Introduction to

criminology

Steven Hutchinson
This module guide was prepared for the University of London by:

u Steven Hutchinson, Departments of Law and Criminology, Birkbeck College,

University of London.

This is one of a series of module guides published by the University. We regret that
owing to pressure of work the author is unable to enter into any correspondence
relating to, or arising from, the guide.

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Introduction to criminology page i

Contents
Module descriptor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Introduction to criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

PART I – UNDERSTANDING CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.1 What is criminology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2 What is crime? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3 Crime and the criminal law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4 Crime and the criminal justice system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2 Measuring crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1 Measuring crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 Police Recorded Crime Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 National surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4 Crime data and crime trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3 Crime, media and politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

3.1 The media and crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Media representations of crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3 Moral panics and their consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.4 Penal populism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

PART II – THEORIES AND CONCEPTS OF CRIME AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR . . . . . . 49

4 Classical and positivist approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

4.1 Classical criminology: from Beccaria to Bentham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2 Cesare Lombroso and positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3 Biological positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.4 Psychological positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

5 Sociological approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1 Emile Durkheim, anomie and strain theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.2 The Chicago school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.3 Cultural criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.4 Labelling theory and stigma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.5 Control theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

6 Radical and critical approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

6.1 Marxism and radical criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
6.2 Feminist criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.3 Realist criminology – right realism and left realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6.4 Victims of crime and victimology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

7.1 From modernity to late modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7.2 Foucault and governmentality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
7.3 Risk and the culture of control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.4 The new penology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
page ii University of London

PART III – CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . 113

8 Terrorism and political violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

8.1 What is terrorism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
8.2 New representations of terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
8.3 Understanding the terrorist threat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.4 The social construction of terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

9 Organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

9.1 What is organised crime? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
9.2 Organised crime models and typologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
9.3 Countering organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
9.4 Transnational organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
9.5 Countering transnational organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

10 White-collar and corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

10.1 Understanding white-collar and corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
10.2 Opportunities for corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
10.3 Confronting corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
10.4 Hearing the victims of corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

11 Violent crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

11.1 (Mis)Understanding violent crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
11.2 Homicide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
11.3 Robbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
11.4 Sexual offences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

PART IV – CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

12 Race and gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

12.1 Ethnicity and victimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
12.2 Ethnicity and criminal offending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
12.3 Ethnicity in the criminal justice system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
12.4 Gender and victimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
12.5 Gender and criminal offending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
12.6 Gender in the criminal justice system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

13 Security, crime and justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

13.1 In search of security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
13.2 The fragmentation of security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
13.3 The fragmentation of policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
13.4 The securitisation of crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

14 Surveillance and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

14.1 Surveillance, surveillance and more surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
14.2 Conceptualising surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
14.3 Surveillance and policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
14.4 Mass surveillance, privacy and human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Introduction to criminology page iii

Module descriptor
GENERAL INFORMATION

Module title
Introduction to criminology

Module code
LA2010

Module level
5

Contact email
The Undergraduate Laws Programme courses are run in collaboration with the
University of London International Programmes. Enquiries may be made via the
Student Advice Centre at: [Link]

Credit
30

Courses on which this module is offered

LLB, EMFSS

Module prerequisite
None

Notional study time

300 hours

MODULE PURPOSE AND OVERVIEW

No matter where we live in the world, issues of crime and criminality pervade our
daily lives. From interpersonal crimes such as battery, theft and sexual assault, to
more complex forms such as terrorism, organised crime and financial crime, we are
regularly confronted with imageries and reports about criminal behaviour. Television
programmes, newspaper articles, the internet and conversations with our friends,
families and colleagues all regularly touch upon crime. These interactions in turn play
a crucial role in how we understand such phenomena. Yet our popular perceptions
often seem to conflict with the available empirical evidence. In fact, one of the most
common features of contemporary global societies is an inverse relationship between
the ‘fear of crime’ (which continues to go up) and actual crime rates (which, in many
jurisdictions, continue to go down). Simply put, despite what the available evidence
tells us, we are more and more afraid of crime despite the fact that we are less and less
likely to be victimised by it.

Understanding such paradoxes is, in part, what criminology is all about. Defining
‘criminology’, however, is more complex than it may at first appear. There are
continued debates about whether it is a ‘discipline’ or a ‘field of study’ where many
disciplines meet, and about where its boundaries lie and what should and should not
be included within it. What is clear, however, is that the study of crime has spanned
centuries, involved a number of different disciplinary approaches, focused on multiple
objects of study and utilised diverse methodologies.

This module provides students with an ‘Introduction to criminology’ as a field of work

that has been described as a rendezvous subject area; one that focuses generally
upon the study of crime and our responses to it. Drawing upon cutting-edge research,
page iv University of London

students will be asked to question some of the more widespread beliefs about crime
and interrogate popular assumptions that pervade the public consciousness. In
studying this module, you will develop an empirically based, critical understanding of
crime and criminality in the 21st century, as well as a deep appreciation of how we are
currently going about studying, interpreting and confronting crime.

Introduction to criminology is a 30-credit optional module that is offered to students

studying on the standard entry and graduate entry LLB courses. It is also offered as a
standalone individual module.

MODULE AIM
The module aims to provide students with an introduction to criminology as a field
of inquiry. It explores the different ways in which crime is measured, studied and
understood, the various disciplinary schools of thought that have contributed to this
endeavour, some of the key issues in contemporary scholarship and several highly
complex forms of crime that lie at the heart of current debates.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: KNOWLEDGE

Upon completion of this module, students will be able to:

1. Appreciate and assess both the strengths and weaknesses of some of the key ways
of measuring crime and establishing ‘crime patterns’;

2. Understand and critically analyse the role played by the (mass) media in popular
perceptions of crime, and how such perceptions are linked to government
responses;

3. Understand, contrast and compare the different disciplinary approaches to

studying crime and criminality;

4. Recognise and appreciate several key trends in criminal behaviour; and,

5. Understand and explain the significance of some of the key issues in 21st century
criminological scholarship.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: SKILLS

Upon completion of this module, students will be able to:

6. Contrast and compare different conceptual and disciplinary approaches,

specifically in relation to how crime is understood and studied;

7. Draw upon available empirical evidence to critically evaluate different arguments,

concepts and assumptions about crime;

8. Apply knowledge acquired to take an evidenced position in relation to current

debates; and,

9. Develop and refine the skills necessary for further criminological study.

BENCHMARK FOR LEARNING OUTCOMES

Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) benchmark statement for Law 2019.

MODULE SYLLABUS

PART I – UNDERSTANDING CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY

In the first part of the module, students explore some of the foundational ideas that
frame our understanding of crime and criminology. The purpose is to establish the
groundwork that will allow students to proceed through the module and gain a
deeper understanding of crime and criminological scholarship.

Chapter 1 Understanding crime and criminology (What is criminology?; What is

crime?; Crime and the criminal law; Crime and the criminal justice system)

Chapter 2 Measuring crime (Measuring crime; Police recorded crime statistics;

National surveys; Crime data and Crime trends)
Introduction to criminology page v

Chapter 3 Crime, the media and politics (The media and crime; Media representations
of crime; Moral panics and their consequences; ‘Penal populism’)

PART II – THEORIES AND CONCEPTS OF CRIME AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR

In the second part of the module, students will learn about some of the key theories
and concepts in criminological scholarship. These come from different disciplinary
perspectives, and include ‘classical’ and ‘positivist’ approaches that lay the
foundations for modern criminology, sociological frameworks which dominated much
of the 20th century, more recent ‘radical’ and ‘critical’ schools of thought, as well as
some contemporary ideas about ‘risk’ and ‘governmentality’.

Chapter 4 Classical and positivist approaches (Classical criminology: from Beccaria

to Bentham; Cesare Lombroso and positivism; Biological positivism; Psychological
positivism)

Chapter 5 Sociological approaches (Emile Durkheim, Anomie and strain theory; The
Chicago School; Cultural criminology; Labelling theory and stigma; Control theories)

Chapter 6 Radical and critical criminology (Karl Marx and radical criminology; Feminist
criminology; Realist criminology: ‘right realism’ and ‘left realism’)

Chapter 7 Late modernity, Governmentality and risk (From modernity to late modernity;
Foucault and governmentality; Risk and the culture of control; The new penology)

PART III – CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY

In the third part of the module, students will focus on several contemporary trends
in crime. These include terrorism, organised crime, white-collar and corporate crime,
and violent crime.

Chapter 8 Terrorism, crime and security (What is ‘terrorism’?; New representations of

terrorism; Understanding the terrorist threat; The social construction of terrorism)

Chapter 9 Organised crime (What is ‘organised crime’?; Organised crime models and
typologies; Countering organised crime; ‘Transnational’ organised crime; Countering
transnational organised crime)

Chapter 10 White-collar and corporate crime (Understanding white-collar and

corporate crime; Opportunities for corporate crime; Confronting corporate crime;
Hearing the victims of corporate crime)

Chapter 11 Violent crime ((Mis)understanding violent crime; Homicide; Robbery;

Sexual offences)

PART IV – CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY

In the final part of the module, students will learn about some of the most central
cross-cutting issues in contemporary scholarship. These are not types of crime as such
but issues that cut across criminological debate. They include the role of race and
gender in crime and criminal justice, the rise of ‘security’ as an organising framework
for addressing crime and disorder and the widespread proliferation of ‘surveillance’.

Chapter 12 Race and gender (Ethnicity and victimisation; Ethnicity and criminal
offending; Ethnicity in the criminal justice system; Gender and victimisation; Gender
and criminal offending; Gender in the criminal justice system)

Chapter 13 Security (In search of ‘security’; The ‘fragmentation’ of security; The

fragmentation of policing; The ‘securitisation’ of crime)

Chapter 14 Surveillance and control (Surveillance, surveillance and more surveillance;

Conceptualising surveillance; Surveillance and policing; ‘Mass surveillance’, Privacy and
human rights)
page vi University of London

LEARNING AND TEACHING

Module guide
The module guide is the primary learning resource. It covers the entire syllabus and
provides students with the information needed to complete the module successfully.
The guide also outlines the learning outcomes that must be achieved, the essential
readings for each chapter, and provides guidance on how to study the course. It
also includes several learning activities for each chapter, and a number of sample
examination questions that allow you to test your understanding. The module guide is
supplemented by other materials that will be made available on the VLE.

The Laws Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

The Laws VLE provides a centralised location where the following resources are
provided:

u a module page for ‘Introduction to criminology’ with news, updates and videos;

u a complete version of the module guide, which can be read or downloaded;

u a set of scanned book chapters, articles or links to readings;

u pre-exam updates;

u past examination papers and reports;

u discussion forums where students can interact with other students.

The Online Library

The Online Library provides access to:

u the professional legal databases LexisLibrary and Westlaw;

u cases and up-to-date statutes;

u key academic journals in law and criminology;

u law reports;

u links to important websites.

Core reading
Students should refer to the following core text. Specific required readings from this
text are noted by chapter in the module guide.

¢ Newburn, T. Criminology. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781138643130].

ASSESSMENT
The assessment for this module is a three hour and fifteen minute unseen exam.
Students will be given six possible essay questions and they must choose three to
answer in the time allotted.

In preparation for this summative assessment, the module guide contains various
tasks and exercises, including sample examination questions. There are additional
tasks in the form of learning activities that will help students prepare for the
examination.

Permitted materials
None.

Please be aware that the format and mode of assessment may need to change in
light of extraordinary events beyond our control, for example, an outbreak such as
the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the event of any change, students will be
informed of any new assessment arrangements via the VLE
Introduction to criminology page vii

Please be aware that the format and mode of assessment may need to change in
light of extraordinary events beyond our control, for example, an outbreak such as
the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the event of any change, students will be
informed of any new assessment arrangements via the VLE..
page viii University of London

Notes
Introduction to criminology

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
page 2 University of London

Introduction
No matter where we live in the world, issues of crime and criminality increasingly
pervade our daily lives. From interpersonal crimes, such as battery, theft and sexual
assault, to more complex forms of crime like terrorism, organised crime and corporate
financial crime, we are regularly inundated with images and reports about criminal
behaviour. Television programmes, news reports, films, newspaper articles, the
internet and conversations with our friends, families and colleagues all regularly touch
upon criminal events. These sources of information in turn play a key role in how we
understand crime, as well as the people and groups responsible for it. And yet there
is a wealth of research by criminologists which tells us that many of our perceptions
about crime are at odds with the actual empirical reality. In fact, one of the most
common features of modern societies is an inverse relationship between the fear of
crime (which continues to go up) and actual crime rates (which, in many jurisdictions,
continue to go down). Simply put, despite what the available evidence tells us, we are
more and more afraid of crime even though we are less and less likely to be victimised
by it.

Understanding such paradoxes is, in part, what criminology is all about. Defining
criminology, however, is a bit more complicated than it may seem. There are ongoing
debates about whether it is a discipline in the traditional sense (like sociology or
psychology), or whether it is more like a field of study or topical area where many
different disciplines meet. There are also debates about where its boundaries lie, and
what should be included within it. For example, should criminologists be concerned
only with crime? Or should they study deviance and other types of harm as well? What
can be said with certainty, however, is that the study of crime has involved a number of
different disciplinary approaches over a very long period of time. And this has entailed
a variety of theoretical perspectives, an assortment of research methodologies and a
range of objects of study.

This module provides an introduction to criminology as an academic field of work

that has been described as a rendezvous subject area: one that focuses upon the
study of crime and how we respond to it. Drawing upon cutting edge, contemporary
research and literature, the module will enable you to learn about key debates in the
field of criminology and what criminologists have to say about recent developments
in crime and crime control. In taking this module, you will be asked to question some
of the more commonly held beliefs about crime and interrogate a number of shared
assumptions that infuse the public consciousness. In so doing, you will develop an
empirically based, critical awareness of crime and criminality in the 21st century,
as well as a clear understanding of how we are currently going about studying,
interpreting and confronting crime in society.

Using this module guide

Without doubt, criminology is one of the most significant growth areas in the social
sciences. Over the past couple of decades there has been exponential growth in the
number of standalone criminology programmes in North America, Australasia, the
United Kingdom and Europe. Since Sir Leon Radzinowicz established the first Institute
of Criminology at the University of Cambridge in 1959, more than 300 Bachelor’s
degrees and well over 80 Master’s level programmes in criminology have been
developed in the United Kingdom alone.

This module is a 30 credit, Level 5 optional module that is offered to students studying on
the Standard Entry and Graduate Entry LLB courses. It offers a broad and comprehensive
introduction to criminology that will provide a detailed overview of the field, as well as
an introduction to some of the most cutting edge ideas in contemporary criminological
scholarship. It can be taken as a standalone module, but it will also provide the skills
and knowledge necessary for more advanced criminological study through additional
modules such as the Level 6 module Criminology.
Introduction to criminology page 3

The module guide is the primary learning resource: it covers the entire syllabus and
provides you with the necessary information and guidance for completing the module
successfully. It is divided into four parts, each of which contains several distinct
chapters. Each chapter requires some reading from the Core text, or another Essential
reading, which is specified on the first page of the Chapter. The guide also establishes
the learning outcomes that must be achieved, offers advice on how to study the
module and identifies Further reading. It also includes a number of Learning activities,
and self-test activities (for example, Sample examination questions, which appear at
the end of each chapter). These will allow you to test your knowledge at key points in
the module and to prepare for the final examination.

The module guide is supplemented by the Essential readings (see below), as well as
additional material on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Please read this section
of the module guide carefully as it will answer many of the questions you may have
about the assessments, the readings and how to proceed with your studies.

Syllabus
In Part I, we will explore some of the basic foundational ideas that frame our
understanding of crime and criminology today. The purpose of this part of the module
is to establish the basic knowledge and skills that will allow you to proceed through
the rest of the topics and generate a deeper understanding of crime and criminology.
Chapter 1 provides an outline of criminology and the concept of crime, as well as the
importance of, and the role played by, the criminal law and the criminal justice system.
In Chapter 2 you will learn about the tools that criminologists use to measure crime,
including Police Recorded Crime Statistics (PRCS) and national victimisation surveys.
The chapter also explores how the data produced by these measures is analysed to
develop official crime data, including national crime trends and specific crime rates.
Chapter 3 introduces the complex relationship between crime and the media. This
includes the ways in which the media often (mis)represents crime to the public,
its role in helping to create moral panics about certain types of crime, and some of
the consequences of penal populism (where public opinion, rather than scientific
evidence, shapes crime policy).

In Part II, we will explore some of the key theories and concepts which have been
central to criminological scholarship. These ideas come from different disciplinary
perspectives, and include:

i. the classical and positivist approaches that laid the foundations for criminology;

ii. the sociological approaches of the 20th century;

iii. some recent radical and critical frameworks; and

iv. innovative contemporary ideas about risk and governmentality.

Chapter 4 covers classical criminology and the ideas associated with founding figures
such as Cesare Beccaria and Cesare Lombroso. In Chapter 5 you will learn about several
key sociological approaches that dominated 20th century criminology, including
cultural criminology, labelling theory and social control theories. In Chapter 6, we
turn to what is commonly referred to as radical or critical criminology, including
Marxist approaches, feminist criminology and realist criminology. Finally, Chapter
7 takes us through some more recent ideas such as risk, the culture of control and
governmentality.

In Part III, we examine some important contemporary trends in crime and criminal
behaviour, as well as some of the central debates and topics of study in criminology
today. To begin this part of the module, Chapter 8 explores the phenomenon of
terrorism, including how new representations of terrorism are linked to contemporary
counter-terrorism approaches. The chapter also addresses the importance of
understanding the nature of the risk posed by terrorism (compared to other risks we
face), and what is meant by the ‘social construction’ of terrorism. Chapter 9 features
an analysis of organised crime, including the diverse efforts to confront this complex
form of criminal behaviour. The chapter also introduces the problem of transnational
page 4 University of London

organised crime, and the ways in which this new type of criminal behaviour changes
how we understand and address organised forms of criminal behaviour. In Chapter 10,
we look at corporate crime and white-collar crime; some of the more hidden forms
of crime that are actually quite common, if complex, and which many argue have
more victims and cost societies a great deal more than typical ‘street crimes’. Finally,
Chapter 11 takes us through an analysis of violent crime, and some of the common
misperceptions about this rather rare form of criminal behaviour.

In the final part of the module, Part IV, you will learn about some of the most
important cross-cutting issues in criminology today. This includes, in Chapter 12, an
exploration of the place and role of race and gender both in criminal offending and
in the criminal justice system. In Chapter 13 we examine the concept of security, and
explore how crime and criminal justice have been ‘securitised’ in recent years. This
includes not only the ways in which crime has been reframed as a security problem,
but also how this reimagining has led to concrete practical changes in crime control
and criminal justice. Finally, in Chapter 14, we explore the proliferation of surveillance,
including how mass surveillance has begun to figure centrally in debates about
policing, crime control and criminal justice.

Core text
The core text for this module is:

¢ Newburn, T. Criminology. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781138643130] (available in Dawsons via the Online Library).

The Essential reading is noted at the start of each chapter of the module guide. Further
reading is also identified. Some additional materials will be posted on the VLE, so it is
important to check the Introduction to criminology pages regularly. If you wish to do
extra background reading, you may consider the following texts:

¢ Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441]

¢ Jones, S. Criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition

[ISBN 9780198768968].

¢ Walklate, S. Criminology: the basics. (London: Routledge, 2017) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781138803442].

¢ Bosworth, M. and C. Hoyle (eds) What is criminology? (New York: Oxford

University Press, 2011) [ISBN 9780199571826].

¢ Tonry, M. (ed.) The Oxford handbook of crime and public policy. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011) [ISBN 9780199844654].

For a more international perspective on criminology, you may wish to explore the
following texts, although these are not required reading for this module.

¢ Boyd, N. Understanding crime in Canada: an introduction to criminology. (Toronto:

Emond Publishing, 2014) [ISBN 9781552396056].

¢ Cao, L., I. Sun and B. Hebenton (eds) The Routledge handbook of Chinese
criminology. (London: Routledge, 2013) [ISBN 9780415500401].

¢ Carrington, K., R. Hogg and M. Sozzo ‘Southern criminology’ (2016) 56(1) The
British Journal of Criminology 1 (available in LexisLibrary).

¢ Finnane, M. ‘The origins of criminology in Australia’ (2012) 45(2) Australian and

New Zealand Journal of Criminology 157.

¢ Liu, J., M. Travers and L. Chang (eds) Comparative criminology in Asia. (New York:
Springer, 2017) [ISBN 9783319855271].

¢ Liu, J., B. Hebenton and S. Jou Handbook of Asian criminology. (New York: Springer,
2013) [ISBN 9781493951710].
Introduction to criminology page 5

¢ Shahidullah, S.M. (ed.) Crime, criminal justice, and the evolving science of
criminology in South Asia: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2017) [ISBN 9781137507495].

Online resources

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

The Laws VLE provides a centralised location where resources are provided to help you
navigate the module. Once you have your login details you will be able to access the
following resources:

u An Introduction to criminology module page with news, videos and updates.

u A complete version of the module guide.

u Past examination papers and reports.

u A dedicated discussion forum (an online platform where you can interact with
other students who are taking the module).

Online Library
The Online Library provides access to a number of different resources which can help
you in completing this module. These include:

u Background texts on criminology.

u Key academic journals in criminology and law.

u The professional legal databases LexisLibrary and Westlaw.

u Cases and up-to-date statutes.

u Law reports.

u Links to important websites.

There are several academic journals about criminology. Some of the most important
ones include:

u Criminology

u The British Journal of Criminology

u Theoretical Criminology

u Criminology and Criminal Justice

u Policing and Society

u Punishment and Society

u The Probation Journal

u The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice

u The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice

u The Journal of Law and Society

u Social and Legal Studies.

page 6 University of London

Websites
In the United Kingdom, the Office of National Statistics produces official statistics
on behalf of the government. This includes crime statistics, as well as analyses and
commentaries on crime trends, crime developments and changes in recording and
measurement procedures. For further information please visit: [Link]

Some other reliable websites from which you can draw useful and interesting material
include:

u The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies: [Link]

u HM Prison Service: [Link]/about/hmps

u The Home Office: [Link]/government/organisations/home-office

u The Howard League: [Link]

u UK Ministry of Justice: [Link]/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice

u The Prison Reform Trust: [Link]/

u The Prison Reform Organisation: [Link]

u The Office for National Statistics: [Link]/[Link]

u The British Society of Criminology: [Link]

u National Assoc. for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders: [Link]

u The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales: [Link]/government/

organisations/youth-justice-board-for-england-and-wales

u International Centre for the Prevention of Crime: [Link]

u The UN Crime and Justice Research Institute: [Link]

u The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control: [Link]/en

u The National Criminal Justice Reference Service: [Link]

u The National Institute of Justice: [Link]/Pages/[Link]

Assessment
The assessment for this module is a three hour and 15 minute unseen examination.
You will be given six possible essay questions, and must choose three to answer in
the allotted time. The essay questions are drawn directly from the module guide, the
readings and the learning outcomes.

To help you prepare for the examination, this guide contains various activities and
Sample examination questions at the end of each chapter. These activities and sample
questions are not weighted and their purpose is to help you reach the module
learning outcomes and prepare for the final assessment.

The final assessment is an unseen examination, and no materials will be permitted

during the examination. You will be given more information about the examination in
due course.

Preparing for the examination

The examination questions draw upon the learning outcomes and activities in this
module guide, as well as the Essential reading. To be successful in the examination, you
will need to pay close attention to these elements of the module. Be sure to read the
Essential reading closely. Students who do very well on examinations of this sort also
tend to have read some of the Further reading.
Introduction to criminology page 7

Sample examination questions are found at the end of each chapter in this guide. A
sample examination script will also be posted on the VLE to help you prepare for the
final examination.

In past Examiners’ reports, it has often been emphasised that students should not just
summarise or describe what has been written by others, but should include their own
arguments and analysis. Specifically, to succeed in examinations students should:

u Read the questions very carefully and focus their answer specifically on the
question being asked.

u Adopt a position or stance (an argument) in relation to the question.

u Structure their answer so that the introduction shows the examiner that they have
read the actual question and that the material that follows is organised logically to
address it.

u Use appropriate material and set out a clear argument in their response to each
question.

The most common issue noted in past Examiners’ reports is a tendency by students to
base their answers upon a common-sense or journalistic approach. A successful answer
should be formulated in a more considered, objective, academic and scholarly way.

You may be used to answering examination questions that ask you to remember the
names of cases or specific statutes that relate to certain legal rules and principles.
Criminology is not a law subject area. It is a field of study, or discipline. In many ways,
it is closer to sociology or psychology than it is to law. In criminology, instead of
important cases and statutes, there are key figures, key schools of thought, central
ideas (or concepts) and different research methodologies. Examination questions on
this module will therefore be based upon the figures, schools of thought, ideas and
methodologies that appear in this module guide. (They will not be based upon legal
cases, legal principles or common law statutes.) As with case law subjects, however,
good marks will be obtained through the articulate and persuasive use of language;
that is, the ability of the student to communicate to the examiner essential points in
their own voice.
page 8 University of London

Notes
PART I – UNDERSTANDING CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY
1 Introduction

Contents
1.1 What is criminology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.2 What is crime? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1.3 Crime and the criminal law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

1.4 Crime and the criminal justice system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

page 12 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn, Chapter 1 ‘Understanding crime and criminology’ and Chapter 2
‘Crime and punishment in history’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u outline some of the difficulties in defining crime
u understand the different perspectives and approaches that make up criminology
u appreciate the role played by the criminal law in constructing crime
u understand the role played by the criminal justice system in how we understand
crime and its consequences.
Introduction to criminology 1 Introduction page 13

1.1 What is criminology?

There is no simple or direct answer to this question. Criminology has been described
as a topic area, a discipline, a field of study and a subject area. Even people teaching
criminology at universities sometimes disagree about what exactly it is. One of
the most common perspectives, often taught to undergraduate students, is that
criminology involves the study of three interrelated things: (1) crime; (2) the people
and groups who commit crime; and (3) the systems and processes we have created to
address these problems. From this perspective, criminologists are people who study:

1. The problem of crime in society (including crime types, crime trends, crime rates
and crime patterns)

2. The individuals and groups who engage in criminal behaviour (including for example
the individual offender, the organised criminal gang or the deviant corporation)

3. The systems, agencies and processes that have been set up to deal with crime and
criminal offenders (including the criminal justice system and the criminal law).

For some criminologists, however, this is an oversimplification. What about behaviours

that are addressed by the criminal justice system, but which are not technically
‘crimes’? Shouldn’t criminologists also study deviant behaviours that are not actually
criminal but which may nonetheless trigger criminal justice responses? Take, for
example, anti-social behaviour, such as not cleaning up after your dog or driving
up and down a street in a car with no purpose (often called ‘street cruising’ in the
United Kingdom). In England and Wales, these sorts of behaviours are in fact within
the purview of the public police, and people who engage in them can receive an
Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC) which limits their freedom. This type of civil/
criminal hybrid sanction can in turn have real consequences for their lives, such as
preventing them from being on the streets at night or letting their dog off the lead in
public. Moreover, breaching the conditions of the ABC can lead to a fine and even time
in prison. But the act that may have triggered this response – and this punishment –
was not technically criminal in the first place, and it did not violate any criminal law,
even though the perpetrator may have ended up in prison. So, shouldn’t criminologists
also be interested in these sorts of things, even though they do not clearly fall into the
category of ‘crime’?

On the other hand, in most countries today – including China, Russia, India, the United
Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and many parts of Europe – the average
citizen going through their daily life is far more likely to confront a private security
guard than a public police officer. In fact, in most countries, private security guards
now outnumber public police officers: according to a recent article in the Guardian
newspaper, at least half of the world’s population now lives in a country with more
private security workers than public police (see: [Link]/inequality/2017/
may/12/industry-of-inequality-why-world-is-obsessed-with-private-security). Consider
the bouncers at pubs and nightclubs, the various security guards in banks and shops, and
the central role played by private police at major sporting events like the Olympics. All
of these actors play an important role in managing crime and anti-social behaviour. So
shouldn’t we study them too?

The global market for private security services – including things like private guarding,
surveillance and armoured transport – is now worth approximately USD 180 billion, and
this number is expected to grow to USD 240 billion by 2020. This is a value that exceeds
the gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 100 countries. And in more than
40 countries around the world today, there are far more private security personnel
than public police officers. In the United Kingdom in 2017 there were 232,000 private
security personnel compared to 151,000 public police officers. In the same year in Brazil
there were 1.7 million private security guards to 687,684 police officers. And in China
there were 5 million private security personnel to 2.7 million police.

Indeed, there are now fewer police officers than security personnel in China, Brazil,
India, the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom,
Australia and Canada. (Source: [Link]/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/08/31/
private-security-outnumbers-the-police-in-most-countries-worldwide-
page 14 University of London

infographic/#45744792210f )

In many countries then, fights that erupt in bars and nightclubs are more likely to be
dealt with by bouncers than by the public police, just as prohibited items are more
likely to be confiscated at sporting venues by security guards. Most of these private
security workers are also wearing clothing that intentionally mimics the public police
uniform, and in countries such as the United States, Italy and Spain, they even carry
firearms. The market in private security continues to grow: in 2017 the global private
security industry was larger than the GDP of Egypt, Finland, the United Arab Emirates,
Portugal and Turkey. So shouldn’t criminologists be interested in these important
actors as well, even though they are not officially part of the criminal justice system?

For many studying the problem of crime today, these sorts of nuances make identifying
a common set of problems for criminology deeply problematic. Criminologists Mariana
Valverde and Pat O’Malley (2014) take things one step further, arguing that there is in fact
no set of common or shared objects of study that we all agree on (such as ‘crime’ and the
‘criminal justice system’). Some criminologists are interested in studying certain types of
crime, but others prefer to focus on different types of harms or different sorts of deviance
(like anti-social behaviours or human rights violations by states). Some criminologists
are explicitly focused on finding practical solutions to specific crime problems, like
knife crime in urban city centres. However, others are more interested in analysing the
disproportionate impacts and consequences of government crime control policies,
particularly in poor, urban neighbourhoods. Some approach the problem of crime
from the perspective of individual psychology, others from a sociological, socio-legal or
even geographic framework. For Valverde and O’Malley (2014) then, it is actually more
useful to see criminology as never having been a coherent ‘discipline’ in the traditional
sense, and instead to try to understand it as a ‘field’ or topic area where different people
and different parts of other disciplines come together to study crime, deviance and
governance more broadly.

That criminology is ‘interdisciplinary’ has been recognised for some time – different
disciplines, traditions and schools of thought have long contributed to the study
of crime and its control, and even today many different disciplinary perspectives
are represented in what is broadly characterised as contemporary criminological
scholarship. These varied perspectives include sociology, psychology, law and legal
studies, geography, anthropology, political science, history and others. However,
despite how far criminological scholarship has come, there is still no agreement about
its boundaries, and there is certainly no shared or universal set of methodologies
and objects. For some scholars, criminology is about the scientific study of the
causes of crime, and the best ways to go about addressing criminal behaviour. For
other criminologists, the field of interest is much broader than this. Over the past
two or three decades in particular, some highly influential criminologists have been
reconceptualising the field by turning their attention to various forms of social
regulation beyond the criminal law and the criminal justice system, or by submerging
crime within a much broader category (such as ‘risk’, ‘security’ or ‘regulation’; on
this, more in Part IV). For Valverde and O’Malley (2014) criminology is thus better
understood as a collection of at least four distinct enterprises that have rather
different trajectories.

The first of these strands within criminology is what is sometimes referred to as the
‘psy’-sciences: psychology, psychiatry and other psychologically informed approaches
to understanding criminal behaviour. Beginning in the second half of the 19th century,
psychological approaches started to characterise and explain criminal offending in
terms of an individual’s ‘abnormal’ identity or psychological state (on this, more in
Part II). Psychological criminology of this sort focused on the individual offender and
their distinct psyche, in an attempt to explain what led them to commit crime in the
first instance. Such work sought to develop the tools necessary for diagnosing deeply
rooted psychological abnormalities, which could then be treated at the individual
level in order to address criminal offending. Today, contemporary psychological
criminology often focuses on the development and improvement of ‘risk assessment’
tools, with a view to predicting criminal behaviour (before it actually happens) at the
individual level. An example is the United Kingdom’s Offender Group Reconviction
Introduction to criminology 1 Introduction page 15

Score: a risk assessment model made popular in the 1990s, which sought to establish
the probability that a convicted offender would reoffend on release from prison. Based
on such predictions, judges could even impose ‘indeterminate’ prison sentences,
which would only end when a Parole Board had determined that the offender’s risk
of reoffence had reached a manageable level (authorised from 2005 by the Criminal
Justice Act 2003, indeterminate sentences were repealed in 2012 after sustained
criticism).

The second major strand in criminology identified by Valverde and O’Malley (2014) is
made up of ‘empirical studies and evaluations’ of the criminal law and the criminal
justice system. Towards the end of the 19th century, various methodological tools
from both psychology and sociology began to be used by criminal justice authorities
and by academics who wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of criminal justice policy.
It was here that evidence-based criminal justice policy began to emerge, and where
evaluations of specific criminal justice programmes and policies took off. Crime came
to be seen by these scholars as a social phenomenon, something that was associated
with – and therefore determined by – a number of different factors including age, gender,
living standards (poverty) and education, all of which seemed to be correlated at some
level with criminal behaviour. Such work formed the basis for positivist approaches (on
these, more in Chapters 4 and 5), which dominated criminology until the second half of
the 20th century. For positivists, crime was determined socially or psychologically, and
work of this sort aimed to provide a scientific basis for managing crime by developing
programmes and strategies that manipulated psychological and sociological variables
(such as mental health and poverty).

It was not until about halfway through the 20th century, however, that these methods
gained significant traction: in the United Kingdom, universities and colleges did not
teach students about this sort of work until the 1940s, and criminological research
itself was not institutionalised until 1959 (with the creation of the Institute of
Criminology at the University of Cambridge). Empirically focused evaluative work –
which focused on evaluating the criminal law and criminal justice policy – has since
contributed to many changes in crime control practice including the way we sentence
offenders, the eventual abolition of the death penalty in many jurisdictions, and
the emergence of restorative justice and other alternatives to traditional processes.
And yet, surprisingly, crime policy today often contradicts the available empirical
evidence about ‘what works’. For example, the introduction of sex offender registries
in India, Canada, South Africa, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States is
completely at odds with nearly everything that research on stigma, labelling and social
exclusion tells us about the consequences of such registers.

The third strand of criminology is what Valverde and O’Malley (2014) characterise as
the ‘miserology’ genre. This includes work carried out by physical anthropologists and
proto-psychiatrists who focus on the deep identities of ‘deviants’. Such deviants may
have committed crimes, but they are often targeted for intervention even if they have
not, since they pose a possible danger to society. This is, in part, what David Garland
(1996) has referred to as the ‘criminology of the other’. For example, there was great
concern at one time with establishing criminal typologies and taxonomies; models for
enabling a distinction or separation of different human subgroups. This included, for
instance, efforts to distinguish,

…the ‘feeble-minded’ from the normal but also from the ‘moron’; the ‘habitual offender’
from the ordinary, rational, one-time offender; the ordinary female criminal from the
sexualized middle-class kleptomaniac – and so forth… the emerging discipline of
sociology… borrowed the methods that had been used by explorers and anthropologists
to document ‘savage’ tribes abroad, and proceeded to explore and classify the exotic
Others at home – the beggars, prostitutes, street swindlers, and assorted tribes of
‘dangerous classes’ living in the heart of the world’s great cities.

(Valverde and O’Malley, 2014, p.17)

Individual criminals are here taken as examples of a particular ‘type’, and it is certain
‘types’ of people that are seen to pose the greatest threat to society (in terms of their
potential criminal behaviour).
page 16 University of London

The final strand of criminology identified by Valverde and O’Malley (2014) is the ‘social
construction of deviance’. The focus of this branch of work has traditionally been
on how policing and other legal and regulatory mechanisms help to construct the
very crimes and forms of behaviour that are then subjected to regulation and law.
In contrast to conventional sociological wisdom – where deviance is linked to an
individual’s pathology or deviant personality – this more recent strand of work draws
on the concept of ‘stigma’; the idea that a deviant person can be created merely
through repeated interactions with authority figures, and the continuous and repeated
application of the label ‘deviant’ or ‘criminal’. Scholars working within this tradition
have focused on more topical, contemporary issues like terrorism, arguing that it is our
response to this particular type of violence that leads to it actually being labelled as
‘terrorism’ (rather than say, ‘hate crime’). Others who work in this tradition have shown
that mainstream popular assumptions about what is and what is not a social problem
(like crime) are embedded in, and indeed created by, law and policy. (On this, more in
Part II.)

As Valverde and O’Malley (2014) make clear, each of these four strands of work has its
own history and contemporary form, and each has contributed to the development
of what is today referred to as criminology. There is important work going on now
that draws directly on the ‘psy’ sciences, just as there is a great deal happening
in the empirical/evaluative tradition, the tradition of miserology and in social
constructionism. As a result, getting to grips with what criminology is means getting
to grips with the importance of each of these traditions.

Another well-known criminologist, David Garland, has outlined two broader streams
of work that gave rise to criminology in Britain in particular (see Garland, 2002).
These two streams were initially separate, he argues, and they entailed both a
‘governmental project’ and a ‘Lombrosian project’. The governmental project included
empirical studies of the administration of the criminal justice system (including the
working of police and prisons, and the quantitative measurement of crime). The
Lombrosian project on the other hand involved research that sought to examine the
characteristics of ‘criminals’ and ‘non-criminals’, and hence develop an explanation for
the causes of crime (more on Lombroso in Chapter 4). In 20th century Britain, however,
these two strands came together to form the basis of what we recognise today as
contemporary criminology. As this suggests, while there is a broader and longer
history of criminology in the round, it is also important to explore the development
of criminology within specific countries and regions, as it can take quite varied
trajectories depending on a number of different factors.

What remains abundantly clear, however, is that criminology has always been an
interdisciplinary project; it is a place where many different disciplines meet to
study crime, deviance and the management and control of such problems. As a
consequence, students learning about criminology will necessarily confront work
from sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, lawyers, historians, philosophers
and others. Some criminologists adopt an approach that will seem at odds with
what another group of criminologists is doing, and some will be harmonious. Some
criminologists will be more focused on criticising the criminal justice system and
its inequities. Others will be more focused on promoting a particular policy or
approach to dealing with criminal offenders. Some work to refine and even abolish
criminal justice institutions (like prison abolitionists), and some work from within
such institutions. Much depends on the individual doing the work, and the traditions,
disciplines and knowledge from which they draw.

1.2 What is crime?

The answer to this question is also complex. There is of course a common-sense
understanding of crime, one that is often taken for granted. Most people, when asked,
will be able to list a few different ‘crimes’ – murder, drug trafficking, assault and so
on. This shared public perception about what crime is, however, becomes a little
more problematic as we drill down into some current criminological research. Even
Introduction to criminology 1 Introduction page 17

though the word ‘crime’ is used in everyday life (which means there is some collective
understanding of what it refers to), there are deeper complexities to ‘crime’ as a
concept.

After seeing one person attacking another person in public with a weapon for
instance, for no apparent reason, most people would agree that they had just
witnessed a crime. But what about something like driving a car at a speed above
the legal limit on a major roadway (called ‘speeding’). Is this a crime? Technically, in
most places, it is. But is it something that is regularly enforced and prosecuted by the
criminal justice system? This will of course vary by country and even by jurisdiction,
but do the police actually stop every single driver who is driving a vehicle over the
precise, legal speed limit? Or is there a technical legal limit (which is posted on signs,
for instance), and then a more common-sense, ‘in practice’ everyday speed limit?
Most people who drive on major roadways in Canada, for instance, know very well
that going 120 kilometres per hour when the speed limit is 100 kilometres per hour
will not result in getting a speeding ticket, even if you drive straight through a police
speed trap. But at 125 kilometres per hour or more, you will almost certainly be issued
a ticket.

Consider smokers who put their cigarette butts out on public streets. In a number of
countries, like the United States, this is a crime (called ‘littering’), which is prohibited
by law and which carries a fine. But how many police officers in the United States
actually stop and fine the hundreds and thousands of people who drop their cigarette
butts in public? It is clear from publicly available data that the answer is ‘not very
many’ – in fact if the police were to do this, and issue thousands on thousands of
littering citations, it would clog up the criminal justice system to the point where it
would not be able to function. What these examples are meant to illustrate is that
there are, on the one hand, official crimes ‘on the books’ so to speak and, on the other
hand, crimes ‘in practice’: i.e. there are behaviours that are technically violations of the
law, which for practical reasons are often overlooked or ignored by the criminal justice
system.

Or consider again what is now referred to in the United Kingdom and Europe as ‘anti-
social behaviour’. In English law, this includes whatever a community defines as ‘anti-
social’, and so what is seen as anti-social will vary from one community to the next.
Section 2.1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 defines anti-social
behaviour as:

(a) conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any
person,

(b) conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that

person’s occupation of residential premises, or

(c) conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.

So the law that allows for the policing and punishment of anti-social behaviour has
been written in such a way as to allow the definition of ‘anti-social behaviour’ to be
fluid and to change or vary by community. This is quite a contrast to the immutable
definitions of criminal behaviours in criminal statutes. In fact, this flexible definition
of ‘anti-social behaviour’ allows for nearly any problematic or nuisance behaviour to
be treated as anti-social behaviour that is not ‘criminal’ as such, and that is therefore
not (already) specifically prohibited by the criminal law. Put simply, there are some
behaviours that are not ‘criminal’ according to the law – i.e. they are not listed in
criminal statutes – but which the criminal justice system addresses. In fact, under
the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, if a person breaches their
Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC) for anti-social behaviour, they could end up
in prison for something like street cruising or not cleaning up after their dog – even
though such things are not technically illegal (in terms of the criminal law). So, is street
cruising a ‘crime’, or not? Is not cleaning up after your dog a ‘crime’, or not? According
to criminal statute, no; according to the criminal justice system and how it operates,
this is less clear.
page 18 University of London

What all of this suggests is that ‘crime’ – although it has a common-sense meaning
in everyday public life – is in fact a highly complex and contested concept. Once
you begin to probe beneath the surface, it becomes less and less clear what ‘crime’
actually is.

1.3 Crime and the criminal law

For some people, including most notably perhaps scholars of the criminal law, the
most straightforward way of defining ‘crime’ is by reference to the criminal law. That
is, a ‘crime’ is an infraction of the criminal law, and if you want to know what crime is
then all you need to do is read the relevant criminal statutes. The criminal law outlines
certain behaviours – which can be either acts or omissions (i.e. failure to act) – that
can lead to criminal prosecution and punishment by the state. These are understood
legally as ‘crimes’. And yet there are problems with such an overly legalistic
understanding of crime. For example, as we saw above, there are crimes which are ‘on
the books’ (i.e. listed in criminal statutes) but which in practice are often not policed
or prosecuted. Consider jaywalking (crossing a road or street when the pedestrian
light is red or yellow, and not green) in a country like Australia, for example; a very
common, everyday offence, but one which is very rarely policed, prosecuted and
punished. And what about behaviours that are considered both a criminal and civil
wrong? Those like physical assault, for example, which may be subject to prosecution
and punishment in a criminal court and to civil suit for damages in civil court. So are
these crimes? Or civil wrongs? Or both?

And what about the many different acts and omissions that are commonly viewed
as ‘crimes’ but which the criminal justice system rarely subjects to policing and
prosecution? It is clear that most of what we refer to as white-collar crime for
example (such as tax evasion and embezzlement) is rarely, if ever, dealt with by the
criminal justice system or the criminal law. More often these ‘crimes’ are addressed
by administrative law and regulatory fines. Even prosecutions under the United
Kingdom’s Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act 2007 – which prohibits and
punishes corporate negligence that leads to death – most often lead to administrative
fines. When people kill other people, we do our best to put them in prison. When
corporations kill people, we fine them (see more on this in Chapter 10).

And what of state crime: when agents acting on behalf of the state engage in criminal
behaviour? The criminal law and the criminal justice system were set up to deal with
individuals, not states (or corporations for that matter). So should we ignore these
types of behaviours? For many criminologists, the answer is certainly not. A legalistic
approach – one which takes crime as that which is specifically prohibited by criminal
statute – would exclude these sorts of things and severely limit our understanding of
criminal and deviant behaviour.

Other criminologists have argued quite persuasively that, in stark contrast to a

legalistic perspective, crime is actually nothing more than a label that is applied
to certain acts and not others. In different countries and in different parts of the
world, the criminal law varies, sometimes quite significantly. For example, although
same-sex marriage is legal in England (i.e. it is not a crime), being homosexual is
a crime in Jamaica and there are still a number of countries in the world where
homosexuality carries the death penalty. What this suggests is that there is nothing
inherent about any particular crime; no act or behaviour is naturally criminal; they
are criminal because we say they are criminal, because we label them as such. And
different people in different cultures see different things as criminal. In other words,
for some criminologists, ‘crime’ is just a label that is applied differently depending
on jurisdiction. In India, it is applied to some things and in Brazil it is applied to other
things. From this perspective, defining an act or behaviour as a crime (or indeed
defining a person as a criminal) does not represent some natural, predetermined
order of things; rather, it reflects how power is used by certain actors (especially
states) to label some acts and some behaviours as ‘criminal’ and therefore deserving of
punishment.
Introduction to criminology 1 Introduction page 19

A social constructionist perspective therefore sees crime as a social phenomenon;

something that is the product of interactions between people living in complex
and large social groups. Put slightly differently, within complex societies, the
power to label some acts and some people as criminal (known in criminology as
‘criminalisation’) often reflects powerful interests in that society. In a well-known book
published in 2004, the criminologist Nils Christie argued that:

Crime does not exist. Only acts exist, acts often given different meanings within various
social frameworks. Acts and the meanings given to them are our data. Our challenge
[as criminologists] is to follow the destiny of acts through the universe of meanings.
Particularly, what are the social conditions that encourage or prevent giving the acts the
meaning of being a crime?

(Christie, 2004, p.3)

In a similar vein, what is and what is not a crime often varies by historical period:
there are things that were not criminal several decades ago that have recently been
criminalised. Consider, for example, the new crime of sexual communication with a
child through social media or mobile phones (sometimes referred to as ‘grooming’),
which, in the UK, carries a sentence of up to two years in prison and automatic
addition to the sex offenders’ register. In a literal sense, this was not a crime before
2017; it only became a crime once the behaviour was identified, problematised and
added to criminal statute.

Likewise, some things which were criminal in the past are no longer regarded as such.
In Uruguay, Canada, Peru, Spain, the Netherlands, South Africa and 46 of 50 US States,
for example, marijuana is now legal in some form. In all of these countries, it had
been against the law to manufacture, sell, possess and/or use marijuana for decades
before legalisation. As this suggests, societies also change their minds about what is
criminal and what is not, and through ‘decriminalisation’ they can also remove certain
behaviours from criminal statute.

Thus, what is and what is not a crime – at any given moment, and in any particular
jurisdiction – is not necessarily a given; it is a decision that is made by states and by
societies and made practical through the criminal law (including both criminalisation
and decriminalisation). Any list of crimes in the criminal law will therefore always vary
by country and by historical period. It was illegal to manufacture, sell and consume
alcohol in the USA from 1919 until 1933, and, until quite recently, it was perfectly legal
to smoke cigarettes in churches, hospitals, restaurants and on aeroplanes in Europe.
What this tells us is that there is nothing naturally criminal about any particular act
or behaviour, and that at certain moments in time and in certain jurisdictions, some
acts are considered to be crimes while others are not. The state and the criminal law
play a key role in this and it is important to remember that the criminal law itself is
not absolute; it is ever-changing, and it is always subject to amendment and revision.
And these changes do not come from some new revelation about the ‘truth’ of crime
and criminal behaviour; they are based on shifting social attitudes and changing
perceptions of what is right and wrong; of what is criminal and what is not.

1.4 Crime and the criminal justice system

The criminal justice system also plays an important role in how we understand crime
in society. As we have seen, some acts are technically illegal but are rarely punished
(another example would be texting while driving in Germany: a common behaviour
that is rarely punished). Indeed, the criminal justice system itself – which includes in
common law jurisdictions the police, the judicial system and the prison architecture
– plays a key role in how we understand crime. That is, there is a relationship between
how the criminal justice system treats some behaviours and our shared perceptions
of that behaviour – like texting while driving, disposing of cigarettes on public
streets and jaywalking, all of which are seen as fairly innocuous acts, although they
are ‘crimes’. This understanding is closely related to how the criminal justice system
page 20 University of London

responds to such behaviours. The criminal law outlines what is (and thus what is not)
a crime but the criminal justice system and its central agencies are responsible for the
detection, prosecution and punishment of such behaviour, and these institutions play
an important role in how crime is understood in practice. Some crimes (like speeding)
are not taken very seriously, while others (like sexual assault and hate crime) are taken
very seriously indeed.

Although criminal justice systems vary substantially in different parts of the world,
it was between the mid-1700s and the mid-1900s that the modern criminal justice
system was formed in most Western democracies. Before this time, there were no
police as such, no judicial courts, no probation services and no prisons as we know
them today. By the 1950s, the modern criminal justice and penal systems had been
firmly established in the West and these became the model for justice systems in
other parts of the world. While in practice the story is quite complex (consider, for
example, the role of private police), the criminal justice system is generally taken to
have three key pillars: (1) the police; (2) the courts; and (3) prisons. That said, hard and
fast lines between these three pillars are increasingly difficult to draw. This is in part
because the private sector, voluntary and charity organisations, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and individual citizens, lobbyists and rights groups are regularly
involved in the justice system. It is the police and the courts in particular, however,
which play a key role in how we understand crime in society, and both are therefore
deserving of some attention here.

1.4.1 The police

In England and Wales, the public police are responsible for several core operational
duties, as well as duties that are prescribed in legislation and the common law. These
include:

1. protecting life and property

2. preserving order

3. preventing the commission of offences

4. bringing offenders to justice.

To carry out these duties, the police often have several specific and special ‘powers’
that are outlined in law. In the United Kingdom, police powers are specified in the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). They include:

1. arrest (to arrest persons suspected of involvement in a criminal offence)

2. detention, treatment and questioning (to detain individuals for questioning;

limited to certain timeframes)

3. search and seizure (to search premises and seize property associated with crime)

4. stop and search (to stop and search – under certain conditions – without first
making an arrest)

5. identification and keeping of criminal records (to collect and retain evidence for
identification and investigation)

6. out of court disposals (to settle offences without taking the offender to court, such
as issuing a caution/warning or a penalty notice/fine).

The most famous date in British policing history is 1829, which was the year that Sir
Robert Peel first introduced his idea for a new, modern police force: the Metropolitan
Police. The Metropolitan Police were to be a public service that would focus on
public order and act through and with the consent of the population. They were
specifically designed not to be a military institution that would use force against the
public (before this time, civil disturbances were often addressed using the military,
and criminal investigations were typically carried out by private investigators). The
authority of the public police was thus based on the complicity and cooperation of the
public. To prevent crime, a system of ‘beat patrols’ was established, as was a uniform,
Introduction to criminology 1 Introduction page 21

a disciplinary code of conduct and an organisational structure. Police officers were

dressed in blue to distinguish them from the red coats of the military, and, crucially
– and in contrast to police in the United States – they were unarmed. This remains
the case in 21st century England and Wales (notwithstanding a number of specialised
armed response units). Even today, police in Britain are still commonly referred to as
‘bobbies’ (in reference to ‘Robert’) or ‘Peelers’ (in reference to ‘Peel’).

Peel’s model for the Metropolitan Police was quickly copied throughout the United
Kingdom (apart from Scotland; to read more about the differences between Scotland
and the rest of the United Kingdom, see Newburn, 2017, p.22). In fact, the central
government in London soon required local authorities throughout England, Wales
and Ireland to introduce Peelian style police forces. The rest of the 19th and early part
of the 20th century involved a great deal of standardisation and professionalisation
(refining jurisdictions, reducing the number of forces, regulating investigative
practices and so on) and sustained attempts to increase the legitimacy of the police in
the eyes of the public.

By the middle of the 20th century, the public police in England had been issued with
radios and cars, and their patrols changed from ‘walking the beat’ to driving through
and around particular neighbourhoods. As road traffic became increasingly common
after the Second World War, a significant component of policing became traffic
safety and road accidents. By this time, the public trust in the police was extremely
high in Britain, and it has remained so (with certain fluctuations) ever since. More
recently, the police have undergone a period of ‘militarisation’ where they are
increasingly adopting military-like tactics and weaponry; this is a process that seems
to be completely at odds with their original ethos, and one that can also be seen in
countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, parts of Europe and even China.

Since its establishment in 1829, the public police has played a crucial role in how we
understand crime. As we have seen, some crimes ‘on the books’ are not policed in
practice, just as some behaviours which are not technically criminal are regularly
managed by the police. The police are the ‘front end’ of the criminal justice system,
and as such, they are responsible for detecting crime, responding to complaints and
calls and, more generally, for maintaining peace and public order. In so doing, they
make regular discretionary decisions about which sorts of criminal behaviour they will
focus on and which they will ignore. It has long been recognised that were the police
to arrest and charge a person for each and every criminal act that they witnessed on
an ordinary shift, the criminal justice system would grind to a halt. As a result, the
police play an important role in interpreting social perceptions about crime, and in
deciding which crimes are deserving of attention and which are not.

1.4.2 The courts

As with the other pillars of the criminal justice system in Britain, the courts underwent
significant change from the late 1700s onwards. By the latter half of the 1800s most
criminal cases were prosecuted in court by a police prosecutor in special police
courts. It was not until late in the 19th century that the role of crown prosecutor (and
the role of barrister) was established. By the early 20th century, the basic framework
of the modern court system had been established in Britain; a framework which
subsequently became the model for many common law jurisdictions.

As students of the law will know, there are two broad types of court in England and
Wales: criminal courts and civil courts (the United Kingdom does not have a single
unified legal system; there are different systems in England and Wales, in Scotland and
in Ireland). Together these two main courts, civil and criminal, are responsible for the
administration of justice. They are together known as the ‘judiciary of England and
Wales’. In criminal courts, there are two types of trials: summary trials (for the less
serious types of offences such as criminal damage or graffiti) and trials on indictment
(for the more serious types of offences such as homicide). For an adult (over 18 years
of age), summary trials take place in a magistrates’ court and trials on indictment take
place in a Crown Court. Nearly all criminal cases, however, no matter how serious they
page 22 University of London

are, begin at the magistrates’ court. Summary offences (the less serious offences)
make up the vast majority of the cases in court (over 90 per cent). (Every criminal
offence in the criminal law is listed as either: a summary offence; an indictable offence;
or a triable either way offence.)

A magistrates’ court is made up either by a group (known as a ‘bench’) of lay

magistrates, or by a single District Judge. A lay bench must consist of at least three
magistrates. Alternatively, a case may be heard by a District Judge, who will be a
qualified lawyer and will sit on their own. District Judges usually sit in the busier courts
in large cities like London, or they hear complex cases (for example, legal extradition
cases). Magistrates, on the other hand, have limited sentencing powers, and often
have no legal training. In a Crown Court, cases are heard by a Recorder (a part-time
judge), a Circuit Judge or a High Court Judge, and by a jury. The seniority of the judge
depends on the seriousness and complexity of the case. A jury is involved only if the
defendant pleads not guilty.

Like the public police, these courts play a key role in how we understand crime.
Despite recent changes to sentencing guidelines that require mandatory minimum
sentences for some types of offence, the judiciary operates with significant discretion
in interpreting the criminal law and adjudicating cases. In England and Wales,
magistrates and judges use this discretion to make decisions about sentences
in certain criminal cases – and these decisions are sometimes in line with, and
sometimes at odds with, public perceptions. We have known for quite some time, for
example, that the criminal courts treat different types of people in different ways, and
that this is often related to public perceptions about crime. For instance, the most
common public perception of a ‘criminal’ in England and Wales is of a young, black
male from the lower social classes. Likewise, official figures demonstrate that criminal
offenders are found in disproportionate numbers among these same subgroups of
the population (Coleman and Moynihan, 1996, p.91). This is not necessarily about
one particular group of people actually committing more crime, however; in fact,
criminologists now tend to agree that there is a clear relationship between how
society perceives the ‘ideal criminal’ and how the criminal courts make decisions in
legal cases. More specifically, the Ministry of Justice (2013) found that for black, Asian
and Chinese people, the most common sentence in court is immediate custody, while
for white people the most common sentence is community service (even in the case
of indictable level offences).

