Criminology and the dilemma of values

By Thomas Gilly

(Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference of the European society of Criminology

Amsterdam 25 – 28 August 2004 )

 

 

I

Prologue

 

The subject of my intervention is criminology and the dilemma of values”.

I have already discussed this subject in the first issue of our journal and we will continue to discuss this issue in the ERCES journal.

Instead of anticipating forthcoming discussion within the ERCES journal, I would like to discuss criminology’s embarrassment about values in a concrete manner, not in a substantial systematic way. This assumes that my discussion will provide a focal centre on three significant examples.

1)                Criminology’s embarrassment about values can be thought as of the inherent ethical problems in criminology’s and in deviance theory’s crime definition and paradigms.

2)                Criminology’s embarrassment is translated on the level of epistemology, as a deontological dilemma. This dilemma has something to do with criminology’s difficulty to provide for substantial discussion about the nature of a discourse that advocates the need for a moral renaissance in public opinion by deriving it from the decline in morals. This discourse is thought by Garland and Sparks as an inherent part in the reactionary tendencies of post-modern society. Thus the embarrassment about values explains criminologists’ difficulties to face the problem of our times

3)                It is translated as criminology’s embarrassment about terrorism and about the investigation of the relation between material and formal signifier of crime.

 

 

As all these points mentioned above are intertwined. I will neither discuss them successively. I will treat them as aspects that are inherent of the same problem and explore their interaction.

 

II

Introduction

 

Let me introduce my discussion with this acknowledgment:

Coleman (1990: 24) asserts that sociological theory proceeds in general without raising at some point the question of why and how norms come into existence. In the eyes of Coleman the most important consequence of this lack is that the most unsolved sociological problem - to explain behavior without raising at some point the question of why and how norm come into existence - is considered least important.

Given that modern social deviancy-theory, but also older streams in criminological thought and theory, (for example the Italian positivist school), attempt to explain deviance and crime by applying to these issues the sociological method, It is not difficult to imagine that Coleman’s observation would also be valid for criminology and modern deviance theory. For argument’s sake acknowledge that these sciences attempt to explain social facts or social behavior as figures which suppose the transgression of the legal norm.

 

1.             The Problem: Norms being taken as given. From the explanation of crime to the explanation of criminology’s  behavior

 Instead of investigating the problem of how norms come into existence with regards to the explanation of (criminal) behavior, I will focus on the problem that norms are taken as given. And I will discuss this problem as an issue that is relevant to social science’s behavior, namely the behavior of criminologists and deviance-theorists. This assumes that I will analyze this issue as an inherent problem in criminology’s epistemology 

To resume my purpose is to show that criminology’s and deviance theorists are embarrassed about values because they think certain norms as given. Let me briefly develop this issue:

If it is right to assume that criminologists are embarrassed about values because they take certain norms as given, then it is also legitimate to assume that these norms somewhat prevent them from considering values as figures that are relevant  for criminology.  

 

2.   Which norms are taken as given?

Among the norms that are taken as given in criminology and deviance theory we can distinguish between two major norms:

a) The norm that provides for the precept that sciences, and social sciences in particular, have to be absolutely free from normative or axiological adulteration of any kind: values and norms, excepted those that are defining the scientific process, have no place in sciences. This norm goes back to the precept that facts (what is) must be distinguished from norms (what ought to be). According to Hume and Kant it is impossible to derive what is from what ought to be and it is also impossible to test the verity or falsity of axiological proposals (Gilly 2004).

This epistemological norm is currently thought as the guarantee for scientific and objective empirical knowledge. It is accepted because the scientific program as it is defined by the inherent norms in empirical positivism and critical rationalism are also accepted. And they are accepted because they derive from an epistemology that guarantees sciences against the invasion of norms and values – because they are scientifically legitimate. The transgression of the basic norm constitutes a serious offence against the dogma of the normative and axiological neutrality; it is sanctioned with the label of ‘pre- or non- scientific investigation’, and this label is currently associated with a polemical sense of theory and/or social philosophy.

b) Among the norms that are taken as given, there is one that should receive more consideration than any other. It is the legal norm that defines crime. In contrast to the former that commands that norms and values have to be banished from social sciences, the legal definition of crime, as far as it is an inherent part in the system of the positivist law, provides, in an indirect way, for the principle to take, without any exception, itself as given: it prohibits all citizens, without exception and regardless from socio-professional status, from referring to any kind of definition that would not be given by the norms of the positive law. Thus the norm that requires for the need to take the legal definition of crime as given derives directly from the positivist nature of the legal system - in other words: it derives from the fundamental norm which, by providing for the positivist nature of law, puts that legal norms are valid by virtue of the legally established institution which have the power to create them (Kelsen 1960)

In addition to this specific norm which derives from the positive nature of the legal system, we should mention another normative origin of the precept to take the legal definition of crime as given.  Indeed, much if not all contemporary criminologists and deviance-theorists agree with the opinion that, to investigate crime and deviance, one must refer to the legal definition of crime, regardless of the question how these sciences would have undertaken the construction of their subject.

Thus in  the norm which constraint criminologists and deviance -theorist to take the legal definition of crime as given can be considered from an epistemological or methodological necessity, as a derivation from the epistemological norm I discussed first.

