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•
Key Readings in
Criminol
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
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•
• • •
Edited by Tim Newburn
wp
WI LLAN
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Published by
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?EFC'
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•
Contents
List of abbreviations XVI

•
Acknowledgements •••
XVIII
General Introduction •
XIX
1 Understanding crime and criminology 1

Introduction, key concepts and questions for discussion 2
1.1 What is crime? 4
Paul W. Tappan
1.2 Conceptions of deviance, official data and deviants 7
Steven Box
1.3 The construction and deconstruction of crime 11
John MunCie
1.4 A suitable amount of crime 17
Nils Christie
2 Crime and punishment in history 19

2.1 Execution and the English people 22
Vic Gatrell
2.2 Eighteenth-century punishment 24
Michael'gnatieH
2.3 Prosecutors and the courts 27
Clive Emsley
2.4 Police and people: the birth of Mr Peel's blue locusts 31
Michae"gnatieff
2.5 The London garotting paniC of 1862: a moral panic and the creation 34
of a criminal class in mid-Victorian England
Jennifer Davis
3 Crime data and crime trends 41

3.1 The social construction of official statistics on criminal deviance 44
Steven Box
3.2 A note on the use of official statistics 48
John I. Kitsuse and Aaron V. Cicourel
v
VI Key Readings in Criminology
3.3 The origins of the British Crime Survey 54

Mike Hough, Mike Maxfield, Bob Morris and Jon Simmons
3.4 Unravelling recent crime patterns and trends 59
Robert Reiner
4 Crime and the media 65

4.1 What makes crime 'news'? 68

Jack Katz
4.2 The media politics of crime and criminal justice 71
Philip Schlesinger, Howard Tumber and Graham Murdock
4.3 On the continuing problem of media effects 75
Sonia Livingstone
4.4 The sociology of moral panics 79
Stanley Cohen
5 Classicism and positivism 85

5.1 On crimes and punishments 88
Cesare Beccaria
5.2 The female born criminal 93
Cesare LombrOSD and Guglielmo Ferrero
5.3 The positive school of criminology 99
Enrico Ferri
6 Biological positivism 105

6.1 Criminal anthropology in the United States 108
Nicole Hahn Rafter
6.2 The increasing appropriation of genetic explanations 113
Troy Duster
6.3 Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behaviour in children and adults 119
Adrian Raine
6.4 Evolutionary psychology and crime 127
Satoshi Kanazawa
7 Psychological positivism 137

7.1 Differential association 140
Edwin H. Sutherland and Donald R. Cressey
Contents VII
7.2 Social structure and social learning 142

Ronald L. Akers
7.3 Crime as choice 149
James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein
7.4 The link between cognitive ability and criminal behavior 154
Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
8 Durkheim, anomie and strain 159

8.1 The normal and the pathological 162
Emile Durkheim
8.2 Social structure and anomie 165
Robert K. Merton
8.3 Why do individuals engage in crime? 169
Robert Agnew
8.4 Crime and the American Dream: an institutional analysis 174
Richard Rosenfeld and Steven F. Messner
8.5 The vertigo of late modernity 181
Jock Young
9 The Chicago School, culture and subcultures 187

9.1 Juvenile delinquency and urban areas 190
Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay
9.2 Delinquent boys: the culture of the gang 194
Albert K. Cohen
9.3 Subcultural conflict and working-class community 198
Phil Cohen
9.4 Subcultures, cultures and class 201
John Clarke , Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and Brian Roberts
9.5 Cultural criminology 203

Jeff Ferrell
10 Interactionism and labelling theory 209

10.1 Primary and secondary deviation 212

Edwin M. Lemert
10.2 Notes on the sociology of deviance 214
Kai 1": Erikson
10.3 Outsiders 216

Howard S. Becker
vii i Key Readings in Criminology
10.4 Misunderstanding labelli ng perspectives 220

Ken Plummer
10.5 The social reaction against drugtaking 224
Jock Young
11 Control theories 231

11.1 Techniques of neutralization: a theory of delinquency 234
Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza
11.2 A control theory of delinquency 236
Travi s Hirschi
11.3 A general theory of crime 241
Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi
11.4 Charles Tittle's control balance and criminological theory 246
John Braithwaite
12 Radical and critical criminology 255

12.1 Toward a political economy of crime 258
William J. Chambliss
12.2 The theoretical and political priorities of critical criminology 261
Phil Scraton and Kathryn Chadwick
12.3 Radical criminology in Britain 267
Jock Young
12.4 Abolitionism and crime control 271
Willem de Haan
13 Left and right realism 275

13.1 Reflections on realism 278
Roger Matthews and Jock Young
13.2 The failure of criminology: the need for a radical realism 282
Jock Young
13.3 The emerging underclass 288
Charles Murray
13.4 Broken windows 295
James O. Wilson and George L. Kelling
Contents IX
14 Contemporary classicism 301

14.1 The new criminologies of everyday life 304
David Garland
14.2 'Situational' crime prevention: theory and practice 307

Ronald V Clarke
14.3 Opportunity makes the thief: practical theory for crime prevention 312
Marcus Felson and Ronald V. Clarke
14.4 Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach 318
Lawrence E, Cohen and Marcus Felson
15 Feminist criminology 325

15.1 The etiology of female crime 328
Dorie Klein
15.2 Girls, crime and woman's place: toward a feminist model of female 335
delinquency
Meda Chesney-Lind
15.3 Feminism and criminology 340
Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind
15.4 Feminist approaches to criminology or postmodern woman meets 347
atavistic man
Carol Smart
16 Late modernity, governmentality and risk 357

16.1 The new penology: notes on the emerging strategy for corrections 360
Malcolm M. Feeley and Jonathan Simon
16.2 Actuarialism and the risk society 367
Jock Young
16.3 Risk, power and crime prevention 373
Pat O'Malley
16.4 Say 'Cheese! ' The Disney order that is not so Mickey Mouse 379
Clifford D. Shearing and Philip C. Stenning
17 Victims, victimization and victimology 385

17.1 On becoming a victim 388
Paul Rock
x Key Readings in Criminology
17.2 Fiefs and peasants: accomplishing change for victims in the criminal 397
justice system
Joanna Shapland
17.3 Violence against women and children : the contradictions of crime 402
control under patriarchy
Jill Radford and Elizabeth A. Stanko
17.4 Multiple victimisation: its extent and significance 409
Graham Farrell
18 White-collar and corporate crime 417

18. 1 The problem of white-collar crime 420
Edwin H. Sutherland
18.2 Who is the criminal? 423
Paul W.Tappan
18.3 Defining white-collar crime 425
David O. Friedrichs
18.4 Iraq and Halliburton 430
Dawn Rothe
19 Organised crime 437

Introduction, key concep ts and questions for discussion 438
19.1 Organised crime: the structural skeleton 440
Donald R. Cressey
19.2 Fishy business: the mafia and the Fu lton Fish Market 444
James B. Jacobs
19.3 The crime network 449
William J. Chambliss
19.4 The profession of violence: the Krays 453
John Pearson
19.5 Perspectives on 'organ ised crime' 454
Michael Levi
20 Violent and property crime 461

20.1 The social organization of burglary 464
Neal Shover
20.2 American lethal violence • 470
Fran klin E. Zi mring an d Gordon Hawkins
Contents XI
20 .3 Modernization, self-control and lethal violence 476

Manuel Eisner
20.4 Racial harassment and the process of victimization 481
Benjamin Bowling
21 Drugs and alcohol 487

21.1 Booze, the urban night and the human ecology of violence 490
Dick Hobbs, Phil Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow
21 .2 Heroin use and street crime 496
James A. Inciardi
21 .3 Drug prohibition in the United States: costs, consequences and 499
alternatives
Ethan A. Nadelmann
21.4 The war on drugs and the African American community 506
Marc Mauer
22 Penology and punishment 511

22.1 The body of the condemned 514
Michel Foucault
22.2 What works? Questions and answers about prison reform • 51 7
Robert Martinson
22.3 Censure and proportionality 520
Andrew von Hirsch
22.4 The largest penal experiment in Am eri can history 524
Franklin E. Zimring , Gordon Hawkins and Sam Kami n
23 Understanding criminal justice 529

23 .1 Two models of the criminal process 532
Herbert L. Packer
23.2 Models of justice: Portia or Persephone? Some thoughts on equality, 536
fairness and gender in the field of criminal justice
Frances Heidensohn
23.3 The antecedents of compliant behavior 542
Tom R. Tyler
23.4 Defiance, deterrence and irrelevance : a theory of the criminal sanction 545
Lawrence W. Sherman
xu Key Readings in Criminology
24 Crime prevention and community safety 551

24.1 A conceptual model of crime prevention 554
Paul J. Brantingham and Frederic L. Faust
24.2 The British gas suicide story and its criminological implications 559
Ronald V. Clarke and Pat Mayhew
24.3 Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy 563
Robert J. Sampson, Stephen W. Raudenbusch and Felton Earls
24.4 The uses of sidewalks: safety 568
Jane Jacobs
25 The police and pol icing 571

25.1 What do the police do? 574
David H. Bayley
25.2 A sketch of the policeman's 'working personality' 580
Jerome H. Skolnick
25.3 The rhetoric of communi ty policing 585
Carl B. Klockars
25.4 The future of policing 592
David H. Bayley and Clifford D. Shearing
26 Criminal courts and the court process 601

26.1 Conditions of successful d egradat ion ceremonies 60,4
Harold Garfinkel
26.2 Materials of contro l 608
Pat Carlen
26.3 The adversarial system 613
Paul Rock
26.4 Understanding law enforcement 619
Doreen McBarnet
27 Sentencing and non-custodial penalties 625

27.1 Crime, inequality and sentencing 628
Pat Carlen
27.2 The punitive city: notes on the dispersal of social control 633
Stanley Cohen
Contents XIII
27.3 The dispersal of discipline thesis 640

Anthony Bottoms
27.4 Understanding the growth in the prison population in England and Wales 644
Andrew Millie, Jessica Jacobson and Mike Hough
28 Prisons and imprisonment 649

28.1 The 'disciplinary' origins of the prison 652
David Garland
28.2 Prisons and the contested nature of punishment 657
Richard Sparks
28.3 The inmate world 664
Erving Goffman
28.4 Women in prison: the facts 669
Pat Carlen and Anne Worrall
29 Youth crime and youth justice 677

29.1 Present tense: moderates and hooligans 680
Geoffrey Pearson
29.2 The coming of the super-predators 684
John J. Dilulio
29.3 Penal custody: intolerance, irrationality and indifference 689
Barry Goldson
29.4 Comparative youth justice 698
Michael Cavadino and James Dignan
30 Restorative justice 709

30.1 Conflicts as property 712
Nils Christie
30.2 Restorative justice: an overview 719
Tony Marshall
30.3 Responsibilities, rights and restorative justice 726
Andrew Ashworth
30.4 Critiquing the critics: a brief response to critics of restorative justice 732
Allison Morris
xiv Key Readings in Criminology
31 Race , crime and justice 739

31 .1 The racism of criminalization : police and the reproduction of the 742
criminal other
Tony Jefferson
31 .2 From Scarman to Stephen Lawrence 747
Stuart Halt
31 .3 In proportion : race, and police stop and search 754
P.A.J. Waddington , Kevin Stenson and David Don
31.4 Deadly symbiosis: when ghetto and prison meet and mesh 759
Loi"c Wacquant
32 Gender, crime and justice 767

32.1 Women and criminal justice: saying it again, again and again 770
Loraine Gelsthorpe
32.2 The woman of legal discourse 772
Carot Smart
32.3 Women and social control 779
Frances Heidensohn
32.4 Common sense, routine precaution and normal violence 786
Elizabeth A. Stanko
32.5 Hegemonic and subordinated masculinities 791
James W. Messerschmidt
33 Criminal and forensic psychology 797

33.1 Individual factors in offending 800
David P. Farrington and Brandon C. Welsh
33.2 Adolescent-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: 807
a developmental taxonomy
Terrie E. Moffitt
33.3 A sociogenic developmental theory of offending 818
Robert J. Sampson and John H. Laub
34 Globalisation , terrorism and human rights 823

34.1 Crime control as industry 826
Nils Christie
Contents xv
34.2 Human rights and crimes of the state: the culture of denial 827
Stanley Cohen
34.3 The new regulatory state and the transformation of criminology 837
John Braithwaite
34.4 Criminal justice and political cultures 844

Tim Newburn and Richard Sparks
35 Doing criminological research 851

35.1 The relationship between theory and empirical observations in 854
criminology
Anthony Bottoms
35.2 The fieldwork approach 860
Howard Parker
35.3 A snowball's chance in hell: doing fieldwork with active residential 865
burglars
Richard Wright, Scott H . Decker, Allison K. Redfern and Dietrich L Smith
35.4 Doing research in prison: breaking the silence? 870
Alison Uebling
35 .5 Feminist methodologies in criminology: a new approach or old 875
wine in new bottles?
Loraine Gelsthorpe
35.6 Writing : the problem of getting started 882
Howard S. Becker
Publisher'S Acknowledgements 886

Index 893
List of abbreviations
ACLU Ame rican Civil Liberties Union

ACI'S Advisory Council on the Penal System
ASBO anti-social behaviour orde r
BCS British Crime Survey

BKA Bundeskriminalamt
CASI computer-assisted self-interv iewing

CIA Centra llnteJlige nce Agency
CJA Criminal Justice Act
CO Carbon Monoxide
CPA Coa lition Provisional Authority
CPPU Crime Policy Plannin g Unit
CPS Crown Prosecution Service
CVPA Children and Young Persons' Act
DNA deoxyribonucleic acid

DFi Development Fund for Iraq
EEG elect roen cep h a Iogra m

Eses street corner youths
EU European Union
EWO Education We lfare Officer
fAR Fede ral Acquisi ti ons Regulati o ns

FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
GHS General House hold Su rvey

GST Gen eral Strai n Theory
HIV I-I uman i m m un odeficien cy virus

HORU Home Offi ce Research Unit
IMF In ternati ona l Monetary Fund

IQ In tell igence Quotie nt
JCA R JOint Committee Against Racialism
KBR Kellogg, Brown and Root
LoeCA P Logistics Civil Augmenta ti o n Program
MPA Minor Phys ical Ano m aly
NATO No rth Atlanti c Treaty O rga ni za tion

NAVSS National Association o f Victim Support Schemes
NCIS Na tional Criminal Intell ige nce Service
NCS Natio nal Crime Squad
NCS US National C rim e Survey
Ncs Ne igh bor hood Cluste rs
NCVS National Crime Victim izat ion Su rvey
•
..
list of abbreviations XVII
NEO-PI Neurot i(ism-Ext ran>f'iion-Open ne'iS Personal it y lnven tory

NI National Front
N(jO non-governmental organi'iation~
~IJ)A t-.:ationallnstitute on Drug Abuse
NLSI Nittional Longitudinal Survey of Youth
NO\IS National Offender Management Service
NOVA National Organization for Victim A~')htdnce
NYPD New Yorl-. Police Department
OPCS Office of Population, Cemm and Survey')
PACE Police and Crimina! Fvidence Act 1984

I'HDCN Project on Iluman Development in Chicago Neighborhoods
Quango Qua~i-autonomous nongovernmental organisations
RPU (Home Office) Research and Planning Unit

I(SOI Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration
SAM HS.-\ Substance Abuse and Mental Ilealth Services Administration

SCPR Social and Community Planning Research
SF( US Securities and Exchange Commission
SfS socioeconomic status
Socs socialites
SOMA State Oil Marketing Organization
SSI<A Social Structure and Anomie
SSSL Social Structure and Social Learning theory of crime
SWAT special weapons and tactics team
VAT Value Added Tax

VORl' Victim-Offender Reconciliation Projects
VSS Victim Support Scheme
WANO World Association of Nuclear Operators
VOL Young Offender Institution

