Comments on ‘Praxis Made Perfect’ by David Downes in Understanding Deviance

This piece under discussion, written in 1978, was an attempt at a critique of the Critical Criminology of Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young as defined in their books The New Criminology and Critical Criminology. Given that they had described their criminology as Marxist and these texts were some of the most important of works emanating from the National Deviancy Symposium, it is well worth a look at this critique.
Downes’ central argument is that they (Taylor, Walton and Young) criticise capitalist society but fail to discuss what the alternative is, just naming it socialism and leaving it at that. Furthermore, Downes is quite right when he says that they don’t analyse crime in the Stalinist countries (he calls them socialist). Indeed I think we should agree with Downes on these two points that these are two things that a Marxist criminology should address.
But Downes’ own ideas are not ones we should adopt. He makes several fundamental errors in his critique, which I will now try and highlight – some are more than likely due to the ‘new left’ circles which Critical Criminology moved in counterpoising the earlier ‘humanistic’ Marx with the later Marx, and other such muddles.
Firstly after firstly correctly saying, of critical criminology “…the entire intellectual construction rests on the postulates that capitalist society is essentially criminogenic,” he goes on to add “…and that only by the total repudiation of the ethic of possessive individualism on which it rests can ‘true’ equality and ‘socialist diversity’ – the prerequisites for a ‘crime-free’ society – be attained” (pg 5-6) No, capitalist society rests on a particular stage of economic development, not individualism – and again it is a higher economic development that is the prerequisite for drastically reducing crime.
Later on he attacks, a rather loose phrase of Young’s about the working class having control over policing in their communities – and says that it means only members of one class should be able to police that class – leading to a caste type policing system where only the rich will get properly policed (because , of course, workers can’t do anything for themselves). Of course, Young’s depiction is rather vague, but it would cover the democratic control over local policing which socialists should argue for.
Although this isn’t it, a Marxist critique of the history, work and development of the National Deviancy Symposium would be incredibly useful for the development of a Marxist approach to criminology.

What Can Be Done About Corporate Crime?

This piece looks at some of the conclusions drawn by Steven Box on how corporate crime can be tackled in his book Crime, Power and Mystificaion.

As we have commented before, Box points out during this book that corporate crime (that is crimes committed in the interests of corporations) is a much bigger problem than ‘street’ crime. Now fundamentally, corporate crime revolves around securing profit and advantage for businesses within a capitalist system - Box, however, won’t go as far as saying that socialising the means of production and distribution would solve this. And that is true – mere nationalisation within a capitalist framework may derive some advantages, but it’s only when the whole capitalist framework is removed and production revolves around needs that preventing harms will become a real priority.

Box does not concur with this last paragraph, however. In common with other left realists (which is where I believe his analysis fits), he does not see a socialist revolution, or even a capitalist major nationalisations occurring soon, saying “there is no reason to believe that we will see the lights going down on capitalism in our lifetime.”(pg.63) Despite criticising piecemeal reforms, it becomes the only way to do anything about crime, he says “Maybe liberal reformism is something to be contemplated today, even by those waiting patiently for the revolution tomorrow.”(pg.64)

Box points out two things that he thinks will do something about corporate crime. Firstly there is informing more people about corporate crime – Box points to investigative journalism and TV documentaries that have helped promote this, but he sees this as a way of putting more pressure onto the state to prosecute such crimes. The second way is by convincing the state to prosecute more crimes by demonstration of how damaging corporate crimes may be. One can feed into the latter with successful prosecutions being publicised and raising awareness. However, I think there is a big flaw with this – the fact that to publicise these things effectively you need some kind of platform – and I doubt that the capitalist media will severely criticise its own system (I have written previously of how corporate crime is presented as ‘a few bad eggs’. Plus, corporations already have massive leverage over government bodies that exist (and that Box criticises as being ineffective) so if any new body was created, or even if the police were used, are they any likely to be any more effective?

One thing I also dislike within Box’s suggestions is that ‘the right to trial by jury’ could be abandoned in corporate crime cases and replaced by judges versed in the legal complexities of the area. This effectively gives the public no say in the matter, and the whole issue is left to be decided by people who come from a similar background to the offenders. Under the current system this would be just another way for these corporate criminals to get away with their crimes in the vast majority of cases.

One thing that Box does note is that even where corporate officials are sentenced to prison, which I believe is a sentence that corporate manslaughter campaigners want to see for that crime, is that on release they are promoted by that corporation to a much higher salaried post, but in a less responsible/public post. So even an effective punishment being handed out to some corporate officials probably won’t deter others.

Box discusses how deterrent punishment could work on the organisational form of the corporation itself. Commenting on the paltry level of fines handed out to corporations, he suggests raising them drastically may be a solution, however, he also notes that it would be problematic if the fine bankrupted a corporation innocent employees, consumers and their dependents would suffer. But even more likely, whatever the size of the fine, any cutbacks would be foistered onto these people rather than the boardroom and the big shareholders.
Another deterrent he suggests is to nationalise companies for a specific period, with the length depending on severity of crimes and the time need to rehabilitate the company. This he suggests would incapacitate such organisations. However, generally nationalisations occur when an industry is in trouble, rather than benefiting from such problems. However, I would suggest that the only government prepared to nationalise a company on this basis, would be a socialist one that would nationalise companies permanently anyway.
Another suggestion he makes is having a sort of corporate probation, where a company spends time being monitored by a group of accountants, lawyers, engineers, mechanics etc. selected with regard to the work inside those companies. Such ‘probation officers’ could monitor the company and if it fails to make progress, or ignores them, could send them back to court for re-sentencing. But then surely this exists to a sense at the moment in factory and workplace inspectors, and any similar scheme would be similarly underfunded.
He also suggests that they could do a form of community service (by building new public facilities), or pay compensation. Both these suggestions would again suffer the problems related to fines.

