CRIMINOLOGY

CRIMINOLOGY T H E O RY

AND

CONTEXT

Third edition

John Tierney Senior Lecturer in Criminology, School of Applied Sciences, Durham University

First published 1996 by Pearson Education Limited

Second edition published 2006 by Longman Third edition published 2010 Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© John Tierney 1996, 2006, 2010 The right of John Tierney to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. ISBN 13: 978-0-273-72277-9 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tierney, John. Criminology : theory and context / John Tierney. — 3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-273-72277-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4058-2361-5 1. Criminology—History. 2. Criminology—Great Britain—History. 3. Crime— Sociological aspects. 4. Crime—Sociological aspects—Great Britain. I. Title. HV6021.T54 2009 364—dc22 2009030701 Typeset in 11.25/13 StonePrint by 75

For Ben, Dominic and Christian

Tierney has made an enormous contribution by offering a thorough, comprehensive, and accurate review and record of the field . . . the book should be read by all students of criminology looking for an account of the essential themes, key debates and contemporary twists in the theoretical explanation of crime. Professor Colin Sumner

Criminology is marked by almost all those qualities one might hope to find in an introduction to a burgeoning and often incoherent discipline. It is a near encyclopedic summary of major American and British work that succeeds in being well structured, accessible, clearly written, judicious and historically informed. That is quite a feat. Professor Paul Rock, LSE

This new edition of John Tierney’s 1996 textbook repeats and vindicates the approach of the successful first edition. It looks outwards: at the market demands of students for a reliable guide not to disembodied ‘problems’ or ‘issues’, but to criminology as ‘thinking about crime’. Tierney’s guidebook correctly does this by looking inwards – a textbook that carefully explains the texts of criminological theory as a living history. Stan Cohen Emeritus Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics

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CONTENTS

Preface to the first edition .................................................................................. xii Preface to the second edition ............................................................................ xiii Preface to the third edition ............................................................................... xiv Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 The organisation of the book ................................................................................. 2 Selecting material .................................................................................................. 3

Part I

Preliminaries and Early History 1

Criminology, crime and deviance: some preliminaries ....................... 7 Key themes ................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ................................................................................................ 7 Good old common sense .............................................................................. 7 Setting the scene .......................................................................................... 9 Criminology ............................................................................................... 11 Crime ......................................................................................................... 13 Deviance .................................................................................................... 21 Other terms and concepts .......................................................................... 25 Selected further reading ............................................................................. 25

2

Measuring crime and criminality ..................................................... 27 Key themes ................................................................................................. 27 Introduction .............................................................................................. 27 Official statistics ......................................................................................... 27 The ‘dark figure’ of crime ............................................................................ 29 Public reporting ......................................................................................... 29 Changes in the law ...................................................................................... 30 The role of the police .................................................................................. 31 Ways of seeing ............................................................................................ 33 The implications for criminal statistics ....................................................... 34 Victim surveys ............................................................................................ 35 The usefulness of criminal statistics ........................................................... 43 Local crime surveys and left realism ........................................................... 46 Recent crime trends .................................................................................... 47 Selected further reading ............................................................................. 49 vii

CONTENTS

3

Criminology and criminologists up to World War Two .................... 51 Key themes ................................................................................................. 51 Introduction ............................................................................................... 51 Tree of sin, tree of knowledge ...................................................................... 51 The criminological tree of knowledge: separating the tree from the wood ... 53 Classicism and positivism .......................................................................... 54 Positivist criminology ................................................................................ 56 The turn of the century to the 1930s ........................................................... 59 Eugenics ..................................................................................................... 62 Selected further reading ............................................................................. 64

Part II World War Two to the Mid-1960s

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4

The discipline of criminology and its context – 1 ............................. 69 Key themes ................................................................................................. 69 Introduction .............................................................................................. 69 The emergence of criminology ................................................................... 70 Sociological criminology ............................................................................ 77 Sociological criminology in Britain from the 1950s to the mid-1960s .......... 78 Sociological criminology in the United States ............................................. 82 Selected further reading ............................................................................. 86

5

Social disorganisation and anomie .................................................. 87 Key themes ................................................................................................. 87 Introduction .............................................................................................. 87 The sociology and criminology of Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) ................ 87 The Chicago School .................................................................................... 95 Mertonian strain theory ........................................................................... 102 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 107

6

Strain, subcultures and delinquency .............................................. 109 Key themes ............................................................................................... 109 Introduction ............................................................................................. 109 A. K. Cohen: developments in strain theory .............................................. 109 R. Cloward and L. Ohlin: opportunity knocks ........................................... 112 Selected further reading ............................................................................ 115

7

Criminological theory in Britain ..................................................... 116 Key themes ............................................................................................... 116 Introduction ............................................................................................. 116 American influences ................................................................................. 116 Sociological criminology in Britain ........................................................... 119 Developing a British perspective .............................................................. 122

CONTENTS

Cultural diversity theory .......................................................................... 122 Schools and the ‘problem of adjustment’ .................................................. 126 Subcultural theory: taking stock ............................................................... 128 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 131