Acknowledgements
Completing a Sizeable undertaking such as this means that a lot of debts are
incurred. Once again Brian Willan has brought all his skills to bear on the project
(from planning and design, through careful handling of the whole production, all
the way to proof-reading). lowe him, and Jim, Julia, Simone, Lucinda, Jake and
everyone associated with Willan Publishing a considerable debt. My thanks to Julia
Willan for all the hard work in chasing the permissions for the selections in the
volume, and to Bill and Michelle Antrobus at Deer Park Productions, together with
Emma Gubb and Becky Little, who had the unenviable task of checking and dou-
ble-checking the text/proofs. My gratitude to Kevin Ancient for the work on the
cover and to all those - family, friends, colleagues - who helped in the process of
getting the right pictures in the right order. As ever, I'd like to thank my family for
being, well, my family.
Tim Newburn
•• •
General Introduction
Welcome to Key Reailillgs ill Crimil/%gy. [n Z007 [ published a large introductory

textbook simply entitled Crimillofogy. This volume is intended as a companion to
that book and my hope is that the two books will complement each other. That said,
Key Rearlings has been developed as a stand-alone text and the intention is that it ca n
be used in that way o r with any o f the main cri minology textbooks that are avail-
able.
As its title suggests, thi s volume consists primarily of a se lection of excerpts
from origina l criminologi cal text s. They are organised to correspond to the run-
ning order of the chapters in Criminology (with the exception of the final chapter
in Key Readillgs which covers elements of the two final chapters in the textbook).
Given the size of this enterprise I have limited the number of readings to approxi-
mately four in each chapter. You will anticipate straight away, therefore, that there
is no suggestion that the readings in anyone chapter cover all of the main issues
connected with the subject of that chapter. Rather, the intention is to give a
navour of some of the more important and interesting questions that are raised in
that particular topi C, and to do so in a way that will hopefully stimulate debate and
discussion.
Wherever possible I have attempted to make selections that a re worth read-
ing. By this I mean a number of things. First, in all cases I hope the selection has
been of writing that makes some important contribution to the subject concerned,
either by introducing new ideas, by offering intereshng or provocative ideas, or in
the way they bring together or summarise particular arguments.
Second, taking the volume as a whole, I have attempted to include as much
'c lassi c' criminology as I can. I have resisted the temptation to stick to materials
that were published in the last few years. One of the unfortunate characteristics of
criminology is what my colleague Paul Rock has called 'chronocentrism': a preoc-
cupation with the new and a tendency to 'forget' about materials published more
than a few years ago even though they may be among the most importa nt in the
subject.
The aim here, t herefore, has been to offer a b road range of criminological
materials - in terms of when they were written, who they were written by and
what they cover. In addition, wherever pOSSible, 1 have also tried to find materials
th at are well written. There is nothing worse than having to slog through badly
written journal articles and books. It is a dispiriting experience and, cruc ially, is
precisely what is likely to drain away any en thu siasm a student may have. I don't
suppose that I have succeeded in absolutely every case but, honestly, I did try.
The task of making a selection for a volume such as this necessarily means
leaving out an awful lot even when it contains almost 1SO selections. I will be
intrigued to see what students make of the selection and how useful they find it. I
will also be fascinated to discover what m y colleagues - those running cri minology
courses in universities - will make of the se lection. Are there particular things that
it astonishes them that are missing? If so I should like to know and I hope they will
tell me (politely)!
What I have attempted to do, in sum, is to produce a volume for students that:
• Provides you with access to a broad range of materials with which to
follow up your reading of other textbooks;
XIX
xx Key Readings in Criminology
• Incorporates readings that include both more recent summaries o f

particularly important criminological issues as well as excerpts from
criminological classics; and
• Introduces you not only to criminological argument and debate but also
offers you the opportunity to read primary as well as secondary or
summary sources.
The overall objective is that this volume could be used in a number of ways in
support of university teaching:
• As a source of both 'key' and 'suppl ementary' reading for lectures
• As th e basis for organised reading in advan ce of seminars and tutorials
• As the basis for classroom d iscussion and analysis
• As a broad sou rce of reading for exa m revision
In almost every case, each reading is simpl y an excerpt from a longer work-
sometimes a journal article, sometimes a book. In almost every case I have had to
edit th e text quite substantially. Had I not it would have been physically impossi-
ble to glue the pages of this book togeth e r such would have been its size. One
consequence of this is that you are getting the kernel of people's arguments; not
necessarily all the supporting detail. I hope that reading excerpts in this volume
will stimulate to visit the originals and to read the works in their original form.
This volume is not a substitute for the original texts - it is simply a way of getting
you to a lot of material quickly and easily. Nor is it a substitute for going to the
library and browsing. Naturally, the bulk of material in any topic does not appear
in this book. The more you can read around your subject - following the sugges-
ti o ns that your teachers make, but also foll owing your own nose - the more you
will get from your studies.
Features of this book

Each chapter in Key Readings ill Crimillology opens with a short essay introdu ci ng
the particular readings and explaining aspects o f their con tent and their relevance.
At th e start of this introduction there is also a list of key cOllcepts, and also a seri es
of qllestions for disCIISSioll. Both of these features pick up key, salient points in the
readings.
The key concepts are included to alert you to elements you may wish to look
out for as you read .
The questions for discussioll are there to provide a focus for classroom discus-
sion or for further reading. They are deliberately located at the beginning rather
than at the end of each chapter. It is often quite helpful, in my View, to have some
sense of what you might want to look for before you se t alit on the task of reading
so mething. The questions only pick up on some of the key issues - there will be
other aspects of the readings which you or o th ers may want to raise for discussion.
The questions, together with the key concepts, will at least give you a start, sug-
gesting to you in advance ce rtain avenues of inquiry and possible con troversy.
From there all it is up to you, but it should be an exciting journey. I wish you luck
with your reading.
Tim Newburn
London
t. newburnfu'lse.ac. uk
Introduction
KEY black letter law; censure; crime; criminalization; deviance;
CONCEPTS enforcement; morality; norms; (official) deviants; social
construction; social harm; social order
There are four readings in this chapter and each offers a slightly different view of
the subject-matter of criminology. If you have done any initial reading (perhaps
read the opening chapter in the textbook Criminology) then you will have learned
that criminology is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on a broad range of aca-
demic subjects and methodologies. It is, as David Downes once described it, a
'rendezvous subject'. It is a place where people from a variety of disciplinary ori-
gins come together to study three core issues, identified by Edwin Sutherland in
the 19305 as: the making of laws, the breaking 01 laws and society's reaction to
the breaking of laws. Actually, there is rather more to it than that, of course , but
Sutherland captures a goodly chunk of what we would still recogn ize today as
criminology. One way or another, pretty much irrespective of one's approach to
criminology, the core of the subject-matter boils down to those things that we
refer to as 'crime'. Like so much of the social world , the term 'crime' seems ini-
tially and superficially straightforward but gets increasingly complex the more
one attempts to define and analyse it. The readings selected for this chapter are
designed to offer some reflections on this apparently Simple, but actually deeply
problematic term. Given how central the term is to the rest of what you will study
in criminology this is consequently an important starting point.
In 'What is crime? ' (Reading 1.1) Paul Tappan challenges those who argue
that crime is not a particularly meaningful category, and suggests that the most
straightforward and reliable way of understanding what we mean by the term is
to limit it to infractions of the criminal law. Although we cannot possibly know of
every occasion when a law is broken Gust think of how often people speed in
their cars or shoplift without ever being caught) it remains the case, he argues,
that those who are arrested and processed by the criminal justice system are a
good enough approximation of those that break the law to be a reasonable focus
for criminological study.
By contrast, Steven Box (Reading 1.2) focuses on something rather broader
than crime - namely, deviance or rule-violating behaviour. He describes how
early writers in this field were especially concerned to try to identify the individual
differences between those engaged in deviant behaviour and others, but that
this later gave way to a search for causes in the social environment rather than
within the individual. One problem with work in both these traditions, he argues,
is that they have tended to confine themselves to the study of those 'officially
defined' as deviant. In contrast to Tappan, however, Box takes the view that such
a group is in fact a 'highly selected population ' and therefore unlikely to give rise
to accurate generalizations.
The excerpt from John Muncie (Reading 1.3) provides an overview of differ-
ing approaches to understanding crime, beginning with Tappan's narrow
definition and moving through a series of alternative, often radical analyses. The
latter vary from Marxist approaches which emphasize the ways in which the crim-
inal law protects and reinforces the privileged position of the powertul, to those
2
scholars who question the whole idea of criminology as a project - or at least
one that tries to focus on crime - and which proposes 'social harms' as a better
alternative. The final reading by Nils Christie (Reading 1.4) shares a similar out~
look to these latter critics. In it, he suggests that crime is an 'unlimited natural
resource'. It is , from this point of view, not something that we should think of as
being limited in quantity - a certain number of burglaries , or thefts or violent
attacks - but, rather, as being the product of social processes, decisions and
institutional reactions to respond to particular behaviours in particular ways. In
short, Christie wants us to ask questions of crime that we tend often to ignore,
most notably the issue of when is enough, enough? He wants us to dilute our
preoccupation with attempting to measure how much crime there is in our soci~
ely and, instead, use the data we have in a critical manner to tell us something
about what we treat as criminal , what we decide to process and prosecute and
so on, and what these decisions tell us about the nature of our social world.
Questions for discussion

1. Can you identify any problems in Tappan's observation that 'adjudicated
offenders represent the closest possible approximation of those who
have in fact violated the law'?
2. In what ways might concentrating only on those who break the law be too
narrow a focus for criminology?
3. According to Box what, historically, have been the two main approaches
to understanding deviance within criminology?
4. In what ways might it be significant to distinguish between actors and
acts in criminology?
5. What do we mean when we suggest that crime is a 'social construct'?
6. Give some examples of the way in which definitions of crime change
historically.
7. What might be the advantages of a focus on social harm compared with
one on crime?
8. What does Christie mean when he says crime is an 'unlimited natural
resource'?
3
•
1.1 What is crime?
Paul W. Tappan
Another increasing ly widespread and seduct ive Apparently th e criminal may be law obedient but
movem ent to revo lutionize the concepts of crime greedy; the spec ific quality of hi s crimes is far
and criminal has developed around t h e currently fr o m clear.
fashionable dogma of 'white collar crime.' This is Anothe r aven ue is taken in Professor
actua ll y a parti cula r sc hool among those who (011* Sutherland's more recent d efi nit ion of crime as a
tend that th e cr imin o logist should study antisocial ' legal description of an act as socially injurious and
behavior rathe r than law violation. The dominant legal provi sio n of penalty for the act.'4 Here he ha s
contention of the group appea rs to be that the (0 11* deemed th e connotat ion of his term too narrow if
viet classes are merely our 'petty' crim inals, the few con fin ed to vio lations of the criminal code; he
whose depredations against society have been on a in cludes by a slight modification conduct violative
sma ll sca le, who have blundered in to difficulties of any law, c ivil or criminal , when it is 'SOCia ll y
w ith the police and courts through their ignorance injurious.'
and st upidity. The important criminals, those who In light of these d efini tion s, the normative
do irrepa rab le damage with impunity, deft ly evade issue is poin ted. Who should be considered th e
the machinery of justice, either by remaining 'tech- white collar cri minal ? Is it the merchant who, out
nically' within the law or by exercis ing their of greed, bUSiness acumen, o r competi tive motiva-
intelligence, financial prowess, o r poli ti cal connec- tions, breaches a tru st with his consumer by
tions in its vio latio n . We seek a definition of the ' puffing hi s wares' beyond their merits, by pricing
white collar crim inal and find an amazing diversity, th em beyond their value, or by ordinary advertis·
even among those flowing from the sa me pen, and ing? Is it he who b reaks trust with his employees in
observe that characteristica ll y they are loose, doctri- o rder to keep wages down , refusing to permit labor
n ai re, and invective. When Pro fe sso r Sutherland organization o r to bargain co ll ectively, and who is
launched the term, it was applied to those individu- found gUilty by a labor relations board of an unfair
als of upper soc ioeconomic class who vi o late the labor pra cti ce? Ma y it be the w hite colla r worker
crim inal law, usually by breach of trust, in the ordi- who breach es trust wit h his employers by in effi-
nary course of th ei r business activities. \ This origi nal cient perfo rm ance at work, by sym pathet ic st rike
usage accords with legal ideas of crim e and points o r secon dary boycott ? Or is it th e merchandiser
moreover to the sign ificant and d ifficu lt problems who violates ethics by under-cutting the prices of
of enforcement in the areas o f business crimes, par- hi s fellow merchants? In ge neral these acts do no t
ticularl y where those violations are m ade criminal violate th e criminal law. All in some mann er
by recent statut o ry enactme nt. From thi s fruitful breach a tru st for motives w hic h a cri min o logist
beginning the term has spread into vacuity, wide may (o r may not) disapprove for one reaso n o r
and handsome. We learn that the white collar crimi- another. All are within the framework of the n o rms
nal may be th e suave and deceptive merchant of o rdinary business practice. One seeks in vain for
prin ce o r 'robber baron ,' that th e existence of such criteria to determine this white collar crim inality.
crime may be determined readily 'i n casual conver- It is the co nduct of o n e who wears a white collar
sation with a re prese ntative of an occupation by and who indulges in occu pational behavior to
ask in g him, "What crooked practices a re found in which some parti cular criminologist takes excep-
your occupat ion?'" Z tion . It may eas il y be a te rm of propaganda. Fo r
Co nfU Sio n grows as we lea rn from anoth e r purposes of empirical research or objective descrip-
proponent of this co ncept that, 'There are various ti o n , what is it?
phases of white-collar criminality that touch the Whether cri min o logy aspires one day to
lives of the common man almost daily. The large becom e a science o r a repository of reasonabl y
majority of th e m are o perating w ithin the letter accurate descriptive information, it cannot tolerate
and spi ril of the law ... .' and that 'In short, greed, a nomenclature of such loose and variable usage. A
n ot need , lies at the basis of white-collar crim e.'J special hazard ex ist s in th e emp loymen t o f the
4
What is crime? 5
term, 'wh ite collar criminal,' in that it invites ind i- Ha v in g co nSide red th e co n ceptions of an
vidual sys tems of private values to ru n riot in an innovating sociology in ascribing the te rm s 'crime'
area (economic et hi cs) where gross variati on exists and 'c rim inal,' let us state here the juristic view:
among t-riminologists as well as others_ The rebel Only those a re criminals who h ave been adjudi-
may enjoy a veritable orgy of delight in damning ca ted as such by the courts. Crime is an intentional
as criminal most anyone he pleases; one imagines act in violation of the crimi nal law (statu tory and
that some expe rts would thus consign to the crim i- case law), co mmitted without defense or excuse,
nal classes any successful capitalistic bus in ess man; and penal ized by th e state as a felony o r mi sde-
th e reactionary or conservative, complace ntl y mea n o r. [n stud ying t he offe nd er there can be no
viewing the occupational practices of the business presumption that arrested, arraigned, indicted, or
world, might find all in perfect order in this best of p rosecuted persons are criminals un less they also
all possi ble worlds_ The result may be fine indoctri- be held guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of a par-
nation or catha rsis achieved through blus ter ing ticu lar o ffen se.'6
b roa dsides against the 'existing system.' It is not Even less than th e un co nvicted suspect can
crim in ology. It is not social science_ The terms those individuals be cons id ered criminal who have
'u nfair,' 'in fring ement,' 'di scrimina ti o n ,' 'injury to vio lated no law. Only those are crimin als who ha ve
socie ty.' and so o n , employed by the white collar been selected by a clear substant ive an d a care ful
criminologists canno t, taken alone, differentiate adject ive law, suc h as obtains in our courts. The
crimi nal and n o n-crim inal. Until refined to mea n unconvi cted offe nd ers of whom the crimin o logist
certain specifi c actions, they are merely epithets. may wish to take cognizan ce are an important but
Vague, omnibus concepts defining crim e arc unselected group; it has n o specific membership
a blight upon either a legal syste m o r a system of presen tl y ascertainable. Sociologists may strive, as
socio logy that strives to be object ive. They allow d oes the legal profeSSion, to perfect measu res for
judge, administrator, o r conceivably socio logi st, in more co mpl ete and accurate asce rtainm ent of
an undirected, freely ope rating discretion, to offend ers, but it is futile simply to rail again st a
attribute th e status 'criminal' to any individ ual o r machinery of justice which is, and to a large extent
class which he co n ceives nefari o us. This can must inev itabl y remain, something less than
accomplish no desi rable Objective, either politically entirely accurate or efficient. [... 1
or sociologica ll y.s We reiterate and defend the contention that
Worse than futil e, it is courting disaster, polit - crime, as lega lly d efin ed, is a sociologica lly signifi-
ical, economic, and social, to promulgate a system ca nt province of study. The view that it is not
of jus ti ce in which th e individual may be held appears to be based upon either of two premises: 1.
that offenders co nvicted under the crim inal law are
c riminal without ha v in g commi tt ed a crim e,
not representative of all crimi nals and 2. that crim-
defined with some precision by statut e and case
inal law violation (and, the refore, the criminal
law. To desc ribe cri me the sociologist , like the
him self) is not signifi ca nt to th e sociologist
lawyer legislator, must do m o re than condem n
because it is composed of a set of legal, non-
conduct d ev iation in the abstract. He must avoid
sociological ca tegories irrelevant to the under-
definiti o n s predicated si mply upon state o f mind
standing o f group behavior and/or soc ial control.
or social injury and determine what partic ula r Through these con tention s to invalidate the tradi-
types of deviation, in what directi ons, and to what tional and legal frame o f reference adopted by the
degree, shall be conSidered criminal. This is exactly criminologist, several considerations, briefly
what the criminal code today attempt s to do, enumerat ed bel ow, must be met.
though imperfectly of course. Mo re slowly and
conservatively than many o f us would wish: that is t Convicted criminals as a sample o f law
in the nature of legal institutions, as it is in oth er violators:
social institution s as well. But law has defined with a Adjudicated offenders represent the closest
grea ter clarity and precision the conduct which is possible approximation to those who have in
criminal than our anti-legalistic criminologists fact violated the law, carefully selected by the
promise to do; it h as moreover promoted a stab il - sieving of the due process of law; no other
ity, a security and dependability of justi ce through province of social control attempts to
its exactness, its so-ca ll ed technicalities, and its ascertain the breach of norms with such rigor
moderation in inspecting proposals for change. and precision.
6 1 . Understanding crime and criminology
b It is as futile to contend that this group should being generally anti-soCial, immoral,
not be studied on the grounds that it is unconventional, or bad, but for violation of
incomplete or non-representative as it would be the specific legal n o rms of control.
to maintain that psychology should terminate e Law becomes the peculiarly important and
its description, ana lysis, diagnosis, and ultima te pressure towa rd conformity to
treatment of deviants who ca nnot be min imum standards of cond uct deem ed
completely representative as selected. essential to group welfare as oth er systems o f
Convicted persons are nearly all crimi nals. They norms and mechaniCS of co ntrol deterio rate.
offer large and varied samples of all types; their f Criminals, therefore, are a sociologically
origi ns, traits, dynamics of development, and distinct group of violato rs of specific legal
treatment influences can be studied profitably norms, subjected to official state treatment.
for purposes of description, understanding, and They and the non-c riminal s respond, though
control. To be sure, they are not necessarily di fferentially of course, to th e standards,
representative of all offenders; if characteristics threats, and correctional d evices established
observed among them are imputed to law in this system of social control.
violators generally, it must be with the
qualification implied by the selective processes g The norms, their violation, the mechanics
of discovery and adjudication. of dealing with breach constitute major
provinces of legal sociology. They are basic to
c Con victed criminals are impo rtant as a the theoretical framework of sociological
sociological category, furthermore, in that
criminologyJ
they have been exposed and respond to the
influences of court contact, official punit ive
treatme nt, and public stigma as co nvicts. From P. W. Tappa" (1947) ' Wllo is the criminal?',
American Sociological Review, 12(1): 96--102.
2 The releva nce of violation o f the criminal law:
a The criminal law establishes substantive
norms of behavior, stan da rds more clear cut, Notes
specifi c, and detailed than the norms in any
other category of social cont rols. 1 E..II. Sutherland, 'Crime and Business,' 217 Tile
b The behavior prohibited has been considered or
AIII/(/is the American Academy of Political alld Social
Sciellce 112, ( 1941).
significa ntly in de rogation of group welfare by
2 Suth erland, 'White-Collar Criminality.' 5 American
deliberative and representative assembly, Sociological Review I , (1940).
formally constituted for the purpose of 3 Harry E.lmer Barnes and Negley K. Teeters, New
establishing such norms; nowhere else in the Horizolls ill Criminology, pp. 42-43, (I943).
field of social control is there directed 4 Su th erla nd, ' Is 'White-Collar Crim e' Crime?' 10
comparable rational effort to elaborate Americall Sociological Rednv 132, (1945).
standards conforming to the predominant 5 In th e province of juvenile delinquency we may
needs, deSires, and interests of the community. observe already the evil that nows from this sort o f
loose defi nition in applied sociology. In many juris-
c There a re legislative and juridical lags whic h di ctio ns, under broad statut ory definiti o n of
reduce the social value o f the legal norms; as delinquency, it ha s become common practice to
an important charact eristic of law, such lag adjudicate as delinque nt any child deemed to be
does not reduce the relevance of law as a anti-social or a be havior problem. Instead of requir-
province of sociological inquiry. From a ing sou nd systematic proof of specific reprehensible
conduct, the courts can attach 10 children the odious
detached sociological view, the significant label of delinquent through the evaluations and rec-
thing is not the absolute goodness or badness ommendations of over-worked , underlrai ned case
of the norms but the fact that these norms do investigators who convey to the judge their hearsay
control behavior. The sociologist is interested testimony of neighbo rhood gOSSip and personal
in the resu lts of such control, the correlates predilection. Thu s these vaunted 'socialized tri-
of violation, and in the lags themselves. bu nals' sometimes beco me thcmselves a source of
delinquent and criminal carcers as th ey adjudge
d Upon breach of these legal (and social) individuals who are inn oce nt of proven wrong to a
norms, the refractory are treated offiCially in depraved offender's status through an administrative
punitive and/or rehabilitative ways, not for determination of something they know vaguely as
Conceptions of deviance, official data and deviants 7
anti-social co ndu ct. Sec Introduction by Roscoe inaccurate, obviously, to study all suspects of defen-
Pound of Pauline V. Young, Social Treatmellt ill dants as criminals.
Probation and Delinquency, ( 1937). See also Paul W. 7 For other expositions o f thi~ view, see arti cles by
Tappa n , Delinquent Girls ill COllrt, (1947) and Jerome Hall: 'Prolegomena to a Science o f C riminal
'Treatm ent Without Tria l,' 24 Social FDrees, Law,' 89 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 570,
306, (1946). (1941); 'Criminolo&'Y and a Modern Penal Code,' 57
6 The unconvicted suspect cannot be known as a vio- /ollrtwl of Crimi/lal Law and Criminology 4,
lator of the law: to assum e h im so would be in (May-June, 1936); 'Criminology,' '/'weutieth Century
derogation of our most basic political and eth ical Sociology, pp. 342-65, (1945).
philosophies. In empirical research it would be quite
1.2 Conceptions of deviance. official data and deviants