I actually find it rather surprising that Box attempts to take elements from the criminal justice system and apply them to corporate crime, given he knows that these methods don’t work in general with regard to ‘normal’ crime, why does he think they will work with regard to corporate crime?

One other point that Box makes is the transnational status of the biggest corporations, which are the worst corporate criminals, means that corporate crime cannot be tackled within just one country. And because nation-states are in essence competing against each other to offer conditions that are useful to such corporations, again this problem cannot be fully tackled under capitalism, as Box notes, any methods that do challenge corporate crime, will likely lead to the export of corporate crime.

What is the solution? Ultimately, I think a socialist world where production is democratically controlled by those who produce and use products is necessary and would guard against corporate crimes (as they would be the victims of such acts anyway). In the meantime, I think a strong, combative trade-union and socialist movement worldwide which can fight against the harms caused by corporate crime and inform its own members and others about such problems will help limit such problems whilst building a movement which will hopefully rid the world of corporate crimes forever.

Women Prisoners in Nothern Ireland

This piece takes a look at Phil Scraton and Linda Moore’s article in the Spring 2008 issue of Criminal Justice Matters on this issue.

One of the big problems with imprisoning women is that not that many get sentenced to imprisonment. By that statement I don’t mean that we should imprison more women, but that female prisoners are only a small proportion of the prison population and this has meant problems in terms of facilities for women prisoners.
The piece details the effects on women prisoners of being held in wings of male prisons. The truth about such imprisonment are shocking – there are limited facilities for recreational activities, education and workshops, prisoners in the two cases they discuss are locked up for a minimum of 17 and 18 hours a day. However, the most horrifying cass they cite refer to prisoners held in solitary and punishment cells, and I shall quote some of the examples they give:

“We found deeply disturbed young prisoners held with adult women and a child, flesh torn and cut from her ankles to her hips, hands to her shoulder, dressed in a canvas gown, no underwear, lying on a concrete plinth, no blanket, no pillow, in a punishment block strip cell… Also down the block was a grandmother, epileptic, diabetic, colostomy bag, weeping varicose veins, held in solitary for abusing officers. Prisoners stated that she was taunted by officers who openly refused to give her tea unless she complied. This was how self-harming and ill women were ‘managed’. During the research, a second woman, Roseanne Irvine, took her own life, having been held in the punishment block, deeply distressed and tearing her own hair out…”

Due to them being held within another prison facility, the women were escorted everywhere and were even forbidden to acknowledge other prisoners – which led to ridiculous instances where women were punished for speaking to their sons. Furthermore women were being humiliated by being strip searched when they were menstruating, for example. Prisons, and especially those for women, are, to paraphrase a former Home Secretary ‘not fit for purpose’. They don’t actually deal with the problems that offenders have and actually serve to aggravate prisoners problems. I agree with the line they take at the end of the article – arguing before for reform of the existing system to meet these needs, but also arguing against prison expansionism and for alternatives to sentencing altogether (although I suppose that would depend on the ‘content’ of these alternatives).

What is Corporate Crime?

I know I haven't posted too much about crime and criminology recently, so here's a something I've been working on to make up for it. This piece is commentary on the second chapter of Steven Box’s Power, Crime and Mystification, which is on this subject.

So what is corporate crime. Box discusses three general types of crimes involving corporations. Firstly there are crimes which are committed against corporations – things such as embezzlement of company funds, theft from the workplace etc. I think this fits much better within talking about white-collar crimes which can include other organisations. The second type is crimes that are committed for corporations – things such as price-fixing, tax fraud etc. The third is corporations that are set up purely to commit crimes – for example a fake company that purchases goods without paying for them. To my mind however, this third group can be split into two which are both forms of the previous two categories. Box concentrates on the second group which he sees as true corporate crime.

Box unfortunately limits himself to dealing with acts that are currently illegal – but as anyone who has studied criminology knows just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s harmful and just because is legal doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful either. Box’s reason for limiting himself to this is to make sure he can still appeal to those with liberal sensibilities – a poor excuse really – given as we shall see that corporate crimes are endemic within the capitalist system that such liberals support.

Box presents figure for deaths from 1973-79 showing that workplace related deaths (about 1600 per year) accounted for almost four times as many deaths per year as homicides (about 440 per year). And this is by the conservative estimates of the Health and Safety Executive. Furthermore when this is adjusted for the population that are potentially at risk of these deaths (the workplace population is less than the total population) then the ratio of workplace related deaths to homicides become a shocking 7:1. And this is only workplace related corporate killings, what about improperly tested drugs, industrial pollution etc.

Additionally in the same period there was an average per year of 330,000 non-fatal accidents at work, with an annual average of 14,000 people being diagnosed as suffering from an occupationally induced disease. Added together they average 3 times more than the average for indictable crimes during that period. And again, these figures are based on official data and ignores things that will affect consumers. According to figures Box quotes in the USA 20 million out of 250 million a year are seriously injured by consumer products.

As Box goes on to note “Given the relative invisibility of these crimes, even to those victimized, the fact that they are infrequently reported to or detected by relevant authorities, the absence of any centralized data-collecting agency, and the inconsistent publication of those that are collected, it is impossible to quantify with any accuracy just how serious corporate crime is in economic terms. Furthermore, the figures involved are so astronomic as to be literally incomprehensible.” (pg. 31)

The fact remains that corporate crime is widespread and does far more damage than ‘street crime’. Box is correct, however, when he argues that this doesn’t mean we should ignore ‘street crime’, rather corporate crime ought to be studied almost at least as much as this currently is. However, I would contend that it is less in the interests of capitalism to put the focus of the public and research onto this area than ‘street crime’ (this is not to say that they don’t want it studied – too much corporate crime gets noticed and the system will take some of this blame as well as the company/individual responsible).

