Criminology

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Before the subject of social class is addressed the reader is guided through sensitively analysed data about many themes of previous studies. Similarities and differences are pointed out in a style that avoids repetition – this is still relevant, that is different. Bethan Loftus crafts a vivid portrait of the occupational culture that significantly adds to the lit- erature. Expressions of solidarity among officers, of cynicism about groups within the population policed; of a police moral mission; of crime fighting as central to police work; of territorial control; and many other subjects are documented to seal the thesis that many generic features of the occupational culture remain within the social context of late moder- nity. The argument is convincing and important, developing rather than repeating previous work. When it comes to the consideration of change, the analysis suggests an interruption of, rather than a radical or significant rupture to, some features of the occupational culture. Aspects of work about domestic violence and of ethnic relations are examples of where policy and law have made an impact. Here, the argument is again subtle and convincing. Returning to the marginalization of young men within late modern conditions, Loftus describes and analyses policing tactics that reproduce their exclusion and, importantly, express symbolic domination. The ways in which officers identify and characterize young men are detailed; their related actions are documented skilfully. Important aspects of social class within late modernity are analysed through the lens of policing.

Bethan Loftus has written a fine book that makes an excellent contribution to an estab- lished, international field of study. Her thesis must have been of A++ quality! It seems somewhat churlish to make criticisms of the work but I wondered if her discussion of mar- ginalized youth underemphasized that many of them dealt with by officers could have been offenders rather than ‘youth’? Checking this matter would have provided deeper insights. The book is within the sociological tradition but I would have liked a more critical approach to the sociological assumptions underpinning previous studies and how her work has added to and, more importantly, questions them. The notion that the occupational culture has been interrupted rather than fundamentally changed could have been discussed further. What, for example, seem to be the generic and more transitory features of the occupational cul- ture? Why do some of its features change and others abide? What counts as cultural change? Indeed, more widely, the analysis is sufficiently sophisticated to comment on a wider field of organizational studies dealing with cultural change. If other scholars took up these sub- jects it would signal the importance not the inadequacy of Bethan Loftus’s contribution to our understanding of the police and of organizations. Loftus has revived a sociological understanding of the police and other subjects that is lacking in far too much contemporary criminology. This is an excellent book that deserves close attention. 2012

Susanne Karstedt, Ian Loader and Heather Strang (eds) Emotions, Crime and Justice, Onãti International Series in Law and Society, Hart Publishing: Oxford, 2011; 394 pp.: 9781849461610, £50 (hbk)

Reviewed by: Lode Walgrave, University of Leuven, Belgium

Emotions steer our lives. If they did not, we would all drive the same useful cars, eat healthy food instead of enjoying pleasant dinners with friends, live in the same practical

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houses, and take some rest instead of enjoying holidays. Emotions make the human world diverse, surprising, coloured, sometimes pleasant, hedonistic, sometimes sad, painful or even cruel. It is the essential difference between the real world and a science fiction world populated by robots. Some political regimes have tried in recent history to create emotionless – in their view practical – systems. But these regimes were not attrac- tive and they failed completely. Imagining a life without emotions is impossible. Therefore, the title of the book edited by Susanne Karstedt, Ian Loader and Heather Strang, Emotions, Crime and Justice (2011), may sound like as self-evident a title as ‘The wheels of a car’, or ‘Food in a restaurant’.

Yet, the book is a must read. It presents a series of state of the art chapters on various subjects that are critical in criminology. The chapters are deeply rooted in the patrimony of criminological literature; many of them offer an excellent balance of theoretical reflec- tion and empirical work; the empirical methodology ranges from insightful qualitative observation, even introspective reflection, to clever quantitative measuring and sophisti- cated statistics; all chapters witness a critical concern for the instrumental, social, politi- cal and moral implications. In short, the book is an example of what I have called ‘criminology as I see it ideally’ (Walgrave, 2008b).

A Wide Spectrum of Essential Topics for Criminology

In the introductory problem statement, ‘Handle with care: Emotions, crime and justice’, Susanne Karstedt notes the conflicting pressures to be reconciled when ‘re-emotionaliz- ing’ justice. On the one hand, the criminal act and subsequent efforts to do justice are imbued with emotion. On the other hand, giving way to emotions when responding to crime may risk an ‘outburst of the populace’ (p. 2).

