Critical Criminology Today

Counter-Hegemonic Essays

Vincenzo Ruggiero

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000421019
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Ciencias sociales
• Categoria: Criminología

What survives of the notions, principles and values of critical criminology? Faced with contexts that could not be more dramatically different to those fostering critical approaches to crime and its control, what is left of the radical theories and practical initiatives that characterized it in the 1970s? This book argues that critical criminology today can be reimagined if new concepts are elaborated, which bring academic efforts close to the practices of social movements.

Building on an original collection of anti-hegemonic essays focused on specific criminological areas, including femicide, organized crime, drug use, punishment, state-corporate terrorism and financial crime, this book identifies the radical potential inherent in the choice of areas, topics and variables that critical criminologists can address today. In discussing concepts of distance, power, mercy and troublemaking, this book considers the relationship between critical criminology, social justice and activism.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to all those engaged with critical criminology, sociology and cultural studies.

1

Introduction

Every form of art has a subversive history, dotted by successive innovations that challenge agreed norms. Usually, however, disruptive intrusions into an expressive area eventually enter the mainstream. In music, this was the process observed by both Elvis Presley's pelvic movements and Arnold Schoenberg's atonal compositions. Criminology is not a form of art, but its occasional disruptions are also subject to attempts at normalization. Criminologists can celebrate the unremitting flowering of diverse perspectives, welcome the creativity that can bring their discipline into unpredictable labyrinths of knowledge. This is not by chance, as criminology absorbs concepts from jurisprudence, law, mathematics, sociology, anthropology and psychology. It is also inspired by history, feminism, cultural studies, politics, economics and urban geography, while placing increasing emphasis on emotions, aesthetics, narratives, plastic arts, cinema and fiction.

It is curious, however, that this ‘creative fragmentation’ is deemed proof of an enrichment of the discipline, as it could also be regarded as an effort by criminologists to hastily, if not narcissistically, attach their name to a newly created school of thought. In his admirable Chronicles of a Radical Criminologist, Gregg Barak (2020) lists 44 different types of criminologies, and while finding the proliferation interesting, asserts his preference for disciplinary cohesion, adding: ‘I do not necessarily equate the creation of more criminologies with an improved criminology’ (ibid: 3). It is true that many criminologists work towards the potential improvement of social justice, particularly when their analyses and practical suggestions are received by practitioners and law makers (Carlen and Ayres França, 2018). However, this may reveal success as well as failure; in other words, it may show that the distance between conservative and radical criminologists may be reducing less because mainstream practitioners and policy makers are fascinated by critical criminologists than because the latter are coopted into mainstream theories and strategies. For this reason, a distinction is suggested between conservative and critical ‘alternative criminologies’. The aim of the latter is said to be the deconstruction of ‘the meanings of crime and criminal justice so as to expose the relationships between social structural inequalities, criminal justice, laws and human identities’ (ibid: 4). Critical alternative criminologies, in brief, do not simply pursue competing interpretations of criminal justice, they mainly work for the democratic achievement of social justice. Arguably, this is their implicit and explicit mission.

Critical Criminology Today tries to dissect the components of such a mission by providing thematic paths, tentative notions and principles, examples of practical actions, so that both ‘critical’ and ‘alternative’ can apply as appropriate adjectives to the criminology advocated here. To clarify: this is not a book that deals in detail with the history of critical criminology, but consists of a number of counter-hegemonic essays that illustrate how such paths, notions, principles and actions provide distinctive traits to what critical criminology may look like today.

Criminology and activism

Most criminologists and sociologists would recall the argument presented by Howard Becker at the 1966 annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. He famously contended the impossibility of conducting research that is uncontaminated by personal and political sympathies: ‘The question is not whether we should take sides, since we inevitably will, but rather whose side we are on’ (Becker, 1967: 239). Whether this was a recommendation to carry out partisan research or a suggestion that rigorous sociological work tends to have radical political implications is still a matter for debate. On the other hand, perhaps Becker was just exercising a form of cultural relativism? Or was he holding on to a notion of objectivity that is grounded in a commitment to pragmatism? (Hammersley, 2001).

The commitment of critical criminology can be gleaned from the following self-description: ‘a metaphor for progressive scholars who work in a common intellectual tradition’ (DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz, 2018: 1). Within this tradition, partly influenced not only by Becker but also by conflict theory and Marxism, the sources of crime are found in inequality along class, gender and ethic lines, and its reduction is associated with major structural and cultural changes that facilitate social justice. Punitive practices that view crime as a manifestation of individual deviancy are rejected as are, in a general sense, hierarchical social arrangements. Not all critical criminologists would join Jock Young (1998) in assuming that they symbolically throw bricks through the windows of their mainstream colleagues, although most would concur in opting for a sociological orientation and in opposing under-theorized empiricism. Aware of the limits of theories divorced from practice, critical criminologists constantly express the need to join forces with progressive social groups and to engage with communities and the general public. It is worth, through a brief review of recent contributions, examining how this need is more specifically addressed.