This explains contemporary mainstream criminology’s but also traditional deviance theory’s hostility[1] towards a material definition or notion of crime  The advocacy for primacy of the formal legal definition of crime upon a material notion  is based on the following core-arguments: a)Attempts made by the pioneers of criminology (e.g. Ferrri and Garolalo), but also in radical critical criminology to construct the criminological fact with reference to a material criterion failed, b) a material notion of crime dissolves crime into a fluid and vague broad range invaded by normative and axiological considerations; c) the scientific explanation of crime as it is defined in empirical positivism and critical rationalism requires for a certain stability and certainty of crime as subject of explanation; only the legal definition provides for such a scientific security( Kaiser 1993:566-70). Mainstream criminology advocates the absolute primacy of the legal definition of crime and the “domestic security” of scientific explanation upon the dynamics and “instability” that are inherent within the “criminological definition” (Kaiser 1993: 566-70). According to this opinion, the material criterion is the gate through which enters ideology and invades empirical sciences.[2]

By respecting each of both norms criminologists and social deviance theorists resolved the problem of values. Insofar they are not embarrassed about it.

And yet the discussion of each norm shows that this solution is not really an appropriate way to resolve the problem. The respect of these norms engenders embarrassment about values. I will now come to the principal part of my discussion.

 

III

Criminology’s Embarrassment about Values

 

I have discussed elsewhere the inherent ethical problems of the epistemological program that goes back to the distinction between facts and norms (2004). For my purpose it is not necessary to pick up the whole debate. Here are only some highlights of the criminological relevance of this ethical case.

 

1.      Criminology’s openness to values – a case for ethics

According to Nagel, Putnam and other authors, proposals that contain moral appreciation, judgment or evaluation can be right or wrong. This assumes that the epistemological requirement for the absolute distinction between facts and norms / values can no longer be thought in absolute terms. Axiological and empirical certainties can be thought of the same origin or even the same nature. Suppose furthermore that proposals such as “slavery is bad or morally deplorable”, “death – penalty is bad / good”, “murder is evil” etc, can be tested by means of the same process of verification / falsification that is applied to descriptive proposals (facts). As long as criminology and deviance theory is the tributary of an image of empirical sciences that refers to Hume’s and Kant’s precept criminologists are embarrassed about the investigation of such axiological facts. In turn, the possibility to think this epistemological precept as of a relative figure engenders a new challenge for criminology. It becomes possible indeed to provide for empirical investigation of the ethical or moral signifier of deviance and crime.

The major problem that is involved in traditional criminology’s openness to values is that criminologists and deviance theorists are likely to loose orientation. Should they provide a focal centre on crime as a social and legal construct or fact or should they rather focus on crime as a figure of morally deplorable / desirable behavior? In a context that is characteristic of post-modern crime talk (Garland & Sparks; 189 – 204; Gilly 2004) the problem cannot be put aside. But instead of interpreting criminology’s openness to values as criminology’s death threat we should rather see in this openness the chance for a new fresh beginning in criminological research and deviance theory. This is exactly what Garland and Sparks suggest.

This new openness is somewhat the criminological reminiscence to Thomas Kuhn’s concept of external history: it is also the epistemological condition for the successful realization of a scientific program that provides for empirical investigation of convergence and difference between the axiological and the legal signifier of crime and deviance. Cloning of human cells, euthanasia, abortion and even homosexuality are issues that came to the fore of the ethical debate. On this account the most important challenge that criminology and deviance theory must face is the question to which degree these sciences can participate in the ethical debate and whether and to which degree this new program enables these sciences to provide the process of law making, namely the process of criminalization with scientific legitimacy.

This problem is not only a scientific problem; in the final analysis it is a case for ethics.              

 

 

 

2        – The inherent ethical dilemma within the material and formal notion/ signifier of crime

As mentioned already mainstream criminology, but also traditional deviance theory is extremely hostile towards a material notion of crime.

 

2.1 Criminology and the formal legal criterion:

 What happens when the criminological notion of crime is defined with reference to the formal legal one? In other words what happen when criminologists construct crime with reference to the formal legal definition of crime? It is likely that criminology and penal law, but also penal policy become good bedfellows. When this reference is hyper-emphasized then criminology might be suspected of complicity. Criminologists might be indeed suspected to explain the legal qualification of an act as criminal (criminalization), not crime. “Complicity prevention” is at the heart of criminology’s original program. According to the pioneers of criminology, the “criminological fact”[3] is the opposite of the formal legal definition of crime (Garland 1986: 109 - 137; Piers 1979; 24 - 46).

The second important practical consequence is that criminology reproduces the inherent value-system of the positivist legal system. It is in the nature of this value-system to provide for the principle that the law is valid without any reference to values. The legal norm is valid and legitimate not by virtue of morals, but by virtue of the legally established institutions which have the power to create norms. This assumes that resistance against a totalitarian state or a non democratic legal system is criminal from a strict legal positivist viewpoint. It is clear that such a solution engenders consequences that may be questioned from an ethical viewpoint:

The Resistance against the Nazi and Vichy regimes was labeled and punished by the authorities of these criminal states as terrorism. The hyper-emphasis of the formal legal notion of crime, if being applied to this case, would constrain criminologists to study and investigate the “criminal resistance”, whereas it would prevent them from thinking and investigating the Nazi and Vichy regimes as of criminal ant totalitarian systems.

The consequence is a selective treatment of crime figures that is ethically inadmissible. In the final analysis, this ethical problem engenders the confusion between situations that have nothing to do one with each other, e.g. the resistance during the Nazi regime and the Vichy government, on the one side and Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.

It is easy to draw an analogy between this historical example and events that have come to the fore of the public debate of our times.

For instance consider the case of Iraq:  Hyper-emphasis of the formal legal notion of crime would lead criminologists to study the “criminal resistance against the totalitarian regime of Iraq and to neglect the investigation of this “criminal” totalitarian State.

