A Critical Approach to the Famous Criminological Classic - Crime, Shame, And Reintegration By John Braithwaite - Essay Example

A Critical Approach to the Famous Criminological Classic - Crime, Shame, And Reintegration By John Braithwaite

In this age of growing crime rate, it appears increasingly important to take measures to put a check to it. The theorists of criminology are also sorting out different plans and procedure to tackle the situation. John Braithwaite has taken a similar agenda. Contemporary criminology is unimaginable without involvement of sociology or social psychology. Revealing the global use as well as nationally distinct variations in the practice of sociological theory and criminology and their relationships with the feeling of shame and reintegration, this volume of John Braithwaite namely Crime, Shame and Reintegration, first published in the year 1989, is a masterpiece because of its in depth analysis and insight. He has tried to formulate how shame can be used to as a protective measure to control the spiraling crime rate. For example, if a child watches his parents committing crimes without feeling any shame, by intuitive imitation he will learn the trick of the trade and become an offender afterwards (Sharma, 1998, p. 10). The theory of the author about re-integrative shaming and its succeeding application are perceived and convincing.

As a criminologist and academic, Mr. Braithwaite is inclined to make use of "in-house" terms, which enriches the book further, and provides straight answers even for a first time reader of such issues. Although Braithwaite’s theories require rethinking and refinement, it has been able to greatly influence the criminology of the turn of the century. Braithwaite can be a very good starting point for a novice who is interested in the study of criminal psychology. This book is helpful not only for students and researchers but a close study of it can make a citizen more apprehensive regarding his social role. Braithwaite argues that several societies can have an unusual crime rates because they use shame in different ways. Shaming instead of controlling crime can ignite it further and therefore can be counterproductive. According to the author, “when shaming is done within a cultural context of respect for the offender, it can be extraordinarily powerful, efficient and just a form of social control” (Braithwaite, 1999, p. 230). The theory suggests that the key to crime control is cultural commitments to pursue re-integrative shaming against lawbreakers. “Societies with low crime rates are those that shame potently and judiciously” (Braithwaite, 1989, p. 1); persons who chose crime as an option are automatically shielded from any feeling of shame over their wrongdoing. Hence “…. shame can be applied injudiciously and counterproductively” (Braithwaite, 1989, p. 1). In contrast, stigmatizing shame can create criminal subculture, which is more favorable to crime producing activity. Research and policy implications of the theory are also explored in this book. The book has some clear ideas in the subject line like the author’s conceptual thinking about what a criminology means, the dominant theories behind criminal psychology- labeling, sub-cultural control, opportunity and learning theories. The familiar structures of the criminal process include re-integrative shaming, the process of shaming, the social circumstances favorable to re-integrative shaming, the association between re-integrative shaming and white-collar crimes are discussed in it. Above all, there is a critical approach of how far the theories given by him (author) is right. The review demands to know certain terms or to be more specific certain theories behind the criminology. The first is the labeling theory – the author discusses the theories with reference to Frank Tannenbaum’s Crime and the community. According to this theory, ‘the person becomes the thing he is described as being, the harder they work to reform the evil, the greater the evil grows under their hands’ (Braithwaite, 1999, p. 20). It works mischief as it brings the bad behaviour, which otherwise the person would have suppressed. “ A labeled person, far from being pushed into a deviant self-conception, may through confronting the low regards expressed by others, decides that he/she has a problem with drugs, for example” (Braithwaite: 1999, p. 20). The next is the subculture theory. It has a strong relationship with the labeling theory. Some of the instances of sub-culture formation arise in part from the fact that the society creates similar types of outcasts with a common fate who face the same problems. Braithwaite’s discussion on the subculture formation is indeed so informative that it can allow a reader a gather a comprehensive understanding of a criminal mind. “Control theories assume that all individuals are subjects” to many temptations to engage in criminal behavior (Braithwaite, 1999, p. 20). One of the attractive features of control theories is that they do not consider human beings as predestined creatures. From this book, the readers can explore that when an individual fails to achieve his or her objectives, the individual becomes exhausted and in this way, he becomes desperate and resort to violent means, which leads to criminality. In this regard, the concrete social bonds like the family cultures and the impact of school or rather the socialization in student life is repeatedly mentioned. Social learning is a process, which can help an individual rationalize, evaluate and judge what is right or wrong. Some key concepts like differential associations and identifications, positive and negative support and their impact on criminology are vividly explained in the book. The book shows how social learning theory explains that the criminal standards, ethics, thoughts, methods, and expressions pass on from one being to the other.

Another issue highlighted in this book is integrative shaming, a way in which an offender is punished and forced to feel shame for doing a misdeed in a manner that makes the individual feel degraded and devalued. But it does not label him as a criminal permanently. Criminals suffer from enormous desperation, and perform criminal acts and are consequently punished, which temporarily relieves them of their guilt feelings. According to Braithwaite, disintegrative shaming tries to control future misconduct. In addition, vulnerability of losing esteem for future misconduct do not seem to be associated to past history of shameful experience. Nor do they conform to the Braithwaite proposed relationships between past shaming experiences and present misconduct. This kind of loopholes suggests that more thinking is necessary and the theory of Braithwaite needs to be more refined.