Critical criminology, particularly its cultural stance, is linked to transformative politics, which is deemed to be better equipped to sustain the struggle ‘between fundamentally opposed political positions promising radically different visions of crime, criminalization, criminal justice and everyday life’ (Ilan, 2019: 5). Activism is mentioned, particularly in the form of voluntary work, although the shrinking space for action within civil society is also noted (Maccanico, 2019). Oppressive structures, it is argued, support dominant meanings and it is for critical criminology to replace these meanings and pave the way for change. Appeals to academics to recognize their mission are launched, as criminologists are advised to abandon redundant theoretical frameworks to focus on the realities of global capitalism (Winlow and Hall, 2019). ‘It is not utopian to believe that we can build a better society or that we can construct an economic system that includes and values all’ (ibid: 24). The adoption of a social harm model (Hillyard et al, 2004) has uncovered hidden suffering through the ‘voices of those who have been harmed coming forward to reveal and share their experiences’ (Mitchell, Pantazis and Pemberton, 2019: 5). Using the ‘harm perspective’, the prevention of deaths caused by business organizations, such as those claimed by the Grenfell Tower fire in London, is said to require reversals in deregulation, increased social protection and ‘would need the voices of residents – and those of workers, consumers, user groups – to be empowered’ (Tombs, 2019: 80). The transformative potential of critical criminology is sought in innovations that can be found within trans frameworks, including transgender, transnational and intersectional feminist perspectives (Musto, 2019).

Specific modalities of how critical criminologists might join other radical actors in the fight for change, however, are not always illustrated. Peacebuilding and the redefinition of our relationships with each other and the earth, for example, are seen as the outcome of our ‘inherent power and capacity to be active agents’ (Amster, 2019: 76). ‘Ultimately, the question becomes whether we can muster the will to do so’ (ibid: 83). A similar volitional stance is found in other contributions, which remain fairly vague as to who precisely would be ideal allies in the fight against consumerism and commodified leisure (Raymen and Smith, 2019), in the promotion of narrative or visual criminology (Presser and Sandberg, 2019; Brown and Carrabine, 2019) or in the development of queer and decolonization perspectives (Ball, 2019).

Critical Criminology Today attempts to analyse the concerns of critical criminology along with the practices of groups, situated outside the criminological community, who share similar concerns. In brief, this book addresses some empirical and theoretical areas which are of interest to critical criminology but are simultaneously the sites of collective resistance. This joint approach becomes possible if we adopt an extended concept of resistance and include in it the work of non-state aggregations, independent media and professionals, pressure groups, non-governmental organizations and social movements. In brief, all relevant purveyors of collective needs and sentiments who traditionally express implicit judgements and exercise a ‘surveillance function’ over the elites and their activity. The type of critical criminology presented here is not a public criminology, but criminology for the public sphere, which addresses and is enriched by contentious political actors. This is a critical criminology that forms alliances with the ‘public’ as far as the public is prepared to engage in the permanent contestation of power.

Politics as exile

Critical criminologists as agents for change may be involved in political activity alongside others who aim at the development of a Hegelian world-spirit, a process that allegedly leads to the unstoppable evolution of ideals and mores. They may, on the other hand, embrace the Marxist notion that history is the subjective process whereby humanity becomes a fully conscious agent. Whatever their politico-philosophical allegiance, critical criminologists have to deal with their ‘inside-outsider’ condition (Scott, 2020), which requires adhesion to a specific set of connotations. Among the concepts that may help them in the task, I propose to start with exile, refugee and stateless.

In interpretations inherited from the classics, exile entails the possibility of escaping punishment; it is a form of refuge, be that self-imposed or generously granted by the authority. As such, being at the margin of the law, being both inside and outside the sphere of sovereignty, exile acquires an original political position. Traditionally, it is also a form of exquisite and exclusive punishment for special individuals, who are at odds with the system in which they live (Said, 1994). In ancient Greece, philosophers are also exiles, as they do not participate in the polis and, like foreigners, have no right to regard themselves as part of the city life (Aristotle, 1995). Philosophers are, therefore, stateless persons, but they are weak and strong at the same time, like unmatched pawns in the chess game. In the Roman tradition, exile is a right, similar to sanctuary, allowing one to abandon one's citizenship and evade sanction. Adorno (2005) represents the intellectual as a permanent, stateless exile. Stateless or displaced persons, in sum, exiles are hyper-political and apolitical at the same time.