In the first part of the book, ‘Emotions in transgression and crime’, Randall Collins analyses the process that may lead groups to ‘forward panic and violent atrocities’. Willem De Haan shows that acts of violence may seem ‘senseless’ in the eye of the bystander, but have a deep meaning for the perpetrator. Eliza Ahmed and John Braithwaite conclude an empirical test that the integrated shame management/pride management model presents a ‘formidable explanatory power’ for bullying in the workplace. Interviews with probationers lead Adam Calverley and Stephen Farrall to write that ‘pro- viding people with a sense of hope may be the key to unlocking desistance for many men and women whose past lives have been characterised by an involvement in crime’ (p. 98). Wesley Skogan relates developments in fear of crime to actual crime trends. Inspired by Ranulf’s vision, Anna King and Shadd Maruna examine the relation between puni- tiveness, and resentment and envy.

In the second part, ‘Emotional experiences of justice’, Larry Sherman and Heather Strang challenge the assumption that vengefulness is natural by showing that vengeful- ness can transform into sympathy. Contrary to the predominance of reintegrative sham- ing theory, Meredith Rossner advances Collins’ interaction ritual theory as the main explanatory construct to understand the emotional dynamics of a restorative justice con- ference. Nathan Harris digs deep into the psychological literature to fine-tune the shame concept and to locate it more accurately in our ‘psychological machinery’ and in the social context. For Kristina Murphy the procedural justice theory (Tyler, 1990) needs to

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be complemented by the study of emotions that link the experience of (lack of) proce- dural justice to the acceptance (or not) of decisions by authorities.

The third part of the book is called ‘“Emotion work” in criminal justice institutions’. Bas van Stokkom deals with building emotional intelligence into police work on the streets. Elaine Crawley gives an interesting account of research on the emotional dimension of elderly men being imprisoned and of a project on prison officers working with these men.

Part 4 is on ‘Violence, reconciliation and conflict resolution: Dealing with collective emotions’. Thomas Scheff writes on ‘the emotional/relational components of blind infat- uation and hatred, how they are generated, and how they might be overcome’ (p. 290). John Brewer argues that the shame–guilt–reintegration paradigm in peacemaking after communal violence must be completed by a number of policy issues, so as to restore hope in the afflicted populations.

Three chapters are grouped in the final part of the book, ‘Democracy and penal senti- ments’. As a response to the estrangement and sentimentalism which feed current preju- dice and hostility in the public response to crime, Richard Sparks re-stages Hume’s notion of sympathy as the ground for developing ‘moral conversation’. For John Pratt, recent history in New Zealand illustrates that penal populism may go up and down under structural, social and cultural developments. Ian Loader wonders how to keep the inevi- table emotional dimension in crime and justice matters (and in political life in general) ‘safe for democracy’ (p. 348). He opts for a ‘redirection model’ to recognize the ‘inescap- able centrality of the emotions to the question of how societies control crime and punish offenders’ and bring them in ‘from the shadows’ and open them ‘up to the scrutiny of public, communicative reason’ (p. 356).

Not Enough Emotion in Criminology?

The contributions deal with populism and public punitiveness, fear of crime, shame, proce- dural justice, interaction rituals in restorative conferences and in peacemaking initiatives, sympathy, democracy, revenge, emotional intelligence in police work, emotional stress in prison, infatuation and hate crimes, resentment, hope and desistance, masculinity and more. To this rather heterogeneous series of criminological subjects, emotion is the binding element. The volume is the result of a conference in the Onãti Institute for the Sociology of Law in 2008. It was meant to present emotions as an important dimension for criminologi- cal research. To be honest, I was somewhat surprised by the implicit consensus throughout the book, that ‘the study of emotions has remained largely absent from criminology’ (Calverley and Farrall, p. 81).

It is not evident that ‘In the field of criminology there has, unfortunately, been little interest in the affective and expressive aspects of (violent) crime’ (De Haan, p. 39). During many decades, criminology, especially European criminology, was dominated by a clinical approach. In a lapidary manner, one could say that this trend focused completely on lack of emotions (of sympathy), too heavy emotions (of aggression/frustration) or distorted emotions (by obsession) that caused crime and the ‘passage à l’acte’, the going into the act.

Let us take Etienne De Greeff, for example, one of the most authoritarian criminolo- gists of his time (Casselman, 2010). From 1951 until 1955 he was Chair of the Scientific

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Commission of the International Society of Criminology. He chaired the School of Criminological Sciences in Leuven from 1946 until 1961. De Greeff’s vision made a synthesis of psychoanalytical and phenomenological insights. He described, for exam- ple, how ‘le sentiment d’injustice subie’ (the feeling of injustice suffered) may ground a lack of sensitiveness and persistent hostility towards others. His most original work focused on the process that brought men from being a normal ordinary person to the catastrophe of the ‘passage à l’acte grave’, especially murder. In one of his main publica- tions, Amour et crimes d’amour (De Greeff, 1942), he follows the process in three phases, characterized by the increasing obsession that continuing to live is impossible while the other person is still alive. In the onset, the future murderer imagines an accident that kills his future victim. In the second phase, he gradually realizes that he will have to play an active role in the death of his beloved/hated person. The process ends in a crisis in which the murderer does not see any other possibility than to kill his victim. The description is an insightful account of the emotional storm that dominates the life of men who commit very violent acts.

