british society of criminology newsletter ·...

British Society of Criminology Newsletter

Number 69, Winter ’11

ISSN 1759-8354

Inside

An English Summer of Rioting and Looting Contributions from Tim Newburn, Jon Silverman & John Lea

The BSC Outstanding Achievement Award 2011 Robert Reiner - Acceptance Speech

Jill Peay - on presenting the award

Plus news from the BSC

Editors

Andrew Millie

Charlotte Harris

Loraine Gelsthorpe

British Society

of Criminology 2-6 Cannon Street

London

EC4M 6YH

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.britsoccrim.org

Reg. Charity No. 1073145

© 2011 BSC

Greater Manchester Police ‘Shop a Looter’ Campaign, Manchester 2011 - photograph by Lesley Millie

Contents

Editorial: Reflections on an English Summer of Rioting and Looting - Andrew Millie 1

A letter from our President - Loraine Gelsthorpe 3

Features

Presenting the BSC Outstanding Achievement Award to Robert Reiner 6

Jill Peay

British Society of Criminology Outstanding Achievement Award 2011 Acceptance Speech 9

Robert Reiner

An English Summer of Rioting and Looting

Reading the Riots 12

Tim Newburn

Reflections on the Riots 15

Jon Silverman

Shock Horror: Rioters Cause Riots! Criminals Cause Crime! 17

John Lea

Society News

Developments in the BSC Postgraduate Committee - Susie Atherton 20

BSC Learning and Teaching Network News - Helen Jones 21

Publications News: “Papers from the British Criminology Conference” - Andrew Millie 21

BSC Regional News

Forthcoming Seminars 22

News from the South West Branch of the BSC - Zoë James 23

British Society of Criminology Newsletter, No. 69, Winter 2011

1

Editorial: Reflections on an English Summer of Rioting and Looting

Andrew Millie, Professor of Criminology, Edge Hill University

August 2011 will be remembered in England as the month when rioting and looting

occurred on an astonishing scale on city streets in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and

elsewhere. The internet, television and newspapers were full of images of burning cars and shops; but

also of young people smashing shop windows in order to loot, and then brazenly walking out with flat

screen televisions and other consumables. In one BBC TV report an on-the-spot witness complained

that even charity shops were being looted. In a video posted on the internet, a local resident from

London berated the rioters: “I’m ashamed to be a Hackney person, ’cause we’re not all gathering

together and fighting for a cause, we’re running down Footlocker and thieving shoes” (You Tube

Video posted 8 August 2011). Zygmunt Bauman (2011a) took a similar view, that: “These are not

hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers”. Elsewhere he

elaborated:

This particular social minefield has been created by the combination of consumerism with

rising inequality. This was not a rebellion or an uprising of famished and impoverished people

or an oppressed ethnic or religious minority - but a mutiny of defective and disqualified

consumers, people offended and humiliated by the display of riches to which they had been

denied access (Bauman, 2011b).

For politicians the rioting and looting were straightforward criminality. Elsewhere they were described

as “shopping with violence” (Littlejohn, 2011). For Slavoj Žižek (2011) they were:

…a manifestation of a consumerist desire violently enacted when unable to realise itself in the

‘proper’ way - by shopping. As such, they also contain a moment of genuine protest, in the

form of an ironic response to consumerist ideology … The riots are a demonstration of the

material force of ideology - so much, perhaps, for the ‘post-ideological society’.

British criminology clearly needed to respond to the rioting and looting. Tim Newburn of the

London School of Economics has taken a lead in an important research project where those involved in

the rioting and looting have been questioned. Phase 1 of the study has just been published and Tim

reports on the findings in this Newsletter. Other criminologists have also contributed to the debate. For

instance, in October the Campaign for Social Science held a one-day conference on the riots exploring

“causes, calamities and consequences”. Speakers included Ben Bowling, David Canter and Mike

Hough. Also speaking was former BBC Home Affairs correspondent Jon Silverman from the

University of Bedfordshire. Jon contributes to this Newsletter his reflections on the riots. A further

thought provoking contribution is provided by John Lea of the University of Brighton (See also Lea,

2011).