Definitions of Criminality – Some Thoughts from Steven Box

At the moment I’m currently reading Power, Crime and Mystification by Steven Box. It’s a book all to do with State and Corporate crimes, and has so far been an interesting read. What I wish to comment here is on something I’ve reflected upon in my Draft Principles of a Marxist Criminology, which he considers in the first chapter of the book.

Why are some behaviours criminalised and others not? This has been a fairly central question in criminology. Box discusses some of the ideas why this is so. He first picks up on the view that criminal law is a tool of the ruling class and thus flowing from that – what is criminalised are ‘…problem populations perceived by the powerful to be potentially or actually threatening the existing distribution of power, wealth and privilege.’(pg.7)

But as Box notes, this isn’t the whole story – as I have previously commentated it is not the case that ‘…all criminal laws directly express the interests of one particular group, such as the ruling class. Clearly some legislation reflects temporary victories of one interest or allied interest groups over others, and none of these may be identical or coincide with the interests of the ruling class’, however, Box also argues that ‘…these victories are short lived. Powerful groups have ways and means of clawing back the spoils of tactical defeats.’(pg.8)

Box also notes that in a sense many laws are ‘in all our interests’ as nobody wants to be a victim of serious crime. However, Box notes this is not the whole picture. Taking murder – he points out that this basically is avoidable killings. However, there are many other types of avoidable killing – such as unsafe working conditions etc. As Box notes ‘We are encouraged to see murder as a particular act involving a very limited range of stereotypical actors, instruments, situations, and motives. Other types of avoidable killing are either defined as a less serious crime than murder, or as matters more appropriate for administrative or civil proceedings…’(pg.9) As Box goes on to note, the people who commit legally defined murder are usually poorer and less powerful than those who commit mere avoidable killings.

He goes onto show how this relates to theft, sexual crimes, assault and terrorism and concludes ‘Thus criminal laws against murder, rape, robbery, and assault do protect us all, but they do not protect us equally.’(pg.11) I’m inclined to agree with Box, in the conclusions he draws as a consequence of this operation of the criminal law, which are

1) Less privileged people are more likely to be arrested and punished
2) The illusion is created that those people are also the most dangerous in society
3) It helps disguise the fact that the powerful create the conditions for the offending of the powerless
4) It makes the criminal justice system look like a neutral arbiter –above everything.
5) Makes people dependent on the criminal justice system and hence the state for protection, even though this body is likely to make the problems worse

The only thing I don’t like is the looseness of the terms powerful, powerless and privileged, but the general thrust of this I think is in line with things I have commented on previously.

Jock Young and the Decline of Critical Criminology

This piece takes a look at the chapter ‘The failure of criminology: the need for radical realism’ by Jock Young from the 1988 publication Confronting Ctime edited by Young and Roger Matthews.

Young’s opening to this chapter serves as a good introduction to this piece (actually this is the second paragraph). ‘If there has been a measure of the lack of success of radical criminology it has been its failure to rescue mainstream criminology from the conceptual mess in which it has increasingly found itself. It is my contention that the core of this problem revolves around the causes of crime and that this aetiological crisis emerged most blatantly in the 1960s, engendering a period of intense creative development within the discipline including the emergence of radical criminology. However, by the eighties the Thermidor set in and a silent counter-revolution occurred within the mainstream with the emergence of what I will term the new administrative criminology involving a retreat from any discussion of causality…’ (pg4).

Young’s chapter is on the emergence of critical/radical criminology and administrative criminology. Both emerged as groups of ideas within criminology as a result of the collapse of support for positivism. How they emerged is significantly different though, with critical/radical criminology emanating from subcultural and other theories taken from US sociologists and worked up by those around the National Deviancy Conference (NDC). Indeed the story of the National Deviancy Conference could possibly have lessons for those interested in left unity, but that is for another post – the main point for this posting is that it eventually split of into many different groups. One of these was the ‘left realists’ which Young belonged to. Young counterposed himself and his co-thinkers to the ‘left-idealists’ who these are you never really know – but from my reading I take them to be thinkers influenced by the SWP (some of whose members were part of the NDC) and the communist party (which was influenced at this time by the cultural theorists around Stuart Hall).

Administrative criminology, on the other hand, emerged from within the criminological establishment. Two of it’s most prominent theorists were James Q Wilson in the US and Ron Clarke in the UK Home Office. Although as Young notes there were many differences between people who can be classified in this group of thinkers, their main thrust was towards a dropping of the search for the causes of crime (traditionally associated with positivism) and towards situational crime prevention (installation of locks, alarms etc.). Indeed as one of my lecturers has pointed out they were the middle part of the What Works – Nothing Works – Something Works cycle of criminology – this is to do with the role theory plays within trying to do something about crime.

As Young notes later on in the chapter – although outwardly very different “A convergence between left idealism and the new administrative criminology emerged. Bith thought that investigation was fruitless, both agreed that rehabilitation was impossible, both thought that crime control through implementation of programmes of economic and social justice would not succeed, both focussed on the reactions of the state, both were uninterested in past theory, both attempted to explain the effectiveness of crime control without explaining crime and both believed it was possible to generalise in a way which profoundly ignored the specificity of circumstances.”(pg.27)

Moreover, left ‘idealist’ criminology tended to create a functionalist theory that was top-down and explained everything in relation to capitalism’s need to preserve itself. As Young notes, “Central to a Marxist perspective is that capitalism creates the conditions and possibilities for it’s own demise: that is that functional equilibrium is not achieved. It is the assumption that the values and institutions of capitalism obviously aid its equilibrium which is a key weakness of left functionalism.”(pg.18)

So what about Young, self-styled as a left realist? For him, “Realism must navigate between these two poles, it must not succumb to hysteria or relapse into a critical denial of the severity of crime as a problem. It must be fiercely sceptical of official statistics and control institutions without taking the posture of blanket rejection of all figures or, indeed, the very possibility of reform.”(pg.23)

All very good, but for me the place realism found between the poles was the wrong one – they opted for the ‘so-called centre ground’, despite this I think left realist criminology attempted quite a number of useful things – not least local victimisation surveys. Indeed, if ‘left-idealism’ was attached to the ultra-left, and administrative criminology to the bourgeoisie, then rather than being attached to the genuine revolutionary elements, left realism was attached to the ‘soft left’ and the labour bureaucracy.

