The US Liberal Criminological Tradition Critical Analysis - Essay Example

?The US Liberal Criminological tradition has cast a long shadow over contemporary theorising and research on race and crime in the UK. Critically analyse this statement with reference to relevant academic literature. Introduction There are times when tradition plays a clear role in the development of theory and research, making it difficult to go beyond traditional thought and influencing a number of areas, perhaps imperceptibly. Historical and political developments further serve to reinforce these traditions, with research attitudes towards discrimination being perhaps the most self-evident of this phenomenon. For example, race has always been a particularly sticky issue in a number of areas, particularly in criminology where research must take care not to highlight issues that may serve to aggravate racial discrimination. There are clear statistics that show that some ethnic minorities are more likely to be associated with crime and the punitive system within both the US1 and the UK2. There is further evidence that this may be a result of ethnic discrimination and social stratification3, leading some scholars and supporters of liberal criminology to suggest that there is racial bias within the criminal justice system. There are those that go further and suggest that the punitive system does not represent what could be seen as a ‘true definition of criminality’ but rather a skewed view based on these ethnic and economic differences that evidence themselves in the statistics. This liberal criminology has become somewhat of a tradition, particularly in the US4, meaning that it has influences on criminological research in the UK and further afield. Whilst the aim to find a definition of true crime free from the effects of social and political order is perhaps noble, it can be difficult for scholars to move away from the shadow that the US liberal criminological tradition has cast. The purpose of this essay is to critically analyse the US liberal criminological tradition and the effects that it has had upon theories and research on race and crime within the UK. It will also take into account those that believe that this tradition has not had an effect on the way research is conducted on this topic, providing a full picture of the interaction between liberal criminology and the field as a whole. This will provide insight into crime politics and how criminological traditions and research find themselves part of the legal landscape, and the effects that this type of background can have on contemporary research and attitudes within the field. The US Liberal Criminological Tradition To fully understand the nature of the question, it is perhaps prudent to examine the US liberal criminological tradition in more detail. Liberal criminology can be said to be the ‘perennial search for a measure of actual or real criminality’5. This search is deemed necessary partly because of the thought that crime figures (and the resultant research) often fails to account for crimes that have gone unreported or criminals that have not been prosecuted or otherwise recorded by the punitive system6. Liberal criminologists often go so far as to suggest that this way of analysing crime means that it is not true scientific research as it does not represent the scientific method7. The purpose of finding this true definition of criminality is to reduce the effects of political and socioeconomic factors on the justice system8. It has also been suggested that liberal criminologists ‘tend to share the hope that once real crime has been isolated and measured, its causes can be identified and solutions devised’9. Evidently, it is incredibly difficult to separate a justice system which relies on human judgement from political and socioeconomic factors present within the culture. Liberal criminology acknowledges this factor, but insists that much of the data provided on crime and criminals is false; ‘they reflect the bias inherent in an economically, ethnically, and racially stratified society’10. The argument here is perhaps that these factors have influenced the statistics from which criminologists draw their inferences to such an extent that it is difficult to define a causal relationship in criminological research. This is a very real problem, particularly as arrests do not represent true crime levels in many areas11 and perhaps many arrests may be racially or economically motivated in their nature, if subconsciously. Although the purpose of this essay is not to criticise the liberal criminological method (merely to critique the effect that its popularity has had), it is worth discussing the two main issues for clarity. The first comes from a conservative viewpoint, and suggests that liberal criminology is deficient because it emphasizes the relationship between deprivation and crime, rather than focusing on the issues that criminology purports to tackle using the only data that is available12. Another, more recent argument, is that liberal criminology highlight these issues but ignores the effects that these ‘institutional ramifications of resource deprivation’13 have on crime; ‘liberal criminology focuses too narrowly on economic resources and should be broadened to encompass access to institutional resources – in a word, access to embeddedness’14. Despite these criticisms, there is no doubt that the liberal criminological tradition has played a role in shaping the way that criminology is today. Criminology is also used to shape criminal law, which means that the ramifications of the tradition are wide-ranging and affect society fully. Liberal criminology is perhaps most useful because it acknowledges that there are sociological and political aspects of the world which affect our view of the law. One example of this is that homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom until 196715. The physical act of homosexuality had not changed, but the law did, which suggests that there are other influences at play. It is hard for any scholar to deny that these factors influence the law and our approach to crime. This is interesting to consider in the context of race, because race is a context tied up within complex social hierarchies as well as being linked to economic deprivation, all of which seem to be linked to criminal activity16. The purpose of liberal criminology, therefore, is not