The last example provides us also with a good illustration for the ethical and humanitarian case of international law: Those who hold the opinion that the US military intervention in Iraq was illegal are convinced about the absolute necessity to respect the rules of the international law; they think these rules as of absolute principles. Suppose that criminologists are among the people who hold that opinion. It is hardly likely that these criminologists will show concern about the humanitarian means and the democratic outcome of a military threat against a totalitarian State; it is very likely that they think this threat as of crime and the totalitarian State as of an innocent victim. In the final analysis they would take part in the criminalization of the US government, but also in the criminalization of the democratic outcome of the intervention.

Let me point at the ethically deplorable morals of this “case”: Criminologists would provide for the criminalization of the law of the majority. And yet, this democratic fundamental is the cause and the origin of their behavior!

 

2.2 Democracy and Human Rights: a case for ethics

This problem’s first solution consists in the following acknowledgment: to be successful criminology supposes open democratic societies (LaFree 2003: 1-5). This assumes that the study of crime is only possible in open democratic societies and that criminology has a natural predilection for the investigation of those acts and types of behavior that are defined and sanctioned as criminal offences by a democratic law-maker, i.e. the inherent legal system in a state with a democratic constitution.

The history of criminology teaches that criminology, in totalitarian states, is utopia. Insofar as the solution refers to empirical evidence, this is only one of the reasons that provide its advocacy with legitimacy.   If the values of democracy, pluralism and liberty are thought as of the parameter and main reference, it becomes possible to think and study the resistance against a totalitarian non democratic regime as a legitimate fight against the institutionalized criminal offence against these values. Therefore criminologists can provide a focal centre on totalitarian criminal states and regimes.

But even this solution involves considerable ethical problems. Let me explain this through two examples:

The first fundamental problem results from the question whether and to which degree the goal might justify the means that are used to reach this goal. In our example the goal is synonymous with the inherent values in democracy. The means to reach this goal (to realize these values) is the resistance against an oppressive totalitarian non democratic sate or government. Similar figures, e. g. emancipation in post-colonialism, national self determination etc can be thought as of the same scheme.  In general the means-goal (end) relation is defined with reference to the criterion of equilibrium. This assumes that the means that are used in order to reach the goals must be appropriate. In other words, they must be in conformity with the values or with the value system to which they refer. Otherwise it is impossible to think the means as legitimate means.

This is the reason for UN’s condemnation of terrorism as means to reach inherent values in modern democracy[4]. Given the circumstance that violence as means to realize emancipation, auto-democracy is in general associated with a legitimating discourse of Human Rights, we easily can understand what we experience in daily life: In public opinion, but also in political, legal and intellectual circles this very official and formal condemnation is underpinned by an informal “comprehension” of inadmissible means, if not by a sorts of implicit complicity.

“After all they fight for human rights” – this slogan that is familiar to all of us has long been the focus of mass media’s comments. This slogan is a case for ethics. I will later discuss this issue in depth. Let me only acknowledge that this slogan – however controversial it is – can be thought of the inherent ethical conflict in human rights. And it can explain, to a large degree, the circumstance that powerful and prominent NGO’s, e/G. Human Right Watch, Amnesty International and “Medecins sans frontiers” were so late in defining and condemning human bombs as of crimes against humanity[5].

Anyway this issue as well as all the other problems I discussed should not be missed in the explanation of criminology’s embarrassment with terrorism, and in particular the study of human bombs.

Suppose that the criterion of the democratic liberal state is applied to the resistance against an oppressive totalitarian regime. The legitimacy of resistance against oppression is then associated with the fight for the just cause (democracy). The problem which is raised is as follows: How the value of democracy is understood and defined. Is it defined with reference to material criteria or with reference to formal criteria?  Democracy is defined with reference to the law of the majority, this is a formal legal criterion and from the viewpoint of democracy it is the only one that is acceptable. Insofar my question is irrelevant. On the other hand we have all made the experience that democracy is an extendible notion.

This fluid semantic has something to do with the fact that democracy can be thought and effectively is often thought as of a process. The question which is associated with the dynamic nature of democracy is as follows: Is there a starting point in democracy? When? Is there somewhat a culmination in the dynamics of democracy? Obviously the answer to this question depends on a large degree on the nature of the criteria (formal / material) that serve as references, but it depends also on the evaluation of the degree of democratic development and the historical context of this evaluation. It is always possible to argue that such a question has lost its relevance with the creation of the modern liberal constitutional state. Thus our question is relevant only for history.

I do not want to discuss in detail this complicated issue. For my purpose it is sufficient to show in an example that this problem came effectively to the fore of the 19th century criminological debate about the famous “criminal type”[6]. This original criminological debate shows the inherent limits of the material criterion. It focused on the controversial issue of the nature of crime.

The Italian positivists were confronted with a serious problem:

Italy was in the stage of a civil war for the Republican Unity and in France there was Revolution. In Italy a well as in France the revolutionary action was criminalized. The problem that the Italian positivists had to resolve was the following one: How to interpret the revolutionary action – in accordance with the legal qualification, i. e as a figure of crime or by referring to a material criterion, i. e as an inherent step in the development of democracy being subjected to illegitimate criminalization? As they were all republicans they refused to interpret these actions as crime. They adopted the opposite opinion when they had to interpret the French revolutionary context. To draw an analogy with contemporary discourse we might say that the Italian positivists would have labeled the French revolutionaries as criminal terrorists, the Italians as fighter for the Republican Unity. 

Let me pick up a second example for the extensive nature of the notion of democracy.    