Steven Box
To begin at the beginning is to be confronted by the because it was widely inferred that people who
most perplexi ng question of all 'What are we study- commit deviate behavior could, because of that
ing?' Although th e su bject-matter of deviance has behavior, be classified as deviant, in other words, a
teased and tantalized th e minds of thinkers for cen- pe rson 's behavior reveals who s/he is essentia lly,
turies, they seem to have been taught on carousel, and that essential self is the ultimate cause of the
going up and down, and round and round, but not behavior. Given this presumed fusion of self and
progressing noticeably beyond the starting points of deviance, the only remaining intellectual problem
concern and curiosity. There is a reason for this lack for traditional criminology was 'Why are a minor-
of development: most people who have attempted ity of persons essentially deviant?'
to study deviance have been confused about wllat At an abstract level, there was consensus
they were studying, and consequently mistaken in amongst most early theorists concerned to answer
flOW they should study it. this question, 'Why are tlley like they are?' There
For m ost of the nineteenth century and even was a common ly sha red belief that peop le who
well into the twentieth, writers and researchers on break the rules of society were defective, and that
devian ce were sustain ed in their activities by a the root of this defect lay within them; beyond this
kind of alchemical belief that their pursuits would co mmonly sha red belief, there existed little agree-
lead them to discover one of nature's dark secrets - ment. When it came down to detailed analysis of
what caused a human being to be an inhuman th e difference between deviants and conformists,
deviant. Since it was widely believed that deviants there was only the comedy of the academic game,
are particular types of people, distinctly different th e bewildering myriad of claims and counter-
from ordinary law-abiding citizens, this pursuit of claims, results and insults, assertions and
the cause of deviance must have seemed - at least desertions, eurekas and raspberries. The devian t
in the abstract - to be one without obstacles. was defective, that was agreed, but the nature of
Indeed, it was perceived in exactly these terms: this defect remained a contentious issue. Indeed, as
simp ly discover the differen ce between deviants recent textbooks verify (Dav is, 1975; Gibbons,
and conformists, and th ere revealed for all, would 1979; Gibbons and Jones, 1975; Nett ler, 1974,
be the cause, or at least the clue to the cause. 1978; Reid, 1976; Schafer, 1969; Suchar, 1978;
According to this perspective there was no Thio, 1978), the everyday theoreti cal and concep-
worthwhile distinction between deviance, i.e. rule- tual squabb les still persist with as much vigour and
viola ting behavior, and deviants, Le. people who rancour as ever.
assume a deviate identity. The two were perceived Fo r some thinkers, particular those versed in
as being intri cately part of the same phenomenon the mystic arts, demonology and in so me cases
They were causally linked because deviants commit theology, deviants were perceived as persons pos-
deviance, and they were conceptually linked sessed by evil forces, or bewitched by black magie,
8 1 . Understanding crime and criminology
or seduced by sorcery, or demented by demons, or deviant was perceived as a person whose weak
earmarked by God. For examp le, Erikson (1966) supe r-ego had abdicated control to a riotous id
suggests that (A lexander and Ross, 1952); to the vocal middle
class intelligentsia, caught on the rising fashion of
according to the Puritan reading of the Bible ... psychiatry, all deviants were insane (Menninger,
there were only two important classes of people 1969; Prins, 1980).
on earth - those who had been elected to ever- The tapestry of assertions could be extended,
lasting life and those who had been consigned almost infinitely, but this would serve only to dis-
forever to hell ... persons who had reasons to tract attention away from the point on which all
fear the worst would drift sullenly into the th ese theorists agreed. It did not matter much
lowe r echelons of society, highly susceptible to whether they subscribed to a demonological, physio-
deviant forms of behavior. (p. 189) logical, psychological or psychiat ric explanation of
Preordained , or held firmly in the grip of some less deviant behavior, the belief that the deviant was a
magisterial but none the less supra human power, defective was a belief co mmitting the theorist to a
ind ividuals were viewed as helpless; they lived out five fold fracture in the unity between a person and
their fated lives, the ma rk of Cai n allowed them no (i) the lIIeallillg of his/her behavior, (ii) the perceptioll
other alternative. of his/he r own predicament, (iii) the reaction of the
Other write rs, conv inced of a more positive person to the reaction of others, (iv) the reactioll to
and empiric route to knowledge, considered that the reactions of state officials, and (v) the State as the
deviant behavior could be expla ined by linking it creator of rul es whose violation constitutes the
to a plJysiological defec t. For most of these thinkers grounds for deviance attribution. Furthennore, given
the actual defect remained a mystery, although in the strict paring away from the person of any mean-
so me quarters it was thought to be that quality ingful connection with the social world, the deviant,
which divided primitive man from civilized in the view of these theoreticians, was someone who
people. Baffled by the defect's exact nature, needed to be corrected. Whether the theorist took a
researchers concentrated on discovering indicators tough-minded view and called penal sanctions pun-
of it. Since the most obvious candida te fo r such an ishment - a view now unfashionable, at least to
in dica to r was t h e human anatomy, this beca me admit to - or took a tenderminded view and called
th e object fit fo r scruti ny. In no tim e, deviants them treatment - currently much more acceptable as
were characte ri zed as having dev iation s in th ei r a motive for d epriv ing others o f their liberty - the
head shapes, peculiarities in th eir eyes, receding fate for the deviant that lay implicit in these theoret-
foreheads, weak ch in s, compressed faces, flared ical perspectives was always the same. The deviant
nostrils, long ape- like arms and agile and muscu lar was a defective pe rson, and since that defect was
bodies. We have progressed (sic) considerably since il/temal, and hence inseparable, it was the deviant
th ese Lo mbros ian mistaken preoccupations. Now who had to be subjected to various correctional tech-
'experts' Oeffery, 1979; Rosenthal, 1973; Shah and nologies. Until these we re successfully applied, it
Roth, 1974) reassure us that the root cause of remained unsafe to allow a 'defective' - dangerous _
crim e and d eli nqu en cy lies within the human deviant either to stay in or return to the com muni ty.
body. Thus our attenti on is drawn to the deviant's However, before different correctio n al tech-
minimal brain damage (Ca ntwell, 1977), nutri- nologies cou ld be put into practice, each theorist,
t ional de fi ciency (Hippc h en , 1977), abnorma l or his diSCiples, had to convert those who adminis-
chro mosomes (West , 1969) and th e hereditary tered the judicial and penal institutions. The issue
transmission o f low intelligence (Austin, 1978; was, how could they dellloflStrate their beliefs to be
Hirsch i and Hindelang, 1977). worth accepting? Fortuna tely for them, but unfor-
Adherents to an ot h er v iewpoin t were mo re tunately for the g rowth o f our knowledge o f
inclined to fav our th e idea that devia nts suffered d eviance, this appeared to be an issue not worthy
from a psycllOlosiml defect, although again the re o f much th oug ht; the answer see med quite obvi-
were differen ces of op ini on o n the nature of this OliS. Simp ly take a samp le o f offiCial devjams, that
flaw. To beh aviora l psychologists, devi a nts were is, men in pri son o r oth er pen al institutions; co n-
individuals whose personalities were n ot amenable clude what is peculiar about thi s popu lati o n _
to th e ' n o rm al' processes o f soc ial lea rn in g beS id es th eir be in g in sti tutionalized - and declare
(Eysen ck, 1964, 1977; Trasler, 1962); to numerous this peculiarity to be the ca use, or connected with
thinkers with a psychoanalytic leanin g, the the ca use, of th eir d eviant behavior.
Conceptions of deviance, official data and deviants 9
At first only institutionalized populatiol1'i viewed <IS innately deviant; instead their deviant
were studied; however, it became apparent that character wa') to be explained primarily as a result
what was peculiar about this population might of the unfavourable and pathological circum-
also be a peculiarity of a 'normal' population. still1CeS of their environment.
Consequently, to be more rigorous and strengthen Carried along by this new presupposition,
their argullll'llt'), and at the same time to imitate sociologists then procl'eded to reveal the nature of
the method of natural sCil'nce, some researchers thi'> ntenllli Cd me of deviant behavior. A list of
took the step, although not always very carefully, the'>e reveialiom would include nearly every insti-
of comparing official de\"iants with a control tution and association that ha'i ever been
group of conformists. subslImed under the canopy 'society'. I!owever,
The holy trinity 01 the subject-matter 01 those aetiological accounts which have most pre·
deviance wa~ Ihm torged; study off/dill de\'ialll~, for oC(lIpied 'iodologists, at least until recently, have
these are the equivalents of dcviallts, who are the been family breakdown, corrupting friends,
people who engage in dcl'icllJ(e. Armed with these socially diso rganized neighborhoods and anomie-
theoretical corrl'spondencl"i, the positivist non- inducing culture.
sociological students of deviance visited penal Unfortunately, like their non-sociological
institutiOns and, in the honourable name of scien- counterparts, sociological accounts of deviance
tific research, proceeded to harass the inmates with have been daz7ling in their rich variety, but disap-
a battery 01 pseudo-scientific gadgetry and mind- pointing in their substantiveness. They do
less questions, ')w,:h as 'How often do you get this represent a !lignificant shift of emphasis from a
problem?' (e.g. feeling sexually frustrated, being defective individual to defective social circum-
bored, feeling your life is wasted, missing social stances, but their adherents hardly broke with the
life, and missing little luxuries) (Richards, 1978; traditional assumption that, in order to test
Sapsford, 1978). Depending on the fashion of the hypotheses on deviants and deviance, it was ade-
day or the fad of the re~earcher, prisoners had their quate to study official deviants and compare them
heads measured for irregularities, their bodies with samples of conform ists. In other wo rds, the
somatot)"ped, their unconsciouses probed and holy trinity which had sustai ned writers with a
analyseli, their intelligence rated, thei r personali- physio logical or psychological leaning had a lso
ties typed, their brains scanned, and the ir gene sustained generations of soc iologis ts. When it
structure inve')tigated. came to the question of what t hey were study ing,
Millions, perhaps billions, of poun ds and socio logists failed to make distin ct a significan t dif-
man· hour'i were, and ')til l are being, expended in ference betwee n actors and acts, and t hey refused
th is manner. The result, however, ha rdly bears the to accept what they at least im plied they knew,
fruit of these efforts; no consisten t and valid differ- namely that official devirlllts are a hig hly selected
ences between offiCial deviants and a cont rol group popu lation o f dev ian ts and, as suc h, an entirely
of confor l11 i'its have been revealed. Some inappropriate basis from which to ma ke generaliLl-
researchers have indeed discovered clea r differ- lions on dev ian ts and deviant behavio r. Th is
e nces be twee n t he two groups, but othe r is why, for so long, soc iological ex plana tio ns
researchers, rep licating or re-exa m in ing these stud- remai ned unsubstan tiated.
ies, have co nsistently been unable to subs tantiate To escape t hi s ca ro use l, it became increas-
th e or igi nal claim. ingly clear that the subject-ma tter of the sociology
The sociologica l es tabli shm en t was, at fir st, o f dev ia nce needed to be ope ned up fr om th e
pl eased to ex pl a in thi s fa il ure - th ese resea rchers co ncer tin a'd pos it io n in whi ch it had ori gi nally
we re si mpl y loo king in th e wro ng pl ace. The rea- bee n cast. Du rin g th e la st two decades, th is ha s
son fo r peopl e's be ha vio r, dev iant o r o th erwise, bee n att emp ted a nd, as a resu lt, the soc iology of
did not ti e within th e m , but in th eir social and devian ce has been compl etely remoulded . It seems
cultural surro undings. No wo nd er those with clea r no w th at th ere are at feast three distin ct ques-
ph ysiol ogi cal or psychol ogi cal presuppos iti o n s ti ons to be an swered:
had come up with so littl e: th ey had been guilty of 1 Why do people engage in deviant behavior?
a mi scon ceptio n . Deviant behavi o r was not to be This is the qu estio n of deviance.
perceived as th e malli(estation o f a defec tive
human being, but as th e indicator of a defecti ve 2 Wh y do people with certain attributes, both
social environment. No longer were deviant s to be soc ial an d psychological , appear more
10 1 · Understa nding crime and criminology
frequently in the official data on deviants? This From S. Box (1981) 'Changing conceptions of deviance,
is the question of official deviants. oftkial data and deviants', Deviance, Reality and
3 Why do some people assume a deviant identity? Society (London: Holt, Rinellart and Winston), pp. 1-5.
This is the question of deviants.
References
Alexander, F: &: Ross, II. (Ed.) (J 952) Dynamic Psychiatry. Net tler, G. (1978) Explaining Crime (2nd ed.) New York:
Chicago: Chicago University Press. McGraw-Hill.
Austin, R.L. (1978) Intelligence and adolescent theft. Prins, II. (1980) Offenders, Deviants or Patients? London:
Criminal II/stice (lml Behavior, 5, 212-225. Tavistock.
Can twell, D. ( 1977) The hyperkinetic syn drome. In Reid, T (1976) Crime and Criminology. Hinsdale, Ill:
Child Psychiatry (Ed.) Rutter, M. & Hersov, L. Dryden Press.
pp. 524-555. London: Blackwell. Richards, B. (1978) The experience of long-term impris-
Davis, N.J. (1975) Sociological Cunstmctio/ls of Deviance. onment. British IOllmal of Criminology. 18, 162-169.
Dubuque, la: Wm C. Brown. Rosenthal, D. (1973) Heredity in criminality, Criminal
Erikson, KT. (1966) Wayward 1)lIritans. New York: Wiley. Justice and Bellavior, 2, 3-2 1.
Eysenck, 11.]. (1964) Crime and Personality. London: Sapsford, R.j. (1978) Life-sentence prisoners: psycholog-
Routledge and Kegan Paul. ical changes during sentence. British JOllrnal of
Gibbons, D.C. (1979) The Criminological Enterprise: Criminology, 18, 128-145.
Theorists a"d Perspectives. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Schafer, S. (1969) Theories in Criminology. New York:
Gibbons, D.C. &: Jones, J.F. (1975) TIle Study of Deviance. Random House.
New Jersey: Prentice-Ha ll. Shah , S.A. &: Roth, L.H. (l974) Biological and psycho-
Hippchen , L]. (1977) Biochemical research: its contri- logical factors in criminality. In Handbook of
bution to criminological theory. In Theory in Criminology (Ed.) Glaser, D. pp. JOI-173. New York:
Criminology: Contemporary Views (Ed.) Meier, R.F. pp. Rand McNally.
57-68. London: Sage. Suchar, C.S. (1978) Social Deviance: Perspectives and
Hirschi, T. &: Hindelang, M.J. (1977) Intelligence and Prospectives. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
crime. American Sociological Review, 42, 571-586. Thio, A. (1978) Deviant Behavior. Boston: Houghton
Jeffery, C. R. (Ed.) (1979) Biology and Crime. Beverley Mifnin.
Hills: Sage. Trasler, G. (1962) Explanation Of Criminality. London:
Menninger, K. (1969) Th e Crime of Punisl/ment. New Routledge and Kegan Paul.
York: Viking. West, D.l (Ed.) ( 1969) Cri minological Implications of
NetHer, G. (1974) Explaining Crime. New York: McGraw- Chromosome Abnormalities. Cambridge: In stitute of
Hill. C riminology.
The construction and deconstruction of crime 11
1.3 The construction and deconstruction of crime