Review – The State of the Police, Phil Scraton (1985)

This book, comes from the ‘left idealist’ school of critical criminology. (The term left idealist isn’t of their own choosing, but one Jock Young applied to them and which I use for the purpose of differentiation). This approach, around Joe Sim, Phil Scraton, Paul Gilroy and others, argued quite fervently against the realist turn taken by the left realists of Jock Young, Richard Kinsey and John Lea. The book in fact is to an extent a reply to John Lea and Jock Young’s ‘What Is To Be Done About: Law and Order?’
I find parts of the book quite good. Indeed Scraton gives a good history of the police, in particular signling out where they have been used against the struggles of the working class and also attempting to show how (in)effective attempts to subject the police to democratic control had been, particularly in Merseyside and London. He also comments on the use of the police during the 1984-5 Miner’s Strike and the lack of accountability here too.
However, missing from this history, is the struggles of the police themselves. Indeed, the 1918 police strike gets a couple of lines mention in passing. The book as a whole tends to treat police officers as one reactionary mass, which is a dangerous and inaccurate way of looking at the police force.
The other problem that I have with this book is it’s conclusion. After discussing attempts to institute democratic control, it also attempts a critique of the left realist position towards this which doesn’t really go very far at all. However, the ‘left idealists’ then go quite far in the opposite direction, and reject democratic accountability (as being unobtainable rather then unwanted) and instead argue for monitoring of the police as the only form of accountability possible (such groups as Inquest stem from their work). To me, although Inquest and other groups have produced interesting information, pulling back from the struggle to actually do anything to improve the lives of working people is a cardinal sin. Moreover, although the book is as I have mentioned in some respects very informative, it is based on an incorrect perception of the police and thus draws incorrect conclusions.

Marx and Engels on Crime, the State and the Paris Commune

Since I wrote this about a week ago, I actually have read a piece by Bob Fine which does talk about some of these issues - and I will comment on this at a later date. None the less the issues in this piece are still well worth discussion.

There have been several groups of criminologists who have purported to be Marxist Criminologists, many of whom have looked to Marx’s economic works, in particular Capital in search of the causes of crime. Some have even looked to some of Marx’s journalistic works. Hence why I find it strange that none (to my knowledge) have looked at Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune, in particular his work The Civil War in France.
It is in relation to this event that Marx and Engels made their one major alteration to the Communist Manifesto, which is, as Marx puts it in The Civil War in France, that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and use it for it’s own purposes”. It’s relevance to the state, and thus to the criminal justice system makes it worth our attention. Moreover, the comments relating to the judiciary and the police in particular are of interest.
We shall start our examination, by first looking at Engels 1891 Introduction to the work. He briefly comments how the power of the state has come about, saying “Society had created its own organs to look after its common interests, originally through simple division of labour. But these organs, at whose head is the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society”.
A few paragraphs later, he discussed how the workers involved in the Commune dealt with this, saying “Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society – an inevitable transformation in all previous states – the Commune made use of two infallible means. In the first place it filled all posts – administrative, judicial and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of recall at any time by the same electors. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers… In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up…”
This is what Marxists mean by “…shattering of the former state power and its replacement by a new and truly democratic one…” This is extremely relevant in terms of how we see a new society emerging from the ashes of the old, what Engels is describing is a thoroughgoing democratisation of the state.
In Chapter 3 Marx describes the creation of the commune, saying “The Commune was formed of municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time. Instead of continuing to be the agent of the Central Government, the police was at once stripped of its political attributes, and turned into the responsible and at all times revocable agent of the Commune. So were the officials of all other branches of the Administration. From the members of the Commune downwards, the public service had to be done at workmen’s wages.”
He goes on to say “The judicial functionaries were to be divested of that sham independence which had but served to mask their abject subserviency to all succeeding governments to which, in turn, they had taken, and broken, the oaths of allegiance. Like the rest of public servants, magistrates and judges were to be elective, responsible, and revocable.”
What is the point I am trying to make by quoting at length from Marx and Engels on these matters? It is that they key transformation that the state must undergo to be of use to the working class is a thoroughgoing democratisation. The act of an effective of such democratisation (which will of course the replacement by election of those antagonist to the interests of the majority) would be to create an entirely different state and criminal justice system; this is how we “smash” the bourgeoisie state.

Utopia or Reality? Can we create the Perfect Criminal Justice System?

This was an essay I had to submit for my course on the criminal justice system, I post it here because it raises several things I discussed in my post Draft Prinicples of a Marxist Criminology and should be of interest to all readers ps. there's more after the references