In public opinion and everyday life the discourse that criticizes democracy in the name of justice, liberty and emancipation has never lost prominence. We have also acknowledged that such critics are often associated with human rights. Even if human rights are an issue that is ranged under the general heading of the positivist law, it would be an error to ignore Human rights’ reference to natural law and justice. Indeed we are all likely to associate human rights to a super-legality that is somewhat the incarnation of the moral consciousness of the positivist law. Thus human rights is an issue that favors criticism and providers it with democratic legitimacy      

The notion of human rights implies that democracy is thought as of its inherent dualism. The same observation applies to law and justice. Human rights imply that democracy is a project in process rather than a definitive figure. It implies also that democracy is virtually, but always the focus of two conflicting forces that are inherent in democracy.  By this I mean that human rights refer to and actualize the inherent conflict - potential in democracy. That what is involved in human rights is the conflict between formal and material democracy, formal positivist and material justice.

 

2.3 The material criterion:

The primacy of the concept of material democracy and material justice upon formal democracy and justice may engender and really has engendered consequences that are inadmissible – ethically and from the viewpoint of democracy. It is in the nature of the material signifier to provide virtually all offences that threat the formal justice and democracy with legitimacy. Why? Because the material signifier implies that the rules of formal democracy are potentially oppressive rules.

This assumes that a definition of crime that would refer to material criteria, not to the formal, is for exactly the same reasons problematic. And yet the material notion of crime can be thought and, to a certain degree, was really thought as a means to resolve the inherent ethical problem within the formal legal concept of crime.

Thus the second solution of criminology’s embarrassment about values consists in the advocacy for the primacy of the material notion of crime upon the formal legal.

What happens when criminology refers to the material notion of crime and emphasizes the material criterion in an exaggerated manner? At a first glance the ethical problem I have discussed in the beginning is resolved. The material signifier of crime enables criminology to study and investigate resistance against an oppressive totalitarian State as the reaction of a victim of State crime; not as a figure of terrorism.  Moreover it becomes possible to apply a different treatment to different contexts and situations (resistance against the Nazi regime – Islamic fundamentalism).

But this “ethical” solution engenders ethical problems: Indeed this “ethical” solution implies that the legal definition of crime, the sanction system, the criminal instruction and finally the whole process of law-making and criminalization are potentially criminal. It is clear that in modern democracy such hypothesis can not be thought. And it is also obvious that criminologists who would adopt this vision would loose the subject (crime) that criminology is committed to study.

This explains why the material notion of crime is the favorite subject of critical criminologists and radical criminology, not of criminologists.

Given the prominence of terrorism’s self image, criminology’s and deviance theory’s embarrassment with terrorism is easily understandable. It is indeed in the nature of terrorism to provide for a romantic self-image that is constructed with reference to human fight and the fight for the just cause.

In the following part of my discussion I will briefly explain that and to which degree the embarrassment about terrorism is somewhat a derivation from the inherent ethical problems of the material and the formal legal notion of crime.  

 

2.4 Criminology’s and deviance theory’s embarrassment with terrorism

 G. Lafree and L Dugan 2002; 2004) are among the few scholars who have taken this issue to the fore of the criminological debate. These scholars are somewhat disappointed about criminology’s little contribution to the study of terrorism. “Although the research literature on terrorism has expanded dramatically since the 1970s, with few exceptions little of this work has been done by criminologists or has appeared in criminology journals. This is surprising because breaking of laws and reactions to the breaking of law has long been central concerns of criminology and terrorism is closely related to both of these concerns” (2004).

My first comment is that this situation is surprising as long as we do not question the nature of the law that is broken. Which law – the positivist law or a quasi natural one?

As we have seen before, criminologists privilege a crime notion that is defined with reference to the formal legal definition of crime. Critical criminology and deviance theory adopt a notion that is constructed with reference to material criteria. On this account it is hardly likely that is is a a great surprise for radical criminologists and critical deviance theorists to hear that little of the works about terrorism had been done by criminologists. Obviously criminologists express surprise about this situation. The reason is that they can not accept or simply refuse to accept that crime is superficially constructed with reference to a material, namely an ethical signifier. And yet this ethical dimension is – however controversial – inherent of terrorism’s ideological construction. 

 What is about people in everyday life crime talk?)  The legal definition of crime is not always prominent in public opinion. And there are many examples that prove that people are likely to privilege the material criterion. Terrorists know this very well.

Given the nature of terrorism’s self-image and its prominence we understand why terrorism was and still is a favorite subject of critical criminology, not of criminology.

The third comment I address is that critical and radical criminology’s attempts to investigate terrorism must fail as the investigation and analysis is necessarily tautological. It is tautological because it reproduces, to a large degree, terrorism’s criminal crime ethics (ideology) without questioning it at some point. The complex relation between the fact and its ideological representation, instead of being investigated, is thought as of a unity wherein both aspects are confused. And this figure is thought in radical and critical criminology and deviance theory as given. It is somewhat the premises. 

The material criterion implies, I said before, that the legal definition of crime, the sanction system, the criminal instruction and finally the whole process of law-making and criminalization are potentially oppressive, if not criminal. The circumstance that terrorism, in critical criminology, is genuinely thought as an inherent aspect of the oppressive State or government derives directly from this scheme. According to this scheme, terrorism is always State or Governmental terrorism. This assumes that radical criminology and critical deviance theory are likely to hyper-emphasize the moral and /romantic transfiguration of non governmental or not State sponsored terrorism. The figure engenders the complete isolation of terrorism from the terrorist network.