to deny that race (or any other influential factor) is linked to the development of criminality, but to suggest that it is socioeconomics that are influencing the penal system providing the statistics from which these inferences are drawn. Liberal criminology has perhaps gained so much favour because it supports reasoning that race is not linked to criminality, something that sits favourably with the current worldview. Ian Loader, in an excellent lecture concerning the state of liberalism within the UK makes suggestions that the current political climate may not be favourable to liberalism in general, and within criminology as a result. There are, however, a number of aspects of liberal criminology which still flourish within the field and the penal system and perhaps within British society as a whole, which suggest that indeed this concept has cast a ‘long shadow’ over the way that criminologists research crime in general and race in particular. UK Research and Theory on Race and Crime A central part of this research is to investigate how the liberal criminological tradition has influenced criminological research into race and crime within the United Kingdom. Bowling & Phillips suggest that many ‘criminological theories start, explicitly or implicitly, from the assumption…that there are real ethnic differences in involvement in crime’17 and that these are ‘highly speculative’ and ‘are refuted when tested empirically’18. Evidently, this complies heavily with the liberal criminological method in that it suggests that the links between race and crime are not from any implicit difference between racial groups and their attitudes to crime but from misinterpretations in reporting. It is these misinterpretations from the police, the reporting victim, and the punitive system which are influenced by socioeconomic differences rather than the criminals themselves19. To take this approach further, Bowling & Phillips cover some of the literature tackling the reasons behind the links between race and crime to show that it is not causal. One such theory is that of social disorganisation. Socially disorganised areas find themselves having ‘conventional traditions…disintegrated’20 and were found by Cohen to be disproportionately inhabited by African Americans21. Perhaps one of the inferences that can be drawn from this information, influenced by liberal thought, is that race has nothing to do with the higher amount of crime in this area whilst socioeconomics does. This thought transfers well to the UK, and the general acceptance of this by Bowling & Phillips, as well as elsewhere, is evidence of the influence that liberal criminology has had on research on race in the UK. Another perspective on this comes from institutionalised racism within the punitive system. In his essay entitled Criminology, contemporary society, and race issues, David Smith covers some of the more important ways in which racial discrimination is inherent in the punitive system, intended or not. Firstly, Smith identifies that there has been a growing focus on institutionalised racism within the criminal justice system itself22. Again, it is evident that the liberal criminological tradition is present here, because that is precisely what it argues is the case. Both Smith and other proponents of the liberal position suggest that there is a significant fault within the justice system that causes these individuals to be singled out as criminals above and beyond others who are criminally similar but racially different. Although Smith does not make direct reference to liberal criminology, the presence can be felt and it is this that provides evidence for the casting of the long shadow. This essay also provides some interesting insights into the ‘criminogenic effects of social exclusion and economic marginalisation’23. Again, this is a reference to liberal criminology, suggesting that there are many outside factors that influence criminal activity beyond a true definition of ‘crime’. Again, it seems that the socioeconomic factors are seen as being very influential, particularly as they tend to be socially disorganised and traditional crime prevention methods may not be applicable. Interestingly, Smith also covers the problems of interpretation, an attempt at purifying the discipline in the style of liberal criminology. In this case, Smith highlights the difficulties in determining how far the Afro-Caribbean propensity for getting arrested is due to their Afro-Caribbean identity and how much is due to their propensity for living in areas with high-arrest rates. Interesting reading, which shows evidence for having been influenced severely by US liberal criminological tradition. Basia Spalek collected together essays on the topic of religion (particularly Islam) and the relationship this has with the punitive system. Spalek concentrates particularly on the fact that criminology defines itself as a modern discipline and often leaves no room for religious thought or input. Spalek argues that the use of terms such as ‘black’ or ‘Asian’, as criminological research so often does, does not leave room for explanations of religious diversity24. This seems particularly bizarre when considering that the majority of South Asians consider religion and nationality to be the two most defining factors in their identity25. Considering this in the context of US liberal criminological tradition is interesting. Firstly, it seems to be a departure in many ways because it comes from an attempt to classify crime and criminals due to some socioeconomic factor rather than their actual criminal nature. However, the long shadow is still evident, because Spalek is pointing out flaws with the current approach and suggests that it may be unscientific to look at criminological matters in such simplistic terms. It seems that Spalek is considering criminology to be a departure from the scientific method. There is also some evidence of the long shadow to be found in the work of Hindpal Singh Bhui. Another collection of essays, Race and Criminal Justice explores a number of themes regarding the position of ethnic minorities, mostly British Asians, in the criminal justice system. The emphasis here is that race is a legitimate issue within the system because there are some differences in the way that these individuals are treated, either as victims or as perpetrators26. These differences, as per the US liberal criminological