John Muncie
Defining crime to prohibit it. Michael and Adler (1933, p.S) con-
tend that. 'if crime is merely an instance of
What i$ crime? The O.\fvrd El1SIi\h DiaiolwT) ' states
that crime is: conduct which is proscribed by the criminal code,
it follow~ that the criminal law is the formal cause
An act punishable by law, as being forbidden by of crime'. Second, there would be no crime until
statute or injurious to the public welfare .... An an offender iii caught, tried, convicted and pun-
evil or injurious au; an offence, a ~in; esp. of a i~hed. No behavior or individual can be considered
grave character. criminal until formally decided upon by the crimi-
nal justice system.
At first sight, such a definition appears straightfor-
By drawing these lines of argument together,
ward and uncontroversial: a crime is an illegal act.
However, on closer examination things are not Sutherland and Cressey proposed a definition of
so simple. I... J crime which (at least up to the 1960s) was adopted
To appreciate fully the complexities of the by most social scientists and legal scholars:
question 'what is crime', we need to broaden our Criminal behavior is behavior in violation of
enquiry to include some understanding of criminal the criminal law ... it is not a crime unless it is
law, social mores and social order. prohibited by the crimina l law. The criminal
law, in turn, is defined conventionally as a body
Crime as criminal law violation of specific rules rega rding human conduct
which have been pro mu lgated by political
The most common and frequently applied defini-
authority, which app ly unifo rmly to all mem-
tion of crime is that which links it to substantive
bers of the classes to wh ich th e rul es refer and
cri minal law. In othe r words, an act i... only a crime
which are enfo rced by pu n is h ment adminis-
when it vio lates the prevailing legal code of t he
tered by the state.
juri sd icti on in which it occurs. Michael and Ad ler
(Su therland and Cressey, 1924/1970, p.4)
a re th us ab le to a rgue that t he most precise and
(DEFINITION 3)
leas t a m big uo us de fi nitio n of cri me is 'be havior
which is pro h ibited by the criminal code' (Michael In a similar vein , a num be r of cond itions must be
a nd Ad ler, 1933, p.S) (DEFINITION I) . [ ... J met before an act can be lega lly defin ed as a crime:
Th is logic was taken to its extreme by
• The act must be lega ll y pro hibited at the ti me it
Tappan 's a rgum ent th at: 'O nl y t hose are crimi nals
is comm itted.
wh o have been adj udica ted as such by the cou rts.
C rim e is an in ten tiona l act in vio lation of th e • The perpetrato r must have cri minal intent
crimin al law (s tatuto ry and case law), commi tted (mens rea).
with o ut defen se or excuse a nd pe nali zed by th e • The perpetrator must have acted voluntarily
sta te as a fe lo ny o r mi sdemea no r' (Tappa n, 19 47, (actus rea).
p. IOO) (DEFINITION 2) . T h is black le tte r law
• There must be some legally prescribed
approach - that the appli catio n of a legal san ction
punishment fo r committal of the act.
thro ugh court processes and practices must be pur-
sued befo re a crime can be fo rmally established to Wh at thi s means is that we can o nl y und erstand
have occurred - maintains that no act can be con- crim e by ide ntifyi ng th e di stinctive procedural
sidered c riminal befo re and unl ess a court ha s rul es of evid ence, burdens and standard s of proo f
meted out some penalty. and parti cular fo rm s of trial established within
Again, this may appear clear-cut and un con- crimin al law. It also assumes that people act with
troversial , but two impo rtant con sequen ces now free will and should be made responsible fo r their
from such formulati o ns . First, there would be no acti o ns. Yet th e argum ent is circular: crimin al law
crime without c riminal law. No behavior can be and co urt procedures claim to respo nd to crime,
conSidered criminal unless a fo rmal sanction exists yet cri me can o nly be defined by loo kin g to th e
12 1· Understanding crime and criminology
criminal law itself. La cey et al. suggest that , in duct norm s' , but that not all these standards are
order to break. out of this impasse and move necessarily reflected in law. In this context, terms
towards a more adequate answer to the apparently suc h as 'dev ian ce', 'non· confo rmity' and 'anti·
straightforward question, 'w hat is crime?', 'we socia l conduct' are preferred to that of 'crime',
must enter upon some broader reflection about because the latter is incapable of encompassing all
how our society comes to define "deviance"; how acts of wrong.doing. [... ]
it comes to be decided which deviance calls for a Although clearly a social, rather than a legal,
legal response; and what determines that legal ca tegory, [the term deviance] suffers from an
response as a criminal as opposed to, or as well as, extreme cultural relativism and is inextricably
a civil response' (Lacey et (1/.,1990, pp. 2-3). [... ] related to difficulties in establishing what is 'nor·
We ca n id ent ify a number of other issues and mal'. As Simmons (1969, p.3) found in public
consequences that flow from legally based responses 10 th e question, 'who's deviant?', the
definitions: concept can be as readily applied to Christians,
pacifists, divorcees, 'know·it·all' professors and the
• An act can only be considered a 'crime' once it
is identified as such by law - thus criminals can president of the United States as it can to criminals
only be identified once processed and convicted and law·breakers. [... ]
by the courts. But not all of those who break Sutherland's (194-9) research into unethical
criminal laws are caugh t and prosecuted. The practices among corporate managers in the USA
study of criminal behavior is thus severely found that, despite th eir serious and injurious nature,
hampered , and may be particularly one· such practices were often considered non-criminal: as
dimensional if restricted only to those persons violations of ci\'iI , rather than criminal, law. As a
who are convicted of offences. result, he argued that crime should be defined not on
• The approach neglects the basic issues of why the basis of criminal law, but on the more abstract
and how some acts are legislated as criminal, notions of 'social injury' and 'social harm'. Thus:
while others may remain subject only to The essential characteristic of crime is that it is
informal control or rebuke. behavior which is prohibited by the state as an
• A black letter law approach tends to refer only ill;lII)' to the state ... The two abstract criteria ...
to the formal constitution and enactment of law as necessa ry elements in a definition of crime
and underplays the diffe rent ways in wh ich it is are legal descriptions of an act as sociaU}' harlllflli
enforced. It divorces the crim ina l process from and legal provision of a penalty for the act.
its social context, masking the ways in whic h (Sutherland, 1949, p.31 , emphasis added)
the law is not simply applied by the courts, but (D EFINITION 4)
is actively made and interpreted by key court
personnel (fo r example, in plea ba rga ining, the Su t herland implied that some moral criteria of
quali ty of legal representation, and judicial social injury must be applied before any com pre·
discretion). In turn, this may have important hensive definition of crime can be formulated.
consequences for what kinds of behavior should Ilowever, whether morality has any more an objec·
be rega rded as tru ly crimina l. Are theft and tive status than law also remains disputed.
violence more serious than violations of health Subsequent moral 'readings' of crime have
and safety codes in the work place? Both may be been most forcibly put by those on the right of the
dealt with by the criminal law, but the tendency po litical spectrum but not confined to them. The
to view the forme r as 'rea l crime' and t he latter American neo·conservative social policy analyst
as 'regula tory offences' may o nly lead us Charles Murray, for exa m ple, has maintained that
(unj ust ifiably?) to exc lude t hese latter be haviors increases in cri me are directly th e resu lt of a break.
fro m o ur leg it imate subject matt er. down in fam il y rela ti ons h ips and a grow t h in
illegit im acy (Murray, 1990). [... j
Crime as violation of moral codes Behavio rs suc h as tak in g t he life o f anoth er,
sex ual violence and steali ng for pe rso nal ga in m ay
Se llin (1938) a rgued t hat t he conce pt of crime be considered to be particularl y hei nous and abh or.
sho uld be extended beyond legal viol atio n s of ren t. Eac h th o ugh has at some tim e al so bee n
mom I a nd social codes. He contended t hat eve ry considered qu ite legiti ma te. Crim ina l laws are never
society has its own standa rds of behav io r o r 'con. static or permanent features of any society. [... j
As Wilkins (1964, p.46) warns: 'there are no view dl'viance is not a quality of the act a per-
abso lute standards. At some time or another, some son commits, but rather a consequence of the
fo rm of soc iety or another has defined almost all application by others of rules and sanctions to
forms of behavior that we now call "criminal" as an 'oftender'. rhe deviant is one to whom that
desi rable for the functioning of that form of soci- label has been succe~sfully applied; deviant
ety'. The temporal and cultural relativity of 'crime' behavior is behavior that people so label.
ens.ures that 'there is no one behavioral entity (Ilec'er, 1963, p.9) (llEFINITlON 5)
whIch we (an call crime, there is no behavior
wh ich is always and everywhere criminal' Thus 'crime' has no universal or objective ex is-
(Ph illipson, 1971, p.5). Si m ila~ly, if there a re no tence, but i~ relative to the sub jective
clear and unambiguo us rules to dec ide which contingelKies of social and his torical circumstance.
actions should be subiect to Illoral and lega l sanc- This in turn opens up and expands the range of
tion, ca n it be argued that any consensus exists in criminological inquiry away from behavioral ques-
soc iety? Can the law o r mora l codes be reli ed upon tions - Why did they do it? - towards de{i nitio/w/
to reveal any such consensus? issues - Why is that rule there? Who created it? In
whose interes ts? How is it enforced? What are the
conseq uences of th is enfo rce ment? (Co hen, 1973a,
Crime as social construct p.623). It implies that we wi ll on ly come to under-
A vast ar ray of behaviors have been (or can be) stand why an act ion is rega rded as criminal by
deemed 'deviant' or 'criminal' because t hey violate exam ining both the processes of ru le creati on and
legal or normati\'e prescriptions. Bu t t here is no law enforcement. 1... 1
common behav ioral denominator that ties all of The inte ractio ni st app roach refutes t he
th ese acts together. Propositions, such as society is notion th at crim inality is d riven by some peculiar
based upon a moral consensus or that the criminal mo tivation or tha t crimin a ls are a spec ies apa rt.
law is me rely a reflection of that consensus, also Rather, it co nt ends th a t crimi na li t y is ordinary,
rema in content ious. The interact ion ist school of /latural and widespread and as a res ult requ ires no
sociology, for example, argues t hat t here is no mo re expla na ti o n tha n that whi ch mi gh t be
underl yi ng or endur ing consens us in society. [... J att ached to any 'ord in ary' act ivity. However, what
Ra th er, crime is viewed as a conseq uence of soci al does requi re ex pl anatio n is th e complex process by
interacti o n: that is, as a resu lt of a lIegotiated process wh ic h agenc ies of socia l cont ro l are ab le to
that involves t he rul e-vio la to r, the poli ce, th e co nstru ct a publ ic identifi cation of certaill peo ple
co urts, lawye rs a nd th e law- makers who de fi ne a as crim in al, an d how social reactio n and labelling
person 's behavio r as crim inal. are abl e to produce a nd reproduce a recogn izab le
Beh av io r may be labelled cri mi na l, but it is crim in al po pulation . [... J
no t this be havior in itse lf th at co nstit utes crime.
Ra th e r, be h avio r is cri",il1afized by a process of Crime as ideological censure
social perception and reacti o n as applied and inter-
Con fli ct-based an a lyses of th e social order have
preted by age nt s of th e law. C rime ex ists o n ly
ex panded o n th e basic premise of interactio n is m -
when the labe l and the law are successfu ll y applied
that crime o nl y exists through the labelling of cer-
to an ind ividua l's beh av io r. It is no t what peo pl e
tai n beha vio rs as such - by argu ing that it is
do, but ho w th ey are pe rce ived and eval uated by
essenti al to ground such ge neralities in speci fi c
oth ers, that co nstitut es crim e. Wh ereas law-vio la-
relatio ns of power and domin atio n . It is no t a sim-
tio n approaches argue that the existence of 'crime'
pl e ques ti o n of int erest gro ups acting in
depe nds o n th e pri o r exi ste nce o f criminal law,
competitio n with each oth er (as the interactionists
interaction ism logi cally co ntends that, with out the would argue), but of the systematic and consistent
enforcemellt alld enactme/lt of criminal law (or social e mpo we rm ent of som e gro ups to the detrime nt
reacti o n to ce rtain behavi o rs), th e re would be
of olhers. [... [
no crime. I... J In developing a Marxi st theory of crime and
Social groups create devian ce by making the criminal law, Chambliss (1975, p.152) argues that
rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and acts are defined as criminal only when it is in the
by applying those rules to particular people and interest of the ruling class to define them so. Crime
labelling them as outsiders. From this point of is a realit y whi ch exists only as it is created by
those in society whose int erests are served by its invest in th e wholesale formulation and enforce-
presence. In capita list societies, 'cr ime' performs ment of state law. At the time, many behaviors that
the vital function of diverting the lower classes' are today deemed crimi nal were governed by civil
attention away from the condit ions and SOUTce of law and religion. In ot her words, there was less
their exploitation, and enables the bourgeoisie to 'cri me' and more 'sin', 'civil wrongs' and 'private
expand penal law in their efforts to coerce the pro- disputes'. The terms in which crime might be con-
leta riat into submission. Behaviors are criminalized strued as a problem had not yet been formed. [... ]
in order to maintain political control and to Many explanations of the origins of criminal
counter any perceived threat to the legitimacy of law have pointed to the symbiotic relationship that
the ruling cla ss (the clearest examples of such a ex.isted between economic power and the forging of
process being the crea tion of public order offences new legislation tailored to protect the unique inter-
to curtail political demonstration and trade union ests of domi nant groups. Chambliss (1964)
legis lation to prevent 'wildcat' strikes): demonstrates how vagrancy laws find their origins
in economic circumstance and class power: originat-
Criminality is simp ly not something that people
ing in 1349, these laws made it a crime to give alms
have or don't have; crime is not something
to unemployed people. The law was passed follow-
some people do and others don't. Crime is a
ing a chronic labour Shortage experienced by
matter of who can pin the label on whom, and
landowners as a consequence of the Black Death of
underlying this socio-political process is the
1348. The traditional custom of migratory and free
structure of social relations determined by the
labour was criminalized in order to ensure an abun-
political economy.
dant supply of local, cheap laboUT. Agricultural
(Chambliss, 1975, p.165) (DEFINITION 6)
labourers could no longer move from county to
Sumner (1990) presents a development of this line county to seek higher wages. Once the labour mar-
of argument which continues to recognize how ket was full, the laws fell into disuse, but were
criminal law (and thus crime) can be a crucial revived in 1530 to protect the interests of the new
instrument of class power, but also argues that it mercantile class. The emphasis shifted to controlling
cannot be simp ly reduced to class relations and the movement of 'rogues' and 'vagabonds' in order
class conflict. He prefers to t reat crime and to reduce the risk of robberies of commercial goods
deviance as matters of moral and politica l judge- wh ile in transit. By 1743, a person could be liable
men t - as social censures rooted in particular fo r prosecution if unable to give a 'good account of
ideologies. The concept of crime, then, is neither a the mselves'. The legislation was designed to serve
behavio ral nor a legal catego ry, but an exp ress ion the inte rests of powerful interest groups who needed
of pa rticular cultural and political conditions. a stable and static workforce to fill the fields and the
Nei t her is 'crime' simply a label, but a generic term emergent factories. (... J
to describe a series of 'negative ideo logical cate- From such analyses, 'crime' has been defined
gories with specific historical applications ... as ' human conduct that is created by authorised
catego ries of denunciation or abuse lodged within agents in a politically organised society' and used
very complex, historically loaded practica l conflicts to describe 'behaviors that conflict with the inter-
and moral debates ... these negative categories of ests of the segments of the society that have the
moral ideo logy are socia l censures' (Sumner, 1990, power to shape public policy' (QUinney, 1970,
pp.26, 28) (DEFIN ITION 7). pp. 15-16) (D EFIN ITION 8). This definition sug-
gests that the identification and delineation of
Crime as historical invention 'crime' is an inherently political process. The law
(and thus crime) is created and applied by those
Troub lesome behaviors have been called 'c ri mes' who have the power to translate their private inter-
(whethe r or not recognized in law) for so long that ests il1to publi c policy. Crim inal law is coercive and
the term is habitua lly used to condemn 'unwanted' partial, its politica l neut rality a myth. Deve loping
or 'undes irable' acts or people. If 'cri me' is intrinsi- th is li ne of argument, De Haa n claims t hat 'crim e'
call y tied to 'crim in al law', as va ri ous de fi n itions is an ideologica l concept which 'serves to mainta in
assume, th en we on ly discover the ori gins of crime political powe r relatio ns; justifies in equ ality a nd
in the deve lopmen t of crimi nal law in the eigh - serves to distract public attention fro m more seri-
teen t h century. Up til l then, the newly emergen t ous problems and injustices' (De Haa n, 1991,
nat ion states in Eu rope lacked the resources to p.ZO?) (DEAN ITION 9). In a similar vein, the h is-
torian , E.P. Thompson (1975, p.194 ), has asserted came to ent er public idio m as 'c rim e', but also
that 'crime' is a di sabling and moralistic catego ry. began to be taken seriously by academic crim inolo-
To restrict the analysis of crime to those definitions gists. What all such cases reveal is that a legal
constructed by property owners and the state can concept of 'crime' is not o nl y pa rtial but that many
only hinder acc urat e historical research and proof the most harmful acts are actually supported by
duce pre-given m o ral interpretations. the law (Tifft, 1994/5). They also suggest that
victimization is far more prevalent and widespread
Crime as social harm than official definitions would have us believe.
To ta ck le such partialit y, some autho rs have
In the section 'C rime as violation of moral codes' begun to place 'c rime' within a broader co ntext of
we noted that Sutherland's (1949) pathbreaking social harm in which the visible and th e obscured,
study of corporate malpractices led to a recogni- the legally recognized and the legally san ction ed
tion among crimin ologis ts of the need to move can be included in a co mprehen sive, continuous
beyond legally defined conceptions of crime if the and integrated vision of crimina l and harmful acts.
existence of ot her more damaging forms of 'i njury' Henry and Milovanovic (1996, p.1-16), for exam-
or 'social harm' are to be recognized and incorpo- ple, work within a broad conception of 'cr im e' as
rated into th e crimin ological agenda. By the 1970s, the 'power to deny others': 'crime is the expression
the critical criminologists, the Schwend inge rs, fo r of some agency's energy to make a difference on
example, expanded the list of potentially injurious others and it is the exclusion of those ot hers who
pract ices to in clude th e sys tema tic violation of in the in stant are rendered powerless to maintain
basic human rights. Working within a theo retical and express their humanity' ( DEFI NITION 11).
tradition which maintains th at capitalist and impe- For others, given the vast diversity of behaviors or
rialist social orders (and the ir state practi ces) acts that have been (or can be) conside red 'crimi-
contain their own criminogenic tende ncies, they nal', there remains no sense in retaining the
promoted a definition of crime based on a concep- concept of 'crime' at all. Hulsman (1986, p.71), for
tion of t he denial of ba sic fundamental human example, has argued that 'crime has no ontological
rights: reality. Crime is not t he object bu t the prodllct of
The abrogation of these rights certain ly limits criminal policy.' He prefers to work wit h the less
the individual's chance to fulfil himself in many emotionally cha rged co nce pts of 'trouble', 'prob-
sphe res of life. It can be stated that individuals lematic situation ' and 'undes irable occurrence'. In
who deny these rights to others are criminal. a similar vein, De Haan (199 1, p.208) conte nds
Likewise social re lat ionships and socia l systems that 'what we need is not a better theory of cri me,
wh ic h regu larly cause the abrogation of these but a more powerful criti que of cri me.' Aga in , th is
rights are also criminal. If the te rm s imperial- requ ires an altern ative series of co nceptualizations:
ism, racism, sexism and poverty are abbreviated 'un fortunate eve nts'; 'mo re o r less serious troubles';
signs for theo ries of social relationships or social 'conflicts whic h ca n resuit in su fferi ng, harm or
systems which cause the systematic ab rogation damage'. The key poin t is that 'crime' can never be
defi ned in an y co nsistent or conc lu sive ma nn er.
of bas ic rights, th en imperia li sm, racism, sexism
'Wha t is crime?' will always remain 'essen ti all y
and poverty can be ca ll ed crimes.
(Schwend inger an d Schwendinger, 1970, p.148) con tested'. [... ]
Defin itio ns of crime are neit her objectively
(DEFINITION 10)
rig ht nor wrong: th ey do, however, po in t out t he
And in th e 1990s, a whole range of 'inj urious prac- elusive and th e contested nahlfe of ou r subject mat-
tices' o r 'no n-cri mes' such as the fail ure to enforce ter. l ... J The st reng th of explana tio ns based o n
health and safety sta ndards at wo rk, the de liberate crim e of law prescript io n is that t hey provide an
marketing of kn own faul ty prod ucts, the 'culpab le objective criteri a by whi ch 'cr im e' ca n be reli ably
negligence' of tobacco and food compa nies know- identified: 'c rime' is wha tever the law dee ms to be
in gly promoting un sa fe a nd li fe- threateni ng illegal at particu lar times and in pa rticular jurisdic-
substan ces, th e internati ona l d um pin g o f toxic tiollS. Such a de finit io n does, neverth eless, bind us
waste, the abuse involved in th e transpo rtation of to state-generated no ti ons of lawbreaki ng. It nar-
live animals, th e extent of violence in the home or rows o ur atte nt ion to fo rm ulatio ns enshrin ed in
th e sys tem ati c fl o utin g of export co ntrols to cer- legal statutes, and, whil e it may assum e a greater
tain co untries by arm s ma nufactu rers not o nl y ob jectivity, it ove rl ooks th e fa ct that 'th e law' itself
is deeply problematic, as a site of struggle, dispute, cal censure' above), 'crime' refers not to particular
construction and con testa tion. In addition, a legal- behaviors, but to the social and political processes
based definition systematicall y excludes notions of whereby th ose actions are subjected to criminaliza-
harm, deviance, anti-social conduct, injustices and tion . Accordingly, it can be argued that any
rule-breaking. We lose sight of how and why it is definition of crime rests on prior assumptions
only certa;1/ behaviors that co m e to be considered about the nature of social order and how that
deviant and how and why it is only som e harmful order is conceived and maintained. Indeed , this
practices that are ultimately subject to criminal has led some to argue that crime only comes to be
sanction. In short , we lose sight of 'crime' as a for- a problem when order is a problem. Our key prob-
ever shifting co ncept, as a morally and politically lematic then may not be 'crime', but the 's truggle
loaded term . around order and the products it produces among
Importantly, the various conceptions of which are crime and criminal justice' (Shearing,
cr ime appear to be generated from competing 1989, p. 178).
accounts of the social order. If th at order is consid-
ered consensual (as we discussed earlie r), 'crime'
can be defined as the infract ion of legal, moral or From f. Mlil/cie, 'Tile CO I1StrUCtiOl1 alld decOIlStrllctiOll
conduct no rms. When the socia l orde r is consid- of crime', ill /. MIII/cie and E. M cLauglIlin (eds) The
ered p luralist or con fl ict based (as we showed in Problem of Crime (Lol/doll: Sage), 2001, pp. 9-23.
'C rime as social construct' and 'C rime as ideologi-
References
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Deviallce, New York, Free Press. (Ext ract reprinted as MA, Little Brown.
'Outsiders' in Muncie el a/., 1996.) Schwendinger, II. and Schwendinger, j. (1970)
Chambliss, W.j. (1964) 'A sociological an alysis of the 'Dcfende rs of order or guardians of human rights?',
Jaw of vagrancy', Social Problems, no. 12, pp.67-77. Iss/les ill Criminology, vol.5, 110.2, pp.123-57.
Chambliss, W.J. (1975) 'Toward a political economy of Sellin, T. (1938) Culture, COllflict alld Crime, New York,
crime', Tlleory and Society, vol. 2, pp. 149-70. (Extract Social Science Research Council.
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Cohe n, S. (1973a) 'The failures of cr imino logy', Tile Calladillll jOllma/ o( Crimillology , vo1.31, no.2,
Listmef, 8 November. pp.169-78.
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contradic ti on in terms', in Stenso n and Cowe ll Glendessary Press.
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control' in Muncie et al., \ 996.) justice, Buckingham, Open University Press.
Henry, S. and Mi lova novic, D. (1996) COl/stitutil'e Sutherland, E. (1949) lVI/ire Collar Crime, New York,
Crimil/ology, London, Sage. Dryden Press.
Hu lsman, L (1986) 'Critical crimi nology and the con- Sutherland, E. and Cressey, D. (1924/1970) Criminology,
cept of crimc', Contemporary Crises, vo1.10, no. I, 8th edn , Philadelphia, PA, Lippincott.
pp.63-80. (Extract reprin ted in Muncie et a/., 1996.) Tappan, P.W. (1947) ' Who is the criminal?', Americall
Lacey, N., Wells, C. and Meure, D. ( \990) Reco/lstmcti/lg Sociolosica/ Re\'iew, voL 12, pp.96-102.
Criminal Law, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Thompson, E. P. (l975) IVlligs ali(I HI/liters, Londo n,
Michael, J. and Adle r, M. (1933) Crime, Law and Social Allen L.1ne.
Scimce, New York, Ila rcou rt , Brace Jovanovich. Tifft, L. (1994/5) 'Social harm defi nitions of crime', TIl('
Mur ray, C. ( 1990) TIle Emerging British Um/erc/ass, Critical Crim i llologis t , vol. 6, no.3, pp.9- 13.
London, In stitu te of Econom ic Affa irs. (Extract Wilki ns, L. (1964) Social Devia/1ce, Londo n, Tavistock.
repri nted as 'The Underclass' in Muncie el a/., 1996.)
Philli pson, M. ( 197 1) Sociologiml Aspects o(Crime and
Delillqlle1lCY, London, Routledge and Kega n Pau l.
A sUitable amount of crime 17
1.4 A suitable amount of crime