Critical Criminology and social deviance theory provide for an approach that is traditionally associated with constructivism. Schematically crime, in deviance theory and critical criminology, is thought as a legal construction. Constructivism implies that an act that is criminalized today must not be criminalized tomorrow and that an act that is criminalized in a special cultural and historical context is not necessarily an offence sanctioned by law in another context. It assumes the heterogeneous nature of the legal qualification. And yet this heterogeneity is contradicted in international law by the various conventions about terrorism and UN’s universal condemnation of terrorism. Insofar the constructivist approach cannot be applied; it can only be applied to the extra-legal construction of terrorism. Given the inherent normative dilemma of this construction (Gurr 1979:24; Wilkenson 1977:52; Cruise O Brian1982:346; Ferracuti 1982; 129-140; Szabo 1982: 231seq), critical criminology and social deviance theory is likely to supplant the ideology that is inherent of the critics of the terrorist and oppressive Sate and Government by that which is inherent in the selective and finally normative “solution” of the normative dilemma.

As for criminology, the inherent ethical dilemma in the crime definition constraints criminologists to provide for an equal treatment of situations that is different by virtue of their nature, not by means of the positivist legal system. The lack in investigating State sponsored or governmental terror and, in turn, the hyper-emphasis of non governmental terrorism engenders here again the impossibility to study terrorism’s network.

Organized crime is an issue that somewhat escapes from traditional criminological interpretation schemes and paradigms. Neither the concept of the criminal personality nor the reduction of crime to the legal definition can be successfully applied to the interaction between legality and illegality that is so typical for organized crime (Scheinost 2004; Brodeur 1998:188-223). As far as terrorism must be thought of as organized crime criminology meets serious difficulties to study terrorism. Obviously this observation applies also to radical criminology and critical deviance theory. 

These are only some of the practical problems that derive from the  ethical problem that is inherent of the modalities of crime definition. To this inherent ethical problem of crime definitions and criminological paradigms is added another that refers to the transition from modern to post-modern societies[7].

 

3.   Crime Definition and the Transition from Modernity to Postmodernity.

 

The shifting from legal to moral, social, political crime talk is analyzed in the literature as one of the most important consequences of this transition. This shifting is interpreted as a process that supplants the traditional academic crime talk and institutional settings by that of non academic talk and institutions ( Garland & Sparks 2000: 189 – 204)

 

3.1 Postmodernity, the material signifier and the “ethical”solution”

On this account and given the increasing importance of human rights, postmodern society may be thought as the privileged field for the application of the material crime notion to social problems as deviance and crime, all the more so as the transition analyzed as the process that supplants virtually the formal legal reference of crime talk by that of morals and ethics. The result is the dissolution of a strict and rigid concept of the legality of crime and punishment  (“nullum crimen sine lege” / “nulla poena sine lege”) into a fluid and vague “legality” that refer to political, social and moral considerations rather than to law. This shifting is virtually the death threat to the inherent value in the positivist legal system, it is the death threat to the principle that the legal norm is valid and legitimate independently from morals and other axiological considerations.

The danger that is inherent of such shifting is that moral crime talk becomes increasingly popular and applies to serious crime. The “ethical solution” that provides for the distinction between resistance against the Nazi or Stalin regime and Islamic fundamentalism and which offers a different treatment is in fact counter-productive; indeed it produces the inverse of what it is expected to realize. The confusion between both is the result. However deplorable it is, the romantic transfiguration of Islamic Fundamentalism and other serious figures of terrorism is very prominent in public opinion and its association with the fight for the just cause (resistance against “US oppressive imperialism”) is unfortunately somewhat a figure of “intellectual correctness” (Cottee 2004) Obviously the shift from moral crime talk to criminal crime ethics is quickly done. Given criminology’s traditional hostility towards a notion of crime that refers to material criteria, we easily understand that such a romantic interpretation scheme has strongly influenced critical social sciences’ and radical criminology’s analysis of the 9/11 attacks.

 

3. 2 Human rights and cultural essentialism

Human rights are an inherent figure of the modern legal and political culture. At a first glance, the circumstance that human rights have become increasingly important in post or late-modern society is somewhat paradoxical. According to the literature that provides for critical discussion on post-modernity, post-modern societies are societies that are in war against the inherent values of political and .legal modern culture (Young 2003! 593-613; Antonio 2001: 40 – 87: Anthias 1995: 279-301; Bauman 1995). This war against modern culture is often associated with the renewal of anachronistic forms of social, political and economical order.

To resolve the paradox a first solution consists in the following acknowledgment:  human rights can be thought as the means to defend modern values in a context that is hostile towards them. Thus human rights can be thought being an efficacious arm in the fight against societies that are in war against universals (emancipation, liberty, equality) (Antonio 200: 40 – 87), that supplant the concept of multiculturality be that of multiculturalism (Anthias 1995: 298) and biological essentialism by that of cultural essentialism (Bauman 1995: 188). Such  a solution – however desirable and necessary it may be – is somewhat contradicted by the circumstance that human rights are an issue that is used, to a certain degree, in order to provide these anachronisms with legitimacy and ideological support. Those who define human rights as a means to develop emancipation, liberty and equality all over the world would not hesitate to define such a legitimization as a misuse of human rights. And yet such a qualification –however legitimate it may be - does not affect the circumstance that the requirement for cultural difference and ethical identity is more than eve before associated with a human rights’ discourse. Even if it is possible to interpret such a misuse as of an inherent risk in the semantics of human rights, it is clear that such a think-figure can never engender the negation of human rights. And yet it cannot be denied that inter-ethnical conflicts and violence and other anachronistic figures of social life are increasingly associated by those who are involved in these conflicts with human rights.