Part III The Mid-1960s to the Early 1970s 8

The discipline of criminology and its context – 2 ............................ 135 Key themes ............................................................................................... 135 Introduction ............................................................................................. 135 The development of sociological criminology in Britain ........................... 135 The break with orthodoxy: the new deviancy ............................................ 136 The New Left ............................................................................................ 142 Radicals and the new deviancy: the impact on British criminology ........... 144 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 146

9

New deviancy theory: the interactionist approach to deviance ....... 147 Key themes ............................................................................................... 147 Introduction ............................................................................................. 147 Labelling theory ....................................................................................... 148 Learning to become ‘deviant’ .................................................................... 149 Primary and secondary deviation ............................................................. 151 The amplification of deviance ................................................................... 152 Conceptualising deviance ......................................................................... 153 Criticisms of the new deviancy ................................................................. 154 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 160

Part IV The 1970s 10

The discipline of criminology and its context – 3 ............................ 165 Key themes ............................................................................................... 165 Introduction ............................................................................................. 165 Deviance and politics ............................................................................... 165 The sociology of law: making laws, making deviants ................................. 167 Criminology in the 1970s: other directions ............................................... 172 Orthodox criminology .............................................................................. 176 Radical critiques and the growth of the New Right .................................... 178 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 183

11

Post-new deviancy and the new criminology .................................. 184 Key themes ............................................................................................... 184 Introduction ............................................................................................. 184 Deviance and power ................................................................................. 185

ix

CONTENTS

American conflict theory .......................................................................... 186 Politicising deviance ................................................................................. 189 Critical criminology .................................................................................. 190 Marx and Engels on crime ........................................................................ 193 Taylor, Walton and Young and the politicisation of deviance .................... 196 Politicising deviance: nuts, sluts, preverts . . . and revolutionaries? ........... 196 Youth subcultures and politics .................................................................. 198 Critical criminology: deviance, crime and power ...................................... 202 Phenomenology and criminology ............................................................. 209 Ethnomethodology ................................................................................... 210 Control theory .......................................................................................... 211 Feminist perspectives and criminology ..................................................... 216 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 219

Part V The 1980s to the Mid-1990s 12

The discipline of criminology and its context – 4 ............................ 223 Key themes ............................................................................................... 223 Introduction ............................................................................................ 223 The shift to the right in British politics ..................................................... 224 Criminology’s external history ................................................................. 226 Social organisation ................................................................................... 228 The growth of policy-oriented research .................................................... 230 The nature and context of research ........................................................... 233 Policy-oriented research and the left ......................................................... 237 British criminology in the late twentieth century ...................................... 239 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 244

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x

Criminological theory .................................................................... 245 Key themes ............................................................................................... 245 Introduction ............................................................................................ 245 Mainstream criminology .......................................................................... 245 Longitudinal research and criminal careers .............................................. 246 The historical roots .................................................................................. 257 Feminism and criminology ....................................................................... 258 Gender and crime ..................................................................................... 271 Administrative criminology ..................................................................... 277 Right-wing classicism ............................................................................... 283 Neo-positivism and right realism ............................................................. 284 Radical criminology ................................................................................. 289 Critical criminology and left realism ......................................................... 292 Final remarks on this period ..................................................................... 298

CONTENTS

Winning the fight against crime? .............................................................. 300 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 301 Postscript ................................................................................................. 302

Part VI The Mid-1990s into the New Millennium 14

The discipline of criminology and its context – 5 ............................ 305 Key themes ............................................................................................... 305 Introduction ............................................................................................ 305 New Labour, old problems ....................................................................... 306 Restorative justice .................................................................................... 312 Imprisonment .......................................................................................... 314 Social policy and New Labour ................................................................... 315 Crime prevention, crime reduction and community safety ....................... 316 Crime and criminal justice: the wider context ........................................... 320 Criminology in the new millennium ......................................................... 326 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 332

15

Theorectical perspectives: recent developments ............................. 334 Key themes ............................................................................................... 334 Introduction ............................................................................................ 334 Postmodernist perspectives ...................................................................... 336 Feminist perspectives ............................................................................... 341 Perspectives on masculinities ................................................................... 348 Control perspectives ................................................................................. 351 Cultural perspectives ................................................................................ 355 Critical perspectives ................................................................................. 358 Final remarks ........................................................................................... 376 Selected further reading ........................................................................... 377 Postscripts ............................................................................................... 379

References ........................................................................................................ 383 Name index ..................................................................................................... 419 Subject index ................................................................................................... 424