Nils Christie
Crime is in endless supply. :\u\ with the potential- interpretation. Thi\ view on uime stati'ltics has
ity of being 'ieen as crimes are lil...e an unlimited consequence.'>. It means that it is not useful to ask
natural resource. We can tal...e out a little in the if crime is on the incrcase, stable, or on the
form of crime - or a lot. ALls are not, they become; decrease. Crime doe') not exist as a given entity. To
their meanings are created a\ th ey occur. To classify mca'lUfe the variations in the occurrence of a phe-
and to cvaluate are core activities for human nomenon that change<; it s content over time is not
being'). The world comes to u.<. a'i we comtitute it. among the most tempting of tasks.
Crime i'i thus a product of cultural, social and I am on this point probably in some disagree-
mental proces.<.es. For all act.'>, induding those seen ment with David Garland (2001) in his book on
as unwanted, there arc dozem 01 possible alterna- Tilt' CII/tllre of Control. I say 'probab ly ' in disagree-
tives to their understanding: bad, mad, evil, ment. That is because Garland in his interesting
mispla ced honour, youth bravado, political hero- book to me is unclear on this point. I am of the
ism - or crime. The 'same' Jt:ts can thus be met impression that he says that crime exists as a phe-
within several parallel systems as judicial, psychi- nomenon we can describe as an entity that varies
atric, pedagogical, theological over time and that we can say it is on the increase
But let it be quite clear: I do not say, here or or decrease. I am also of the impression that he is
later, that unacceptable acts, com pletely unaccept- of the opinion that crime has increased, and that
able also to me do not exist. I do not deny that this belief is an important element in his analysis.
some people get bullet.'> into their bodies due to Hut he is guarded on this point. I hope his basic
other people's guns. Xor do I deny that some are position is that we have moved into a social situa-
killed due to other people's cars, that money is tion where an impression is created of a situation
taken away from people's drawer'i or bank accounts of increased crime, and that this impression has all
sorts of social consequences.
without their consent. And I do not deny that I
This gene ral perspective on crime makes it
have strong moral objections to most of these acts,
possible to ra ise two interrelated centra l questions:
try to stop them, and try to prevent them. Nor do I
].'irst, wha t is behind increa'ies or decreases in acts
deny that it might be useful to sec some of these
generally perceived as unwanted or unacceptable?
acts as crime. And how is it eventually possible to influence the
I am interested in hm\" meanings are born and
occurrence of these unwanted acts?
are shaped. But that is no immoral position. My Second, what is it that makes a shifting quota
world is filled with values, many of which com- of these unwanted acts to appear as crimes and the
mand me to act and re-act. But that does not hinder actors as criminals? Particularly, under what mate-
a keen interest in how acts get their meaning. rial, socia l, cu ltural and political conditions will
With thi s general perspective, there are so me crim e and criminal s appear as the domin ant
traditional questions in crimin ology I will I/ot ask. metaphors, the dominant way of seeing the
Particularly, I will not find it useful asking what is unwanted acts and actors?
the development in the crime situat ion. This does This is a liberating perspective. It opens for the
not mean that crime statistics are without interest. general theme of this book: When is enough,
Such statistics inform on phenomena seen and reg- enough? Or, as in the title, what is a suitable
istered by a particular society as crime and also amollnt of crime? This question leads naturally into
what happens to those see n as major actors. But th e next: What is a suitable amount of punishment?
crime statistics are th e mse lves soc ial phenomena.
They tell what the system sees as crime and both- From N. Christie, A Suitable Amount of Crime
ers to cope with, or has ca pacity to cope with. (Lolldoll: Routledge), 200-1, pp. 10-12.
Crime statistics are a social fact in dire need for
Introduction
KEY Black Act; Bloody Code; blue locusts; criminalization; folk devil;
CONCEPTS garotting; moral panic; new police; penitentiary; pious perjury;
punishment; ritual; rough music; transportation; victim
Without some sense of the history of our systems of policing and punishment it
is very hard to grasp fully the nature and significance of the way we do things
now. It is all too easy when thinking about pretty much any aspect of our con-
temporary world to assume that things have generally always been thus . Thus , in
relation to crime and justice one CQu id be forgiven for assuming , say, that we
have always had something that looks like a police force for maintaining order or
that when people commit serious crimes we have tended to respond by sending
them to prison. History shows us something different - namely that both police
forces and prisons, at least in roughly the forms we understand and have them
today, are the product of the modern world . Before the industrial revolution ,
approximately speaking , we did things differently. The five readings in this chap·
ter give some sense of this changing history.
In the excerpt from his wonderful book, The Hanging Tree , Vic Gatrell
(Reading 2.1) discusses the use of the death penalty in the decades between
the 1770s and the 1830s. This was a time when there was a very substantial
range of offences potentially punishable by death - often what appear relatively
minor offences from today 's vantage paint. Moreover, not only were people
hanged in relatively large numbers, but the death penalty was carried out in pub·
lic. Then, all of a sudden, there was a substantial drop in the use of capital
punishment and alternatives were preferred. One of these was imprisonment and
the second reading (Reading 2.2) , from Michael Ignatieff's A Just Measure of
Pain , links the emergence of the modern prison, and the growing use of trans·
portation with changing views of, and practices in relation to , the death penalty.
During this time there was also a series of faHeaching changes taking
place in relation to prosecutors and the courts. In the third reading (Reading
2.3) , Clive Emsley examines these and more particularly notes the gradual shift
away from private prosecutions brought by individual citizens (usually the victim
of the crime) toward more formalized systems of magistrates, courts etc.
Nevertheless, for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a wide variety
of alternatives to prosecution were utilized by victims and their communities _
sometimes this might involve the payment of some restitution; other times it
might involve a rougher form of community response. Emsley also illustrates
how communities often took a dim view of prosecutors, especially when they felt
that charges were too severe or were unreasonable in some other way. He also
notes the widespread use of rewards offered for recovery of goods and some·
times paid to thief-takers - one of the early precursors of formal police forces .
In the fourth of the readings (Reading 2.4) Michael Ignatieff turns his atten-
tion to the beginnings of modern police forces and, more particularly, the
MetropOlitan Police in London established by Robert Peel in 1829. Although some
histories present the introduction of formal policing systems as a logical and func-
tional response to the demands of rapidly industrializing society, as Ignatieff shows
there was , in practice, much hostility and many sources of resistance. The new
20
11
pOlice were by no means universally welcome. The idea of the state encroaching
on terntory that had traditionally been the preserve of local communities and citi-
zens caused much concern . Nor did such concern and resistance quickly
disappear - indeed, one might ask whether It ever disappeared?
The final reading (Reading 2.5) by Jennifer Davis concerns crime rather
than criminal justice institutions or punishment. Her focus IS upon what she
refers to as the 'London garotting panic ' of 1862 In effect something close to
what In more modern parlance might be thought of as 'mugging ' or street
robbery. In fact , what she deSCribes is something that we often think of as a very
modern phenomenon : rising concern about particular types of crime in which
the media play an Important role In stirring up public fears and which , in turn ,
seems to result in an apparent 'crime wave ' . In this article, Davis uses a variety
of Criminological ideas - most notably 'folk deVils ', 'moral panics ' and 'deviancy
amplification ' - which we will meet in later chapters (especially chapter 4). As
With all good historical writing , in doing so she makes us think both about the
differences between the 1860s and the times we live in now, as well as some of
the continuities.
Questions for discussion