The criminal courts therefore play a key role in interpreting what does and does
not ‘count’ as serious crime, and people of different demographic backgrounds are
treated differently by the courts (even for the same criminal offence). In fact, judicial
decisions are often connected to the demographic characteristics of the offender
that is standing before them. (Criminologists have also demonstrated, for instance,
that women represent nearly a quarter of those found guilty in court, but only about
5 per cent of those who end up in prison, suggesting that women are treated far more
leniently by the courts, and are more likely than men to be given a community or a
commuted sentence.)

As we have seen in this chapter, the concept of crime – and indeed what criminology
actually is – remains a subject of debate. Some rather different disciplinary traditions,
theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches have contributed to the
development of criminology since the 18th century, making it a truly interdisciplinary
terrain comprised of some rather different viewpoints. While contemporary
criminologists play a key role in how we understand crime and criminality today, the
criminal law and the criminal justice system – mechanisms that have been built to
address the problem of crime – also contribute to public understanding of what counts
as crime and what does not. In the next chapter we explore two of the key ways in
which crime is measured, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of these techniques.
Introduction to criminology 1 Introduction page 23

Activity 1.1
Read Reiner, R. Crime: the mystery of the common-sense concept. (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2016) [ISBN 9780745660318], Chapter 1 ‘Legal conceptions of crime’ (available
on the VLE) and answer the following questions.
a. What does Reiner mean by ‘anchored pluralism’?

b. What is ‘positivism’?

c. What is the difference between the ‘consensus’ and ‘conflict’ perspectives?

Activity 1.2
Watch the TED Talk by human rights attorney Bryan Stevenson on injustices in the
criminal justice system at [Link]/criminal-justice-
ted-talks/ and answer the following questions.
a. To the best of your knowledge, do any of the ‘injustices’ that Bryan Stevenson
outlines also occur in your country?

b. If so, what is done about these? What might be done about these?

c. Can criminologists play a role in ameliorating such injustices? If so, what role
might they play?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw on the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 1 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would also
draw on one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Using examples, outline and assess two of the key perspectives on defining crime:
the legalistic approach and social constructionism.

Question 2
Critically explore the role of (a) the criminal law and (b) the criminal justice system
in how the public understands crime.

References
¢ Christie, N. A suitable amount of crime. (London: Routledge, 2004)
[ISBN 9780415336116].

¢ Coleman, C. and J. Moynihan Understanding crime data: haunted by the dark

figure. (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996) [ISBN 9780335195183].

¢ Garland, D. ‘Of crime and criminals’ in Maguire, M., R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds)
The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
3rd edition [ISBN 9780199249374].

¢ Garland, D. ‘The limits of the sovereign state: strategies of crime control in

contemporary society’ (1996) 36(4) The British Journal of Criminology 445.

¢ Ministry of Justice (2013) ‘Statistics on race and the criminal justice system’.
Available at: [Link]/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_
data/file/269399/[Link]

¢ Valverde, M. and P. O’Malley ‘Criminology’ in Dubber, M. and T. Hörnle (eds)

The Oxford handbook of criminal law. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
[ISBN 9780199673599].
page 24 University of London

Further reading
¢ Becker, H. ‘Definitions of deviance’ in Jewkes, Y. and G. Letherby (eds)
Criminology: a reader. (London: Sage, 2002) [ISBN 9780761947110].

¢ Hillyard, P. and S. Tombs ‘Beyond criminology’ in Criminal obsessions: why

harm matters more than crime. (Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2005)
[ISBN 9781906003142] (available at: [Link]/sites/
[Link]/files/Criminal%[Link]).

¢ Lacey, N. and L. Zedner ‘Criminalization: historical, legal and criminological

perspectives’ in Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford
handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition
[ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Lacey, N. and L. Zedner ‘Legal constructions of crime’ in Maguire, M., R. Morgan

and R. Reiner (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012) 5th edition [ISBN 9780199590278]

¢ Muncie, J. and E. McLaughlin (eds) The problem of crime. (London: Sage, 2001) 2nd
edition [ISBN 9780761969716] Chapter 1 ‘The construction and deconstruction of
crime’.

¢ Newburn, T. Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009)

[ISBN 9781843924029] Chapter 1 ‘Understanding crime and criminology’.

¢ Reiner, R. Crime. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016) [ISBN 9780745660318].

¢ Rock, P. ‘The foundations of sociological theories of crime’ in Liebling, A., S.

Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Tierney, J. Criminology: theory and context. (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall/

Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2005) 2nd edition [ISBN 9781405823616] Chapter 1
‘Criminology, crime and deviance: some preliminaries’.
2 Measuring crime

Contents
2.1 Measuring crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.2 Police Recorded Crime Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

2.3 National surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

2.4 Crime data and crime trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

page 26 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 3 ‘Crime data and crime trends’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand how crime is measured
u appreciate what is meant by ‘the dark figure of crime’ and the problems it
presents for criminologists
u understand how Police Recorded Crime Statistics (PRCS) are collected, as well as
their benefits and drawbacks
u understand how national surveys are carried out, and their benefits and
drawbacks.
Introduction to criminology 2 Measuring crime page 27

2.1 Measuring crime

Measuring crime and making sense of patterns in criminal behaviour is one of the
cornerstones of modern criminology. Not all criminologists, however, spend their
time researching things like how many homicides or robberies there are in any given
year. The field of contemporary criminology is far more diverse. Yet, some basic
measurement and analysis of crime trends has long played an important role in
criminology and is central to how it is taught at university. As we saw in the previous
chapter, the empirical measurement of actual crime rates is what David Garland (2002)
might refer to as the ‘governmental project’ of criminology, or what Valverde and
O’Malley (2014) would refer to as the empirical/evaluative strand. The key questions
guiding the measurement of crime tend to be ‘How much crime is there?’ and ‘How do
we find this out?’

Measuring crime in any complex society will be problematic. Although it might allow
us to answer some questions – such as how many homicides the police have to deal
with in any given year – on the whole we can only measure certain types of crime in
this way; for others, we remain largely in the dark. For example, we tend to know more
about the types of crimes that are regularly reported to the police (and reported in
high ratios, compared with their occurrence), as well as those that victims of crime
or criminal offenders themselves are willing to tell us about when we ask them in
surveys.

For example, serious crimes like homicide and robbery are very well accounted for
in official statistics; the vast majority of homicides and robberies are reported to the
police, so we have a good measurement of those crimes. Crimes like sexual assault
and hate crimes, however, are not always reported to the police, and so we have less
information about them. For example, in the calendar year 2017, police in England and
Wales recorded a total of 121,187 sexual offences. According to the Crime Survey for
England and Wales, however (of which, more below), when the government asked
people about their experiences of sexual victimisation in 2017, there were actually
closer to 646,000 victims of sexual assault. These figures suggest that only about one
in every five cases of sexual assault is actually reported to the police.

And yet, while surveys can help fill out the official crime data produced by the police,
there are problems with them as well. For instance, when people are asked about
their experiences of crime and victimisation in surveys, the questions tend to ignore
or exclude crimes against businesses or crimes against those who are not living in
‘households’ (e.g. the homeless and the elderly living in care homes). Furthermore, as we
learned in Chapter 1, crime – at least to a certain extent – is socially constructed. In other
words, what is counted as a crime (and what is therefore included as part of our survey)
depends upon whether anyone knows about a certain type of criminal behaviour, and,
if so, whether it has been labelled by authorities as crime. Until 2016, for example, the
Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) did not collect data on ‘computer misuse’ –
a type of behaviour that was certainly occurring before 2016, but which was not officially
recognised as a crime in its own right. This means that there is no data on ‘computer
misuse’ before 2016, despite the fact that it was certainly occurring.

Although it is a difficult enterprise, however, measuring crime does allow us to

answer certain specific questions, and it can be quite useful for challenging popular
assumptions and myths about crime. In undergraduate courses in criminology, a
common exercise is to ask a group of first year students to rank a series of crimes in
terms of how significant a problem they think they are for society. Take for example
the following list:

u violent crime

u burglary

u vandalism

u benefit fraud

u tax evasion.
page 28 University of London

More often than not, students will put violent crime at or very near the top of their list,
burglary and vandalism somewhere near the top, and tax evasion and benefit fraud at
the bottom end. The actual measurement of crime, however, allows us to say something
empirical and verifiable about these preconceptions, and about the usual way in which
people tend to think about and rank the importance of certain types of crime.

For example, although violent crime is often at or very near the top of the list that
students come up with, it is actually one of the least common forms of criminality
in most Western jurisdictions. And yet the collective public perception – especially
in large cities – is that violent crime is rather commonplace and has been increasing
steadily year by year. In 2017 in England and Wales, according to the CSEW, only 1.7
per cent of adults were victims of violent crime. Of this, 0.9 per cent were victims of
violence without any injury sustained, 0.4 per cent were victims with a minor wound,
and 0.4 per cent were victims with a minor injury. Relatively speaking, 1.7 per cent of
a population of nearly 60 million people does not represent a particularly high rate of
violent crime. By contrast, the Tax Justice Network recently estimated that tax evasion
costs the United Kingdom in excess of £70 billion per year – a figure which equates
roughly to the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of Morocco or Ecuador. The cost of
vandalism (or criminal damage) in England and Wales is roughly £2.1 billion per year.
And benefit fraud costs UK taxpayers in excess of £1.2 billion every year, while burglary
costs roughly £415 million. These figures suggest that (while it is difficult to compare
the harms associated with an assault on a person to the financial losses associated
with crimes such as tax evasion) in our estimation of the scope of the problem, tax
evasion, vandalism and benefit fraud are among the most significant, widespread and
costly crimes in English society. On the other hand, the rate of violent crime is often
overestimated by the public (and by the media), and violent crime is actually one of the
least common types of crime in England and Wales, as it is in most Western countries.

Another example to illustrate the point: terrorism is of great concern across the world
today. In North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and elsewhere, there
have been massive amounts of money and a great number of resources devoted to
countering it. This includes substantial budgets for police and counter-terrorism
agencies, but also new counter-terrorism powers and laws (on this, more in Part
III). Indeed, in most Western states, it would be fair to say that terrorism is the key
problem of the 21st century (to this point anyway). In the United Kingdom, since 2015,
the government has increased its counter-terrorism budget by 30 per cent, including
an additional £500 million for the Security Service (MI5), the Special Air Service (SAS)
and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In 2019, the Home Office
annual budget was increased from £707 million to £757 million to further support
and strengthen counter-terrorism efforts. These represent significant sums of money,
and have led to substantial increases in counter-terrorism personnel, as well as new
developments in security technologies (such as the use of facial recognition software
across the hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras in London). But are these
responses proportionate? What do we know about terrorism in empirical terms, and
how likely it is to occur in the near future? The standard line in the USA, as in Britain
and most of Europe, is that terrorism is the gravest threat facing the world today, and
is deserving of such resources, and more. But is it? Can we verify this claim?

Between the years 2000 and 2017, a total of 92 people were killed in England and Wales
in terrorist attacks. This equates to approximately 5.4 people per year on average,
and to roughly 0.02 persons per day (averaged over this period). Put simply, and
somewhat crudely, terrorism kills on average just over five people per year in England
and Wales. On the other hand, approximately nine people are killed every single day
in the United Kingdom in traffic accidents. In any given calendar year, traffic accidents
kill an average of 3,285 people in the United Kingdom, while terrorists kill about five.
Furthermore, according to publicly available research, around 24,000 people die each
year in the United Kingdom from occupational cancers. The Department of Health has
also found that between 1,200 and 1,500 people die each year from sudden injury at
work. Even food poisoning, bee stings and dog attacks claim more lives per year (on
average) than do terrorists. In terms of loss of life, then, terrorism ranks rather low on
the list of dangers to the lives of those in the United Kingdom. Statistically speaking,
Introduction to criminology 2 Measuring crime page 29

more people in England and Wales will die this year from hot water burns and from
falling out of bed than from terrorism. More people will die by drowning in their
bathtubs or texting while driving. This does not mean of course that terrorism is not a
problem, or that it should not be addressed with significant resources: it certainly is,
and it certainly should. But it does make clear – at least in the United Kingdom – that
the number of people who die in terrorist attacks is extremely low in comparison to
other threats like traffic accidents and occupational cancers (let alone heart disease
and lung cancer, which remain among the leading causes of death in the West).
This makes it patently clear how important the measurement of crime is, not just
for understanding the scale and the scope of any given crime problem but also for
questioning popular myths and common assumptions about criminal activity, and the
extent to which they affect our lives.

Broadly speaking, therefore, there are two key ways of measuring crime. The first and
perhaps most common is to collate data that is collected by the public police in the
course of their work. In the USA, this data is collected by all police forces each month
and then sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for analysis. Once analysed,
the results are published as Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which are made available to
the public. In England and Wales, police data is referred to as Police Recorded Crime
Statistics (PRCS), or just Recorded Crime Statistics. Each of the 43 local police forces
in England and Wales sends their crime data to the Home Office annually, where it is
collated and passed along to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). As we will shortly
see, there are many problems with the data that is collected by the police. Perhaps
one of the most significant issues is that there is a great deal of crime that never makes
it into official police recorded crime figures because it is never reported to the police.
In criminology we refer to this as ‘the dark figure of crime’ and it is understood to
be a much larger proportion of all crime than actually reported. To explain the ‘dark
figure of crime’, the analogy of an iceberg is often used, where police recorded crime
represents just the tip of the iceberg – what is visible above the water line – and the
‘dark figure’ of unreported crime is the much larger portion of the iceberg, which
remains invisible beneath the water.

The other key way of measuring crime is a more recent development. Once it became
widely recognised that police recorded crime data could only ever provide a partial
and limited view of criminality, national surveys were developed. Social scientists have
long used surveys of various types but, starting in the 1970s, Western governments
began to specifically target the ‘dark figure’ of unreported crime through national
surveys. This data is collected by asking people about their experiences of
victimisation and, in particular, about their experiences of victimisation that were not
reported to the police.

Since 1972, there has been a National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in the USA,
which is now conducted twice per year. In the United Kingdom, the British Crime
Survey was introduced in 1981. Today, there is a separate Crime Survey for England
and Wales, a Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and a Northern Ireland Crime Survey.
Despite the fact that these surveys are relatively new – in comparison to police
recorded data – it is now generally accepted by both criminologists and by the Office
of National Statistics in the United Kingdom, that national crime surveys provide a
more accurate measure of crime than the data that is collected by the police.

2.2 Police Recorded Crime Statistics

Police Recorded Crime Statistics (PRCS) – sometimes referred to as official statistics –
were first collected in Britain in the middle of the 19th century. Judicial statistics were
introduced in 1856, and were essentially statistics on sentencing decisions by the courts.
In 1876, the first criminal statistics were published, based upon data collected by the
police and by the courts. Criminal statistics are still published annually under the title
‘Crime in England and Wales’. The data that is used in this publication comes primarily
from the police, but also from the courts and the prison and probation services.
page 30 University of London

Until the British Crime Survey was established in 1981, official statistics were drawn
directly from the police, and these were the primary measure of crime in Britain.
Each of the 43 police forces (plus the British Transport Police) collects data on crime
according to a set of recording rules established by the Home Office. Police then
submit this data to the Home Office which collates it and sends it to the Office of
National Statistics for analysis. While this data has certain important limitations,
recorded crime statistics do provide an important measure of police workload (i.e. it
gives us a clear sense of what the police are spending their time doing). They can also
be used effectively in analysing local crime patterns and trends (within police force
regions). PRCS are also a reasonably good measure of well reported crimes, such as
homicide and robbery. Other crimes – like sexual assault, which is under-reported to
the police – are not represented well in police statistics.

There are approximately 100 different offences identified in PRCS in England and
Wales. These are grouped into broader categories which include:

u theft and handling of stolen goods – which accounts for a large proportion of
crime, especially since the 1960s

u burglary – divided into domestic (household) burglary and other burglary

u criminal damage – to dwellings, to buildings other than dwellings, and to a vehicle

u violence against the person – ranges from murder to reckless driving; the majority
of violent offences are on the more minor end of the spectrum

u sexual offences – a broad category including rape, bigamy and incest; the majority
of offences in this category are ‘indecent assault’

u robbery – theft in which force or the threat of force is used

u fraud and forgery

u drug offences

u other offences.

Over the past several decades, a number of problems with PRCS have been identified
and made public. The most important and most often cited is that only a small
proportion of some types of crime are ever actually reported to the police: rates of
reporting vary substantially by type of offence. For instance, theft of vehicles has a
reporting rate of around 90 per cent in England and Wales; a figure that is probably
driven by mandatory insurance requirements for policy claims. On the other hand,
theft from the person is only reported about 33 per cent of the time: only one out of
every three people who have something stolen from their person actually report it
to the police. People decide not to report crimes for a variety of reasons, including:
thinking that the incident is too trivial to bother the police with; thinking that the
police will not be able to do anything about it anyway; thinking that the police will not
be willing to do anything about it; being too scared to report it; preferring to deal with
the matter in another way; or thinking that it is too embarrassing to report.

Some of these concerns have been clearly evidenced in criminological research

for some time. For instance, it has long been recognised that there is a substantial
‘attrition rate’ in the criminal justice system (sometimes referred to as the ‘crime
funnel’) where the number of offences that actually result in a conviction in criminal
court ends up being only a very small fraction of the overall offence rate. The chart
below, taken from Barclay and Tavares (1999), makes this clear. Of the total offences
committed in England and Wales, only 45 per cent are actually reported to the police.
Furthermore, only 24 per cent of all offences are officially recorded by the police,
and only 5 per cent are cleared up, (that is, result in a charge being laid). Of the total
number of overall offences, 3 per cent result in a caution or conviction and only 0.3
per cent end with a prison sentence. While the figures in the chart are from 1999, the
overall attrition rate in England and Wales has remained largely consistent over time.
Introduction to criminology 2 Measuring crime page 31

100
Offences committed

45
Offences reported

Offences recorded 24

Offences cleared up 5

Offences resulting in a 3
caution or conviction

Offences resulting in a 2
conviction

Offences resulting in a 0.3

prison sentence

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Figure 2.1: Attrition within the criminal justice system (source: Barclay and Tavares,
1999 in Newburn, 2017)

Attrition rates can also be analysed in specific criminal offence categories. For
example, in 2012 the Ministry of Justice in the United Kingdom explored attrition in
the criminal justice system in relation to ‘serious cases’. These serious cases included
rape, sexual assault, gross bodily harm (GBH) with intent and GBH without intent. As
the Ministry report made clear, there is a significant and steady decline in the number
of cases that move through to the next stage of the criminal justice process. Although
several hundred offences in each of these categories are reported to the police every
year, fewer than 40 cases in each category actually lead to a conviction in court. More
specifically, in 2012 there were approximately 300 cases of rape that were reported to
police. However, only about half of these were passed along to the Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS), and fewer than 40 ended in a conviction in a criminal court.

Further limitations to police recorded data relate to how police actually record
criminal offences. For example, if an offender is before a court on three or four
different charges, normally only the most serious offence (the ‘principal offence’)
is recorded by police. On the other hand, the same offender may commit three or
four different offences on three or four different occasions; in this case, three or
four different offences would be officially recorded. In addition, police recorded
crime figures only include crimes for which the Home Office requires data. The types
of offences which are often left out of reporting are the more minor offences, or
summary offences (called misdemeanours in some places, like the USA), unless the
Home Office has specifically required police to collect and report on them. These are
generally less serious criminal offences, like motoring offences (such as speeding), but
there are a great number of them. For all of these reasons, it would be a grave error to
see PRCS as an accurate measure of all crime. It is a good measure of some things, and
not so good a measure of other things.

In fact, in 2014, for the first time in British history, the UK Statistics Authority revoked
the National Statistics status from police recorded crime data. This unprecedented
move meant that in practice, while police statistics are still collected and analysed,
they are no longer considered official and reliable National Statistics, but rather a
supplementary measure of crime. Following an assessment of crime statistics by the
UK Statistics Authority, a report was published in 2014 which concluded that statistics
based upon police recorded crime data did not meet the required standard for
page 32 University of London

designation as National Statistics (see UK Statistics Authority, 2014). According to the

Office for National Statistics (2014):

Police recorded crime is not currently considered a reliable measure of trends in crime
for most crime types, since it is prone to changes in recording practices and police
activity as well as changing behaviour in public reporting of crime. As a result, trends
will not always reflect changing levels of criminal activity. Apparent increases in police
recorded crime seen over the last 2 years may reflect a number of factors, including
tightening of recording practice, process improvements, increases in reporting by victims
and also genuine increases in the levels of crime. It is often difficult to disentangle these
different factors.

In a context where PRCS have become fundamentally unreliable, alternative ways of

measuring crime have become increasingly important.

2.3 National surveys

National surveys are the second key measure of crime in many societies today.
National surveys are a type of ‘victimisation survey’. The objective of a victimisation
survey is to interview a representative sample of the population and ask them about
their experiences with criminal victimisation. Victimisation surveys began in the USA
in the 1960s and were designed to provide a more accurate picture of crime than that
which was provided by police recorded statistics. They were also a fairly good measure
of the ‘dark figure of crime’ – crime which was not reported to police (for whatever
reason). The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) was established in the USA
in 1972, and it is now conducted twice per year. It includes data from about 49,000
households and about 100,000 people.

The first major victimisation survey in Britain was carried out in the early 1970s in three
areas of London (see Sparks et al., 1977). The second was carried out in 1975 in Sheffield
(see Bottoms et al., 1987). By the latter years of the 1970s, the Home Office had taken
the decision to fund a national victimisation survey. Known originally as the British
Crime Survey, and carried out for the first time in 1981, by 2011/2012 it was known as
the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), and Scotland and Northern Ireland
now have their own versions. The results of the CSEW are published by the Office of
National Statistics and are publicly available online. Right away, immediately after its
inception, the British Crime Survey revealed some surprising facts. In stark contrast to
how such risks were portrayed by both the media and by the government, Hough and
Mayhew (1983) revealed that an average British citizen could expect:

1. to be robbed once every 500 years

2. to be assaulted once every 100 years

3. for the family car to be stolen once every 60 years

4. for their house to be burgled once every 40 years.

National victimisation surveys have also been extremely useful for exposing the ‘dark
figure of crime’, and indeed much of the crime that is typically not reported to (or by)
the police. There are, however, a number of limitations to national surveys as well; no
measure of crime is without its drawbacks. Some of these limitations include:

u The CSEW is a ‘household’ sample, meaning that people who are not living in a
household are not included (the homeless, those living in hostels, those in prison,
and those in care homes).

u As it is based upon households, the CSEW does not cover businesses, and so
commercial and industrial victimisation is absent from its data pool (such as thefts
from clothing shops or petrol stations).

u The CSEW asks people about the types of crime they have experienced, and, as
such, it cannot measure what are often called ‘victimless crimes’ (such as drug use
and drug peddling).
Introduction to criminology 2 Measuring crime page 33

u The sample size – around 50,000 households – is seen by some to be insufficient in

a country of nearly 60 million people, particularly in relation to crimes such as rape
and sexual assault, which are understood to be quite common.

u The CSEW excludes several forms of crime including corporate crime, state crime,
environmental crime, and crimes which are regulated by Revenue and Customs
and the Health and Safety Executive.

There are also questions about whether people will disclose to interviewers the more
sensitive crimes they have experienced (like sexual assault and domestic violence)
and whether victims even know that they have been victimised (as in the case of some
large scale frauds; consider the crime of price fixing, for example). (For other potential
problems with surveys, see Newburn, 2017, p.63.) Despite these limitations, however,
surveys – and national surveys in particular – have become one of if not the key
measure of crime in a number of countries.

2.4 Crime data and crime trends

One of the most common techniques used in many jurisdictions today – where police
recorded crime statistics and national surveys are used – is to contrast and compare
these two measures of crime. There are of course some difficulties in making reliable
and accurate comparisons of police data and survey results (see Newburn, 2017,
p.63), however, some important conclusions can be drawn from so doing. First, it is
abundantly clear – from the CSEW for example – that there is a substantial amount
of crime that is never recorded by police. Secondly, some of the sharp increases in
crime, as indicated by police recorded data, were not as dramatic as initially thought,
as the CSEW provides a slightly different picture with less dramatic increases (in the
early 1990s for instance). In addition, both the CSEW and police figures indicate a fairly
similar general pattern of crime. Most commonly today, police recorded crime figures
are compared with national crime survey results to provide a more nuanced picture of
crime data and crime trends than can be gleaned from a single source.

So, what can we learn about current crime levels and crime trends from these two
different measures? Probably the most common way of representing the overall crime
rate is to produce a chart which draws either upon data from both measures, or from
one or the other measure. An example can be found in Figure 1 of the Office of National
Statistics report on Crime in England and Wales for the year 2019: [Link]/
peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/
yearendingseptember2019

As has been the case in many Western countries, the overall crime rate in England and
Wales has been steadily declining since the early to mid-1990s. This decline follows
a steady increase that began in 1981 and peaked in 1995. Since that time, the overall
trend in crime has been downwards. While it is true that police recorded crime figures
show a slight increase in the overall crime rate from 2014 to 2016, the CSEW continues
to demonstrate a decline during this period. Indeed, this particular discrepancy – the
slight increase in police recorded crime during 2014 to 2016 – has been interpreted
as being related to changing policing practices rather than changes in actual (‘real’)
crime rates.

After peaking in 1995, there were marked falls in the crime rate until the survey year
ending March 2005, when there was a slight increase. Since that time, the underlying
trend has continued downwards, but with some fluctuation from year to year. Indeed,
the likelihood of being a victim of crime (excluding fraud and computer misuse) has
fallen considerably and steadily over time; around 14 in every 100 adults were victims
of crime in 2016 compared with around 23 in 100 a decade ago, and around 40 in 100
in 1995 (the peak survey year).

We can also isolate each measure – police figures and the CSEW – to see what sorts
of patterns in criminal offending they reveal. Police recorded crime data from 2016,
for instance, suggests that following a generally downward trend, there was a slight
increase in the total number of theft offences (up 4 per cent from the previous year,
page 34 University of London

from 1,751,761 to 1,820,079 overall). Police data also suggests that there were increases
in violence against the person offences (up 19 per cent from the previous year, from
936,281 to 1,117,969) and public order offences (up 35 per cent from the previous year,
from 192,250 to 259,432). There were also increases in criminal damage and arson
offences (up 5 per cent from the previous year, from 530,234 to 556,077), and sexual
offences (up 12 per cent from the previous year, from 103,292 to 116,012).

Addressing these seeming increases, however, the Office of National Statistics (2016)
stated that:

Improvements in crime recording practices and processes by the police and an increase
in the willingness of victims to come forward and report offences (particularly in the case
of sexual offences), are thought to have been important drivers. (Around 26 per cent of
all sexual offences related to non-recent offences, a similar proportion to that seen in last
quarter’s release.)

The increases in specific crime categories therefore need close scrutiny. According to
police data, for instance, the volume of fraud offences rose in 2016; specifically, there
was a 4 per cent increase in the number of fraud offences recorded by the National
Fraud Intelligence Bureau (up to 641,539) compared with the previous year. This
increase, however, was due primarily to the number of fraud offences referred to the
NFIB by Action Fraud, which increased by 26,318 offences (12 per cent). On the other
hand, offences recorded by Financial Fraud Action UK decreased by 9,516 offences (10
per cent) in the year ending December 2016. This suggests that even in specific crime
categories, any changes to rates of offending need to be closely examined, as they may
not actually represent real changes in crime patterns.

As all of this suggests, it can be quite difficult to get an accurate picture of crime rates
and crime patterns in complex societies. Most criminologists recognise that today,
even after substantial development and refinement of these sorts of measures, we can
only ever acquire a partial view of crime. The techniques used to measure crime have
both strengths and limitations, and they must be used together in order to generate as
accurate a picture as possible of crime in society. Both police recorded crime statistics
and national surveys have clear benefits and weaknesses, and these must be recognised
in any attempt to analyse the data they produce. As this also makes clear, any particular
finding about crime or criminal behaviour must be closely scrutinised so that other
relevant variables (such as changes to police recording practices) can be taken into
account. In the next chapter we explore how the media often misrepresents crime,
sometimes drawing upon these sources of data. This can and has resulted in widespread
public outcry over a specific type of crime, and in fact public concern can be so vehement
and so acute that new crime policies are established based solely on ‘penal populism’
(rather than empirical evidence).

Activity 2.1
Read Excerpt 1, Excerpt 2 and Excerpt 3 on pp.69 and 70 in Newburn (2017). Excerpt
1 is a Guardian newspaper editorial by Polly Toynbee. Excerpt 2 is a response, also
published in the Guardian, by Michael Howard (a former Home Secretary). Excerpt 3
is a response to Michael Howard by British criminologist Mike Hough. After reading
these excerpts, and based upon what you have learned in this chapter, answer
these questions.
a. Which perspective do you find more convincing, Michael Howard’s or
Mike Hough’s? Why?

b. Why might the media and certain political parties prefer to quote police
recorded crime statistics (rather than the national crime survey)? Does this
indicate some bias or underlying motive? What might this be?

c. The position of Michael Howard – while it may be influenced by his own agenda
– is one that many people have adopted; that crime is on the rise, and more
police with bigger budgets are needed. Why do you think it is so difficult to
convince people otherwise, when there seems to be clear and publicly available
information about the overall decline in crime rates?
Introduction to criminology 2 Measuring crime page 35

Activity 2.2
Read pp.72–74 in Newburn (2017) on self-report surveys and answer the following
questions.
a. What are the key strengths of self-report surveys?

b. What are the key weaknesses of self-report surveys?

c. Based upon what you have read, would you tend to trust data that was
produced by way of a self-report survey? What might this depend upon?

Activity 2.3
Access the statistical bulletin on crime in England and Wales (year ending 2017)
at [Link]/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/
crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingdecember2017 and answer the following
questions.
a. What does the CSEW show in terms of the level of violence in recent years? Is it
going up, down or remaining stable?

b. What are the main highlights of the bulletin in terms of what is happening with
theft?

c. What has happened to the rate of violent crime according to police recorded
crime data?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 2 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Critically explore police recorded crime statistics, including their strengths and
weaknesses.

Question 2
Explain what criminologists mean by ‘the dark figure of crime’, and explain some of
the measures they use to try to reveal it.

References
¢ Barclay, G. and C. Tavares Digest 4: information on the Criminal Justice System in
England and Wales. (London: Home Office, 1999) [ISBN 9781840823165].

¢ Bottoms, A.E., R. Mawby and M. Walker ‘A localised crime survey in contrasting

areas of a city’ (1987) 27 British Journal of Criminology 125.

¢ Hough, M. and P. Mayhew The British Crime Survey: First Report. (London: HMSO,
1983) [ISBN 9780113407866].

¢ Ministry of Justice ‘Understanding the Progression of Serious Cases Through

the Criminal Justice System’ (2012) Ministry of Justice Research Series 11/12.
Available at: [Link]
progression-of-serious-cases-through-the-criminal-justice-system

¢ Sparks, R., H. Genn and D. Dodd Surveying victims: a study of the measurement
of criminal victimization, perceptions of crime and attitudes to criminal justice.
(London: Wiley, 1977) [ISBN 9780471994947].

¢ UK Statistics Authority Assessment of Compliance with the Code of Practice for

Offical Statistics: Statistics on Crime in England and Wales. Assessment Report
268 (2014) Available at: [Link]/archive/assessment/
assessment/assessment-reports/assessment-report-268---statistics-on-crime-in-
[Link]
page 36 University of London

Further reading
¢ Carrabine, E. et al. Criminology: a sociological introduction. (London: Routledge,
2014) [ISBN 9780415640800] Chapter 2 ‘Histories of crime’.

¢ Coleman, C. and M. Moynihan Understanding crime data: haunted by the dark

figure. (Buckinghamshire: Open University Press, 1996) [ISBN 9780335195183]
Chapters 1–4.

¢ Croall, H. Crime and society in Britain. (Harlow: Longman, 2011) 2nd edition
[ISBN 9781405873352] Chapter 3 ‘Finding out about crime’.

¢ Hope, T. ‘What do crime statistics tell us?’ in Hale, C. K. Hayward, A. Wahadin and
E. Wincup, E (eds) Criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 3rd edition
[ISBN 9780199691296].

¢ Maguire, M. ‘Crime statistics: the “data explosion” and its implications’ in

Maguire, M., R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 3rd edition [ISBN 9780199249374].

¢ Maguire and McVie ‘Crime data and criminal statistics’ in Liebling, A., S. Maruna
and L. McVie (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Tierney, J. Criminology: theory and context. (Harlow: Pearson, 2009) 2nd edition
[ISBN 9780273722779] Chapter 2 ‘Measuring crime and criminality’.

¢ Weatherburn, D. ‘Uses and abuses of crime statistics’ Crime and Justice Bulletin,
Vol. 153 (NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2011).

¢ Williams, K.S. Textbook on criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

7th edition [ISBN 9780199592708] Chapter 4 ‘The extent of crime: a comparison
of official and unofficial calculations’.
3 Crime, media and politics

Contents
3.1 The media and crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3.2 Media representations of crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.3 Moral panics and their consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3.4 Penal populism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

page 38 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 4 ‘Crime and the media’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u appreciate the relationship between the media and public perceptions of crime
u understand why the media (mis)represents crime in the way that it does
u understand the concept of the ‘moral panic’
u be able to explain how public perceptions of crime influence the politics of
crime, and some of the problems associated with this.
Introduction to criminology 3 Crime, media and politics page 39

3.1 The media and crime

Wherever we live in the world, and however we spend our days, we are increasingly
surrounded by many different forms of media. The most common include television,
print, radio and the internet. As we saw in Chapter 2, the public can have its own ‘popular’
perceptions about crime and criminality, and these are not necessarily consistent with
the empirical evidence. In fact, many popular assumptions about crime are contradictory
to the available data. One of the central reasons for this is that a great number of
people get their information about crime from the media – and the media often has a
vested interest in presenting crime in a particular way. In addition, the media seems to
rarely report on the available crime statistics, and is typically more interested in selling
subscriptions or advertising slots than in conveying the intricate nuances of the available
empirical evidence. Understanding the relationship between media representations
of crime and our popular perceptions is therefore extremely important, particularly
in countries where it is often these popular perceptions that drive new crime policies
and criminal justice innovations. In this chapter we explore the relationship between
crime and the media, and how public beliefs about crime – shaped as they are by media
representations – can give rise to particular criminal justice policies.

In today’s global societies, the mass media are an almost ever-present feature of
everyday life. News travels around the world at great speed, meaning that we are
constantly inundated with information from afar. This makes geographical distances
less and less important and, in the context of crime, this can sometimes mean that a
surge in crime in, say, the USA, can have a significant impact upon what people believe
about crime elsewhere (like Europe). Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly,
crime has become a central feature of contemporary mass media; as Newburn (2017,
p.78) notes, ‘For television, cinema, magazines, newspapers and books, crime is a
central, even dominant, theme.’ Put simply, crime sells. It sells newspapers, magazines,
films, television advertising slots, books and website subscriptions. Indeed, people will
often tune in, sign up, click or subscribe just to hear about the next sensational crime
story. What society knows about crime or, rather, what society thinks about crime, is
therefore heavily influenced by how crime is portrayed in the media.

It is clear, for example, that the majority of adults living in England and Wales believe
that crime is on the rise: the 2019 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) found
that 82 per cent of adults believed that crime had increased nationally in recent years.
The same has been found in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of
Europe, where the majority of the public consistently believes the crime rate is going
up. In addition, the proportion of the population who believe that serious and violent
crime have gone up is increasing every year. By contrast, as we saw in Chapter 2, the
overall crime rate – according to the CSEW – continues to go down, and it has been
going down for more than two decades (since about 1995). Violent crime in particular,
including crimes involving a firearm, has also been going down for about a decade and
a half in England and Wales. Such misperceptions about crime (and about particular
forms of crime, like violent crime) are not exclusive to the United Kingdom. In fact,
research from many different jurisdictions – including the USA and Europe – has found
that the public consistently overestimates the proportion of crime that involves
violence, the volume of offending committed by people on bail or parole, and the
recidivism rates of criminal offenders (see Hough and Roberts, 2012).

In 2019, the CSEW asked respondents about their perceptions of crime and how these
perceptions were formed. The results made clear that, for those who believed that crime
had increased nationally, the most common sources of information that gave rise to this
misperception were: news programmes on television and the radio; tabloid newspapers;
local newspapers; and the internet. For those who believed that crime had increased
locally, on the other hand, word of mouth, local newspapers, personal experiences and
the experiences of friends and relatives were the most common sources of information.
What this suggests is that television, print media, radio and the internet are crucial to
how the public forms its opinions about crime, particularly when it comes to crime at the
national level. At the local level, local media is certainly important, but so are personal
experiences and the experiences of friends and relatives.
page 40 University of London

These sorts of questions are added to national surveys in order to explore what is
now referred to in criminology as the ‘fear of crime’. One of the most important and
perhaps surprising aspects of many advanced Western democracies is an inverse
relationship between actual crime rates (which are trending downwards overall)
and the public’s fear of crime (which is trending upwards). The overall crime rate
in many countries continues to go down (as it has since the mid-1990s), and yet the
public’s fear of crime continues to go up. Put slightly differently, people in Western
societies are more and more afraid of crime despite the fact that they are less and
less likely to be victimised by it. This fear is based upon misperceptions about crime;
as Eugene McLaughlin (2006, p.164) put it, the ‘Fear of crime is a rational or irrational
state of alarm or anxiety engendered by the belief that one is in danger of criminal
victimisation’. In criminology, the fear of crime is generally understood to be an
emotional (as opposed to a rational) response to perceptions about crime and one’s
likelihood of victimisation. Fear of crime continues to increase, despite the fact that
people are safer and safer year after year and, therefore, the fear of crime is related not
to actual statistical evidence but to personal, communal and societal conditions, as
well as to the sources of information that people rely upon.

The concept of the ‘fear of crime’ has been around for some time – since at least
the early 1980s in the United Kingdom, for example – and national crime surveys
actively try to measure it by exploring public views about crime. Indeed, in the United
Kingdom, the fear of crime has now become part of the government’s crime control
policy agenda. That is, it is seen as a distinct social problem in itself, completely
independent of actual, real crime. The Home Office made this clear in 1989 when it
noted that the ‘Fear of crime will grow unless checked. As an issue of social concern,
it has to be taken as seriously as … crime prevention and reduction’. The implications
of this statement are profound; what the Home Office is claiming here is that people’s
fears about crime – as irrational as they are and as inconsistent as they are with rates
of victimisation – is as significant and important a problem as crime itself. As a result,
public policy should be just as concerned with the fear of crime as it is with actual
crime.

This has since led to a number of different policy innovations that specifically target
people’s fears, including what is now commonly referred to as ‘reassurance policing’.
Reassurance policing is a model of policing that was designed in the United Kingdom
in the early 2000s, and which focuses on ‘signal crimes’. The idea of signal crimes was
developed by criminologists Martin Innes and Nigel Fielding to draw attention to
specific types of criminal and disorderly conduct that have a disproportionate effect
upon people’s fears and anxieties (see Innes and Fielding, 2002). By focusing upon
these signal crimes, so it is argued, the police should be able to reduce that fear and
so close the ‘reassurance gap’ (that is, the paradox that reducing crime generally
does not seem to reduce people’s fear of it). Piloted in the early 2000s by the Surrey
police, reassurance policing is now the dominant model of neighbourhood policing
in England and Wales, and it takes the fear of crime (rather than actual crime) as its
central object.

As important and interesting as these sorts of developments are, however, much still
needs to be understood about the sources of our (often irrational) fears about crime
and, in particular, the relationship between the media and public perceptions. Millions
of different events happen all over the world at the same time, and yet not all of these
will become news and get reported. An event only becomes news when a media
company decides that it is newsworthy. And, of course, such decisions will always be
based upon the interests of the news organisation as well as its own interpretation
of events. Media companies are, after all, businesses and their primary objective is to
make money. Of course, it would not be possible for the news media to report on all of
the events that take place around the world in any given day, and so decisions have to
be made – concrete and subjective choices – about what to report and how to report
it. It is these decisions, how they are made and by whom, that have become central to
criminological studies of the media.
Introduction to criminology 3 Crime, media and politics page 41

3.2 Media representations of crime

The media represents crime in a very particular way. Studies on crime stories have
found that the proportion of news devoted to crime has increased dramatically over
the past 60 years. In the 1940s crime tended to make up about 10 per cent of the
news. By the early 1990s this had doubled so that it made up 20 per cent of the news.
Today, studies suggest that crime makes up between 30 and 40 per cent of local
news. The proportion of news devoted to deviance – a much broader category that
includes behaviour that is not criminal but deviant in a much broader sense (such as
different types of sexual perversions) – is even larger. Deviance, according to Greer
and Reiner (2012, p.249) is ‘the very stuff of news’. Sex-based crimes, for instance, are
both over-reported and inaccurately reported in the news (Jewkes, 2011). Crimes with
an element of violence are also over-reported in the news (Greer and Reiner, 2012).
Indeed, comparative analyses of news reports have found that the ratio of violent
crime to property crime news stories is about eight to two (i.e. eight violent crimes
are reported for every two property crimes reported). By contrast, the property crime
to violent crime ratio is more than nine to one in official statistics (i.e, there are more
than nine property crimes for every one violent crime in the ‘real world’; see Greer and
Reiner, 2012).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, homicide has been found to be by far the most commonly
reported crime in the news. It accounted for one third of all crime-related stories in a
study by Reiner et al. (2003). According to the study, although homicides make up less
than two tenths of 1 per cent of all arrests (so about 0.002 per cent of arrests), they
account for between 27 and 29 per cent of all crimes reported on the evening news.
Homicides with a sexual element and homicides involving monetary gain, jealousy
or revenge are also more likely to be reported than homicides arising out of ‘rage or
quarrel’ (Peelo et al., 2004). On the other hand, other types of illegalities – such as
corporate crime and crimes committed by states – which are far more common than
homicide, tend to be either reported as ‘business news’ or ignored completely in
favour of violent ‘street crime’.

Furthermore, when victims of crime are depicted in the news, they are often shown as
white, female and affluent, or they are children. However, it is young men of black and
minority ethnic populations, living in poor and urban areas, who experience by far the
highest rates of criminal victimisation (while white, middle class females experience
the lowest). As this suggests, who is the victim of a crime also matters in terms of
newsworthiness. A famous Norwegian criminologist named Nils Christie once argued
that a crime is more likely to be taken seriously if the victim has certain characteristics
and meets a certain threshold. First, if they are perceived to be weak and/or vulnerable
(for example, children) and, secondly, if they were engaged in a ‘respectable project’
at the time of victimisation (for instance, if a woman was assaulted on her way
home from a charity event). Crime will also be taken more seriously if the victim
was ‘blameless’ (i.e. they played no part in their own victimisation, and were doing
everything ‘right’ at the time), as well as if they were victimised by an offender who
is seen/portrayed as ‘big and bad’ (for example, a career criminal with a long criminal
record, or a paedophile). Finally, that the offender is unknown to the victim also seems
to matter, as ‘stranger danger’ is more appealing to audiences than the more routine
victimisation that may occur in the home or between family members. Victims who
have these characteristics were described by Christie (1986) as ‘ideal victims’, and they
will be disproportionately reported in the news. By contrast, such victims actually
make up a rather small statistical proportion of all ‘real’ crime victims.

Building on these ideas, Yvonne Jewkes (2004) has outlined 12 ‘news values’ that she
finds tend to structure crime-related news. These 12 values determine the choices that
are made in terms of which crimes are reported in the news and which are not. They
include:

1. threshold (the perceived importance of the event, and the extent to which this
importance can be conveyed)

2. predictability (the less predictable the event, the more newsworthy it is)
page 42 University of London

3. simplification (the crime must not be too complex, and should be reducible to
small, easy to explain segments)

4. individualism (the more a story can be made to seem individually relevant, the
more newsworthy it is)

5. risk (the greater the potential risk to the public, the more newsworthy the event)

6. sex (any sexual component will always equate to greater newsworthiness)

7. celebrity (celebrity involvement increases newsworthiness)

8. proximity (the nearness of an event and its relevance to the audience also matters)

9. violence/conflict (arguably the most common news value across media)

10. visual spectacle/graphic imagery (to the extent that this is available, this greatly
increases newsworthiness)

11. children (any offence against children has a great deal of inherent newsworthiness)

12. conservative ideology (the possibility of referring back to a morally conservative

view of social values will also increase newsworthiness).

It is worth remembering that most media and news organisations are profit-oriented;
they are businesses, and they have a significant financial interest in keeping readers/
viewers engaged and interested. So, in a sense, how decisions are made about
what crimes will be reported should not be a surprise. Newspapers make money
through subscriptions, individual purchases at shops and – primarily – through selling
advertising space. Television and news radio make money by selling advertising slots
during their programmes. Even ostensibly free online news websites make money
through advertising on banners and through pop-up ads. When the overriding
objective of a news programme, website or paper is to make money, decisions about
what to report (and how to report it) will be understandably influenced by whatever
sells. And crime – particularly serious and violent crime, as well as any crime with a
sexual component – always sells.

3.3 Moral panics and their consequences

For criminologists studying the media, one of the key questions is whether it does
more than just report crime. Does the media, in fact, cause crime? On the surface this
might seem a rather strange question, particularly given that the media often portrays
itself as an objective, impartial observer that seeks only to convey the truth. Yet there
is evidence, dating back to the mid-18th century, which suggests a link between what
appears in the news and ‘real’ crime and deviance in society (for more, see Newburn,
2017, p.84). If, for example, the media reports widely on a case in which a driver speeds
a cargo van onto a pedestrian walkway, killing people, and then, in subsequent weeks,
a number of other people do the same thing, does the media have some responsibility
for this copy-cat behaviour? Contemporary research also indicates a number of other
ways in which the media might ‘cause’ crime. First, the media is often involved in
helping to label certain actions and behaviours as deviant or criminal, and in so doing
they play a part in the ‘discovery’ of new criminal behaviours (such as ‘organised
grooming’ which was widely reported upon a few years ago, and then criminalised
in England). The media also stimulates and encourages people’s desires for material
goods, yet, for some, these goods can only ever be obtained illegally. Others have
highlighted how the media can also undermine the credibility of criminal justice
institutions and glamorise offending, even arousing people through the repeated use
of violent and/or sexual imagery.

One of the most interesting and well-established links between the media and crime
is through what Stanley Cohen (1972) famously termed the ‘moral panic’. According to
Cohen (1972, p.9):
Introduction to criminology 3 Crime, media and politics page 43

Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition,
episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal
values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by
the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors …and other right thinking
people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnosis and solutions …the
condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible.

A moral panic, according to Cohen (1972), is therefore an irrational or disproportionate

social response to an event (often a criminal event) which is driven by how that event is
depicted in and by the mass media. Jewkes (2011) has described the role of the media in
this process as ‘deviancy amplification’, and it is represented in Figure 3.1 below.

A group of people As the story catches

Media picks up the story
engage in a deviant readers’ interest, media
and reports it selectively
act, which may be compete to produce the
according to journalistic
defined as ‘criminal’ by most attention-grabbing
‘news values’.
crime control agencies. story. Exaggeration,
distortion and sterotyping
may be introduced as
thresholds to keep the
story alive.

A process of deviancy Responses are forthcoming from a range of sources:

amplification is now • Public call for protection and crackdowns on the deviants.
in place. Increases in Levels of fear and intolerance are raised as a result of
real and perceived selective and overblown reporting.
deviance occur as • Politicians may seek to gain political mileage by jumping
the group revel in on the bandwagon and voicing concerns that echo
their new status as public fears. To prove themselves ‘tough on crime’ they
‘folk devils’ and become may seek to introduce new laws or strengthen existing
more like the ‘monsters’ ones to deal with the problem.
the media have • Police respond to public and political demands in
created. their enforcement of law and order, e.g. through
policies of ‘zero tolerance’.

Figure 3.1: Deviancy amplification (source: Jewkes, 2011 in Newburn, 2017)

Recent moral panics in the United Kingdom include one around dog attacks, one that
focused on paedophiles, one that was concerned with the rise of the occult, and one
about ‘killer clowns’ (see: [Link]/news/av/uk-england-37622492/killerclowns-
have-we-had-enough-of-the-creepy-craze). This is not to say that there was not some
‘real’ problem at the heart of public concern in these cases; only that the media,
through reporting, amplified the public’s fear, which in turn led to a situation where
fear masked the actual empirical reality. As such, the response – the panic – led to
dramatic changes (in law, for instance) that may have been neither warranted nor
helpful.

While the concept of the moral panic has become well engrained in criminological
scholarship, there are some who challenge its value in the context of specific crime
events. For example, Waddington (1986) contends that the issue of proportionality
must be central to whether an event is described as a moral panic or not. The idea of
the moral panic implies that the response to an event is disproportionate to the actual
scale of the problem, and assessing this proportionally requires detailed analysis of
each particular case. For Waddington (1986), concerns about mugging in the early
1970s, as well as concern with racial attacks later on in England, did not meet the
threshold of a moral panic. Notwithstanding these debates, the idea of the moral
panic has become a powerful analytical tool in contemporary criminology.
page 44 University of London

3.4 Penal populism

This leads us to another aspect of the relationship between the media, the public
and our responses to crime. Criminological research has demonstrated that media
culture – including decisions about what is newsworthy and what is not – is also
associated with higher levels of ‘punitiveness’ (Cavadino and Dignan, 2013). Put slightly
differently, there is a correlation between media reporting on violent and sexual
crime, the centrality of the ‘ideal victim’ to media reports (weak and vulnerable people
who have suffered at the hands of career criminals, for example), and media assaults
on the credibility of criminal justice institutions on the one hand, and increasing
levels of ‘populist punitiveness’ on the other. For the well-known British criminologist
Anthony Bottoms (1995), populist punitiveness has become one of the main drivers of
government policy and judicial sentencing; that is, recent changes to sentencing and
criminal justice policy (which have led to longer and more readily applied custodial
sentences) have been driven in part by increasingly harsh public views which favour
tough on crime approaches.

For David Garland (2001), populist punitiveness is central to what is referred to as

the ‘punitive turn’; a rise in incarceration rates that is characterised by a move away
from expert, correctional, rehabilitative approaches, and which is propelled in part by
populist politics. This punitive turn includes:

Harsher sentencing and increased use of imprisonment; ‘three strikes’ and mandatory
minimum sentencing laws, ‘truth in sentencing’ and parole release restrictions; no frills
prison laws and ‘austere prisons’; retribution in juvenile court and the imprisonment of
children; the revival of chain gangs and corporal punishment; boot camps and supermax
prisons; the multiplication of capital offences and executions; community notification
laws and paedophile registers; zero tolerance policies and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.

(Garland, 2001, p.142)

As John Pratt (2002, p.182) put it, the indifference once displayed by the public (in
relation to crime and criminal justice) has given way to ‘intolerance’ and ‘demands for
still greater manifestations of repressive punishment’.

It is important to note, however, that the existence of a punitive turn is highly

contested in criminology. Some argue that it is really only the USA and the United
Kingdom that experienced dramatic increases in prison populations starting in the
1980s. Furthermore, although the USA still incarcerates a greater proportion of its
population than any other country in the world, in 2016 the rate of incarceration and
the number of people incarcerated in the USA fell to its lowest level in many years.
Other jurisdictions, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, have
remained fairly stable in terms of the number of people in prison, and in some regions
the number of those incarcerated has actually declined (though this may also be
related to greater numbers of inmates being confined in local jails, as well as greater
numbers of offenders on house arrest and other forms of community sanction).

During the 1980s and early 1990s, public opinion about crime and criminal justice was
still poorly understood. The first major poll to assess people’s perceptions of crime
in Britain was carried out by the Prison Reform Trust in 1982, but it was not until the
late 1990s that the government explicitly sought to provide the public with more
information about crime and the criminal justice system. Since the election of Tony
Blair’s New Labour government in 1997, there have been sustained attempts to involve
the public in criminal justice (for some examples, see Hancock, 2004, p.52). With the
involvement of the public in crime policy, according to some, the criminal justice
system has become more punitive, while at the same time public attitudes have also
become more punitive. Given that many people acquire their information about
crime and the criminal justice system from the media, this suggests an important
relationship that needs to be understood.

Ample criminological research has demonstrated that the media plays a key role in
shaping public opinion about crime and criminal justice. And public opinion now plays
a central role in shaping criminal justice policy. In fact, the media is not a one-way
Introduction to criminology 3 Crime, media and politics page 45

purveyor of news; it is also the key medium through which politicians, interest groups
and the public convey their viewpoints. Unfortunately, this can lead to:

…something of a comedy of errors in which policy and practice are not based upon a
proper understanding of public preferences and opinions, and those same opinions are
not based upon a proper understanding of policy and practice.

(Allen, 2002, p.6)

Some television programmes, for instance, such as nightly news hours and
‘Crimewatch’-type programmes, are likely to invoke a harsh and punitive response
from viewers (see Jewkes, 2004). In addition, respondents to surveys who admit that
they watch television news regularly are not necessarily more informed about the
criminal justice system than those who watch mostly fictional dramas (Hancock,
2004). And, strangely enough, fictionalised ‘Soap operas [are] key sources of
information for the public as far as crime and offenders [are] concerned’ (Hancock,
2004, p.59). All of this suggests an important and yet complex relationship between
crime policy, public opinion and the media, and many criminologists now devote
a great deal of time to trying to understand the intricacies and nuances of these
connections.

In the next part of the module, we begin to explore some of the theories and concepts
that have laid the foundations for contemporary criminology. These come from
different disciplinary perspectives and from a range of different scholars who are
sometimes interested in very different sorts of questions. We begin by exploring
classical criminology and the ideas associated with several founding figures, and end
with an analysis of several more recent concepts such as risk, the culture of control
and governmentality.

Activity 3.1
Watch the video on moral panics available at: [Link]/watch?v=r61ks
18Bd7I&feature=youtube, which includes an interview with criminologist Stanley
Cohen, and answer the following questions.
a. Thinking about events in your country, have there been any moral panics in
recent years that fit the characteristics outlined by Cohen?

b. If so, what was the nature of the moral panic?

c. What was the role of the media?

d. What was the role of government?

Activity 3.2
Watch the video on penal populism (an interview with British criminologist David
Garland, now at NYU) available at: [Link]/watch?v=5rDo5RSNFJs and
answer the following questions.
a. What does penal populism mean, according to Garland?

b. What does the role of the expert become in a context of penal populism?

c. What examples does Garland provide of policies/laws that have been driven by
penal populism?

d. Do you think penal populism exists in your country/jurisdiction?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 3 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.
page 46 University of London

Question 1
Using examples, describe and critically explore the concept of moral panic. Be sure
to discuss the role of the media.

Question 2
Discuss at least eight of Jewkes’ 12 news values. Use examples to demonstrate
how they would impact upon decisions about the newsworthiness of particular
crime stories.

References
¢ Allen, R. ‘What does the public think about prison?’ (2002) 49 Criminal Justice
Matters 6–7 and 41.

¢ Bottoms, A. ‘The philosophy and politics of punishment and sentencing’ in

Clarkson, C. and R. Morgan (eds) The politics of sentencing reform. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996) [ISBN 9780198258728].

¢ Cavadino, M. and J. Dignan The penal system: an introduction. (London: Sage, 2013)
5th edition [ISBN 9781446207253].

¢ Christie, N. ‘The ideal victim’ in Fattah, E.A. (ed.) From crime policy to
victim policy: reorienting the justice system. (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1986)
[ISBN 9781349083077].

¢ Cohen, S. Folk devils and moral panics. (Abingdon: Routledge Classics, 2011)
[ISBN 9780415610162].

¢ Garland, D. The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary society.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780199258024].

¢ Hough, M. and J. Roberts ‘Public opinion, crime and criminal justice’ in Maguire,
M., R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012) 5th edition [ISBN 9780199590278].

¢ Innes, M. and N. Fielding ‘From community to communicative policing: “signal

crimes” and the problem of public reassurance’ (2002) 7(2) Sociological Research
Online.

¢ Jewkes, Y. Media and crime. (London: Sage, 2015) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781446272534].

¢ Peelo, M., B. Francis, K. Soothill, J. Pearson and E. Ackerley ‘Newspaper reporting

and the public construction of homicide’ (2004) 44 British Journal of Criminology
256.

¢ Reiner, R., S. Livingstone and J. Allen ‘From law and order to lynch mobs:
crime news since the Second World War’ in Mason, P. (ed.) Criminal visions:
media representations of crime and justice. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003)
[ISBN 9781843920137].