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

This book is written as an introduction to criminology, or, more specifically, sociological criminology. The aim has been to write an accessible and comprehensive text, but one that does not shirk from engaging with what are sometimes complex issues and debates. The approach is based on a good many years’ experience teaching criminology and related subjects to a wide range of groups. Now some thanks. Writing this book has meant a frequently obsessive preoccupation with a century of criminological thought, and lengthy sojourns in, if not quite a garret, at least an attic room where I watched the seasons roll by through a Velux window. My thanks to my wife and sons for putting up with the resultant disruptions to family life, and for continuing to provide much appreciated encouragement. I hope that I can make up for all those games of Subbuteo I should have played with my youngest son, but didn’t because I was consorting with various criminal and criminological miscreants. A welcome respite from writing, especially during those periods when my brain seemed to be turning into taramasalata, was provided by the Thursday night folk music sessions at the Colpitts pub in Durham, which offered comradeship and an incentive to work out some new guitar tunings. My thanks to those colleagues at New College Durham and at the University of Northumbria who provided encouragement. For various reasons my thanks are also due to the following people – some of whom I’ve never met. To Stan Cohen for Folk Devils and Moral Panics, and to the person who a while ago lent me a copy and got me started; to Colin Sumner for helping to keep key conceptual debates alive; to the late Steven Box for writing the best Preface to a criminology book (Box, 1981); to Mike Brogden who has been a friendly face at some dire conferences; to Martin Scorsese for the film Goodfellas, which should be part of a criminology starter pack; to the anonymous reviewer of the original book proposal who generously described me as not part of the mainstream; and to Dick Hobbs, Barbara Hudson and Mike Maguire, who offered extremely useful criticisms and comments on an earlier draft of the book. Needless to say, I take responsibility for the final product.

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Since writing the first edition of this book the only constant in my life has been the Velux window mentioned in the earlier Preface. Shortly after the book was published I moved from New College Durham to the University of Durham’s Department of Sociology and Social Policy (now School of Applied Social Sciences). Although I ended up with a less grand-sounding job title than previously, in terms of teaching and research this proved to be a productive move. It gave me an opportunity to work alongside various criminologists, namely, Bob Roshier, Dick Hobbs, Jim Sheptycki, the late Ian Taylor and Robin Williams (who has evolved into a criminologist). All of them, for countless reasons, contributed to the experience of living in ‘interesting times’, and deserve thanks. So too does Georgios Antonopoulos for his help in tracking down various pieces of information for this book. Of those referred to in the first Preface, I’ve yet to meet Martin Scorsese (who tends not to turn up at criminology conferences). Finally, and for all sorts of reasons, thanks to my three sons, Ben, Dominic and Christian, whose qualities and accomplishments never fail to amaze me.

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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

For the benefit of what I suspect is a small minority of readers who actually read prefaces, I am happy to report that the Velux window continues to soldier on. As I do, and with a slightly grander-sounding job title than last time. This preface to the third edition gives me an opportunity to add a few more thanks to my previous lists. To Stan Cohen, Paul Rock and Colin Sumner for their much appreciated comments about this book. To Tom Morello for permission to use the lyrics to his song ‘The Fabled City’ as a postscript to this edition. And, of course, to Nigel Mellor and Willy Russell for permission to use their words as postscripts for the first and second editions respectively. Each was chosen because I felt that they articulated sentiments highly relevant to three recent periods in history. To colleagues in Durham University’s School of Applied Social Sciences for support and encouragement. And special thanks to my son Ben and Tim Dillon for designing the cover of this third edition. Additional thanks are due to artist Ryan Graeff for permission to use his ‘Bandit’ image.

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IN T RO DUCTIO N

Since the late 1960s the area of study broadly described as criminology has expanded enormously in Britain. Nowadays all sorts of writers, researchers and teachers make many and varied contributions to issues of crime and social control, and represent various political and theoretical positions. Within academic criminology contributions come from many different discipline areas: psychology, psychoanalysis, geography, history, economics, political science, jurisprudence, biology, sociology, and so on. Clearly, given the vast army of participants in the ‘criminological project’, there are competing views regarding the agenda to be followed. In fact, one of the central questions that will accompany the discussion of criminology’s history here is what is it for? The book is as much about criminology’s history as an academic discipline as it is about criminological theory. Although important ideas and pieces of research from other disciplines will be referred to, the primary focus is unashamedly sociological criminology. The book is also unashamedly concerned with important theoretical developments. There is little detailed discussion of specific forms of crime such as ram-raiding, burglary or bank robbery, though there are plenty of references to research based upon these themes. At the risk of disappointing the reader before we have begun, the argument here is that we can only make sense of specific types of contemporary crime by having a grasp of the theoretical ideas and debates that have sprung up over the years. This is why all criminology programmes in British universities devote a significant amount of time to theoretical criminology. A central dimension to the book is an engagement with conceptual debates over ‘what things mean’. Our everyday worlds are filled with references to crime, criminals, punishment, discipline, the law, and so forth, but what do these terms mean? How have these meanings and understandings been constructed? What impact does crime have on people’s lives? To what extent are meanings and understandings shared by society’s members? How have these phenomena been approached within academic criminology? Throughout the book, therefore, the reader will be invited to consider seriously a range of questions and issues that are often taken for granted. Although I have attempted to present these debates and issues in such a way as to make them accessible, I have also been concerned to avoid simplifying them to the point of distorting the material and patronising the reader. One of the things I’ve noticed whilst researching this book is that sometimes the ideas and theories of classic, or at least frequently referred to, writers suffer the fate of messages in Chinese whispers: the original message becomes distorted, or caricatured or oversimplified.

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