Is there such a thing as a perfect criminal justice system and, moreover, what would such a criminal justice system look like? In this essay we will examine these questions. We shall first discuss what a criminal justice system is, before contemplating what the aim and purpose of a criminal justice system is. We will then discuss if and how these systems may be perfected, before discussing the implications of this on individual branches of the criminal justice system and concluding the essay.
The first question that we are presented with is that of definition, what is a criminal justice system? The Sage Dictionary of Criminology (2001:66) defines Criminal Justice as “The process through which the state responds to behaviour that it deems unacceptable. Criminal justice is delivered through a series of stages: charge, prosecution, trial; sentence; appeal; punishment. These processes and the agencies which carry them out are referred to collectively as the criminal justice system”. Cavadino & Dignan (2002:1) note that the criminal justice system consist of the “police, prosecution authorities and courts” in addition to the penal system “the system that exists to punish and otherwise deal with people that have (usually) been convicted of a criminal offence” (most importantly the prison and probation services).
The entry in the Sage Dictionary of Criminology later states “… crime control, or crime reduction, is obviously the overall aim of criminal justice…” (2001:67). But this answer does not yet solve our question; instead we must ask what would the aim and purpose be of a perfect criminal justice system? Given as we have seen crime control and crime reduction are the aims of a criminal justice system, then a perfect criminal justice system would reduce crime to non-existence. However, such an aim is quite contradictory; if such an aim was achieved there would be no need for a criminal justice system to exist any more as there would be no further criminal offending. Here we have our answer, the perfect criminal justice exists when it has served its purpose, when it is no longer necessary and thus no longer exists.
If we consider Lenin’s (1987) notion with regards to the state as a whole withering away when it is of no further use, then the idea of a criminal justice system ceasing to exist when crime is no longer occurring is very similar. In discussing democracy in the state Lenin (1987:339) says “… the more complete it is the more quickly it will become unnecessary…”, we could similarly say the more complete and effective a criminal justice system is in reducing crime (by lowering recidivism for example), the less need there is for it.
One may ask how relevant it is to be talking about the state in relation to the criminal justice system. As Taaffe et al. (1983:25-6) point out that “In the last analysis – as Marx, Engels and Lenin pointed out - the state consists of armed bodies of men and their material appendages ie. prisons etc.” Are not these the main constituents of the criminal justice system – the police and prisons – alongside the judiciary?
It would also be wrong to consider Lenin’s argument on the withering away of the state without noting that there is another criminological tendency which posits the lack of or severe reduction of a criminal justice system. Abolitionism to some would seem a not too dissimilar approach to the one just outlined above. Indeed, in an article outlining the relationship of abolitionism to crime control, Willem de Haan talks of “popular or socialist forms of penality” (de Haan, 1991:214), and the abolition “of the repressive capitalist system part by part or step by step” (de Haan, 1991:213).
However, abolitionism, according to de Haan, (1991:203) “is based on the moral conviction that social life should not and, in fact, cannot be regulated effectively by criminal law and that, therefore, the role of the criminal justice system should be drastically reduced while other ways of dealing with problematic situations, behaviours and events are being developed and put into practice.” Unlike the Marxism of Lenin, its starting point is not class struggle that necessitates the abolition of capitalist relations of production, but moral conviction instead. Whereas the eventual ‘withering away’ of the state and criminal justice system is only possible in a post-capitalist situation for Lenin, Abolitionists want the criminal justice system gone without any pre-conditions.
This difference then leads on to differences of a more practical nature. As de Haan (1991:207) goes on to state “…the criminal justice system is part of the crime problem rather than its solution… Therefore there is no point in trying to make the criminal justice system more effective or more just.” And later “Instead of the panacea which the criminal justice system pretends to provide for problems of crime control, abolitionism seeks to remedy social problems… Abolitionism assumes that social problems or conflicts are unavoidable as they are inherent to social life…” (de Haan, 1991:211) In contrast, as Taaffe et al. (1983:14) point out “It would be absurd for socialists in present day society to stand aside and declare that we cannot support the police in taking action to prevent crime and arrest criminals.” However, Marxists would agree that social problems need remedying too, and it is to this that we now turn.
As Jock Young (1981) discusses, aetiology, or the causes of crime is a pivotal issue in criminology and in how one deals with crime. This is influential, because as he exposes “If, for instance, we view crime as a voluntary act of the individual, we would tend towards a policy of punishing him or her, whereas, if she/he is seen as acting under the compulsion of individual or social forces, the treatment of the criminal might seem to be inappropriate.” (Young, 1981:252)
Indeed, Lenin (1987:340) suggests that with the removal of “the fundamental social cause of excesses”, which he holds to be “the exploitation of the masses, their want and their poverty”, “excesses will inevitably begin to “wither away”… with their withering away, the state (or in our case the criminal justice system) will also wither away”.
From this passage we can see that Lenin suggests two main causes of crime (or excesses); ‘want and poverty’ (deprivation/relative deprivation) as well as ‘exploitation of the masses’ (alienation). These factors are not new, indeed, Lenin being a Marxist drew these concepts from Marx, who exposed them several times in his works, most accessibly in Wage, Labour and Capital (Marx, 1996).
Marx’s theory of alienation can be summed up nicely in the sentences “… the exercise of labour power, labour is the worker’s own life activity, the manifestation of his own life. And this life activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of subsistence. Thus his life activity is for him only a means to enable him to exist. He works in order to live. He does not even reckon labour as a part of his life, it is rather a sacrifice of his life.” (Marx, 1996:25) Sell (2006:28) adds to this by commenting “Instead of making life easier, the increase in automation has reduced ever more jobs to mind-numbing repetition and boredom”.
Marx’s explanation of relative deprivation is similarly summed up well by his words “A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But let a palace arise beside the little house, and it shrinks from a house to a hut. The little house shows now that its owner has only very slight or no demands to make; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilisation, if the neighbouring palace grows to an equal or even greater extent, the occupant of the relatively small house will feel more and more uncomfortable, dissatisfied and cramped within its four walls.” (Marx, 1996:39) He concludes, “Our desires and pleasures spring from society; we measure them, therefore, by society and not by the objects which serve for their satisfaction. Because they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.” (Marx, 1996:39)
But how does this relate to crime? Sell (2006:30) argues that “The result [of increases in alienation and relative deprivation] has been an increase in street crime and robbery, almost all of it carried out against people who are also living in poverty. There is an increase in drug addiction… The reasons for drug use are wide and varied. Nonetheless, the increase in drug addiction and dependency, both legal and illegal, is primarily the result of a more alienated society.”
She goes on to illustrate this, pointing out “…the experience of the ex-mining villages around the country… the closure of the pits have left previously strong communities suffering the ravages of unemployment, poverty and drug addiction.” (Sell, 2006:30)
Young (1991:154) correctly states that based on this “To reduce crime we must reduce relative deprivation by ensuring meaningful work is provided at fair wages, by providing decent housing in which people are proud to live in, by ensuring that leisure facilities are available on a universal basis…”
However, as Taylor (1981:79) recognises “A welfare state which works on the principle that woman is naturally dependent on man and also currently depends on the expulsion of large numbers of youths into worklessness is not meeting the real needs of women and young people to be self-generating members of the human species.” The problem being that attempting to solve the problem of relative deprivation via a redistributive welfare state doesn’t solve the problem of alienation. It, as Taylor (1981) later notes adds because this is carried out by a layer of professionals which he argues act in lieu of people, rather than under their control.
