, representing a “triumph over [their] human producers” (Arrigo, 1996b, p. 124). This process signifies the inversion of the abstraction in a capitalist political economy; one that affirms the degradation of being into having (Marx, 1978, pp. 92–93). In other words, the disappearance of the commodity’s intrinsic use-value or worth occurs when it is reduced to an artificial equivalent: money. In this transformation, people and their labor, as well as society and its progress, are built around the elusive value assigned to commodities sold in the marketplace, reducing the qualitative, concrete uniqueness of people’s labor to the quantitative, abstract logic of economic equivalence. However, lost in this exchange process is the subject’s intrinsic, creative connection to his or her work as the source of personal identity, masked, distorted, or otherwise neutralized through a financial transaction.

What is of particular interest in Marx’s critique is how the culture of consumption in a capitalist political economy operates such that the subject is alienated and exploited. For Marx, the ontology of material production displaces the subject’s humanness, rendering the person (and his or her labor) a consumable commodity that when placed in the marketplace can be bought and sold based on an artificial, though shared, standard of monetary worth. The result is the disappearance of the subject’s being and identity, giving rise to alienation from one’s labor, from others, and, ultimately, from one’s self. Belliotti aptly characterizes the ontological limits of the capitalist mode of production based on Marx’s insights:

In sum, capitalist social and economic institutions prevent the actualization of [one’s] potential and thereby disconnect workers from [themselves] because they stifle workers’ voice, creativity, and imagination; transform labor power itself into a commodity, … and fail to mediate the social aspect of labor by cooperation and solidarity…. In this fashion … capitalism nurtures workers’ desperation for material possessions, not their sense of creative expression. (Belliotti, 1995, p. 4)

Thus, following Marx (1978), the culture of consumption in a capitalist political economy subverts the human project of creative self-expression, embodied in what people produce. Indeed, labor power is transformed into depersonalized consumable goods. In this respect, then, the nature of ontology in a materialistic society operates principally “to facilitate and legitimate the underlying [political] economic structure of society,” whether based on instrumental or structural approaches (Lynch, Michalowski, & Groves, 2001, p. 44).

Building upon Marx’s observations, the logic of consumption in relation to culture and ontology also has been explored by the Situationists (e.g., Debord, 1983; Lukacs, 1971). In particular, the Situationists “applied Marx’s notion of the commodity form, abstraction, and inversion to late twentieth century monopoly capitalism” (Arrigo, 1996b, p. 124). Unlike Marx, who focused on the logic of equivalence, competitive capitalism, and production, the Situationists examined the effect of advanced stateregulated capitalism (i.e., television and other media-based technologies) on consumption and conspicuous consumerism (Best, 1989, p. 28). For the Situationists, late capitalism and the mass-mediated reality through which it was manufactured, distributed, and consumed ushered in alternative types of abstraction and, consequently, new forms of oppression and alienation (Kellner, 1989). These matters are relevant to the chapter’s focus on ontology and therefore warrant some further explanation.

Central to the Situationists’ critique was the notion of the spectacle. The spectacle refers to a society in which people consume phenomena created by others rather than generating their own commodities or products. The spectacle thrives amid a culture in which television and other media-based technologies manufacture advertisements or other information about consumer products absent anyone’s direct contact with them. For example, fast food, sleek cars, and stylish clothes are all consumer products. However, our fascination with them emerges from the images the media disseminates about them. Indeed, following the logic of advanced consumer capitalism, cheaper food, quicker cars, and chicer clothes are the emblems of normative social life.

However, the spectacle also desensitizes and sanitizes human consciousness. It “subverts the … subject’s attention away from the task of living and being human, away from the concrete dimension of suffering, oppression, and violence” (Arrigo, 1996b, p. 125). Returning to the language of Marx (1978), the spectacle culturalizes use-value (Best, 1989). The spectacle signifies “the moment when the commodity attains the total consumption of social life” (Debord, 1983, p. 42). Monopoly capitalism and bureaucratically controlled consumerism (carefully manipulated by continuous media-generated images) elevate use-value to new levels of abstraction, given the consumerization of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Philosophy, Crime, and Theoretical Criminology
• Part One: Ontology and Crime
• Part Two: Epistemology and Crime
• Part Three: Ethics and Crime
• Part Four: Aesthetics and Crime
• Contributors
• Index