The rioting and looting came to an end following a massive influx of policing into London -

and a change in the weather (see e.g. Ellen Cohen, 1990). While the rioting and looting displayed some

of the worst in society, the public responses showed some of the good. For instance, social media were

used to aid the rioters and looters; yet were also used to galvanize support and action in clearing up the

mess. Membership of the Facebook group “Post-riot clean up: Let’s help London” quickly reached

over 19,000 and on the streets ‘armies’ of residents with brooms and rubbish bags were seen trying to

reclaim their neighbourhoods. There are clearly some grounds for optimism.


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Elsewhere in this Newsletter we have news from the society’s sub-committees and details of

what is going on in the BSC regional groups. We are also delighted to include Robert Reiner’s

acceptance speech for the BSC Outstanding Achievement Award. Rob was a popular winner at the

society’s summer conference at Northumbria University. He was introduced at the conference by his

colleague at the London School of Economics, Jill Peay, whose address is also included here.

It has clearly been a busy year for British criminology and for the society where Loraine

Gelsthorpe has now taken over the reins from Mike Hough. Next year looks set to be similarly busy

with, for example, the promise of elected Police and Crime Commissioners following the successful

passage of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. There will be the security at the

London Olympics to consider. And following consultation on anti-social behaviour (Home Office,

2011), maybe the replacement for the Anti-social Behaviour Order?

Perhaps the holiday season is a good opportunity to catch breath. In the meantime I want to

wish all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.

Andrew Millie, December 2011

References

Bauman, Z. (2011a) ‘The London riots - On consumerism coming home to roost’, Social Europe Journal,

Online Edition, Available at: www.social-europe.eu/2011/08/the-london-riots-on-consumerism-coming-

home-to-roost/

Bauman, Z. (2011b) ‘Interview - Zygmunt Bauman on the UK riots’, Social Europe Journal, Online

Edition, Available at: www.social-europe.eu/2011/08/interview-zygmunt-bauman-on-the-uk-riots/

Cohen, E.G. (1990) ‘Weather and crime’, British Journal of Criminology, 30(1) 51-64.

Home Office (2011) More Effective Responses to Anti-Social Behaviour, London: Home Office.

Lea, J. (2011) Riots and the Crisis of Neoliberalism, Available at:

www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/misc/riots2011.html

Littlejohn, R. (2011) ‘Red sky at night, Tottenham's alight - as looters liberate everything from trainers to

flat-screen TVs’, Daily Mail Online, 8 August, Available at: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-

2023898/London-riots-Red-sky-night-Tottenhams-alight.html

You Tube (2011) ‘Truly extraordinary speech by fearless West Indian woman in face of Hackney and

London riots’, Posted 8 August 2011. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNmQBx2WyN0

Žižek, S. (2011) ‘Shoplifters of the World unite’, London Review of Books, Online Edition, Available

at: www.lrb.co.uk/2011/08/19/slavoj-zizek/shoplifters-of-the-world-unite


3

A letter from our President Loraine Gelsthorpe, Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Cambridge

Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge

Few of us can have failed to notice the Coalition Government’s quick recourse to USA

policing expertise following the UK riots of August 2011. We might have had some sympathy with

UK police chiefs who were reported to have felt insulted by Prime Minister David Cameron for

turning to a USA law enforcement expert to help tackle what was perceived to be a major problem of

gang violence. For a while it looked as if we were going to see new policies based on perceptions of

what was happening rather than on sound evidence. In the immediate aftermath of the riots the BSC

played a small part in suggesting to the Ministry of Justice that it needed to look well beyond gang

violence - and made clear that there were academic policing experts within. Significantly, the

Guardian/LSE research (with support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society

Foundations) - extensively reported in the Guardian Newspaper this past week (5th

December - 10th

December, 2011) suggests that there was no one reason, but a multitude of reasons for the riots:

mistrust of the police and dissatisfaction with the way in which they appear to police communities,

opportunistic thieving, boredom, easy access to the BBM network (courtesy of Blackberry

smartphones), and social and economic marginalization included. It remains a moot point as to how far

‘race’ played a role in events; certainly far right wing groups got involved in some of the skirmishes,

but it is not at all clear that the riots were ‘race riots’ (as reported in overseas media) or solely

attributable to a gang culture. Moreover, a number of participants experienced their involvement as a

‘protest’ rather than as a riot. The Guardian/LSE Reading the Riots project has been hugely important

in revealing the complexity of issues and reminding us of the continuing need to engage with

government to avoid the worst excesses of analyses and policy made ‘on the run’. These are general

lessons for us all.