A person’s socialization can determine and explain his future misconduct because there is an undeniable relation between nature and nurture. After having read the book the question comes to the reader’s mind whether an individual's genetic structure responsible for making him a criminal or is it the environment in which he is raised that determines the outcome? Braithwaite argues that family life teaches us that shaming and punishments are possible while maintaining the bonds of respect. Crime, Shame and Reintegration, presents a general idea about the process of shaming. The relationships between the criminals and their communities, and the emotions the offenders feel are identified as central to the explanation of criminality. According to the author, the process of shaming plays a more important part in the reduction of crime than the punishments imposed by courts. Shaming appeals to the individual’s moral values and thus maintains as well as develops conscience. Another term that appears after the publication of this criminological classic is the white-collar crime. From the book, readers come to know that, the new breed includes criminals who are apparently suave, soft-spoken, well dressed, and well educated in the formal sense and are socially respectable. They have propagated with the rise of modern industrial capitalism. It is very difficult to have an exact figure of white-collar crime in a society. Braithwaite thinks, “it is ultimately untestable because of the impossibility, given the extraordinary capacity of powerful offenders to conceal their offending” (Braithwaite, 1999, p.136).

The scope of criminology as an educational course is somewhat limited. Braithwaite lays out 13 “facts a theory of crime ought to fit” and maintains that his model fits them (Braithwaite, 1999, p.44). In the social context, a reading of the book would definitely make one equipped to understanding the criticality of the mind of a criminal. To the social reformers, this book will invariably have an impression and this will, of course, help them to bring the hard-core criminals into the realm of justice. One flaw of this book is the depth of the theoretical concepts that turns it to be illegible to the common readers. As the book has no stereotype storyline, readers who like to enjoy story out of every book will not be satisfied and the book will appear to them as monotonous to read. According to the author, “A general theory of crime is an ambitious undertaking. While the theory in this book purports to be general, it is at the same time partial” (Braithwaite, 1999, p. vii). Here the author himself opines that he has a bit partial approach not general which he wanted it to follow. Shame and guilt can have immense bearing on our idea of self and our behaviors towards others. This is the final implication of the book Braithwaite -Crime, Shame and Reintegration.

Braithwaite’s theory of integrative shaming has great influence on the present criminology, both at the level of theorizing the reason behind crime and at the level of using shame to curtail the crime rate. Pondering on the concept of shame forwarded by the author, Siegel illustrates it as a feeling “we get when we don’t meet the standards we have set for ourselves and or that significant others have set for us” (Siegel, 2008, p.244). The experience of shame can lead an offender to believe that they are defective and something is wrong with them. Siegel also made appoint that in a country like Japan the conviction of criminal is aimed at making the convicted inordinate amount of shame and as a result the country have considerably low rate of crime. There the court proceeding is held only when the process of reintegrating shame fails. “The cultural assumption of basic goodness and the belief in each individual’s capacity for eventual self-correction mean that ‘nurturant acceptance’ (‘amayakashi’) is the appropriate response to deviance once shame has been projected to and accepted by deviant” (Braithwaite, 1999, p. 65). This outstanding exemplary crime control device has been juxtaposed by the United States. There the crime rate is higher because they do not accept crime as shameful and consequently they are unable to internalize any abhorrence for criminal act. Instead they resort to crime out of the feeling of a victim of a justice system. Braithwaite has borrowed an instance from Bayley. He says that when a policeman accuses an American he is more likely to say ‘Why me?’, while a Japanese would apologize, ‘I’m sorry’(Braithwaite: 1999, p.65). When a conviction leads to social rejection and humiliation, the offender joins a subculture of like-minded people recognizing a common but imaginary bond among them. If the justice system seeks to make the shame permanent in public it may lead to telling effects on the human rights of the state, apart from criminalizing the convicted for ever. Siegel finds out that quite a number of “states have passed sex offender registry and notification laws that make public the names of those convicted of sex offences and warns neighbors of their presence in the community” (Siegel: 2008, p.244). The object of shame management is to make people acknowledge their mistakes and pine for the misdeed and work out for making things right. Similarly the improper management of shame can have a converse effect. Instead of feeling shame, sometimes the offender blames the victim of instigating their offensive action. There is no doubt that men are more prone to crime than men. Braithwaite has scrutinized the socialization process of both the sexes to find an answer for this imbalance. Just as one’s participation in scandal makes the individual sensitive to the fact that he or she himself may become object of gossip, ‘there is a reciprocal relationship between being an instrument and an object of reintegrative shaming” (Braithwaite: 1999, p.94). Women are more dotted to their family for this reason and they are less likely to cut off the familial tie in order “to have a period in their life cycle where they can make a break with their mission” (Braithwaite: 1999, p.94). Although women have fewer propensities towards crime, they are more often victim of domestic violence. Braithwaite has broken new grounds, if not in his proposal of shame management, at least in his suggestion that domestic violence on women can be controlled by mounting shame on the abusers.