Engels (1971:32) similarly discusses how “Society had created its own organs to look after its common interests, originally through simple division of labour. But these organs, at whose head is the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society.”
To overcome alienation, it is necessary to overcome the fact that most people have no control over a large portion of their life, whether in the workplace, or outside it. Taylor (1981:101) argues that a “thoroughgoing democratisation” is necessary for these interests to be met. What would this look like you may ask?
Engels (1971:33) commenting on the Paris Commune suggests that “In the first place it filled all posts – administrative, judicial and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of recall at any time by the same electors. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers… In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up…”
As Johnstone (2000) points out there are critics who would suggest that such a manner of operation of society as a whole, and the criminal justice system in particular, could not operate. Johnstone (2000:165) goes on to explain “even if it were concluded that today there is widespread and increasing support for a less tolerant and more punitive penal policy, it would not follow that increased public participation in the making of penal policy would automatically result in a harsher penal system.”
He continues “With regard to penal policy, the suggestion that people should be excluded from its making because they do not have the necessary qualities – such as knowledge, active interest and restraint – is easily countered. Through participation in making penal policy, people will develop these qualities. To the extent that they lack such qualities, this is due precisely to the over-centralization and over-professionalization of governance in general and penal policy making in particular. As decisions about the use of the social power to punish are historically removed from ordinary people and placed in the hands of a small elite, people lose the attributes required to make those decisions well. The only way they can recover these qualities is by having these decisions returned to them.” (Johnstone, 2000:158)
And tying this back in with the ideas developed so far, Lenin (1987:339) comments “…the diffusion of democracy among such an overwhelming majority of the population [means] that the need for a special machine of suppression will begin to disappear”, by special machine Lenin means the state (or for our purposes the criminal justice system). Of course such a thing will not happen overnight, as Lenin (1987:334) notes “there can be no question of defining the exact moment of the future withering away – the more so since it must obviously be a rather lengthy process”. Greater and greater participation can only come with time being freed from other areas; in particular the working day must be gradually shortened to allow for “removing the antithesis between mental and physical labor” (Lenin, 1987:344). Additionally, other institutions outside the criminal justice system would also be used to help in this process, most notably the media and the education system would be inherently useful to help people become more informed about crime and the criminal justice system.
As mentioned above, informed journalism could play a role in this. Wacquant (2007:39) gives us an example of how this may look “A rational public debate on crime would differentiate between offences and rigorously measure their incidence and effects. It would eschew the short-term perspective and emotional cast of daily journalism to make a clear cut differentiation between blips and groundswells, incidental variations from year-to-year and long-term trends. It would not confuse the rising fear of crime, intolerance of crime, or concern over crime with an increase in law-breaking itself.”
However, as Feilzer & Young (2006) demonstrate, such journalism cannot be limited to just one columnist in one newspaper. It must become a standard for newspapers and other media to place crimes in their social context, and to be written in a manner that explains the processes behind the topic being reported on. A basic grasp of the workings of the criminal justice system taught to all school pupils would also assist in this manner.
Now that we have a brief outline of what is necessary to achieve such a state of the criminal justice system, it is perhaps worth looking at what the first steps towards this may be in each of it’s branches. Although the comments here are focussed on the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales, the general thrust should be applicable to a greater or lesser extent in other countries too.
Policing is perhaps the most visible part of the criminal justice system. For our purposes it is perhaps useful to look in particular at the disputes in the early 1980’s to do with the accountability of the police. This centred around several issues, from the 1980 Police Authorities (Powers) Bill proposed by Jack Straw MP, the inner city riots of 1980 and 1981 (particularly in Toxteth and Brixton) and conflicts over the role of police authorities, and later the deployment of the police during the 1984-5 miner’s strike (Scraton, 1985).
The link between all these issues was the attempt to subordinate the priorities of local policing to the wishes of the local populace. Kinsey et al. (1986) argue that police are dependent upon the local community for information to help them apprehend offenders and that the pursuance of policy contrary to the wishes of the community (such as operations like Swamp 81 which provoked the 1981 Brixton riots) merely serve to alienate the community further from the police, and thus reducing this flow of information. As they note “People have little incentive to participate in a process over which they have little control” (Kinsey et al., 1986:133) Instead they advocate increasing the powers of police authorities and giving them the responsibility to encourage debate over crime and conducting local crime surveys. This could however be extend to even more local democratic bodies for certain areas or long lasting cases or series of crimes.
Prisons have been said to have been in an almost perpetual state of crisis recently (Cavadino & Dignan, 2003), the most important of which is crisis of resources. This has manifested itself recently with a record prison populations leading to massive overcrowding across the 139 prisons in England and Wales (Dalton, 2007a).
Overcrowding has led to a poor standard of accommodation, which Cavadino and Dignan (2002:189) suggest is ‘a byword for squalor’ with lack of access to adequate toilet facilities, lack of time outside cells and cell sharing. Similary a record 91 self-inflicted deaths in prison was recorded in 1999 (Cullen and Minchin, 2000) and Morgan (2002) notes that about a quarter of all prisons are Victorian buildings, most of these older prisons are local prisons which suffer the most overcrowding. As Dalton (2007b) notes at present the strategy is to release some prisoners early and attempt to build the way out of the problem, creating 9,500 extra places by 2014, but estimates suggest that cells will run out then too.
Fundamentally, a change in policy is necessary here. Cavadino & Dignan (2002) suggest that the judiciary is the ‘crux of the [penal] crisis’ and suggest a list of reforms including empowering bodies to create enforceable guidelines for sentencing to make it more consistent, in addition to other measures to encourage the judiciary to be more lenient. However, why leave the same people running the system if they have been too punitive, and why stick to sentences given out by them if they too are too punitive. As Dalton (2007b) argues, the judiciary should be elected and democratically elected tribunals should review existing sentences.
Overcrowded prisons also don’t help reduce crime either. As government figures show six out of every ten released from prison end up back inside within two years, this cannot be improved by a situation which has seen prisoners being locked up for longer in their cells, rather than tackling some prisoner’s underlying problems such as illiteracy or innumeracy. As Dalton (2007b) points out, a reduction in the prison population would free up resources which could be used towards the rehabilitation of those it is still deemed necessary to detain.
In conclusion, the perfect criminal justice system is both possible and impossible in that on reaching its stated aim it will have fulfilled its purpose and fall into disuse. In the opinion of the author of these words most other approaches tend to keep crime down to manageable levels rather than rid us of it. This solves no-ones problems; people still get victimised, offenders get stigmatised for life and the public foots the millions and billions necessary to make the system work.
This essay has thus taken a distinctly Marxist position, drawing in particular on Lenin’s notion of the withering away of the state. We have discussed what this position would put forward as the reasons for crime and how this influences how the criminal justice system should operate to help alleviate these problems. We have then discussed how to implement these ideas within several branches of the criminal justice system. From this we have shown that perfecting the criminal justice system to the point where it is no longer needed, will take a long time and will generally consist of increasing democratisation. Wider changes in society will also be needed to supplement these processes. Crime breeds inequality, so it seems only apt that achieving real equality is the solution to this problem.