¢ Waddington, P.A.J. ‘Mugging as a moral panic: a question of proportion’ (1986)

37(2) The British Journal of Sociology 245.

Further reading
¢ Ben Yehuda, N. ‘Moral panics – 36 years on’ (2009) 49 British Journal of Criminology 1.

¢ Box, S. ‘The social construction of official statistics on criminal deviance’ in

Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009)
[ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Cohen, S. Images of deviance. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973)

[ISBN 9780140212938].

¢ Cohen, S. Folk devils and moral panics. (Abingdon: Routledge Classics, 2011)
[ISBN 9780415610162].
Introduction to criminology 3 Crime, media and politics page 47
¢ Coleman, C. and M. Moynihan Understanding crime data: haunted by the dark
figure. (Buckinghamshire: Open University Press, 1996) [ISBN 9780335195183]
Chapter 5 ‘Characteristics of offenders: the usual suspects?’.

¢ Greer, C. ‘Crime and media: understanding the connections’ in Hale, C. et

al. (eds) Criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 3rd edition
[ISBN 9780199691296].

¢ Greer, C. and E. McLaughlin ‘News power, crime and media justice’ in Liebling, A.,
S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Hale, C., K. Hayward, A. Wahidin and E. Wincup Criminology. (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2013) 3rd edition [ISBN 9780199691296] Part III ‘Social
dimensions of crime’.

¢ Hancock, L. ‘Criminal justice, public opinion, fear and popular politics’ in Muncie,
J. and D. Wilson (eds) Student handbook of criminal justice and criminology.
(London: Cavendish, 2004) [ISBN 9781859418413].

¢ Hough, M. and J. Roberts ‘Public opinion, crime and criminal justice’ in Liebling,
A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Jewkes, Y. ‘Media representations of criminal justice’ in Muncie J. and D. Wilson

(eds) Student handbook of criminal justice and criminology. (London: Cavendish,
2004) [ISBN 9781859418413].

¢ Morgan, R. and D.J. Smith ‘Delivering more with less: austerity and the politics
of law’ in Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of
criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition
[ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Newburn, T. Criminology. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781138643130]. Chapter 5 ‘The politics of crime and its control’.

¢ Roberts, J. and M. Hough Understanding public attitudes to criminal justice.

(Buckingham: Open University Press, 2005) [ISBN 9780335215362].
page 48 University of London

Notes
PART II – THEORIES AND CONCEPTS OF CRIME AND
CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR
4 Classical and positivist approaches

Contents
4.1 Classical criminology: from Beccaria to Bentham . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4.2 Cesare Lombroso and positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

4.3 Biological positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

4.4 Psychological positivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

page 52 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 6 ‘Classicism and positivism’, Chapter 7 ‘Biological
positivism’ and Chapter 8 ‘Psychological positivism’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u identify some of the key figures in early criminology
u understand the principles of classical criminology
u understand the central elements of positivism
u understand and appreciate the role that biological positivism has played in
criminology
u understand and appreciate the role that psychological positivism has played in
criminology.
Introduction to criminology 4 Classical and positivist approaches page 53

4.1 Classical criminology: from Beccaria to Bentham

In this part of the module, we will explore some important criminological theories
and concepts which have laid the foundations for contemporary scholarship. In
this chapter, we begin this task by learning about two very early and very different
approaches to understanding crime and criminal offending. Classical criminology
(or classicism) is based upon the idea that every individual has free will and so
makes rational choices to offend (or not). If this holds true, so the theory goes, then
a proportionate but certain and swift criminal justice system will deter people from
breaking the law because they will understand that the punishments for committing
a crime outweigh any benefits of the act. This is a primarily philosophical approach,
which is based upon certain beliefs and assumptions about how people make
decisions, and what costs and benefits they weigh in so doing. Positivism, on the
other hand, is based upon a more scientific approach to crime, and rests upon the
central idea that different factors can be used to distinguish between criminals and
non-criminals. That is, these two groups of very different types of people can be
distinguished from one another in some way. These factors – that lead to, or determine,
criminality – may be intrinsic to the individual, or they may be elements of their
immediate environment. If this is true, then it should be possible for criminologists to
clearly and simply distinguish between those who will offend and those who will not.

Most accounts of the history of criminology begin with these two different approaches
– classical criminology and early positivism. The work of both Cesare Beccaria (a central
figure in classicism) and Cesare Lombroso (a central figure in positivism) is viewed as
foundational. As we saw in Chapter 1, the science of criminology did not fully emerge
until the late 19th century. So, although Beccaria and Lombroso are often referred to
in histories of criminology (and both are often labelled ‘criminologists’), Beccaria was
actually a philosopher, a jurist and a politician, who happened to have an interest in
crime, and Lombroso was actually a physician who tried to use medical techniques to
‘diagnose’ criminality. Beccaria wrote his most famous works during the 18th-century
Enlightenment period in Italy, including On crimes and punishments (1764), one of the
most commonly cited early criminological texts. (For more on the Enlightenment, see:
[Link]/topics/enlightenment).

Lombroso, on the other hand, did most of his work more than a century later, in
mid- to late 19th century Italy (including Crime: its causes and remedies, 1899, one
of his most famous books). Lombroso rejected Beccaria’s earlier Classical School of
thought, including the idea that crime was a characteristic element of human nature,
something that everyone could potentially do. Instead, Lombroso argued that crime
was inherited, that only some people are ‘born criminal’, and that these people can be
identified by certain physical and physiological characteristics (or defects). Even today,
this question – whether criminal offenders are rational decision makers who choose
to commit crime, or whether their behaviour is in some way determined by factors
beyond their control – is one of the key subjects of debate in criminology.

While Lombroso and other positivists of the 19th century were reacting to the core
tenets of Beccaria’s earlier Classical School, classicists were themselves responding to
pre-Enlightenment thinkers. In Europe, before the Enlightenment period, individual
rights were not widely recognised, punishment was typically both arbitrary and
corporal (that is, focused upon causing pain to the body), and torture was regularly
used to elicit confessions. There was as yet no such thing as a criminal justice system
as we understand it today, with all of its protections and rights for the accused, and
its deliberative, fair and open public process. Classical thinkers, like Beccaria, were
reacting to this pre-Enlightenment context, and the development of now common
and widespread principles such as due process and the rule of law have their origins
in these early classical ideas. Classical thinkers were also the first to theorise and
philosophise about crime and punishment, and the first to identify rational ways
of delivering punishment that were meant to both provide a sense of ‘justice’ to
the victims and deter people from committing crimes in the future. Before the
Enlightenment, and before the rise of classicism, crime was most often seen as a
product of evil, and it was associated with an evil nature and the influence of Satan.
page 54 University of London
In line with the broader schools of thought that were emerging during the
Enlightenment in Europe, classical thinkers believed that a criminal is an individual
who is exercising free will and rationality; that is, they are just like everyone else (they
use rational thought in deciding to commit a crime). Classicists believed that every
individual – including criminals – acts according to their own ‘rational calculus’ or cost-
benefit analysis, which will determine their course of action. If this is true, then the way
to prevent crime from occurring is to convince people that the costs of committing
crime will always outweigh the benefits. In contemporary criminology, this idea is
referred to as deterrence, and it is founded upon Beccaria’s early proposition that
assuring: (i) certainty; (ii) celerity (speed); and (iii) severity in criminal sanctions
will prevent people from engaging in crime. By certainty, Beccaria meant how likely
punishment is to occur. Put simply, the more likely one is to be punished, the less likely
one is to engage in crime (if one is a rational thinker, of course). Celerity, for Beccaria,
referred to how quickly punishment is inflicted: the shorter the period of time between
the criminal act and the sanction, the stronger will be the association of crime and
punishment in people’s minds. The stronger this association, the less likely rational
thinking people are to break the law. Finally, by severity Beccaria was referring to how
much pain is inflicted upon criminal offenders: sanctions must be severe enough to
deter further criminality, but not more severe than is actually necessary to bring about
this deterrent effect. Finding this balance, what he referred to as proportionality, was
vitally important, and it remains a key principle of court sanctions today.

Thus, for Beccaria (1764/1963, p.43):

The end of punishment, therefore, is no other, than to prevent the criminal from doing
further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such
punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will
make the strongest and most lasting impression on the minds of others, with the least
torment to the body of the individual.

Many contemporary criminal justice systems still base much of what they do on this
general proposition: that the aim of punishment is and should always be to prevent
crime. In contemporary criminology (and in legal studies), this notion of deterrence
is further sub-divided into two categories: (1) general deterrence and (2) specific
deterrence. General deterrence refers to the impact that the threat of punishment
and the actual punishment have on the general public. The theory is that having clear
laws and making punishments known and visible to the public as a whole will deter
others from committing crime. The focus of general deterrence is not the individual
offender, but the rest of society. Specific deterrence, on the other hand, refers to the
impact that a specific punishment has on the individual who is being punished. The
focus of specific deterrence is therefore the individual who has committed a crime.
Both general and specific deterrence are central to how justice is administered today
in many Western societies, and both stem from Beccaria’s 18th-century ideas.

Such novel thinking also gave rise to a number of other principles that continue
to influence modern criminal justice and the criminal law (at least in common law
jurisdictions). For example, one of the central features of liberal societies is that
individuals should not be governed too much; that is, governments should allow
citizens to be as ‘free’ as possible. This idea is found in Beccaria’s early treatises; for
him, laws should always restrict individuals as little as possible, and only as much
as is absolutely necessary. Beccaria argued that the law should also guarantee an
accused person certain rights throughout the justice process; something that is now
referred to as ‘due process’, and which is fundamental to criminal justice in common
law systems. In addition, Beccaria claimed that the seriousness of the crime should
determine the seriousness of the punishment; that criminal penalties should always
be proportionate and should never be arbitrary or extreme (as this is counter-
productive). To have as great a deterrent effect as possible, he argued, laws should be
clearly written down, accessible to everyone, and they should be easy to understand
and make sense of. In this way they will clearly advertise to all which acts are forbidden
and what penalties these acts will incur. Finally, Beccaria also famously stated that
the infliction of punishment upon an offender must be free from ‘corruption and
prejudice’; that is, justice must be completely separate from politics and emotion, as
excessive punishment is inefficient and only increases crime in the longer term.
Introduction to criminology 4 Classical and positivist approaches page 55

Another central figure in the Classical School was British philosopher and jurist Jeremy
Bentham. Writing in the late 18th and early 19th century, Bentham is most often
associated with the principle of utilitarianism. Taking up the classical framework,
Bentham argued that while human beings are all rational actors (as Beccaria had
claimed), human behaviour is generally focused upon two things: maximising pleasure
and avoiding pain. This he termed the ‘pleasure-pain principle’:

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and
pleasure. They alone point out what we ought to do and determine what we shall do; the
standard of right and wrong, and the chain of causes and effects, are both fastened to
their throne. They govern us in all we do, all we say, all we think… The principle of utility
recognises this subjection, and makes it the basis of a system that aims to have the edifice
of happiness built by the hands of reason and of law.

(Bentham, 1789/1973, p.4, emphasis in original)

For Bentham, the criminal justice system and indeed the criminal law must ensure
that any pleasure gained from a particular (criminal) act is always outweighed by the
pain that will be inflicted through punishment for that act. At the heart of Bentham’s
thought lay what is now referred to as a ‘philosophy of utilitarianism’; the idea that all
social action should be guided by the objective of securing the greatest happiness for
the greatest number of people. For him:

An action may then be said to conform to the principle of utility… when its tendency to
increase the happiness of the community is greater than any tendency it has to lessen
it. And the same holds for measures of government, which are merely one kind of action
performed by one or more particular persons.

(Bentham, 1789/1973, p.7)

4.2 Cesare Lombroso and positivism

Despite the popularity of these ideas in Europe for much of the 18th and 19th centuries,
there were some intellectuals who began to criticise the Classical School. A few well-
regarded scholars began to argue, for instance, that in treating all individuals as exactly
the same (as rational actors who choose whether or not to commit crime) classical
thinkers had overlooked problems of ‘incapacity’. What they meant by this was, for
example, what role do forms of mental illness and learning disabilities play in an
individual’s ability to make rational choices? And are all rational actors really the same?
Do all human beings, from all walks of life, and from all corners of the world, really
think and reason in exactly the same way? What about children, or the elderly? What
about those with vastly different cultural backgrounds? Do they all make the same
rational choices as the average European adult? And if people act entirely according
to rationality and free will, why is it that the poorest people in society tend to make
up the bulk of the prison population (something which remains true today)? In other
words, for some scholars, the Classical School had ignored the inherent differences
between people who happen to coexist in the same society.

By the latter years of the 19th century, the Classical School was under sustained
attack as a more scientific criminology began to emerge. It is important to recall
that at the same time, in the mid- to late 19th century, the famous natural scientist
Charles Darwin also began to publish a number of highly influential books (including
On the origin of species, published in 1859). In these works Darwin demonstrated the
process of evolution and human development based upon natural selection. (For
more on Darwin and his ideas, see: [Link]/discover/charles-darwin-most-
[Link]) Such groundbreaking ideas had a profound effect upon all
of the scientific disciplines and, in particular, upon how scholars understood human
behaviour. In a nutshell, human behaviour came to be seen as something which was
determined by specific factors, including an individual’s biology and physiology. The
application of this principle, and of the scientific method that Darwin had used, gave
rise to what we now refer to as positivist criminology, the first ‘science of criminality’.
Positivists were not interested in constraining or reducing punishments for criminal
offences, but rather in focusing upon the elimination of crime. To this end, they
page 56 University of London

borrowed the scientific method, as it was then used in the natural and physical
sciences, and applied it to the study of criminals. For many people, it is this moment
that marks the birth of modern, scientific criminology.

As a framework and approach, positivist criminology was based upon several core
principles. First, that the scientific methods of the natural and physical sciences (like
biology and medicine) should also be used to generate understanding of the social
world and how people behave in it. Secondly, the basis of all scientific knowledge
must be facts that are collected by the scientist through observation. Thirdly, these
facts must be distinguished from things like a person’s values or morals, which are
matters of belief and opinion rather than truth. Fourthly, a scientific method should
be used to study crime and criminals, and it should be based upon: the development
of a hypothesis (a proposition or supposition that can be tested); the collection
of data through observation; and the testing of the hypothesis for verification or
falsification. This approach was quite different from the philosophically driven ideas
of classical thinkers like Beccaria and Bentham, and it is for this reason that positivists
often regarded early classicists as non-scientific. In addition, positivism was not only
different from classicism in terms of its method, but also in that it focused upon causes
of criminality that were beyond an individual’s control (in contrast to the Classical
School which believed that all criminals make a rational choice to offend). Some of the
key differences between classicism and positivism are summarised in Table 4.1.

Classicism Positivism
Object of study The offence The offender
Nature of the Free-willed Determined
offender
Rational, calculating Driven by biological, psychological or
other influences
Normal
Pathological
Response to crime Punishment Treatment
Proportional to the offence Interdeterminate, depending on
individual circumstances
Table 4.1: Comparing classicism and positivism (source: adapted from White and
Haines, 2004 in Newburn, 2017, p.132)
The Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso is often portrayed as the key founding
figure in positivist criminology, although his work has now been largely discredited.
Lombroso’s most famous works were published in the second half of the 19th century
(including Criminal man, published in 1876). In his research, Lombroso performed
autopsies on male criminals, and detailed examinations of living criminals, slowly
building up a data set. As a psychiatrist, he believed that criminals were ‘throwbacks’
to a more primitive stage of human development, and so they would always display
some of the physical features associated with primates, including:

…deviation in head size and shape… asymmetry of the face; excessive dimensions of
the jaw and cheek bones; eye defects and peculiarities; ears of unusual size… nose
twisted, upturned, or flattened… lips fleshy, swollen, and protruding; pouches in the
cheek…peculiarities of the palate… chin receding… abundance, variety and precocity of
wrinkles…excessive length of arms…

(in Newburn, 2017, p.133)

For Lombroso, criminals are born, not made. That is, people do not decide to commit
a crime (or not); we are either born as criminals or we are not. Being a criminal was
therefore regarded as something which was innate or inherent within certain people,
so it could be explained by identifying the physical characteristics that distinguish
‘criminals’ from ‘normal people’.

In the decades following the publication of Lombroso’s key works, he faced many
virulent criticisms. One of the more acute assaults focused upon his perspective on
female offenders. In 1895 Lombroso published a book called The female offender in
which he argued that women were less advanced from their primitive origins than
men, and as a result, they were more likely to be morally deficient than men. For
Introduction to criminology 4 Classical and positivist approaches page 57

Lombroso, women – because they were less developed than men – were actually
closer to children, and so they were also closer to a more primitive race. Prostitutes,
for Lombroso, were the most representative of female criminality; they were his
archetype of the female criminal. He argued at length that prostitutes possessed a
small cranial capacity, were likely to suffer from obesity, and were also slightly shorter
than normal women. They also, he claimed, had a more masculine voice and much
darker hair. His conclusion was that women with more masculine voices and women
with darker hair – especially if they were also overweight and short – were very likely to
be prostitutes, and this could not be changed as it was their inherent nature.

While many of Lombroso’s contentions have now been disproved, without question
he laid the groundwork for a momentous shift toward positivist and scientific
criminology. Indeed, positivism survives today, if in a rather different form. By the
turn of the 20th century, Lombroso’s research had successfully shifted attention
away from philosophies of punishment and philosophies of the law and towards
detailed, scientific studies of criminal offenders. As a number of other early positivist
criminologists began to follow in his footsteps (including his son-in-law, Guglielmo
Ferrero, with whom he co-authored The female offender), Lombroso entered into
collaborations with other scientifically oriented criminologists, and redirected his
attention towards what he saw as the more ‘social factors’ related to criminality. This
collaborative work between positivist criminologists eventually led to one of the first
typologies (or classifications) of criminal offenders.

Taking into account both innate biological and physiological factors, as well as external
social factors, Lombroso identified six different types of criminals which he grouped
into two broad categories: (1) those who are ‘atavistic’, and thus throwbacks to a more
primitive stage of human development; and (2) those who are ‘occasional’, in that
their criminality is determined by external factors such as education and opportunity.
The subdivision of these two broad categories is as follows.

Atavistic criminals u The epileptic criminal (when epilepsy leads to

criminality)
u The insane criminal (when severe mental illness leads
to criminality)
u The born criminal (when lineage and physical features
lead to criminality)
u Pseudo-criminals (commit crime involuntarily through
emotion)
Occasional criminals u Criminaloids (for whom opportunity is the key driver)
u Habitual criminals (where poor education and training
lead to criminality)
This early criminal typology in turn laid the foundation for the work of two prominent
Italian criminologists: Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo. Ferri broadened the search for
the causes of crime to the ‘environment’ and argued that every act of a human being is
the product of an interaction between their personality and their environment. That
is:

…in order to be a criminal it is rather necessary that the individual should find himself
permanently or transitorily in such personal, physical and moral conditions, and live in
such an environment, which become for him a chain of cause and effect, externally and
internally, that disposes him toward crime.

(Ferri, 1917, p.54)

Garofalo, on the other hand, was convinced that a robust scientific methodology
needed to be applied to crime, and in 1885 he wrote perhaps the first book with the
title Criminology. For Garofalo, the criminal is someone who is lacking in concern and
respect for others, and who is thus developmentally deficient. That is, criminals are
deficient in normal, altruistic sensibilities. Like Lombroso, he also created a ‘typology
of offenders’, although for him they were to be divided in terms of the absence of
certain ‘sensibilities’. According to Garofalo’s model, there are four classes of criminals:
page 58 University of London

1. The Murderer (completely lacking in altruism, or selfless concern for others).

2. The violent criminal (characterised by a lack of pity for others).

3. Thieves (characterised by a lack of probity, or honesty and decency).

4. Lascivious criminals (deficient in moral energy and moral perception).

Although many of these ideas no longer garner much attention in criminology, they
had a profound and lasting impact upon the development of the field. And without
doubt, this new ‘science of criminology’, wherein the scientific method was applied to
the study of criminal offenders, signalled the emergence of something entirely new.
Indeed, as we will shortly see, this type of approach is still being used today to explore
both genetic and psychological factors that may be linked to crime and deviance.
Generally speaking, however, there are at least three highly problematic assumptions
at the heart of early positivist criminology.

First, determinism: the assumption that there are things beyond an individual’s
control that compel them to commit crime. For many scholars, this assumption
completely ignores the role of human decision making, rationality and choice. And it
therefore leads to treatment programmes for criminals rather than responses to crime
which centre on individual responsibility. Secondly, differentiation: the idea that
criminals can be separated from non-criminals, that we all have some characteristic(s)
that identify us as either one or the other. For example, what about women who
have ‘masculine’ voices and dark hair, and who are also overweight and shorter than
average, but who do not engage in sex work and prostitution? How do we explain
this? And finally, the third problematic assumption at the heart of early positivism is
pathology: the notion that the key difference between offenders and non-offenders
is that something has gone wrong in the lives or circumstances of those who end up
committing criminal offences. But what about white-collar criminals, those who are
raised in privilege but who end up committing massive criminal frauds?

4.3 Biological positivism

In the 20th century, early positivist approaches were eventually displaced (although
not eliminated entirely) by a more sociologically driven criminology. Sociological
criminologists studying criminal behaviour tended to emphasise the importance of
social factors over individual factors, including things like poverty, education and
geographic location. Once sociological criminology had firmly taken root (on this, more
in Chapter 5), early positivist ideas associated with Lombroso, Ferri and Garofalo all but
disappeared from mainstream criminological work. There is, however, an exception or
two. Based in part upon some early positivist ideas, biological criminology has recently
begun to explore how aspects of biology (and the interactions between biology and
the environment) can impact upon criminal disposition. There is, for example, growing
interest in what is referred to as a genetic predisposition to crime; the idea that genetics
influence criminal behaviour. This is not so much about finding some elusive ‘criminal
gene’ but rather it is about determining if genetic factors play a role in whether people
commit crimes.

Research in the relationship between genetics and crime, however, will probably
always live in the shadow of the infamous eugenics movement. Popularised in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, the field of eugenics sought to explain all human
behaviour through genetics. In essence, this movement linked the traits that led to the
success or failure of an individual in society to their genetic makeup, and the passing
of genetic traits from generation to generation. Early eugenicists came to believe
that ‘feeble-mindedness’, for instance, was directly linked to criminality, pauperism
and promiscuity. For such thinkers, feeble-mindedness was a human trait that was
determined by genetics, and so it was passed from generation to generation within
families. This in turn gave rise to some very controversial (and in some cases barbaric)
‘solutions’. If bad genes are the cause of feeble-mindedness, and feeble-mindedness
gives rise to criminality, one solution is ‘positive eugenics’: an attempt to improve the
social gene pool by encouraging the genetically strong to reproduce more regularly.
Introduction to criminology 4 Classical and positivist approaches page 59

For others, however, the solution lay in more extreme measures – those which came
to be referred to as ‘negative eugenics’. Policy initiatives derived from negative
eugenics included: the permanent segregation of those with poor genetics from those
with normal genetics; sterilisation programmes wherein those with poor genetics
were kept from reproducing; restrictive marriage policies, where permission had
to be acquired for marriage, and only strong genetic lines could be connected; and
restrictive immigration policies whereby those with ‘weak’ genetics were prevented
from migrating or even entering a country. While programmes for confining and
sterilising the ‘feeble-minded’ carried on well into the 20th century in many countries,
by the 1920s the negative eugenics movement was losing steam, and was perhaps
finally stamped out after the perverse way in which Adolf Hitler interpreted these
ideas.

In recent years, however, there has been renewed interest in the relationship between
genetics and crime. Indeed, there are now claims being made by some people working
in this area that genes influence between 40 and 50 per cent of population variance in
anti-social behaviour (Moffitt, 2005). In this contemporary, biological criminology, the
genetic influence on crime is determined by testing whether families are more or less
similar in their criminal behaviour than would be explained by genetic makeup. The
key ways of doing this are by studying identical and non-identical twins and studying
children who are adopted at birth.

Studying twins is considered to be one of the only possible ways of determining whether
‘nature’ (genetics) or ‘nurture’ (environment and upbringing) is more important in
human behaviour. Twins share genetic makeup, but they may have completely different
social (environmental) experiences. Identical twins are the product of a single egg and
a single sperm, so they have identical genetic makeup. Fraternal twins, on the other
hand, are the product of two eggs being fertilised by two sperm at exactly the same
time, and so they may have no more in common (and are no more genetically alike)
than with their other siblings. The basic premise of twin studies is therefore that if
identical twins demonstrate more similarities in their behaviour than fraternal (non-
identical) twins, then this is evidence for the influence of genetic makeup (as those with
closer genetic profiles behave in a more similar way than those with different genetic
profiles). Alternatively, if all twins (both identical and non-identical) demonstrate more
similarities in their behaviour than non-twins (i.e. regular siblings), this too is evidence
for the influence of genetics (as it makes twins behave in similar ways, whether they
are identical or fraternal). The key problem with such studies is that twins growing up
in the same household may have remarkably similar social experiences, and so it is
difficult if not impossible to separate the influence of genetics from the influence of the
environment. To address this problem, some researchers have studied twins who were
separated at birth, and who would therefore be of similar genetic makeup, but who
would be raised in completely different environments.

One of the first twin studies was carried out in 1929 by Johannes Lange. Lange found
that of 30 sets of adult male twins, there was considerable similarity in offending
patterns between identical twins. A much larger study conducted in 1974 in Denmark
by Karl O. Christiansen, focused upon the behaviour of 3,586 twins born between
1881 and 1910, found that of about 6,000 sets of twins, there was strong ‘criminal
concordance’ (similarity in behaviour): 50 per cent concordance for identical male
twins, and 20 per cent concordance for non-identical male twins. Another study in
Scandinavia, in 1976, found evidence for criminal concordance as well: of 139 sets of
male twins, there was 26 per cent concordance for identical twins, and 15 per cent
concordance for fraternal twins. While these and other studies seem to suggest some
criminal similarities between twins, and between identical twins in particular, most
researchers still recognise that it is nearly impossible – if not completely impossible
– to ever truly separate genetic heredity from other (social, psychological and
environmental) factors. In addition, the level of criminal concordance is consistently
rather low, which suggests that even if there is some genetic influence on criminal
behaviour, there are other significant (and perhaps more significant) factors. Perhaps
most importantly, concordance itself does not necessarily demonstrate a genetic
impact, as there may be other reasons for similarities in behaviour.
page 60 University of London

To address these flaws, other biological criminologists have carried out adoption
studies. The emphasis of this research is on children who have been adopted shortly
after birth – the hypothesis is that if adopted children resemble their biological (rather
than adoptive) parents in behaviour, then this may indicate the influence of genetics.
Once they are grown up, adopted children’s criminal records can be compared with
their biological parents’ criminal records to see whether there is concordance. If
there is, then the biology (or ‘nature’) of adopted children may be more important in
determining criminality than the environment in which they were raised (or ‘nurture’).
Studies by Crowe (1974), Mednick (1977) and Mednick et al. (1984) have indeed found
some concordance between adopted children and their biological parents, although
the rate of concordance is rather low. Another study by Bohman (1978) found that
where a child had adoptive and biological parents with a criminal record, there was 40
per cent chance they would develop a criminal record. On the other hand, if only the
biological parents had a criminal record, there was only 12 per cent chance they would
develop a criminal record. Overall, most criminologists have therefore concluded,
based upon these studies, that the biological (genetic) effect upon criminality is
minimal. The general view is that:

1. biological factors almost certainly have some influence on criminality

2. this role is, however, generally rather small

3. biological effects are heavily mediated by other factors, especially social and
environmental factors.

4.4 Psychological positivism

In contrast to biological positivism, psychological positivism refers to approaches to
understanding crime which focus on the personality, the psychological makeup and
the learning processes of individuals, and how these are related to criminal behaviour.
Psychiatry and psychoanalytic ideas in particular have had a significant impact upon
criminology and how we understand deviant behaviour. Such notions were dominant
in the first half of the 20th century, and were derived in large part from Sigmund
Freud’s (1856–1939) psychoanalytic theories. For Freud, human beings are inherently
anti-social, and will always have pleasure-seeking impulses that conflict with broader
social norms. What makes human beings social (and law abiding) is the regulation
and control of these pleasure-seeking impulses. For Freud, the work of countering our
impulses is done by our Ego and Superego. It is the Id, on the other hand, that needs
to be controlled, as the Id is driven by the ‘pleasure principle’ and seeks immediate
gratification. These three aspects of the individual personality – the Id, the Ego and the
Superego – are central to all psychoanalytic theory.

More specifically, according to Freud, the Id is an aspect of our individual personality

that is unconscious (that is, we are unaware of it) and it entails primitive and instinctual
behaviours. It is based upon the pleasure principle and so it is the Id that must be
controlled if human beings are to exist peacefully in social groups. The Ego, on the
other hand, is another element of our personality, or so Freud argued, which is
instead based upon the ‘reality principle’. The Ego, based upon reality as it is, enables
the Id to function in socially acceptable ways (that is, the Ego constrains the Id). The
Superego, another part of our unconscious mind, contains all of the moral and social
standards and rules that we have internalised. The Superego is therefore the source
of our feelings of guilt, and it has two parts: the ‘Ego ideal’, which contains all social
standards; and the ‘conscience’, which includes information about negative social
views of particular types of behaviours. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic model, our
behaviour – and whether it is deviant or criminal – is therefore determined by whether
the Ego and the Superego are functioning properly and able to neutralise the pleasure
impulses that stem from the Id. To explain deviant and criminal behaviour, most
psychoanalytic theories focus upon the inadequate functioning or the inadequate
formation of the Superego.
Introduction to criminology 4 Classical and positivist approaches page 61

According to psychoanalysts like Freud, there are three sources of criminal behaviour.
These relate to either a harsh, deviant or weak Superego. If an individual has a harsh
Superego, this may lead to extreme guilt and ‘acting out’ behaviour which invites
punishment. Here, criminality is a neurosis based upon unconscious guilt over
infantile desires. A weak Superego, by contrast, is linked to self-centredness, impulsive
behaviour and psychopathy. Individuals with a weak Superego are egocentric and lack
feelings of remorse and guilt (like the classic psychopath). Finally, a deviant Superego
may result from a close relationship between a child and a criminal parent. Here, the
Superego standards develop but the standards that develop are deviant from the
outset. The consequence is an absence of guilt about illicit behaviour.

Another important set of ideas in psychological positivism is that which is known as

the learning theories. For learning theorists, criminal offending – like all behaviour
– is learned. Here, psychologists have sought to explore the relationship between
the individual and the world in which they live in order to try to explain deviant
and criminal behaviour. One of the most influential theories of this type is Edwin
Sutherland’s differential association. For Sutherland, human conduct is influenced by
the norms present within the particular groups that we are members of, and by the
norms displayed by the members of these groups. Becoming deviant or criminal is
therefore a process, and one which takes place over time; we learn it from others. This
involves the learning of attitudes and values and, in particular, attitudes and values
common to the groups we find ourselves in. Thus, we learn to be deviant or criminal
because we learn to take on the values, norms and attitudes of the deviant groups
that we are a part of. This theory suggests that known criminals or deviants most
likely learned their behaviour from the groups they were consistently involved with,
whether these were family groups, peer groups or others.

Another well-known psychologist, B.F. Skinner, contributed to learning theories by

advancing the concept of operant learning. For Skinner (1953), human behaviour that
results in desirable consequences will always increase, whereas human behaviour that
results in undesirable consequences will always decrease. This is a fairly simple but
powerful idea, and it centres on the notion that the consequences of our behaviour
will shape our future behaviour – if we behave in a particular way and the outcomes
of that behaviour are desirable to us, we will continue to behave in that way. On the
other hand, if we behave in a certain way and the consequences of that behaviour are
undesirable to us, we will discontinue that behaviour. Simply put, we learn from our
past behaviour, and our past behaviour (and the consequences of that behaviour) will
influence our future behaviour. Thus, for Skinner, either reinforcing a certain type of
behaviour or punishing a certain type of behaviour will be the most important way of
continuing or discontinuing that conduct.

Another important learning theory – social learning theory – was developed in the
1970s. Social learning theory was a combination of Skinner’s behaviourist approach
and cognitive psychology. The idea behind this merger was that both observational
learning (such as that identified by Skinner) and direct conditioning are important
in understanding human behaviour. One of the most famous consequences of this
approach is a broad set of cognitive behavioural therapies that are used to help
change the way people think and behave (for examples of such therapies in the United
Kingdom, see: [Link]/conditions/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/).

The three concepts which form the heart of the social learning theory approach are
learning, social and cognition. Learning is central, of course, as the framework is based
upon the assumption that much of what human beings do is learned. However, unlike
other animal species, human learning takes place in a social context. In addition, the
key distinction between human beings and other species is the complexity of the
human brain, and thus cognition is also important (mental events and processes that
we all experience individually, but which cannot be seen or learned from others; they
are internal to our own cognition). The key difference between Skinner’s operant
learning and the more recent social learning theory is that, while operant learning
stresses the importance of the environment, social learning theory claims that it is also
possible to learn cognitively through the behaviour of others.
page 62 University of London

Finally, cognitive theories are another important subset of contemporary

psychological positivism. Cognitive theories are approaches in psychology that focus
upon the relationship between cognition and crime. The concern here is primarily
with the relationship between thinking and crime. For example, Yochelson and
Samenow (1976) famously claimed that there were flawed thinking patterns (or ways
of thinking) that were common to criminals. For these scholars, while most people are
able to make rational decisions, the ‘criminal personality’ includes 40 or 50 different
‘thinking errors’ that can be grouped into three categories: character traits; automatic
errors; and errors associated with criminal acts.

Character traits Automatic errors of thinking Errors associated with criminal acts
Types of error u Pervasive fearfulness u Poor decision-making u Fantasies of anti-social
u Feelings of u Lack of trust behaviour
worthlessness u Secretive u ‘Corrosion’ of internal and
u Need for power and u Failure to understand external deterrents
control others’ positions u Super-optimism
u Perfectionism u Failure to assume
u Need for sexual obligations
excitement
u Lying

Source: Derived from Putwain and Sammons (2002); Blackburn (1993)

Table 4.2: Yochelson and Samenow’s ‘thinking errors’ in the criminal personality
(source: Newburn, 2017)
While Yochelson and Samenow focused upon cognitive development, others, like Jean
Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, have highlighted moral development. For Piaget,
the process of maturation in individuals is crucial and, in particular, how cognition
is structured and operates through this process. Piaget (1936) claimed that a child’s
reasoning goes through four main stages, and these stages can be used to distinguish
between a child who views moral rules in a fixed way and a child who views moral
rules in a more flexible way. For Kohlberg, on the other hand, there are six stages to
moral development, which are slightly different from Piaget’s, and which can explain
less mature moral development (which is in turn linked to delinquency). Such ideas
about moral reasoning have been highly influential in criminology and indeed in
criminal justice responses to crime. For example, parenting programmes, anger
management programmes and other reasoning programmes are all based in one way
or another on moral development theory.

Other approaches associated with psychological positivism include those which

explore the relationship between intelligence and crime, and those known as
biosocial theories (see Newburn, 2017, p.173). Generally speaking, many of the earliest
psychological approaches to criminality have very little support among the academic
community today. More contemporary approaches to psychology, however, are still
being developed, and they tend to highlight the importance of both psychological and
environmental factors. The idea that deviancy and criminal behaviour are somehow
always and already determined by innate psychology has been largely consigned to
the dustbin of academic history.

Activity 4.1
Go to DNAI’s interactive Chronicle on Eugenics: [Link]/e/[Link] There
are four interactive modules along the bottom of this page (‘Threat of the unfit’,
‘Trial of Carrie Buck’, ‘In the Third Reich’ and ‘Living with eugenics’). Read through
each of the modules and answer the following questions.
a. Who came up with the term ‘eugenics’, and when?

b. What were the outcomes of the trial of Carrie Buck?

c. What was the role of eugenics in Hitler’s Third Reich?

Introduction to criminology 4 Classical and positivist approaches page 63

Activity 4.2
The Criminal Justice Research Net (CJRN) website is a useful resource for succinct
descriptions of various concepts and ideas related to criminology and criminal
justice ([Link] From the CJRN homepage: (1)
click on ‘Criminology’; (2) then click on ‘Criminology Theories’ (in the list ‘More
about Criminology’); (3) then click on ‘Biological Theories of Crime’ (at the top of the
list headed ‘Criminology Theories’). From here, using the available material, answer
the following questions.
a. What are biosocial perspectives on crime?

b. Is there any evidence of a relationship between brain structure and function and
criminality?

c. What are neurotransmitters?

d. Which three neurotransmitters have been studied by researchers interested in

the biological foundations of crime?

e. What are the main findings of research on neurotransmitters and crime?

Activity 4.3
Go to the Simply Psychology webpage on ‘Operant Conditioning’
([Link]/[Link]). Read through the
‘Skinner – Operant Conditioning’ entry and answer the following questions.
a. What is Thorndike’s law of effect?

b. What are the three types of responses (or operants) that can follow a behaviour?
(HINT: he found these by placing animals in the ‘Skinner box’).

c. An underage woman drinks alcohol at a party on a Friday night.

i. Provide an example of positive reinforcement for this behaviour.

ii. Provide an example of positive punishment for this behaviour.

d. What is behaviour modification?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would answer the following sample
examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected to draw upon
the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from Chapter 4 in
particular. You would also be expected to draw upon the Essential reading. Top
answers would make use of one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Critically assess the Classical School of criminology and the ideas of Cesare Beccaria.
In so doing, you may draw upon other criminological ideas and schools of thought.

Question 2
Discuss the importance of psychological positivism for criminology, including some
of its key concepts.

References
¢ Beccaria, C. An essay on crimes and punishments. (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1764/1963).

¢ Bentham, J. An Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. (New York:

Hafner Press, 1789/1973).

¢ Bohman, M. ‘Some genetic aspects of alcoholism and criminality: a population of

adoptees’ (1978) 35(3) Archives of General Psychiatry 269.

¢ Crowe, R. ‘An adoption study of anti-social personality’ (1974) 31 Archives of

General Psychiatry 785.
page 64 University of London

¢ Ferri, E. Criminal sociology. (Boston, MA: Little and Brown, 1917).

¢ Mednick, S.A. Biosocial bases of criminal behavior. (Hoboken, New Jersey: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1978) [ISBN 9780470151853].

¢ Mednick, S.A., W.F. Gabrielli Jr and B. Hutchings ‘Genetic influences in criminal

convictions: evidence from an adoption cohort’ (1984) 224(4651) Science 891.

¢ Moffitt, T.E. ‘The new look of behavioural genetics in developmental

psychopathology: gene–environment interplay in antisocial behaviours’ (2005)
131(4) Psychological Bulletin 533.

¢ Piaget, J. The origins of intelligence in children. (New York: International

Universities Press, 1952) [ISBN 9780823682072].

¢ Skinner, B.F. Science and human behavior. (New York: Macmillan, 1953)
[ISBN 9780024112705].

Further reading
¢ Ainsworth, P.B. Psychology and crime: myths and reality. (Harlow: Longman,
2000) [ISBN 9780582414242].

¢ Baker, L.A., C. Tuvblad and A. Raine ‘Genetics and crime’ in McLaughlin, E. and
T. Newburn (eds) The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage,
2013) [ISBN 9781446270530].

¢ Beccaria, C. ‘On crimes and punishment’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in

criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Blackburn, R. The psychology of criminal conduct. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015)

5th edition [ISBN 9781422463291].

¢ Duster, T. ‘The increasing appropriation of genetic explanations’ in Newburn, T.

(ed.) Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009)
[ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Ferri, E. ‘The positive school of criminology’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in

criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Hollin, C. Criminal behaviour: a psychological approach to explanation and

prevention (contemporary psychology). (Hove: Psychology Press, 1992)
[ISBN 9781850009559].

¢ Hollin, C. Psychology and crime: an introduction to criminological psychology.

(London: Routledge, 2012) 2nd edition [ISBN 9780415497022].

¢ Howitt, D. An introduction to forensic and criminal psychology. (Harlow: Pearson,

2018) 6th edition [ISBN 9781292187167].

¢ Owen, T. ‘The biological and the social in criminological theory’ in Hall, S. and
S. Winlow (eds) New directions in criminological theory. (London: Routledge, 2012)
[ISBN 9781843929130].

¢ Rafter, N. ‘Cesare Lombroso and the Origins of criminology: rethinking

criminological tradition’ in Henry, S. and M.M. Lanier (eds) The essential
criminology reader. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780813343198].

¢ Raine, A. The anatomy of violence: the biological roots of crime. (London: Penguin,
2013) [ISBN 9780141046860].

¢ Webber, C. Psychology and crime. (London: Sage, 2009) [ISBN 9781412919425].

5 Sociological approaches

Contents
5.1 Emile Durkheim, anomie and strain theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

5.2 The Chicago school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

5.3 Cultural criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

5.4 Labelling theory and stigma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

5.5 Control theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

page 66 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 9 ‘Durkheim, anomie and strain’, Chapter 10 ‘The
Chicago school, subcultures and cultural criminology’, Chapter 11 ‘Interactionism
and labelling theory’ and Chapter 12 ‘Control theories’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand the importance of sociological approaches to the study of crime and
criminal behaviour
u understand what is meant by ‘anomie’ and ‘strain’
u appreciate the importance of the Chicago school and cultural criminology
u explain interactionism, labelling theory and control theories.
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 67

5.1 Emile Durkheim, anomie and strain theory

As we saw in Chapter 4, both biological and psychological positivism focus upon
individual characteristics and seek to understand the extent to which they determine
criminality. The focus of sociological criminology is rather different. Sociological
criminologists are interested in how wider social factors influence criminality. Karl
Marx (1818–83), Max Weber (1864–1920) and Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) are often
considered three of the key founding figures of sociology as a discipline, and of the
three, it was only Emile Durkheim who had much to say about crime. Durkheim has
therefore rightly been characterised as one of the original architects of sociological
approaches to crime, or what is more commonly referred to as sociological
criminology.

Emile Durkheim was a pure sociologist, which is to say, he was interested in the social
aspects of certain phenomena. As such, he was the first to argue that the notion of
crime itself reflects particular social conventions; conventions which can vary by time
and place. What he meant by this is that what is regarded as a crime at one time and in
one place can be quite different from what is regarded as a crime at another time and
in another place. This is because there is nothing ‘essential’ or naturally inherent about
crime – it is not a universal, unchanging reality or idea. Rather, what is regarded as a
crime and what is not, changes over time and place. It changes, according to Durkheim,
because social conventions and social conditions change over time and place.

For example, adultery (intercourse between a married person and a person who is
not their spouse) was illegal for a long time in Europe: it was a crime. Yet, between
the 1960s and the 1980s, nearly all European countries overturned their laws on
extramarital sex, as society’s attitude towards sexual behaviour changed. By the
middle of the 1980s, adultery was no longer a crime in most of Europe; the last
European country to decriminalise adultery was Romania in 2006. In India in 2018,
adultery was decriminalised after 158 years (although notably this was a law left
over from British colonial rule in India, not something that was banned by natural
domestic law). By contrast – and rather interestingly – adultery is still a crime today
in at least 20 American states, and it carries a sentence of up to three years in prison.
It is also illegal in the Philippines and in Taiwan, and in a number of predominantly
Muslim countries – including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Somalia – where punishments
for adultery can include fines, imprisonment, flogging, and, in some cases, death.
According to Durkheim, this difference in what is and is not a crime in different places
and at different times can be explained by the different social conventions and
social conditions in each of these places, as well as how these vary over time. So, as
Durkheim would argue, in those 20 US states, the Philippines and Taiwan, and in those
predominantly Muslim states, attitudes towards extramarital sex have simply not
changed enough to have adultery removed from the list of criminally prohibited acts.

As this suggests, something that is not a crime in one legal jurisdiction can be a crime
in another, at the exact same moment in time. This can even be the case within a single
country like the USA, which is made up of 50 different states and one federal district
(the District of Columbia, where the capital, Washington, is located). And something
that was a crime at one point in time in one legal jurisdiction can be decriminalised
in that same jurisdiction at another point in time. Thus, while homosexuality was
illegal for most of British history, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised sexual
acts in private between men of consenting age (those 21 and older). Indeed, same-sex
marriage is now recognised and performed throughout the United Kingdom, although
it was legalised later in Northern Ireland, where social attitudes and conventions are
quite different. Again, for Durkheim, these changes to what is criminal and what is not
reflect changing social conditions. Simply put, for him, crime is a social product.

Durkheim was also the first to suggest that a certain amount of crime is quite ‘normal’
for an advanced society. Populations now live in large social groups, and they have for
quite some time, with many people coexisting in large, dense, urban cities. As a result,
we have been forced to create rules which define how we must behave in such groups
– and it is therefore only natural and to be expected that some people will at times
page 68 University of London

break those rules. Since all societies must have rules that govern individual behaviour
in the group, all societies will also have a certain number of people who violate those
rules. As Durkheim (1938, pp.65–66) puts it:

Crime is present not only in the majority of societies of one particular species but in
all societies of all types. There is no society that is not confronted with the problem of
criminality. Its form changes; the acts thus characterized are not the same everywhere;
but, everywhere and always, there have been men who have behaved in such a way as to
draw upon themselves penal repression.

In fact, Durkheim is often referred to in contemporary criminology as someone who

is highly ‘functionalist’ since he argued that not only is crime socially determined,
and not only is it normal and to be expected, but it actually serves a number of
important functions. First, when acts are criminalised, this introduces new ideas and
new practices into society, ensuring that there is change and evolution over time
(rather than stagnation). Secondly, criminalisation reinforces boundaries in that it
helps to maintain social values and social norms (based upon what is ‘right’ and what
is ‘wrong’). That is, by proscribing certain behaviours as criminal, we also delineate
what acceptable behaviour looks like, and by punishing transgressions we reinforce
legal and moral rules. For Durkheim, crime – its delineation and its punishment – is
therefore a key part of the social ‘glue’ that holds a society together; it is functional.

One of Durkheim’s most important ideas was what he termed ‘anomie’. In studying
suicide rates in Europe – where suicide was a criminal offence at the time – Durkheim
found that patterns of suicide (so patterns of a particular type of crime) could be
explained by reference to social factors and, in particular, to the degree of ‘social
solidarity’. He distinguished between two types of solidarity: (1) integration into social
groups; and (2) regulation by social norms. ‘Anomic suicide’ was therefore a type of
suicide that occurred when and where social regulation by social norms was insufficient,
or weak. Put slightly differently, Durkheim argued that one of the keys to successful social
integration (and so low rates of suicide, a criminal offence) was the proper and effective
regulation of human desires. Where this type of regulation is problematic or weak,
individuals experience ‘normlessness’ which leads them to suicide (and other criminal
acts). Thus, weak social regulation, where individuals are insufficiently regulated by the
social group as a whole, produces high levels of anomic suicide.

By anomie Durkheim meant a state where individual desires, ambitions and appetites
are stimulated by society, but where they are insufficiently controlled or limited,
leading to certain forms of potentially criminal behaviour (including suicide).
Another famous sociologist, Robert Merton, later developed this same idea using
the Great Depression of the 1930s to make his case. For Merton, anomie results from
a misalignment between socially desired aspirations (such as the accumulation
of wealth and material goods) and the means that an individual has available to
achieve those aspirations. Since the Depression limited many people’s ability to
achieve socially desirable aspirations (like buying a house and/or a car), there were
understandably higher rates of criminality as more people experienced anomie and
were unable to accumulate wealth and material goods in legal ways.

This ‘strain’ between our aspirations and our ability to achieve them in turn produces a
number of different responses, or what are referred to by sociologists as ‘adaptations’.
Since not all individuals will be able to achieve the socially prescribed goals of the
society in which they live, those who cannot will experience anomie and strain and
may respond in one of four deviant ways. These four responses were described by
Merton as ‘deviant adaptations’ to strain:

1. Innovation is the use of illegitimate means (say, criminal behaviour) to achieve

socially acceptable ends (like buying a car and/or a house). This is where someone
who cannot achieve the wealth and goods that society tells them they are
supposed to achieve engages in crime to reach those goals.

2. Ritualism involves sticking to the ‘rules of the game’ (so not committing crime) but
instead completely abandoning the normal socially prescribed goals. That is, the
individual who cannot achieve the wealth and goods society tells them they should
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 69

achieve continues to engage in legal behaviour but rejects socially prescribed goals
in favour of different ones.

3. Retreatism, the least common deviant adaptation to strain, involves rejecting both
socially prescribed goals and the approved means of obtaining them.

4. Rebellion is where the individual attempts to replace both social goals and social
means with new goals and new means.

(Read more about strain theory in Newburn, 2017, Chapter 9.)

These adaptations to anomie and strain are often portrayed in a table which looks
something like the one below (the first entry in the table is ‘Conformity’, which refers
to when an individual accepts socially prescribed goals as well as the legal means of
achieving them).

Mode of adaption Culture goals Institutionalised means

I Conformity + +
II Innovation + -
III Ritualism - +
IV Retreatism - -
V Rebellion +/- +/-
Table 5.1: Merton’s typology of modes of individual adaptation (source: Newburn,
2017, p.188)

These powerful sociological ideas – the notion of anomie, the view that crime is
normal (and, indeed, functional in society) and the idea that it is social reactions that
frame behaviours as criminal – have become three of the central tenets of modern
sociological criminology. There have been, however, some virulent criticisms of
Durkheim’s work which have shaped the trajectory of more recent sociological
approaches.

For example, some scholars have argued that Durkheim’s approach underplayed the
role of powerful interests and powerful groups in shaping what is and what is not
considered a crime. Indeed, some critics have argued that systems of punishment are
more often than not shaped by powerful people and powerful groups, and so they
tend to focus upon (and criminalise) the actions and behaviours that run counter to
those people’s and groups’ interests. In addition, different types of crime seem to
generate quite different social reactions – that is, does the functional utility of crime
really apply to all crime types? Consider, for example, speeding or littering in public,
which do not seem to call forth the same moral outrage and social condemnation
as sexual assault or murder. Do both of these sorts of criminal behaviour engender
the same functional utility? Finally, Durkheim’s functionalist approach has been
characterised by some as circular or tautological: for Durkheim, a crime is that which
is universally disapproved by society, and yet a violation of collective belief makes
something a crime. For many this is a type of circular reasoning, or what social
scientists sometimes refer to as a tautology and, therefore, it is inherently flawed.

5.2 The Chicago school

By the early part of the 20th century, sociological approaches had begun to dominate
criminological work more generally. Sociological research on crime and criminality
was based in part upon the important work of Emile Durkheim and his followers, but
by the 1930s a new school of thought began to ascend. As we saw in Part I, even at
this time (in the 1930s), the word ‘criminology’ was not yet in popular use, although
this would change by the end of the Second World War. What became known as the
Chicago school was actually central to this process, and indeed to the emergence of
a powerful field of criminology in the USA. Sir Leon Radzinowicz, the famous British
criminologist, once remarked that:
page 70 University of London
In the years between the two world wars, the significance of criminological studies in
the United States of America increased out of all recognition. The European influence
was transcended… American criminology entered upon its germinal phase… It became
an independent discipline, unmistakably original in its approach and conclusions, full of
explanatory vigour, attracting minds of outstanding ability.

(Radzinowicz, 1962, pp.117–18)

And this powerful 20th century American criminology began with – and indeed
centred around – the important work that was taking place in the Department of
Sociology at the University of Chicago; a body of work which criminologists today refer
to simply as the Chicago school.

The Sociology Department at the University of Chicago was established in 1892 and
was the first sociology department in the United States. By the 1930s it was home to a
particular style of academic research based upon direct observation and experience
(often called ethnography). A great deal of the work in the department focused upon
the city of Chicago and, in particular, on crime in Chicago. At the time, Chicago was
the second largest city in the USA and was undergoing a period of massive growth and
change. The city also had a large immigrant population, and over half the residents
had been born outside of the USA. These and other particular social conditions made it
a perfect microcosm for studying crime and deviance in urban cities in the USA. While
a detailed account of all the research carried out by the Chicago school would take
volumes of work, it is possible to encapsulate some of the key studies and findings
that became relevant to crime and criminality. (For information on some of the key
thinkers in the Chicago school, see Newburn, 2017, p.201.)

Sociological criminology of the sort carried out at the University of Chicago was in
part the product of many rapidly changing social dynamics in the early half of the
20th century. These included the process of urbanisation (a steady and considerable
population shift from rural to urban areas) as well as mass migration. Crime in cities
came to be seen as a social problem (in Durkheim’s sense) that accompanied certain
patterns or ecologies in urban areas. Ecology – a term borrowed from biology – was
used to refer to the patterning produced by different populations within a larger
order. That is, the city was seen as having its own ecology, its own patterns and flows
that were produced by different populations coming into contact with one another.
Crime had therefore a social and geographical distribution within the city, and it could
be explained in part by its ecologies. Early work, including that by Shaw and McKay
(1942) determined that neighbourhoods tended to be relatively stable in terms of
their levels of crime (irrespective of their racial and ethnic compositions). In addition,
they found that crime and delinquency were much lower in areas of high socio-
economic status, and much higher in areas of socio-economic deprivation. This led
to the conclusion that the factors that helped to explain variations in socio-economic
status by neighbourhood would also be important in explaining variations in crime
and delinquency: poverty and low socio-economic status is linked to criminality in the
urban city.

Central to the Chicago school’s explanation of urban crime was what came to be
known as the zonal hypothesis or the zonal model. The core of this idea was that a
city evolved through a series of concentric circles, each of which was a zone of cultural
and social life that could be distinguished from others. The theory was that cities tend
to grow outwards from the centre in a series of concentric circles or rings, and that
this growth, this evolution of the city, tends to produce certain patterns of crime and
delinquency over time. At the heart of the concentric circles is always the business
district (or Zone 1); the core of a city around which the other circles grow. This core
business zone has a low residential population and high property values. Immediately
outside of this zone (see the figure below) lies the transitional zone (or Zone 2). For
criminologists, this is perhaps the most important zone as it has a more transient
population which comes and goes, and one that is generally poor and living in
dilapidated housing. Beyond the transitional zone are three outer zones, and workers
gradually move outwards into zones further and further from Zone 1 as they prosper.
Zone 3 is a residential zone including relatively modest houses for those who have
escaped Zone 2. Zone 4 is even more affluent and abuts the outer limits of the city.
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 71

Finally, Zone 5 is made up of suburban areas, with high residency levels and including
people who have generated enough wealth to escape the other zones of the city.

Y
FAC TOR ZO

NE
I
LOOP

II
ZONE OF TRANSITION

III
ZONE OF WORKING MEN’S
HOMES

IV
RESIDENTIAL ZONE

V
SUBURBAN ZONE

Figure 5.2: The zonal model (source: Burgess, 1925 in Newburn, 2017)

By the 1940s other Chicago school researchers had begun to test this zonal model
by using juvenile court records to explore the ecological patterning of crime and
delinquency in various zones. In 1942, Shaw and McKay found that areas of Chicago
with high delinquency rates also had: (1) a high percentage of ‘foreign born’ African-
American heads of household; (2) a high percentage of families on welfare; (3) a low
rate of home ownership and high levels of condemned buildings; (4) a decreasing
(rather than increasing) population; and (5) high rates of infant mortality, insanity,
truancy (absenteeism from school) and adult criminality. In sum, Shaw and McKay
(1942) concluded that high levels of delinquency and crime were a product of social
disorganisation, which is characterised by poverty, residential mobility and racial
diversity. They also developed the idea of cultural transmission, by which they meant
the process through which values (including delinquent values) are transmitted from
generation to generation. This, they suggested, explains why the same areas tend to
have high levels of delinquency over time despite a high turnover in actual residents
(i.e. people constantly moving in and out).

Another important idea that came from the Chicago school was differential
association. From 1930 to 1935, Edwin Sutherland worked at the University of Chicago,
and while there he outlined an idea that continues to influence criminological
work today. Instead of focusing upon the somewhat negative view that crime and
delinquency come from social disorganisation, Sutherland was more interested in
how criminal conduct is learned, how it is communicated within and between groups,
and how it is transmitted within and across generations. Indeed, Sutherland (1937,
p.6) argued that ‘a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions
favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law’. In
essence, his argument was that if a person is exposed to more ideas that promote
lawbreaking than they are to ideas which act as barriers to lawbreaking, then criminal
conduct is likely to occur. Following these very innovative ideas, a number of Chicago
school researchers further refined differential association, which was ultimately
summarised in a set of nine propositions.
page 72 University of London

1. Criminal behaviour is learned.

2. Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other people in a process of

communication.