1. Why do you think that in the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth
century the death penalty and other punishments were carried out in
public?
2. What was the Bloody Code? Why might it not have been quite as severe
as it sounded?
3. What was the purpose of the Black Act and what might such legislation
tell you about the functions of the criminal law?
4. What evidence is there that in the eighteenth century there was growing
unease at the use of the death penalty for relatively minor offences?
5. Why do you think that local communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries sometimes attacked prosecutors?
6. What were the sources of hostility to the introduction of the 'new police' in
the 1820s and beyond?
7. According to Ignatieff, what techniques were used by the police in the
nineteenth century to increase co-operation and trust among those
communities that were most reluctant to accept them?
8. Describe the ways in which it might be argued that the police 'created'
the garotting crime panic in the 1860s.
2t
2.1 Execution and the English people
Vic Gatrell
Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century though, notoriously, there were over two hundred
English people were very familiar with the grimy capital crimes on the statute-books, most of the
bUSiness of hanging. This is so large a social fact sep- hanged were st rangled straigh tforwardly for stan-
arating that era from our own that although it is not dard crime s which (except for forgery) had been
th e most obvious way of defining modern times, it capital for centuries. In the 1820s a fifth were
must be one of them. Admittedly the English noose hanged for murder, a twentieth for attempted mur-
and axe had been at th eIr most active long before der, another twentieth o r so for rape, and
then: 75,000 peop le are thought to have been exe- somewhat fewer for sodomy. Two-thirds were
cuted in the centu ry 1530-1630, and nothing like hanged for property cr imes: over a fifth of these for
this was seen again.1 Execution rates declined in the burglary and housebreaking, a sixth for robbery, a
seco nd third o f the seventeenth century as trans- tenth for stealing horses, sheep, or cattle and a
portation to the American colonies absorbed many twelfth for forgery and uttering false coins. Forgery
who wou ld once have hanged; and political stability convictions killed off one in five of those hanged
kept hanging rates stable across the next half-cen- betvveen 1805 and 1818.
tury. But then, dramatically, in the later eighteenth Who were these people? Fewer women were
centu ry it looked as if the bad old killing days were hanged than men. Of the 1,242 London people
returning. There had been a mere 281 London condemned in 1703-72, only 92 were women; and
hangings between 1701 and 1750; there were nearly of the 59 people executed in London in 1827-30,
five times as many between 175 I and 1800. The only 4 were women, all murderesses. Many men
slaughter rate thereafter stayed high. As many were imprisoned in Newgate were listed as 'labourers'.
hanged in London in the 1820s as in the 1790s, and But most claimed craft and trade status: leather-
twice as many hanged in London in the thirty years dressers, weavers, wiredrawers, brush· makers,
1801-30 as hanged in th e fifty years 1701-50. printers, servants, porters, clerks, tailors, errand-
How easily this extraordinary fact has been forgot. boys, smiths, painters, sawyers, brass-founders,
ten - that the noose was at its most active on the Upll0lsterers, grooms, chair-carvers, drapers, whip-
very eve of capital]aw repeals! makers, steel-polishers, plasterers, glass-cutters,
] estimate that some 35,000 people were can· etc. 2 None the less, apart from the execution of a
demned to death in England and Wales between few wealthy forgers or murderers, most of the
1770 and 1830. Most were reprieved by the king's hanged were poor and marginalized people - 'the
prerogative of mercy and sent to prison hulks or very lowest and worst of the people ... the scum
transported to Australia. But about 7,000 were less both of the city and the country', as Elizabeth Fry
lucky. Eight times a year at Tyburn or Newgate, amiably described her Newgate charges in 18] 8.
once or twice a year in most counties, terrified men The more rootless the felon, the more likely the
and women were hanged before large and excited execution. Some 90 per cent of men hanged in
crowds. Audiences of up to 100,000 were occasion· London in the I 780s were aged under 21. A high
ally claimed in London, and of 30,000 or 40,000 proportion were recent immigrants to the city.3
quite often. Crowds of 3,000-7,000 were standard. The frequency of English executions was
When famous felons hanged, polite people widely noted by foreign observers. It was in vain
watched as well as VU lgar. that English commentators replied that this was the
What th ey watched was horrific. There was price the English cheerfully paid for liberty and pros-
no nice calculation of body weights and lengthS of perity, that a few hangings were better than the
drop in those days; few died cleanly. Kicking the ir ubiquitous poli ce contro ls of a despotic state, and
bound legs, many choked over m inutes. Unt il 1790 t hat most of the condem ned were reprieved anyway.
women hanged for coining or murdering their hus- Foreign (and Scottish) eyebrows continued to be
bands had their corpses publi cly burnt aft er raised, for despite po pulation differences, co m par·
hanging. As late as 1820 male traitors had their isons were startling. Scotland effectively excludes
heads hacked off and held up to the crowd. Even itself from this book if only because a meagre four or
22
Execution and the English people 23
so a year hanged there in the 1780s; this rose to SA 1839. Penitentiaries and prisons acquired new
a year in 1805- 14, as against the English average of importance in penal practice. Prison inspectors
67. Scotland's (a nd Ireland's) relative innocence of announced confidently that 'the law intends that
the noose conti nued into the mid-nineteenth cen- the suffering of the offender shall be proportioned
tury:' Other countries could crow too. The Prussian to the enormity of his offence'.6 Uniformity was
code had restricted capital punishment as early as more striven for than achieved, just as the reforma-
1743, and after 1794 only murderers were execu ted . tive idea was more alive in theory than in practice
Ca therine 's reforms to si milar effect followed in (in transportation it was not alive at all), and it
Russia in 1767 and Joseph II's in Austria in 1787. addressed lesser offenders chieny.7 None the less it
Philadelphia Quakers dispensed with capital punish- was as if England had become another and gentler
ment after the American Revolution. In Amsterdam country - or a little more like other countries. In
in lhe 1780s less than I a year were killed; barely 15 most northern stat es of America executions had
were execu ted annually in Prussia in the 1770s, and been confined to murder si nce the 1780s, and by
a little over 10 in Sweden in th e 1780s. Towards the end of the 18305 most north-eastern states had
1770 about 300 people a year were condemned in already transferred executions from public spaces
the whole of France; over twi ce that number were to the interiors of prisons. s E.ngland was only
condemned annually between 1781 and 1785 in ca tching up. But at least ideas of just and propor-
London alone. Be fore the guillotine's invention ti ona te punishment were tacitly acknowledged. At
French punishments were crueller than English. least, too, only murderers hanged in England and
Stretchings, flayings , burnings, and breakings on Wales, even if they continued to hang in large
wheels were common; hands were cut off before numbers compared to other countries (3 47
execution and hanged bodies routinely burnt. Even between 1837 and 1868 inclusive), and st ill in
so, only 32 people were executed in Paris in 1774-7, public. 9 Finally, public hanging was itself abolished
against 139 in London, and when London hangings in 1868. Thereafter until 1964 the state's killing
rose from annual averages of 48 in the 1770s to 70 bUSiness was done discreetly inside prisons, where
in 1783-7, men and women dangled outside nobody could see. The civilized public in whose
Newgate prison up to 20 at a time, a sight unknown interest punishments were inflicted could keep its
elsewhere. There were on average 23 met ropoli tan emot ional and physical distance from them, as it
hangings a year throughout the 1820s (more if still does.
Surrey hangings south of the Thames are included). There has been no greater nor more sudden
Berliners would be unlucky to see a couple in the revolution in E.nglish penal history than this
whole decade. While only 9 were executed in Prussia retreat from hanging in the 1830s. It was far more
in 1818,5 in 1822, and 9 in 1831, in no year of th e dramatic than the invention of the prison, for
1820s did English executions fall below the 50 of example even though the two processes were inex-
1825, and there were 107 in 1820, 114 in 1821, 74 tricably linked.
in 1829. In the 1820s, 672 were executed in England
a n d Wales, m ore (again) than had been hanged in From V.A.C Gatrell, The Hanging Tree (Oxford:
the whole of either the first or the second quarter of OUP), 1996, pp. 6-10.
the eighteenth century.s
Then sudde nly - and I mean suddenly - this
ancient killing system collapsed. After nearly forty Notes
years' exclUSion from office, the whigs came to
I P. Jenkins ' From ga ll ows to pri son? The execution
power with large reformi st ambitions. The 1832 ra te in early modern England', Criminal lustice
Reform Act also o pened parliament to some hun- History (1986), 52.
dred independent MPs, largely middl e-class 2 P. Linbaugh, The Loudou hal/ged: Crime ami civil soci-
advocates of progress and critics of the ancien ety in the eigh/eel/tll cel/tury ( 1991 ), 91-2, 143; PP
regime, fervently advocating the bloody code's lBO-I, xii. 463-91. Of the 416 prisoners locked up
repeal. Hangings shrank to a tenth o f their score a (for all reasons) in Newgate in Oct. 1B2B, 29 were
women: Newgate Prison Register, 1B29 (London
decade before. When most capital statutes were at
Corporation RO: PO.2B.IS).
last repealed in 1837, only eight people were killed 3 E. Fry toJ.J. Gurney, 14 Nov. I B18 (Gurney papers, i.
that year in the whole country, and six in the yea r 203: Library of the Society of Fri ends, Tem p. MS;
following, all murderers, while the numbers sen- Rad zi nowicz, i. 14; Linebaugh, TIle London Ilallged,
tenced to death dropped from 438 in 183 7 to 56 in ch. 3; A. It Ekirch, BOllnd for America: Tile tmllSfJorra-
24 2. Crime and punishment in history
fioll of British (Ol/virlS to the (%llies, 171S-1775

vio/ellce ill 18tll ccntllry England (1992), 180; R.).
Evans, 'O ffentl ich keil und Autoritat: lur Geschichte
(Ox ford, 1987), 47-8.
4 Scotti sh executions dropped to little over 1 a year by der Hinrichtungcn in Deutsch land vom Aligernci nen
J836--l 2, eigh t to ten tim es less th an the En glish Landrech t bis zu rm Dritt en Reich', in H. Reif (cd.),
ra tc; 5 murderers han ged in Scotland in 1857-63, as Riiuber, Volk lI11d Obrigkeil (Frankfurt, 1984),208-28.
against 96 in England and Wales. In Ireland 81 were 6 l)riSOll itlSpectors' third report (Ho m e district), PP
hanged in 1813-14, as aga in st 19 in Scotland; but 1837--8, xxx, 8.
o nl y I S murderers han ged in Ireland in 1857-63, 7 Ove r a quarter of felons conv icted at English and
compa red with the English 96 (PP 1812, x. 2,17ff; Welsh assizes and quarter sessions were tran sported
181 -1-15. ix. 293ff.; 1844, xxix. 367-73; 1865. xlix). in the 1830s with no pretence at their reformation: a
5 French executio ns caught up with English in the fifth died on the journey anyway. About 43,500 men
1820s. The Na po leonic code allowed for 36 capita l and 7,700 women were transported in the 1830s, as
offences (22 in 1832). In 1826-30 French courts deliv- against about 9,300 and 2,500 in 1787- 1810, 15,400
ered fewer deat h sentences than English (Ill a year a nd 2,000 in 1811 -20, and 28,700 and 4,100 in
on average), but they pardoned fewer too; on average 1821-30. Some third were Irish. The total from
72 a year were guillotined, 32 after 1832: G. Wright , England and Wales was about 41 ,000 in 1787- 1830:
Betwee'l the guil/otine (1m/liberty: Two cenWries of tile A. G. L. Shaw, COl/vias aI/(/ the colollies: A stlld}' of
crillle problem iT! France (Ox ford, 1983),39, 168-70. See petlal transportation (1966),147-50.
al so G. A. Kelly, Mortal politicS ill eigllteetJth-century 8 L. P. Masur, Rites of execution: Capital punishment and
France (Wa terloo, OntariO, 1986), 187; J. R. Ruff, tile transformation of American witllre, 1776-/865
Crime, justice and public order in old regime Fran ce (Oxford, 1989),4-5.
(1984 ), 60-2; Radzinowicz, i 288, 290, 295-7; L 9 Before 184 1, this included 3 who had attempted
Gilmore, Riot, riSings ami rel'oll/tion: Govemance ami murder.
2.2 Ei -century punishment

Michaellgnatieff
Befo re 1775, imprisonment was rarely used as a C hi e f Justice and th e Secre tary o f State in 1773
punishment for felony. At th e Old Bailey, th e about the fate of seve n jo urn eymen weavers in
major cri minal court for London and Middlesex , Paisley convicted o f rioting and combin ing against
imprisonments accounted for no m o re than 2.3 the ir e mployers. 3 The judge sen sed that the execu -
percent of the judges' sentences in the yea rs ti on of th ese m en m ight so inflame the weavers
between 1770 and 1774./ These terms of imprison- that th ey wo u ld riot again o r e lse emig rat e to
ment were sh o rt - never lo nge r than th ree years America e n masse. The situation in th e town was,
and usua lly a year or less - a nd they were innicted as he put it, ' very delicate.' Deciding that a show of
on a narrow range of offenders - th ose convicted m ercy was m o re likely to succeed in restoring ord e r
o f man Slaughter, commerCial frauds, perjury, com- than a di splay of force , h e ord e red th e ir puni sh-
bining against employers, or ri o ting. The Wilkes ments mitigated to imprisonment. 4 In Paisley,
and Liberty rioters and the London tailors, coa l- th erefore, imprisonment fi gu red in the tac ti cs o f
heavers, hatters, and sa ilors who demo nstrated for concession as an ' inter medi a te' and the re fo re ' m e r-
higher wages during the 1760s were all punis hed c iful ' comprom ise betwee n tran sportat io n and
with prison terms. z Only min o r offende rs of this hanging . Apart from such special occasio n s, how-
sort received impriso nment. Those co n victed for ever, judges rare ly used the prison as a pla ce of
their part in the violent frame-cutting war in the punishment for maj o r felonies.
Spital fields silk trade in 1769 and 1770 were e ither For th ese crimes - the most frequ en t being
executed or transported to America. hig hway robbery, housebreaking, beast stealing o f
The rationale behind the judges' use of various kinds, grand larceny, murder, and arson -
imprisonment in these cases is far from clear. In the nominal p e nalt y was death. The number of
cases arising from conflicts between ma sters and crimes bearing the punishment for death increased
workers, however, so m e of their criteria are from about SO in 1688 to about 160 by 1765 and
revealed in the correspondence between the Lo rd reached something like 225 (n o one was quite sure
Eighteenth-century punishment 25
of the new number) by the end of the Napoleon ic victed of forgery were actually executed. lO With the
Wars.5 Some of these new statutes, the Riot Act fo r excep tion of murder, no offense was more relent-
examp le, made offe nses capital that had long been lessly punished.
subject to lesse r penalties. Others like the Black Act In theory, the Bloody Code, as the criminal
pe n alized activi ties that had not been criminal law was popularly known, appea red rigid and
before, suc h as stealing hedges, underWOOd, fruit inflexible, prescribi ng death alike for murder and
from t rees, and ti mbe r; damaging orchards, hop- for the fo rgery of a pe tty deed of sa le. In practice,
bines, or woodland; and taking fish from ponds or the application of penalties was flexible indeed,
brea king t he ponds to le t fish escape. 6 The Black allowing a large measure of play for judicial discre-
Act was enacted to make possible the conviction of ti on, executive clemency in response to appeals for
the small fa rme rs and tenants who we re waging a mercy, or exe mplary d isplays of terro r. The Pais ley
guerrilla-style resistance to t he encroachment upon example already cited illustra tes how judges could
th e ir cus tomary forest rights by 1I01ll'eaUX riches use their powers to temper the code in the direc-
estate holders and roya l foresters in the woodlands tion of mercy. The same power, of cou rse, could be
of Ha m pshi re and Berks h ire. While passed as an used in the op posite direct io n . In 1775, t wo
e me rge ncy measure, t he Black Act became a per- Halifax justices sec ured th e approval of the
manen t addition to the armory of the game laws. 1 Sec retary of State to ha ng the bod y of Matth ew
Since other new sta tutes of the ti me have not Normanton, convicted for th e murder of th e super-
yet received historical attention, it is not clea r why visor of excise in Halifax, in chai ns o n t he top of
t hi s gradual and inchoate ex tension of the de fi ni- Be acon Hil l. It was unusual to hang a man in
tion of crime took place over the course of the chai n s, th e justices ad mitted, bu t they had been
ce nt u ry. In ve ry genera l terms it a ppears t hat the u rged to do so by ' very man y respectab le
new acts reflected the com merCializat ion of eigh- Gen tl eme n and Merch ants in an d abo ut Halifax
tee nt h cent ury agricul t ure and the desire of and Rochda le,' who fe lt that 'such a no to rious an d
land lo rd s to m ake profit fro m woodla nds, ponds, public ex am ple' would deter o th ers from maki ng
an d wastes on th eir esta tes, which they had previ- co un te rfei t co in , th e crime that Normanton had
o usly ig nored or allowed th e poor to use withou t been engaged in when discovered by t he luckl ess
h ind rance. Th e new crim inal penalties we re excise man .ll A legal system that allowed the judges
req ui red as a legiti mizing sanction fo r th is assertion to heighten th e sym boli c impact of th e han gin g
o f pro perty right because labore rs, cotta ge rs, a nd ritual in res po nse to t he press ures of ' res pectabl e'
sma ll fa rm ers had custo mary use rights over ga me, citi ze ns (o r to forego it ent irel y in res po nse to
wood, deadfall , peat, and o th er bounty of na ture, rebellio us weave rs) was o bviously mo re fl ex ible
righ ts whic h th e gen t ry had fo rme rly acce pted as th a n its unvaryi ng bl ood y pe nalti es gave it th e
part of the bind ing o rder of custom in the cou ntry- appea rance of bein g.
side. Thu s th e extensio n of the defi ni tion of crim e, Th ere were o f co urse mo re merciful uses of
brought abo ut in th e Black Act a nd in o th e r new jud icial and execut ive di screti o n. Judge s in th e
capita l pe nalti es, ap pears to represent th e aggran- Ho me Circuit durin g t he 1750s, fo r example, par-
dizement of the property righ ts of the gentry at th e do ned a thi rd of the offenders they had se ntenced
expen se of commo n right and cu5to m.8 to dea th and sent th em to t ranspo rtation instead. 12
In o ther cases, the crimin ali za tion of po pula r Their pardo n power enabled them to mitigate capi-
activit y se rved th e n eed s o f co mm erce, th e best tal penalties in 'special ' o r 'deserving' cases, to save
example being t he proli ferati o n of new for ge ry an d 'respectable' offenders wh o could enli st a patron to
cou nterfe iting statutes in the first fo rty years of the pl ead fo r th eir lives, and in general to temper the
cen tu ry. The judge a nd juri st Will ia m Blac kstone severest crimin al code in Euro pe with an elastic
expla ined t he growth o f law in thi s fi eld as an measure of mercy.
attemp t by banking and comm e rcial interests to The code wa s also modified in pra cti ce by t he
secu re pro tecti o n fo r th e new sys tem s of paper trad itio nal privil ege of ben efit of clergy. At first a
credit and exchange created in respon se to the rise privil ege enj o yed by cleri CS who came before the
of a national ma rke t.9 These in teres ts ap parently ro yal co urt s of t he Midd le Ages, a privilege tha t
succeeded in convin cing bo th the Crown and t he wa s then ext ended gradually to ot her groups until
judidary that a rigorous enfo rcement of these new 1705 wh en it was made availab le to me n and
laws was of crit ica l im po rta n ce to co mm e rce. women universally, ben efit of cl ergy was a plea
Througho ut the ce ntury, two- thirds of t hose con- t hat offenders co nvicted of a range of mi no r cap i-
tal crimes could enter to save themselves from the timing on which the deterrent effect of ritual pu n -
gallows I... J. ishment relied.
The judicial habit of pardoning capital offend- Another punishment of public shame was the
ers, especially those convicted for newly criminalized pillory. Offenders who aroused a high degree of
activities, contributed to the rapid growth of trans- public indignation, such as shopkeepe rs found
portation as a punishment. So did the act passed in using false weights, persons convicted of hoarding
1717 changing the punishment for petty larceny or specu lating in the grain trade, or persons con-
from whipping to transportation. Other acts likewise victed of homosexual assault, were locked in head
substitu ted transportation fo r whipping as a pena lty stocks in a marketplace or in front of a jail and sen-
for robbery, minor kinds of coini ng, and the receipt tenced to endure an hour of the crowd's abuse. IS
of stolen goods. n While the subst itut io n of trans- Such a pun ishment relied for its enforcem en t on
portati on fo r wh ipping and brand ing migh t be th e feeling of the populace. It could be a horror if
interpreted, li ke t he expans ion of the Bloody Cod e the crowd pelted them with stones an d offal, b ut if
itsel f, as an attempt by Pa rliament to increase the rig- it sym pa thized w ith the m there was little t he mag-
ors of trad itional punishment, t he risi ng rate of istrate could do to prevent the hour in t he p ill ory
pardons in capital cases after 1750 appears to indicate from beco m ing a public triumph. Such was the
t he op pos it e tende ncy among judges - a grow ing case when Danie l Isaac Eaton, the aged and distin-
doubt about the fairness of visiting mi nor infractions guished radica l printer, was sentenced to an hour's
with the pun ishment of deat h .14 pillo ry in Newgate in 1813. Muc h t o th e gove rn -
Likewise, ce rt ain p ract ices of juries su ggest ment' c h agrin, Ea ton's head was ga rl anded wi t h
th eir u nease about se nd ing petty offenders to t he flowe rs and he was brought refreshment during his
ga llows. Ju ries, like judges, we re allowed a measure ordea l, while the police and magist ra tes in atten-
o f d iscretion in arri ving at verdicts. It was common dance were reviled and abused. 19
for them to comm it th e ' pio us perjury' of con vict- All suc h rit ual pun is h ments depended for
in g t hose ch arged with g rand larce n y (a ca p ita l thei r effec ti veness as ceremon ial of det errence
o ffense) with pe tty larcen y (pun is h able b y tran s- o n t he crowd's tacit su pport of the a ut horities'
portation) by val uing the goods stole n at less than sen ten ce. 20
a shillin g rega rdl ess o f t h eir rea l value. IS
Comments by lega l auth orities li ke Bl acksto ne sug-
ges t th at ' pi o uS per ju ry' becam e more com m o n From M . Ignatieff, 'E ig/lteerllli century punishment',
after 175 0, in d icating growi n g publi c di ssati sfa c- (1978) A J us t Mea sure o f Pain (BasiligslOke:
ti on with the Blood y Code. 16 [ .. . J MacM ilIa ll ), 1978, pp . .I 5-21.
Like h a ngin g, whipp in g wa s a pu b li c ritual
inflicted by a paris h o ffi cer or court o ffi cial for the
edifica ti on o f th e po pul ace. Hen ce it was consid - Notes
ered im po rt ant to stage the ritu al at a tim e and a
I IJroce('(IiIlSs,Old Bai ley, 1770-1774 (Harvard Law
pla ce sure o f attra ct in g attenti o n . The Surrey jus- School Co llectio n); see also J. M. Bea tti e,
ti ces see m keenl y aware o f thi s in a sente n ce 'Punis hm ent in England, 1660- 1800,' an unpub-
recorded in their order books in 1775: lished paper, 1972, on sentencing patterns in Surrey
assize and sessions.
Robert Sn owdo n ... co nvicted o f felo n y is CO Ill -
2 Procel'(IiIlSS, 1763, session 3; 1764, session 4; 1767,
mitted to your cu sto d y for the sp ace o f three sessio n 6; 177 1, sess ion 1; see also Geo rge Rude,
mo nth s a nd o n Sa turd ay th e 15th in stant W ilkes awl Uberty, 1962, pp. 65-103.
between the h ours of 12 and 2 o f that day to be 3 Ca lenda r of Ilome Office Papers, Geo. III, October
stripped fro m th e middle upwards and tied to a 25, 1773.
cart's tail and publicl y whipped fro m the stock- 4 Douglas Hay, ' Property, Authority and the Crim inal
h ouse round thro' the Market Place at Kingsto n Law,' in Hay et al., Albio,,'s Fatal Tree, 1975, pp . 17-
64.
upo n Tham es and bac k again 'til hi s back is
5 Leon Radzi nowicz, A History of English Crimitw i Law,
bloody and al tile end o f th e said three months
1947- 1956, 1, p. 4.
to be di scharged with out feesY
6 E. P. Thompson, WI/ iss and HIlt/ters, 1975, passim .
Like th eir co ll eagues in Hali fax wh o o rchestrated 7 William Blacks to ne, Co mmemaries all tile Laws of
Ens /and, 1769, IV, pp. 233-37.
the han ging of the coin er in chains, the Surrey jus-
8 Thompson, Wlligs and Hunters, p. 22.
ti ces di s pla yed that shrewd se n se of theater and 9 Blackstone, Commentaries, IV, p. 246; al so Pet er
Prosecutors and the courts 27
Linebaugh in Society for the Study of Labour Obsen'atiolls 011 a Lme P1Iblicatio/J ... , 1786, p. 42.
History, Bulletin, no. 25, 1972. 16 Blackstone, CommclIlluies, IV, pp. 277-78; Richard
10 Radzi nowicz, History o(Crimilla/ Law, I, p. 156. Burn, Tile /IHlice oft/Ie Peace ami Parisi, Officer, 1st
II PRO /SP/44/92, Criminal Letter Book, April 8, 1775. cd., 1755, II, 'Summary Justice.'
12 John Howard, All ACCOUlll oft/Ie Prillcipal Lall/reUos 17 Surrey R.O., QS/2/1/24, 1775.
of Europe, 1789, table I, Appendix; on the operation 18 E. P. T hom son, 'Th e Moral Economy of the
and ideological functi on of pa rdons see Hay, Eighteenth Cen tur y C rowd,' Past alld Present SO,
' Property, Authority and C rim inal Law.' 19 71, pp. 76-136.
13 Blackstone, Com mentaries, IV, pp. 132, 241. 19 Place Mss, B. M. Add. Mss. 27826/ 178.
14 Radzinowicz, History ofCrimillal Law, I, p. ISO. 20 Peter Linebaugh, 'The Tyburn R.iol Against the
IS Blackstone, Commentaries, [V, p. 390; Samuel Romilly, Surgeons,' in lIay et al., Albion's FaUll Tree, pp. 65- 118.
2.3 Prosecutors and the courts