The question whether and to which degree the construction of cultural essentialism and other anachronistic forms of social life by means of values that are inherent of the modern culture is ethically inadmissible and irrelevant to social sciences is one of the most important questions of our times. But it is also one of the greatest challenges that must be faced by social sciences and deviance-theory rather than by criminology.

3.3 Crime / deviance and disembedded market economy

In post-modern societies anomie has become a normal situation.[8] In the critics of post-modern societies, this observation is often associated with institutional anomie.

Here is not the place to discuss the relevance or irrelevance of anomie theory for post or late-modern societies. For our discussion, it is sufficient to acknowledge that during the last decade, after a reverse, a revival of anomie theory (Bernburg 2002: 729-742) is observable. For this author one of the most important reasons that explain this renewal is the striking resemblance between the actual state of society and the social and economical context of 19th century England, as it was described by Polanyi, and with the situation of the French society during the late 19th and beginning 20th century as it was analyzed by Durkheim. The core – paradigm that is common to both approaches is the lack of economy’s embedment in a situation of social change. Institutional anomie theory, as Messmer  and Rosenfeld have developed it, goes back to Durkheim and Polanyi. In many regards this theoretical stream is at the opposite of the criminological tradition of anomie-theory that goers back to Merton[9].

Suppose that there is really a striking resemblance between the actual state of society and the 19th century French and English context. The fundamental theoretical problem that criminologists and deviance theorists must face and have to resolve is which of the two anomie theory traditions – the tradition that goes back to Durkheim and culminates in institutional anomie theory or the criminological tradition of anomie theory that goes back to Merton – is the most appropriated one for the analysis of the actual state of society.

 The first one is referring to the ill - conceived goals that are thought as inherent aspects in the contradictions of modern individual society. Thus this theoretical stream is an inherent part of a tradition which is committed to investigating in a critical way that what in Merton’s theory and in the criminological version of anomie-theory is thought as given: the goals of modern culture (Orrù 1987:119). Given the actual state of our societies (anomie as normal situation, non economical institutions invaded by the neo-liberal market economy, institutional anomie), the question whether and to which degree the goals of modern culture can still be thought as given is worth to be discussed. From the answer to this question derives the solution of another important problem: Whether and to which degree the actual state of society requires for a process that supplants the traditional criminological approach to social problems by that that is inherent in cultural critics. Can we continue to think and study crime and deviance without questioning the values to which refer the goals of modern culture?  What is post-modernity if not the culmination of a radical questioning of modern values?   

 

 

 

3. 4 The deontological dilemma

The question whether and to which degree social sciences can be free from values was a very controversial issue in the past. The value controversy came to the fore of the debate during the 1960’s and 70’s. This controversy was the result of critical theory’s attempt to deconstruct the image of normatively neutral social sciences as it was advocated by empirical positivists and critical rationalists. The program was picked up by critical and neo-Marxist deviance theory as means to de-construct mainstream criminology. The controversy can be thought as the epistemological and theoretical reflect of the inherent antagonism in modern political culture. Universals (emancipation, liberty, equality etc) are the most important of the values that are inherent in the modern narrative.

With the transition from modernity to post-modernity universals fall into decline. Given the cultural reference of the 1960 and 70 value controversy, this issue can no longer be thought as relevant.

And yet the analysis of the literature that picks up the theme of post-modernity provides for its critics and bring it to the fore of the debate in deviance theory and continues to refer to critical modern theory and applies this inherent interpretation –scheme in the modern narrative to phenomena that are thought in the same literature as characteristic for post-modern societies.

For argument’s sake acknowledge the striking resemblance between the analysis of the 1970’s terrorism and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

Given the transition from modernity to post-modernity this issue merits examination.

Closely connected to this problem is the more important question whether and to which degree the modern concept of empirical sciences as it applies to criminology and deviance theory can be thought as relevant to post-modern society. In other words the problem that should be raised is whether and to which degree the basic norms to which refer this modern concept has not become irrelevant.

Given criminology’s disappointment about the paradox - increasing criminological knowledge at the one hand, decreasing influence of criminology on security and penal policy issue on the other, this question is worthy of exploration, all the more so as the transition from modernity to post-modernity is currently associated with the shifting of crime talk from traditional academic institutions and interpretation schemes to other. This paradoxical situation assumes that the is somewhat a discrepancy between a criminology as a science that continues to refer to modern scientific culture and a penal policy and security policy that would no longer require for scientific legitimization.

For Garland and Sparks this disappointment reflects “modernist” criminology intellectual state; being the prisoner of its settings and interpretation schemes, modernist criminology is condemned to fail in reflecting the consequences of the transition on the level of crime talk.  

According to these authors the populist penal and security politics and policies are the result of a renewal of “reactionary morals’. There is an ethical problem in this attitude requiring resolution: the criminological deontology would require an equal consideration of all settings of crime talk, its concrete application and its relevance to practice is ethically problematic. Can this talk about crime, security and public protection be relevant to rational decision making in security and end politics and policies? Given the rational referent (rationalist conception of legitimacy) and the morals of Garland’s & Spark’s interpretation, the answer to these questions would be negative rather than positive. On the other hand, we can not ignore that in modern democracy one of the major tasks of the State is to provide its citizens with security, and according to some Constitutions the right for security is, as it is the case for example in France, defined as a fundamental human right. And the fundamental question which follows then is whether and if yes, to which degree the advocacy for an epistemological feedback is worth being considered from a deontological viewpoint, but also from the practical ethical one. The feedback engenders the return of the traditonal criminological, academic setting of crime talk - the privileged area for scientific crime talk – and the actuality and relevance of  ‘modernist criminology’ (Garland & Sparks 2000: 292-64)[i][13] to post-modern penal policy – at least the relevance of Sir Radzinowicz’s complaint and disappointment.