From this perspective, exile is no longer a marginal political figure, but a fundamental politico-philosophical paradigm, perhaps the only one which, against the tradition still predominant today, might allow us to rethink western politics from scratch. (Agamben, 1998a: 27)

Critical criminology is stateless, and to ask its members where they are from is vulgar and irritating because where they were born is the least significant piece of information about them. They are insider-outsiders. However, critical criminologists who feel uncomfortable dressed as displaced philosophers or political activists may find help in Simmel's (1971a, 1971b) notes on ‘the stranger’ (or ‘foreigner’), where a similar insider-outsider dialectic is enunciated. The stranger is not the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but the person who comes today and stays tomorrow. Strangers are situated within certain spatial boundaries and bring qualities and values that are foreign to the space they occupy. Their interactions with local people are peculiar because they are both near and far, insiders and outsiders and, being not rooted in the context in which they live, they have no interest in reiterating the established rules and values they find there. They are close and remote, involved and indifferent: theirs is a condition that favours openness of mind.

Critical criminologists challenge the ‘existing hegemonic belief systems that continue to legitimate the generation of harms’ (Beckmann, 2018: 2). True, although being against something places one in a political antechamber. Many critical criminologists would describe themselves as simultaneously academics and political activists. But isn’t politics an arena for cynicism and opportunism? Surely, qualifications in this respect are necessary.

Sociability

Inhabiting a political antechamber, critical criminologists who engage in constant interaction with the surrounding social world, outside their professional niche, contribute to the emergence of independent cultural phenomena. They do so through the informal sharing of concerns that arise from their daily communication with others. The outcome of this process is a supra-individual entity, abstract as well as concrete, that crystallizes in a distinctive form. Critical criminology, in this case, becomes a component of that entity, which takes shape in what appear to be everyday mundane interactions. That entity is a cultural formation endowed with energy that leads to purposive activity (Frisby and Featherstone, 1997).

This molecular process provides a more accurate understanding of society and may even take the form of a game in which those involved ‘play’ at configuring a different society. At its inception, the process is triggered by pure sociability, devoid of pre-established goals and predictable consequences, it is formed of pure interactions in which participants ‘play’ society. This is satisfactory in itself, on account of the pleasure the feeling of unity with others confers. However, it is this playing society that turns into the development of world views and invisible structures. Social movements, at least ‘new’ social movements, are similarly constituted by groups submerged in daily life who imagine and experiment with cultural models. They become visible when specific issues ignite their mobilization. They inhabit social spaces where information is exchanged, meanings are constructed and codes produced. They are underground laboratories for innovation and protest, and when they emerge they confront political authority (Melucci, 1994). This is when the antechamber opens up to the main living room of politics.

Politics as justice

Politics often denotes an activity about which many people may feel a combination of cynicism, scepticism and mistrust. A ‘dirty’ word, it is frequently associated with hypocrisy, egoism and manipulation; it is held in high scorn because it suspends all requirements of truth (Held, 1991; Latour, 2013; Ruggiero, 2015a, 2015b). On the one hand, politics is about power, namely the ability of social groups to maintain or modify existing arrangements and established models of resource allocation. On the other hand, it is directly linked to definitions of the state, its capacity to create consensus and its adeptness at promoting meaningful relations with citizens, among citizens and with other states.

Political action relies on a repertoire of techniques for the seizure and conservation of power. It is also a process enacted by participants, organizations and social movements that challenge arbitrary authority and struggle to take control of their own destiny. In this case, it amounts to a number of strategies and tools aimed at limiting power and pursuing justice.

New notions of justice may come about thanks to events that create unprecedented opportunities for radical change:

A major political event is the moment when that possibility begins to exist on a large scale. That's when people who will express their views, steer the course of events, and make decisions emerge from all the places where there had been small-scale discussions and initiatives. (Badiou, 2005: 14–15, my italic)

One of these places is the space occupied by critical criminologists, who may or may not play a part in such events, but when they do, they join the pursuit of justice to its logical end: the common good.

Critical criminology, therefore, is a criminology of conflict. Its contentious claims make it also a criminology of social movements, as the latter enable criminologists to glimpse a path that leads to social transformation and to counter-hegemonic coalitions. These coalitions (or blocs) work for the promotion of

the political, moral, cultural, and intellectual authority of a given worldview – and the capacity of that worldview to embody itself in a durable and powerful alliance of social forces and social classes. (Fraser, 2019: 46)

We need one further qualification. The phrase ‘social classes’, today, cannot just refer to male factory workers, miners, oil drillers and construction workers, who possess what Fraser describes as an Anglo-macho ethos (ibid: 52). Classes are profoundly diverse aggregations constituted by paid and unpaid workers, those who sell burgers as well as those who se...