3. The principal element of the learning of criminal behaviour takes place within
intimate personal groups.

4. When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes: (a) techniques of

committing the crime, which can be complicated or very simple; and (b) the
specific direction of motives, drives, rationalisations and attitudes.

5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of legal
codes as favourable and unfavourable.

6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to

the violation of law over definitions unfavourable to the violation of law (this is the
principle of differential association).

7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity.

8. The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti-
criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other
learning.

9. While criminal behaviour is generally an expression of needs and values, it is

not explained by those needs and values, since non-criminal behaviour is also
explained by needs and values. (Both a thief and an honest labourer do what they
do in order to make money; so trying to explain their actions by referencing their
needs actually explains nothing since their needs are the same.)

As influential as the ideas of the Chicago school have been, there are some criticisms
of this work that are worth noting. First, some opponents have argued that the
ecological (or zonal) model downplays or even ignores structurally determined
factors within cities which are far from natural (such as the politics of urban and city
planning, and the powerful interests involved in developing and redeveloping certain
areas of a city). Secondly, the idea of social disorganisation seems to have an internal
problem. Critics argue that social disorganisation is not always clearly distinguished
from the phenomenon it is used to explain (namely, crime and delinquency); crime
and delinquency are therefore equivalent to (the same as) social disorganisation,
so how can one explain the other? Another criticism is that it is not always made
clear by Chicago school adherents how criminal subcultures come into being in the
first place (as the focus is typically on transmission and learning, not the genesis of
criminal subcultures). In addition, some have criticised the Chicago school for relying
too much on official statistics, which, as we saw in Part I of the module, can be highly
problematic and even biased. Finally, others have asked: can differential association –
where criminality is learned over time – explain all forms of crime and delinquency?
What about emotional crime that takes place ‘in the heat of the moment’? How do we
explain such emotive crimes, or those which have been carried out by offenders who
have had little contact with deviant values or ideas?

5.3 Cultural criminology

In the post-Second World War period in the USA and Britain, a new sub-type of
sociological criminology developed, one which focused upon deviant and criminal
‘subcultures’. Central to this new school of thought was Albert Cohen (1918–2014),
who introduced the ideas of culture and subculture into explanations of crime and
delinquency. Cohen was an American criminologist who focused in particular upon
youth gangs, and how such groups replaced common social norms with their own
subcultures. Cohen viewed the delinquency found in gangs as a solution to the strains
that many young men felt as a result of their failure within the educational system.
Put slightly differently, young people who have no automatic access to privilege and
status and who do not do well in the social competition for status can either continue
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 73

to conform to mainstream values despite their low-status position, or they can find an
alternative source of status and acceptance: the gang. According to Cohen, the gang
and its subculture, with different values, expectations and norms, inverts traditional
values as a way of creating an alternative world where status can be achieved by those
who will never have it in mainstream society.

Later on, in 1960, Cloward and Ohlin refined Cohen’s work by bringing to bear ideas
from both Robert Merton and Edwin Sutherland. In Delinquency and opportunity
(1960), Cloward and Ohlin argued for a greater degree of specialisation in delinquent
subcultures. For them, there were at least three different types of delinquent
subculture.

1. Criminal subcultures – where gangs work largely for financial gain; these are more
likely to emerge in organised slum areas where established offenders work as role
models for others.

2. Conflict subcultures – where violence is the primary form of delinquency; these

are more likely to arise in disorganised areas where there are few established
offenders as role models, and where offending therefore has more to do with
establishing social status and competition. In such subcultures, respect is achieved
within the group, for instance, by committing crime and engaging in violence.

3. Retreatist subcultures – where delinquent activity involves a significant amount

of drug use which arises from the ‘double failure’ to achieve status by either
legitimate or illegitimate means. Here there is often an inability to enter, or a
rejection from, the previous two types of subcultures.

Each of these three subcultures is a specific response or ‘adaptation’ to strain/anomie.

Such subcultures therefore arise when individuals face blocked opportunity structures
(such as limited access to employment and education) and find illegitimate means
(such as theft and drug peddling) of achieving conventional goals (including financial
success and the accumulation of material goods).

Another well-known criminologist of this era, David Matza (1930–2018), worked upon
and refined these ideas even further. For Matza, strain theory in its purest form was
problematic in that strain does not always lead to delinquency – if it did, there would
be much more delinquency and crime then there actually is. For him, many more
people experience strain than end up actually committing crime. To address this
problem, Matza, along with his colleague Gresham Sykes, developed neutralisation
and drift theory, which reject the idea that delinquent values should be seen as
completely oppositional to mainstream values. Instead, Matza and Sykes conceive
this process as a ‘loosening of the constraints’ of the dominant value system, where
‘delinquent values’ allow some distance to be created from dominant social values
through the adoption of ‘subterranean values’. Delinquent activity is justified through
what Matza famously termed ‘techniques of neutralisation’; a series of rationalisations
or justifications that allow people to convince themselves that what they are doing is
not really all that wrong, given the situation they are in. That such justifications and
rationalisations are needed is a sign of the power and importance of dominant social
values. Matza’s now well-known techniques of neutralisation include:

u the denial of responsibility (‘it was not my fault’; ‘I am not to blame’)

u the denial of injury (‘they were insured anyway’; ‘no one will ever miss it’)

u the denial of the victim (‘they were asking for it’; ‘it did not affect them’; ‘no one
got hurt’)

u the condemnation of the condemners (‘they were picking on me’; ‘I did not do
anything that others do not do’)

u the appeal to higher loyalties (‘I was only protecting my family’; ‘I was only obeying
orders’).

These early examinations of the role of culture and subculture in crime and
delinquency would eventually prompt the rise of what is referred to today as cultural
criminology, an approach which began to take off in earnest in the 1990s, especially in
page 74 University of London

Britain. One of the central figures of cultural criminology was Jock Young, who, until his
death in 2013, was a Professor at the City University of New York, although he worked
for much of his career in Britain. Young found many problems with conventional
cultural and subcultural approaches to crime and delinquency and, in particular, he
argued that such approaches failed to adequately explain ‘…the sensual nature of
crime, the adrenalin rushes of edgework – voluntary illicit risk taking and the dialectic
of fear and pleasure’ (Young, 2003, p.390). What he meant by this is that cultural and
subcultural explanations that have on one side ‘opportunities’ and on the other a
‘lack of controls’ do not seem to be able to explain all forms of criminality, particularly
those which are driven by emotions and purposeful/intentional risk-taking behaviour.

For contemporary cultural criminologists like Jock Young, both crime and the agencies
responsible for governing crime are ‘cultural products’; i.e. they are constructed and
reconstructed socially, and so they carry significant cultural meaning (Hayward and
Young, 2004). To explore these phenomena, leading figures in this school of thought
– including Jock Young, but also Jeff Ferrell and Keith Hayward – have suggested a
number of different and innovative approaches to understanding and studying both
crime and the agencies that control crime. These include:

u Ethnography: the use of participant observation instead of just relying upon

statistics, as most mainstream criminological work has tended to do.

u Instant ethnography: rather than the long-term quasi-anthropological style of

traditional ethnography, this approach weaves ‘fragments and shards of events’
into a new sort of ‘ethnography of experience’.

u Liquid ethnography: this is held to be an ‘ethnography attuned to the dynamics

of destabilised, transitory communities; an ethnography immersed in the ongoing
interplay of images; and an ethnography comfortable with the shifting boundaries
between research, research subjects and cultural activism’.

u Auto ethnography: this includes researchers’ ethnographic explorations of

themselves, their experiences and their emotions while doing research. It also
entails a connection between the researcher’s autobiographical experiences and
wider socio-political and cultural understandings.

u Ethnographic content analysis: situates textual and documentary analysis within

‘the communication of meaning’, and sees such analysis as a process of ongoing
give and take between the analyst and the material.

u Visual criminology: for cultural criminologists, there cannot be a viable

criminology that is not also a ‘visual criminology’; this means using a variety of
approaches, for example documentary photography, as a basis for understanding
signs, signals and images.

(Adapted from Ferrell, Hayward and Young, 2015, pp.215–28.)

Using such innovative methodologies to try to understand crime and those responsible
for it, cultural criminologists have highlighted three key areas of interest: (1) crime as
culture; (2) culture as crime; and (3) the ways in which media dynamics construct the
reality of crime and its control (Ferrell, 2007). What is meant by the first proposition
– crime as culture – is that a lot of criminal behaviour is also subcultural behaviour.
As a result, cultural criminology is concerned with the style of subcultures (much
like conventional subcultural criminology, though it builds upon these ideas by
foregrounding emotions). The second proposition – culture as crime – refers to the fact
that a number of cultural activities can be criminalised simply by the application of labels
and sanctions. For example, many different artists (from the American photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe to contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei) have faced concerted
campaigns against their work, which sought to label it as subversive, dissident and even
illegal. Such criminalisation, according to cultural criminologists, is a cultural process.

Consider, for example, the reaction to Rolling Stone magazine using a portrait of the
Boston Marathon bomber on their Summer 2013 cover. Massive upheaval on social
media was quickly followed by cancelled subscriptions, shops refusing to sell Rolling
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 75
Stone indefinitely, and claims that the editors of the magazine were glamourising
terrorism and should be charged under the US Patriot Act. One could scarcely
find a more apt example of the intersection of culture and crime. Finally, the third
proposition – regarding the role of media dynamics in constructing crime and its
control – is perhaps one of the most central propositions in cultural criminology. This
focus covers a range of issues including the ways in which crime and deviance are
constructed in and portrayed by the media, the nature of the relationships between
the media and criminal justice institutions, and the use of the media in crime control
and crime prevention initiatives.

While cultural criminology of this sort is a fairly recent development, it is also not
without its critics. Many applaud the focus on the intersection between crime and
culture, and the specific attention to the role of the media in understanding crime
and crime control institutions. Questions remain, however, as to how new or different
cultural criminology actually is from its predecessors. It clearly has links to interactionist
approaches and to subcultural criminology, and perhaps even to a very long tradition
of cultural analysis in sociology. So how does it differ from and build upon these
traditions? For proponents, while cultural criminology built upon existing work in
sociological criminology, its key innovation is in ‘extreme ethnography’ and the way
in which cultural criminologists immerse themselves in illicit subcultures, sometimes
becoming the subject matter (Ferrell, 2007). Martin O’Brien (2005), on the other hand,
has levelled three acute criticisms at cultural criminologists. First, he argues that cultural
criminologists use the term ‘culture’ in different and contradictory ways. Secondly, this
tendency to be imprecise about what exactly ‘culture’ means has led to both theoretical
and methodological inconsistency in their work. And, finally, cultural criminology – quite
problematically – has little to say about major social institutions, like the state, which
remain incredibly important in the construction of crime.

5.4 Labelling theory and stigma

In the 1960s a new idea began to take hold in sociological criminology. This
revolutionary idea was that our response to crime might actually be criminogenic
itself. What is meant by this is that reactions to a certain behaviour actually
constitute (create) that behaviour – the reactions to a behaviour are what make
it criminal. This notion became central to labelling theory, which was the first
criminological approach to focus upon what happens after the criminal act takes place
(rather than what happens before it, which is where most sociological explanations
had begun). Labelling theorists claimed that deviance does not reside in the act
itself but in our reaction to it. That is, it is our response to a certain behaviour that
actually makes it (or labels it) criminal; the behaviour itself is just that, a behaviour,
and before our response to it, it is neither criminal nor deviant, it is just a behaviour. It
does not become deviant or criminal until we label it as such. As this suggests, it is the
application of labels that is the central concern here, and such labels can have a lasting
impact upon those to whom they are applied.

Most criminological theories and approaches to this point had treated the notion of
crime as somewhat given: crime was what the criminal law said it was, and thus our
explanations for why people engage in such behaviour should focus upon the factors
that propelled them towards it. Labelling theorists, by contrast, began from the premise
that there is nothing inherent about a crime, and there is quite literally no such thing as
deviance or crime until we respond to particular behaviours by defining and labelling
them as such. That is, for this group of scholars, our focus ought to shift from the nature
of deviant and criminal acts and the people who commit them, to the processes by
which certain people and certain behaviours are labelled as deviant or criminal.

The focus, therefore, of sociological criminologists such as George Herbert Mead and
Herbert Blumer was on the social reaction to deviance. For these scholars, human
beings are able to invest their actions with meaning, and they are able to act and
react on the basis that actions have meanings. What this means is that human beings
are active in the creation of their world, and are not simply products of it or passive
page 76 University of London

bystanders. In this process, of creating our world, we use symbols and signs to interact
with things and with other people. Specifically, we use language and words to denote
meaning and to signify activities, institutions and ideas. These are words that we have
made up ourselves – such as delinquent, deviant, criminal and so on – and we have
done so in order to create meaning in our world. Thus:

Forms of behaviour per se do not differentiate deviants from non-deviants; it is the

responses of the conventional and conforming members of society which identify and
interpret behaviour as deviant which sociologically transforms persons into deviants.

(Kitsuse, 1962)

More than just seeking to understand how people and institutions respond to certain
behaviours, however, labelling theorists actually see those responses as constitutive
of deviance; it is the response that makes the behaviour deviant or criminal. Put
slightly differently, before the reaction and the labelling of behaviour as deviant or
criminal, the behaviour is neither: it is just behaviour. Thus, understanding social
reactions is a way of understanding deviance itself. As Lemert (1967, p.v) put it:

Older sociology… tended to rest heavily upon the idea that deviance leads to social
control. I have come to believe that the reverse idea, i.e. social control leads to deviance,
is equally tenable and the potentially richer premise for studying deviance in modern
society.

When first read, this may not seem all that significant. But what Lemert is arguing here
is fundamentally important to the type of criminology that would follow in his wake,
and it is nothing short of a complete reversal of conventional wisdom. What he is
claiming is that one of the traditional axioms of sociological criminology (i.e. that we
define what is criminal and non-criminal, people then engage in deviant and criminal
acts and, once they do, crime control mechanisms and institutions begin to do their
work to control and reform them) is at the very least complemented by a dual and
reverse process, and at the very worst, a complete misunderstanding of how deviance
and social control relate to one another. What Lemert claims is that the crime control
agencies and institutions we have created (such as the police, the courts and prisons)
actually create deviance and crime, because it is those agencies and institutions that
are responsible for defining and labelling a particular behaviour as deviant or criminal.
In other words, crime control and criminal justice constitute, or create, crime. This
revolutionary idea became the foundation for a group of ‘new deviancy’ theories, of
which labelling theory is a prime example. Such theories take a far more critical stance
towards the state and its institutions and, in particular, those institutions that play a
role in defining acts as deviant and/or criminal.

Of these new deviancy theories, labelling theory has without doubt been the most
widely influential, and it retains significance today. Although labelling theory really
began to take off in the 1960s and 1970s, some of the ideas at its core are much older.
Frank Tannenbaum’s work on juvenile delinquency from the 1930s, for example, had
made it clear that delinquents are not inherently different from non-delinquents;
rather what is important is the defining of someone as a juvenile delinquent, and how
this definition can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy (where people then react to and
treat that young person in particular ways, and this leads to that person confirming
these beliefs by engaging in delinquent behaviour). Edwin Lemert (1972) further
refined this idea, arguing persuasively that the application of labels, as part of the
social response to certain behaviours, can actually make the person subject to those
labels adjust the way they see and understand themselves – that is, the application of
a label such as ‘deviant’ may lead an individual to begin to see themselves as deviant
and to act on that basis. When people do this, Lemert refers to their deviance as
‘secondary deviance’ since it stems from a social response and the application of a
‘master status’ to an individual.

One of the most famous and influential writers of the new deviancy tradition was
Howard Becker. Becker helped shift attention away from crime, as such, and towards
the broader category of deviance. The reason for this shift was the clearly problematic
and contested nature of much activity that was defined as criminal, and thus deviance
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 77

was seen as a more useful and reliable concept to work with. Part and parcel of this
shift in language was a move away from the position that legal codes and criminal laws
are somehow natural and universal, and instead towards a view that recognised that
they are socially constructed and therefore problematic and contested by their very
nature. For Becker, as for other labelling theorists, this process by which rules, laws and
regulations come into existence is therefore also very important, and the actions and
behaviours of particular groups and individuals who have an interest in seeing certain
behaviours proscribed or punished are crucial. Becker (1963) referred to such people
as ‘moral entrepreneurs’ – those who seek to impose their values or moral rules on
others – and the activity of such people and groups often focuses upon particular
others or ‘outsiders’. As he famously put it in 1963:

Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance,
and applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. From
this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but the
consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. The
deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behaviour is
behaviour that people so label.

(Becker, 1963, p.9)

Closely linked to such ideas is the notion of stigma. Stigma refers generally to the
process by which the reactions of others modify or spoil a ‘normal identity’. This is
done by the application of a label (like criminal or terrorist) that refers specifically to
an attribute that is deeply discredited within a society, and the subsequent rejection
of that person on the basis of that label. As Erving Goffman (1963) argued, the attribute
in question may be a physical or mental characteristic, or it may be a particular status
that is associated with certain types of behaviour. One of the traditional archetypes of
stigma is, for example, the ‘prisoner’. In many countries, prisoners are regularly and
routinely reminded of their status - or stigmatised – through what Jacoby (2004) calls
‘degradation ceremonies’.

The signs pointing to the prisoner’s degradation are many – the anonymity of a uniform
and a number rather than a name, the shaven head, the insistence on gestures of respect
and subordination when addressing officials, and so on. The prisoner is never allowed to
forget that, by committing a crime, he has forgone his claim to the status of a full-fledged,
trusted member of society.

(Jacoby, 2004, p.513; emphasis in original)

Such stigmatisation is problematic for some convicted offenders, even upon release
from the prison setting. Profound and continuous stigmatisation, according to
Goffman and others, can lead to permanent losses in the redefinition of self that takes
place in the prison. Upon release, stigmatised prisoners may be changed forever, by
virtue of the stigmatisation they faced throughout their incarceration, and some may
even increasingly conform to (rather than distance themselves from) the labels that
have been applied to them.

5.5 Control theories

Control theories are another important and fairly recent group of sociological
approaches to understanding crime and deviance. Control theories begin, however,
from a different question than most other approaches do. Instead of asking ‘What causes
crime?’ or ‘Why do people engage in crime?’, they ask ‘Why do most people not engage
in crime?’ or ‘What deters people from committing crime?’ For control theorists, the
key object is therefore conformity or, rather, the controls that seem to prohibit people
from engaging in crime. As this suggests, these researchers adopt a somewhat different
approach to understanding human behaviour. Instead of believing that acting within the
law is normal and those who engage in crime are deviant (or abnormal in some way),
they claim that human conduct is driven by desires and needs and, if we could, we would
all engage in crime to some degree. That is, human beings are seen as being predisposed
to deviance and it is the study of conformity and control which is important.
page 78 University of London

These sorts of ideas became quite popular in the 1950s and 1960s, and they continue
to exert some influence over criminology today, especially in the USA. There is no
single, unified control theory, and instead a number of different approaches – all of
which focus upon the controls that lead to conformity – have been important to the
development of research in this area. As Reiss famously put it in 1951 (p.106):

Delinquency results when there is a relative absence of internalized norms and rules
governing behaviour in conformity with the norms of the social system to which legal
penalties are attached, a breakdown in previously established controls, and/or a relative
absence of or conflict in social rules or techniques for enforcing such behaviour in the
social groups or institutions of which the person is a member.

This approach, based on a study of the court records of 1,000 young white men on
probation, was one of the first control theories proposed. The goal of subsequent work
of this type was to explain why there is not more deviance or, rather, what leads most
people to conform.

One of the more prominent control theories is Walter Reckless’s containment theory.
Reckless was interested in why people for the most part conform throughout their
lives when there are so many pressures towards deviance and so many opportunities
for deviance in the modern world. Put in simple terms, why is it that many people do
not steal, even when they are presegnted with the opportunity to do so, and even
when the item is something that they want? For Reckless, the majority of people are
therefore immune to the pressures to commit crime. He called these pressures social
pressures or pulls toward crime and deviance, and he argued that people are immune
to or resist them because of their own protective factors. These protective factors
he referred to as inner containment and outer containment. Outer containment
includes such things as reinforcement by social groups and the existence of
supportive relationships, both of which insulate individuals from pressure to engage
in deviance. Inner containment, on the other hand, was the heart of Reckless’s theory,
and it immunises an individual from social pressures no matter what the external
circumstances. The key elements of inner containment include:

u Self-concept – an image of the self as a law-abiding subject, which will insulate

individuals from deviance.

u Goal-orientation – an orientation towards legitimate goals and aspirations, which

will insulate individuals against deviance.

u Frustration tolerance – different people have different capacities for tolerating

social pressures and frustration.

u Norm-retention – acceptance and adherence to values, laws, norms, customs,

codes and institutions, which will immunise individuals against external pressures
towards deviance.

Such concepts were criticised by some sociological criminologists, but they

nevertheless led quickly to the development of other control theories including Travis
Hirschi’s well-known social bond theory and David Matza’s drift theory.

Sykes and Matza’s earlier work on techniques of neutralisation (described above) is

linked to control theory in that such techniques reduce the impact and effectiveness
of social and self-controls, thus enabling delinquency. Matza later argued, in
true control theory style, that delinquents are not especially committed to their
delinquent activity, and certainly no more so than they are to any other activities,
including legal ones. Rather, they become involved in deviance through a process
of ‘drift’. As Matza argued, most of the time delinquents are not actually involved in
delinquent behaviour; thus deviancy, where it occurs, is a matter of drift. By drift Matza
was referring to situations where social controls have loosened, making it easier for a
person to be influenced by social pressures:
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 79

Those who have been granted the potentiality for freedom through the loosening of social
controls but who lack the position, capacity, or inclination to become agents in their own
behalf, I call drifters, and it is in this category that I place the juvenile delinquent.

(Matza, 1964, p.29)

In sum, Matza argued that deviancy is not dependent upon a complete commitment
to delinquent values; individuals can drift toward delinquent behaviour in situations
where there is a loosening of controls, while they otherwise remain committed to
typical norms and values.

One of the most well-known control theories, even today, is Travis Hirschi’s social
bond theory. Hirschi remains perhaps the most famous of the control theorists, and
students on criminology degree programmes become very familiar with his ideas.
Writing in the 1960s and the early 1970s, Hirschi argued that the question ‘Why do
criminals commit crime?’ is less valuable for researchers than the question ‘Why don’t
the rest of us commit crime?’ Control theories, he argued, are and should be designed
to answer the latter. According to him, individuals commit crime when their bond to
society is weak or broken, and there are four elements to this social bond: attachment;
commitment; involvement; and belief.

u Attachment – an individual’s attachment to others, or the extent to which an

individual cares about what others think of them and how they react to them.
To the extent that this is something an individual cares about, they are said to be
under an element of social control. For Hirschi, attachment is perhaps the most
important element of the social bond, for if we do not care about the wishes and
expectations of other people, then we are not bound by norms and we are free to
deviate. The less attachment one has, the more likely one is to engage in deviance.

u Commitment – the time and energy people invest into conventional, licit activities.
To the extent that we do this, we have a stake in conforming as we have invested
time and energy into normative goals and projects; deviance – which would
lower our standing in society – is therefore weighed against how much effort
and time we have put into arriving at our present status in the community and in
the social order. If we have invested a great deal of time and effort in getting an
education, securing employment and acquiring a reputation for ourselves, all of
this commitment will outweigh any pressures toward deviancy.

u Involvement – being heavily involved in conventional, normative and non-deviant

activities will insulate people from any pressures towards deviance. That is, to the
extent that people are heavily involved with and consumed by other, legitimate
social activities, they may not have the time for delinquency. The more involved we
are, the less likely we are to engage in deviance.

u Belief – the strength of our dedication to certain beliefs. The stronger our belief
in conventional goals and means, for example, the less likely we are to engage in
deviance.

While social bond theory has been highly influential in criminology, there are some
criticisms that have been levelled by opponents. First, there is an important question:
what comes first, delinquency or weak attachment? In other words, is delinquency
a product of weak attachment, or is weak attachment a product of delinquency?
For critics, this is not especially clear, nor something that social control theory has
adequately addressed. Secondly, there is some evidence which demonstrates that
some criminal offenders are not weakly attached to conventional social norms; some
of those who end up in prison are seemingly committed to traditional customs.
Thirdly, although the theory does suggest that weak social bonds are linked to
delinquency, it does not explain the basis of weak attachment or low levels of
belief (i.e. what causes these). Fourthly, as with all control theories, the underlying
assumption that deviance is natural can be difficult to sustain; other approaches,
including those in psychology, for instance (of which, more below), have found that
deviance and crime can be linked with certain abnormal psychologies or mental
disorders. Finally, control theories such as Hirschi’s tend to treat criminal behaviour
page 80 University of London
as a naturally occurring phenomenon in society, requiring no explanation other than
that it brings satisfaction of some sort. This, for many, is far too simplistic an approach,
which seems to accept crime and deviance as routine, everyday and inevitable.

Activity 5.1
Read the section entitled ‘Situational crime prevention versus cultural criminology’
in Newburn (2017) on p.223 and answer the following questions.
a. What are the key elements of Hayward’s critique of rational choice theories?

b. What are the key elements of Ferrell’s critique of cultural criminology?

c. Which argument do you find more persuasive, and why?

Activity 5.2
Read the section on ‘Becoming a marijuana user’ in Newburn (2017) on p.234 and
answer the following questions.
a. What is the importance of Howard Becker’s study of marijuana users in the
context of labelling theory and his ideas about outsiders?

b. How and why does this study of marijuana users reverse the conventional axiom
that ‘deviant motives lead to deviant behaviour’?

Activity 5.3
Read the section on ‘Braithwaite and shaming’ in Newburn (2017) on p.238 and
answer the following questions.
a. What was Braithwaite focused upon in his book Crime, shame and reintegration
(1989)? In what ways was this a development on the effect already discovered
by labelling theorists (that social reactions can be criminogenic)?

b. How is disintegrative shaming different from reintegrative shaming?

c. How is reintegrative shaming linked to restorative justice?

Activity 5.4
Read the section on ‘Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime’ in Newburn
(2017) on p.253 and answer the following questions.
a. What do Gottfredson and Hirschi mean by self-control and why is it important to
a general theory of crime?

b. What is the relevance of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime to

white-collar crime?

c. What are the key problems with Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of
crime?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would answer the following sample
examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected to draw upon
the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from Chapter 5 in
particular. You would also be expected to draw upon the Essential reading. Top
answers would make use of one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Critically assess Durkheim’s theory of anomie, including the strengths and
weaknesses of this approach.

Question 2
Outline the key contributions and limitations of social control theories.
Introduction to criminology 5 Sociological approaches page 81

Question 3
Using examples, assess the strengths and weaknesses of labelling theory.

References
¢ Becker, H. Outsiders: studies in the sociology of deviance. (London: Macmillan, 1963).

¢ Burgess, E.W. ‘The growth of the city: an introduction to a research project’ in Park,
R.E. and E.W. Burgess (eds) The city. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2019)
[ISBN 9780226636641].

¢ Cloward, R. and L. Ohlin Delinquency and opportunity: a theory of delinquent

gangs. (New York: Free Press, 1960) [ISBN 9780029055908].

¢ Durkheim, É. The rules of sociological method. (New York: Free Press, 1938)
[ISBN 9780029079409].

¢ Ferrell, J., K. Hayward and J. Young Cultural criminology. (London: Sage, 2015) 2nd
edition [ISBN 9781446259160].

¢ Ferrell, J. ‘Cultural criminology’ in Ritzer, G. (ed.) The Blackwell encyclopedia of

sociology. (Blackwell Reference Online, 2007) [ISBN 9781405165518].

¢ Goffman, E. Behavior in public places: notes on the social organization of

gatherings. (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1966) [ISBN 9780029119402].

¢ Hayward, K. and J. Young ‘Cultural criminology: some notes on the script’ (2004)
8(3) Theoretical Criminology 259.

¢ Jacoby, J. et al. Classics of criminology. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2011) 3rd
edition [ISBN 9781577667360].

¢ Kitsuse, J. ‘Societal reaction to deviant behaviour: problems of theory and

method’ (1962) 9 Social Problems 247.

¢ Lemert, E.M. Human deviance, social problems, and social control. (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972) 2nd edition [ISBN 9780134448855].

¢ Matza, D. Delinquency and drift. (New York: Wiley, 1964) [ISBN 9780471577089].

¢ Radzinowicz, L. In search of criminology. (London: Heinemann, 1962).

¢ Reiss, A. ‘Delinquency as the failure of personal and social controls’ (1951) 16

American Sociological Review 196.

¢ Shaw, C.R. and H.D. McKay Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. (Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 1972) [ISBN 9780226751276].

¢ Sutherland, E.H. The professional thief by a professional thief. (Chicago,

IL: University of Chicago Press, 1937) [ISBN 9780226780511].

¢ Young, J. ‘Merton with energy; Katz with structure: the sociology of

vindictiveness and the criminology of transgression’ (2003) 7(3) Theoretical
Criminology 389.

Further reading
¢ Agnew, R. and T. Brezina ‘Strain theories’ in McLaughlin, E. and T. Newburn
(eds) The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage, 2013) [ISBN
9781446270530].

¢ Cohen, A. ‘Delinquent boys: the culture of the gang’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key
readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Durkheim, E. ‘The normal and the pathological’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings
in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Erikson, K.T. ‘Notes on the Sociology of deviance’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key

readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].
page 82 University of London
¢ Ferrell, J., K. Hayward and J. Young Cultural criminology. (London: Sage, 2015)
[ISBN 9781446259160].

¢ Ferrell, J. ‘Cultural criminology’ in Ritzer, G. (ed.) The Blackwell encyclopedia of

sociology. (Blackwell Reference Online, 2007) [ISBN 9781405165518].

¢ Gottfredson, M.R. and T. Hirschi ‘A control theory of crime’ in Newburn, T. (ed.)

Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Lemert, E. ‘Primary and secondary deviance’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in

criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Merton, R.K. ‘Social structure and anomie’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in
criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Muncie, J. ‘Labelling, social reaction and social constructionism’ in McLaughlin, E.

and T. Newburn (eds) The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage,
2013) [ISBN 9781446270530].

¢ Paternoster, R. and R. Bachman (2010) ‘Control theories’ in McLaughlin, E. and T.

Newburn (eds) The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage, 2013)
[ISBN 9781446270530].

¢ Young, J. ‘The social reaction against drug taking’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key
readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].
6 Radical and critical approaches

Contents
6.1 Marxism and radical criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

6.2 Feminist criminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

6.3 Realist criminology – right realism and left realism . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

6.4 Victims of crime and victimology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

page 84 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 13 ‘Radical and critical criminologies’, Chapter 14
‘Realist criminology’ and Chapter 16 ‘Feminist criminology’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u explain some of the radical and critical criminological approaches that
developed in the 1960s and 1970s, and how these were different from earlier
frameworks
u understand the principles and the importance of realist criminology in Britain
u understand and appreciate the contributions of feminist criminology.
Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 85

6.1 Marxism and radical criminology

Beginning in the 1960s, a number of criminologists started to look beyond individual
causes of crime and towards structural inequalities and power relations in complex,
capitalist societies. This new group of radical criminological theories focused upon
how certain behaviours were defined as criminal, and how this process in turn
criminalised some people but not others. Radical criminologists had little faith in
existing theories of criminal behaviour, and argued that these focused too much upon
crimes committed by a certain group of people (or class), and not nearly enough on
the crimes of others (or the powerful). That is, strain theory, anomie and other control
theories were seen as focusing too much on the social conditions that led to the types
of crime that the lower classes or ‘working poor’ tended to engage in, and almost
completely ignored corporate crime, white-collar crime, state crime and other types
of criminality routinely carried out by more powerful groups in society.

One of the key aspects of this new radical criminology was a refusal to understand
and practise criminology as yet another dimension of law enforcement, or as a means
to understand how better to police, prosecute and punish people. Instead, radical
thinkers began to examine the criminal justice system itself (rather than crime per
se), including how the system functioned, what powerful interests were involved
in its processes and the ways in which it was used as a tool of the state (and the
upper classes) to maintain existing power relations in society. As this suggests, this
new radical approach to criminology was based in large part upon the ideas and
philosophies of Karl Marx.

The philosophies of Karl Marx (1818–83) are well known in criminology, though Marx
himself was not particularly interested in crime, and he had little to say about it in
his key works. His focus was instead upon more sociological issues: in particular, the
nature of social divisions in society and the unequal distribution of wealth and power.
The arguments he made, however, including that it was ‘relations of production’ which
determined these social divisions, were highly influential in criminology, and they still
resonate with some contemporary neo-Marxist criminologists. According to Marx, there
is a capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) that owns the means of production (factories,
natural resources and so on), and a working class (or proletariat) which labours in order
to survive. For him, all divisions in society reflect this basic dyad, and state institutions
(like the criminal justice system) work to maintain this arrangement. Given that this
capitalist system is fundamentally unfair, however, and that it is based upon the
exploitation of one (larger) group by another (smaller) group, he claimed that it could
not continue indefinitely and should be resisted. Indeed, as property and wealth become
increasingly concentrated within a smaller and smaller group of people, he argued,
society would polarise into two groups whose interests would be fundamentally at odds.
It is this contradiction that Marx believed would eventually lead to a revolution and the
replacement of capitalism by a new social-economic system: communism.

This set of beliefs and arguments had a profound effect upon radical criminology in
the 1960s and 1970s. For example, one early way of viewing crime through a Marxist
framework was to see it as a form of resistance by the proletariat to the dominant
capitalist order (see, for example, Wilson, 1975). More centrally, however, Marx’s ideas
led to the development of further arguments about the importance of class conflict
to understanding the social order; for example, the idea that dominant notions about
crime and criminality serve the ruling class (or the powerful), and that since property
and economy are central to class relations, they are also related to the criminalisation
of certain behaviours. Indeed, one of the core ideas running through many radical (or
conflict) criminologies is the concept of criminalisation; the idea that the criminal law
does not justly serve all, but instead operates according to the interests of the ruling
class and serves to maintain the status quo. According to Spitzer (1975, p.642):

Problem populations tend to share a number of social characteristics but most important
among these is the fact that their behaviour, personal qualities, and/or position
threaten the social relations of production… populations become generally eligible for
management as deviant when they disturb, hinder or call into question… capitalist modes
of appropriating human labour… and… the ideology which supports the capitalist state.
page 86 University of London

Radical criminology is therefore critical in that it begins with the idea that social
relations and social structures are fundamentally unequal. Most criminological ideas
that fall within this bracket are also considered structuralist in that they focus upon
structural inequalities in society, which, for them, are the foundation upon which any
analysis of criminal justice must proceed.

In the USA during the 1960s, radical criminology revolved around the work of three
key figures: William Chambliss, Richard Quinney and Austin Turk. Austin Turk was a
sociologically oriented criminologist and the conflict theory which he developed –
based upon a contemporary revision of the Marxist framework – concentrated upon
the unequal distribution of authority in society (see Turk, 1969). For Turk, the social
order in any society is always the result of a negotiation between different individuals
in terms of how they will behave in relation to one another. There are circumstances,
however, in which conflicts will emerge between authorities and subjects, where
criminalisation (and thus control) will be the end result. For Turk, and consistent with
the thinking of many radical criminologists, ‘criminality is a definition applied by
individuals with the power to do so’ (Turk, 1969, p.10).

William Chambliss, on the other hand, one of the most influential American
criminologists of the 20th century, argued that the gap between the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat had widened in contemporary capitalism and, as a result, it had become
necessary to use more and more punitive measures to maintain control over the lower
classes and bolster the status quo. For Chambliss the view that the law represents
common social values and works in the best interests of all of society is wrong. In fact, it
is naïve. That is, the more socially stratified a society becomes, the greater is the necessity
for dominant groups to enforce and maintain their supremacy through the regulation
and control of others (see Chambliss and Seidman, 1971). Indeed, for Chambliss, crime
itself diverts the attention of the lower social classes from the exploitation they
experience on a daily basis, and directs it towards other members of their own class. For
Chambliss, this had led to a situation where criminology had all but ignored crimes of the
powerful, and so it is upon this type of criminality that he focused his attention.

The third major figure in American radical criminology was Richard Quinney. Like other
radical, conflict theorists, Quinney was interested in the social construction of crime
and how this was linked to the distribution of power in society. For him, ‘criminal
definitions describe behaviours that conflict with the interests of segments of society
that have the power to shape public policy’ (Quinney, 1970, p.16). By the mid-1970s,
Quinney had formulated six main propositions that would guide his work:

1. American society is based upon an advanced capitalist system.

2. The state is organised to serve the interests of the dominant economic class.

3. Criminal law is the instrument of the state and the ruling class to maintain and
perpetuate the existing social and economic order.

4. Crime control in capitalist societies is carried out by institutions and agencies

administered by a governmental elite who represent the interests of the ruling class.

5. The contradictions of advanced capitalism require the subordinate class to be

oppressed by whatever means necessary, especially through the coercion and
violence of the legal system.

6. Only with the collapse of a capitalist society and the creation of a socialist one will
the crime problem be solved.

In one of his most famous books (Class, state and crime, 1977), Quinney proposed a
typology of crime that fits within this broader framework. This typology included three
broad types of crime, and a number of sub-types.

u Crimes of domination including:

u crimes of control (such as those committed by the police)

u crimes of the government

u crimes of economic domination (e.g. white-collar and corporate crime).

Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 87

u Crimes of accommodation including:

u predatory crimes (such as burglary and theft)

u personal crimes (such as robbery and homicide).

u Crimes of resistance including:

u political crimes

u terrorism.

As popular as these ideas were to become in the USA, in Britain radical criminology
emerged somewhat later. It was, however, similarly linked to the political, social
and cultural upheavals of the time, and it challenged established ways of thinking
and traditional forms of authority. In Britain, two major contending paradigms were
the eventual result: radical criminology and administrative criminology. While
administrative criminology was empiricist, focused upon a positivist style of research,
driven by government needs and policy-oriented in focus, radical criminology saw
the causes of crime as being related to the class and patriarchal relations endemic to
social order.

In 1973, three well-known British criminologists – Ian Taylor, Jock Young and Paul
Walton – published a manifesto for critical criminology in Britain which they
entitled The new criminology. Criticising prevailing theories of crime and deviance,
Taylor, Young and Walton developed and advocated a social theory of deviance.
This new criminology sought both to mark a significant break with positivist (and
administrative) criminology and to promote a highly politicised criminological
position, arguing that criminology must be committed to the identification and
abolition of inequalities in wealth, power, property and life chances. The full social
theory of deviance, which they advocated, would therefore break entirely with
correctionalism and the goal of improving and perfecting criminal justice agencies,
institutions and processes. As Tierney (2009) made clear, this new criminology could
be summarised by five key points:

1. A commitment to a normative criminology that is part of a larger political project,

and which aims to create a society in which human diversity is not subject to the
power to criminalise.

2. A commitment to a socialist future in which crime, as we currently understand it, is

absent.

3. The creation of a sociological criminology that is anti-positivist but which also

avoids the relativism of some of the more subjectivist accounts of crime.

4. An emphasis upon the structural constraints and determinants of human action.

5. A central focus on the role of the state and key powerful institutions in society
(where crime is understood as a completely rational response to the nature of a
capitalist political economy).

In 21st century criminology, while there has been a decisive shift away from Marxist
theories and philosophies, elements of such radical thinking can still be found in the
work of neo-Marxists and those who study crime and criminal justice from a more
sociological perspective. Critics, however, have taken issue not only with the fact
that contemporary, Western, capitalist societies do not seem to have ended with
the inevitable revolution that Marx predicted, but also that countries which operate
according to a communist or socialist model also seem to be just as oppressive
as capitalist ones, just in different ways. Others claimed that a Marxist approach,
including the new criminology offered by Taylor, Young and Walton, has a tendency to
romanticise the criminal activity of the lower classes, seeing working class criminals
as ‘Robin Hood’ figures, legitimately fighting an oppressive system. Feminists, on
the other hand, have criticised Marxist criminologists rather heavily for ignoring
gender relations, and the complex ways in which gender is related to both crime and
criminalisation.
page 88 University of London

6.2 Feminist criminology

Another important part of the radical/critical turn in criminology was an increasing
focus upon marginalised groups, including women. The shift towards emphasising
the place and role of women in criminology, crime and criminal justice was given
force by a wider feminist movement and increased attention to gender politics
during the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, during the 1960s in the USA, and during the 1970s in
Britain, feminist scholarship in criminology began to take off. The field of criminology,
historically speaking, had been dominated by male researchers, focused upon the
crimes of men, and oriented toward the views, perspectives and politics of men.
Women, without doubt, had been largely invisible in criminology for most of its
history, and although this has changed somewhat since the interventions of feminist
criminologists, the field remains – arguably – male-dominated.

Perhaps one of the most important developments in critical criminology to date,

feminist criminologies were a reaction to, or critique of, existing ways of doing things.
As Heidensohn (1996, pp.161–62) put it, the feminist reaction was against:

…an old, established male chauvinism in the academic discipline. Women were either
invisible to conventional criminologists or present only as prostitutes or marginal or
contingent figures… when women were discussed it was in crude sexist stereotypes.

Thus, while early criminology did pay some attention to women (see Newburn, 2017,
pp.220–23), the bulk of 20th century sociological criminology almost completely
ignored female offenders. It is important to say almost because women were not
entirely absent, though when they did appear, their place and role rested upon a set
of assumptions about female behaviour, and the behaviour of men often took centre
stage. Furthermore, as the famous British criminologist Herman Mannheim put it at
the time:

Hitherto female crime has, for all practical purposes, been dealt with almost exclusively
by men in their various capacities as legislators, judges, policemen; and… the same was
true of the theoretical treatment of the subject… This could not fail to create a one-sided
picture…

(quoted in Heidensohn, 1996, p.127)

As a result, feminist criminology proceeded from a number of criticisms of

conventional criminological work, including:

1. A failure to theorise or engage in the study of female offending.

2. The neglect of female victimisation and, in particular, male violence against women.

3. An over-concentration on the impact of the criminal justice system on male offenders.

Since the 1960s in the USA and the 1970s in Britain, the size and scope of feminist
criminology has increased exponentially, and today there is a massive feminist
literature in criminology. By the mid-1970s, feminist criminology was not just focused
upon studying and theorising female offending, but on directly challenging the wider
system of patriarchy and male domination. Patriarchy is defined as ‘a sex/gender
system in which men dominate women and what is considered masculine is more
highly valued than what is considered feminine’ (Chesney-Lind, 2006, p.9). This is
closely related to a ‘system of social stratification’ that uses social control policies to
ensure male dominance and power, and to keep women subordinate (Chesney-Lind,
2006, p.9). Thus, for feminists, patriarchy and gender/sex relations lie at the core of
modern society (while for Marxists, it was capitalism and class relations).

Feminist scholarship quickly grew to the point where it could be clearly distinguished
from conventional, mainstream criminological work, and to where it rested upon a
number of key assertions that became widely known. These included the following:

1. Gender is not seen as a natural fact, but a social, historical and cultural
construction. It is related to, but not the same as, biological sex differences.

2. Gender and gender relations order all social life in complex and fundamental ways.
Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 89

3. Gender relations and the concepts of masculinity and femininity are based upon
the principle of men’s superiority and dominance over women.

4. Systems of knowledge reflect men’s views of the world, and knowledge

production is gendered.

5. Women should be at the centre of intellectual inquiry, and not invisible or

peripheral.

(Adapted from Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988, p.504.)

What this made clear was that the feminist project was not about just adding women
to existing conversations, theories and research methodologies; those conversations,
theories and methodologies were themselves based – from the outset – on a gendered
vision of society, a gendered vision of politics and law and a gendered understanding
of the economy. The consequence has been a substantial body of important
feminist scholarship which has begun to completely reconceptualise sex/gender in
criminology.

Kathleen Daly (1997), a well-known feminist criminologist, has identified three central
ways of reconceptualising sex/gender in (feminist) criminology. These she refers to as:

1. class, race, gender

2. doing gender

3. sexed bodies.

The first approach, class, race, gender, has also been referred to as ‘multiple
inequalities’, and it is an approach which focuses upon the intersection of different
inequalities such as race, class and gender (rather than seeing these as somehow
discrete, or completely separate). A wave of new studies in this field seek to reveal the
interrelations and interdependencies between these different inequalities, including
a range of novel ones such as sexuality, physical ability/disability and age. The central
idea here is that every individual can be located within a matrix of multiple social
relations and these cannot be cleanly divorced from one another. For example, the
undocumented, minority, migrant, female labourer experiences a range of inequalities
specifically related to how she is located within a matrix of social relations in a given
society, and these cannot be easily disentangled from one another.

The second approach to reconceptualising sex/gender in criminology, which Daly

(1997) refers to as doing gender, sees gender not as a property of individuals, or even
as a role, but rather as a feature of social situations. Gender here is understood as a
social accomplishment, something that is constructed and attained in certain social
settings. And crime is therefore a practice through which certain versions of gender
are performed or ‘done’. The final way of reconceptualising sex/gender in criminology
is referred to as sexed bodies, and it builds upon French philosopher Michel Foucault’s
analysis of the body as a site of disciplinary practices. Here, scholars have begun to
explore the ‘sensual attractions’ of crime, and how these are differentially experienced
by male and female bodies.

Using such approaches, a substantial feature of feminist criminology has been the
attempt to understand female offending and the treatment of women by the criminal
justice system. This includes what is often referred to as the sex–crime ratio; the much
higher levels of criminal offending among men (for more, see Newburn, 2017, Chapter
33). Indeed, the number one statistical predictor of whether an individual will engage
in crime is their gender (see Chapter 12).

Reviewing the body of feminist research in the late 1980s, Frances Heidensohn (1987)
identified four characteristics of female offenders (as opposed to male ones). First,
in contrast to earlier portrayals which explained female criminality by reference
to irrationality and biology, feminist criminologists found that female offenders
are predominantly involved in property crimes and are most often motivated by
economic concerns. Secondly, women commit far fewer crimes than men overall
and fewer violent crimes in particular. In addition, the differences in male and female
page 90 University of London

offending are related not to innate biological characteristics but to different social
circumstances, different opportunities and the differential impact of crime control
policies. Thirdly, criminalisation differentially impacts female offenders, who face
much greater stigma due to the more sensational treatment of female offending by
public authorities and the media. Finally, one of the most important ideas in feminist
criminology is what is referred to as double deviance and/or double jeopardy. Put
simply, female offenders are twice damned by society: once for being a criminal, and
then again for behaving ‘unlike a woman should’. This double deviance can in turn
produce double jeopardy, such that the criminal justice system not only punishes
the crime but also seeks to impose controls over female offenders’ bodies through
informal measures (which are often justified in paternalistic terms).

These sorts of research findings have been supplemented by a host of empirical

studies of the differential impact of policing, court processes and prisons on women.
The following examples, which highlight some of the particular issues facing women
who are incarcerated, have been taken from Newburn (2017, p.333).

Women in prison in England: some facts

Children – in 2010, an estimated 17,240 children were separated from their mother by
imprisonment.

Domestic violence – 53 per cent of women in prison report having experienced emotional,
physical or sexual abuse as a child, compared with 27 per cent of men.

Mental health – 46 per cent of women in prison have attempted suicide at some point in
their lifetime. In 2013 women represented 26 per cent of all incidents of self-harm in prison
despite accounting for less than 5 per cent of the total prison population.

Drug and alcohol addictions – 52 per cent of women in prison said that they had used
heroin, crack or cocaine in the four weeks prior to custody, compared to 40 per cent of
men. Practitioners report that women may hide or underplay substance misuse through
fear of losing their children.

Employment – in 2011-12 just 8.4 per cent of women leaving prison had a positive
resettlement outcome on employment. For men the proportion was 27.3 per cent.

Source: Prison Reform Trust (2014)

In addition, while women make up less than 5 per cent of the total prison population
in England and Wales, they are more likely than men to reoffend, a finding which
suggests that prison programming is more suited to male offenders, or that women’s
prisons do not do as well in rehabilitating their inmates. While in prison, as the
example above demonstrates, women face some rather different issues than men.
According to a Ministry of Justice report from 2017, female offenders in England and
Wales are far more likely than male offenders to suffer from mental health issues,
including depression, anxiety and even psychosis. In addition, about 60 per cent of
female inmates have been victims of domestic violence, another feature that clearly
separates the two populations.

6.3 Realist criminology – right realism and left realism

While feminist criminology was one of the most important and influential developments
of the radical shift in criminology during the 1960s and 1970s, it was certainly not the
only one. What is often referred to as realist criminology also emerged around this
time, though it took different forms in different countries. Realist criminology in the
USA, sometimes called right realism, developed in the 1970s and was part of a right-
wing (conservative) critique of post-Second World War social and economic policies.
This largely American realist movement advocated greater emphasis on personal
responsibility, arguing that the breakdown of marriage and the growth of single
parenthood were the cause of many contemporary problems (including crime).

The governments of Ronald Reagan in the USA (1981–89) and Margaret Thatcher in
the United Kingdom (1979–90) together dominated politics for a sustained period of
Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 91

time during the 1980s. These two political movements represented a marked shift
away from post-Second World War social policy. Both governments have since been
described as neo-liberal (or new liberal) in that they embodied a new variation on
liberal social and economic ideals. For example, both Reagan and Thatcher advocated
free market economics and were highly critical of social welfare programmes, from
universal unemployment insurance to socialised health care and education. Indeed, in
both countries, social welfare programmes and policies were scaled back substantially
during the 1980s. People were encouraged to rely upon themselves rather than others,
and to plan for the future rather than assume that the state would take care of them
if they could not do it themselves. Right realism in the USA was part of this broader
political shift, this critique of large, 20th century welfare states. (For more on right
realism, see Newburn, 2017, pp.288–94.)

A starkly different version of realism, often called left realism, emerged in Britain
around the same time. This version of realism was instead based upon a critique of
radical and Marxist approaches to criminology, and the rising tide of neo-liberalism. In
an era when neo-liberal policies were becoming more and more popular, some British
criminologists began to argue that critical criminologists had little to say that was of
real, practical value in this context, and had anyway often ignored the very real and
significant impacts of crime on the most vulnerable members of society.

In Britain, left realism had a profound impact upon criminology, perhaps even more
profound an impact than right realism had upon criminology in the USA. The process
which gave rise to left realism was in part: (1) a revolution within radical criminology
itself; (2) a reaction to the impact of feminist criminology, which had diverted
attention away from class; and (3) a response to changing political circumstances and
a return to local patterns and concerns in crime and justice. Proposing a new form of
criminological inquiry that was based upon new ideas and a range of new research
methods, left realists such as Matthews and Young (1992) launched a sustained critique
of extant radical criminology, which they tended to refer to as left idealism.

Left idealism, they argued, assumed that crime occurs within the working class
because of poverty, and that criminal offences are a way of attempting to redress
this imbalance. Blaming the working class for this, they suggested, is tantamount to
blaming the victim, and focusing only on crimes of the powerful ignores the very real
impacts of crimes of the powerless. One of the key premises of left idealism was seen as
similarly problematic: that a crime-free future is only possible if structural conditions
can be changed. Left realists argued, on the other hand, that in practice, such
conditions are nearly impossible to change, and thus the left idealist vision is a utopian
one. Seen as naïve and anti-empiricist, left idealism was heavily criticised for refuting
data which suggested that some crimes had actually been increasing in the 1970s and
1980s, and for promoting a naïve abolitionism (that closing certain institutions and
limiting the criminal justice system would be an unqualified good thing).

According to Tierney (2009), the left realist project therefore had four main strands:

1. An attempt to develop an empirically based local picture of crime and its harms/
impacts.

2. A focus on causal explanations of crime (the ‘why’ of offending).

3. An exploration of the relationship between offenders, victims and forms of

informal and formal control.

4. An attempt to develop realistic policies (rather than grand philosophical visions)

aimed at reducing the frequency and impact of victimisation.

At the heart of this project was a particular type of research methodology, the local
crime survey. Left realists considered local crime surveys to be the proper basis for
the ‘democratic measurement of crime’ (Young, 1992). What they meant by this is
that although crime cannot ever be measured completely objectively (as we saw in
Part I), it is both important and possible to look for common issues in terms of the
experiences of crime (or victimisation). The local victimisation survey, in which people
in particular communities are asked about their experiences of being victimised, was
page 92 University of London

meant to fill the void between left idealist criminologies which downplay victimisation
and the more conservative accounts which see crime and violence as ubiquitous and
endemic to modern society. This signalled a very important shift in radical criminology,
as encapsulated by Downes and Rock (2003, p.289): ‘Where once radical criminologists
would have disparaged surveys as positivist and action as correctionalist, they now
embarked on a programme of policy-making as vigorous as that of any government
department.’

6.4 Victims of crime and victimology

An even more recent development in critical criminology is a sub-field known as
victimology, which centres the experiences of and the role played by victims of crime
in the criminal justice process. While criminology has a rather broad focus on crime,
those who commit crime and the systems and processes put in place to manage
them, victimology is explicitly concerned with victimisation. Before the emergence of
victimology, and wider victims’ rights movements, the victims of a crime were seldom
visible in the criminal justice process. Indeed, they mainly appeared as witnesses,
complainants or as compensation recipients and they had a limited role in both criminal
investigation and criminal prosecution. In recent years, however, victims have become
more and more visible, and more and more central to criminal justice processes, and
there is now a clear focus upon victims of crime and patterns of victimisation.

The term victimology is thought to have been coined by Benjamin Mendelsohn in

1947, though it took over a half a century for this field of work to become central to
criminological scholarship. Victimologists now focus upon identifying the victims of
crime, exploring the nature and extent of victimisation, and assessing the various harms
and impacts of victimisation (including the physical, the psychological and the financial).

The United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and
Abuse of Power (1985) has defined victims as people who have been subjected to
harm (either individually or collectively) and who have been exposed to physical or
psychological abuse and suffering. The loss or impairment of fundamental rights is also
perceived as a substantial harm and is considered to be a violation of criminal laws
throughout UN member states. In other words, an individual might be regarded as a
victim irrespective of whether the person responsible for their victimisation has been
identified, arrested or sentenced. The UN Declaration also notes that a victim is to be
deemed as such regardless of a potentially existing relationship between them and
the perpetrator; this is meant to recognise the fact that in many cases, the perpetrator
will be someone known to the victim, and this does not affect the extent of their
victimisation or whether they should be granted the status of a victim.

Nils Christie, a famous Norwegian criminologist whom we first learned about in Part
I, sought to identify the characteristics of what he calls the ‘ideal victim’. By ideal
victim Christie is referring to victims whose voices are heard, who can affect public
sentiment, who are covered by the media and who therefore have a voice. According
to Christie, there are six main traits that make a victim ideal:

1. The victim must be ‘weak’ – preferably female, either very young or very old, sick or
affected by some psychological or physical issue.

2. The victim should be acting in conformity with socially established and generally
approved norms (that is, they should be living a legitimate, ordinary life).

3. No blame is to be attached to the victim (it is the perpetrator that causes the
disruption in the life of the virtuous victim).

4. There is no relationship between the victim and the perpetrator (the ‘stranger-
danger’ concept is important here; victims are more likely to be heard and listened
to when they have been victimised by a dangerous stranger rather than when they
have been victimised by a partner or husband).

5. The perpetrator is clearly a big, bad, wolf who preys on his victims.
Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 93

6. The victim has the right characteristics to elicit victim status (usually through a
combination of power, influence and sympathy).

This idea – that there are ideal victims who will be listened to and non-ideal victims
who likely will not be – has become central to victimology.

6.4.1 Victim precipitation theory

Victim precipitation theory focuses upon the relationship between the victim and
the perpetrator and the extent to which this interaction might contribute to a crime
taking place. It is a concept typically associated with crimes such as robbery, rape and
homicide. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Sparks (1982) analysed a series of
factors such as lifestyle, neighbourhood characteristics and levels of vulnerability, in
order to produce a list of victim-prone typologies. These include:

u Precipitation – victims are encouraging their own victimisation through

certain behaviours or interactions (such as walking alone at night in an unsafe
neighbourhood).

u Facilitation – exposing oneself to the risk of crime (for example, leaving car doors
unlocked, and valuables in sight and within reach).

u Vulnerability – relates to physical attributes which might increase the risk of

becoming a victim of crime (for example, elderly people handling cash or children
using expensive mobile devices).

u Opportunity – creating the opportunity for the perpetrator to commit a crime (for
example through unsafe storage of valuables or carrying large amounts of cash
while travelling).

u Attractiveness – drawing attention through a display of wealth (wearing expensive

jewellery or showing off the latest technological devices).

u Impunity – being perceived as an easy target who will not seek retribution or even
denounce the crime (perhaps due to the relatively low cost of the stolen property,
the idea that goods will not be recuperated, or that there will be compensation
through insurance).