It is also worth highlighting the bold methodology in Reading the Riots - an open-ended search

for patterns and meaning through interviews with 270 people directly involved in the August riots. The

data here complements the Ministry of Justice’s own statistical analyses (Ministry of Justice data from

‘Statistical bulletin on the public disorder of 6th-9th August 2011’ and the Home Office ‘An overview

of recorded crimes and arrests resulting from disorder events in August 2011’) and advances our

understanding of what was happening and why. Of course, there are many questions to follow up. The

second phase of the Guardian/LSE research will look in greater detail at the experiences of the

communities affected by the riots, at police officers who tried to keep control of the streets, and at the

criminal justice system which faced huge demand in the aftermath of the disorder.

For my own part, the spate of tough penalties following the riots raise concerns over the

consistency of sentencing between offenders convicted of theft and handling within and outside the

context of the riots, and between offenders sentenced for similar offences in different courts around the

country. The effect of the disparate responses may well be to negate the legitimacy of the criminal

justice system. Moreover, in the context of huge efforts to rationalize sentencing within a context of

desert (proportionate punishment but allowing scope for public protection, the reform and

rehabilitation of offenders, and reparation), the tough sentencing may be short sighted and counter-

productive. If the rationale in pushing for tough custodial penalties has been to satisfy public opinion

this is a worrying route to take. It is also not clear whether ‘the public’ would have preferred to have

seen repair of the damage done, compensation and restitution. There are many opportunities for

research here.

All of this leads us back to recent debates about the idea of a ‘public criminology’ which have

focused on the growing disjunction between criminological knowledge and criminal justice policies -


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where it is recognized that criminologists might conceivably do a better job of disseminating

knowledge in ways that can contribute substantively to the policy-making process. If anything, the

events of the past few months should renew our energies to consider how best we can contribute, both

as individuals, and, importantly, as a collective via the BSC.

In June 2011 the BSC made a contribution to a push to highlight the role of the social sciences

in the making of social policy. In a collaboration between the Academy of Social Sciences, the British

Society of Criminology and the British Psychological Society, the BSC has published a report Making

the case for social science: crime which presses the need for any crime control strategy to be based on

a proper understanding of the underlying social, cultural and economic causes of crime. In March 2012

the BSC (with support from the British Academy) is planning a seminar with Ministry of Justice and

Home Office researchers and policy-makers. But we should reflect hard. Why did the Prime Minister

immediately turn to a senior police officer in the USA and not to criminological knowledge in the UK?

And what can we do about it?

Loraine Gelsthorpe, December 2011


5


6

Presenting the BSC Outstanding Achievement Award to Robert Reiner

Jill Peay Professor of Law, London School of Economics

The British Society of Criminology’s ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ may

be satisfied in one of two ways:

By one or more singular outstanding contributions - books, articles, reports, lectures, public

activities, etc; or

In aggregation: i.e. through the production over time of a significant body of work which amounts

in total to an outstanding achievement, or a sustained contribution to enhancing the discipline’s

interests on the national or international stage.

Professor Robert Reiner manifestly not just satisfies both those terms, but exceeds them in every

possible way. As a colleague of Robert’s for many years, it gives me huge personal pleasure to be able

to give this tribute. The bare facts of Robert’s career are testament both to his commitment to the field

and to his being an eclectic in its true sense - that of an ancient philosopher.

Robert has held posts in Sociology, Criminology and Law; he has taught Criminology in all of

its guises at the Universities of Bristol, Brunel (the University of West London), and the London

School of Economics (LSE). He has also been the Director of the Mannheim Centre at the LSE and

Head of the Department of Law. He was the founder and co-director of the Bristol Centre for Criminal

Justice 1987-89, the President of the British Society of Criminology 1993-96, and has held visiting

posts at University of California, and at the University of Toronto's Centre for Criminology in 1983

and 1990. Robert is known nationally and internationally and, as I shall demonstrate, loved and

venerated wherever he has been.