What happens when the liberty rationale is hyper-emphasized? Concerns for security tend then to become a case for populism – an artificial construction which is inherent part in that which, according to the morals advocated by Garland & Sparks, is the political reaction of the 1980s and 1990s that provided public opinion with a ‘moralist’ superficial construction of crime and insecurity. What happens furthermore? A look on the most recent political events in France provides us with the answer: the awareness for populist penal policy prevention, being associated with hyper-emphasized penal permissiveness turns into fascist populism: the National Front Part of Le Pen was the winner of the first round of the last French President election; thus the French electors sanctioned the tolerance discourse of the liberal elites of the left – the insecurity-taboo being stopped here.

The fundamental ethical problem that is engendered in security issues, in particular security and safety policy associated with the feeling of insecurity, is associated with the question of whether and to which degree a rationalist conception of legitimacy and legitimization can be considered from an absolute principle. The degree to which this concept applies to issues that show a strong emotional coloration is practically possible and politically and ethically desirable. What are the normative references and parameters which determine the final choice?

 

 



[1] Contra this argument deviance theorists might argue that the inherent constructivism of deviance theory’s core-paradigm prevents them from taking the legal norm as given. For argument’s sake they may acknowledge that the legal norm is thought in deviance theory as of a constitutive element of crime. This assumes that crime can not be defined with reference to a nature or an essence of criminal behavior, but with reference to the legal definition. And yet this definition varies from one country and cultural context to another and from one period to another. The construction of crime by means of the legal definition or qualification supposes therefore that the legal norm is not taken as given. Nonetheless this observation is valid only to a certain degree; it is valid within the limits of theory on deviance, in other word within the limits of the discourse about deviance (object – discourse or object –language). It cannot be applied to the level of meta-discourse. Indeed the legal norm is taken as given as it is thought in deviance theory as an epistemological key:

It is the categorical reference (or parameter) which allows deviance theorists to think and analyze variation and changing in the legal qualification of crime. This assumes that these variations can only be thought as of variations within the legal definition. This is the first reason why the legal norm is taken as given. The second reason is that the inherent sociological approach of deviance-theory requires for the primacy of a formal legal notion of crime upon a notion that refers to material criteria, e-g; common consciousness or supra-individual values. “An act is criminal because it hurts common consciousness“– this crime definition which is based on the material criterion is common to the Italian Positivist School (Ferri and Garofalo) and to Durkheim. But for Durkheim and the whole sociological tradition that goes back to this sociologist the sociological method requires fort he shifting of the focal centre from common consciousness to the legal definition of crime, and in particular the legal definition of the sanction. According to Durkheim not all behavior that hurts common consciousness id criminalized. The law maker might criminalize an act that does not hurt common consciousness and in turn the law maker does not necessarily criminalize an act that hurts common consciousness; We can see here clearly to which high degree the sociological method, but also traditional deviance theory is the tributary of legal positivism 

[2] G. Kaiser reflects:

“In criminology, a relative notion of crime that takes under account the various historical, cultural and national contexts and that depends on the diversity of social and legal norms, was thought, during a long period, as insufficient and not appropriate.”….” This relative nature explains the requirement for a timeless notion of crime. Since the beginning of the 19th century….criminologists were seeking for a materiel or criminological notion of crime. Namely Garofalo who tried to combine he tradition of natural law with social –Darwinism, was engaged in the constitution of a timeless basic crime catalogue. His efforts engendered the concept of the “natural crime”. But the theory he developed in his book “Criminologia” (1889) was devoid of empirical evidence and logical legitimization (1993: 566-67).

These critical observations apply also to the attempts made by other scientists in order to classify acts and behavior sanctioned by law into the two opposite groups of offences against natural law and offences against positive law. Such a re-appraisal of the classic natural legal doctrine that distinguishes between the “delicta per se” and the “delicta mere prohibita” did not survey the state of Garofalo’s theory.”( Kaiser 1993: 567)

And yet, Kaiser acknowledges, criminologists have never given up the idea of a material or criminological notion of crime, and the enterprise to construct a criminological concept, either by referring to natural legal tradition or to anthropological influences, has not lost much of its former prominence.

Among the contemporary approaches, the labeling approach and other critical approaches are, in the opinion of Kaiser, the most significant examples that prove the actuality of this theory.

His critics apply to the whole of the various attempts to construct a “sure” material concept and led him come to his final conclusion that

The legal definition of crime is the only one which can make us sure about the extent and the contents of the criminal law that is valid”.

Therefore “all criminology constitutes its notion of crime by referring to the criminal law” (Kaiser 1993:569)     

 

 

[3] According to Ferri, who was a scholar of Lombroso, the criminological fact was synonymous with the scientific concept of crime. This concept is the result of the positivist definition and understanding of criminology, i. e: the application of the experimental method to the study of offences and penalties (Ferri 1905: 25).

In his famous book “Sociology of Crime”, Ferri explained the innovative approach of the school as follows: 

“The new school constitutes a complete innovation of the scientific method, and there is no place for any sorts of compromise: the offence is either thought as of an abstract legal figure  (a syllogism) or thought and studied as a natural phenomenon. Since” this innovative method is accepted, all the rest follows, automatically and definitively, as a result of the observation of facts ( Ferri 1905;25)[3]   

Garofalo, in “Criminology”(1905) developed the same idea. He highlighted the principle that the scientific or criminological logic is the opposite of the legal normative logic. For this scholar these logics excluded each other.