6.4.2 Victim-blaming
While victim precipitation theory exposed a somewhat benign acknowledgement
that, in some circumstances, the relationship/interaction between the victim and
the perpetrator might play an important role in understanding why certain crimes
take place, victim-blaming is rather different. This implies that the victim is to be
held responsible for what has happened to them and, as a result, it places culpability
on the person harmed, who has somehow contributed to their own victimisation.
Unfortunately, victim-blaming is still present in the contemporary environment in
connection with various types of crime; in particular in relation to violence against
women. Despite sustained criticism from feminists over the past several decades,
there are still numerous examples of a female victim’s behaviour being scrutinised
in court cases, by the media, and throughout the criminal justice process, where
any transgression of socially agreed norms contributes to the diminution (if not the
deletion) of that victim’s innocence.

6.4.3 Positivist victimology

Positivist victimology, much like positivist criminology (as we learned in Chapter 4),
is based upon the view that crime is triggered by a series of factors which can be
scientifically identified. While positivist criminology focuses upon factors which push
people towards crime (genetic, environmental and so on), positivist victimologists
highlight the responsibility and indeed the contribution that victims make to their own
victimisation. An approach associated with Von Hentig (1948) has focused in particular
upon social contexts and psychological characteristics. Von Hentig’s work aimed to
classify victims based upon how ‘victim-prone’ they were and, to some extent, how
page 94 University of London

culpable they were for the harm they experienced. This work was based upon an
attempt to explain the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, and the
ways in which ‘the victim shapes and moulds the criminal’. Although much of Van
Hentig’s work has now been discredited, there is still research today that focuses upon
patterns of victimisation and how these are related to crime prevention initiatives.

Positivist victimology has been subjected to additional criticism for assuming that a
victim’s identity is self-evident, linked to a particular harm and defined by the criminal
law. Moreover, there is a widespread tendency to focus upon victims of interpersonal
crimes and mainly violent and property crimes in particular. This narrow view fails to
acknowledge other types of harm (environmental crimes, for instance) perpetrated
by entities and organisations, not individuals, who – as we will see in Chapter 10 – may
produce not one victim but many. In addition, there is an assumption in this work
that victims desire most of all retribution, and that the perpetrators being punished
for their crime is perceived as a just and balanced outcome. Other research, however,
demonstrates that this is not always the case; many victims of crime do not report it to
the police, for various reasons, particularly in the case of rape and sexual assault.

6.4.4 Radical victimology

The radical approach to victimology is quite different from the positivist one. Radical
victimologists are interested in the differential vulnerability of certain groups and the
presence of structural inequalities which might be responsible for moulding patterns
of victimisation. From this perspective, the identification of victims (and offenders)
is done for a different reason; that is, it brings to the fore victims of crimes by the
powerful, including those acting on behalf of a state (correctional agents and the
police, for example).

This more recent approach to victimology, however, tends to paint an incomplete

picture of victimisation processes, for it focuses almost exclusively upon the socio-
economic dimension of victimisation while neglecting other factors including age,
race and gender.

6.4.5 Critical victimology

The central focus of critical victimology, on the other hand, is the process of becoming
a victim. As David Miers (1990) puts it, the key questions here are ‘who has the power
to apply the label?’ and ‘what factors are significant in determining whether to bestow
it or not?’ Mawby and Walklate (1994), inspired by a feminist perspective, propose the
analysis and explanation of how the label ‘victim’ is constituted, and why concepts
of who/what represents a victim might change over time and across different
socio-political contexts. Although feminist criminology was not initially concerned
with victimisation, it successfully underlined issues that had been neglected, such
as domestic violence, child abuse, rape and sexual harassment. Such work has also
highlighted the role played by patriarchy, in particular by drawing attention to the
shaping of patterns and processes of female victimisation at the hands of men. Critical
victimology has taken a step further in the study of crime and its victims as it has
underlined the importance and impact of historical contexts and cultural changes
in shaping victimisation practices and the creation of victims. Worthy of note is the
potential exploitation and/or manipulation of the status of the victim.

Although at one level it makes sense to explore and explain such developments
in criminology sequentially and in a linear fashion, it is also always important to
remember that ideas that emerged early in the 20th century can still be quite popular
today, while those that evolved in the last decade can wither away rather quickly.
It would be wrong to read the history of sociological criminology – or indeed the
history of criminology as a whole – as one which has a clear linear trajectory. New
schools of thought do not replace or even displace earlier schools of thought; instead
they are added to the increasingly complex weave of disciplinary traditions and
theoretical perspectives that make up contemporary criminology as a whole. Indeed,
some criminological ideas have been around for a very long time, and retain a great
Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 95

deal of influence. Others evolved quite recently, and may just as quickly fade away.
Sociological criminology on the whole is an enormous field of scholarship, and it is as
varied as it is nuanced. This chapter, however, has provided a brief overview of some
of the most influential ideas in sociological criminology, the purpose of which was
to lay the foundation for Chapter 7, which explores some quite recent concepts and
approaches in criminological scholarship.

Activity 6.1
Read the excerpt ‘Chambliss on the laws of vagrancy’ from p.271 of Newburn (2017)
and answer the following questions.
a. What was the ‘one express purpose’ for which early vagrancy laws were passed?

b. Why did vagrancy laws eventually become dormant according to Chambliss?

c. What social/economic conditions gave rise to the first vagrancy statute in

England in 1349?

Activity 6.2
Read the section entitled ‘Assessing radical criminologies’ on pp.277 and 278 of
Newburn (2017) and answer the following questions.
a. What is meant by the claim that some radical/critical criminologies are
teleological?

b. What is meant by the claim that some radical/critical criminologies are

deterministic?

c. What is meant by the claim that some radical/critical criminologies are

idealistic?

Activity 6.3
Read the section on ‘Sociological criminology and the continued invisibility of
women’ from pp.323 and 324 of Newburn (2017). Explain each of the four reasons
that Heidensohn (1996) notes for the absence of women in criminological theory.

Activity 6.4
Read the section on ‘Carol Smart and feminist criminology’ on pp.326, 327 and 328
of Newburn (2017). What is Carol Smart’s major criticism of the idea of feminist
criminology?

Activity 6.5
Read the section on ‘Assessing left realism’ on pp.286, 287 and 288 of Newburn
(2017). What are the main criticisms of left realism?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would answer the following sample
examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected to draw upon
the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from Chapter 6 in
particular. You would also be expected to draw upon the Essential reading. Top
answers would make use of one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Explore the emergence of radical criminology and some of its key strengths and
weaknesses.

Question 2
Discuss the importance of feminist criminology and its impact upon criminological
thinking.

References
¢ Chambliss, W. and R. Siedman Law, order and power. (Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley, 1982) 2nd edition [ISBN 9780201101263].
page 96 University of London

¢ Chesney-Lind, M. ‘Patriarchy, crime and justice: feminist criminology in an era of

backlash’ (2006) 1(1) Feminist Criminology 6.

¢ Daly, K. ‘Different ways of conceptualizing sex/gender in feminist theory and

their implications for criminology’ (1997) 1(1) Theoretical Criminology 25.

¢ Daly, K. and M. Chesney-Lind ‘Feminism and criminology’ (1988) 5 Justice

Quarterly 497.

¢ Downes, D., P. Rock and E. McLaughlin Understanding deviance: a guide to the

sociology of crime and rule-breaking. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) 7th
edition [ISBN 9780198747345].

¢ Heidensohn, F. ‘Women and crime: questions for criminology’ in Carlen, P. and

A. Worrall (eds) Gender, crime and justice. (Milton Keynes: Open University Press,
1987) [ISBN 9780335155057].

¢ Heidensohn, F. Women and crime. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996) 2nd edition

[ISBN 9780333642092].

¢ Matthews, R. and J. Young ‘Reflections on realism’ in Young, J. and R. Matthews

(eds) Rethinking criminology: the realist debate. (London: Sage, 1992)
[ISBN 9780803986213].

¢ Ministry of Justice Guide to proven reoffending statistics (2017). Available from:

[Link]
attachment_data/file/585963/[Link]

¢ Quinney, R. The social reality of crime. (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1970)
[ISBN 9780316729024].

¢ Sparks, R. ‘Research on victims of crime: accomplishments, issues and new

directions’ (Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services,
1982) [ISBN 9781125369999].

¢ Spitzer, S. ‘Toward a Marxian theory of crime’ (1975) 22 Social Problems 368.

¢ Taylor, I., P. Walton and J. Young The new criminology: for a social theory of
deviance. (London: Routledge, 2013) 2nd edition [ISBN 9780415855877].

¢ Tierney, J. Criminology: theory and context. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009)

[ISBN 9780273722779].

¢ Turk, A. Criminality and legal order. (Chicago, IL: Rand McNally, 1969)
[ISBN 9780528687037].

¢ Wilson, J.Q. Thinking about crime. (New York: Basic Books, 2013) 2nd edition
[ISBN 9780465048830].

¢ Young, J. ‘Ten points of realism’ in Young, J. and R. Matthews (eds) Rethinking

criminology: the realist debate. (London: Sage, 1992) [ISBN 9780803986213].

Further reading
¢ Burman, M. and E. Gelsthorpe ‘Feminist criminology: inequalities, powerlessness
and justice’ in Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of
criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition
[ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Chambliss, W. ‘Toward a political economy of crime’ in Newburn, T. (ed.)

Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Daly, K. ‘Feminist perspectives in criminology’ in McLaughlin, E. and T. Newburn

(eds) The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage, 2013)
[ISBN 9781446270530].

¢ Daly, K. and Chesney-Lind, M. ‘Feminism and criminology’ in Newburn, T. (ed.)

Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].
Introduction to Criminology 6 Radical and critical approaches page 97
¢ Matthews, R. ‘Realist criminology revisited’ in McLaughlin, E. and T. Newburn
(eds) The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage, 2013)
[ISBN 9781446270530].

¢ Matthews, R. and J. Young ‘Reflections on realism’ in Newburn, T. (ed.)

Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ McLaughlin, E. ‘Critical criminology’ in McLaughlin, E. and T. Newburn (eds)

The Sage handbook of criminological theory. (London: Sage, 2013)
[ISBN 9781446270530].

¢ Newburn, T. Criminology. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781138643130], Chapter 33 ‘Gender, crime and justice’.

¢ Scraton, P. and C. Chadwick ‘The theoretical and political priorities of critical

criminology’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton:
Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Smart, C. ‘Feminist approaches to criminology or postmodern woman meets

atavistic man’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton:
Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ van Swaaningen, R. ‘Reclaiming critical criminology: social justice and the

european tradition’ (1999) 3 Theoretical Criminology 5.

¢ Young, J. ‘Radical criminology in Britain’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in

criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].
page 98 University of London

Notes
7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk

Contents
7.1 From modernity to late modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

7.2 Foucault and governmentality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

7.3 Risk and the culture of control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

7.4 The new penology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

page 100 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 17 ‘Late modernity, governmentality and risk’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u explain the concepts of modernity and late modernity and how these are
deployed in criminology
u explain the notion of governmentality and the framework for governmental
analytics
u explain how the concept of risk has influenced contemporary criminology
u describe what Garland meant by a culture of control
u explain the importance of Feeley and Simon’s new penology thesis.
Introduction to criminology 7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk page 101

7.1 From modernity to late modernity

In this chapter we explore several key concepts and approaches that are new to
criminology. Scholars of crime and criminal justice have recently been trying to
understand some of the major changes to the globalised world over the past two
decades and link these to patterns of crime and systems for governing it. This
includes a focus on several dramatic changes that have taken place in the 21st
century, including the globalisation of surveillance, the increasing concentration of
wealth in the hands of a few (who are now commonly referred to as ‘the 1 per cent’),
and the burgeoning power of large, multinational corporations. And it is not just
criminologists who are interested in such developments. Across the social sciences,
geographers, legal scholars, psychologists, political scientists, sociologists and others
have been working hard to explore the impacts of what is now often referred to as late
modernity.

Modernity is typically defined as a set of norms, attitudes and practices that emerged
following the 18th century Enlightenment period in Europe, and which lasted until
quite recently. In Part I of the module, we learned about how the Enlightenment
brought forth new ideas about human nature, and how these new ideas gave rise to
innovative philosophies of law and criminal behaviour, as well as fresh perspectives
on the role of the state in providing criminal justice. Indeed, it was the basic tenets of
modernity that led to the emergence of the social sciences, and to the centrality of the
sciences in understanding and advancing human progress. Modernity also entailed
certain ideas about the relationship between individuals and the state, systems
such as capitalism and industrialised economies and particular processes such as
urbanisation.

This set of norms, attitudes and practices that is described as modernity is said to have
dominated Western culture and social practice from about the end of the 1700s until
very recently. For some scholars, we have now entered an era of postmodernity, where
the constant change in pursuit of progress that was characteristic of modernity has
been replaced by a context in which constant change has become the status quo, and
the idea of progress has become obsolete. What they mean by this is that advanced
societies are therefore now ‘post’ modernity, or after modernity. For others, and for
many in criminology, the current context is actually better described as one of late
modernity, since modernity’s central ideas, systems and processes still exist and still
exert a great deal of influence over society.

For David Garland and Richard Sparks (2000), the transition from modernity to late
modernity can therefore be characterised by two ‘transformative dynamics’. The first
of these dynamics includes five sets of social, economic and cultural changes. They
include:

u changes in the nature of production and consumption

u changes in the nature of families and households

u changes in social ecology and the makeup of urban cities in particular

u the impact of the electronic mass media

u the democratisation of social life, including diminishing differences between

women and men, and between different social groups.

The second set of transformative dynamics that Garland and Sparks (2000) identify
concerns the changing nature of class and race relations, including advances in
cultural conservatism and the rebirth of ideas about an ‘underserving underclass’.

Whichever approach one adopts, central to many of the accounts of our

changing world is: (1) a decline in the power and influence of nation states, and
(2) a simultaneous rise in the scope and reach of international and transnational
institutions, such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Union of South American Nations (USAN).
Of similar importance is said to be (3) the globalisation of corporate business and
page 102 University of London

the corporate business model, as well as the consolidation of corporations (such

that there are fewer and fewer corporations, but they are much larger and far more
powerful). Another feature of late modernity is said to be (4) the rapid advancement
and spread of technology, the near global spread of the internet and the mobile
phone, and a host of new communications and internet related technologies. As states
have become less and less central, as technology has advanced, as the internet and
global communications have proliferated and as corporations have extended their
reach and power, another development – (5) the globalisation of surveillance – has
become of particular interest.

The disclosures of NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, which made headline
news around the world, made it abundantly clear how pervasive and ubiquitous
global surveillance has become, and how this system is closely linked to: (1) the
development of communication technologies by telecom providers; (2) the borderless
world of the internet; and (3) the global reach of surveillance-oriented agencies and
private companies. One does not have to live in the USA or the United Kingdom to
be continuously surveilled by American or British security services (or indeed by
American or British companies). And, as Snowden made clear, there has been a great
deal of cooperation between some of the major internet companies (such as Apple,
Yahoo, Microsoft and Google), and the security and intelligence services of the USA, the
United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (It is important to note, however,
that Yahoo, Microsoft and Google all claim that they only cooperated with this ‘Five
Eyes’ network when they were forced to do so by court order.)

Massive surveillance programmes – such as PRISM and Tempora – have led some
commentators to describe 21st century societies as ‘surveillance societies’. This is
further reinforced by the fact that surveillance is no longer something only states
do – in fact many global corporations regularly gather, assess and make use of huge
amounts of data on consumers, and sometimes they even package this data and sell
it to others. Companies like Facebook do not make annual earnings of USD 40.7 billion
by providing users with free accounts. Their annual income, which is greater than
the GDP of many countries, including Iceland, Yemen, Albania and Jamaica, is derived
from targeting users with specific advertisements, direct mobile advertising and
the marketisation of various applications. Alongside these developments there has
been tremendous expansion in the global marketplace for surveillance technologies
(like hidden surveillance cameras) and ‘privacy enhancing technologies’ (like signal
blocking pouches for mobile phones and wallets). Surveillance, it seems, has become
normalised, globalised and ubiquitous, to such a degree that Norris and Armstrong
(1999) have described our 21st century societies as ‘maximum surveillance societies’
(see Chapter 14 for more on surveillance).

Another set of changes often associated with late modernity is shifts in property
relations. In the scholarly literature these are often associated with a breakdown of
a clear division between public and private property; a distinction which for many
people no longer makes sense. Many people in many countries around the world today
spend a great deal of time in spaces which are ‘hybrid spaces’, and which blur the line
between public and private. ‘Mass private properties’ (Shearing and Stenning, 1981) such
as shopping complexes, Olympic parks, theme parks and pedestrian-only zones, are
neither completely public (where everyone has the right of access) nor entirely private
(where access is strictly regulated). These are hybrid spaces which are privately owned
and privately operated, but to which large segments of the public have routine access (as
long as they behave in an appropriate way). In such spaces, the public police are less and
less visible, and, instead, private security guards, surveillance cameras, bouncers and the
built environment do the work of managing and maintaining security.

7.2 Foucault and governmentality

Since the moment that such trends were first identified, criminologists have been
trying to explore and understand what they mean for patterns of crime, deviance and
social order. In so doing they have developed new theories that focus specifically on
Introduction to criminology 7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk page 103

the changing nature of late modern life. One of the first strands of this work is that
which draws upon the ideas of a famous French philosopher named Michel Foucault.
Foucault’s ideas became very popular in the 1990s, as criminologists and other social
scientists sought to make sense of what was happening to the state and its institutions
(including the criminal justice system) without having to resort to Marxist ideas, which
had fallen out of favour. Foucault introduced many innovative ideas that have been
taken up and developed across the social sciences, and a full review of his corpus is
beyond the scope of any single module. In criminology, however, the idea that many
people first latched on to was governmentality.

Governmentality is a term that was introduced by Foucault in a series of lectures in

the late 1970s, just before he died. While it had become a popular catchword in Britain
and Europe by the mid-1990s, much of Foucault’s work on governmentality was not
available in English until quite recently. The lecture in which he introduced the term was
translated and published in Ideology and consciousness in 1979 (Foucault, 1979a), but the
rest of the lecture series was not available to English audiences until 2007. These lectures,
delivered in the 1977–78 academic year at the College de France in Paris, analysed the
rise and development of what Foucault referred to as governmentality: a modern form
or art of governance that gave shape to a complex array of programmes and techniques
for governing people and things. Foucault’s analytical framework shifted attention away
from class relations and the state (issues which had preoccupied Marxists) and towards
all of the different non-state authorities that routinely govern our behaviour (such as
teachers, private police and charity workers, for instance).

For Foucault, the new programmes and techniques for governing people shared a
family resemblance in that they were all future-oriented, interwoven with a new
type of power, and sought to know and manage everything that might affect the
population. These ideas quickly led to the development of an analytical framework
for mapping out these new arts of government (or governmentalities); a task Foucault
himself began during the lecture series. This approach has been called ‘governmental
analytics’, ‘Foucauldian governmentality’ or ‘Foucauldian analytics’, and it has been
highly influential in criminology.

Foucault understood governmentality as a specific type of governance that took

shape at a particular historical moment, but which has now become the common
ground for all modern forms of political thought and action (Rose et al., 2006, p.86).
Governmentality, Foucault argued, refers to the ‘ensemble formed by the institutions,
procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics’ that allow the
exercise of a very specific and yet complex form of power (Foucault, 1979, p.20). That
is, governmentality is a term Foucault used to designate the resemblances between a
set of different governing programmes and techniques that dominate contemporary
government. If the old European Empires were ruled by sovereignty – characterised
by law as the king’s command, individual or family rule of an Empire and a desire to
maintain the loyalty of subjects – governmentality is something different. It centres
on different set of objectives, a different type of power and a different group of
programmes and techniques for managing people and things. As the well-known
British Foucauldian Nikolas Rose (2000, pp.185–86) put it:

…‘the state’ is neither the only force engaged in the government of conduct nor the
hidden hand orchestrating the strategies and techniques of doctors, lawyers, churches,
community organisations, pressure groups, campaigning groups, groups of parents,
citizens, patients, survivors and all those seeking to act upon conduct in the light of
particular concerns and to shape it to certain ends.

The scholarly and analytical framework that evolved from this approach was used
to reveal and understand the different non-state programmes and techniques of
governance. It seeks to:

…identify these different styles of thought, their conditions of formation, the principles
and knowledges that they borrow from and generate, the practices that they consist
of, how they are carried out, [and] their constellations and alliances with other arts of
governing.

(Rose et al., 2006, p.84)

page 104 University of London

Thus, while there is no specific set of concrete problems to which a governmental

analytic is directed, the primary concern is with programmes and techniques of
government and making sense of these through detailed empirical analyses. Key
questions include:

1. Who or what is being governed? (For example, children, drug users or highways.)

2. How are they being governed? (Through disciplinary programmes, through harm
reduction measures, with surveillance cameras.)

3. To what end(s) are they being governed? (To increase standardised test scores, to
reduce the impact of overdoses on the healthcare system, to manage traffic flows.)

(Adapted from Rose et al., 2006, pp.84–85.)

One of Foucault’s most important contributions was a refusal to identify governance as

always already linked to states. That is, he recognised and demonstrated that a whole
variety of different authorities govern people in different ways, at different times, in
different sites, for different reasons, and in relation to different objectives. Put simply,
it is not the state which is always responsible for governance. There are multiple
governing authorities, from parents, teachers, pastors and employers to police, private
security guards, human rights groups and librarians. Thus, a criminologist should
be just as interested in the role of the insurance industry in governing crime as they
are in the role of the public police. Insurance companies that underwrite things like
burglary put a great deal of effort into governing the behaviour of people who take out
their policies; surveillance cameras, new locks on doors, barred windows and starting
up a local Neighbourhood Watch group are all things that can lead to reductions in
your monthly insurance premiums. So, this raises yet another set of questions for
governmentality scholars. These include:

1. Who is doing the governing?

2. According to what logics/rationalities is this governance being implemented?

3. What techniques are being used?

(Adapted from Rose et al., 2006, p.85.)

For criminologists, this new analytical framework led to new questions about new
objects of study that went well beyond the conventional subjects of criminological
work. Before criminologists started using Foucault’s ideas and deploying his analytical
framework, no criminologist would have spent time investigating the insurance
industry. And no one would have understood why, if they had. Criminology was about
crime, the people and groups who commit crime, and the systems put in place to deal
with them. But in 2003, a well-known Canadian criminologist named Richard Ericson
published a landmark book called Insurance as governance, which he co-authored
with two of his then PhD students (Aaron Doyle and Dean Barry). This book is not
about the police, courts or corrections, nor is it about crime and criminal offenders
as such. It is about how the insurance industry in North America plays a central role
in managing crime and people’s daily lives, but for its own reasons and with its
own set of techniques. For example, the insurance industry funds Neighbourhood
Watch programmes and encourages people to set up local watch groups in their
communities. It pressurises public police (sometimes with financial donations)
to adopt a particular format for their road accident investigation forms. And it
encourages citizens to secure their homes with surveillance cameras, security locks
and integrated alarm systems. This is often incentivised with a promise for a reduction
in monthly insurance premiums. And none of this activity is about criminal justice or
public safety, nor has it anything to do with the police, the courts or corrections (or the
state at all really). It is a different governmentality as Foucault would put it; a different
way of thinking about how to govern crime and disorder, for different reasons, using
different techniques.

Funding Neighbourhood Watch programmes will build informal social control

measures in communities and help to reduce burglary; reductions in burglary offences
will mean reductions in how many insurance payouts are made on burglary insurance
Introduction to criminology 7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk page 105

policies. And this means more money for the industry. Having the public police adopt
a particular road accident report format – one designed by the insurance industry and
not by the needs of the public police – will speed up road accident insurance claims
processing (since all of the required information will be input by police on the spot of
the accident). Requiring those who end up in accidents to report the accident to the
police (and thus initiate the police accident report) ensures that all road accidents
that might lead to insurance claims are reported to the industry. The purpose of this is
to ensure that insurance industry actuarial calculations (predictions about how many
accidents are likely to occur in the future and, thus, how much people pay in monthly
car insurance premiums) are as accurate as possible.

So here is an industry that seems to play a rather important role in governing people’s
behaviour, and through very innovative mechanisms; but it is one that had not been
explored to that point because criminologists had been asking different sorts of
questions. These new types of questions – questions about governance ‘beyond the
state’ – are Foucauldian questions. And they come from applying Foucault’s ideas to
criminology.

7.3 Risk and the culture of control

Foucault’s ideas have had a profound effect across the social sciences, including in
criminology, sociology and socio-legal studies. Although Foucault passed away in
1984, criminologists have continued using his work to reshape contemporary debates
and to construct a number of new approaches for understanding the governance
of crime and criminal justice. For example, by exploring changes to how crime is
being governed through new types of statistical techniques, scholars such as Ericson
and Carriere (1994) have argued that there has been an important shift in how we
understand crime, which has in turn led to new ways of predicting, preventing and
controlling it. For them, crime has been reconceived as one among many different
risks that society faces, and as a risk – like a car accident, a powerful storm or a viral
outbreak – it can be mathematically predicted, planned for and mitigated. According
to Ericson and Carriere (1994), this way of thinking about the future – seeing crime as a
potential risk that we face – has become so prevalent that it is possible to contend that
we live in a ‘risk society’, and that there has been ‘…a drift in the public agenda away
from economic inequality to the distribution and control of risk’.

The idea of a risk society is primarily associated with the work of German sociologist
Ulrich Beck (1992), who built his thesis around the central notion that risk is now the
lens through which all social life is understood. This way of thinking has in turn led us
to see any and all potential events (including crime) as risks that can be predicted, and
we have therefore developed more advanced techniques for predicting and managing
potential crime risks; that is, for predicting and managing the future. As Beck argued,
traditional industrial societies – with their focus upon the production of wealth –
have given way to 21st century risk societies where the risks of wealth production
dominate the agenda. This is not to say that our interest in producing wealth and
material goods has disappeared, or that we no longer have industrial economies;
only that the risks associated with contemporary life have increasingly taken centre
stage. For Beck, this is a fundamental moment of rupture, where societies have begun
to move in a completely new direction. In a risk society, as we continuously work
towards the development of new science and technology to help us deal with some
risks (like certain types of diseases, droughts and food shortages), we simultaneously
and unintentionally produce other new risks whose consequences we do not always
fully understand (for example, the dangers associated with the widespread use of
genetically modified foods, or with cloning and other genetic technologies). Over
time, these new risks begin to overshadow any progressive gains we have made by
managing other risks, and the new hazards and dangers we create are further and
further beyond our ability to control.

In criminology, the risk society is seen as having led to the introduction of new risk-
based techniques for governing crime and criminal offenders. As many scholars in
page 106 University of London

criminology have argued, the once reactive, after-the-fact criminal justice system
(which only deals with crime once it has already taken place) is becoming more and
more future-oriented, forward looking and predictive. Evidence for this can be found
in a number of new forward looking programmes, including:

1. new offender intake risk assessment forms in prisons, which try to predict the risk
that an incoming offender poses both to other inmates and to prison staff

2. sex offender profiling techniques, which seek to predict the risks associated with
certain types of sex offenders

3. various forms of risk-based policing, such as ‘hot spots’ approaches, where police
flood areas where the risk of crime is high.

All of these, and many other new crime policies, are based upon a mathematical
model for predicting crime risk, and thus they are all driven by risk-based thinking.

These changing patterns in crime control, however, have been analysed by a number
of criminologists, some of whom offer a different explanation than the arrival of a risk
society. Among the most famous of these is David Garland’s (2001) Culture of control.
One of the most influential ideas in contemporary criminology, Garland’s central
argument is that risk-based thinking and risk-based practices in crime control are
examples, not of a risk society, but of a new ‘culture’ that increasingly pervades the
criminal justice system (and wider society). In this new culture of control, the politics
of law and order dominate our approach to crime and criminal justice, such that
controlling crime and criminal offenders (rather than correcting, rehabilitating or
caring for them) becomes the dominant philosophy. Furthermore:

The new politics of crime control are socially and culturally conditioned and […] the
content, timing and popular appeal of these politics cannot be understood except by
reference to shifts in social practice and cultural sensibility.

(Garland, 2000, p.348)

Thus, according to Garland, broader socio-economic and cultural transformations

linked to the emergence of late modernity have had a fundamental impact upon
crime control patterns and processes.

Garland’s evidence for this shift is drawn from both the USA and the United Kingdom
and is summarised by means of 12 ‘indices of change’. These are the key indicators
which Garland suggests make clear the magnitude of this shift, and which in turn lead
to the emergence of a new culture of control. They include:

1. The decline of the rehabilitative ideal

While the correctionalist/rehabilitative paradigm dominated penal policy for most

of the 20th century, there has been a weakening commitment to rehabilitation as
the central logic for punishment.

2. The re-emergence of punitive sanctions and expressive justice

By this Garland means that there has been a return to ideas about ‘just desserts’, that
criminal offenders are getting ‘what they deserve’ when they are punished harshly for
their crimes. This retributive and punitive orientation is strongly emotive in character
and has led to things like public shaming and humiliation, sex offender registries and
notification schemes, chain gangs in prison and boot camps for young offenders.

3. Changes in the emotional tone of crime policy

There is also substantial evidence that society’s fear of crime is increasing, even as
the crime rate continues to go down in many Western countries, and thus we have
seen the introduction of policies that are aimed at reducing fear levels (rather
than crime itself). These includes things like highly visible ‘reassurance policing’
initiatives and the development of anti-social behaviour laws.
Introduction to criminology 7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk page 107

4. The return of the victim

For much of the last century, victims were involved in the criminal justice process
only in notifying the police that they had been victimised, at which point the state
prosecuted offenders on behalf of all society. Crimes were envisioned as victimising
society as a whole. Increasingly, however, victims are the focus of the criminal
justice process, and it is now often claimed that they must be protected above all
else (even to the detriment of suspects and offenders). Examples of victim-centred
initiatives include the emergence of victim impact statements which are read
in court and can affect sentencing decisions, and victim notifications as to the
release, whereabouts and movements of the offender(s) who victimised them.

5. Above all, the public must be protected

For much of the 20th century, criminal justice efforts were directed primarily
towards ‘fixing’ or correcting criminal offenders. Today, however, there is an urgent
emphasis upon the need for security and the protection of the public above
all else. This has led to a reduced emphasis upon the interests and rights of the
accused (and the rights of offenders), and more and more interest in effective law
enforcement and the control of dangerous people.

6. Politicisation and the new populism

Until quite recently, crime policy was determined in large part by ‘experts’
(including criminologists, professionals and practitioners), who it was thought
were capable of understanding and fixing the problem (of crime). Now, however,
crime policy has become increasingly populist (in that it is driven by public
demands rather than what might actually work) and politicised (in that politicians
have made crime and crime control central to their political platforms, which in
turn makes crime a subject of political debate rather than expert intervention).

7. The reinvention of the prison

During the golden era of rehabilitation, prison was seen as a last resort, and
alternatives to incarceration were typically sought. Today, however, many argue
that the prison has become the primary tool for crime control as the numbers
of incarcerated populations in the USA and the UK continue to soar (in contrast
to crime rates, which continue their overall downward trend). For example,
the prison population in England and Wales increased by more than half its size
(55 per cent) between 1992 and 2002 (Home Office, 2003). The idea that ‘prison
works’ has also come back, yet the focus is not on correcting people through
rehabilitative interventions, but controlling them by removing them from society
and ‘warehousing’ them.

8. The transformation of criminological thought

Traditionally, criminological theories and ideas have been dominated by sociological

and psychological approaches (including anomie, relative deprivation, labelling
theory and several others). These stressed the root causes of criminal behaviour,
which lay either within individuals or within society (or both), and thus how they
needed to be addressed/fixed. Today, however, a new type of criminological thought
has come to the fore. This includes a number of control-oriented theories which
see crime as normal and as something that only occurs in the absence of adequate
control. Since crime is normal, or so these thinkers argue, it can never be eliminated
completely, and thus we should focus our efforts upon controlling it.

9. The expanding infrastructure of crime prevention and community safety

At the local level, according to Garland, a new infrastructure has emerged for
implementing crime control, which increasingly takes place in and through
communities. It is the community which has been made responsible (or
‘responsibilised’) for crime prevention, crime control and enhancing community
safety. Examples include the resurgence of Neighbourhood Watch organisations,
the development of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), and community level
crime prevention programmes.
page 108 University of London

10. Civil society and the commercialisation of crime control

It is not only communities that have become involved in crime control. Indeed, the
governance of crime increasingly straddles the line between public and private
authorities. Evidence of this includes massive growth in the private policing
and private security sectors, public–private policing arrangements, and the
remodelling of public sector agencies (like the police) towards a corporate model
(see O’Malley and Hutchinson, 2006).

11. New management styles and working practices

While criminal justice agencies and institutions had long been organised according
to public sector bureaucratic arrangements, today a new form of ‘managerialism’
has emerged which brings private sector, corporate management styles and
practices directly into crime control agencies. This leads to new management
styles and working practices which are based upon new public management (NPM)
principles, including a focus on cost-effectiveness, the efficiency of service delivery
and performance indicators that are used to assess the provision of justice in
business terms.

12. A perpetual sense of crisis

Finally, Garland notes a sense of malaise and demoralisation that has pervaded the
criminal justice system and its workers, including criminologists and policy makers,
where there has been persistent talk of crisis and an inability to meet financial,
political and public demands in relation to crime. This has been linked to a loss
of confidence in existing ideas and ways of doing things, and the discrediting of
professional experience and expert opinion.

As Garland argues, the dominant assumption underpinning criminal justice for much of
the 20th century had been that people who engage in crime can be successfully reformed
and reintegrated back into society. Today, however, he suggests that there is an inclination
more towards swift and retributive punishments, where prison is used as a vehicle for
controlling criminal offenders and the potential future risk they pose to the rest of society.
This in turn has been linked to a range of new mathematical and statistical techniques
for predicting offender risk, and assigning additional security measures to those who
represent a higher level of danger. For Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon (1992), this
type of development is part and parcel of what they refer to as the ‘new penology’.

7.4 The new penology

‘Penology’ is a sub-field within criminology which comprises the study of the
philosophies and practices of punishment. For Malcolm Feeley and Jonathan Simon
(1992) the ‘old penology’ was one in which the purpose of the criminal justice
system was to (1) assign guilt, (2) punish violations of the law and (3) rehabilitate
and reintegrate offenders back into society. The new penology, on the other hand, is
quite different (see the table below for a comparison). According to Feeley and Simon
(Feeley and Simon, 1992; Simon and Feeley, 1994), the 1990s witnessed the birth of a
completely new strategy for punishment and corrections, one which had a different
set of characteristics, assumptions and aims. This new penology:

…is neither about punishing nor rehabilitating individuals. It is about identifying and
managing unruly groups. It is concerned with the rationality not of individual behaviour
or even community organization, but of managerial processes. Its goal is not to eliminate
crime but to make it tolerable through systemic coordination.

(Feeley and Simon, 1992, p.455, emphasis added)

For Feeley and Simon, this new penology has three key elements:

1. new discourses

2. new objectives

3. new techniques.
Introduction to criminology 7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk page 109

By new discourses (written and spoken communications), they mean that the
languages of probability and risk have replaced previous discourses that were
associated with clinical diagnosis, treatment and retributive judgement. The moral
and clinical description of individuals and individual dispositions has been replaced
by an ‘actuarial language’ of probabilistic (risk) calculation and statistical distributions
of criminal offenders. The primary focus is the management and protection of
public safety, and thus the management and control of risky populations (such as
criminal offenders). Individual problems and defects – which may have led to criminal
behaviour in the first place – have been displaced by efforts to estimate/predict the
risks associated with offenders, and by strategies aimed at mitigating and containing
such risks. The primary emphasis is on categories and subpopulations rather than
individuals and the new language and discourse revolves around terms such as social
utility, management and public protection.

In contrast [to the old penology], the new penology is markedly less concerned with
responsibility, fault, moral sensibility, diagnosis, or intervention and treatment of the
individual offender. Rather it is concerned with techniques to identify, classify and
manage groupings sorted by dangerousness. The task is managerial not transformative.

(Feeley and Simon, 1992, p.452)

The second element of the new penology is said to be a new set of objectives. While
under the old penology recidivism (the tendency or likelihood of an offender to
reoffend upon release from prison) was an indicator for assessing the success or
failure of penal programs, under the new penology recidivism is understood in a very
different way. Previously, recidivism would have been seen as a negative outcome and
an indicator of the penal system’s ineffectiveness (if someone reoffends, the penal
system has failed). Today, however, according to Feeley and Simon (1992), recidivism is
a positive outcome in that it can be used as an indicator of the successful management
of ‘risky’ populations (in that they were caught offending again, so the system has
done its job in controlling them). Likewise, probation and parole are no longer seen
as reintegrative tools, but as cost-effective ways to manage ‘dangerous’ groups of
people over the long term (increasingly by the use of electronic monitoring using
ankle bracelets). Moreover, there is now a much greater emphasis upon the volume
(numbers) and celerity (speed) of offenders being moved through the criminal justice
system, rather than on the more challenging objectives associated with successful
rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Indeed, much greater emphasis has been
placed upon cost-effectiveness and system efficiencies.

Finally, the third element of the new penology that Feeley and Simon (1992) identify
is a new set of techniques for managing and controlling potentially risky groups.
For example, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of electronic monitoring
systems (or ‘tagging’) for offenders on probation and parole. This has been referred
to as a form of ‘prison without walls’ (Wood, 2010) and it is linked to a model of
punishment which seeks to reduce the effects of crime by continuously monitoring
offenders in society, wherever they may go. The theory of incapacitation has also
begun to reshape crime policy; a model in which prison serves as a means to delay
further criminal activity by incapacitating offenders. In England and Wales, this was
associated with the advent of the indeterminate sentence in 2005 – a custodial
sentence given by criminal courts which had no fixed end date. Offenders would come
before a Parole Board, and if the Board deemed that they still posed a risk to society,
they would be kept in prison.

Another important new technique is what is often called ‘selective incapacitation’

– an approach which is based upon a sentencing regime in which the length of an
offender’s sentence is related to their perceived level of future risk rather than the
crime they have actually committed. Thus, criminal justice systems increasingly seek
to identify high-risk and dangerous offenders so that long-term control mechanisms
can be put in place. As Feeley and Simon (1992, p.457) make clear,

These new forms of control are not anchored in aspirations to rehabilitate, reintegrate,
retrain, provide employment, or the like. They are justified in more blunt terms: variable
detention depending on risk assessment.
page 110 University of London

A summary table The old penology The new penology

Unit of analysis The individual The aggregate/group
Purpose of criminal • Focus on ‘intent’ in order To assign levels of dangerousness/
law to assign ‘guilt’ risk and group offenders into
categories/pools
• Protections for the
accused against the state
Theories of Individually-based Risk-based; types of offenders
punishment
Process Assign fault and Identify, classify and manage
responsibility; diagnose; groupings of offenders sorted by
intervene and treat individual level of dangerousness (cf. car
offenders; return to society/ insurance). Predict future risk
normality
Purpose and task Transformative; intervene Managerial; to regulate levels of
of CJS to respond to individual deviance at the aggregate level
deviants and social
aberrations

While the new penology thesis has its critics (including some who question the extent
to which such new discourses, objectives and techniques have actually displaced
traditional penology), others have drawn a clear line connecting this new form of
risk-based crime control and the early eugenics movement (which we learned about
in Chapter 4). Garland (2003, p.65), for instance, notes that the new penology’s ‘focus
upon the differential risks posed by classes and categories… were all characteristics
of the eugenics movement at the turn of the century’. At the very least, this raises
some important questions about recent innovations. And of course it is important to
remember that Feeley and Simon are writing from the USA, which provides them with
their body of evidence. Others have therefore questioned the extent to which these
ideas help make sense of criminal justice innovations in other jurisdictions, including
in countries like Canada and Australia, where there remains a substantial commitment
to rehabilitation.

Over the past several decades, new ideas related to governmentality, risk and late
modernity have reshaped and broadened contemporary criminological scholarship.
Although they are certainly not universally accepted, such notions have driven a great
deal of innovative work not only on the criminal justice system, but also on other
governing authorities and other techniques for managing crime. Questions remain
as to the applicability of these ideas to different jurisdictions and different states,
yet they have become foundational for a new brand of criminological research that
has become increasingly popular. In Part III of the module, we begin to explore some
contemporary trends in crime and criminal behaviour, and some of the key fields of
study in criminology today. This includes a focus upon terrorism, serious and organised
crime, white-collar and corporate crime and violent crime.

Activity 7.1
Read the section ‘A new regulatory state?’ on pp.344 and 345 of Newburn (2017) and
answer the following questions.
a. What is the regulatory state?

b. How is the regulatory state different from the nightwatchman state?

c. How is the regulatory state different from the Keynesian state?

Activity 7.2
Read the section ‘The dispersal of discipline’ on pp.349, 350 and 351 of Newburn
(2017) and answer the following questions.
a. What did Stanley Cohen (1985) mean by ‘net widening’?

b. What did Stanley Cohen (1985) mean by ‘mesh thinning’?

c. How does this represent the ‘dispersal of discipline’?

Introduction to criminology 7 Late modernity, governmentality and risk page 111

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 7 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Explore the rise of late modernity, making sure to discuss its impact upon crime and
criminology.

Question 2
Critically assess Garland’s (2001) thesis about a new culture of control. Make sure to
explore both its strengths and weaknesses.

References
¢ Beck, U. Risk society: towards a new modernity. (London: Sage, 1992)
[ISBN 9780803983465].

¢ Feeley, M. and J. Simon ‘The new penology: notes on the emerging strategy of
corrections and its implications’ (1992) 30(4) Criminology 449.

¢ Foucault, M. ‘Governmentality’ (1979) 6 Ideology and Consciousness 5.

¢ Garland, D. and R. Sparks ‘Criminology, social theory and the challenge of our
times’ in Garland, D. and R. Sparks (eds) Criminology and social theory. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000) [ISBN 9780198299424].

¢ Garland, D. ‘The culture of high crime societies’ (2000) 40(3) The British Journal of
Criminology 347.

¢ Garland, D. The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary society.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780199258024].

¢ Home Office ‘The Prison Population in 2002: A Statistical Review’ (2003) Findings
228. Produced by the Research, Development and Statistics Directorate.
Available at: [Link]
[Link]/rds/pdfs2/[Link]

¢ Norris, C. and G. Armstrong The maximum surveillance society: the rise of CCTV.
(London: Berg, 1999) [ISBN 9781859732267].

¢ O’Malley, P. and S. Hutchinson ‘Converging corporatisation? Police management,

police unionism and the transfer of business principles’ (2007) 8(2) Police
Practice and Research 159.

¢ Rose, N. ‘The biology of culpability: pathological identity and crime control in a

biological culture’ (2000) 4 Theoretical Criminology 5.

¢ Rose, N., P. O’Malley and M. Valverde ‘Governmentality’ (2006) 2 Annual Review of

Law and Social Science 83.

¢ Shearing, C. and P. Stenning ‘Modern private security: its growth and

implications’ in Tonry, M. and N. Morris (eds) Crime and justice 3 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1981) [ISBN 9780226807966] pp.193–245.

¢ Simon, J. and M. Feeley ‘Actuarial justice: the emerging new criminal law’ in
Nelken, D. (ed.) The futures of criminology. (London: Sage Publications, 2001)
[ISBN 9780803987159].

¢ Wood, D. ‘Prison without walls’ (2010) The Atlantic Monthly September

Issue. Available at: [Link]/magazine/archive/2010/09/
prison-without-walls/308195/
page 112 University of London

Further reading
¢ Feeley, M. and J. Simon ‘The new penology: notes on the emerging strategy for
corrections’ (1992) 30(4) Criminology 449.

¢ Franko, K. ‘Criminology, punishment and the state in a globalised society’ in

Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Garland, D. ‘“Governmentality” and the problem of crime: Foucault, criminology,

sociology’ (1997) 1(2) Theoretical Criminology 173.

¢ O’Malley, P. ‘Risk, power and crime prevention’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings
in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Young, J. ‘Actuarialism and the risk society’ in Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in
criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009) [ISBN 9781843924029].
PART III – CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN CRIME AND
CRIMINOLOGY
8 Terrorism and political violence

Contents
8.1 What is terrorism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

8.2 New representations of terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

8.3 Understanding the terrorist threat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

8.4 The social construction of terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

page 116 University of London

Core text
¢ Newburn (2017) Chapter 36 ‘Globalisation, terrorism and human rights’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand the problems with defining terrorism
u be familiar with some of the different terrorist ideologies and terrorist actions
u understand the new representations of terrorism and how these are linked to
contemporary counter-terrorism efforts
u appreciate the nature and scope of the terrorist threat, and how it compares to
other threats
u understand what is meant by the social construction of terrorism.
Introduction to criminology 8 Terrorism and political violence page 117

8.1 What is terrorism?

Reflecting upon the past 15 or 20 years, it is abundantly clear that terrorism has
become one of the most central issues facing the world. If not in actual statistical
terms – as many more people die from heart disease, smoking, car accidents and
even contaminated food – terrorism has at least become a primary concern to the
public, the media and political leaders. Across the social sciences – from psychology,
criminology and sociology to geography, anthropology and economics – scholars
have been wrestling with this phenomenon, trying to understand its origins, its harms
and what might be done to address it. More recently, this has also included questions
about why we fear terrorism so much when our risk of being involved in a terrorist
attack is (statistically speaking) very low. The average citizen in the United Kingdom,
for instance, is more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed in a terrorist
attack. And yet terrorism now seems to be a problem everywhere in the world, and it
seems to occur with increasing frequency. But is it a problem everywhere? And does it
occur with increasing frequency? Criminologists, like many other social scientists, are
beginning to explore these questions as terrorism continues to dominate national and
international political agendas.

Although much of the criminological research on terrorism has only emerged over the
past 15 years, terrorism itself – as a phenomenon – is nothing new. Terrorism did not
begin on 11 September 2001 (nor did it begin on 7 July 2005, the day of the coordinated
attacks in London), although these and other major terrorist events tend to dominate
our perceptions of the problem. There was nothing new about terrorism at the turn
of the 21st century, just as there was nothing especially new about the hijacking of
aeroplanes or even Islamic extremism, and it was not the first time that the World
Trade Center had been attacked in New York (attacks on the WTC date back to 1993).
Yet, for some reason (or more likely, for a complex set of reasons), public discourse,
media reports and political rhetoric often represent the 9/11 attacks as a major turning
point; a significant watershed moment in the history of terrorism. Whether this is
true or not has remained a subject of great debate. Was 9/11 the start of something
new? Some new form of catastrophic, religiously driven, unpredictable, mass casualty
terrorism? Or was it yet another attack in a long series of terrorist attacks that goes
back dozens if not hundreds of years?

The terms ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ can be traced back at least to the late 18th century
(Lacquer, 1987). Groups with political, religious and social objectives have long used
violence and threats of violence as a way of bringing attention to their cause(s). The
‘Sons of Liberty’ for example, active in the USA during the 1770s, engaged in a number
of terrorist attacks with the goal of achieving independence for America’s colonies
(from Britain). Likewise, Anarchist groups in the 19th century were responsible for
killing a Russian Tsar and even a sitting US President (William McKinley).

Before the 1990s, however, most terrorist violence was geographically localised,
that is, it was concentrated in a particular geographic region. Many have argued that
globalisation and related advances in communication, technology and transportation
have led to a context in which terrorist attacks have increased in their scale, their
scope and their reach. Indeed, some scholars believe that what has resulted from
all of this is actually a new form of terrorism, a ‘non-territorial’ (Sloan, 1978) or ‘new
terrorism’ (Lacquer, 1999). For those who advocate this view, there is something
fundamentally different about terrorism today, something that we have not seen
before and with which we must now cope.

Definitions of terrorism – which outline what behaviours qualify as terrorism – are

rather common. Yet, while there are many definitions offered by many different
people, these are not always consistent with one another. Indeed, scholars, politicians
and practitioners often disagree on what exactly counts as terrorism and what does
not. Hate crime in the United Kingdom, for example, refers to acts of violence directed
at someone because of who they are or who someone thinks they are. This includes
crimes motivated by disability, race, sexual orientation and religion. Terrorism, on
the other hand, refers to the use or threat of action (including violence) which is
page 118 University of London

driven by a political, religious or ideological cause (according to the Terrorism Act

2000). But terrorist attacks (for instance those carried out by groups with a religious
cause) sometimes focus upon people of a specific race or religion. So, are these sorts
of terrorist attacks also hate crimes? Where is the line between these two things?
What counts as terrorism and what counts as hate crime? How do we decide? These
questions are not easy to answer, but they are increasingly important, and they speak
to the difficulty in arriving at a universally accepted understanding of what terrorism
actually is.

Despite all of the cooperation between different countries in the global war on
terrorism, there is still very little agreement about what constitutes terrorism. And
there is certainly no universally accepted definition. This level of uncertainty leads
many to draw upon the law for answers, and indeed one of the most common ways
of defining terrorism in the United Kingdom today is by reference to the Terrorism Act
2000. In this statute, terrorism is defined as something which:

(a) involves serious violence against a person,

(b) involves serious damage to property,

(c) endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action,

(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or

(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

(Terrorism Act 2000, s.1(2))

As this suggests, the behaviours understood as terrorism include much more than
attacks against persons: damage to property, endangering life, creating risks to health
and safety or merely disrupting an electronic system all qualify as terrorism according
to English law. In addition, this behaviour – whether it involves an improvised bomb
or a viral attack on government communication networks, for example – must also
involve ‘the use or threat of action’ which is designed to influence the/a government
or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and the use or threat is made
for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause (Terrorism Act
2000, s.1(1)).

What this makes clear is that the action need not actually ever be carried out: the
threat of acting is enough to qualify something as terrorism.

While debates rage on about what exactly terrorism is and what it is not, common
examples of what many consider to be different forms of terrorism include the
following:

1. Environmental and agro-terrorism

Threats or actions which target the environment or natural resources, such as

using plant or animal pathogens to cause disease in the agricultural sector. An
example of this would be ‘The Breeders’, who in 1989 released Mediterranean Fruit
Flies in some California farms in response to aerial pesticide spraying (which was
seen as impacting upon other farmers in the area, given the toxicity associated
with pesticides).

2. Bio-terrorism

Threats or actions involving the release of biological agents (including bacteria,

viruses and toxins) in order to cause death or distress. An example of this is the
1993 release of sarin gas by Aum Shinrikyo in five attacks on the Tokyo subway
system that killed 12 people.

3. Cyber terrorism

Threats or actions involving the use of the internet to disrupt computer

networks, personal computers or communications networks. An example of
cyber terrorism would be the defacement of websites belonging to Chinese, Indian
and Israeli companies by the ‘Pakistani Cyber Army’.
Introduction to criminology 8 Terrorism and political violence page 119

The individuals and groups who engage in these actions can also be grouped
according to the ideology that guides or motivates them. An ideology is a coherent
set of ideas, beliefs and principles that provides the basis for political action; it is the
set of beliefs that characterises an individual or group and provides legitimation for
action. Some ideologies are quite old, having been around in one form or another for
a very long time (such as Anarchist ideologies). Others are more recent, and are linked
to a specific policy, law or government programme (such as those which motivate
anti-abortion groups in the United States). Examples of ideologies linked with terrorist
action include:

• Anarchist ideologies

This set of beliefs and principles can take many forms, but anarchists often believe
that all government should be abolished and that ‘voluntariness’ should replace
the use of force as the guiding principle of societies. Anarchist groups date back
to at least the 19th century in Europe and have been associated with a number of
assassinations and attacks on private companies and their holdings (including, for
example, the bombing of Wall Street in New York in 1920).

• Political ideologies

A number of individuals and groups who have threatened or used terrorist action
have been driven by a very specific political ideology. These vary quite significantly,
but at their core is the belief in some sort of political change at a broad level.
Some groups have adopted what has been referred to as an anti-capitalist ideology
(sometimes called left-wing terrorism), taking issue with the various derivatives of
capitalism as an economic system. Others have adopted a political ideology that is
grounded in an opposition to immigration, migration and indeed to the presence
of foreigners within a country (often called right-wing terrorism). For example,
in 2007 Miles Cooper engaged in a letter bomb campaign in the United Kingdom,
based upon his opposition to ‘authoritarian rule’ by the English government. In
2016, on the other hand, the Home Secretary in England and Wales labelled (or
proscribed) the political group National Action as a terrorist organisation given its
far-right, neo-Nazi political framework.

• Single-issue terrorism

In contrast to political ideologies, which seek some broad political change(s), there
are also single-issue ideologies where the focus is upon one particular policy
issue. Examples include the anti-abortion groups in the United States that have
been responsible for the assassination of doctors who perform abortions. The
‘Army of God’, a Christian organisation opposed to abortion, was formed in 1982
and has been linked to a number of actions, including kidnapping and murder.

• Nationalist ideologies

Other individuals and groups who have threatened or engaged in terrorist action
have been driven by a nationalist framework, which often involves an attempt
to acquire greater autonomy and self-determination, or even complete
sovereignty for a people or group. Such movements have sprouted in many
places around the world, including in Asia, Africa and North America. The Front de
Libération du Québec (FLQ), for example, was founded in the 1960s in Canada and
was part of the Québec sovereignty movement. The FLQ engaged in a number of
actions between 1963 and 1970, including bombing, kidnapping and murder.

• Religious ideologies

There is nothing new about religious ideologies being used to justify threats
and/or terrorist actions. Since 2001, however, increased attention has been paid
to individuals and groups which draw upon some type of religious framework.
Such ideologies include sets of beliefs, principles and norms which have a
predominantly religious character or influence. Some argue that there has been
an increase in the number of religious ideologies linked to terrorism since the
page 120 University of London

1980s, while others contend that religion and violence have gone hand in hand
for centuries. Either way, what we must remember is that versions of Islamic
extremism, for instance, are not the only religious ideologies out there – indeed,
these are often mirrored by versions of Christian fundamentalism, or what we
might call Christian extremism. There are typically three elements to a religious
ideology. First, religious scriptures are used to justify particular actions. Secondly,
clerical figures often play some role. And thirdly, there is often some apocalyptic
philosophy present.

• Narco-terrorism

Narco-terrorism is a rather special type of terrorist ideology: one which is associated

with a primarily criminal organisation and, thus, with an overriding interest in
making, increasing and protecting criminal profits. Made famous by Pablo Escobar in
Colombia during the 1970s and 1980s, narco-terrorism refers to the threat or use of
terrorist action by a predominantly criminal organisation (or cartel) in pursuit of its
fundamental goal of obtaining and protecting profits. For example, it is often alleged
that Escobar funded and directed the siege on the Colombian Supreme Court in
1985 by M19 (the 19th of April Movement), and the kidnapping and killing of police
officers, military officers and political representatives.

8.2 New representations of terrorism

Despite the long and varied history of terrorism, terrorism today is often represented
in a very specific way. As we have seen, terrorism was not new on 11 September
2001, nor was Al Qaeda, Islamic extremism, the hijacking of aeroplanes or assaults
on the World Trade Center in New York. What was new was the number of casualties
which, when compared to other mass casualty attacks, was extremely high. Also new
was the use of aeroplanes as explosive devices. And yet this attack was and is often
represented as marking a complete watershed in the reality of terrorism itself. As UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair stated on 11 September 2001,

This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are
utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life, and we, the democracies of this world, are
going to have to come together and fight it together.

Given what we have learned thus far, this may actually represent more of a change to
how terrorism is perceived rather than a change in terrorism itself.

While the number of fatalities from 9/11 was very high, mass casualty attacks had also
happened before, and were not particularly new (consider 382 people who died in the
Air India bombing in 1985, or 293 who died in the Lockerbie bombing). One year later,
on the anniversary of 9/11, Tony Blair commented that:

September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11
also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world
at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very
values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life.

Such comments were regularly echoed by US President George Bush, and repeated
over and over by the media, who often depicted the ‘new terrorism’ as a new form of
evil which threatens the very existence of liberal democratic countries. Terrorism, for
Bush and Blair, was an existential threat, something the entire world must deal with,
as it threatens our values of ‘freedom, tolerance and decency’. Whether or not you
agree with this appraisal, it represents a dramatic shift in how terrorism is understood,
and, framed in such terms, it seems completely logical that huge amounts of money,
substantial resources and new counter-terrorism powers and laws will be needed to
confront this new global threat.