Clive Emsley
There were significan t changes in prosecution and munity action rather than by recourse to the law:
court practi ce during the period 1750 to 1900. a Jewish hawker, caught atte m pt ing to steal a ring
There were also sig nificant changes in the kind of from a young woman at Hunt ingdon races in
co urt environments in which criminal cases were 1753, was seized by a crowd and duc ked in a ho rse
heard. On occasions it was an act of parliamen t pond. 2 However crowds, and individuals, could
which heralded a change; sometim es, h owever, leg- not be relied upon always to help a victim. Stories
islation simply formali sed and sanctioned what were reported in t he courts of victims, in hot pur-
had come to be existing practice; and many suit of thieves, being deliberately imped ed either
changes were gradual, almost imperceptible except by individuals or by croWds.) Probab ly what hap-
over a long period. pened in these instances was that the act ivist
The English legal system provides for any pri- individuals or crowds too k t he part of the person
va te cit izen to initiate a prosecution. During the who appeared tobe the u nde rdog. Arthu r Ha rding
eighteenth century a few prosecutions were directed reca ll ed crowds tak ing the pa rt of chil dren at the
by the Treasu ry SoliCitor, notably in coining end of t he nineteenth cen tury who, well aware of
offences. Some were co nducted by the Attorney what they were doing and certain of getti n g popu-
Gen eral, p rincipally cases of treason or sedition; but lar support because of their ten d er years, o pen ly
aga in the numbers remained small and du ring the stole from t raders' carts and ba rrows or from shops
1790s, the period o f the English 'reign of terror', the and stalls. 4
Crown Law Offi cers regularly refused to finance The occasio nal attack o n , or 'rough musicing'
p rosecut io n s for sedition and urged magis trates - of, a prosecutor is suggestive of co mm u n ities
not always successfu lly - to organ ise these locally. which felt th at certain offe nde rs should not have
The overw he lming majority of crimina l prosecu- been p rosecu ted, or at least should have been pro-
tion s, mo re tha n eighty per cen t, were cond ucted by ceeded agai nst on a lesse r charge. In th e summer of
t h e vict ims of crimes o r, rath er less freq uent ly, by 1763 Mrs White, a Spitalfield vict ualler, prosecuted
p ri va te in dividua ls acting o n the vict im's behalf, her se rvan t, Co rn eli us Sa u nders, fo r th eft after he
an d, refl ect in g th e do mi na n ce o f the ma le in eig h- had stu m b led across her sav ings in her basemen t
tee nth - an d ni n eteen t h -ce nt ury SOCiety, most an d dec ked h imse lf out in n ew clothes. Saunders
prosecuto rs were men. 1 was fo un d guilty and executed . Many inhabita n ts
Vict ims o f a criminal o ffence had a variety o f of Spita lfie ld s were in cen sed ; Sau n de rs was well -
ch o ices. Th ey could , for exam p le, let the matte r kn own in th e n eigh bo urh ood prim ar ily, perh aps,
d rop regarding it as too in significant o r u nimpor- beca use he had been b lind from birth. Mrs Wh ite's
tant fo r a criminal prosecu t io n . Some tim es, an d h o use was attacked by large crowds; h er fu rn iture
es peci all y in the ea rli e r par t of th e period und er an d possessions we re throw n out into the street
consideratio n , an o ffender wa s d ealt with by co m- and burned. s [... ]
Vio lent hostility toward s prosecu to rs and the assailant to the victim. Magistrates could be
their witnesses in unpopular cases was not con- involved in such settlements at petty sessions. At
fined to the Georgian period. In Blackb urn in quarter sessions, if it was noted that agreement had
November 1862, after the prosecution of four men been reached between the parties, the punishment
for night poaching on the land of J. Butler imposed by the court could be nominal. In January
Bowden, crowds turned on the gamekeepers who 1766, for example, William Wesson prosecuted
had given evidence as they left the town hall Tho mas Turner, a grocer of Derby at the
escorted by eight men from th e Lancashire Nottinghamshire Sessions for assault; 'it appearing
Constabulary. An estimated 400 people then to the court that [the] prosecutor was satisfied',
marched on Howden's house, Pleasington Hall , Turner was fined one penny and discharged. \0 But
which they proceeded to stone until driven off by alleged agreements to make amends with a money
Bowden and his se rvants firing two or three shots payment could be as fraught with difficulties in
over th eir heads. A troop of the 16th Lancers and assault cases as in larceny cases. At the Easter
sq uads of th e county cons tabulary were rushed Sessions for Bedfords hire in 1833 Emily Crossley
into Blackburn to maintain order. 6 Traditional prosecuted Robert Wells for an assault after which
rough musicing. with all of its folkloric parapher- she had suffered a mi scarriage. Wells complained
nalia, tended to fade away during the nineteenth that 'the woman offe red to make it up and did for
cen tury, though its Welsh variant, ceffyf pre1l, has 5/_'.1l Again alternative settlements to prosecution
been noted as being deployed against unpopular continued to be sought and found in cases of
offenders and prosecutors in the Victorian period, assault throughout the nineteenth century.
and manifestations were not unknown in the great Moreover it would seem that many working-class
cities of mid nineteen th-century England. 7 prosecutions for assault were part of continuing
If th e offender was known to, or instantly feuds between families or groups, with the law
apprehended by, the victim, some personal retribu- being employed as one way of the complainant
tion or private settlement could be sought, or achieving a measure of what he or she considered
offered, to avoid recourse to the law. Though it to be justice, but certainly not bringing the affair
must be noted that this was not always the case, to an end. 12
no matter how close the bonds between individu- Some victims of theft who reported their loss
als. There are, for example, court records of to constables or thief-takers, were prepared to pay a
children stealing from their parents, and being reward for the return of their property and to
prosecuted for it. The re are also examples of par- ignore the prosecuti on of the offender; corrupt and
ents urging the prosecution of their offspring by unscrupulous constables and thief-takers, working
those who had been their victims; thus the law in league with thieves, were happy to fall in with
could be brought into playas a means of discipline these wishes splitting the rewards with the
within the family.8[ ... ] offender. 13 Newspaper advertisements or handbills
Other alternatives to prosecution continued describing the stolen property and offering a
to be exploited throughout the nineteenth century. reward were regularly employed by victims and not
Employers could, and often did simply dismiss without success in both the recovery of goods, the
pilfering workmen; this, together with the threat identification of the offender and thus in his or her
that the offender would never be employed again prosecution and conviction; the circulation of
was a tougher sa nction than many courts could information about offences became central to the
impose. Many victims were often satisfied with the Fieldings' proposals for improving the system of
return of their stolen property and/or with the policing. I" Some victims went to considerable per-
scare which they gave the accused by the very fact sonal lengths to pursue offenders and regain their
of involving the police; once property had been property. In the Slimmer of 1769 Richard Wallis, a
restored and the offender had been warned by baker, and William Thornton, a tallow chandler,
police invo lvement, some victims declined to press spent several days chasing the men who had stolen
ahead with prosecutions, or else simp ly did not their horses around the southern environs of
turn up for the trials. 9 London. After the theft of ten ferrets, a box, a
Lega ll y assaults were different from thefts in spud, a dog and a gun John Jeffries and Thomas
that they were not necessarily felonious. During Asplen of Thur leigh pursued Samuel Col grave for
the eighteenth century many cases of assault were two days through the Villages surrounding
settled with a financial payment being made by Bedford; subsequently they continued their pursuit
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CIRCULAR SAWS
Other books by the same Author

Verse
LONDON SONNETS
SHYLOCK REASONS WITH MR. CHESTERTON
CIRCULAR SAWS
By
Humbert Wolfe
LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL LTD.
1923
Printed in England
at The Westminster Press
411a Harrow Road, London, W.9
T HREE or four of these tales have appeared in The Weekly
Westminster Gazette and The Chapbook. The author’s thanks are
due for permission to reprint them here. Thanks are also due to the
Editor of The Saturday Review for permission to republish the verses
in the story called “Dis Aliter Visum.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Waste not, want not 1
II. Looking for a needle in a haystack 2
III. All’s well that ends well 3
IV. Faint heart never won fair lady 5
V. Truth is stranger than fiction 7
VI. A rose by any other name 10
VII. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing 12
VIII. Two wrongs do not make a right 14
IX. Business is business 16
X. Let sleeping dogs lie 19
XI. It’s never too late to mend 20
XII. Ars longa, vita brevis 24
XIII. Sunt certi denique fines 30
XIV. Heaven helps those that help themselves 35
XV. “You never can tell” 37
XVI. United we stand 41
XVII. Ici-Gît 44
XVIII. Silence is golden 45
XIX. Look before you leap 48
XX. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity 52
XXI. Quis separabit? 53
XXII. Men, not measures 55
XXIII. You cannot have your cake and eat it 62
XXIV. In vino veritas 66
XXV. Tantae religio 71
XXVI. On entertaining angels unawares 73
XXVII. Tempus fugit 77
XXVIII. You can take a horse to the water 78
XXIX. Half a loaf is better than no bread 80
XXX. In for a penny, in for a pound 84
XXXI. Quantity is better than quality 89
XXXII. Charity begins at home 95
XXXIII. Dis aliter visum 99
XXXIV. Parallel lines do not meet 109
XXXV. Cherchez le juif 111
XXXVI. γνῶθι σεαυτον 119
XXXVII. E pur si muove 120
XXXVIII. The game and the candle 124
XXXIX. Once bitten twice shy 126
XL. It takes two to make a peace 127
XLI. Vicisti Galilæe 130
I
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
W HEN Haroun-al-Raschid (of whom I have told you before, and if

I haven’t it is only because I have forgotten) was having a bath
they wouldn’t let him splash. “By the beard of Allah,” he observed
mildly to the Vizier, who was standing by with his favourite celluloid
duck (guaranteed to float), “this is preposterous. Cannot the
Commander of the Faithful splash a little water? What’s the good of
being a King, that’s what I say?” “Sire,” replied the Vizier, handing
him the celluloid duck, “the higher, the fewer the pleasures of life.
And remember in season the saying, ‘Waste not, want not.’”
The following day torrential rains of unprecedented severity visited
Bagdad, sweeping away houses and gardens and drowning, among
others, in circumstances of peculiar discomfort, the Grand Vizier.
“Well,” said Haroun, splashing in his bath (and hitting the opposite
wall, mind you), “that only shows.”
II
LOOKING FOR A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK
M R. ARTHUR BENACRES—the celebrated philanthropist—suffered

in private life the inconvenience of being an ostrich. This was
due to the act of a rather deaf fairy friend of the family, who mistook
an observation on the weather (addressed to him by a
conversational curate at the christening) for a request for feathers.
This, as you suppose, caused Mr. Benacres some difficulty, and led
him to consider methods of escape. For though it was agreeable to
be able to subsist on odd scraps of broken rubbish, and to dig with
his head (instead of a spade) in the nice clean sand, people did
make a fuss on the Underground and at parties.
Till at last another fairy friend of the family, who was neither deaf or
blind, said: “Why don’t you go into Parliament? Then nobody will
notice.” And they didn’t.
III
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
O NCE upon a time there was a princess whose mother would not
buy her an umbrella. This was due to the wicked incompetence
of the Prime Minister of that country, who, having no children of his
own, spent all his money on swords instead of umbrellas. (Yes, I
know swords are nicer generally, but these weren’t; besides they
were two-edged.) Moreover, her mother went and bought her a most
unbecoming mackintosh—the sort that cuts your chin. And so, as it
was raining all the time (for this princess lived at Kilcreggan in
Dumbartonshire), she asked to be turned into a frog or a toad,
because they didn’t need umbrellas, and their mackintoshes fit at
the neck.
Well, she was, and then she found that being a frog she couldn’t use
her scooter, or read “Antony and Cleopatra” to her mother, or go into
Kensington Gardens with her father. (No! Kensington Gardens isn’t at
Kilcreggan, but this is a fairy princess, and so it doesn’t matter.) So
she unwished herself, and she was a princess, and she had no
umbrella and a mackintosh that didn’t fit at the neck. But it was a
drought.[A] So all’s well that ends well.
[A] A drought is when it doesn’t rain at all. The scene of the story
has been shifted from Scotland.
IV
FAINT HEART NEVER WON FAIR LADY
M ISS JUNE MORTIFEX was most beautiful—yes, and more

beautiful than that. So that when she looked out of the window
the Meteorological Department in Exhibition Road, Kensington, over
the Post Office, said: “The westerly depression over London is now
moving rapidly northward with a southern twist,” which means
nothing, and only shows how excited they all were.
But on account of her very exceptional beauty everybody was afraid
of marrying her because they said “She would cost a King’s
Hansom,” and owing to the increase in the number of motor taxicabs
nobody had one about them.
So one day she blacked her face and assuming a Mid-Victorian
Cockney accent went down Piccadilly singing the well-known ditty:
“O Mr. Jansen,
You kissed me in the hansom,
’Ansom is as ’ansom does,
Now you push me off the bus.”
As may be supposed, this remarkable revival aroused the interest of
a distinguished literary critic, who, recognising merit, even under an
unpromising exterior, offered his hand, shortly after followed by his
heart. “But, Edward,” whispered June, “I am not what I seem.” “You
couldn’t be,” he answered triumphantly, “the Victorians never were.”
And with that he walked into St. George’s, Hanover Square, and
ordered three of the best banns they had. And he gave her as a
bridal gift the collected works of Mr. Edmund Gosse, for he was not
faint-hearted.
V
TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION
I T’S no good pretending that Petronella Gibbs was a good princess.