Many other criminological theories feature emotions like frustration, aggression, desire, pride, shame, anger, (lack of) sympathy, hate, obsession, satisfaction, attach- ment or other as key to understanding why people engage in criminality. Actually, it is hard to find a criminological theory on the genesis of crime without at least an implicit reference to emotions. Maybe the only exception is the rational choice perspective (Cornish and Clarke, 1986). And still: the supposed rational choice only applies to the process of how to commit the offence, not to the process that brings people to consider committing an offence.

Not Enough Psychology

Emotion is first of all a psychological concept. It may explain why many colleagues whose approach to criminology departs from sociology are not so well aware of the psy- chological tradition of emotions in crime. Some even call it ‘micro-sociology’ (Rossner, p. 169ff.). It would be better simply to call it psychology. That has nothing to do with some disciplinary imperialism, but with the belief that recognizing the psychological roots gives access to the patrimony of psychological theory and research and helps to distinguish emotions from feelings, sentiments, excitements, arousal, intuition and other contiguous concepts. That would enrich criminological work with a truly interdiscipli- nary touch.

It would also help to avoid the definition problem. While emotion is the central con- cept of the book, it has not been defined. Only a few chapters vaguely set out what they mean by emotion. But, clearly, ‘how we are feeling “inside”’ (Crawley, p. 258) is not accurate enough. This lack of clarity is a problem. Scheff writes: ‘The use of ordinary words, rather than well-defined concepts, is a pressing problem in all of social science’ (p. 278). The diversity of the literature on emotions makes clear that there is no such thing as ‘the’ definition of emotions. But that makes it all the more pressing to present one’s own view of it. More accurate definitions help to construct more precise theory and to do more accurate research.

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Not Enough Emotion in the Study of Justice

Karstedt’s introductory chapter deals with the other component in criminology: emotion in the response to crime. She points to what looks like a dilemma. While a criminal event is mostly imbued with emotion, criminal justice tries to strip it from its emotional dimen- sions. Retributivist and instrumentalist theories ground a rational, ‘reasonable’ approach. The emotional context of the offence is not considered, but rather the abstract ‘norm transgression’. Repairing the suffering and losses of the victim is not the focus of the intervention, but rather finding a proportionate punishment. Consequently, many justice procedures conclude to the satisfaction of the professionals concerned who feel that ‘jus- tice was done’, while the direct stakeholders are left with a feeling of injustice. There are good reasons to ‘re-emotionalize’ criminal justice, but how can this be done without giv- ing way to destructive populism?

In Elias’ (2000) view of the civilization process, increasing mutual dependency has created growing sensitivity for fellow humans. Gradually, instinctive pleasures that may hurt fellow humans are repressed through emotions like shame, embarrassment and guilt. The infliction of painful punishment upon offenders causes unease among the public. That is why the infliction of punishment is gradually hidden away, moderated and pro- fessionalized (Garland, 1990). Because of emotions, we try to rationalize. The emotions caused by increasing sensitivity to others are the driving force behind the civilization of punishment. Pratt (1998) presents the impact of emotions in criminal justice completely differently. In his view, penal bureaucracies have lost their grip on penal policy to the benefits of public emotions penetrating penal practice. It seems to have caused a de- civilization of criminal punishment in recent decades. These are the type of emotional drivers that Karstedt and others (including myself) are afraid of.

The emotions staged by Elias (2000) on the one hand, and by Pratt (1998) on the other, are of different kinds. Pratt (1998) points to what I would call ‘repudiating’ emo- tions, focusing on the criminal act. The offence presents a threat to our safety and com- fort. The impulse to preserve life and comfort provokes emotions like indignation and anger, and a desire to keep the threat under control through punishment and incapacita- tion.1 In current times of global insecurity and the concomitant obsession with risk such emotions are more prominent. The emotions evoked by Elias (2000), on the contrary, do not focus on the criminal act, but on the actor. These emotions are more ‘seeking rap- prochement’, approaching the actor of the offence as a ‘fellow traveller’ (Ward and Maruna, 2007), one of us who has failed, due to circumstances.