tradition, are purported to be from the socioeconomic status of these Asians (and other minorities) within the culture as a whole rather than regarding any real differences between the crimes of these individuals. These effects could be further compounded by the way that these individuals see themselves within the socioeconomic system, which may have effects on the way they react as part of the criminal justice system. Either way, this collection of essays all leans towards the real meaning of crime having been distorted by issues of race, and therefore falls neatly in line with liberal criminology and its calls for a true definition of crime for the discipline. The Effect of Tradition on Research From the information above, it seems obvious that there are some very definite ways in which liberal criminology is casting a shadow over British research into race and crime. The scholars above give very interesting conclusions about statistical analysis which have strong ties to the liberal tradition. Evidently, as US research and politics have such an influence in the UK (and indeed, worldwide) it is obvious that this tradition, having gained favour there, would begin to influence research in this case. There are a number of issues with this. Firstly, the attitudes towards race in the US are very different from that in the UK27. The US has an extremely long history involving African American rights, particularly the movements away from slavery and the race riots of the 1960s28. These are not comparable to any historical movement within the UK, and any development of punitive law based on these incidents may be far removed from the public attitudes and the sociological environment from which they developed. There are also significant differences in the religion status in the US and the UK. Spalek suggested that religion is often left out of criminological discussions, and this may be correct. However, the liberal criminological tradition in the US does not account for the way in which race is presented in society. For example, the US has a strong Christian faith and a high number of churchgoers. The Christian faith permeates racial groups, meaning that there can be said to be a social link between the criminological victim and perpetrator. Here in the UK, the racial issues are moving towards preoccupation with South Asians29, who often have very strong links with a certain religious tradition. This religious tradition can in some ways be associated with the crime levels, which means that it perhaps needs to be targeted by the liberal criminologists in much the same way as race is in the US. Crime Politics One of the best ways of judging how a criminological theory has affected the perception and treatment of crime and criminals is to assess the interaction between crime and politics. Crime is obviously a hot issue for politicians, particularly as there is an arguably growing concern about the levels of crime and public safety30. Politicians themselves do not acknowledge the links between race and crime, although sometimes explore the links between economic strata and crime levels31. The politics of crime is currently aimed at reducing the number of people in jail and increasing public safety32. This is not exactly a liberal viewpoint, but the effects of criminological liberalism can be found when examined more closely. For example, liberalism calls for a close examination and places heavy importance on ‘checking and constraining its operations’33. Current criminological research in the UK tends to work towards this viewpoint in the aim of helping crime politics to develop, and to become more beneficial to the state as well as for the purpose of informing criminology as a discipline. Liberal criminology also calls for the ‘application of reason (and evidence) to the prevention and control of crime’34. Evidently, the purpose of criminological research is to look at the evidence and use reason to uncover details about crime, and this information can then be used in the prevention and control of crime. Evidently, it is this information that partially informs crime politics, and therefore we see another way in which US liberal criminological tradition has informed UK crime research and laws. Arguably, this point and the previous one about examining crime politics as a theory do not sit well together, and this is where the links between crime politics and liberal criminology fall apart. In many cases, the liberal criminological thought within research has not been adopted by the law simply because it does not fit in with current crime politics35. Critically, it seems that liberal criminological thought has had an effect on the theory and research in criminology but less of an effect on crime politics and implementation of crime laws. Victimology Victimology is the study of victimization and the way in which victims are viewed by the punitive system and the relationships between victim and offender36. It also studies the victimization rate, which is aimed at giving true statistics for the incidence of crime rather than relying on reported rates37. This is interesting because it coincides with one of the central tenets of liberal criminology; to provide true information about crime from which to draw criminological inferences. The development of victimology as a scientific discipline is one of the more obvious ways in which liberal criminology casts its long shadow because they both have similar aims and objectives. In the more specific context of racial criminology, victimology is interesting. Wolhuter et al suggest that the theories of victimology can be applied to those who are victims of the punitive system38. Parts of victimology focus on the links between the victim, the perpetrator and social institutions and the media, which is interesting because there are suggestions that the higher rate of crime from some ethnic minorities is linked to these institutions39. Victimology also examines the links between the victims and punitive system. Liberal criminology can be found in many approaches here, because it could be suggested that some victims ‘win’ the punitive system based upon their socioeconomic status, race, or both40. There do appear to be some patterns coming from racial victimology41, and liberal criminology may here play a part in finding a true definition of the victim as part of an approach to the scientific method. Development