In the contemporary environment, post-Bush/Blair, representations of terrorism have

again changed, but not dramatically. In the United Kingdom, the USA, Australia, Canada
and Europe, citizens are routinely confronted with eye catching headlines about the
grave terrorist threat that they face. In the United Kingdom, terrorism is an almost
Introduction to criminology 8 Terrorism and political violence page 121

ever-present feature of the media, as demonstrated in the following headlines:

u ‘UK facing most severe terror threat ever’ (Guardian, 17 October 2017)

u ‘Number of UK terrorism arrests hits record high’ (Guardian, 7 December 2017)

u ‘Britain is facing a terrorist threat as unrelenting as it is unprecedented’

(Independent, 17 October 2017)

u ‘UK terror threat from ISIS… not diminishing’ (Independent, 25 October 2017)

u ‘ISIS promise “FESTIVE BLOOD”’ (Daily Star, 9 December 2017)

u ‘UK terror threat level severe “for at least five years”’ (BBC, 5 September 2017).

Such representations, as well as those offered by political authorities, often contain

one or more of the following key claims:

1. Terrorism is one of the gravest threats facing the United Kingdom today.

2. We are currently facing the gravest terrorist threat we have ever faced.

3. Complex, well planned, coordinated, mass casualty attacks are always just
around the corner.

4. The gravest threat is from Islamic extremism.

Such representations and claims are quite useful if one wants to rationalise new
counter-terrorism powers, bigger budgets for counter-terrorism agencies and, indeed,
if one wants to sell newspapers and advertising time on television. Statements like
these serve a particular purpose. They have also given rise to a context in which
those living in England and Wales acquiesce rather quickly to dramatic procedural
amendments to terrorism laws, for example, which have done things like:

u curtail due process (and human rights) for terrorism suspects

u create a system of ‘secret trials’ that are closed to the public, in which terrorism
suspects do not have access to the evidence against them

u given new powers to counter-terrorism authorities, including those which would

allow them to keep terrorism suspects under 24-hour house arrest irrespective of
whether or not they had actually been charged with a crime.

In July 2005, the Guardian newspaper reported that police in England and Wales had
told Prime Minister Tony Blair that they needed ‘sweeping new powers to counter
the terrorist threat, including the right to detain a suspect for up to three months
without charge instead of the current 14 days’. While Blair did not have the political
capital to provide for three-month detention without charge, he was able to offer
another, rather similar tool: the now infamous ‘control order’. Control orders in Britain
were authorised in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, and they essentially allowed
counter-terrorism agencies (including the police) to restrict a person’s liberty and
movements irrespective of whether they were ever arrested, prosecuted or convicted
of a crime. Simply put, a control order allowed the police to put a terrorism suspect
on house arrest, attach an electronic monitor to their ankle, prohibit them from
using a mobile phone or the internet, stop them from travelling on public transport,
require Home Office approval for any and all visitors to their home and restrict their
movement to a certain radius from where they lived. Given that the terrorism suspects
subjected to control orders had never actually been arrested or charged with a crime,
and thus were not permitted access to legal counsel, the courts in the United Kingdom
quickly became highly critical of the orders. After several revealing documentaries
and some damning court judgments, the control order was eventually repealed by
the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (although dozens of
terrorism suspects remain on control orders today).

For some criminologists, the question is this: does terrorism pose such a significant
threat that these sorts of wide ranging and invasive powers are justified? Ought due
process, procedural rights, and indeed human rights be suspended or even quashed
in the hunt for terrorists? And what is the actual threat that we face from terrorism?
page 122 University of London

How much danger is there? What are the figures, the statistics, the empirical evidence
behind all of these claims and all of these extraordinary powers?

8.3 Understanding the terrorist threat

Many countries now have terrorism threat levels which are set by the military or
security services, including the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. The
practice for setting the threat level varies. In England and Wales it is set by the Security
Service, also known as MI5. The threat level in the UK is currently ‘Severe’, and it has
been ‘Severe’ for more than 16 months (at the time of writing). According to MI5,
‘Severe’ is the second highest threat level that can be issued, and it means that a
terrorist attack is ‘highly likely’ to occur ([Link]/threat-levels). There is only
one level higher than ‘Severe’, which is ‘Critical’, meaning that an attack is considered
to be ‘imminent’. The threat level has been ‘Critical’ several times over 2018 in the UK,
but it has never been less than ‘Severe’. And although there was a clear spate of attacks
in England in 2017 (five attacks in total), these need to be juxtaposed against other
threats, and against the broader history of terrorism in the United Kingdom. It is only
by doing so that we can have a realistic and empirically based discussion about the
actual threat a country faces, and what should (and should not) be done to address it.

Between 9/11 and 2018, there were nine terrorist attacks in England and Wales (to
the end of 2018). Nine terrorist attacks over 17 years is an average of approximately
one terrorist attack every 1.8 years. It is important to note, however, that five of these
nine attacks took place in 2017. If we remove these attacks from 2017 and look only
at terrorist attacks in the 16 years between 11 September 2001 and the end of 2016,
people living in England and Wales have experienced, on average, one terrorist attack
every four years.

The attacks that England and Wales have faced include:

u London 2005 – 52 people were killed by three British-Pakistani men and one
Jamaican immigrant who claim allegiance to Al Qaeda.

u London 2013 – British soldier Lee Rigby was murdered in south east London by two
British men of Nigerian descent.

u Birmingham 2013 – Student and right-wing extremist Pavlo Lapshyn fatally stabbed
Birmingham resident Mohammed Saleem.

u Yorkshire 2016 – MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed by white nationalist Thomas Mair.

u 2017 – This calendar year included five terrorist attacks: the Westminster Bridge
attack (six killed), the Manchester suicide bombing (23 killed), the London Bridge
stabbings (eight killed), the Finsbury Park van ramming (no deaths) and the Parsons
Green Station bombing (no deaths).

These events were all very serious and very tragic. The injuries and loss of life associated
with them will mark survivors and indeed the entire country for years to come. Speaking
statistically, however, and only in terms of the loss of life, these nine terrorist attacks led
to a total of 92 fatalities over 17 years (these figures are slightly different from the Global
Terrorism Database figures). Averaged by year, this gives England and Wales an annual
fatality rate from terrorism of 5.4 deaths (or 0.01 fatalities per day).

For comparative purposes, according to the World Health Organization, approximately

1.25 million people die every year in traffic accidents around the world. This is
the equivalent of more than one 9/11 attack every day for a year. In Great Britain,
according to the Department for Transport, there were 1,792 deaths associated with
traffic accidents in 2016. This is an average of almost five deaths in traffic accidents
every day (compared to a daily death toll from terrorism of 0.01 persons). A recent
study by Kings College London also found that up to 36,000 people die each year in
England from air pollution, and the Health and Safety Executive has revealed that
approximately 8,000 people die every year from occupational cancers (cancers
related to working conditions, most of which are associated with asbestos).
Introduction to criminology 8 Terrorism and political violence page 123

In addition, and again according to the Health and Safety Executive, there were 144
deaths in 2017 from accidents at work (‘workplace deaths’), around 200 people die each
year from food poisoning, eight die each year from bee stings, and about 10 people die
each year in England and Wales from dog attacks. These numbers do not account for
the pain and suffering experienced by victims and the families of those killed in terrorist
attacks, but they do make clear that on the long list of what kills British citizens, terrorism
is far, far down the list, and well below heart disease (160,000 deaths per year), cancer
(146,000 deaths per year), air pollution (36,000 deaths per year), cancers contracted
at work (8,000 deaths per year), drowning (350 deaths per year), food poisoning (200
deaths per year), cycling accidents (150 deaths per year), accidents at work (144 deaths
per year), accidental drowning in bathtubs (20 deaths per year), dog attacks (10 deaths
per year), and even bee stings (eight deaths per year). To this we must compare the
average of 5.4 deaths per year (or 0.01 deaths per day) from terrorism.

Given the news headlines encapsulated above, however, and the ways in which
terrorism has been represented by politicians and government officials since 2001, it
is not all that surprising that people have become quite fearful about something that
has such a low statistical likelihood of killing them. The average British citizen is more
likely to die from alcohol poisoning (150 to 200 deaths per year), texting while driving
(35 deaths per year) or accidental suffocation in their own bed (11 deaths per year). But
alcohol consumption, texting while driving and accidental suffocation at home in bed
generate much less fear than terrorism.

In addition, and despite widespread fears about terrorism, most terrorist attacks
do not take place in democracies or in the West. Most terrorist attacks take place
in the Middle East, Africa, India and Pakistan, and those killed in terrorist attacks are
predominantly Muslims from Arabic countries, not Christians from the West. In 2017,
more than half of all terrorist attacks took place in four countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
India and Pakistan. In 2017, more than half of all deaths from terrorist attacks occurred
in three countries: Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. In fact, countries like the USA, the
United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Spain and New Zealand do not
even appear on the list of the top 20 countries affected by terrorism.

According to the Global Terrorism Database ([Link]/gtd/) managed by

the University of Maryland and the Department of Homeland Security in the USA, the
20 countries impacted most by terrorism are as follows. (Each is given a score out
of 10, where 0 represents no impact from terrorism, and 10 represents the highest
possible impact from terrorism.)

1. Iraq (10)
2. Afghanistan (9.441)
3. Nigeria (9.009)
4. Syria (8.621)
5. Pakistan (8.4)
6. Yemen (7.877)
7. Somalia (7.654)
8. India (7.534)
9. Turkey (7.519)
10. Libya (7.256)
11. Egypt (7.17)
12. Phillippines (7.126)
13. Democratic Rep. of Congo (6.967)
14. South Sudan (6.821)
15. Camaroon (6.787)
16. Thailand (6.609)
17. Ukraine (6.557)
18. Sudan (6.453)
19. Central African Republic (6.394)
20. Niger (6.316)
page 124 University of London

By region, terrorism has the most impact in the Middle East and North Africa, South
Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia ([Link]/pubs/START_GTD_
Overview2017_July2018.pdf).

Furthermore, according to data compiled by START (a consortium for the Study of

Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland), between 2001
and 2014 (excluding 9/11), in the USA there were 131 deaths associated with far-right
terrorism and only 51 deaths associated with Islamic extremism. In the USA, right-wing
terrorism kills many more Americans than Islamic extremism.

In addition, between 1990 and 2015 (excluding 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing),
in the USA, Islamic extremists killed seven law enforcement officers and 18 military
personnel, while far-right extremists killed 57 law enforcement officers (and no
military personnel).

Simply put, for those living in the USA (including law enforcement officers), far-right
extremism is at least as grave a threat as that associated with Islamic extremism,
although distracted driving and animal attacks still kill many more Americans than
either form of terrorism (3,285 deaths per year and 200 deaths per year respectively).
According to a study by the New America organisation, between 2010 and 2016 more
Americans in the USA were being killed by far-right individuals and groups than by
Islamic extremists ([Link]).

In addition, contrary to the popular belief in the USA (and elsewhere) that the terrorist
threat is mostly foreign, the New America organisation has also revealed that the vast
majority of terrorist attacks in the USA have been carried out by American citizens or
legal residents. And, despite the original executive order banning entry to the USA from
seven majority-Muslim countries (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia), none
of those who carried out deadly terrorist attacks in the USA since 9/11 had emigrated
from (or came from a family that emigrated from) any of those countries. None of the
9/11 attackers came from any of those countries either.

Furthermore, for those who live in the United Kingdom, terrorism today is killing far
fewer people than it did in the past. It is important to remember that the UK, like many
other countries, has a long and complicated history of political violence that begins as
early as the 1920s, and which dominated British politics for many decades. According
to research carried out by the Telegraph ([Link]/news/0/many-people-
killed-terrorist-attacks-uk/), from 2000 to 2017, 127 people were killed in terrorist
attacks in Britain as a whole. Between 1985 and 1999, however, 1,094 people were
killed in Britain. And between 1970 and 1984 – the deadliest period for terrorism in the
UK – 2,211 people were killed in terrorist attacks. In fact, the threat from terrorism in
the United Kingdom has been steadily decreasing over time, rather than increasing (or
even remaining steady). And the average person in the UK is still more likely to die in a
dog attack.

Furthermore, 1988 was by far the worst year for terrorism in Europe, with 440 people
killed. Otherwise, Europe is actually one of the safest regions in the world, as is North
America.

8.4 The social construction of terrorism

The seeming disparity between our fears about terrorism and the actual risk we
face may stem – at least in part – from the role that the media plays in reporting on
terrorism. Recently, however, it has been suggested that there may be something else
going on, that it is our societal response to terrorism that matters. The contention
has been that, like crime, terrorism is a ‘social construction’. What is meant by this is
that there is nothing inherent about terrorism that distinguishes it from other types
of violence (say, violent hate crimes or violent state crimes). Rather, what is different
about these forms of violence is how we respond to them. Social constructionists
argue that the characteristics of terrorism are not uniform nor unique to terrorism,
and it is how societies and states react to certain types of violence that defines it as
Introduction to criminology 8 Terrorism and political violence page 125

one thing or another (see, for example, Furedi, 2013; Innes and Levi, 2017). Terrorism,
social constructionists argue, is not terrorism until we define it as such, until we label
it as terrorism (as opposed to hate crime, or justified, war-related violence).

In addition, it is not just the media that plays a role in how the public understands
different types of violence and how it responds to them. States also play a significant
role. Some scholars argue, for instance, that ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ are political
labels which involve a judgement about what qualifies as terrorism and what does
not (recall labelling theory from Chapter 5). States themselves engage in a great deal
of violence, but this is normally categorised as something else, quite different from
terrorism. Indeed, historically, terrorism has often been seen as non-state action, as
asymmetrical action against states, and states are the ones that have the power to
officially label (or proscribe) a group as a terrorist entity.

For example, in England and Wales, the Home Office maintains a list of ‘Proscribed
Terrorist Organisations’ which includes 67 international groups and 14 groups in
Ireland. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, there are specific rules for proscribing terrorist
organisations, which allow the Secretary of State to proscribe a group if it:

u commits or participates in acts of terrorism

u prepares for terrorism (an action need not have actually been carried out yet)

u promotes or encourages terrorism (including the ‘glorification’ of terrorism)

u is otherwise concerned in terrorism.

In addition, according to the Terrorism Act 2000, proscription (or official labelling)
of a group must be ‘proportionate’. Thus, the Secretary of State must take into
consideration the following in deciding whether proscription is proportionate:

u the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities

u the specific threat it poses to the UK

u the specific threat it poses to British nationals overseas

u the extent of the organisation’s presence in the UK

u the need to support other members of the international community in the fight
against terrorism (meaning that proscription can follow the proscription of a
particular group by an ally, such as the USA).

Proscription does more than just label a group a ‘terrorist entity’, and it is common
practice across many jurisdictions in Europe, North America and Australasia. This
official labelling provides the justification and legal foundation for a number of
offences which are commonly referred to as ‘proscription offences’; offences which
relate to someone’s support for or belonging to a proscribed group. Specifically, in
England, proscription makes it a criminal offence to:

u belong, or profess to belong, to a proscribed organisation in the UK or overseas

(Terrorism Act 2000, s.11)

u invite support for a proscribed organisation (and support is not restricted to

financial support) (Terrorism Act 2000, s.12(1))

u arrange, manage or assist in arranging or managing a meeting with the knowledge

that the meeting is to support or further the activities of a proscribed organisation,
or is to be addressed by a person who belongs or professes to belong to a
proscribed organisation (Terrorism Act 2000, s.12(2))

u address a meeting if the purpose of the address is to encourage support for, or

further the activities of, a proscribed organisation (Terrorism Act 2000, s.12(3))

u wear clothing or carry or display articles in public in such a way or in such

circumstances as to arouse reasonable grounds to suspect that an individual is a
member or supporter of a proscribed organisation (Terrorism Act 2000, s.13).
page 126 University of London

The penalties for proscription offences under s.11 and s.12 are a maximum of 10
years in prison and/or a fine. The maximum penalty for an s.13 offence is six months
in prison and/or a fine not exceeding £5,000. In addition, proscription can support
other disruptive activity including the use of immigration powers such as exclusion,
prosecution for other offences, encouraging the removal of online material and
messaging, and the freezing of assets. The resources and assets of a proscribed
organisation are considered the property of a terrorist entity, and they are therefore
liable to be seized.

According to the Home Office, other effects associated with proscription (or
designation as a terrorist entity) include: supporting efforts to curb terrorism
financing and to encourage other nations to do the same; stigmatising and isolating
designated terrorist organisations; deterring donations or contributions to (and
economic transactions with) any proscribed organisations; raising public awareness
and knowledge of terrorist organisations; and signalling to other governments a
serious concern with and attention to named organisations.

As all of this suggests, it is important to wade beyond the highly visible and
often partisan political rhetoric about terrorism, as well as the disproportionate
representation of terrorism in the media. There were more stories in both US and UK
national newspapers in 2017 about terrorism than there were about staph infections
in hospitals (also called MRSA, a bacterial infection or ‘superbug’ that people contract
while staying in hospital) – notwithstanding the fact that these infections kill between
300 and 400 people per year in England and around 2,000 every year in the USA.
Academic studies of terrorism have sought to explore the various rationales or
ideologies that motivate terrorist violence, the different types of attacks that take
place, the long and varied history of terrorist violence, and even the concept and the
category of terrorism itself. Central to this work has been the empirical evaluation
of the threat terrorism poses to different countries and regions, as well as how and
why our responses to terrorist violence are so different from our responses to other
forms of violence, including state violence. In the next chapter we explore serious and
organised crime, another complex form of criminal behaviour that has increasingly
occupied contemporary criminologists.

Activity 8.1
Read the Blog by Professor John Adams ‘7/7: What kills you matters, not numbers’
(available at: [Link]/blog/archives/[Link]) and answer
the following questions.
a. What is a ‘pure voluntary risk’?

b. What is a ‘malignly imposed risk’?

c. According to Adams, why do we fear some risks (like terrorism) more than
others (like driving)? How does he explain this?

Activity 8.2
Read the START background report called ‘Global terrorism in 2017’ (available at:
[Link]/pubs/START_GTD_Overview2017_July2018.pdf) and answer the
following questions.
u Did terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide go up or down in 2017?
u What was the peak year for terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide?
u How many attacks took place in south Asia in 2017? How many deaths resulted
from these attacks?
u How may attacks took place in North America in 2017? How many deaths
resulted from these attacks?
u Which countries experienced especially large increases in terrorist attacks in 2017?
u Did the number of attacks attributed to ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)
go up or down in 2017 (compared to 2016)?
Introduction to criminology 8 Terrorism and political violence page 127

Sample examination question

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination question. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 8 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Explain what is meant by the social construction of terrorism, and how this
perspective contributes to our understanding of terrorist attacks.

References
¢ Furedi, F. ‘Terrorism and the politics of fear’ in Hale, C., K. Hayward, A. Wahidin
and E. Wincup Criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 3rd edition.

¢ Innes, M. and M. Levi ‘Making and managing terrorism and counterterrorism: the
view from criminology’ in Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford
handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition
[ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Lacquer, W. The new terrorism: fanaticism and the arms of mass destruction.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) [ISBN 9780195140644].

¢ Lacquer, W. The age of terrorism. (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1987)

[ISBN 9780316514781].

¢ Sloan, S. The anatomy of non-territorial terrorism: an analytical essay.

(Gaithersburg, MD: International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1978).

Further reading
¢ Best, S. ‘Liquid terrorism: altruistic fundamentalism in the context of liquid
modernity’ (2010) 44(4) Sociology 678.

¢ Giddens, A. ‘Scaring people may be the only way to avoid the risks of new-style
terrorism’ (2005) 18, Issue 840 New Statesman 29. Available at:
[Link]/node/161244

¢ Innes, M. and M. Levi ‘Making and managing terrorism and counterterrorism: the
view from criminology’ in Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford
handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition
[ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Kaldor, M. ‘In defence of new wars’ (2013) 2(1) Stability: International Journal
of Security and Development 1. Available at: [Link]/
articles/10.5334/[Link]/

¢ LaFree, G., N. Morris, L. Dugan ‘Cross-national patterns of terrorism: comparing

trajectories for total, attributed and fatal attacks 1970–2006’ (2010) 50(4) British
Journal of Criminology.

¢ Levi, M. ‘Organized crime and terrorism’ in Maguire., M. et al. (eds) The Oxford
handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 4th edition
[ISBN 9780199205431].

¢ Newburn, T. Criminology. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) 3rd edition

[ISBN 9781138643130]. Chapter 36 ‘Globalisation, terrorism and human rights’.

¢ University of Maryland (2014) Global Terrorism Database, [Link]/

gtd/search/[Link]?chart=overtime&casualties_type=&casualties_max
page 128 University of London

Notes
9 Organised crime

Contents
9.1 What is organised crime? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

9.2 Organised crime models and typologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

9.3 Countering organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

9.4 Transnational organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

9.5 Countering transnational organised crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

page 130 University of London

Core text
Newburn (2017) Chapter 20 ‘Organised crime’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand some of the difficulties with defining organised crime
u appreciate the value of typologies and models of organised crime
u understand what is being done to address organised crime at the national level
u understand and appreciate the rise of transnational organised crime and what is
being done to address it at the international level.
Introduction to criminology 9 Organised crime page 131

9.1 What is organised crime?

Coming up with a definition of organised crime is not a straightforward task. There is
no consensus, either in the academic community or among practitioners, about what
organised crime actually is, and what sorts of behaviours it entails. For the public, the
term organised crime will often bring to mind popular representations of gangsters
and mafias in films, books, television and video games. The mass media also tends
to represent organised crime in a very particular way, using similar terminology,
ideas and imageries to those found in popular culture. For researchers, and for
criminologists in particular, these common representations of organised crime can be
more problematic than helpful, as they tend to generalise and homogenise organised
crime groups, creating the misperception that they are all quite similar (when often
the exact opposite is true).

While some of the behaviours we now associate with organised crime (such as
drug trafficking across borders) have been around for hundreds of years, the term
‘organised crime’ was first used in a 1896 American report on illegal gambling and
prostitution rings (Paoli and Vander Beken, 2014, p.15). It was not until much more
recently, however, that the term gained widespread traction, and not until the early
1990s that organised crime became a key topic in British and European scholarship.
During the 1920s and 1930s in the USA, the legal prohibition of alcohol through the
Prohibition Act led to the development of fairly large-scale criminal organisations
which reached across the USA and even into Canada and Mexico, where much of the
alcohol that was consumed in the USA was manufactured. Early on, ‘organised crime’
therefore referred to complex ‘racketeering’ activities (an American term which
refers to ongoing profits produced by illegal businesses), including the provision of
illicit goods (such as alcohol and drugs) and the provision of illicit services (such as
gambling and high-interest loans).

Despite a longer history of organised crime and counter-organised crime efforts in the
USA, it is only quite recently that criminologists in the United Kingdom and Europe
have begun to focus on these sorts of issues. An annual report is now produced in the
United Kingdom by the National Crime Agency, an institution created in 2013 with
direct responsibility for serious and organised crime in the UK. In 2013 the government
also introduced the first national strategy for coordinating counter-organised crime
efforts, a framework that is referred to as the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy.
Furthermore, organised crime is now one of only two types of crime (the other is
terrorism) that has been classified by the British government as a ‘national security
threat’. That is, terrorism and organised crime have been elevated to the status of
risks to the security of the state itself, and they are therefore no longer understood
or addressed as regular crimes (like say drug peddling and assault). In fact, the British
government has recently concluded that organised crime ‘affects more UK citizens,
more often, than any other national security threat’ and ‘leads to more deaths in the
UK each year than all other national security threats combined’ (including terrorism;
Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2018, p.5).

This dramatic rise of organised crime on the list of national priorities in Britain (as
well as in the European Union) has been mirrored by an improved understanding
of organised crime by criminologists, including its different impacts and harms.
According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), the government agency responsible
for collecting and collating information on organised crime at the national level, the
United Kingdom is primarily a ‘consumer country’ and thus a lucrative market for
drug traffickers around the world. The amount of heroin entering the United Kingdom
annually is said to be between 18 and 23 tonnes, with the majority coming from
Afghanistan (after having been trafficked through Pakistan). The amount of cocaine
entering the United Kingdom every year ranges between 25 and 30 tonnes, and it
is mainly supplied by Colombian producers who use Spanish and Danish ports as
gateways into Europe. As in most other Western countries, however, the number one
drug of choice in the UK is cannabis. The market in cannabis in the UK alone is valued
at over £1 billion per year, and thus about 270 tonnes are needed every year to satisfy
consumer demand.
page 132 University of London

When one sets out to explore the organisations behind these sorts of large scale
trafficking operations, one immediately runs into a number of difficulties. First,
complex criminal organisations (often international in their operations) are
notoriously difficult to penetrate and, therefore, to understand. In fact, the success
of an illicit organisation over the long term is typically dependent upon its ability
to maintain secrecy and to go unnoticed. The Italian Omertà (or code of silence) is a
well-known example of an internal set of rules which prohibits members from talking
about the group’s activities with anyone else. And there are other codes which apply
to other organisations, some of which are long-standing (the Japanese Yakuza, for
instance, trace their roots and their rules back at least to the early 1600s).

What we know about complex, secretive and highly organised criminal groups is
therefore often limited – and yet the criminal terrain they cover is vast. From drug
trafficking and human trafficking to running extortion schemes, protection rackets
and illegal gambling dens, organised criminal groups engage in some of the most
complex and lucrative forms of crime. In addition, organised crimes themselves are
often very complex and difficult to understand, let alone investigate and prosecute.
What criminologists have learned about such groups, therefore, often comes from
public prosecutions, revelations by insiders who are willing to talk, the work that
academics in other countries have been able to carry out and information from the
police and prison officials.

There is no single, agreed upon definition of organised crime. In the United Kingdom,
the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy (2013) actually provides two different
meanings. The first is organised crime as a type of criminal behaviour, that is, crime
that is organised. Section 1.2 of the Strategy lists a number of organised crimes,
including: drug trafficking; human trafficking; organised illegal migration; high value
fraud; counterfeiting; and cyber-crime. The second meaning of organised crime is
not about crimes that are organised but a specific type of criminal organisation.
In Section 1.4 of the Strategy 2013, organised crime is characterised in terms of a
series of dangerous and harmful groups. Thus, the term organised crime is used
most commonly to refer either to types of criminal behaviour that are organised, or
to specific types of criminal groups (in comparison to, say, prison gangs). One way
of simplifying this is to say that by organised crime criminologists mean complex
criminal organisations (with more than a few members) which engage in complex
forms of organised criminal behaviour (such as drug trafficking).

A useful distinction to make is between organised crime, on the one hand, and white-
collar and corporate crime on the other. As we will see in Chapter 10, white-collar and
corporate crime are deviations from normal, legal business activity, while organised
crime groups focus upon long-term criminal conspiracies (where crime is the main
source of income for the group). Although corporations or groups of white-collar
criminals may in a sense be ‘organised’, more often than not they engage in crime as
a one-off deviation from normal, legitimate activity. Thus, white-collar and corporate
crimes typically happen in the course of legitimate business. This is quite different
from a long-term focus on continuous profits through crime.

A distinction can also be drawn between terrorism and organised crime. Some types
of terrorism can indeed be described as organised criminal behaviour. Terrorism is
a crime, and if a large terrorist group plans an attack, it has – in a sense – engaged
in an organised crime. And yet, as we have seen, terrorism is typically understood
as ‘The use of violence or threats of violence to intimidate or coerce civilians or
government(s) for the purpose of advancing political, religious or ideological
objectives’ (Terrorism Act 2000). Thus, there is a crucial difference between criminal
organisations and terrorist organisations: the former is guided primarily by profit,
while the latter is driven largely by politics/ideology.

Professor Jay Albanese, a well-known American scholar who has written extensively
on organised crime, carried out a study of a range of different approaches to defining
organised crime, and came up with the following:
Introduction to criminology 9 Organised crime page 133

Organized crime is a continuing criminal enterprise that rationally works to profit

from illicit activities that are often in great public demand. Its continuing existence is
maintained through the use of force, threats, monopoly control and/or the corruption of
public officials.

(Albanese, 2011, p.4)

Although there is no single, universally agreed definition, this approach by Albanese

seems to capture what many criminologists mean by the term. An even more useful
approach, however, might be to focus upon the characteristics of organised crime
groups and characteristic organised crimes. In collecting and collating research on
organised crime for the past 50 years, Albanese (2011) suggests that there are a number
of characteristics to organised crime groups, which can be ranked according to how
prevalent they are (with 1 being the most prevalent and 11 being the least prevalent).

1. A continuous organised hierarchy

The vast majority of complex criminal organisations have some sort of internal,
organised hierarchy where some members are more senior and some members
are more junior. There may or may not be strictly defined levels or ranks of
authority, but some sort of hierarchy is almost always present.

2. Continuous long-term profit through crime

Complex criminal organisations are primarily motivated by a search for long term
and continuous profits through crime. In this way, organised criminal groups can
be differentiated from terrorist groups, which have a more political, ideological or
religious focus.

3. Regular use of force or threat

Common to the majority of complex criminal organisations is the regular and

routine use of threat or force. Violence, or the threat of violence, is just a regular
part of doing business, and criminal organisations that last for a long time often
depend upon a high level of violence and/or threat of violence.

4. Corruption of public officials/infiltration of public offices

Most large and complex criminal organisations will seek to corrupt public officials,
prosecutors, police officers, customs and border protection officers, or other
members of the government or bureaucracy. They do this first in order to maintain
their immunity from policing and second to facilitate their criminal activities
(including bringing large shipments of drugs through major European ports, for
example).

5. Widespread public demand for services

It is important to remember that the only reason there is a black market in illicit
narcotics like cocaine, heroin and cannabis is because people want to use these
drugs, and they are not provided legally in most states. Put slightly differently, it
is our demand that drives the growth of black markets, and, to a certain extent,
the growth of organised criminal groups. All organised criminal groups seek to
capitalise upon the public demand for some good or service that is not legally
accessible.

6. Monopoly over specific illicit markets

This characteristic is less common in some regions, and more common in others.
Many criminal organisations, by their very nature, will seek to monopolise the
markets they have a stake in. Where they have to they may cooperate with other
groups, but monopolies will always be preferred as they generate the most profits.

7. Restricted membership (usually based upon trust)

Complex criminal organisations also have restrictions on membership. You cannot

simply walk up to the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Triads, the Hell’s Angels or
the Sicilian Mafia and ask to join. There are always rules about who can join the
organisation, at what point, and for how long.
page 134 University of London

8. Non-ideological and exclusively profit-driven

Since complex criminal organisations (as opposed to terrorist groups, for instance)
are profit-driven, they are not especially political. Or at least they will not be unless
being political helps increase their profits. Thus, most groups are non-ideological in
orientation, and seek primarily to make money.

9. A code of secrecy

Most criminal organisations have some sort of code of secrecy. Omertà is a famous
example of this, but there are others. Criminal organisations of substantial scale
do not last long unless they can convince their members not to talk to police, or to
anyone outside the organisation. Thus, the codes of secrecy often contain clearly
set punishments for infractions.

10. Specialisation in planning and operationalising illicit activities

Complex criminal organisations do not typically engage in low level drug peddling
or selling stolen goods. They are engaged in high level conspiracies involving the
import and export of huge amounts of illicit drugs and other high level crimes; as
such, these groups often display a high degree of specialisation both in planning
and operations. Members have different skills and those skills pertain to specific
forms of crime.

11. Extensive and long-term planning

Finally, such groups are not interested in small amounts of profit that will allow
them to enjoy a weekend of fun with their friends (like many street gangs). They
are focused on the long term, and they expend significant energy and resources on
developing long term income streams that are secure.

An examination of the available research on organised crime reveals three broad areas
of activity. These include: the provision of illicit goods; the provision of illicit services;
and the infiltration of legitimate business and government. That is, complex criminal
organisations provide goods that are not provided by the legal economy (such as illicit
narcotics and stolen phones), they provide illicit services that are not provided by
the legal economy (such as sexual services and high interest loans) and they infiltrate
business and government in order to protect their activities in these areas.

The goods they provide have always included illegal drugs, but they now also include
things like guns and ammunition, stolen automobiles, stolen high-end jewellery and
counterfeit goods. Many groups have also long been involved in the provision of sexual
services, and many now also provide migrant smuggling services, human trafficking
for the purposes of labour exploitation, cyber-crime related services and more. The
infiltration of business and government that goes hand in hand with these activities
is perhaps best exemplified by the corruption of public officials, the corruption of
police and security services, labour racketeering (dominating labour unions through
threats and/or the use of force) and the appropriation of legitimate businesses (like
waste disposal companies). Activity in this area also involves the purchase of ‘fronts’
– legitimate businesses that can be used to launder illicitly obtained money. The
businesses that are acquired by organised criminal groups are often cash-intensive,
like petrol stations, pubs, bars/clubs and car washes.

9.2 Organised crime models and typologies

Organised crime scholars, analysts and security/policing professionals often use
models or typologies to distinguish between different types of organised criminal
groups. Models and typologies can be a useful tool for understanding the differences
between some criminal organisations, and the similarities between others. In fact,
there are a number of benefits associated with the use of models and typologies:

1. they provide analysts with a better understanding of different groups by creating

broader categories that are based upon shared characteristics
Introduction to criminology 9 Organised crime page 135

2. they help analysts to map the structure of different groups, and compare these
features across a number of different organisations

3. they help analysts to distil an organisation to a number of core characteristics (for

example, ethnicity, family ties or disciplinary rules as the glue that binds a group
together)

4. they provide a sense of what other criminal organisations might look like and how
they might operate, even if at present we do not know much about them

5. they allow us to observe broader and more abstract trends in organised crime,
such as the emergence of criminal networks and the decline of traditional
hierarchical groups (of which, more below).

There are a number of different organised crime typologies. In criminology, however,

Jay Albanese’s three-part typology is perhaps one of the most well known. This famous
typology was based upon three different models which Albanese suggested together
encompass nearly all complex criminal organisations. Simply put, name a criminal
group, and it can be fitted into one of these three categories. Each grouping in turn has
its own key characteristics, and these allow scholars and analysts to highlight both the
similarities between some groups and the differences between others.

1. The hierarchical model

Albanese’s first model is the hierarchical model. This model emphasises the structural
organisation of a group. A hierarchy is a group of persons or things arranged in order
of rank or grade, usually in the form of a ‘top-down’ pyramid, and based upon ranks of
leadership. There is one leader at the top, several senior leaders below them, several
less senior leaders below them and so on. Furthermore, for the groups in this category,
the hierarchy is central to the organisation – everyone knows who is above them, and
who is below them. The leadership structure is reinforced through severe discipline
and obedience, with all group members (and even junior associates not yet part of the
group) being fully aware of the punishments in place for disobeying their superiors. An
example would be the typical hierarchy of an Italian-American mafia family, which is
represented below.

Consigliere
Boss Legal
Counsel

Underboss

Caporegime Caporegime Caporegime

(Street Boss) (Street Boss) (Street Boss)

Soldiers Soldiers Soldiers

In these types of organisations, where the hierarchy is central to the group and how it
functions, trust between members is crucial for ensuring overall integrity. If everyone
knows who everyone is, and everyone knows what is going on within the organisation,
then all it takes is for one individual to provide evidence to the police and the entire
group could collapse. As a result, these types of organisations are close-knit by nature
and secrecy is paramount; members must remain constantly off police radar and avoid
page 136 University of London
attracting attention. Common rules involve being uncooperative with the authorities
and not interfering in the criminal activities of others. Any illegal activities are always
conducted with direct approval and oversight of bosses, and the entire organisation
works to protect its profits.

2. The ethnic-cultural model

Albanese’s second grouping is what he calls the ethnic-cultural model. These groups
may have some hierarchy, but the organisation is not dominated by it; it is not the
central glue that holds the group together. Instead, the group is kept together by a
shared ethnicity and/or shared culture, by cultural and/or ethnic ties. Although there
are bosses and subordinates, there is less focus and reliance upon the hierarchical
structure, and there are not necessarily any established and firmly reinforced
disciplinary codes (other than the usual ‘street codes’ that tend to apply to many
different criminal groups). In such groups, individual members control many of their
own activities, and they can enter business partnerships with other members of the
group or with other criminal groups as they see fit. Members also tend to share funds
among themselves, and while there may be a number of internal groupings or ‘clans’
within the organisation, there is not necessarily a strict, multi-tiered control structure
in place.

An example of such a group would be the itinerant (mobile) Roma groups that are
currently operating in Italy, Spain, parts of Western Europe and even Australasia. Such
groups are typically engaged in lower level crimes such as theft, pickpocketing and
various types of fraud, and they often change locations in order to avoid the attention
of the police.

3. The entrepreneurial model

Albanese’s final model in this typology is based upon the idea that some groups evolve
specifically to capitalise on a particular illicit market or criminal opportunity; just like a
legitimate business, they are driven by the opportunity and the prospect for financial
gain in a particular area. Removing the leaders of such groups can do little to stem the
continuity of the organisation, while the elimination of an entire group will often only
lead to the emergence of a new group. Simply put, if there is a public demand for a
particular product or service – such as inexpensive black market phones – a group may
emerge to capitalise on this market. Here, similar principles rule the group as those
that rule legal businesses. Just like regular, licit businesses, these types of organised
criminal groups respond to opportunities and the needs and demands of consumers.
An example of such a group might be the moped/scooter gangs in London who steal
mobile phones, or specialised robbery groups in various parts of North America that
focus upon bank robberies, including in Boston.

Over the past decade or two, new research on criminal organisations has prompted
the invention of a new and different model. Some 21st century groups, it has been
found, defy categorisation in this way and seem not to fit conventional views about
how complex criminal organisations function. Criminologists have therefore been
focusing upon a new type of criminal structure: the criminal network. This structure
– based upon strategic relationships between different ‘cells’ of individuals – allows
members to operate in several different areas, regions or countries simultaneously
without putting one another at risk. Organising a group in this way provides a certain
degree of insulation against traditional law enforcement tactics; cells are dispersed,
they know very little about one another, and they are therefore much harder to
infiltrate. Furthermore, if law enforcement authorities are able to detect and arrest
one cell, this does not necessarily mean that they will be able to link that cell to the
other cells. Such a form also limits individual members’ knowledge of the entire
business, and although the level of trust is reduced as a result of dispersion, there
is also a reduced likelihood of betrayal since members know very little (or even
nothing at all) about one another. The network model problematises conventional
understandings of organised crime groups, and has therefore led to calls for a brand
new approach to understanding and confronting networked criminal organisations.
Introduction to criminology 9 Organised crime page 137

9.3 Countering organised crime

As we have seen, the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy was first published in
the United Kingdom in 2013. It was based in large part on CONTEST, the UK’s counter-
terrorism strategy (published in 2006). The Serious and Organised Crime Strategy
has the same four key strands or ‘areas of work’ as CONTEST. These are (1) Pursue,
(2) Protect, (3) Prevent and (4) Prepare, and the strategy as a whole is meant to
harmonise counter-organised crime efforts at all levels and across all regions. Reading
the strategy, it becomes quite clear that it is about much more than policing and
prosecution; in fact, criminal investigations and prosecutions are just one dimension
of the organised crime strategy. The key areas of work include:

u Pursue – Detecting, prosecuting, and otherwise ‘disrupting’ those engaged in

serious and organised crime.

u Prevent – Putting in place a series of programmes and strategies for preventing

people from engaging in serious and organised crime, or from joining such groups.

u Protect – Increasing protections against serious and organised crime, and involving
the private and voluntary sectors in this effort.

u Prepare – Developing emergency response and contingency plans to help reduce

the impact of serious and organised crime where and when it does take place.

The strategy is based upon a cross-government, multi-agency, multi-scale, layered

and integrated approach to dealing with organised crime. Since organised crime is
characterised as a ‘threat to national security’ (a Tier 2 threat at the time of writing), it
is no longer seen as merely a type of criminal behaviour, but rather as a phenomenon
which is potentially far more dangerous and catastrophic. As a result, Pursue has five
broad objectives:

1. to establish strong organisations and effective collaboration to lead work against

serious and organised crime

2. to develop capabilities to detect, investigate, prosecute and disrupt serious and

organised crime

3. to attack criminal finances by making it harder to move, hide and use the proceeds
of crime

4. to ensure that effective legal powers are available and are used to deal with the
threat from serious and organised crime

5. internationally, to improve capabilities and cooperation with other countries to

better tackle organised crime networks.

In particular, Pursue is focused upon the disruption of serious and organised criminal
groups by ensuring close cooperation between the National Crime Agency (NCA), the
public police and security and intelligence agencies. At the core of these inter-agency
relationships lies information and intelligence sharing which is designed to ensure
an appropriate and useful response to organised crime. The NCA has four different
operational commands and there are currently nine Regional Organised Crime
Units (ROCUs) in England and Wales, which support the investigation of serious and
organised crime across police force jurisdictions.

Prevent, on the other hand, has four broad objectives:

1. to deter people from becoming involved in serious and organised crime by raising
awareness of the reality and consequences of so doing

2. to use specific interventions to stop people being drawn into different types of
serious and organised crime

3. to develop techniques to deter people from continuing in serious and organised

criminality

4. to establish an effective offender management framework to support work on

Pursue and Prevent.
page 138 University of London
Prevent strategies are largely delivered locally by the Home Office Organised Crime
Prevent Units, and these include education programmes and programmes designed
to encourage people to report organised crime. There is also active involvement with
local authorities, schools, youth workers and youth offending teams, with a view to
developing educational resources aimed at explaining what organised crime looks like
and helping young people to understand the consequences of getting involved with it.
Another programme includes collaboration with charitable, voluntary and civil society
organisations (such as Crimestoppers, Victim Support and NACRO) to identify credible
role models for young people, including those who have left an organised crime
group. The Prevent strand has at its core the promotion of early intervention strategies
(for example, the Troubled Families Programme) as well as offender management
programmes that seek to reduce/eliminate recidivism.

Protect on the other hand has six broad objectives:

1. to protect borders from serious and organised crime

2. to protect national and local governments from serious and organised crime

3. to improve protective security mechanisms in the private sector by sharing

intelligence on threats from serious and organised crime

4. to protect people at risk of becoming the victims of serious and organised crime

5. to improve anti-corruption systems

6. to strengthen systems for establishing identity so that serious and organised

criminals are denied opportunities to exploit false or stolen personal data.

While Pursue and Prevent are both strategies aimed at reducing the threat posed
by organised crime, Protect and Prepare are primarily focused upon reducing
vulnerability.

The Protect strand of work includes providing advice to both the public and private
sector and identifying corruption. This includes a range of new regulations which
require financial institutions to monitor and report any suspicious transactions.

Prepare has two broad objectives:

1. to ensure the necessary capabilities to respond to major serious and organised

crime incidents

2. to provide communities, victims and witnesses affected by serious and organised

crime with effective criminal justice and other support.

Prepare’s priorities are centred upon the development and coordination of emergency
services and contingency plans. This includes, among other things, a new Computer
Emergency Response Team (which tackles cyber-attacks, responds to cyber incidents
and restores critical services) and a new National Police Coordination Centre (for
training and joint response).

The 2013 publication of the strategy was timed to coincide with the launch of the
NCA. The NCA from then onwards had primary responsibility for serious and organised
crime in England and Wales. Having taken over from the now defunct Serious and
Organised Crime Agency (or SOCA), the NCA is an intelligence-led, intelligence driven
organisation. Its key tasks are:

u to develop a single, comprehensive intelligence picture of organised crime in

England and Wales and in the UK more broadly

u to coordinate the law enforcement response (to lead or support as required and as
necessary)

u to coordinate disruption, arrests and prosecutions in organised crime cases.

As part of its work to provide a comprehensive intelligence picture of organised crime

in England and Wales, the NCA has found that:

u fraud alone costs the UK £52 billion annually

Introduction to criminology 9 Organised crime page 139
u the social and economic costs of organised crime are over £24 billion annually

u billions of pounds are lost every year as a result of organised crime defrauding
various government institutions (primarily the tax and welfare system)

u 50 per cent of organised crime groups that impact upon the United Kingdom are
involved in drug trafficking

u in the UK, these groups operate primarily (but not exclusively) in London and the
south east, in the north west and in the Midlands

u there are currently around 5,500 organised crime groups acting against the UK,
with a total of about 37,000 members.

(Source: NCA Threat Assessment 2015.)

9.4 Transnational organised crime

A distinct feature of some organised crime groups is the cross-border nature of
their illicit activities. Since the early 1990s, there has been a great deal of concern
with transnational organised crime and transnational criminal organisations. In the
early part of that decade, not long after the end of the Cold War, the United Nations
identified a series of new threats that had already been highlighted in several
different national government publications. Some began to argue that the aetiology
of organised crime (its causes and patterns) had undergone a significant change with
the fall of the Soviet Union, and that a new global crime problem had emerged. Central
to this theory was the premise that traditional methods for dealing with crime and
criminal groups – dominated as they had been by domestic law enforcement agencies
– would not be appropriate nor sufficient for dealing with global crime and global
criminal organisations; these demand a different, global response. Initially, five new
types of criminal offence were identified:

1. International stolen vehicle smuggling (where organised criminal groups pay car
thieves to steal certain types of vehicles which are then shipped to countries with
lax vehicle registry systems).

2. International drug smuggling (where coca and opium grown in Central/South

America, Asia and the Middle East are sent to other countries for processing and
then smuggled to the USA and to European consumers).

3. International human trafficking and smuggling (where smuggling rings transport

illegal immigrants, who then have to ‘work off’ payments through slavery,
sweatshops, sex work and so on).

4. Computer and internet crime (where computers are used to engage in crime).

5. Hijacking and kidnapping (where there is an unauthorised seizure of a land

vehicle, aircraft or other means of transport for the purpose of securing a ransom, a
prisoner negotiation/exchange or for sale on the black market).

Not long after this, the United Nations broadened its list of international, global
crimes, and renamed them transnational crimes. This new and longer list included:

u money laundering

u environmental crime

u terrorist activities

u trafficking in persons

u theft of art and cultural objects

u organ trade

u theft of intellectual property

u drug trafficking
page 140 University of London
u arms trafficking

u illegal bankruptcy

u aircraft hijacking

u infiltration of legal business

u sea piracy

u insurance fraud

u corruption

u computer crime

u bribery.

Transnational organised crime subsequently became one of the key security threats
facing the world after the Cold War (on this, more in Chapter 13). Thus, the rise of
transnational organised crime is often associated with a number of processes linked
to the fall of communism and the resulting elevated degree of instability throughout
Eastern Europe. Borders – which had previously been militarised and strictly regulated
– opened up and become more porous. In some cases, they were completely opened.
This in turn led to the rapid movement of people and goods around the world, but
also to new avenues and opportunities for moving illicit goods (including illicit money,
products and even people). The emergence of ‘weak’ states – countries with limited
control over domestic criminal activity – provided safe havens for many criminal
groups. At the same time, increasing levels of poverty in countries that had been allied
with the Soviet Union created fertile ground for the emergence and rapid ascension of
transnational organised criminal groups. Likewise, there was rising demand in affluent
Western and Northern countries which enjoyed economic booms after ‘winning’ the
Cold War. Thus, the demand for illicit goods and services went up in the West, while
the supply of illicit goods and services rose in the East and in other less fortunate parts
of the world.

9.5 Countering transnational organised crime

The increasing attention to a range of transnational criminal activities in turn
prompted several changes to law enforcement institutions and networks. Since the
early 1990s, a number of bilateral and multilateral treaties have been drafted and
ratified with a view to: facilitating the detection of transnational organised crime;
sharing intelligence between partner countries; simplifying and accelerating the
extradition process; and implementing other proactive measures in the fight against
transnational organised crime. Such cooperation – built upon the recognition that
transnational organised crime is a global problem for all states to address together –
also led to a series of international conventions, the most notable of which is the UN
Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000). This Convention sought to
harmonise domestic law and order systems and set universally agreed standards for
the prevention, detection and dismantling of transnational organised criminal groups.

In subsequent years, three additional Protocols were added to the Convention. These
deal with specific issues associated with transnational crime. The first focuses on
trafficking in persons, the second on the smuggling of migrants, and the third on
the illicit manufacture and trafficking of firearms. In 2005, a UN Convention Against
Corruption was also drafted: a legally binding instrument (signed by 186 UN member
states to date) that criminalises corruption, deals with the recovery and return of
stolen assets, provides a framework for building anti-corruption bodies, and lays the
groundwork for inter-state cooperation in the detection and prosecution of corruption.

In dealing with transnational organised crime, conventional policing and investigative

techniques are seen as futile, particularly as sophisticated and well-financed criminals
can easily hire expensive lawyers, use financial institutions that are willing to bend and
sometimes break the rules, launder their money in highly sophisticated schemes and use
technology to avoid detection. If arrested, members of these groups are savvy enough
Introduction to criminology 9 Organised crime page 141
to simply invoke their right to silence and easily withstand police interrogation. As a
result, a number of measures have been introduced to augment the abilities of the police
to investigate transnational organised crime domestically, while existing cooperative
networks and organisations have received new funding and new powers.

The International Criminal Police Organization (widely known as Interpol), is a policing

organisation that operates at the international level and facilitates the sharing of
information and intelligence between member state countries. Its role, in part, is
to increase cooperation between states in cross-border areas, for example through
the creation of joint investigative teams, joint training programmes, intelligence
exchanges and joint strategies development. In 2016, the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Interpol signed an agreement designed ‘to further
enhance cooperation between the two organisations in their joint efforts to combat
transnational crime and terrorism’ ([Link]/en/News-and-Events/News/2016/
INTERPOL-and-UNODC-forge-closer-ties-in-combating-transnational-crime). Europol,
the European counterpart of Interpol, is mainly involved in the facilitation of inter-
state information exchange, the provision of expertise and technological support for
investigations within the European Union. All of these activities are meant to provide
a transnational framework for confronting and dismantling transnational criminal
groups. Unfortunately, however, in a very real sense, the insatiable demand for illicit
goods and services keeps black markets going, such that they regularly outlive any
particular criminal organisation that authorities are able to bring down.

As all of this suggests that, while the study and policing of organised crime is rather
new in some parts of the world, substantial resources and a great deal of effort are
now being put into developing counter-organised crime systems and processes.
This has included the development of new dedicated agencies, the creation of
centralised systems for assessing the risks posed by organised crime, increasing levels
of international cooperation, the resourcing of international agencies such as Interpol
and Europol, and new understandings of contemporary criminal organisations. As
we will see in Chapter 10, the same impetus and the same level of resourcing has not
been evident in the field of white-collar and corporate crime; crimes which affect large
numbers of people, but which are still seen as lesser crimes in many parts of the world.

Activity 9.1
Read Part A (pp.15–21) of Booklet 5 of the 2017 UNODC World Drug Report (available
at: [Link]/wdr2017/field/Booklet_5_NEXUS.pdf) and answer the following
questions.
a. According to the report, how does the United Nations Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime (2000) define an organised crime group?

b. According to the report, what are the benefits to a criminal organisation if it

adopts a network structure?

c. When did the major Colombian drug cartels fall? What were the consequences
of this?

d. What percentage of all organised crime groups are involved in drug trafficking?

e. Do you think any counter-organised crime strategy can ever work without
focusing on the demand for illicit goods and services? What would happen if,
for example, cannabis were made legal in consumer regions like the UK and
Western Europe? How might this affect organised crime activities in this area?

Activity 9.2
Watch the TED talk given by journalist Misha Glenny on Global Crime Networks
(available at: [Link]/talks/misha_glenny_investigates_global_crime_
[Link]) and answer the following questions.
a. What do you think is the main obstacle that police face in the fight against
transnational organised crime?

b. Are consumers (of illicit goods and services) somehow responsible for the rise in
transnational organised crime?
page 142 University of London

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 9 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Using examples, critically assess Albanese’s three-part typology of organised crime.

Question 2
Drawing upon what you have learned, discuss why it is so difficult to define
organised crime.

References
¢ Albanese, J.S. Organized crime in our times. (Burlington: Anderson Publishing,
2011) 6th edition [ISBN 9781437744538].

¢ Paoli, L. and T. Vander Beken ‘Organized crime: a contested concept’ in The

Oxford handbook of organized crime. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
[ISBN 9780199730445].

¢ Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2013 [Link]/government/uploads/

system/uploads/attachment_data/file/248645/Serious_and_Organised_Crime_
[Link]

Further reading
¢ Albanese, J. and P. Reichel (eds) Transnational organized crime: an overview from
six continents. (London: Sage, 2013) [ISBN 9781452290072].

¢ Campbell, L. Organised crime and the law: a comparative analysis. (Oxford: Hart
Publishing, 2013) [ISBN 9781849461221].

¢ Fijnaut, C. and L. Paoli (eds) Organized crime in Europe: concepts, patterns and
control policies in the European Union and beyond. (New York: Springer, 2004)
[ISBN 9781402051364].

¢ Hobbs, D. Lush life: constructing organized crime in the UK. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013) [ISBN 9780199668281].

¢ Paoli, L. (ed.) The Oxford handbook of organized crime. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014) [ISBN 9780199730445].

¢ Paoli, L. and T. Vander Beken ‘Organized crime: a contested concept’ in Paoli, L.

(ed.) The Oxford handbook of organized crime. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014) [ISBN 9780199730445].

¢ Sheptycki, J. (ed.) Transnational organised crime. (London: Sage, 2014)

[ISBN 9781446274040].

¢ Wright, A. Organized crime. (Cullompton: Willan, 2006) [ISBN 9781843921400].

10 White-collar and corporate crime

Contents
10.1 Understanding white-collar and corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . 145

10.2 Opportunities for corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

10.3 Confronting corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

10.4 Hearing the victims of corporate crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

page 144 University of London

Core text
Newburn (2017) Chapter 19 ‘White-collar and corporate crime’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand the difference between white-collar crime and corporate crime
u understand the different opportunities for corporate crime, and some of its
potential victims
u appreciate the three main challenges associated with detecting, investigating
and prosecuting corporate crime
u understand what is meant by corporate manslaughter
u appreciate the role that the public plays in hearing the voices of victims of
corporate crime.
Introduction to criminology 10 White-collar and corporate crime page 145

10.1 Understanding white-collar and corporate crime

The famous American sociologist Edwin Sutherland is considered to be a founding
figure in the study of white-collar crime. While working at several different universities
in the USA in the 1930s and 1940s, Sutherland conceptualised and began the study
of white-collar crime which he defined as ‘criminal activity by persons of high social
status and respectability who use their occupational position as a means to violate the
law’ (Sutherland, 1949). For Sutherland, there were certain types of crime that were
carried out by people in high social status positions, like bank managers, lawyers and
accountants, and criminologists had for too long ignored them.

The types of crime that such people engaged in were rather different from the types
of crime that other people engage in, in that they drew upon and made use of their
high social status in order to offend. That is, white-collar crime differs from low-level
or street crime in that criminality depends upon the status and respectability of the
perpetrator. What Sutherland meant by this is that people in high status positions
have different criminal opportunities than those who are in lower status positions,
and thus they are able to engage in financial crimes, including money laundering,
insider trading and fraud, for example. Sutherland also noted that a society’s response
to these types of crimes is typically rather different than its response to street crimes.
The system for dealing with white-collar crime is in large part regulatory rather than
criminal, meaning that we use administrative penalties and fines rather than criminal
sanctions to punish offenders.

As criminologists began to focus upon white-collar crime, however, there seemed to

be a difference at the heart of the subject matter. On the one hand, there were people
who used their position to commit crimes for personal gain; and, on the other hand,
people who committed crimes in order to advance the interests of the company or
organisation for which they worked. In the early 1980s, Australian criminologist John
Braithwaite began to focus his work upon this latter type of crime. In 1984 he wrote
a book called Corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry in which he argued that
white-collar crime should be distinguished from corporate crime, which encompasses
crimes carried out to advance the interests of a corporation. In a sense, corporate
crime is a sub-type of white-collar crime, but it is somewhat different. For Braithwaite,
corporate crime does refer to people using their position and social status to engage
in crime, but specifically it includes ‘the conduct of a corporation or employees
acting on behalf of a corporation, which is proscribed and punishable by law’. Thus,
corporate crime refers to criminal acts carried out by a corporation as a whole, or
when a number of people working for a corporation engage in crime to advance the
interests of the corporation for which they work.

An example of white-collar crime would include the 2006 arrest of Jack Abramoff, who
engaged in fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion in order to steal USD 85 million in fees
from an Native American casino.