This distinction in both types of emotions is very old. In a brilliant essay of 1993, Nussbaum compares the ‘hard’ retributive approach of Plato (‘dikè’ in Greek) to the empathetic approach proposed by Aristotle (‘epieikeia’ in Greek) (Nussbaum, 1993). Oedipus was a victim of dikè. He did not know that the man he killed was his father or that the woman that he married was his mother. Nonetheless, he provoked the gods’ rage and was punished for patricide and incest. ‘The God before whom you come … knows neither equity nor grace, but only cares for strict and simple justice’ (Sophocles, cited in Nussbaum, 1993: 219). ‘The world of epieikeia or equity’, on the contrary, is a world ‘of imperfect human efforts and of complex obstacles to doing well, a world in which humans sometimes deliberately do wrong, but sometimes also get tripped up by

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ignorance, passion, poverty, bad education, or circumstantial constraints of various sort’ (Nussbaum, 1993: 219). In such a world, equity and mercy promote a more socially constructive response to crime. Nussbaum (1993: 248) concludes that good judging ‘does not ignore the evidence, it does not fail to say that injustice is injustice, evil evil, but it is capable of “sugnômê”, and therefore of clementia’.

The value of sympathy for human relations and for the quality of social life was advanced by David Hume almost three centuries ago. It is reiterated strongly by Richard Sparks in this volume. It is ‘the basic capacity that makes a peaceful social life possible’ (Sparks, p. 323).

The two types of emotions are also illustrated in the conferences described by Lawrence Sherman and Heather Strang in this volume: the emotional desire for revenge because of the act turns into the emotion of sympathy for the person.

An Ethical Choice

Emotions in crime and in dealing with crime are unavoidable. Elias’ vision of civilization focused on repressing these emotions by rationalization and professionalization. But it did not extinguish them. Garland insists on the Freudian concept that repressed desires do not disappear completely but continue to express themselves in hidden forms, includ- ing fantasy and irrational behaviour. Fascination with and fear of crime is one of these irrational expressions: ‘In a society where instinctual aggressions are strictly controlled and individuals are often self-punishing, the legal punishment of offenders offers a chan- nel for the open expression of aggressions and sanctions a measure of pleasure in the suffering of others’ (Garland, 1990: 240). In Pratt’s view, it has even led to a current loss of civilization.

It seems to indicate that, rather than repressing emotions in criminal justice, the option should be to canalize them into a constructive way. It is an ethical choice. Do we give way to the ‘repudiating’ emotions and undergo the punitive trend of nowadays? Or do we opt for an active responsibility and promote emotions ‘seeking rapprochement’? Many contributions to this volume demonstrate, at least implicitly, an awareness of the ethical responsibilities of their criminological work. Ian Loader is explicit and examines how criminologists can play a role in curbing the current populist punitive tendencies. He describes three possible strategies and advances the ‘redirection model’ for influencing the public and criminal policies. But a redirection model needs a direction.

What objectives might a redirection model pursue? Reinforcing human sympathy, also in dealing with crime, is a possibility. Respect for the one who offended and sympa- thy is what drove the civilization process. But the sympathy was one-sided. It focused on the human conditions and needs of the offender, but did not address the suffering and the needs of the victim.

That is what restorative justice tries to do. Despite different views of restorative jus- tice, it is clear that restorative justice considers the offence as a problem for human rela- tions and for the quality of social life, instead of focusing on the crime as a norm transgression, instead of opposing the offender to the interests and needs of societal order, and instead of pursuing only the rehabilitation of the offender. In earlier publica- tions, I have explained why I see ‘common self-interest’ as the core of the

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126 Criminology & Criminal Justice 13(1)

social and ethical roots of restorative justice. Sympathy is the ground on which common self-interest can develop (Walgrave, 2008a: 79–97). It is not coincidental that many con- tributions to this volume deal with restorative justice and restorative processes. It is where the unavoidable emotions in crime and justice can take a positive turn for the stakeholders, for human relations and for social life in general.

A final observation. Besides promoting the ‘rapprochement’ emotions, grounded in a sense of common self-interest, one must also cope with the ‘repudiating’ emotions of anger and indignation, based on fear. This fear is to be taken seriously. Probably rightly, many scholars relate our risk obsessed cultural climate to capitalist globalization (Bauman, 2000; Walgrave, 2008a). But it may partly also be a consequence of the civili- zation process itself. The pursuit of more humane responses to crime may sometimes have been confused with norm erosion (Boutellier, 2004). Norm erosion creates a loss of mutual trust, and thus a greater sensibility to risk and threats.

The strategy based on the redirection model, promoted by Loader, must therefore also acknowledge the importance of norm and norm enforcement. But it must make clear that the norm itself must be subjected to continuous public ‘moral conversation’ (Sparks, this volume) and that norm enforcement can be achieved better through other, non-punitive methods.

