Steven Box’s research while affiliated with University of Kent and other places

Although there are numerous state officials in the criminal justice system, three groups will be analysed in this chapter. These will be: magistrates and judges; probation officers; and police. It will be shown that the unintended and unwitting contribution each makes to reducing anxieties created by the existence of a population surplus to the requirements of the productive system, flows from these officers making decisions guided by the ‘logic’ of their situation as they perceive it.

Demonstrating that a theory of crime causation is supported empirically is ‘easier said than done’. This aphorism is even more apt when, as in this instance, most of the research studies on unemployment, inequality and crime had already been completed before the formulation of the theory in Chapter 2. A review of ‘relevant’ research literature therefore necessarily has to contain much that addresses itself marginally to that theory or even a ghost within it. Only a minority of existing research projects comes close to fitting the requirements for testing the above theory — although, as will become clear later, the picture is not absolutely bleak.

During the last ten years or so, both British and American governments have pursued similar ‘law and order’ policies which differed markedly from those of their predecessors. Before offering an explanation of these shifts, it is necessary to document them in much more detail than has been offered so far because their enormity is quite staggering. Clearly governments felt that there was a problem to which they had to respond positively; the nature of that response, and the problems, real or imagined, it was shaped to deal with, need to be considered carefully.

Even without looking through the sanitary prism of nostalgia, it is easy to see that some things really were better twenty or so years ago. There was consensus that ‘full employment’ should be maintained, the principle of reducing income inequalities occupied a space on the political agenda, and the idea of reducing the prison population by encouraging alternatives in the community was taken seriously. Others may remember the Sixties differently, but it is hard to imagine that any person, sensitive to human suffering and hardship, could be indifferent to or not grieve over the disappearance of these modest liberal objectives.

The two major issues taken up in this book — crime and punishment during the recent recession — have already been summarised in chapter conclusions, and do not need further repetition. However, they do require contextualising. It is important to see these issues against the wider context of academic debates over the ‘causes of crime’ and the ‘politics of prison overcrowding and abolition’. After that, some implications, particularly for crime and penal policies in a democratic society, need to be considered.

Attempts by social scientists to document the criminal justice system’s discriminatory practices against powerless social groups has a long and honourable history. The primary motivation urging this effort forward was a vision of justice. In the centre of this vision was equality before the law and even-handed treatment to all, irrespective of race, creed, or colour. Beyond this vision of justice for all was the principle that power is a constant nightmare in democratic societies. Evil, immoral and wicked people will always create havoc; democratic institutions, with their planned insistence on balance of powers, responsibility, accountability and removability, provide some guarantee that the harm people do will be limited and short-lived. But this guarantee can only be enjoyed if democratic citizens are constantly vigilant. Knowledge is the key to this vigilance. If citizens are kept in the dark about what people in positions of power are doing, then they are unable to criticise them effectively. This is why governments and people in power attempt to guard their actions zealously with notions of state security, national defence, official secrets, confidential memorandum and classified material. It simply would not do, in a free society, for citizens to know all that they ought! They might then exercise their democratic duty, namely to shine the searchlight of informed criticism on power-holders.

As this chapter was being drafted, there were ‘riots’ in Handsworth, Birmingham, and Brixton, London, leaving a smoky trail of smouldering property and ramshackle looted shops. The innercity face, already pock-marked by inadequate houses, crumbling schools, closed hospitals, unrepaired roads, boarded-up shops, dilapidated public services and graffiti-covered walls, was further scarred by the effects of robbery, burglary, arson and other serious crimes. But what has all this to do with the question, Why should recession cause crime to increase? If we listen to our astute politicians, the answer is simple — Nothing!