of a Punitive Crime Policy It has been suggested that racial issues have been influential in the development of a punitive crime policy42. This in itself is a departure from the liberal criminological tradition, partly because many liberal scholars seek partly to see punishment and prison as last resorts43. The development of a punitive crime policy again comes down to the role that politics has on the perception of crime, something that criminologists attempt to distance themselves from but so often fail. There are those that believe that crime policy itself actually has no bearing on the level of crime, and is no real attempt to combat crime levels, but is actually ‘deeply symbolic’44. Crime can be said to be a symbol for other social anxieties, rather than a reflection of the individual themselves. This viewpoint is interesting because it suggests that there may be no ‘true’ definition of crime as the liberal criminologists look for it, but perhaps a continual state of flux dependent on the very socioeconomic factors that these scholars try to reject. Weaver presents an interesting theory named frontlash, in which ‘the process by which the losers in a conflict become the architects of a new program’45. This theory relies on their having been a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’ of a political situation, and acknowledges that the ‘loser’ does not simply go away after the conflict by may perhaps become marginalized. Within the US, at least, Weaver suggests that frontlash has been influential in the development of punitive laws, particularly with respect to the race riots in the 1960s. Here, problems that came from racial social problems became associated with criminal behaviour, something which has stuck with criminology and the general public since. It is interesting to consider this viewpoint, as it seems to align well with the liberal criminological tradition. Firstly, this is evidence that liberal criminology is still in full force within the United States, suggesting that it is still available to cast shadows over current work in the UK. Secondly, it seems to be evidence that the development of a punitive crime policy may have some links with the representation of race in the US, and these effects can be felt in any similar system. Conclusions The US liberal criminological tradition has been an important one in the development of many facets of UK criminology. Liberal criminology has a number of focuses, many of which centre around a theory that crime statistics (and the resulting criminological theories) come from a severe and sincere socioeconomic background which means that the true definition of criminality is somehow lost. This search for purity in criminology can be found within many areas of UK research in the area, particularly when considering the increasing use of the word ‘harm’ in place of ‘crime’, which has less socioeconomic connotations. It is evident from the work above that this notion of purity in criminology and a dedication to the scientific method can be found amongst the criminological research in the UK and further afield despite these scholars not necessarily having any affinity to liberalism. It is also interesting to consider the impact that this criminological liberalism has had upon the politics of crime. In many cases, it seems that crime politics does not align with current criminological research and therefore there may be some departure from liberal criminology within actual punitive policy, despite some evidence for this occurring in the US. This seems particularly apt when considering that liberal criminological thought calls for investigation into the political system and full scepticism of the state in many cases. Current research on race and crime particularly feels the effects of US liberal criminology, perhaps alongside other historical developments that make the discussion of race difficult. For example, there are a number of examples of UK research on race that seem to be trying to move away from the statistical data that suggests ethnic minorities are associated with crime. Although the reasons for this stated within each piece of literature are varied, it seems that they must all be linked in some way with this tradition because they have the same aims. All research makes the acknowledgment that there are ethnic minorities which seem to be associated with crime in different ways, with black people being incarcerated more and for longer and Asians being more likely to be victim of crime. However, it seems necessary to remove the definition of race from criminology, particularly when incorporating aspects of victimology and incident reporting because they are not relevant. It seems to stem from a deeper sociological cause incorporating economic issues, rather than being a racial issue per se. This feeling is felt throughout the literature examined above, clear evidence that the US liberal tradition is casting a long shadow over research and theory within the UK. References Allen, R.C., 1996. Socioeconomic Conditions and Property Crime. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 55, 293–308. Bennett, T., Holloway, K., 2004. Gang membership, drugs and crime in the UK. British Journal of Criminology 44, 305–323. Bhui, H.S., 2008. 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McMahon, W., Roberts, R., 2011. Truth and lies about “race”and “crime”. Criminal Justice Matters 83, 20–21. Sampson, R.J., Lauritsen, J.L., 1997. Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and criminal justice in the United States. Crime & Just. 21, 311. Schlesinger, P., Tumber, H., Murdock, G., 1991. The media politics of crime and criminal justice. British Journal of Sociology 397–420. Stenson, K., 2001. The new politics of crime control. Crime, risk and justice: the politics of crime in liberal democracies. Devon UK: Willan Publishing 15–28. Truman, J.L., 2011. Criminal Victimization. New York: DIANE Publishing. Vertovec, S., 1997. Three meanings of“ diaspora,” exemplified among South Asian religions. Diaspora 6, 277–300. Waites, M., 2005. The age of consent: young people, sexuality, and citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan. Walsh, A., 2004. Race And Crime: A Biosocial Analysis. Nova Publishers. Weaver, V.M., 2007. Frontlash: Race and the development of punitive crime policy. Studies in American political development 21, 230–265. Read More