The ethical choice in responding to crime is to promote further civilization in criminal justice. There is no reason to believe that the civilization process of criminal punishment, as described originally by Elias, would have reached its finish. After monopolizing vio- lence in the hands of the State, after making the use of violence more rational and more moderate, the next step is to push aside the use of violence itself in the response to offending. That means giving priority to solutions based on bottom–up deliberation, rather than top–down imposed reactions, while keeping clear norm enforcement.

The seeds of this option are present in the book. Several chapters deal with (aspects of) restorative justice, interaction rituals, procedural justice, sympathy and dialogue. They are imbued by the awareness of the social-ethical implications of our work. Some very rightly point to hope as the crucial drive in our social and human behaviour.

Yet, if I were still active as a teaching professor, I would urge my students to read this book. They can learn about the broad field of criminology, they can see how methodologi- cal seriousness is the indispensible ground for good scientific work if it is completed by wise and good reflection, and they can experience how important criminology is as a social science for the better understanding of social life and for reflecting on how to improve it.

Note

1. Many retributivist theorists argue that the anger and indignation are based on a vigorous rejection of the wrong that has been committed (Duff, 2001). It is however, difficult to see the opposition wrong/good as abstract moral categories. Rejection of a wrong is less inspired by an intrinsic attachment to the good than by a pragmatic aversion to what we and our com- munities see as a threat to our personal and social lives and comfort (Walgrave, 2008a).

References

Bauman Z (2000) Social uses of law and order. In: Garland D and Sparks R (eds) Criminology and Social Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 23–46.

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Boutellier H (2004) Beschavingspretenties van straf en herstel [The civilization pretentions of punishment and reparation]. In: Van Stokkom B (ed.) Straf en herstel: Ethische reflecties over sanctiedoeleinden. Den Haag: Boom Juridische Uitgevers, pp. 25–42.

Casselman J (2010) Etienne De Greeff (1898–1961) and his contribution to current criminology. International Annals of Criminology 48(1/2): 109–130.

Cornish D and Clarke R (eds) (1986) The Reasonable Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending. New York: Springer Verlag.

De Greeff E (1942) Amour et crimes d’amour. Bruxelles: J Vandenplas. Republished (1973) in Bruxelles: C Dessart.

Duff A (2001) Punishment, Communication and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elias N (2000) The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Revised

edn by Dunning E, Goudsbloem J and Mennel S. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Garland D (1990) Punishment and Modern Society. Oxford: Clarendon. Nussbaum M (1993) Equity and mercy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 22(2). Reprinted in Murphy

J (ed.) (1995) Punishment and Rehabilitation. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, pp. 212–248. Pratt J (1998) Towards the ‘decivilization’ of punishment? Social and Legal Studies 7(4): 487–515. Tyler R (1990) Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Walgrave L (2008a) Restorative Justice, Self-Interest and Responsible Citizenship. Cullompton:

Willan Publishing. Walgrave L (2008b) Criminology as I see it ideally. Address delivered by Em. Prof. Lode

Walgrave on the occasion of his receipt of the 2008 European Criminology Award, Edinburgh, 5 September. Newsletter of the European Society of Criminology 7(3).

Ward T and Maruna S (2007) Rehabilitation: Beyond the Risk Paradigm. London and New York: Routledge.

Toby Seddon, Lisa Williams and Robert Ralphs, Tough Choices: Risk, Security and the Criminalization of Drug Policy. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2012; 240 pp.: 9780199697236, £60.00 (hbk)

Reviewed by: Simon Flacks, University of Reading, UK

A political preoccupation with the links between drugs and offending behaviour has, in recent years, been matched by increasing academic scrutiny of the drugs–crime nexus. This latest work is an exploration of the logic underpinning the ‘Tough Choices’ agenda, launched by New Labour in 2005, and embraced by the current coalition government. Through various criminal justice interventions including testing on arrest and required treatment/assessment, the aim of this policy rubric has been to cut crime by addressing the use of heroin and crack cocaine.

In many ways, the book can be read as a sequel to Toby Seddon’s (2010) A History of Drugs where he charts the development of the ‘drug problem’ according to changes in the ways social issues are imagined and addressed. One of this book’s key, and indeed persuasive, arguments is that the much maligned and supposed shift towards the govern- ance of drug policy through the criminal justice system (the ‘criminal justice turn’), rather than by way of public health strategies, has been overstated. The authors argue that, contrary to the claims of other researchers in the drugs and crime field, public health measures such as ‘harm reduction’ programming and criminal justice responses to the

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