For one thing, she was always asking questions. And if the nurses
didn’t know the answer they were instantly beheaded. With the
result that there was an unprecedented shortage in the supply of
domestic labour. The Queen, her mother, indeed remarked to a
friend of hers, another Queen living in the palace opposite, that “she
never.” You may suppose therefore that things had reached a crisis.
But did Petronella care? She did not care. She could do without
nurses, thank you. On the contrary, she decided to start answering
questions. For instance. For a long time all the best people had
wanted to know “Who’s Who.” And a very large and important book
had been written about it. Petronella wrote as follows:
“Deer Editter.
Nobody is.
Yours evva,
Petronella P.”
This, which was the obvious solution, created considerable
consternation. The Queen—her mother—had a long consultation
with the King—her father—on his return from the Royal Exchange,
where he kept his bulls, bears and hyenas, and remarked, “I never.”
But the King only laughed. That is why so many women are
Republicans.
At last Petronella became so celebrated that the King of America,
colloquially known as the President of the United States, asked for
her hand in marriage. He and his subjects had been guessing so
long that they thought that the time had come to find someone who
knew.
The flattering offer was accepted by her royal parents, and
Petronella, with great pomp and ceremony, embarked. Upon her
arrival she was met by the leading citizens, who asked her, “What do
you think of America?” “I don’t,” she replied, which was the right
answer. At which they, being accustomed to the latter, and never
previously having met the former, exclaimed, “Truth is stranger than
fiction,” and adding, “not half so true either,” asked her with tears in
their eyes to return where they asserted she belonged. Which she
did. And both she and the King of America lived happily ever after.
VI
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL
AS SWEET
W HEN Arthur Nobbs was a little boy he believed in fairies. If, for
example, he ate part of his sister’s jam (as he constantly did),
he assured her that the fairies would put it back. And if they didn’t,
well that was because she didn’t believe in them.
When he grew older and became a business man he naturally
continued to entertain that belief. When he was successful (as he
generally was) in his business transactions, he ascribed his success
to the fairies, though the persons he so continuously and cleverly
ruined thought that he had got the name wrong.
One day he met a starving sculptor whose father he had been able
to put out of business. “What are these horrible objects that you
have in your tray?” he asked severely. “These,” said the sculptor,
“are the seven fairies in which you believe.” “But,” objected Mr.
Nobbs, “they are labelled ‘The Seven Deadly Sins,’ and they look it.”
“Oh,” said the sculptor, “the title is only a matter of taste.” “You are
an impostor, sir,” exclaimed Mr. Nobbs; “but fortunately we are in a
law-abiding country.” And he gave the young man in charge for
seeking to obtain money by false pretences.
But you will be glad to learn that Arthur Nobbs was subsequently
raised to the peerage and died universally beloved and respected,
and on his tombstone they carved the simple phrase:
“He believed in fairies.”
VII
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS
THING
T HE father of Miss Liddell was favourably known to the general

public as the man who had written to the public prints during a
strike a bold letter beginning: “Sir,—Let all strikers be shot. Then let
...” and again during a lock-out an equally bold letter with the
following introduction: “Sir,—Let all employers be shot. Then let ...”
(It is believed that it is from this use of “let” in public
correspondence that the word “letter” is derived.)
Miss Liddell, therefore, naturally objected to the fact that the Prince,
over whose education she presided, disliked the manly game of
football. “Don’t you know,” she would say from time to time, “what
Wellington said about the playing fields of Eton?” “No,” the Prince
used to reply, “who was Wellington? One of those professional
footballers one reads about in their newspapers?” “Certainly not,”
Miss Liddell was wont to reply. “He was a great general who beat the
French.” “What did he do that for?” the Prince would ask. “Because
they were his country’s enemies.” “Ah!” the Prince would say, “but I
thought the French were England’s friends.” “So they are now,” Miss
Liddell would say. “And did Wellington beat them because of
football?” the Prince would inquire. “Wellington said so,” Miss Liddell
(slightly flushed) would reply.
“Will you give me my paint-box?” the Prince would murmur politely.
VIII
TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT
L ISTEN. This is quite a new story. It is about a swan that wished he

was an ugly duckling again. He was one of those two swans who
stand at the edge of the Round Pond, have black feet and holes to
put tape through in their beaks. Only they won’t let you put tape
through.
What he said was (quite simply), “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.” To
which his mate said, “Then why do you always eat more than your
share?” But the other swan was an idealist and took no notice.
He summoned a public meeting of the ducks after closing-time, and
having elected himself to the chair after rather a protracted
argument with a pertinacious old drake, told his audience that he
was a duck at heart. “What is beauty,” he went on to say, “that it
should put one on a lonely eminence. The exquisite shape of the
swan, his girl-like neck, what right to rule do these confer?” “None,”
said the old drake, heartily. “Did you say beauty?” said a young
female duck, bridling her feathers. “Why you poor old antic, if you
knew how we ducks sympathised with you on your deformity!”
But this was a little too much for the swan. “I did not come here to
be insulted,” he said hotly, “by a brood of blasphemous pond-
puddlers. Are you aware that the Great Swan made swans in his
image?” “And are you aware,” said the old drake, “that the swans
retorted by making him in theirs?”
“Well,” said his mate to the rather draggled swan who returned
about midnight, “how did you get on?” “Get on,” he screamed,
“those ducks think that equality means that I’m equal with them.”
“And doesn’t it?” “Certainly not,” said the swan, tucking his head
under his wings, “it means that they’re equal with me.” “And what’s
more,” he said with sudden truculence as he emerged for a moment,
“a swan’s a swan for a’ that.”
IX
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
T HE electric bell had rung for the fourth time, when the door was
opened by an agreeable young man dressed in the height of
fashion.
“Who are you?” he inquired in the amiable tone of one who begins
an interesting conversation.
“I’m the Milk,” retorted the young man with the cans a little shortly,
for he was not pleased at being so long delayed.
“Will you not come in one moment?” the young householder
retorted. “I have within the butcher, the grocer and the baker, and I
have long desired to add you to the list of my visitors.”
The young milkman (still carrying his heavy can) followed the polite
young gentleman into a fine, lofty room. The whole was arranged
with exquisite taste, and many deep rugs indicated a luxurious vein
in the young man’s character. At the further end of the room,
arranged neatly in an isosceles triangle (for the baker was much
shorter than the other two), were the corpses of the butcher, the
baker, and the grocer.
“May I inquire,” said the Milk, after surveying the scene in silence for
a minute, “why you have killed these three gentlemen?”
“You have the best of rights in the world to ask, and I shall be
delighted to explain,” answered the young gentleman courteously.
“You must know, then, that I have a speculative interest in the
manner in which the smaller British tradesman meets death. I have
been much charmed by the experience I have gleaned with the help
of my three friends there. The butcher,” he added, pointing smilingly
to a discolouration on his forehead, “was the least graceful. And now
as I have answered you, perhaps you will allow me to ask you a
question?”
“But pray do,” answered the Milk, not to be outdone in courtesy.
“I thank you. I was going to inquire whether you knew any reason
why I should not add you to my list.”
“I apprehended,” returned the Milk, “that your question might be
something of that sort. I had gone so far as to prepare an answering
question.”
“And what might that be?” inquired the young gentleman?
“Why should I not kill you?” retorted the Milk affably.
“There is something in what you say,” exclaimed the young
gentleman. “I had not considered the question. Will you give me a
minute or two to meditate?”
“I must be about my business, I am afraid,” returned the Milk,
quietly bludgeoning the young man as he spoke with his milk can.
“Yet how sad it is,” he said reflectively surveying the four corpses,
“that speculation must inevitably make way for practical affairs.”
And with that he proceeded to replace the milk he had spilled with
water from a neighbouring table.
X
LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE
O NCE upon a time there was a wizard who could find the truth in
a newspaper.
Fortunately he was discovered and hanged in time, and since then
nobody has dared to tamper with the liberty of the Press.
XI
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND
N ORTH of Skelleffteå, in the kingdom of Sweden, there lived a

more than usually repulsive troll, who was, however, the
supreme Scandinavian authority on psycho-analysis. The pine-trees
in that part of the world walk down to the water of the sea as
though the weight of their own beauty had become too heavy for
them. And the sea with blandishing whispers holds out to them the
immense temptation of his cold peace.
On a rock at the rendezvous of sea and pines, under a midnight-sun-
haunted sky of June, the troll sat with huge horn glasses on his
twisted nose relentlessly reading the work which Mr. Freud was to
write some centuries later....
Out of the shadows of the pine, as straight, as serious, and weighed
down like them with the burden of her own loveliness, slipped the
Princess Gurli on her way to the cold temptation of the sea. Like
other princesses before and after, she was enchanted. When she
looked at her almost flawless loveliness in the lily-pond of her
father’s castle, she saw always a faint silver mist that trembled at
her mirrored lips. The mist would draw together into a frangible
bubble, a diaphanous ball of silver, and finally dissolve, leaving an
infinite argent stain on the red of her mouth.
One day a fish had swum up from the marble floor, and rising to the
surface, had said to her, “What will you give me if I drink the mist?”
And she had answered, “What do you wish?” “Your soul,” he replied.
This she was glad in any case to be rid of, for her soul had often
interfered with the natural pleasures to which she was entitled by
her loveliness.
The fish and the mist disappeared together, and for the first time she
saw herself in flawless loveliness. But she was strangely cold.
Princes came to her from the North and the South, but when they
looked into the green stain of her eyes they shivered and turned
away. The Princess was not sorry, for she thought that men were a
poor substitute for her own beauty. But with her twenty-first summer
she was conscious that her beauty was threatened. For a
neighbouring queen had been heard to say of her, “Yes, she is lovely.
But for me her beauty has no soul.”
Therefore she decided to marry a prince of her own choice, who
would ask all of her and nothing, whose castle has no lamps and
whose palace gardens are visited neither by sun nor snow.
It was on her way to this alliance that she slipped out of the pines,
and beheld on the rock under the midnight-sun-haunted sky the
unusually repulsive troll reading the prenatal works of Mr. Freud.
“Ha,” neighed the troll, looking up, “you have come to consult me,
Princess Gurli.” “I have not,” said the Princess. “I do not like trolls.”
“But I,” said the troll, “am not like other trolls.” “That is what all trolls
say,” replied the Princess scornfully. “Perhaps,” said the troll, “but I
am the greatest Scandinavian authority on psycho-analysis!” “What
in Valhalla,” said the Princess, “is that?” “The study of souls,” cried
the troll with a significant chuckle. “Oh,” said the Princess, “you can’t
study mine. I haven’t got one.” “This is interesting,” said the troll;
“you are undoubtedly suffering from an advanced condition of
mermaid-complex.” “What does that mean?” said the Princess. “It
means that you have a suppressed passion for a Mer-King,” replied
the troll, “and if you give way to it you will be cured immediately.” “I
have never heard anything so disgusting,” said the Princess. “Why, a
Mer-King is half a fish.” “Half a fish,” said the troll sententiously, “is
better than no fish.” “I had meant,” said the Princess, “to drown
myself in the sea because the loss of my soul troubled me. But now
that I know that souls are things that can be studied by creatures
like you, I am very glad I have not got one.”
The troll was so shocked at this outburst that he fell backwards into
the sea, where he was instantly seized by mermaids and drowned.
But the Princess went back, slim and gold, through the shadow of
the pines, and married the youngest son of the nearest fishmonger.
XII
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS
A T about half-past eleven on a summer evening there might have

been observed, wending her way slowly along the Rue du Soleil
Levant into the Cour de St. Pierre at Geneva, a small black kitten
with her tail straight up. There was nobody in the cobbled square
except the beech-tree in the middle with a wooden seat round him.
The kitten, who was being brought up on a severely anti-religious
basis, doubted whether the tree might not have been influenced by
the cathedral window, in whose shadow he had dreamed summer
and winter for more than a hundred years. She was therefore on the
point of slipping into a most engaging gutter of stone, like a deep
mouse-track, that leads past the chapel of Calvin to the railings that
overlook the Passage des Degrés des Poules.
But the beech wasn’t going to stand that. On the contrary! He
dropped one little fidgety brown leaf—puff!—between the kitten’s
paws, who, throwing religious prejudice to the winds, played with it
as enchantingly as though it had been a convert to Epistemological
Radicalism.
Then the moon looked over the crooked gables into the square, and
proceeded to light her cold lamp in all the dark cathedral windows.
But the beech rustled her leaves warningly at her. “What is it?” said
the moon, and then she saw the little black kitten dancing with the
leaf on the cobbles. “Who is your little black faun of a friend?” she
inquired of the beech. “I don’t know her name,” said the beech, “but
she certainly dances extremely well.”
At this point the kitten stopped abruptly and said a little harshly,
“What are you two old ones whispering about?” “We were
remembering,” said the beech, who was a kindly old fellow, “the
time when we also danced with our shadows in the joy of our
youth.” “How can that be?” said the kitten impatiently. “The moon
never was young, and you never had but one leg, and that stuck in
the ground. You are telling me fairy tales, and I have no patience
with them. Let me tell you my dancing is merely automatic muscular
reaction.” “Dear me,” said the moon mildly, “what long words that
child uses! But tell me, little one, if you don’t like fairy tales, you
won’t want to hear the story of the cat and the fiddle.” “Does it
observe the dramatic unities?” inquired the kitten. “I don’t know
what they are,” said the moon, “but it has a moral.” “Which is more
than you have, you little wretch,” said the beech severely. “Oh well,”
said the kitten ungraciously, “I suppose I must hear it, though I
expect that it will be representational.”
“Once upon a time,” said the moon, “there was a cat that had the
soul of a musician. But when she tried to render her thoughts into
sound she excited no sympathetic response. On the contrary, people
threw boots and bottles at her. ‘I do not care,’ said the cat, ‘my
songs are for posterity.’ But nevertheless the constant succession of
missiles disturbed her.”
“It is my considered opinion,” interrupted the kitten, “that she was
no artist. The best art rejects appreciation.”
“So the dog said,” observed the moon, “when he was chasing the cat
up the tree with yells of derision. But the cat was not comforted.
“Finally one day as she wandered disconsolate through a field she
met a very tragic cow lowing, as it seemed to the cat, with a mild
haunting beauty. When she came up with the cow the cat observed
that her eyes were streaming with tears. ‘How is it,’ said the cat,
‘that you who are notoriously as unmusical as a milk-can can low
with a beauty that brings tears to your own eyes.’ ‘It is not my music
that brings tears to my eyes, but my lost calf. And let me tell you,
cat, that till you also play on the strings of your own heart you will
never make music.’”

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Edited by Tim Newburn

Published simultaneousl y in the USA and Canada by

© Tirn Newburn in editorial matter, selection and organisation 2009

First published 2009

ISBN 978-1-84392-402-9 paperback

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Project managed by Deer Park Productions

List of abbreviations XVI

1 Understanding crime and criminology 1

2 Crime and punishment in history 19

3 Crime data and crime trends 41

3.3 The origins of the British Crime Survey 54

4 Crime and the media 65

4.1 What makes crime 'news'? 68

5 Classicism and positivism 85

6 Biological positivism 105

7 Psychological positivism 137

7.2 Social structure and social learning 142

8 Durkheim, anomie and strain 159

9 The Chicago School, culture and subcultures 187

9.5 Cultural criminology 203

10 Interactionism and labelling theory 209

10.1 Primary and secondary deviation 212

10.3 Outsiders 216

10.4 Misunderstanding labelli ng perspectives 220

11 Control theories 231

12 Radical and critical criminology 255

13 Left and right realism 275

14 Contemporary classicism 301

14.2 'Situational' crime prevention: theory and practice 307

15 Feminist criminology 325

16 Late modernity, governmentality and risk 357

17 Victims, victimization and victimology 385

18 White-collar and corporate crime 417

19 Organised crime 437

20 Violent and property crime 461

20 .3 Modernization, self-control and lethal violence 476

21 Drugs and alcohol 487

22 Penology and punishment 511

23 Understanding criminal justice 529

24 Crime prevention and community safety 551

25 The police and pol icing 571

26 Criminal courts and the court process 601

27 Sentencing and non-custodial penalties 625

27.3 The dispersal of discipline thesis 640

28 Prisons and imprisonment 649

29 Youth crime and youth justice 677

30 Restorative justice 709