References

Cavadino, M. & Dignan, J. (2002) The Penal System, 3rd ed. London: SAGE
Cullen, C. & Minchin, M. (2000) The Prison Population in 1999, Home Office Research Findings No. 118, London: Home Office
de Haan, W. (1991) ‘Abolitionism and Crime Control: A Contradiction in Terms’ In: Stenson, K. & Cowell, D. eds. (1991) The Politics of Crime Control, London: SAGE
Dalton, I. (2007a) ‘Reid’s prison disaster’, The Socialist, 1st-7th February pg.5
Dalton, I. (2007b) ‘Overcrowded prisons, overworked staff’, The Socialist, 13th-19th September pg.4
Engels, F. (1971) ‘Introduction to the Civil War in France’ In: Marx, K. & Engels, F. On the Paris Commune, Moscow: Progress Publishers
Feilzer, M. & Young, R. (2006) ‘Crime Scene Oxford’: The impact of a factual newspaper column on readers of a local newspaper – Final Report to the Nuffield Foundation, Oxford: Centre for Criminology
Johnstone, G. (2000) ‘Penal Policy Making: Elitist, Populist or Participatory?’, Punishment & Society, 2(2): pp.161-180
Kinsey, R., Lea, J. & Young, J. (1986) Losing the Fight Against Crime, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Lea, J. & Young, J. (1996) ‘Relative Deprivation’ In: Muncie, J., McLaughlin, E. & Langan, M. eds. Criminological Perspectives: A Readers, London: SAGE
Lenin, V. I. (1987) ‘The State and Revolution’, In: Christman, H. M. eds. Essential Works of Lenin: “What is to be done?” and Other Writings, Mineola: Dover
Marx, K. (1996) ‘Wage Labour and Capital’ In: Marx, K. Wage Labour and Capital & Wages, Price and Profit, London: Bookmarks
McLaughlin, E. & Muncie, J. eds. (2001) The Sage Dictionary of Criminology, London: SAGE
Morgan, R. (2002) ‘Imprisonment’ In: Maguire, M., Morgan, R. & Reiner, R.. Eds. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP
Scraton, P. (1985) The State of the Police, London: Pluto Press
Sell, H. (2006) Socialism in the 21st Century, 2nd ed. London: Socialist Publications
Taaffe, P., Grant, E. & Walsh, L. (1983) The State… A Warning to the Labour Movement, London: Militant
Taylor, I. (1981) Law and Order: Arguments for Socialism, London: Macmillan
Wacquant, L. (2007) ‘How to Escape the Law and Order Trap’, Criminal Justice Matters, 70 pp.39-40
Young, J. (1981) ‘Thinking seriously about crime: some models of criminology’ In: Fitzgerald, M., McLennan, G. & Pawson, J. eds. Crime & Society: Readings in History and Theory, London: Routledge
Young, J. (1991) ‘Left Realism and the Priorities of Crime Control’ In: Stenson, K. & Cowell, D. eds. (1991) The Politics of Crime Control, London: SAGE

Upcoming Posts

As you have seen i've posted on some of the things touched on in this post before (ie left realist criminology, media and crime, and crime and alienation) expect over the next few weeks/months/whenever i get around to it:-

A review of the State of the Police with some commentary on the 'left idealist' branch of critical criminology
A post on relative deprivation as a 'cause' of crime
A post on the criminal justice system and the paris commune
A post on The State and Revolution and the criminal justice system
A review of The State: A warning to the Labour Movement
A post on political economy and crime
A review(s) of Cavadino & Dignan's arguements about the penal system

Review - The Prison and the Factory (1981) by Dario Melossi and Massimo Pavarini

this is the version translated by Glynis Cousin and published by Macmillan

This book is a useful study in the development of the forms of punishment under capitalism. For marxist criminologists, how punishment and other methods of crime control cam into existence and developed is an important question, particularly given as marxists would theorise that the forms of the criminal justice system depend on the stages of economic development to an extent.
Others have studied the development of prisons as punishment too, and Melossi and Pavarini draw on both Rusche and Kircheimer as well as on Foucault in their analysis.