According to Braithwaite, community is a better place than a legal court for the settlement of a conflict. The ultimate goal of justice is to reconcile the offender to his native community. “Ceremonies of restoration to signify the re-establishment of harmony among the conflicting parties are culturally pivotal; the best way for this reconciliation to occur is by mutual apology” (Braithwaite: 1999, p.64). The author is of the opinion that it is very important that the proceeding take place within the community in which the conflict originates, rather than transferring it to a mechanically designed institution, which has nothing to do with the offender’s native community or that of the victims. This reintegrative shaming and reconciling approach operates on a number of related principles. The offender ought to recognize that he has caused injury to a social or personal relation and accept his responsibility. It is only then that he can be considered a prolific member of the group or community. The legal system should assume a healing responsibility and not a vengeful wheel of justice. Instead of sympathizing with the victim and humiliating the offender, the system must address the conflict and focus on the eradicating methods. The success of such a system relies on the stake that a member has in the community. If he does not value himself as a responsible member of the social community, he is less likely to feel shame and restitute materially and symbolically through statement of apology or correction.

It is clear from the preceding discussion that a considerable amount of focus has given on the restorative principle. This pertains not only to the restoration of the offender but also of the victim – “Certainly one of the most significant developments in the treatment of young offenders in Britain over the past decade has been the move away from punitive forms of cautioning towards a new type of informal disposal known as ‘restorative cautioning” (Goold, 2003, p. 1). Inspired by the policies undertaken in Japan, the British legal system has moved more towards application of “the principles of restorative justice and the use of reintegrative shaming techniques” (Goold, 2003, p.13). The author for the effective use of shaming has taken certain presumptions. Crime is more than a mere violation of criminal law and government authority. “Crime involves disruption in a three dimensional relationship of victim, community, and offender” (Hagan: 2010, p.187). In the disruption, the most harmed parties are the victim and the community and therefore the target of justice is to repair and heal the community and the victim. They also elaborate that the victim, “the community, and the offender should all participate in determining the response to crime; government should surrender its monopoly over that process” (Hagan, 2010, p.187). Braithwaite feels that the re-building of the socially disrupted relationship between the offender and the victim can be more valuable by “facilitating reconciliation and restitution between the offender and victim” (Braithwaite, 1999, p.182). But Hagan takes a step ahead of Braithwaite has done. A disposition of a case and legal sanction should focus as much on the needs of the community and the victim as on the necessity to bring the offender back from the realm of crime. The primal aim of this kind of justice is to restore the social order existing among the parties disrupted by the crime. The offender should act to recompense the material and emotional losses of the victim should confront shame and through the shame regain dignity. For this purpose, all the three sides should participate in the restorative program and they should be provided with the scope of face-to-face dialogue.

No system or theory can be all-inclusive or all beneficial. Braithwaite’s rationalizing of the integrating shame is appealing and more rooted in reality. But it has certain drawbacks in the present society. Cullen, Wright and Blevins argue, “shame acknowledgement seems to prevent wrongdoing, while displacing shame into anger seems to promote wrongdoing” (Cullen, Wright and Blevins: 2008, p.397). They observe that it is not enough in some cases to make the offender believe that he is a good person and has committed a bad act. Instead the offender should be forced to recognize that he has a bad self or personality that needs to be repaired. Thus thee pride of the offender is brought under scanner and effective pride management is necessary for implementing shame management. “Shame is not something moderns are comfortable about. One reason for this is that it is understood crudely, and in criminal policy, used crudely” (Cullen, Wright and Blevins, 2008, p.398). ‘Shaming penalty’, which means an offender has to recognize his shame publicly and feel repentant, can lead to even worse crime. If a driver is required to fix a sign in front of the car mentioning that he was once convicted of driving in a drunken state, it ca not bring anything good, if not bad. Following the argument of Nussbaum the above writers mention, “it is an unconscionable threat to our liberty and an assault on our humanity to humiliate, to consciously set out to induce shame” (Cullen, Wright and Blevins, 2008, p.398). They also suggest, “the biggest implications of Crime, Shame, and Reintegration are macro-sociological” (Cullen, Wright and Blevins: 2008, p.398). The shame theory of Braithwaite implies that the society, which fails to make it clear that rape is an antisocial act, will face more cases of rape. Nussbaum’s analytical study was empirical in nature. The macro-sociological implication was examined in a more grounded context and the focus was shifted to shame-guilt analysis. The restorative proceeding on part of the offender was characterized with “feeling of having done wrong, concern that others have been hurt, feeling ashamed of oneself and one’s act, feeling anger at oneself, loss of honor among family and friends” (Cullen, Wright and Blevins, 2008, p.399). Therefore it is clear that the shame theory can better put into practice by taking into consideration the remorse that plays a vital role in the curtailing of crime and the restoration of normative social order.