An example of corporate crime would include the 1970s case involving the Ford Pinto,
an automobile that was prone to explosions. Evidence emerged that Ford motor
company executives had known about the fault with the Pinto, but had concluded
that recalling the Pintos and fixing them would cost more than the financial liabilities
associated with a smaller number of insurance and damages claims that would stem
from Pintos that exploded.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a corporation is defined as ‘A large

company or group of companies authorised to act as a single entity and recognised as
such in law.’ As this makes clear, a corporation is essentially a business structure which
is organised in a particular way, and which is recognised in law as a legal entity in its
own right (and independent of those who work within it). Put slightly differently, the
corporation is separate and distinct from its owners and those who operate it and, as
a legal entity, it enjoys many of the rights and responsibilities that an individual citizen
possesses. A corporation can therefore:
page 146 University of London

u own property

u enter into contracts (with individuals and other companies)

u loan money and borrow money

u sue and be sued

u hire, manage and pay employees

u own assets (which are now owned by the individuals that make it up, or by
shareholders, or by the corporation itself)

u pay taxes.

The form of the corporation, and its recognition as a legal entity in its own right, is
designed to protect investors (owners) from financial liability. If, for example, the
activities of the corporation as a whole lead to the death of someone who works for
it, the investors (owners) are only liable to a fixed sum, which is usually the amount
of their original investment in the company. The form of the corporation is therefore
based upon the principle of limited liability, which limits the liability of owners so
that they never lose more than their original investment in a company. This legal
manoeuvre was meant to increase investment in new companies, by assuring investors
that they had some protection from what the corporation then did in their name.

If an investor could be bankrupted by the actions of a corporation in which they

had invested, they would be less likely to invest in new companies in the future. The
invention of the corporation, as a means to limit liability, was therefore a central
instrument of industrial capitalism. It was during the 19th century that the concept of
limited liability emerged in Britain and other Western industrial states, and the first
Limited Liability Act was passed in New York in 1810 (the first in England was passed in
in 1855). These statutes were meant to increase investment in industry by protecting
wealthy investors from being bankrupted by the actions of a corporation in which they
happened to be invested. To a large degree, it is such protections that led to large scale
industrial enterprise, which was based upon substantial private investment in large
companies.

10.2 Opportunities for corporate crime

There are a number of contemporary criminological theories which posit that ‘crime
follows opportunity’. What is meant by this is that offenders tend to find their victims
within their immediate environment or between the places that they regularly travel
to and from (such as home, work and where they shop). These theories include
criminal distance theory, crime pattern theory and criminal pathways theory. The
essential argument they make is that offenders encounter criminal opportunities
in their daily lives, and these opportunities will determine the types of crime they
commit. If such assumptions hold true, then we may also think about corporate crime
using this same set of ideas. Simply put, a corporation will be more likely to engage
in crime based upon its opportunities; specifically, the victims of corporate crime are
likely to come from one of the groups or institutions that make up the company’s
immediate environment. This suggests that the motives for corporate crime will
typically be related to (1) the interests of the corporation regarding that particular
group or institution; and (2) the opportunities available to the corporation in that
particular context. We might therefore hypothesise that corporate crime can victimise:

1. competitors

2. the state

3. investors

4. employees of the corporation

5. customers

6. the environment.
Introduction to criminology 10 White-collar and corporate crime page 147

Competitors

The
The state
environment

Company

Customers Investors

Employees

The company and its environment

Figure 10.1: The company and its environment
Corporate crimes committed against competitors might include things like stealing
customers from a competitor by means of bribery or other ‘dirty tricks’. A good
example of this is pharmaceutical companies bribing doctors to prescribe only
their particular brand of a certain medication. In 2015, Business Insider reported on a
study by ProPublica which revealed that major pharmaceutical companies had been
paying millions of US dollars to encourage doctors to prescribe only their version of
a medication, like Victoza (a medication made by Novo Nordisk to treat diabetes)
and Eliquis (a medication made by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer that acts as an
anticoagulant).

Corporations can also commit crimes against states. This may include things like
evading taxes, making false claims for government subsidies, over-pricing on
government contracts, and billing governments for work that has not been delivered.
In 2013 in England, for example, it was revealed that private security companies G4S
and Serco had been overcharging the government by tens of millions of pounds (GBP)
for electronic tagging for well over a decade. In particular, these companies had been
charging the government for tagging offenders who were no longer on probation or
parole, or even those who had died. In response, the Serious Fraud Office launched an
investigation into G4S and Serco contracts and eventually the companies were forced
to pay an administrative fine.

Corporations can also commit crimes against investors. This might include things
like siphoning investors’ money for personal use or what are commonly referred to
as ‘Ponzi schemes’. Ponzi schemes are large scale frauds in which investors are lured
in so that their investments can be used to pay previous investors their dividends (or
profits). In this way, investors continue to receive payments of their investment gains
(usually a small percentage of their original investment), but the original investment is
never recouped as it has been siphoned for personal use.

One of the most famous Ponzi schemes in recent history is that associated with
American investor Bernie Madoff, whose investment company had lost about USD 50
billion by 2010 (for more see: [Link]
fast-facts/[Link]).

Corporate crimes can also be committed against employees. This may include things like
health and safety violations, the diversion (siphoning) of pension funds for other uses,
or even corporate manslaughter (of which, more below). In February 2010, a lawsuit was
filed in New York on behalf of eight plaintiffs in Guatemala. The case involved charges
of murder, rape and torture, which allegedly took place on Coca Cola bottling plants in
Guatemala (for more see: [Link]
page 148 University of London

Corporations can also commit crimes against customers. This may include things like
knowingly producing and selling faulty products, the falsification of test results, and
price fixing. Price fixing involves rival companies coming together secretly to fix the
prices of their products. This essentially involves an agreement between competitors
to not sell their product(s) below a certain price. In Canada in 2013, two of the world’s
largest chocolate companies – Nestlé and Mars – were charged with price fixing
after a five-year investigation by the Competition Bureau ([Link]/news/
business-22807887).

Finally, corporations can also commit crimes against the environment. This may
include things like the illicit dumping of toxic waste, illegal pollution and the
falsification of emissions’ test results which harm both the environment and
consumers. Over the last several years, for instance, a number of car manufacturers
have falsified emissions tests and been caught. In the summer of 2018, Japanese car
maker Nissan admitted to deliberately altering data on exhaust emissions and fuel
economy. In 2015, Volkswagen was found to have fitted millions of its cars with special
software that would mislead emissions testers about the pollutants generated by the
cars (see also Newburn, 2017, p.408).

10.3 Confronting corporate crime

As well-publicised as some of these cases have become, dealing with corporate crime is
no easy matter. In fact, investigating and prosecuting corporate crime – even detecting it
in the first place – is extremely difficult. There are at least three reasons for this.

First, many corporate offences are very difficult to detect, and when they are
detected, they are very difficult to investigate and evidence. Simply put, the activities
of corporations often take place behind a veneer of public relations work, and in office
towers and boardrooms that are closed to the public and to conventional police.
Much of what corporations do is confidential, and their day-to-day activities are rarely
subjected to government or public oversight. The evidence that a crime has taken
place may lie deep within the financial accounts of a very large corporation, and thus
it can be very difficult to uncover. In addition, those with specialised knowledge of
accounting might actively seek to cover up or bury any evidence of wrongdoing in a
way that confuses and obfuscates the crime. Likewise, victims of corporate crime – in
particular when these are customers, competitors and/or investors – may not have
the knowledge or expertise required to even notice that something is wrong. How
many would notice if one half of 1 cent went missing from their bank account on the
first day of every month? At an individual level, this does not seem all that striking,
and might hardly be noticed. But carried out over a million bank accounts it might
net a thief £10,000 per month. Moreover, once a corporate crime has been revealed,
investigations require special investigators with special skills, including forensic
accountants and financial lawyers, who must demonstrate that a crime has taken
place. This is not only very expensive, it is also time consuming, and large corporations
have the resources to fight back and slow down investigations as well as any court
proceedings.

Secondly, corporations are often very powerful, multinational entities with

massive resources and global reach. This allows them to engage in their own media
campaigns, and to reframe any particular incident in a more favourable way. Large
companies often have their own marketing firms on call, and their own in-house
public relations departments that help to continuously manage the company image.
In 1984, Union Carbide – an American chemical company, now a subsidiary of Dow
Chemical – was involved in one of the world’s largest chemical disasters. After many
internal reports were circulated about health and safety problems at the Bhopal
(India) plant in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in December 1984 methyl isocyanate
gas (MIC) was accidentally released, exposing more than 500,000 people in Bhopal to
MIC and other chemicals. The government in India has confirmed that a total of 3,787
people died immediately as a result of the gas, and an estimated 40,000 people were
permanently disabled, maimed, or suffered from serious illness. Union Carbide was
Introduction to criminology 10 White-collar and corporate crime page 149

sued by the Indian government and eventually paid a settlement of USD 470 million
in 1989. However, the plant site in Bhopal has not yet been cleaned up, and Warren
Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide at the time, has refused to answer homicide charges
in India, after fleeing the country in the immediate aftermath of the release. Since
then, the American government has denied several extradition requests from the
Indian government, but more importantly, perhaps, Union Carbide has insisted that
the entire incident was an accident that was the direct result of sabotage by a rogue
worker (and not a disaster or crime related to unsafe working conditions). Indeed, the
company has spent huge amounts of money convincing the public of this (for more,
see [Link]/).

Third, corporations can be very difficult to investigate and prosecute, as governments

may consider their activity to be of sufficient national importance that it is
detrimental to compromise it. A good example is the recent case of hydraulic
fracturing in the United Kingdom. Hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’) has taken
place in the USA since 1949. Since then, more than two million wells have been
hydraulically fractured, and of the new wells being drilled today, up to 95 per cent are
hydraulically fractured. This process is vitally important to the US economy, as these
wells make up approximately 43 per cent of oil production and 67 per cent of natural
gas production. Since the 1980s, however, there have been significant environmental
and health concerns regarding the hydraulic fracturing process, and a number of
reports and environmental studies have been commissioned. Despite evidence that
as many as one in five wells will fail – and thereby leak gas and other chemicals into
natural underground water tables – hydraulic fracturing not only continues in the
USA, it has also been exported to countries like Canada and the United Kingdom.
Notwithstanding the seemingly clear evidence about regular well fractures (and the
possibility of poisoning water supply), Canadian and British governments have only
accelerated their plans for more hydraulic fracturing.

For these and other reasons, many corporate crimes go undetected and/or
uninvestigated, and they are therefore never prosecuted nor recorded as crimes. Even
when we do detect corporate crime, such events are typically dealt with through
administrative procedures, fines and warnings rather than through the criminal justice
system (Whyte, 2007). When a corporation does something wrong, even something
illegal, it is more likely to be subjected to a fine than to imprisonment. For example,
according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England and Wales the vast
majority of violations of the Companies Act 2006 are dealt with by summary trial and
with a fine. In fact, only three of the nearly 100 offences they list can potentially lead to
imprisonment; all of the rest only lead to a fine.

One recent attempt to change this status quo has been the introduction of the
concept and crime of corporate manslaughter. The Corporate Manslaughter and
Corporate Homicide Act was passed in 2007 and, in a sense, created a new criminal
offence. Manslaughter (killing a person without foresight or planning) has always
been a crime in England and Wales, but it has usually only been individuals who
could be charged. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007
made it possible for a corporation to be charged with manslaughter if someone’s
death can be linked to a management failure within that company. Traditionally, it
has been very difficult to prosecute corporations or those working for corporations
when they do things that lead to someone’s death (like violating health and safety
laws, which eventually leads to someone losing their life in the workplace). And since
corporations, as we have seen, were set up in order to limit and disperse liability, it has
historically been quite difficult to prosecute individuals for the actions of a company
as a whole. This new statute, however, shifts the focus from individual failings to
broader failings of management, and thus an offence is committed under the Act if the
way an organisation manages its activities:

u causes a person’s death

u amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to

the victim

u senior management plays a substantial part in the breach.

page 150 University of London
The purpose of the Act is to punish gross negligence that leads to an employee’s
death, including deaths in the workplace that can be linked to negligence on behalf of
the corporation as a whole (in, for example, ignoring issues related to the health and
safety of their employees). For example, in 2008, English Geologist Alexander Wright
died when a 3.8 metre trial pit he was working in caved in on him. In 2011, in the first
case prosecuted under the Act, Cotswold Geotechnical – the firm for which Alexander
Wright was working – was fined £385,000 for a gross breach of its duty to secure and
protect Mr Wright.

As of the end of 2017, however, in the six-year period since the Act was introduced, 25
companies had been convicted, with two acquittals, one dismissal of charges and two
cases in which a company pleaded guilty. Most of these cases (all but four) involved
the deaths of employees, and none involved any member of a corporation serving
time in prison.

10.4 Hearing the victims of corporate crime

This fairly low number of corporate manslaughter cases (30 over 10 years) seems even
more troubling when we consider that in 2017 alone, 144 people died in workplace
accidents, including falls from height or being trapped by something collapsing or
overturning (for more see: [Link]/statistics/[Link]).

This may be related in part to a difficulty in hearing the victims of corporate crime;
indeed, it is often the case that those who are victimised by corporations are either
not heard by politicians and the public, or their voices are drowned out by powerful
companies and their massive and well oiled public relations campaigns. Victims of
corporate crime may also be in other countries where a company does business,
and thus it is difficult for the public to hear the voices of people in other parts of the
world. Victims may also be investors in companies, with little knowledge of economics
and therefore they may not even appreciate that they are being victimised. The vast
majority of Bernie Madoff’s victims, for example, were completely surprised that their
investments had disappeared. Similarly, states – who regulate and tax companies –
may not know that they are being victimised either, at least until they take a very close
look at what is going on. The Home Office, for instance, did not realise it was being
cheated by Serco and G4S for nearly 10 years. Competitors too may not know that they
are being victimised, and many employees of large corporations work for very low
wages and have little choice but to keep going to work, no matter the conditions. And
who, if anyone, speaks up for the environment?

Even when the public does learn about corporate crime taking place, in many
instances – as a consuming public – they are only too quick to forgive and forget.
Companies, after all, sell us what we want, the goods we want to have and the
products we are told that we need. Nike, for instance, is no stranger to allegations
of child exploitation and child labour, unsafe working conditions and heavy-handed
practices with workers. Yet Nike remains the world’s largest manufacturer of athletic
shoes, athletic apparel and sports equipment. In 2018, the Nike brand was worth USD
28 billion. Sales have hardly suffered in the face of allegations about fairly widespread
corporate crime, including paying children 14 cents per day to make shoes that are
then sold for hundreds of dollars in the USA.

Likewise, Apple relies upon Chinese factories that are alleged to have deplorable
conditions. At a factory in Shenzhen, 18 employees have killed themselves, and
following nine suicides in three months, managers ordered nets to be put up around
the outside of the building so as to catch any employee who tried to leap to their
death. Yet Apple remains one of the largest and most valued companies in the world:
by the end of 2017, the company was worth USD 750 billion.

It is certainly not easy to detect corporate crimes, nor to investigate and prosecute
them. Conventional policing tactics do not work, and rather than specialists
in interrogation and forensic DNA profiling, such cases often require forensic
accountants, lawyers and other financial specialists. This makes dealing with
Introduction to criminology 10 White-collar and corporate crime page 151
corporate crime a problematic endeavour at the least, but it is something to which
criminologists and others are paying more and more attention. The global reach of
many corporations today – in terms of who they might victimise – is growing, and the
harms associated with the crimes they commit are considered by some to be far worse
and far more widespread than the harms associated with most street crime. That said,
in the mind of many publics around the world, it is violent street crime that poses the
greatest threat to modern society, and this has remained the public perception for
many years despite the relatively low numbers of violent crimes in many jurisdictions.

Activity 10.1
Read the section ‘Edwin Sutherland and white-collar crime’ on p.400 of Newburn
(2017) and answer the following questions.
a. What is the central thesis of Sutherland’s book? Why is this so important for
criminology?

b. What are the two types of research studies that have demonstrated the
concentration of crime in the lower socio-economic classes?

c. What is Sutherland’s definition of white-collar crime?

Activity 10.2
Read the section ‘Exploring white-collar crime’ which begins on p.403 of Newburn
(2017) and answer the following questions.
a. How does white-collar crime differ from other forms of crime?

b. What is ‘fiddling’?

c. What is ‘state-corporate crime’? Provide an example.

Sample examination question

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination question. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 10 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Why is it so difficult to detect and prosecute corporate crime? Use examples to
make your case.

References
¢ Sutherland, E. White-collar crime. (New York: The Dryden Press, 1949).

¢ Whyte, D. ‘Victims of corporate crime’ in Walklate, S. (ed.) Handbook of victims

and victimology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2007) [ISBN 9781843922575].

Further reading
¢ Braithwaite, J. ‘White collar crime’ (1985) 11 Annual Review of Sociology 1.

¢ Croall, H. ‘Community safety and economic crime’ (2009) 9(2) Criminology and
Criminal Justice 165.

¢ Levi, M. Regulating fraud: white-collar crime and the criminal process. (London:
Tavistock, 1987) [ISBN 9780415826518].

¢ Levi, M. and N. Lord ‘White-collar and corporate crime’ in Liebling, A., S.

Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Levi, M. ‘The organization of serious crimes for gain’ in Maguire, M., R. Morgan
and R. Reiner Oxford handbook of criminology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012) 5th edition [ISBN 9780199590278].
page 152 University of London
¢ Michalowski, R.J. and R.C. Kramer ‘State-corporate crime and criminological
inquiry’ in Pontell, H.N. and G. Geis (eds) International handbook of white-collar
and corporate crime. (New York: Springer, 2010) [ISBN 9781441941619].

¢ Punch, M. Dirty business: exploring corporate misconduct. (London: Sage, 1996)

[ISBN 9780803976047].

¢ Tombs, S. ‘Corporate crime’ in Hale, C. et al. (eds) Criminology. (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2005) [ISBN 9780199270361].

¢ Weisburd, D. and E. Waring White-collar crime and criminal careers. (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780521777636].

¢ Whyte, D. ‘Victims of corporate crime’ in Walklate, S. (ed.) Handbook of victims

and victimology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2007) [ISBN 9781843922575].
11 Violent crime

Contents
11.1 (Mis)Understanding violent crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

11.2 Homicide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

11.3 Robbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

11.4 Sexual offences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

page 154 University of London

Core text
Newburn (2017) Chapter 21 ‘Violent and property crime’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u appreciate some of the common misunderstandings about violent crime
u understand and appreciate the nature of several key violent crimes, including
homicide, robbery and sexual crimes
u understand what has been happening to violent crime rates in recent years.
Introduction to criminology 11 Violent crime page 155

11.1 (Mis)Understanding violent crime

Violent crime is one of the most commonly misrepresented and misunderstood types
of crime. As a subject for many television dramas, reality shows, films and novels,
violent crime is often presented in ways which tend to sensationalise and exaggerate
its characteristics. Watching the American television show Criminal Minds or the films
based upon the character Hannibal Lecter have led the public to believe that serial
killers are actually quite common today, and that many of them enjoy eating their
victims. In reality, the opposite is true: serial killers are quite rare, and few of them have
ever consumed their victims. On top of this, the media consistently misrepresents
violent crime, as we saw in Chapter 3, in a bid to entice viewers and subscribers. This
makes violent crime a particularly important subject for criminologists, not because
it is commonplace – in fact it is not, it is one of the least common types of crime – but
because there is so much misunderstanding surrounding it.

9% Violent crime
1%
Robbery
Theft offences
Theft from the person
36%
23% Theft of property
Domestic burglary
Other household theft

3% Vehicle theft
Bicycle theft
2% 5%
8% 4% Criminal damage

4% Fraud and computer misuse

5%

Figure 11.1: Crime by percentage of overall offences (CSEW, 2017)

According to what many people living in the West see on television and read in a
newspaper or online, violent crime – and in particular gun crime, knife crime and gang
crime – appear to be rising. Violent crime on the whole, however, has been declining
in many Western countries for some time now. As an overall percentage of crime, the
2017 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) found that violent crime makes up
less than 10 per cent of all crime.

According to police figures, drawn from Police Recorded Crime Statistics (PRCS) that
were submitted to the Home Office in 2017: violence against the person accounts
for 19 per cent of all crime reported to police; violence without injury for 11 per cent;
violence with injury for 8 per cent; and homicide for 1 per cent. As this makes clear,
police statistics reflect a much higher percentage of violent crime overall than does
the national survey. As we saw in Part I, however, this may in part reflect which types
of crimes are most often reported to the police, and which are not. Property crimes –
including theft and criminal damage – are rarely reported to police, which is why there
are lower numbers of these offences in official police data. On the other hand, people
who experience violence are much more likely to go to the police than people who
have their sunglasses stolen from their cars, and thus violent crime represents a larger
proportion of police reported data.
page 156 University of London

Violence against the person

% Homicide
0% Homicid
d
11%
Violence with injury
Violence
4% 19%
Violenc without injury
Violence
2% 1% Sexual offences

0% Robberr offences
Robbery
10% 8%
off
Theft offences
Criminaa damage and arson
Criminal

11% of
Drug offences
1% Possess
Possession of weapons
31%
2% Public order offences

Fraud

Figure 11.2: Crime as percentage of overall offences (PRC, 2016–17)

Over time, the CSEW data shows a significant fall in violent crime, with fairly flat
numbers between 2014 and 2017. Put simply, according to CSEW data, people living in
England and Wales are progressively safer as the years go by, and today they are the
safest they have been since 1995.

Even PRCS show a decline in violent crime over the past decade and a half, with a
slight increase between 2016 and 2017 which is associated with a large number of
deaths linked to terrorist attacks and the prosecution of the Hillsborough case which
included 98 deaths that were only prosecuted as crimes in 2017.

Figures are also gathered on perpetrators and victims of violent crime. The 2017
CSEW data shows that 43 per cent (or 544,000 incidents) of all violent offences were
perpetrated by an acquaintance of the victim. On the other hand, 37 per cent (or
467,000 incidents) were perpetrated by a stranger, and the remaining 20 per cent (or
254,000 incidents) were categorised as domestic violence perpetrated by a family
member, partner or ex-partner. Put slightly differently, the greatest percentage of
violent incidents takes place between people who are known to one another.

What we consider to be ‘violent’ also changes over time. Like many things, it is a
construct of a particular socio-historical moment. On the one hand, for instance, the
corporal punishments that we used to inflict on prisoners – such as lashes with a whip
or cane – are now considered barbaric. On the other hand, we routinely read about
the violence committed by drone strikes in distant parts of the world, against both
suspected terrorists and civilians who are caught in the crossfire; these are so regular
that we now seem to treat them as fairly normal.

So, what do we mean by violent crime in the 21st century? For many, the term
generally covers a range of activities including:

u terrorist attacks

u street gangs fighting and intimidating each other

u fights in and around bars, pubs and clubs, often at night

u domestic violence against women (most often at the hands of their spouse or
partner)

u robberies on the street where mobile phones, wallets and purses are taken with
the threat or use of force
Introduction to criminology 11 Violent crime page 157

u intimidation on the grounds of race or sex.

But to think about crime more specifically, in an empirical sense, we must identify
which legal categories of crime we are talking about. As such, we would generally
consider the following as legal categories of violent crime, each of which is captured
by the CSEW:

u violence against the person

u sexual offences

u robbery.

One of the complicating factors when it comes to measuring violent crime is that
some offences that are considered to be violent crime do not involve an injury; i.e.
there are many offences that are defined as violent but which involve the threat of
force rather than the actual use of force. In police statistics in England and Wales, for
instance, about 25 per cent of violent offences involve ‘no injury’. In the CSEW, 50 per
cent of all violent crimes involve no injury.

11.2 Homicide
Both in films and on television, the three most common violent crimes that we see
are very likely homicide, robbery and sexual assault. Homicide, the most serious form
of violent crime, is one of the most commonly portrayed in television, film and books,
but it is actually one of the least common in reality. In English common law (and
this will differ in other jurisdictions), the term homicide actually covers two crimes:
murder and manslaughter. The main difference between murder and manslaughter
concerns the degree of fault and the presence of mitigating factors. Murder is when
a person of sound mind kills another with intent. Manslaughter is divided into two
main categories: voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter covers incidents
where the offender was provoked to kill, was suffering an abnormality of the mind
(‘diminished capacity’) or killed in pursuing a suicide pact. Involuntary manslaughter
includes incidents where there was no intent to kill but the death was caused by
recklessness.

In Britain, contrary to popular belief – and contrary to media representations – there

is very little violent crime, and often fewer than 600 homicides per year. This is
approximately eight or nine homicides for every one million people. In 2017 the
Report of the Office of National Statistics on Homicides revealed a number of spikes in
homicides – in 1987, 2001, 2003 and 2006. Looking closely at those years, however, the
numbers appear to be driven by high profile cases with large numbers of homicides:
in 1987 15 people were killed by Michael Ryan; in 2001, 58 Chinese nationals suffocated
in a lorry on the way into the UK; in 2003, 172 of the homicide victims were killed by
Dr Harold Shipman (one of Britain’s most ‘successful’ serial killers); and in 2006, the
numbers include the 52 victims killed by the terror attacks in London.

The homicide rate in the USA is much higher than that in the United Kingdom (58 per
1,000,000 of the population, compared with Britain’s eight or nine). Per 1,000,000
of the population, 6.1 are killed in Austria, 23.4 are killed in Finland, 66 are killed in
Estonia, and 87.6 killed in Lithuania.

In addition, the majority of homicides take place in or around a house or dwelling,

where females are by far the most common victims. In all other locations – streets,
alleyways, outdoor spaces, licensed bars and so on – males are the most common
victims. Men are also the most common perpetrators of homicide while female
perpetrators are quite rare (this may help explain why homicide cases involving
female offenders get so much public and media attention).
page 158 University of London

11.3 Robbery
Like murder, robbery can also cover a broad range of activities and offences. It typically
includes bank robbery, mobile phone robbery, street mugging and fights between
young people over small amounts of money or property. Armed robbery is considered
a very serious crime – as in most developed countries – and there are a number of high
profile cases (read more about some of these cases in Newburn, 2017, Chapter 21).
Between the 1920s and the 1960s, safe cracking and using explosives to access safes
and vaults was the most common form of robbery. As security at banks increased (in
the 1960s) armed robbery began to take place during working hours where armed
men held up banks and other financial institutions. There was a marked increase in
armed robbery of this sort in the 1970s and 1980s, and then a sharp decline in the
1990s as banks and financial institutions made their premises more secure, and as
money – and financial transactions – moved to the internet. More recently (since the
turn of the 21st century) there has been a decrease in the number of professional,
career robbers and an increase in younger, more inexperienced, more desperate and
more criminally diverse robbers (Matthews, 2002).

Street robbery, or mugging, has a long history which dates back to the highway
robberies of the 18th century. The public tends to be especially concerned with
street robbery, and muggings have gripped the public imagination over the past few
decades. These fears appear to be at least in part unfounded given that the empirical
evidence shows that overall robbery has steadily declined since the turn of the
century.

Although crime generally declined in England and Wales from the mid-1990s onwards
– and violent crime overall has declined as well during this period – there are some
categories of violent crime that have seen some slight increases. For example,
between 1981 and 2000, robbery rose by 14 per cent. This was due in large part to an
increase in street robbery during that period, and especially between 1990 and 2000.
As Harrington and Mayhew (2002) found, this upward trend in street robbery had
much to do with the increasing availability of mobile phones. Research has also found
that over 75 per cent of victims of street robbery are male, and nearly all suspects are
male (94 per cent). In addition, 62 per cent of all recorded robberies have two or more
suspects, and 71 per cent of cases involve victims under the age of 20.

11.4 Sexual offences

The category of sexual offences includes a variety of crimes such as rape and indecent
assault, indecent exposure, stalking, child sexual abuse and the creation and
dissemination of child pornography. What links many sexual offences is the absence
of consent, due to coercion, age or the relationship between the perpetrator and the
victim (e.g. a sibling or parent). In the United Kingdom, the age of consent is 16, which
means that people below that age are not deemed as being able to rationally consent
to sex. Despite the fact that we know that sexual offences are quite common, reliable
data is very difficult to come by. The main reason for this is that sexual offences are
significantly under-reported to the police. Many may feel shame and stigma associated
with being sexually assaulted, and thus only a small percentage of victims ever come
forward. This is unfortunately true in most countries around the world today. Because
very few victims come forward and report sexual crimes to law enforcement agencies,
police statistics are not a good representation of the actual prevalence of sexual
offences.

Another factor which may prevent people from coming forward is the relationship
between the perpetrator and the victim. Most sexual assaults take place between
people who know each other already, and most commonly between partners and ex-
partners. Therefore, there may be particular reasons why many (women) do not come
forward, such as fear of retaliation, further abuse or family/social stigma.

In the case of people under 16 who become victims of sexual abuse or indecency, in
many cases there may be a lack of awareness regarding the actual nature of the abuse
Introduction to criminology 11 Violent crime page 159

(which may not even be seen as abuse by the victim) and indeed of the gravity of the
consequences. Children of a very young age, for example, may be unable to discern
between ‘good’ and ’bad’ and are thus incapable of questioning adult behaviour or
associating it with violence or abuse. Another issue may be their credibility in the
rare cases when a complaint is put forward regarding inappropriate behaviour from a
parent, teacher or carer. Age plays an important role in the case of sexual victimisation,
and young people are generally more at risk of becoming victims of a sexual offence
(and of violent crimes in general). Gender is also a crucial factor vis-à-vis the risk of
sexual victimisation, with statistics highlighting a far greater risk for women (1 in 20)
than for men (1 in 331), a gendered pattern that has been steady in statistical data.
Sexual offences remain one of the most difficult crimes to quantify (and hence are
an important part of the dark figure of crime), despite the fact that the perpetrator
is most often someone who is already known to the victim (as opposed to the
perception that women are in the most danger from strangers).

These and other misconceptions about violent crime have led to a particular public
perception about a problem that is – statistically speaking – actually quite rare. Most
crime that takes place in most Western countries today is property crime, and it is
typically low-level or summary crime. Despite the over-representation of violent and
sexual crime in the media, and despite a popular fascination with serial killers, sexual
predators and paedophiles, these types of criminality are actually uncommon. That
is not to say they do not occur, only that there is a disproportionate representation
of such criminals in the print media, on television, in films and on the internet. To
counter such misperceptions, criminologists have been building a body of evidence
that demonstrates more accurately the true extent of violent crime, although this
is an ongoing project. In the final part of the module, we explore some of the most
important cross-cutting issues in criminology today, including the role of race and
gender in criminal offending and in the criminal justice system, the rise of security as a
central problematic for modern societies, and the proliferation of surveillance.

Activity 11.1
Read the Office of National Statistics Report on Homicide for 2017 at:
[Link]/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/
homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2017 and answer the following
questions.
Are men or women more likely to be victims of homicide? What was the
approximate ratio in 2017?
What is the most common age group for victims of homicide? What is the least
common age group?
According to the report, what is the most common method of killing? What is the
least common method of killing?
In 2017, how many suspects were convicted of homicide? How many suspects were
acquitted on all counts?

Activity 11.2
Read the section ‘Prime suspect: murder in Britain’ on p.473 of Newburn (2017) and
answer the following questions.
What percentage of murder victims are men between the ages of 17 and 32?
Has the murder rate for both men and women risen since the 1960s?
What is the ‘crucial factor’ influencing the risk of male homicide?
Is a rise in gun crime the reason for the increase in the murder rate in Britain?

Activity 11.3
Read the section ‘Street robbery’ on pp.477, 478 and 479 in Newburn (2017).
According to Smith (2003), what are the five main types of street robbery?

References
¢ Matthews, R. Armed robbery. (Cullompton: Willan, 2002) [ISBN 9781903240601].
page 160 University of London
Further reading
¢ Brookman, F. and A. Robinson ‘Violent crime’ in Maguire, M., R. Morgan and R.
Reiner (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012) 5th edition [ISBN 9780199590278].

¢ Eisner, M. (2017) ‘Interpersonal Violence on the British Isles, 1200–2016’ in

Liebling, A., S. Maruna and L. McAra (eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) 6th edition [ISBN 9780198719441].

¢ Jones, S. Understanding violent crime. (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000)

[ISBN 9780335204175].

¢ Brookman, F. Understanding homicide. (London: Sage Publications, 2005)

[ISBN 9780761947554].

¢ Hallsworth, S. Street crime. (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2005)

[ISBN 9781843920281].

¢ Matthews, R. Armed robbery. (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2002)

[ISBN 9781903240601].

¢ Thomas, T. Sex crime: sex offending and society. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015)
3rd edition [ISBN 9781138019454].
PART IV – CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY
12 Race and gender

Contents
12.1 Ethnicity and victimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

12.2 Ethnicity and criminal offending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

12.3 Ethnicity in the criminal justice system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

12.4 Gender and victimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

12.5 Gender and criminal offending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

12.6 Gender in the criminal justice system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

page 164 University of London

Core text
Newburn (2017) Chapter 32 ‘Race, crime and criminal justice’ and Chapter 33
‘Gender, crime and justice’.

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand the relationship between gender and criminal victimisation
u understand the relationship between ethnicity and criminal victimisation
u understand the role that gender plays in criminal offending
u understand the role that ethnicity plays in criminal offending
u understand the place and role of both gender and ethnicity in the criminal
justice system.
Introduction to criminology 12 Race and gender page 165

12.1 Ethnicity and victimisation

For several decades now, the issue of race/ethnicity has been central to criminological
study. There are many questions we can ask about the place and role of race and
ethnicity in criminal law and criminal justice practice, but perhaps one of the broadest
is: to what extent does our criminal justice system treat people fairly? And, therefore,
to what extent does it discriminate based upon race and ethnicity? Criminological
research has for some time demonstrated quite clearly that there are particular
difficulties faced by minority ethnic communities in their engagements with the
criminal justice system. Many from these groups have argued, for instance, that major
criminal justice institutions (such as the public police) and key players in the criminal
justice process (like judges) are fundamentally racist, and because of this, ethnic
minorities end up being over-represented in the criminal justice system (including in
prison).

Before we explore these arguments in more depth, however, including the evidence
provided for them, a note of clarification: there is an important distinction to be made
between race and ethnicity. Race generally refers to a biological distinction between
people, based upon their different ancestry and their different physical characteristics
(such as hair colour, eye colour and skin colour). Ethnicity, on the other hand, refers
to a distinction between people that is more social or cultural in nature; that is,
ethnicity is a difference between social groups based upon things like geographical
origin, language, cultural tradition and so on. These terms are both used in studies of
race/ethnicity in criminology, although the general preference is for ‘ethnicity’; the
preference is to refer to social distinctions between groups rather than biological and
physical ones. The term racism is used in a broad way, to refer to attitudes, values and
practices that treat people differently – or discriminate – based upon their perceived
ethnic origin.

In exploring the issue of race/ethnicity in criminal justice, criminologists draw upon

the two key measures we discussed in Chapter 2: Police Recorded Crime Statistics
(PRCS) and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). They can also look at
statistics compiled by the Home Secretary, which are required by the Criminal Justice
Act 1991 (s.95), and which are meant to allow criminal justice practitioners to avoid
discriminatory practice. There have also been a number of government studies on
race and criminal justice since the early 1990s including some by the Home Office and
others by the Ministry of Justice. Such reports provide statistics on the representation
of minority ethnic groups as suspects, victims and offenders, and as employees in the
criminal justice system.

In 1988, the British Crime Survey (now the CSEW) for the first time demonstrated the
different risks of criminal victimisation for different minority ethnic communities.
Subsequent crime surveys have confirmed this finding over and over again, and
it is now widely accepted that minority ethnic groups face much greater levels of
victimisation than white groups. In statistics collected and published by the Ministry
of Justice for the year ending 2016, it is notable that for all types of crime except ‘theft
from the person’ black people experience more criminal victimisation than all other
groups save the ‘mixed’ group.

These differences in criminal victimisation have been linked to differences in where

people live, different income levels, and different ages and social classes. Thus,
minority ethnic groups are more likely to be victimised by interpersonal crime, but
they are less likely to be victimised by household crime (like burglary). There are also
important differences in the likelihood of being victimised by more serious crime, like
homicide. Data from 2017 demonstrates that black people are four times more likely
than white people to be a victim of homicide in the United Kingdom.

Based upon data from 2016 collected and published by the Ministry of Justice (2017),
it is clear that black men are substantially more likely to be victims of homicide than
any other ethnic group. Furthermore, black women are more likely to be victims of
homicide than white men, Asian men, or any other gender or ethnic grouping.
page 166 University of London

Homicide victims are therefore disproportionately black people, just as they are
disproportionately male. ‘Disproportionately’ means that the number of black male
homicide victims far surpasses their proportionate representation within the overall
population.

In addition to rates of victimisation, as we learned in Chapter 2, the CSEW also provides

data on the fear of crime. This data indicates a significant difference between black
people and white people in terms of their fears about burglary, car crime and violent
crime: black people have consistently higher rates of anxiety about these crimes than
white people do. As government data makes clear, there are much smaller numbers
of white people who are ‘very worried’ about burglary, car crime or violent crime.
This may be due in part to where these different groups tend to live, but even when
controlling for that variable, ethnic minorities’ levels of worry remain higher than for
white respondents.

All of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, as well as the British Transport Police,
are required to collect data on ‘racist incidents’. Police officers used to make the
decision as to whether any particular incident was racist or racially motivated, until
the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry led to a report in 1999 which changed how racist
incidents are defined and recorded. Stephen Lawrence was a young, black teenager
from south-east London who was murdered while waiting for a bus one evening. The
case was overlain with racial issues, as his murder was said to be racially motivated,
and the actions of the police in investigating the murder were also found to be racist.
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry is famous in Britain as the final Report of the Inquiry,
published in 1999, found that the London Metropolitan Police (those responsible
for the murder investigation) were ‘institutionally racist’. There were many changes
following the publication of the report, one of which was that it would no longer be up
to the police to decide whether an incident was racially motivated; it is now the victim
of the offence who decides. The current requirement is that police operate on the
basis that: ‘A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim
or any other person’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the period following this change (and up
to about 2005) saw a sharp rise in the number of racist incidents recorded by police
(from 13,000 in 1999 to more than 58,000 in 2005).

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
introduced the categories of ‘racially aggravated crimes’ and ‘religiously aggravated
crimes’ (respectively). In England and Wales, an offence is said to be racially or
religiously ‘aggravated’ if:

a. at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the
offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the
victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial or religious group; or

b. the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a racial

or religious group based on their membership of that group.

(Crime and Disorder Act 1998, s.28)

The following table gives a sense of the number of racially and religiously aggravated
offences reported by the police. Between 2011 and 2015 in England and Wales, based
on crimes reported to the police, the majority of hate crimes related to race rather
than religion. At the same time, however, the percentage of hate crimes related to
religion does seem to be trending upwards more quickly than hate crimes related to
race. For example, in 2011–12 there were 35,944 hate crimes related to race, and 1,618
hate crimes related to religion. In 2012–13 there were 35,845 hate crimes related to
race, and 1,572 hate crimes related to religion. Between 2013 and 2015, however, there
was a 15 per cent increase in hate crimes motivated by race (to 42,930 in 2015), and a
43 per cent increase in hate crimes motivated by religion (to 3,254 in 2015).
Introduction to criminology 12 Race and gender page 167

Hate crime recorded by the police 2011/12 to 2014/15

Number and percentages England and Wales, recorded crime
Hate crime strand 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 %change 2013/14
to 2014/15
Race 35,944 35,845 37,466 42,930 15
Religion 1,618 1,572 2,269 3,254 43

Table 12.1: Hate crime recorded by the police 2011/12 to 2014/15

(Source: Newburn, 2017, p.838)

Criminologists have tried to understand these types of crimes by engaging with

offenders who are convicted of racially or religiously aggravated crimes, by
interviewing people who live in communities where a substantial number of these
sorts of crimes take place, and by studying how police respond to, record and
investigate such cases. In 2001, Ray and Smith published a fascinating study, the
findings of which were based upon interviews with convicted offenders serving time
in prison for racially aggravated offences. Ray and Smith found that, first, there were
virtually no cases in which the offender attacked strangers solely based upon their
perceived race; in the vast majority of cases, the victim and the offender already knew
each other. Secondly, the authors found that offenders did not ‘specialise’ in racist
offences – they did not engage solely in that type of crime – but rather specialised
in violent offences of all sorts. Finally, Ray and Smith found that most offenders lived
outside the city centre, on housing estates that were mostly white, working class
estates. As this suggests, we need to be quite cautious about any assumptions we
have about racial and religious violence; a better understanding of these complex
phenomena requires further research and a great deal more empirical data.

12.2 Ethnicity and criminal offending

Questions about the relationship between ethnicity and criminal offending are some
of the most contentious questions in criminology. For example, are black people more
likely to commit some types of crime than white people? Are white people more likely
to commit some types of crime than Asian people? Or are any such associations (say
between young black men and drug crimes) social in nature and/or produced by the
ways in which the criminal justice system operates in practice (e.g. how we police these
communities)? In England and Wales during the 1980s, some fairly clear lines were drawn
between people of a certain race/ethnicity and certain types of crime, a development
which has been linked to: (1) media representations of crime (which specifically linked
images and imagery of black people and violent crime); (2) growing conflict between
the public police and minority ethnic populations (especially black people in London);
and (3) police statistics which began to focus upon the representation of black people
in certain offender groups. Such developments undermined the criminological and
empirical fact – which had been understood for quite some time – that offending rates
between different ethnicities are largely the same.

If we explore the ways in which the criminal justice system treats people of different
races/ethnicities, however, we are confronted with some interesting statistics. Based
upon data collected by the Ministry of Justice for 2016: black people are six times more
likely than white people to be stopped and searched by the police; and black people
are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than white people for the same offence. After
being stopped and searched, however, the rates of arrest for black and white people
are roughly the same: about one in every 10 white people stopped and searched is
arrested, and about one in every 10 black people stopped and searched is arrested.
This suggests that there may be very similar offending patterns (as arrest rates are the
same) despite the disproportionate use of stop and search on black people (who are
stopped more often). When we ask people about their offending (through self-report
surveys), an interesting pattern emerges: white people admit to more offences overall,
and more serious offences as well.
page 168 University of London

45

40
35

30
25
Any offence
20
Any serious offence
15
10

0
White Mixed Asian Black Other

Figure 12.1: Percentage of respondents by race/ethnicity who admit to criminal

offences (source: Newburn, 2017, p.845)

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2

0
Public Neighbour Graffiti Racial Joyriding Carrying a
disturbance complaints harassment weapon

White Mixed Black Asian Other

Figure 12.2: Percentage of respondents by race/ethnicity and type of offence

committed (source: Newburn, 2017, p.846)

12.3 Ethnicity in the criminal justice system

There is a great deal of research which suggests that, in addition to different patterns
of victimisation and offending, different ethnic groups also have very different
experiences of the criminal justice process. Based upon a 2017 report by the Ministry of
Justice in the United Kingdom, there is a disproportionate number of black people at
every stage of the criminal justice process (in comparison to their overall proportion
in the population). On the other hand, white people are under-represented in the
criminal justice system. As this suggests, white people are not arrested as often,
prosecuted as often, or convicted and jailed as often as black people.

Indeed, the relationships between different minority ethnic groups and the criminal
justice system have been so bad at times that many people from those ethnic groups
expect to be treated badly and unfairly by the system. The graph below demonstrates
the percentage of people by ethnic group who expect to be treated worse than
Introduction to criminology 12 Race and gender page 169

those from other ethnicities. As the graph makes clear, over a third of black people
in England and Wales expect to be treated worse than everyone else (all other ethnic
groups), though the numbers are also high in other groups.

White

Chinese/other

Other Asian
Bangladeshi

Indian
Pakistani

Black African
Mixed

Black Carribean

All

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Figure 12.3: Percentage of people by ethnic group who expect to be treated worse
than other ethnicities (source: Newburn, 2017, p.852)

Unfortunately, these perceptions are based upon reliable empirical data about
disproportionate arrest, prosecution and conviction rates by ethnicity. The following
graph demonstrates the prison population by ethnicity per 10,000 people aged 15 and
up in England and Wales. What it demonstrates is that black people and those who are
of mixed ethnicity are disproportionately represented in prison.

60
Prison population per 10,000 people aged

50

40
15 or more

30

20

10

0
White Black Asian Mixed Chinese or All
Other

Figure 12.4: Prison population by ethnicity (source: Newburn, 2017, p.857)

Furthermore, researchers have also consistently found discriminatory treatment of

ethnic minority groups inside prisons, both by other inmates and by correctional staff.
This has included: threats, harassment and verbal and physical abuse by correctional
staff; differential punishments for offences in prison based upon perceived race/
ethnicity; lack of specialist products (food, hair products, etc.); differential and biased
allocation of cells; and differential and biased access to jobs, training and other prison
programmes.
page 170 University of London

Such discrimination and mistreatment seems to even rise to the point of differential
statistics in terms of ‘deaths in custody’. There have been a number of high profile
cases of deaths in custody, most of which have involved offenders who come from
minority ethnic populations. There is not a great deal of research on deaths in custody,
but what is available is rather troubling. In the late 1990s, the Home Office studied
deaths in custody between 1990 and 1996, a total number of 275 individual cases. They
concluded the following:

u of those who died in custody, a larger proportion of those arrested for alcohol-
related offences were white

u of those who died in custody, a larger proportion of those who died from self-harm
or from a medical condition were white (and, thus, black people were more likely
to die in custody from other causes)

u over one third of cases in which a black detainee died occurred in circumstances
where police actions may have been a factor, and nearly half of all cases where a
black detainee died occurred in circumstances where police were present.

12.4 Gender and victimisation

The CSEW provides a good amount of data on criminal victimisation for both men
and women. This data can be used to compare and contrast patterns of victimisation
based upon gender. The easiest and most straightforward conclusions are that:
(1) men are far more likely to be criminal offenders; and (2) men are more likely to
be criminally victimised. But there is much more to the story. Men certainly have
a much higher risk of being victimised than women generally speaking. However,
while women are significantly less likely to become the target of a violent crime, a
substantial proportion of women who experience violence experience it at the hands
of someone they know (usually a partner, ex-partner or family member). In other
words, men are more likely to be victims of ‘stranger’ violence and women are more at
risk of experiencing ‘intimate’ (partner) violence (Ministry of Justice, 2013). This finding
has been supported by research again and again. Women are in the most danger from
people they already know. The longstanding public myth about ‘stranger danger’ – the
idea that women are at most risk from people they do not know – simply is not true.
There is no empirical foundation for the stranger danger myth, and the majority of
female victimisation takes place within a domestic setting (at home).

According to the Home Office, ‘domestic violence’ includes:

Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour,

violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners
or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. This can encompass but is not limited
to: psychological abuse; physical abuse; sexual abuse; financial abuse; and emotional
abuse [see [Link]/government/news/new-definition-of-domestic-violence].

Estimates show that about one in five of all violent incidents involve domestic
violence, and two out of every three of these results in physical injury (necessitating
medical attention). An intriguing study carried out by Stanko (2001) highlights the
crude reality of domestic violence for women in the United Kingdom. By analysing
data based upon the total number of phone calls made to the police in a single day,
Stanko concluded that one in four violent crimes in the City of London were related
to domestic violence and that police receive the equivalent of one domestic violence
call per minute (approximatively 570,000 annually). In an overwhelming 81 per cent
of these cases, the perpetrators were male and the victims were female. However,
notwithstanding the much lower number of men who are victimised (8 per cent), men
are indeed victimised by women as well (notably, there is not very much research on
this at all – perhaps because male victims are even less likely to come forward than
female victims). In any case, true figures of domestic violence are very difficult to
produce, largely because most of it is never reported to the police; it is a substantial
proportion of what we have called the ‘dark figure of crime’.
Introduction to criminology 12 Race and gender page 171

Violence and abuse at the hands of a partner (or ex-partner), which is not sexual in
nature, is one of the most reported types of intimate violence: 23 per cent of women
and 11 per cent of men report such violence. Put in slightly different terms, nearly
one in four women will experience violence at the hands of their partner or ex-
partner. Sexual assault also appears to have many more female victims: over 20 per
cent of women report having experienced sexual assault in their lifetime, and 19 per
cent report having been victims of stalking. Put slightly differently, in today’s liberal
democratic societies, one in every four women has experienced violence at the hands
of their partner or ex-partner, one in every five women has been sexually assaulted,
and about one in every five women has been stalked.

Any sexual assault (including attempts)

Rape or penetration including attempts

Rape or penetration excluding attempts

Indecent exposure or unwanted sexual touching

Men Women All 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

%

Figure 12.5: Prevalence of sexual assault in the last year for adults aged 16 to 59, by
sex and type of assault, year ending March 2017 (source: CSEW)

Over the past several decades in many Western jurisdictions, there has been an
increase in the public’s awareness about the problems associated with the role and
status of women in society. Women still experience a great deal of sexual and gender-
based discrimination, and feminist scholars have focused attention upon female
experiences with crime (as both offender and victim). Studies have also sought to
explore the treatment of women by a predominantly male criminal justice system.
Much of this work has highlighted the system’s failure to provide adequate treatment
for victims of sexual violence, given that there are so many cases, and more and more
attention has been paid to the issue of how criminal justice systems detect, investigate
and prosecute violent behaviour against women. For example, it is now mandatory for
police to make an arrest when they are called to a domestic violence case (so that the
partner/ex-partner cannot in the meantime threaten the woman into rescinding the
complaint). Before the feminist movement of the 1970s (which had a profound impact
upon women’s status and rights in many parts of the world), violence against women
was seen largely as a trivial matter of domestic dispute, and dealing with such cases
was not seen as real police work. This reluctance to police obvious cases of violence
and abuse was said to reflect traditional, patriarchal views about women (as docile
and submissive), while the domestic nature of the crime led to the perception that it
is not at all similar to other forms of violence but more of a family or private matter.
It has taken some time, but feminist criminologists have been quite successful in
dispelling such myths.

Nevertheless, certain types of crime – such as many personal crimes – still tend to
disproportionately affect women. According to a 2015 Ministry of Justice report on
‘Statistics and gender in the criminal justice system’, women are less likely to be victims
of violent crime in general, but far more likely to be victims of domestic violence.
page 172 University of London

12.5 Gender and criminal offending

The most significant statistical predictor of criminality – i.e. the factor that is most
often associated with crime – is gender. It has been clear for some time now that the
bulk of criminal offending is carried out by boys and men. There are some categories
of crime where girls and women outnumber men (such as TV licence fraud and
prostitution), but not very many. The proportion of women with a criminal conviction
is much lower than the proportion of men, in all age categories.

Statistics have also consistently shown that women commit fewer criminal acts than
men, and that the conviction rates for female offenders are much lower than they are
for men, no matter the age range. Men commit more serious crimes than women, and
they are more inclined toward recidivism (reoffending after release). Based upon a
Ministry of Justice report, in 2014 male offenders were more prone to recidivism than
their female counterparts (26 per cent compared to 18 per cent), and this recidivism
gap has been relatively stable since 2010 (a 1 per cent decrease overall for both male
and female offenders). The age variable for proven reoffending showed peak trends for
males in the age range of 18–20 and for females in the age range of 30–34.

In the criminal courts, however, it has been found that women are more likely than
men to be prosecuted, convicted and sentenced for summary (or misdemeanour/
minor) offences. Further, women are far more likely to be sentenced with a fine than
men, and are far less likely to be held on remand (jailed while awaiting trial). On the
other hand, women are less likely to be prosecuted and sentenced for indictable
(felony/major) crimes. Women also have a lower custody rate than men. For indictable
offences, about 15 out of 100 women sentenced receive a custodial sentence, while
about 28 out of 100 men sentenced receive immediate custody.

12.6 Gender in the criminal justice system

There are at least two divergent themes regarding the way women are treated in the
criminal justice system. The first is based upon the ‘chivalry thesis’ (Herzog and Oreg,
2008), which suggests that in some instances women tend to be treated more leniently
because they are women. This ‘benevolence’ is believed to be the result of long-standing
patriarchal views linked to men needing to be ‘protective’ of women in general (and
thus of women who offend as well). The second thesis stands in diametric opposition
to the first: some have found that courts are actually harsher on women than they are
on men. A study conducted by Farrington and Morris (1983) revealed that decision-
making processes in a magistrates’ court were not influenced by gender and, thus, the
severity of the sentence was not linked to any sort of ‘chivalry’. Rather, Heidensohn
(1996) suggested that the criminal law is yet another means to control female sexuality,
with the courts operating a double standard by punishing girls for promiscuous sexual
activity but not boys. Steward (2006) concluded in his study on remand decisions that
magistrates’ decisions appear to be highly influenced by normative gender roles. Women
who commit crime are seen as ‘troubled’; they are breaking the normative standards
of female behaviour, a stereotype defined by domestic and sexual roles within family
and society. Moreover, the decision making process and subsequent outcome appears
to be influenced by the ability of the offenders’ representatives to construct a positive
character image in the eyes of the magistrates (i.e. lawyers successfully representing
their clients as gentle and submissive wives and mothers, as opposed to promiscuous
and wild women).

In 2004 the Home Office launched the Women’s Offending Reduction Programme,
aimed at coordinating the ‘work across departments and agencies to ensure that
policies, services, programmes and other interventions respond more appropriately
to the particular needs and characteristics of women offenders’. In a criminal justice
system designed by men for men, the acknowledgment that female offenders have
specific needs (different to those of male offenders) represented a big step forward,
although progress in this direction was slow. Among other recommendations, custodial
sentences were reserved only for serious and violent crimes while community solutions
Introduction to criminology 12 Race and gender page 173

were seen as a norm for non-violent offenders. Custodial estates were also to be
tailored to meet gender specific needs, for example by having custody served in close
proximity to families. This new approach is not about female offenders receiving more
favourable treatment, but rather distinguishing clearly between the different needs and
requirements of male and female offenders and adjusting criminal justice processes and
institutions to address these dissimilarities. A good example is that of mothers serving
custodial sentences who are allowed (under limited circumstances) to have their babies
with them in prison. There are only six women’s prisons in the UK that have a mother
and baby unit, and in principle these facilities are reserved for women who give birth in
prison and those that have a child aged under 18 months at the moment of receiving a
custodial sentence.

The Corston Review, published in 2007 ([Link]

uploads/2017/07/[Link]), focused upon the treatment of women
with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system. The arguments in the
review highlight important issues for female offenders, including:

u Women are less likely to commit an offence and, when they do, the range of
offences they commit is different from those committed by men (women engage
in more acquisitive crime, less violent and professional crimes, and less criminal
damage related activity).

u Women with violent and abusive histories tend to be over-represented in the

criminal justice system (they may be defined as both victims and offenders).

u Relationship dynamics are a strong feature in female crime pathways (men may
coerce women into criminal activity) as well as drug addiction issues.

u Women in prison are more affected by mental health problems than men in prison
and self-inflicted harm has a higher prevalence among female inmates.

u The majority of women serving a custodial sentence are primary carers for young
children. Imprisonment will therefore have a deeper impact upon the women and
children.

In concluding, the review proposed a distinct approach – ‘equal outcomes [for men
and women] require different approaches’ – by acknowledging that prisons are
disproportionately harsher for female offenders than men.

What all of this makes clear is that there are distinct differences between different
demographic groups when it comes to criminal behaviour, criminal victimisation and
treatment by the criminal justice system. Critical race studies and feminist criminology
have been instrumental in shining a spotlight on such differences and, in particular,
the disproportionate representation of certain groups and women in certain
categories of victimisation and the differential and discriminatory way in which the
criminal justice system treats women and black and minority ethnic (BME) groups.
If you are interested in pursuing such ideas further, the Level 6 optional module
Criminology takes students through these issues in much more depth.

Activity 12.1
Read the section on ‘Stop and search’ from Newburn (2017) pp.848–51 and answer
the following questions.
a. Why is stop and search such a contentious issue?

b. What are the legislative sources of the power to stop and search?

c. Why is the question ‘who is on the streets?’ important for understanding racism
and stop and search?

d. What have criminologists found in relation to who is on the streets and stop and
search activities by police?
page 174 University of London

Activity 12.2
Read the section called ‘Minority representation in the criminal justice system’ on
pp.862–65 of Newburn (2017) and answer the following questions.
a. Which area of the criminal justice system has seen the most debate about
minority representation?

b. What did the inquiry by the Commission for Racial Equality and the inquiry
by the Metropolitan Police Authority find in relation to race and equality of
treatment by police?

c. According to Stone and Tuffin’s (2004) research, what are the key reasons that
ethnic minorities find working for the police unappealing?