They start with asking why imprisonment is the dominant form of penalty under capitalism. pretty much every punishment under modern capitalism is either imprisonment, or non-compliance is backed up by it (which is the case for probation, home detention curfews, fines, community sentences etc.) The only major exception being the death penalty, but even this requires imprisonment to hold people on death row.

They also point out thatunder feudal regimes prisons were only used to hold debtors and not as punishments themselves which in those times, Foucault points out in Discipline and Punish, were corporal rather than carceral. This they link to life, physical condition and money being of more value to a person, than "human labour measured in time" (pg3)

Another theme running through this work is the influence of religion. The authors note the existence of a distinction between 'good poor' and 'bad poor'. Both were out of work, but the 'bad poor' were wicked because they'd been forced to resort to crime and had to be forced to work, whereas the 'good poor' hadn't and should be given assistance.

The work then goes on to argue that the development of prisons and workhouses were places "for the teaching the discipline of production" (pg 21) and thus are closely realted to the formation fo the proletariat from the landless, workless ex-peasant masses created by the enclosure of pastures. Indeed, they also speculate that the intensity of repression depended on the availability of labour during the period.

The development of the prison in Italy is then discussed, considering the specific economic development of that country. There is one question that they tunr to that deserves special mention, social banditry. This occurs becuase of the explusion of peasants from the land, some trun to banditry to survive. The authors view it as a form of class rebellion, and to them some sort of proto-revolutionary action. However, whilst I recognise the class nature of the banditry, their actions were incredibly destructive, either robbery or destruction of property, and thus it is a backwards looking, reactionary course of action. For me, it's like rioting, whilst we understand that social conditions have caused it, such acts will get the oppressed carrying them out nowhere.

Similarly, the development of prison in the early USA is examined. One of the interesting things that the authors note is the introduction of the 'Philadelphia model' of prisons (which was based on the strict isolation and observation of prisoners - like Bentham's panopticon) happened at a time when prison labour was uneconomical. When this changed due to a shortage of labour, gradually the 'Auburn model' was adopted which saw inmates working communally during the day.

The final chapter of the book is a sort of conclusion to the book. In it they state their central thesis - that when there is high unemployment prison takes on a destructive punitiveness, but when unemployment is low it takes on a re-educative, rehabilitative form, partially to lower wages. Personally, I think this simplifies things too much and certainly makes little sense when applied to Britain and other neo-liberal countries over the last 20 years or so. Furthermore I'd question what they mean by discipline - I could see prison having a physically controlling/coercive effect but they seem to mean some sort of mental effect to produce 'disciplined proletarians' or un-thinking slaves. the prisoners rights movements that developed around the 1960's and 1970's show this as being inaccurate. Moreover if prison is supposed to be this wonderful invention for creating 'disciplined proletarians' how come recidivism is so high (above 60%). Melossi and Pavarini's theory is an interesting one, but it's full of holes.

Letter - An Organised Dab in the Hand

Letter sent in by myself appearing in the Socialist Issue 503.

A recent report published by the UN said that organised crime takes roughly £954 billion a year, and argued that it was one of the three biggest threats facing the world alongside global warming and the scarcity of global drinking water. Further into the report, it stated that contrary to popular opinion, only a minority of bribes (which accounted for over half of this crime) went to public officials in the developing world. The report stated that "the vast majority of bribes are paid to people in richer countries". Rising crime, as critical criminologists observed in the 1980's and 1990's, is an expression of free-market policies that right-wing governments have ushered in worldwide. On top of these bribes, in this country we have seen the huge donations that companies and the rich pour into the main political parties, being rewarded with peerages and PFI contracts. The capitalist system creates crime and needs replacing by a system run by the majority to meet their needs; a socialist world.

Review - Prisons Under Protest (1991) Phil Scraton, Joe Sim and Paula Skidmore

Prisons Under Protest is a book about the causesand issues involved in the disturbances at Peterhead prison in Scotland in the late 1980's. The author's also suggest that their findings can be generalised to other prison disturbances such as Strangeways in Manchester during April 1990.

Scraton, Sim and Skidmore (referred to as Scraton during the rest of this article) point out that prison protests/riots were not just isolated events, there had been many major prison disturbances throughout the 1970's and 1980's, including several in Scotland.

Scraton discusses the history of Peterhead prison. It was opened in 1888 designed to hold 208 prisoners but was consistently overcrowded. Prison warders wore cutlass and scabbard until 1939 and rifles were carried until 1959. By 1985, Peterhead was seen as 'Scotland's gulag, a prison of no hope' (pg14), the regime had degenerated into extreme brutalization with much more severe punishment than many prisons and some abhorrent punishment such as the 'cage'.

Scraton gives further examples of the poor conditions, prisoners were not allowed to see the prison rules and were punished for trivial offences such as standing against a wall, trying to speak to a doctor, hands in pockets and possesion of a prison rulebook.

Prison protests come becuase they are the prisoners only ways to fight back against the poor conditions, like riots are the 'sigh of the oppressed' so with the prison protests.

This book sets out what poor prison conditions do, they brutalise a section of the population, and rather than stop crime they merely make it worse. Some changes did come as a result of the protests of the 1990's, but with the current overcrowding protests are likely to occur again. Capitalism has nothing to offer offenders rather than poverty and a slow descent back into crime and prison, socialists need to fight for decent jobs and living conditions for offenders and all other working people. Only putting an end to capitalism will finally begin to solve these problems.

PS. This book comes from the Critical Criminology tradition (otherwise called left idealism), I'll discuss the left trends in criminology in future posts