“In my precious legal studies, he said, I began to question myself: How is it possible to imagine that the law-maker would have been able to know and to define exactly which group and which degree of the criminal penalties and sanctions should apply to each crime or offence? How the law-maker could make sure that, for example, 11 years of imprisonment is the just penalty for qualified robbery, that two years are sufficient for simple robbery or for fraud? How did he proceed to evaluate the value of this or that extenuating circumstances or to….rise up or decrease for a period of six months, one year, five or even ten years the duration of imprisonment.

I have had the ingenuity to believe that the author of the criminal legal code had proceeded in an experimental manner – this was the reason of my admiration and my curiosity. But later I understood that the law-maker did not care about for establishing these rules and testing their efficiency” ( 1905: V)[3]      

 

[4] See the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings“ , adopted by UNO’s General Assembly in By adopting in December 1997  A list of all UNO conventions about terrorism can be called from the UNO web-site: .

 

[5] By adopting in December 1997 the “International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings“  UNO’s General Assembly has condemned definitively, in the clearest and strongest manner, all acts of terrorism. Thus we must felicitate the United Nations for the successful solution to this problem. And yet NGOs as for example Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International or “Medecins sans frontiers”  were late in condemning human bombs. And for many years the requirement for defining human bombs as of crime against humanity passed unnoticed; these NGO’s adopted the idea to think and condemn human bombs as crime against humanity only in 2003. And even today this solution – however desirable and fortunate – is not accepted by all actors and always. Given this lateness and the controversial nature of this issue, it might be argued that the inherent ethical problem within human rights continues to trouble the minds. 

 

[6] The Italian positivists in general, and Garofalo in particular, established the universal criteria of crime by referring to its nature. By referring to the concept of nature, they developed a typology of criminals and crime. The controversy about this issue, also known as controversy about the ”criminal type”[6], where the French school of the “milieu social” was opposed to the Italian positivists, is a significant illustration of how ambiguous this concept was and is. Apart from this example, the ambiguous nature of this construction was raised

Tarde referred also to the criteria of the nature of crime, although he agreed with the opinion that crime is not the same in all cultures and countries of the world. Tarde put that the universal nature of crime did not result from its contingency, but from the evidence that murder and theft constitute the authentic expression of the universal nature of crime. In other words, for Tarde it was evident, that murder and theft, whenever and wherever people commit them, were considered as crime, regardless of cultural differences and historical contexts. This seems to be in contradiction with the fact that Tarde introduced a kind of social or cultural determinism of crime (with the effect that the nature of crime was virtually thought as a relative or contingent and not absolute figure). The answer to the question which is why this cultural relativism did not preclude the concept of the universal nature of crime, is that this relativism was itself thought of as a figure of evolutionary theory and that its concrete application might be identified as a sign of “cultural imperialism”.

In order to define the category of the interdiction, Tarde referred to the relation or interaction which exists between the offender and the social group. In fact, for Tarde the relative nature of crime results from the social and cultural determinism of the interdiction; therefore it cannot be seen independently from the various social groups to whom an individual might belong. That this sociological relativism did not preclude he concept of the universal nature of crime needs therefore an explanation. For instance, in the eyes of Trade, it lays in the nature of civilization to expand the universality (of values and therefore of crime) over the limits of the social context or group they originally belong to. This explanation might be considered as an illustration of a theory which is closed to evolutionary theory and cultural imperialism. That which was thought in theory and conceived as the principal difference with the Italian school had no practical relevance: Laccasagne

 

[7] According to Jock Young ‘the transition from modernity to late-modernity is clearly recognized and paralleled by a whole gamut of social commentations from all parts of the political spectrum ‘(2003: 593). The author continues ( 2003, p. 593 note 1): ″ See for example , on the left, David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity ( 1989) and Eric Hobsbam’s  The Age of extremes ‚1994), from the right James O. Wilson’s  Thinking about crime ‚ 1985) and On  Character (1994), while )while from the communitarian  third way  Ammitai Etzioni’s  The New Golden Rule ( 1997) and Francis Fukkuyama’s Great Disruption ‚ 1999).″ .  On the critical reception and analysis of postmodern thought and theory incriminology and deviance theory see for example Young 2000:603-11; Garland and Sparks: 2000: 189 – 204; Brodeur 1993: 73 – 120.

 

[8] Stratton (1996: 80) observed that in modernity anomie was an extraordinary experience. In postmodernity this is no longer the case. With the loss of a moral consensus, anomie is becoming normalized”

 

[9] For the criminological anomie stream, which goes back to Merton and which attempts to explain  individual variations in deviance, ( Agnew 1992, 1997; Menard 1995, 1997), normlessness refers to regulating goal achievement. In this case, the normlessness of goal - achievement is thought as the result of a culture that hyper-emphasizes the achievement of particular ends, while de-emphasizing the importance of the ways in which these goals are pursued. This imbalance between means and goals, if combined with unequal opportunity-structures, can explain individual variations in deviance. For Durkheim, but also for Messmer and Rosenfeld anomie is the normlessness of goals. Anomie develops as a result of either the lack of authority or the unattainable nature of prescribed goals. According to Bernburg in this second case of anomie the ends are not undefined, but limitless; the disembodied economy is the source of this type of anomie. According to Messmer and Rosenfeld the disembedded market economy is the source and the cause of institutional anomie. By this they understand that the social institutions which traditionally provide normative limits on particular ends, can no longer achieve this goal.

 



 

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