Activity 12.3
Read the section called ‘Ethnicity and imprisonment’ on pp.857–60 of Newburn
(2017) and answer the following questions.
a. To what extent does ethnicity influence custodial treatment by prison staff? Do
ethnic minorities receive different treatment?

b. What were the conclusions of the Home Office research (from the late 1990s)
regarding deaths in custody?

c. What do you think about the Zahid Mubarek case? What should have been done
to avoid his death?

Activity 12.4
Read the Executive Summary (pp.2–13) of the Corston Report (http://
[Link]/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/[Link])
and answer the following questions.
a. List some of the different needs that female prisoners have.

b. What does the Report suggest should be done in terms of women’s prisons?
How should they be built and what should they entail?

c. What does the Report conclude about strip-searching in women’s prisons?

d. Should men and women be treated differently in prison? Or should there be one
system and process for all?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 12 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Using examples, critically explore the role of race/ethnicity in the criminal justice
system.

Question 2
Using examples, critically explore the role of gender in (a) criminal victimisation
and (b) criminal offending.

References
¢ Bowling, B. and C. Phillips Racism, crime and justice. (Harlow: Longman, 2002)
[ISBN 9780582299665].

¢ Herzog, S. and S. Oreg ‘Chivalry and the moderating effect of ambivalent sexism:
individual differences in crime seriousness judgments’ (2008) 42(1) Law and
Society Review 45.
Introduction to criminology 12 Race and gender page 175
¢ Stanko, B. Intimate intrusions: women’s experiences of male violence. (London:
Routledge, 1985) [ISBN 9780044459736].

¢ Renzetti, C.M. Feminist criminology. (London: Routledge, 2013)

[ISBN 9780415381420].

Further reading
¢ Brown, J. and S. Walklate (eds) Handbook on sexual violence. (London: Routledge,
2011) [ISBN 9780415670722].

¢ Gelsthorpe, L. ‘Women and criminal justice: saying it again, again and again’ in
Newburn, T. (ed.) Key readings in criminology. (Cullompton: Willan, 2009)
[ISBN 9781843924029].

¢ Gelsthorpe, L. (2012) ‘Gender and crime’ in Maguire, M., R. Morgan and R. Reiner
(eds) The Oxford handbook of criminology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)
5th edition [ISBN 9780199590278].

¢ Gelsthorpe, L. and A. Morris (eds) Feminist perspectives in criminology. (Milton

Keynes: Open University Press, 1990) [ISBN 9780335099320].

¢ Patel, T.G. and D. Tyrer Race, crime and resistance. (London: Sage Publications,
2011) [ISBN 9781849203999].

¢ Phillips, C. and C. Webster New directions in race, ethnicity and crime. (London:
Routledge, 2013) [ISBN 9780415540490].

¢ Spalek, B. (ed.) Ethnicity and crime: a reader. (Maidenhead: Open University Press,
2008) [ISBN 9780335223794].

¢ Webster, C. Understanding race and crime. (Maidenhead: Open University Press,

2007) [ISBN 9780335204779].
page 176 University of London

Notes
13 Security, crime and justice

Contents
13.1 In search of security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

13.2 The fragmentation of security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

13.3 The fragmentation of policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

13.4 The securitisation of crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

page 178 University of London

Essential reading
¢ Zedner, L. ‘Too much security?’ (2003) 31(3) International Journal of the Sociology
of Law 155 (available on the VLE).

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential reading and activities, you should
be able to:
u understand some basic concepts of security and their importance within
criminology
u understand what is meant by the fragmentation of security
u understand the importance of the fragmentation of policing
u appreciate the importance of the securitisation of crime and the impact of this
development for criminology.
Introduction to criminology 13 Security, crime and justice page 179

13.1 In search of security

Security has become a central concern in many contemporary societies, perhaps
the central concern. It is also, therefore, a key lens through which we think about
and manage social and political life. Questions about security appear now in many
different domains and nearly all spheres of modern life, from individual health and
domestic safety, to national borders and global migration. Indeed, much of what we
do in 21st century societies has been (re)imagined and (re)ordered according to the
logic of security. For example, where once we talked about malnutrition and famine
in underdeveloped parts of the world, now we speak of food security. Where once we
talked about natural resource protection, now we speak of environmental security.
And these changes in language reflect real, empirical transformations.

Somewhat ironically, perhaps, we now also demand security in a way that we have
not in the past. That is, individuals, populations and groups of citizens put immense
pressure on governments to provide security: security for us, security for our families
and security for all. Indeed, we might even say that security is the key problem of our
time. And yet all of this is happening in what are the safest times in human history. The
dangers we face today in the West are fewer and further between than ever before, and
we live longer and are more prosperous than we have ever been. Despite this, however,
fear and (in)security run rampant, and they have become predominant features of
everyday life. As the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman put it:

Contrary to the objective evidence, it is the people who live in the greatest comfort on
record, more cosseted and pampered than any other people in history, who feel more
threatened, insecure and frightened, more inclined to panic, and more passionate about
everything related to security and safety than people in most other societies, past and
present.

(Bauman, 2006, p.130)

As a consequence, security has become central to public and political discourse,

to legal and legislative debates, to the work of charity groups and voluntary
organisations, and to academics across the social sciences.

Cities across Europe have seen changes to municipal law and order arrangements,
as new forms of public–private partnership have given rise to new methods
for promoting and ensuring public safety. A host of newly identified threats to
security have dramatically reconfigured diverse areas of social policy, leading to
the development of new institutions and new cross-sector relationships. And our
traditional frameworks of national, transnational and international law have been
completely reimagined in the new context of global insecurity. At the local, everyday
level, concerns about security have begun to influence the way we understand and act
upon ourselves, our families and our communities, as we are increasingly encouraged
to become responsible for our own and others’ safety. Even issues as seemingly
mundane as fly-posting (putting up posters, stickers and bills without permission) and
not cleaning up after your dog have been characterised as matters of public safety and
security. Indeed, the concept of security now informs the way we think and talk about
matters as diverse as food and water, energy and the environment, and health and
human wellbeing.

Political scientists have been studying security since the end of the Second World
War, and international relations scholars have been paying attention since the
early 1980s, although it was not until 2000 or 2001 that criminologists entered the
fray. In fact, some very influential scholars have recently argued that criminology
should reorient itself towards the study of security rather than crime, as the latter is
increasingly considered just one element of the former. During this same period, over
the last 15 or 20 years, the private security marketplace has grown exponentially, to
somewhere in the area of USD 350 billion per year in the USA alone. This suggests a
crucial development, that states no longer have the primary and sole responsibility
for security: ‘The once dominant association of the concept of security with military
threats, and with the protection of the state – or “national security”…– is no longer
unquestioned (Peoples and Vaughan-Williams, 2010, p.2).
page 180 University of London

Security, however, is a slippery concept that can be quite difficult to pin down. In a
sense, security is whatever people say it is – so it depends only on who you ask. If you
ask a correctional officer working in a prison what security is, they might tell you that
it means being secure against violence and intimidation from inmates. If you ask a
nurse working in an accident and emergency ward what security is, they might well
tell you that it has something to do with sanitation and hygiene (and thus defence
against contagious disease). Simply put, at least in part, what security is depends on
who you ask. Furthermore, security has rather different meanings in different contexts:
for civilians living in theatres of war, say in Iraq and Syria, security likely has something
to do with being protected from bombing and other war-related violence. In central
London, it may have more to do with feeling safe from pickpockets and moped gangs.
For many states, national security seems still rather important today. For some entire
populations living in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific Islands, however, food
security (being able to afford and obtain enough food) is far more important. One
of the important things we can say about security then is that there is no universally
accepted meaning of the term, and it is used in multiple ways in many different
contexts, by many different people.

For some scholars, criminologists included, security is perhaps best understood as a

state of being. That is, we should think about security as an end-state that we strive
for; an objective form or place that we can reach (where we are, finally, secure). Thus,
a person or community is either secure or not yet secure, and the goal is to arrive at
a state where that person or community is secure. To be secure in this sense is to be
without threat, to be protected from dangers or risks. If we accept this way of thinking
about security, however, (that it is a state of being, an end-state which can eventually
be reached), then we must also accept the assumptions that lie at the heart of such a
statement. First, for example, the assumption that one can ever be completely secure.
Can we ever, really, exist in a state where there are no potential threats to us? Can we
ever be truly secure? Secondly, and relatedly, there is an assumption here that we can
know or figure out what risks are out there and then build defences against them.
Consider, for example, new strains of swine flu and bird flu; strains that we do not even
know exist until someone or some group of people are infected. How do we secure
ourselves from a virus that we do not yet know exists (or which does not yet exist)?
Furthermore, as we learned in early 2014, even risks that we ‘know’ about – like the
Ebola virus, which was discovered in 1976 – can affect us in unpredictable ways. Finally,
and rather problematically, to be secure in this sense (to have reached the end-state
of being secure), is actually defined in relation to security threats. That is, we can only
know we are secure when we know what the threats to our security are, and that we
have protected ourselves from them. Our state of being secure can therefore only be
defined in relation to threat, and if there will always be threats, we can never actually
be secure.

Because of these problems, other scholars prefer to think about security as a pursuit;
a constant search or endeavour that can never end. That is, since we can never really
be completely secure, security is better understood as a pursuit where we constantly
try to provide a minimum level of security for as many people as possible. Advocates of
this approach suggest that it is a good thing to pursue security, but since we can never
really attain complete security, our focus should be on ensuring that everyone has at
least a minimum degree of security, and that everyone constantly pursues security to
the best of their ability.

As this suggests, however, some people have more money and more time to think
about and pursue security than other people – especially given the extent to which
security has been commodified (turned into a product which can be bought and sold;
of which, more below). So, for other scholars, it is more important to recognise that
security is a commodity which can be manufactured, bought and sold. What they
mean by this is that – for those who can afford it – there are a multitude of security
devices and services available for a fee, like surveillance cameras for the home, GPS
chips for children, cars and even pets, gated communities with privileged access,
private security guards who can patrol at your request, and so on.
Introduction to criminology 13 Security, crime and justice page 181

In many countries today, for example, community groups, blocks of business owners
and even individual citizens can hire their own security to protect the spaces and
places they care about. It has been possible for many years now to hire private security
companies like G4S and Serco in England and Wales. But a new development has
recently taken privately purchased security to a whole new level. TM Eye, a company
that is directed by a former Scotland Yard detective and other ex-police officers, has
begun not only to patrol spaces and guard buildings, but to investigate crimes and
bring forward private prosecutions in criminal court. In fact, TM Eye currently has
offices in London, Manchester and Essex in England, as well as in Mumbai, India, and
they are being hailed as the UK’s first fully private police force. Historically, the police
could be easily separated from private security firms in that, first, the police are a
public institution while private security firms are businesses and, second, private firms
do not carry out criminal investigations nor bring prosecutions in court. It seems that
now, however, at least some of these dividing lines are breaking down.

To date, TM Eye has been contracted mostly by wealthier residents and communities in
cities like London and Manchester, and their focus has been primarily upon crimes like
burglary and criminal damage – the types of ‘volume crime’ that the public police are
often too busy to address, and which typically go unresolved. According to company
figures, TM Eye has a 100 per cent conviction rate and has brought more private
prosecutions than any agency in England and Wales save the RSPCA (the Royal Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which brings prosecutions in criminal court
for animal cruelty). TM Eye has brought forward 500 criminal prosecutions to the time
of writing. These have in turn led to 65 offenders serving time in jail, and their 100 per
cent conviction rate. So here is a private company which does everything from foot
patrol and community surveillance, to criminal investigation and legal prosecution in
court. If you live in London, Manchester or Essex, for a fee you can have:

u A ‘My Local Bobby’ service (a name taken from the colloquial term for a British
police officer), which costs up to £200 per month, per household, for regular
patrols of a private street.

u Your own criminal investigations, directed by TM Eye (up to and including

investigations of homicides; to date TM Eye reports that it has been involved in
three homicide cases).

u Your own investigators to help you deal with more ‘sensitive cases’, like sexual
assault, missing persons, stalking and blackmail.

Because of these sorts of developments, other scholars contend that security ought
to be understood as a public good; something which is not a commodity, but which
must be provided by governments and which must be available to all. If security is a
public good (rather than a private service, or ‘club’ good), then it is something that
we should be able to access without discrimination. If security is a private service (or
commodity), on the other hand, then it goes without saying that those with more
money will have more of it, and those with less money will have less of it.

13.2 The fragmentation of security

The fragmentation of security can be explained by reference to a twofold process:

1. a diversification of perceived threats to security and

2. a differentiation of security policy, security programmes and security actors.

Following the end of the Second World War, the greatest concern for nations around
the world was another war in which millions more would die. In fact, the creation of
the United Nations, the solidification of the European Union, and the forming of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were all initiatives designed to reduce the
likelihood of a third World War. By the early 1950s, the focus became the threat posed
by global, nuclear war between two of the victors of the Second World War, and the
world’s new superpowers: the USA and the Soviet Union. The greatest threat a country
faced during this era was war with other states, and what some rogue nation might
page 182 University of London

do to tip the balance of the Cold War so that it turned into a ‘hot war’. Several new
institutions – including NATO and the EU – were therefore established specifically to
centralise security and defence, and to consolidate efforts to prevent global war. It was
other enemy states that were the primary threat and the Soviet Union (and her allies)
were the main concern.

By the early 1990s, at the end of the Cold War, this 20th century security framework
was undergoing some dramatic changes. One of the central developments was a
rapid diversification of the perceived threats to security. That is, rather quickly, as
the threat from the Soviet Union dissipated, a range of new threats were identified,
including things like:

u civil wars, ethnic conflicts, and significant unrest within ex-Soviet-allied countries

u economic instability in ex-Soviet-allied countries

u transnational organised crime

u global terrorism

u nuclear power (and the spread of nuclear weapons)

u arms trafficking (especially out of the former Soviet Union)

u weak states which could provide havens for criminal organisations and groups

u rogue states (which defied any international convention, including for example
North Korea)

u natural disasters (which could lead to severe economic impacts)

u the spread of disease and viruses.

This diversification of the threats to security was accelerated at least in part by the
range of Cold War era institutions and networks which – absent the grave threat of the
Soviet Union – were searching for a new raison d’etre.

On the other hand, and at the same time, there was a differentiation of security
policy, security programmes and security actors. In part this entailed a number of
important developments in security and defence institutions. Since the early 1990s,
for example, several new institutions have been created to address specific security
concerns in particular regions of the world. The Visegrad Group (or V4), which includes
the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, comes together to work on
common security and defence related issues in Central Europe. The Council of Baltic
Sea States (which includes nine Nordic and Baltic countries) was also created in the
early 1990s, and comes together to address issues of specific concern for the region,
including child trafficking, nuclear radiation and safety, illegal migration, terrorism and
organised crime.

These new and smaller networks of actors (smaller in comparison to the two major
blocks of allies during the Cold War), which are designed to deal with local/regional
and non-traditional security threats have also begun to take on a new form: they
are fluid and flexible, rather than rigid and eternal. That is, such arrangements
are designed for the short to medium term, to deal with specific and mutually
problematic issues such as drug trafficking or people smuggling, as opposed to being
eternal commitments (say to capitalism or communism). Further, long-standing
security actors and institutions (like NATO and the EU) increasingly act through smaller
and more transient coalitions (of the ‘willing’, for example). The use of Combined Joint
Task Forces (CJTFs) allows some NATO allies to act without the support or participation
of other NATO allies. In fact, it has become rare for NATO to act as a whole. Thus,
international operations to deal with non-traditional security threats – coalitions to
deal with piracy off the horn of Africa, for example – can be carried out by partners
who are interested and willing (and action is not stopped by the opposition of one or
more members of the network).

In 1949, there were 12 founding members of NATO. These included Belgium, Canada,
Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Introduction to criminology 13 Security, crime and justice page 183

the United Kingdom and the USA. Today, however, there are 29 members of NATO,
including: Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009) and Montenegro (2017). This
growth was not just linked to the end of the Cold War, but also to a change in NATO’s
orientation and focus (see, for example, Perry, 1998). The collapse of the Soviet Union
– the great enemy of the Cold War – obviated NATO’s reason for existence (collective
territorial defence against armed attack by the Soviets). Rather than disbanding NATO,
the founding members began to refocus its attention on a range of new security
threats including things like regional crisis (for example, in Bosnia). In fact, beginning
in the early 1990s, NATO member states began to strategically redesign its organising
logic, its network of member states and indeed its role in the world. This process had
three goals:

1. to enable NATO to take on new types of missions, and so maintain its post-Cold War
relevance

2. to afford Europeans a greater political and economic responsibility in the world

while preserving the transatlantic security link

3. to reach out to new democracies in the East and in former Soviet territories.

From this point onwards, NATO missions would include conflict prevention,
peacekeeping, peace enforcement, counter-terrorism, counter-organised crime and
the provision of humanitarian aid, and they were not always carried out by NATO as a
whole (but by CJTFs or coalitions of those who were willing to act).

Finally, the differentiation of security policies, programmes and actors also entailed a
growing reliance upon private actors. This included: (1) the rapid privatisation of the
armaments industry; (2) the rise and spread of major multinational private security
companies like G4S; (3) massive growth in Private Military Companies (PMCs, such as
Titan Corp, Aegis Defence Services and Blackwater); and (4) the rise and proliferation
of private intelligence companies and contractors (such as Aegis, Booz Allen Hamilton
and Stratfor). For instance, while US and other military forces launched operations on
their own in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2008, in every year since 2008 (except for 2011),
there have been more private contractors in Afghanistan than soldiers.

13.3 The fragmentation of policing

While these developments have reconfigured a number of academic disciplines,
criminologists have been particularly concerned with the fragmentation of policing.
(This process has also been referred to as the pluralisation of policing or the multi-
lateralisation of policing.) Simply put, some of the fragmentation processes described
above can also be seen in crime control and criminal justice (especially as crime has
become securitised, of which, more below).

It was once the case that most if not all policing was carried out by the public police
(police forces that were public institutions, and which policed society on behalf of the
state). Over the last two decades, however, there has been a steady fragmentation of
policing, which has gone hand in hand with massive growth in the police ‘industry’
(O’Malley and Hutchinson, 2007). Traditional policing tasks and functions are now
carried out by a range of different agencies and agents, from public police forces to
private security companies, and from voluntary organisations like Neighbourhood
Watch to charities like the RSPCA. Each of these different organisations has different
responsibilities and different interests in relation to policing, and the state – once the
central provider of policing – has been reconfigured as just one node within a broad
and complex network of police.

National, regional and local public police institutions (such as the 43 local police forces
in England and Wales) are still clearly important. Yet more and more conventional
policing work is being done by different institutions (like transporting prisoners from
jail to court, and securing massive events like the Olympics in London). Thus, the
fragmentation of policing has a number of different dimensions, including:
page 184 University of London

u private policing being paid for by governments (as with the Olympics in London)

u policing that takes place above governments (namely transnational and

international policing)

u markets in policing that are beyond government (such as the use of TM Eye for
private criminal investigations and prosecutions)

u policing carried out by citizens and groups below government.

One of the key questions for criminologists is what happens to the regulation and
accountability of policing when so much of it is done by non-government actors? How
do we control policing when it is no longer something that is dominated by the state?
As Dario Melossi presciently remarked in 1997 (p.73):

The question of the state is quickly disappearing behind us, the question of democratic
regulation of actually existing processes of social control is what this new fin de siècle
seems to be placing squarely in front of us.

Ian Loader (Professor of Criminology and former Director for the Centre for
Criminology at the University of Oxford) summed up the criminological dilemma this
creates:

Fragmented, diverse, networked policing is to all intents and purposes here to stay…it
has become… implausible to seek to defend or resurrect a field constituted by one sole
state provider. Yet far from being robbed of their import by current developments, the
questions – pertaining to legitimacy, effectiveness, equity, human rights and so forth – that
have long vexed discussions of police... press themselves with renewed force under the
altered conditions of plural policing... How – if at all – can public interest considerations
be made to count in shaping the diverse network of policing providers that is presently
emerging? On what basis might citizens be able to seek a ‘fair’ share of, or voice their
concerns about, the multiple policing forms that increasingly impact upon the quality
of their lives? How might the plurality of agencies and agents that now constitute the
policing field locally, nationally and transnationally adequately be rendered responsive to
democratic audiences?

(Loader, 2000, p.324)

13.4 The securitisation of crime

Alongside the fragmentation of security and the fragmentation of policing, general
problems of crime and disorder have been increasingly (re)conceived as matters
of security and public safety. Things like dog fouling, fly posting, street cruising and
burglary – which were once seen as problems of local disorder or nuisance – are
now seen as threats to security and public safety. The language of crime control
and the criminal justice system has changed, and this shift in language marks real,
empirical changes to how crime is understood and addressed. Criminal justice
systems (including policing, public prosecution and even prison regimes) have been
reorganised according to the logic of security. Indeed, much of what we do in criminal
justice in the 21st century is premised upon ideas about security and public safety,
rather than notions of justice, proportionality and even punishment. For example,
police, courts and prisons – traditionally reactive institutions – now act on the basis
of the future threat an individual poses. Consider, for example, the emergence of
reassurance policing, indeterminate sentences, and indefinite probation.

Reassurance policing is a uniquely British approach to policing, which is based upon

the central idea that feelings of insecurity are as important to address as insecurity
itself. As we saw in previous chapters, it has long been recognised in the United
Kingdom that while crime rates continue to trend downwards, people’s feelings of
insecurity (their fear of crime) continue to trend up. This is a problem for the police as
much as it is a problem for criminologists, since it is the police who field complaints
when citizens are afraid. According to the College of Policing, the body which educates
public police in England and Wales, ‘people are affected by what they see, hear and
feel’ and so ‘providing a “sense of security” is a vital part of a Police force’s role’. So not
Introduction to criminology 13 Security, crime and justice page 185

only should the police be focused on creating real security within communities, they
should also improve how people feel, and enhance their sense of security through
proactive, visible measures. In England and Wales, this is done through five principles
of public reassurance:

1. public confidence is vital, and the community should be involved in reassurance

policing choices

2. fast, visible control of antisocial behaviour is crucial

3. a targeted approach that focuses on ‘signal crimes’ will stop a small number of
crimes from damaging a community’s overall sense of security

4. police must join forces with all stakeholders

5. sufficient resources are central to delivering reassurance.

(Source: College of Policing ([Link]/What-we-do/Support/Citizens/

Special-Constabulary/Documents/Reassurance_policing_.pdf).)

Indeterminate sentences, on the other hand, are prison sentences handed out
by courts which have no fixed length of time. This means that while a person may
receive a prison sentence in court, they are not given a fixed date as to when the
sentence ends. Such sentences were introduced to assuage public fears and to stop
prisons from releasing dangerous offenders back into society if they still posed a risk
to public security: with the indeterminate sentence, it is an offender’s future risk to
public security that determines whether and when they will be released, not what
they did in the first place. An offender on an indefinite sentence usually has to spend
a fixed amount of time in prison, or what is called in England and Wales a ‘tariff’, after
which they are only released if they can demonstrate to the Parole Board that they no
longer pose a risk to security. Similarly, indefinite probation involves being monitored
and on probation post-release for an indefinite period of time (and often with an
electronic ankle bracelet). In this case, probation – and electronic monitoring – can go
on indefinitely if the probationer is thought to represent a risk to public security. In
both cases, punishment and probation decisions are based upon the potential future
risk that an individual represents to public security (rather than the past wrong that
they committed). Both are salient examples of the securitisation of crime and criminal
justice.

While crime and criminal justice have been steadily securitised, there has also been
a shift towards what Jonathan Simon (2007) refers to as ‘governing through crime’.
Criminal justice systems have always governed crime in that they have had much
of the responsibility for managing, regulating and controlling crime and criminal
offenders. And, as we have seen, the actors, institutions and networks responsible for
this have changed over the years. Governing through crime, however, refers to the
fact that the ‘problem of crime’ itself has become a prism (or keyhole) through which
all sorts of social problems are perceived. As Simon (2007, p.12) puts it, ‘…crime has
been framed as a, if not the, defining problem for government’, and it has become the
key problem through which all governance takes place. This means that traditional
crime related ‘knowledges’ – like the criminal law – are increasingly used to govern
problems that do not seem to have much to do with crime as such (for example, anti-
social behaviour or breach of contract, both of which can lead to prison sentences).
Furthermore:

When we govern through crime, we make crime and the forms of knowledge historically
associated with it – criminal law, popular crime narrative, and criminology – available
outside their limited original subject domains as powerful tools with which to interpret
and frame all kinds of social action as a problem for governance.

(Simon, 2007, p.17)

Thus, ‘crime can interpret and frame even social action seemingly far away from
any real examples of crime’ (Simon, 2007, p.17). So even in seemingly unrelated and
obscure domains, resisting lawful governance is increasingly criminalised (through
criminal sanction for breach of contract, for instance).
page 186 University of London
Since all governance, public or private… takes place within a structure of legal authority…
and since all legal authority ultimately rests on the threat of lawful violence within the
criminal law, all governance is through the implied threat of making resistance at some
stage a ‘crime’.

(Simon, 2007, p.14)

In this way, according to Simon, the problem of crime has become central to all
modern governance. And since crime has become a security problem, all areas of
social life are now ultimately governed through security.

David Garland, whose ideas we explored in Chapter 7, provides another piece to

this puzzle. For Garland (2001), you will recall, there is a new ‘culture of control’ that
permeates the contemporary criminal justice system. This does not necessarily mean
that there has been massive institutional or structural change, but rather change at the
level of culture. The old penal welfare institutions of the 20th century largely remain
in place. And yet the crime control apparatus as a whole has significantly expanded
(along with a much greater use of custodial sentences designed to protect society
from known criminals). For Garland, however, the most significant development in the
crime control field is what he refers to as a new third sector of policing, penality and
prevention; an ‘apparatus of prevention and security’. This includes new public–private
partnerships, crime prevention organisations at various levels, voluntary organisations
and multi-agency networks, whose activities are directed towards crime and security.
This new third sector extends the field of crime control into the community and into
the local environment. This in turn marks a discernible shift away from correcting the
root causes of crime in rehabilitative prisons, and towards enhancing public security by
stopping crime from occurring in the first instance.

Paralleling this new third sector has been the steadily declining autonomy of criminal
justice practitioners and criminologists. According to Garland, the justice system
is therefore now more forcefully directed from the ‘outside’ and, in particular, it is
directed by security-interested forces. The public, for example, now calls for more and
more security from crime and criminal offenders (while crime rates go down), and
politicians and political figures demand ever more security in the face of specific types
of crime in certain jurisdictions. This helps make security all that more central to what
criminal justice systems do.

Activity 13.1
Read the article by Adam Crawford and Stuart Lister (2004) called ‘The patchwork
shape of reassurance policing in England and Wales’ (available in HeinOnline via the
Online Library) and do the following.
a. Explain briefly each of the ‘broad trends in policing and security’ outlined by
Crawford and Lister (2004).

b. Describe the role and the importance of ‘new public auxiliaries’.

Activity 13.2
Read the article by Peter Singer (2005) called ‘Outsourcing war’ (available at: www.
[Link]/articles/outsourcing-war/) and answer the following questions.
a. What are PMFs?

b. When did the modern private military industry emerge? Why did it emerge at
this point?

c. What are the three ‘basic sectors’ of the private military industry?

d. What are the five policy dilemmas (or ‘obstructions’) that are raised by the
privatisation of the military?
Introduction to criminology 13 Security, crime and justice page 187

Sample examination question

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination question. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 13 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further reading.

Question 1
Using examples, critically explore the ‘fragmentation of security’ and how this has
impacted upon criminology.

References
¢ Bauman, Z. Liquid fear. (London: Polity Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780745636801].

¢ Loader, I. ‘Plural policing and democratic governance’ (2000) 9(3) Social & Legal
Studies 323.

¢ Melossi, D. ‘State and social control à la fin de siècle: from the New World to the
constitution of the New Europe’ in Bergalli, R. and C. Sumner (eds) Social control
and political order: European perspectives at the end of the century. (London: Sage
Publications, 1997) [ISBN 9780803975590].

¢ O’Malley, P. and S. Hutchinson ‘Converging corporatisation? Police management,

police unionism, and the transfer of business principles’ (2007) 8(2) Police
Practice and Research 159.

¢ Peoples, C. and N. Vaughan-Williams Critical security studies: an introduction.

(London: Routledge, 2015) 2nd edition [ISBN 9780415841849].

¢ Perry, A. ‘Combined joint task forces as an instrument of European security’

(1998) 1(1) The Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs 79. Available
at: [Link]/DOCUMENTS/VOLUMEPDFS/AD2860A2-9B5E-43EB-
[Link]

¢ Simon, J. Governing through crime: how the war on crime transformed American
democracy and created a culture of fear. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
[ISBN 9780195386011].

Further reading
¢ Abrahamsen, R. and M.C. Williams ‘Security beyond the state: global security
assemblages in international politics’ (2009) 3 International Political Sociology 1.

¢ Bigo, D., S. Carrera, E. Guild and R. Walker Europe’s 21st century challenge:
delivering liberty. (London: Ashgate, 2010) [ISBN 9781409401940].

¢ Cavelty, M. and V. Mauer The Routledge handbook of security studies. (London:

Routledge, 2010) [ISBN 9780415664721].

¢ Crawford, A. and S. Hutchinson ‘The future(s) of security studies’ (2016) 56(6)

British Journal of Criminology 1049.

¢ Zedner, L. Security. (London: Routledge, 2009) [ISBN 9780415391764].

page 188 University of London

Notes
14 Surveillance and control

Contents
14.1 Surveillance, surveillance and more surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

14.2 Conceptualising surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

14.3 Surveillance and policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

14.4 Mass surveillance, privacy and human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

page 190 University of London

Essential reading
¢ Lyon, D. Surveillance studies: an overview. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007)
[ISBN 9780745635927], Chapter 2 ‘Spreading surveillance sites’ (available on the
VLE).

Learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter, and the Essential readings and activities, you should
be able to:
u outline a number of contemporary surveillance practices, surveillance
technologies and surveillance sites
u describe the ways in which surveillance and policing go hand in hand
u understand some of the key ways of conceptualising surveillance
u understand and appreciate the relationship between mass surveillance, privacy
and human rights.
Introduction to criminology 14 Surveillance and control page 191

14.1 Surveillance, surveillance and more surveillance

What is surveillance? Which of the following might you include on a list of surveillance
techniques? Cameras in shops? Entry cards for accessing the door to your workplace?
What about a national census? Or class registers that you sign your name to if you
have attended a class? What about social media platforms? Many would argue that
these are all rather commonplace surveillance techniques. In fact, nearly everything
we do these days is surveilled in one way or another. Surveillance cameras are more
and more common. In London they are everywhere: high street shops, public parks,
on buses, tubes and trains, on motorways, in classrooms and in many people’s
homes. Often justified on the grounds that they help to prevent crime, many of us
are regularly subjected to public surveillance cameras. If you live in London, you
are caught on more video cameras every day (per capita) than anywhere else in the
world. Entry cards that gain you access to your workplace are of course designed with
security in mind – keeping out the wrong people. But they also provide employers
with a convenient list of who entered and exited a building or office, and when.

A national census is a very old way for states to surveil their own populations, and
to get an accurate picture of what the population looks like demographically. Even
signing your class register or swiping your card at an electronic reader in a classroom
are both done to demonstrate that you were in a particular place at a specific time.
But from the perspective of educational administrators, this is also a useful way of
monitoring attendance – of surveilling who is and who is not coming to class on any
given day (or over a specific period of time). Even social media platforms like Facebook
do a great deal of surveillance. Companies that offer ‘free’ accounts make billions
of dollars from allowing advertisers to market their products directly to users. The
more data about these users they can collect and provide (in terms of your ‘likes’ and
‘dislikes’, for example), the more accurate the advertising can be, and the greater value
advertising spaces will have.

As ubiquitous as surveillance is today, it is important to remember that there is

nothing new about it. States and private companies, for instance, have been engaging
in surveillance for a very long time indeed. Early mortality and birth rates in Europe,
first collected in the 17th century, were based upon a system of surveillance that
would monitor and record all of the deaths and births within a city or region. States
have always sought to surveil their own populations and their enemies. And yet
there is something different about surveillance today. The vast surveillance projects
disclosed by Edward Snowden in 2013 – one of which included intelligence agencies
tapping directly into the undersea internet cables between North America and
Europe – seem quite a bit different to 19th or even 20th century census projects. The
rapid development of technology, as well as the proliferation of the mobile phone
and internet access, has led to forms of surveillance that are much broader, much
larger, far more pervasive, much more continuous and increasingly global. Simply put,
although surveillance is an old idea, there is something new about surveillance today.

In part, this is related to a diversification of the agencies and institutions that carry
out surveillance. Some surveillance is ‘open’, as with a national census and public
surveillance cameras which are visible to all, but some surveillance is done in secret.
Furthermore, it is not just states that are engaged in surveillance today; private
companies of all sorts are now focused upon gathering as much information as
possible about people so that they can target their products and their advertisements
in the best way. Of course, private companies have always collected data on their
consumers, but today they are doing this in much greater depth, far more often and
with a great deal more precision than ever before. Visiting a clothing shop in London
and making a small purchase, you may notice that at the counter you are asked for
your email address so that you can be emailed a receipt. This, of course, is not the
primary reason they ask; once you give up your email address, you may be inundated
with advertising emails. From buying our clothes, surfing the internet and texting our
friends, to taking public transport, entering a shop and walking our dogs in the local
park, we are constantly under surveillance. In fact, we almost accept it as a routine
feature of everyday life – many people do not even notice it any more.
page 192 University of London

Massive state surveillance programmes are often justified in terms of security and
public safety (recall Chapter 13). Especially since 9/11, the range of threats which are
said to confront us (terrorism, organised crime, viral outbreaks, economic crises,
civil conflicts, rogue nations and so on) are represented as being more and more
unpredictable, more and more uncertain (in that they might hit us at any time), and
always potentially catastrophic. Such representations of the threat environment –
not to mention the constant threat we face from criminal victimisation – provides
the rationale for enhanced surveillance. In defending the FBI’s hacking of an Apple
phone that belonged to one of the shooters from the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist
attack, President Obama asked how we can ever stop terrorist attacks if we do not
have the tools to hack encrypted phones. This way of viewing possible threats as
always imminent, and always potentially catastrophic, lends itself well to claims that
more and more security is needed. As we saw in previous chapters, criminologist
David Garland (2001) has linked this hyper-concern with security to a new culture of
control. Part of this new control culture is a constant need for security which leads to
the regulation and control of every facet of daily life – something to which we have all
become accustomed. And since it is not feasible to have a police officer or soldier on
every street corner, surveillance cameras will have to do the job. In fact, surveillance
is endemic to this new cultural context in which the concern is always with the next
threat coming around the corner. And surveillance is not always a passive endeavour.

In England and Wales, the government has recently trialled talking surveillance
cameras, which not only surveil but actively seek to intervene. For example, staff
monitor cameras at a central CCTV station, and if they decide it is necessary they
can speak to people who are in range of a camera through a megaphone that has
been installed at the base of the camera. For some, this is a further intrusion into our
privacy; for others, it is a useful tool in defence of the social fabric.

And it is not just public authorities who are keen on surveillance. ‘Nanny cams’ are
increasingly popular both in the USA and in the United Kingdom. In one study, more
than 83 per cent of American mothers said they would secretly tape their nanny even
if they had no suspicions that they were doing anything wrong. Many have gone so far
as to put GPS (Global Positioning System) tags on their children, or in their clothing
or bags. Even babies in hospital wards are sometimes subjected to security tags to
prevent them being removed from the ward.

Recent revelations about surveillance in public tube stations caused disturbance in

London when, in 2016, the Guardian newspaper revealed that Transport for London
(TfL) was studying commuter patterns inside tube stations in Zone 1 (the central zone
in the city) by bouncing signals off people’s mobile phones and thereby tracking their
movements through stations and along the commuting lines. As it turns out, the data
collected was being used only in part to monitor travel patterns and so create better
flow within stations during peak times. This monitoring was also taking place in order
to decide where best to place advertisements within tube stations, and so assign
higher prices to better positioned posters and signs. The assumption was that people
would not see this as a particular problem, although as it turned out, many were irate
over their mobile phones being used secretly in this way (to set costs for advertising
space in each tube station).

Travelling on public train systems, or indeed by bus or tram, also produces a vast
amount of information about how and where people travel. The popular ‘Oyster Card’
in London gives the holder access to the tube (subway), public buses, overground
trains and airport trains. As you swipe your Oyster Card, however, a record is taken
and kept on where you swiped it, what mode of transportation you took, how long
you were on that transportation and where you got off. This data is kept for pricing
purposes, in the same way that a bank keeps data on where, when (and for how much)
you swipe your bank card. But it also turns out that such travel data can be quite useful
for the police if they wish to track someone’s travel patterns. In the four years between
2008 and 2012, the London Metropolitan Police looked through Oyster Card data more
than 22,000 times.
Introduction to criminology 14 Surveillance and control page 193

Even high street shops – like department stores and clothing shops – now routinely
track people’s mobile phones as they move through the shop, and even target them
with tailored advertising. If you have the right application on your phone, you can walk
down Regent Street from Oxford Circus (one of the most well-known shopping areas
in London) and receive specially tailored advertisements advising you of which shops
you might like to visit and what sales you may wish to take note of.

14.2 Conceptualising surveillance

Rooted in the French word surveiller, surveillance technically means to ‘watch over’,
or to monitor. But when we conceptualise surveillance in criminology, we mean
something more than this. In scholarship, surveillance is often taken to refer to
‘processes in which special note is taken of certain human behaviours that go well
beyond idle curiosity’ (Lyon, 2007, p.13). That is, surveillance is more than just watching
and more than just ‘looking at’; it is not passive. Surveillance is about monitoring with
a purpose, in order to do something. People and groups can surveil for many different
reasons, as we have seen. Lifeguards surveil to keep people safe near bodies of water,
police and security guards surveil to protect buildings and control disorder, and
companies surveil our purchasing habits to better understand consumers and target
us with advertisements as efficiently as possible. Advances in technology – as well as
our willing cooperation with social media websites – have only made these processes
easier and more effective. But there is always a purpose to surveillance, it is not just
monitoring for the sake of monitoring.

For David Lyon, one of the founders of contemporary surveillance studies, surveillance
is ‘Focused, systematic and routine attention to personal details for purposes of
influence, management, protection or direction’ (Lyon, 2007, p.14). This surveillance
may take many forms – from human surveillance to virtual surveillance, and from
biometric surveillance to satellite and drone surveillance – and may be done for a host
of very different reasons – to ensure public safety, to predict bad weather, to manage
the spread of the flu virus, to regulate and discipline children, to carry out capture/kill
missions in conflict zones or to predict spending habits.

Yet all surveillance is about two specific things: (1) collecting information and (2)
making use of that information in some way. Much surveillance is still ‘human’, that is,
carried out by human beings. Examples include:

u police or intelligence agents surreptitiously following a suspect on foot

u a line manager watching all of the workers in a factory

u members of a Neighbourhood Watch programme closely monitoring those that

enter their neighbourhood

u Customs and Border Officers watching people closely at border crossings

u security guards in shops watching everyone they deem suspicious to try to catch
thieves

u bouncers at bars and nightclubs monitoring those they think are causing trouble in
case they need to remove them from the premises.

More and more often, however, surveillance is facilitated by and carried out using
technology:

u satellites and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones) can be used to track
individuals, vehicles, animals or even weather patterns

u GPS tags can be used to track automobiles, children, pets or even employees

u surveillance cameras can be placed in homes, on and in corporate buildings, all

over retail shops, public parks, roadways and schools, and even on our bodies

u access and entry cards may be used to monitor employees, students, visitors or
guests of a hotel
page 194 University of London

u loyalty cards can be used to monitor spending patterns and consumption.

Some surveillance scholars see so much surveillance in the world that they have
concluded we now live in ‘surveillance societies’, where there is ‘no place to hide’ from
surveillance (O’Harrow, 2005). Others, including David Lyon, argue that such a view
is too encompassing, too universal and too deterministic. What they mean by this
is that labelling all societies as surveillance societies negates important differences
between countries in terms of how they carry out, justify and enact surveillance.
Some things that are possible in the United Kingdom, for example, such as hundreds
of thousands of public surveillance cameras within London, would not be possible
in other countries like Canada, where citizens have generally been opposed to such
developments. Rather, Lyon and others prefer to think in terms of sites of surveillance.
Surveillance sites might include:

u Military surveillance: this might encompass ‘internal’ surveillance (of military

personnel, visitors to military bases, studies of officer demographics and health
patterns, and so on), as well as ‘external’ surveillance (of other militaries, of specific
theatres of conflict, and so on).

u State surveillance: states engage in a great deal of surveillance, through things like
taxation, the national census, residency and visa cards for visitors, public cameras,
and so on.

u Surveillance at the workplace: surveillance is also carried out regularly in the

workplace, and in fact it has long been an important facet of modern work,
especially in factories.

u Surveillance in schools: schools have always surveilled their students to a certain

degree, but many are now installing cameras not only outside schools but in
classrooms, at entryways and in hallways. These are used to secure students and to
enforce discipline and good behaviour.

u Surveillance at home: parents are routinely installing nanny cams, putting up

cameras outside and inside their homes and monitoring their children’s online
activity, their mobile phone usage, and their online gaming habits. There are a
number of providers in North America and Europe who can link home cameras to
apps on a mobile phone, so that when someone rings your doorbell when you are
away, your phone notifies you and you can see who is in front of your door. Then
you can even decide whether to unlock the door for them or not.

u Police and crime control: policing has for a long time been about – at least in
part – surveillance. For what are police officers on patrol doing if not surveilling
the public? And yet today, the extent of police surveillance is unprecedented, the
technologies are brand new, and the diverse ways in which the information is used
are astounding.

14.3 Surveillance and policing

Criminologists have long recognised that the police are primarily ‘information
workers’ (Ericson and Haggerty, 1997). In 1997, Richard Ericson and Kevin Haggerty
famously demonstrated that more than 85 per cent of a police officer’s time is spent
not on ‘crime fighting’ or criminal investigation, but on ‘information work’: gathering,
storing and making use of information. This has always involved surveillance of some
sort, whether when officers are on patrol and taking notes in the logs, during public
protests and at public gatherings while they are watching protesting individuals and
groups, or during specific investigations and/or operations.

Over the past several decades, however, the police have developed specialised
capabilities for surveillance as technology has been increasingly central to modern
policing. This has included the development of technologies specific to policing, as
well as the creation of new databases of various sorts where massive amounts of
information are collected and stored (such as fingerprint and DNA databases). The
increasing focus on surveillance by police is in part related to a broader shift in which
Introduction to criminology 14 Surveillance and control page 195

surveillance is seen as the appropriate response to a wide variety of social problems

including crime. Indeed, surveillance is now seen as central to the police mission; it is
central to crime control, central to crime prevention and central to maintaining public
order. A number of private companies are in the process of developing specialised
software programmes that can be used to search through surveillance camera data
and link this data to other police databases (for example, Hitachi’s Predictive Crime
Analytics (PCA) programmes).

A range of processes have together given rise to a special affinity between the police
and surveillance. These include:

1. The development of new organisational models, such as the National Intelligence

Model, which emphasises the use of information for all dimensions of policing.

2. New information technologies such as the use of ‘social media intelligence’ by

police to predict public protests and other sorts of public disorder.

3. Shifting politics, whereby mass surveillance (of which, more below) is not only
legitimised by political figures but encouraged and prioritised.

4. Rising public fears about crime and disorder. As with reassurance policing,
there is some evidence that visible surveillance makes people feel safer (even if,
statistically, they are not actually safer).

5. Trends in criminal behaviour, where criminals become more sophisticated in

using privacy enhancing technologies and police respond with ever more subtle
surveillance techniques.

It is also important to note that it is not only the public police who engage in
surveillance for the purposes of crime control, crime prevention and the maintenance
of social order. Private security guards at banks and high street shops, bouncers/door
people at pubs and bars, and even floor managers in high-end boutiques, all engage
in surveillance to some degree. Neighbourhood Watch programmes, private home
cameras and other personal surveillance devices are used more and more widely by
the public. Insurance companies closely monitor their clients’ homes, cars and even
their behaviours: Vitality Life Insurance offers a discounted life insurance premium to
those who ‘stay active’; this means wearing a watch and using an app that monitors
the number of steps the user takes during the day. On the other hand, social service
providers (including welfare and employment agencies) survey their clients in order
to reduce fraud, and immigration authorities closely monitor those on work visas and
other temporary residency permits. The public police are therefore part of a wider
institutional matrix of surveillance and control.

Police now also use a number of specialised technologies to enhance their surveillance
capabilities. Many were originally developed for military use (such as GPS technology,
satellite surveillance, drones and motion sensors). DNA typing (tracing DNA elements
that are found in saliva, blood, semen and hair collected at crime scenes) allows police
to survey and keep data on convicted criminals and store it in databases for certain
lengths of time. In the United Kingdom, you only need to be a suspect in a criminal
case for the police to be able to collect your DNA and store it. Public police forces
are also increasingly being given access to information that is collected by other
government agencies, and even by private ones, including information collected by
airlines, banks, libraries, internet service providers and private security companies.

One of the most significant technological developments in surveillance for police

was the inexpensive but sturdy surveillance camera. In London, and the United
Kingdom more broadly, police have wholeheartedly embraced surveillance cameras,
particularly their use in public spaces. In fact, per capita, London is now the most
surveilled city in the world. As common as surveillance cameras now are, they actually
represent a significant shift in policing practice. Originally introduced in small, private
shops, the public use of surveillance cameras dramatically increased in the UK during
the early 1990s. As more and more demands were placed on the public police as their
budgets were being slashed, surveillance cameras represented a golden opportunity
to have some type of ‘monitor’ or ‘guardian’ in place when patrol officers could not be
page 196 University of London

present (due to cutbacks in police spending). In fact, as the number of police officers
has continued to shrink in England and Wales, the number of surveillance cameras
continues to go up.

Importantly, however, it is not the public police – nor any public agency for that
matter – who design, manufacture, install, monitor and fix surveillance cameras; this
is all done by private companies. Companies that have been installing the hundreds
of thousands of surveillance cameras in London, and the millions of surveillance
cameras around England today, have become very good at convincing the police, the
public and political officials of the need for cameras and the utility of having them in
place. In public, surveillance cameras are often said to: (1) help catch criminals after
the fact; (2) reassure the public; (3) manage traffic; (4) help with urban regeneration
by discouraging or displacing crime; and (5) deter crime and anti-social behaviour in
particular areas. Indeed, there are so many cameras in England now that it is often
forgotten how radical a shift in practice this actually is. Not that long ago, the idea
that a government would be able to install cameras everywhere and anywhere to
permanently and continuously watch citizens would have been seen as totalitarianism
of the sort that George Orwell wrote about in 1984.

Given their widespread use, criminologists have had to ask a number of questions
about surveillance cameras, including the most obvious one, which is also the most
contentious: do surveillance cameras actually reduce crime? When they are asked,
many police officers can provide anecdotal evidence of surveillance cameras helping
to catch a particular criminal in a specific circumstance. However, at the more
aggregate level, the most rigorous and comprehensive evaluations of the use and
effectiveness of surveillance cameras in England have concluded that – at best – any
evidence of cameras’ crime-fighting power is ambiguous. In fact, more often than
not, criminals merely augment their behaviour in order to circumvent cameras. In
criminology, this is called displacement, as the crime was not stopped or averted, it
was merely displaced to another part of the city.

One of the key issues in assessing the effectiveness of surveillance cameras is that it is
very difficult to measure prevention. This is a methodological problem – one which
affects how we measure or evaluate the success of surveillance cameras in preventing
crime (or any preventative measure for that matter). What we mean by this is that it is
nearly impossible to link what a person has not done with the presence of a particular
factor (such as a camera). In order to prove that surveillance cameras prevent crime,
we would essentially need to interview criminals who were going to commit a crime
within sight of a camera, and then chose not to because the camera was there. And we
would need to have enough criminals who did this to demonstrate – empirically – that
the camera prevented crime. How would one find such criminals? How would one
go about interviewing them? Is it really that simple? Does the presence of one factor,
a camera, really stop a drug peddler or thief from acting? In the end, it is very nearly
impossible – or at least, it is very, very difficult – to ever know whether a crime has
been prevented by the presence of a camera. But this, of course, is not proving that
they do not work. So, as a result, we continue to install them by the thousands.

Despite how popular they have become, and despite spending millions of pounds on
them, what is clear is that surveillance cameras have not lived up to the expectations,
and there is no discernible reduction in the crime rate that has been directly linked to
the use of cameras. More often than not, they are used to monitor and govern a host
of minor, low-level regulatory matters such as people putting their rubbish out on the
wrong day, people not cleaning up after their dog, people urinating in public, people
littering and people delivering posters and papers without a licence.

14.4 Mass surveillance, privacy and human rights

In his now well known disclosures in 2013, Edward Snowden revealed how much
surveillance was actually taking place in Western democracies. This was not (just)
surveillance of enemies in the Middle East, or Chinese diplomats in Moscow; this was
mass surveillance of domestic populations by security and intelligence agencies.
Introduction to criminology 14 Surveillance and control page 197

Furthermore, there were a number of programmes revealed which were so broad

in their scope that they were seen as providing ‘full spectrum data’ on all aspects
of society. One programme, Tempora, involved intelligence officers in Britain using
submarines to tap directly into the underwater internet cables connecting North
America and Europe. Another, Stateroom, involved a cooperative alliance of the ‘Five
Eyes’ countries – the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – using
their embassies around the world to spy on government officials and other diplomats.

Other programmes, like PRISM, involved the acquisition of consumers’ private

information and personal data from companies like Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft,
Skype, Facebook, Paltalk, YouTube, AOL, BT, Vodafone, Verizon, Global Crossing, Viatel
and others. It also appears as though metadata related to internet searches, mobile
phone calls and texts and Skype communications is routinely collected as a matter
of course. Whatever political position one adopts – that Snowden is a hero or that he
is a traitor and spy – these represent massive surveillance programmes that must be
explored. One of the reasons why they were kept secret for so long may be that they
violate privacy rights and perhaps even some human rights.

Since Snowden’s disclosures, debates have raged at the national and transnational
level, and, over the past several years, perhaps especially at the United Nations.
The surveillance programmes that Snowden revealed are now seen – given their
breadth and scope – as embodying what the UN refers to as mass surveillance. Mass
surveillance is radically different from regular surveillance, both in its continuity
(it never stops) and its universality (it captures everything and everyone). The
development of such a capacity has been very troubling for some at the UN, and in
2013 a new resolution was passed to condemn such intrusions. It is called the UN
Resolution on the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age, and although it does not have the
power of a Treaty (or Convention) it is a step in that direction.

A number of countries at the UN were very unhappy with the programmes that
Snowden revealed, and given the power of the USA in NATO and at the EU, these
countries felt that the UN was their only option for condemning the surveillance.
The Resolution that was adopted was based upon an analysis of mass surveillance
programmes – particularly in the USA and the United Kingdom – and their implications
for the right to respect for privacy in both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights
(UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The Resolution notes in particular that the right to privacy enshrined in human rights
law is linked to the right to freedom of expression. If people are subjected to mass
surveillance then they are no longer able to express themselves freely and fully. That
is, to the extent that their privacy is infringed in this way, people are unable to fully
realise their right to freedom of expression (for example, for fear that they may be
watched). This effect – the infringement of one right affecting other rights – is referred
to as ‘the chilling effect’. Furthermore, mass surveillance may actually ‘chill’ other
rights as well, and thus the broad and continuous infringement of a right to privacy
impacts severely on the exercise and enjoyment of other basic human rights. The
Human Rights Council noted in particular that mass surveillance, for these reasons,
represents a serious threat to human rights that is one of the most pressing global
rights issues of the 21st century.

In particular, Article 12 of the UDHR, and the ICCPR, note the ‘right of every person
to respect for his or her private and family life’. Any interference with the privacy of
a person must be subject to the consent of that person, and the right to consent or
refuse the interference belongs to the individual (not the state). In addition, consent is
only valid if the person knows and understands what they are consenting to. Recently,
the Human Rights Court found that mass surveillance is inconsistent with this right
to respect for privacy. (See Gallagher, R. ‘In major privacy victory, top EU court rules
against mass surveillance’ The Intercept (21 December 2016) at: [Link]
com/2016/12/21/in-major-privacy-victory-top-eu-court-rules-against-mass-surveillance/;
see also the judgment in Joined Cases C203/15 and C698/15 Tele2 Sverige AB v Post-och
telestyrelsen and Secretary of State for the Home Department v Watson and Others at:
page 198 University of London

[Link]
=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=516300)

States are responsible for protecting private data (a duty which arises from Article 12)
and, in so doing, are obliged to ensure private actors do not violate privacy. That is,
they must regulate and control the collection, storage and use of information. While
this has been a harder case to make in court, in relation to mass surveillance it does
form a key part of the Resolution.

Efforts to regulate mass surveillance continue at the United Nations and are being
pressed forward by countries on the receiving end of ‘Five Eyes’ surveillance.
Widespread surveillance practices by commercial entities and governments are
likewise being challenged by various charities and privacy advocates and activists.
Surveillance, however, continues to both proliferate and deepen such that it has
become a regular feature of everyday life in many parts of the world. This presents
specific challenges for criminologists who are grappling with things like the
increasing use of surveillance cameras in the face of little to no evidence justifying
their effectiveness. More and more, in an increasingly insecure world, surveillance
is seen as a good in itself and a key way of assuring public safety and reassuring an
anxious public. However, recent research suggests that, in some cases, more and more
surveillance only increases our fears and insecurities, while at the same time eroding
our most fundamental human rights.

Activity 14.1
Read the Money Crashers article ‘Six ways retailers and stores track your spending
habits’ (available at: [Link]/ways-retailers-track-spending-
protect-personal-data/) and answer the following questions.
a. How does the number of times you visit a website determine the price you pay
for goods or services on that website?

b. How does the type of mobile phone you use determine the price you pay for
hotels?

c. What is a data broker?

d. What are loyalty cards used for?

Activity 14.2
Read the article ‘How Facebook’s tentacles reach further than you think’ (available
at: [Link]/news/business-39947942) and answer the following questions.
a. What responsibility does Facebook have, if any, to clearly explain to its users
how it uses their data?

b. Is it ethical for Facebook to make billions of dollars selling data that we provide
for free? Or are they capitalising upon our ignorance of how our information is
used?

c. Why do you think people are so compliant with surveillance if they are given
access to something that they want (like a Facebook or Gmail account)?

Sample examination questions

You may find it useful to think about how you would go about answering the
following sample examination questions. In your answer, you would be expected
to draw upon the knowledge you have acquired from the entire module, but from
Chapter 14 in particular, as well as from the Essential reading. Top answers would
also draw upon one or more of the texts listed in the Further readings.

Question 1
Using examples, explore the role of surveillance in policing.
Introduction to criminology 14 Surveillance and control page 199

Question 2
Drawing upon what you have learned in this chapter, explore the relationship
between mass surveillance, privacy and human rights.

References
¢ Ericson, R. and K. Haggerty Policing the risk society. (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1997) [ISBN 9780802079671].

¢ Garland, D. The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary society.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780199258024].

¢ Lyon, D. Surveillance studies: an overview. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007)

[ISBN 9780745635927].

¢ O’Harrow, R. Jr. No place to hide. (London: Free Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780743287050].

Further reading
¢ Lyon, D. ‘The Snowden stakes: challenges for understanding surveillance today’
(2015) 13(2) Surveillance & Society 139. Available at: [Link]
[Link]/surveillance-and-society/issue/view/Intelligence

¢ Lyon, D. Surveillance society: monitoring everyday life. (Buckingham: Open

University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780335205462].

¢ Murakami-Wood, D. ‘Globalization and surveillance’ in Ball, K., K. Haggerty and

D. Lyon (eds) Routledge handbook of surveillance studies. (Abingdon: Routledge,
2014) [ISBN 9781138026025].

¢ Pridmore, J. ‘Consumer surveillance’ in Ball, K., K. Haggerty and D. Lyon (eds)

Routledge handbook of surveillance studies. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014)
[ISBN 9781138026025].

¢ Smith, E.A. and D. Lyon ‘Comparison of survey findings from Canada and
the USA on surveillance and privacy from 2006 and 2012’ (2013) 11(1/2)
Surveillance & Society 190. Available at: [Link]
surveillance-and-society/issue/view/Futures.

¢ Van der Velden, L. ‘Leaky apps and data shots: technologies of leakage and
insertion in NSA surveillance’ (2015) 13(2) Surveillance & Society 182. Available at:
[Link]
Intelligence
page 200 University of London

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