I should like now to turn to his published works, although I only have access to these up until

2010. The work includes 4 sole authored books, one of which, The Politics of the Police is now in its

fourth edition; 8 books edited or co-edited, including The Oxford Handbook of Criminology going into

its 5th

edition; 63 assorted chapters; 41 major journal articles; and another 95 shorter pieces where

Robert has engaged in more widely accessible publications. The statistics of publication alone are

breath-taking. But it is not just how much he has written, but of what quality. And here I turn to the

views of others better qualified than I am to comment.

Looking at the reviews of the 4th

edition of The Politics of the Police Andrew Goldsmith

(Australia) observed:

“For anyone interested in policing policy and understanding the British police experience,

Reiner's book had no match” ... “Reiner remains faithful to his social democratic roots. His

analysis insists upon the importance of having a political economy perspective of policing, one

that is both sympathetic to the predicament of the socially excluded and economically

marginalised and that locates responsibility for policing in the hands of the political system and

the society at large.

Martin Innes describes it as “magisterial” ... “it remains probably the single most insightful and

influential academic text on British policing’... With the strength of Robert's work lying in the fact that

he “fully understands the intimate interconnections between policing and society”. Kevin Haggerty


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(Alberta) notes that it is a classic in police studies …. “since its initial publication in 1985 it is

probably the most cited academic book on the police”.

I know Robert will be squirming as I say all this, as he is renowned for his modesty. But it's

going to get worse.

The opportunity I have this afternoon to pay tribute to Robert could readily be based on my

knowledge of him over the 23 years during which our careers have overlapped. But since this is an

award made by our Society of Scholars I didn’t want to be alone in this. So what I have to say now is

based on what others have said - some of whom are here today and others not. So these are just

extracts of the personal tributes that Robert’s colleagues provided when I told them that I would be

making the outstanding achievement award on behalf of the BSC.

Rod Morgan: “I've principally worked with Robert as a co-editor for the Oxford Handbook (since

1992 when we had the idea for the 1st Edition, through to preparation of the 5th Edition today), though

we did some research work together prior to that on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984

relating to custody in the police station. ... The great thing about working with Robert is the breadth of

his theoretical knowledge and reading and his generosity of spirit. The upside of that is that he knows

what and who is excellent and consequently makes very wise and incisive suggestions. The downside

is that he’s quite incapable of delivering bad news. He’s the most notorious good cop. It's not a bad

failing to have.”

Jennifer Brown having observed, “As well as the obvious inspirational character of Robert’s

work which is always thoughtful and thought provoking”, went on to talk of his acts of kindness and

how they had a dramatic effect on the subsequent course of her career. As she said, “I think being

thoughtful and supportive is in Robert’s DNA. He is just very nice and does not notice!”

Clifford Shearing and Philip Stenning spoke of his intellectual and personal vibrancy:

“We first met Robert when he came to spend some time at the Centre of Criminology in Toronto in

1983. There have been several very exciting periods at the Centre over the years and Robert’s stay was

one of them. We took full advantage of the weather at the time, and the cafés around the University of

Toronto, to spend lots of time talking, and arguing, about our respective conceptions of, and

understandings of, policing. While we certainly did not always agree our disagreements (and some of

them continue to this day) were always stimulating and productive. Robert has a knack of asking

difficult questions that compel one to rethink one’s ideas, sometimes in quite fundamental ways.

Central to our discussions, as we recall them, was the question of the boundaries between police,

policing and social control. Boundaries that we struggled to agree upon. What also stands out about

these times together, besides their scholarly intensity, was the good fun we had as we discussed ideas.

This was, and remains to us, academia as it should be. A highlight of Robert’s visit was a talk he gave

at the Centre on police deviance in which he began by pointing out, very perceptively, that when

policing scholars think and write about police deviance, they usually seem to forget everything they

have ever learned (as criminologists) about deviance generally (for example, that official statistics do

not provide anywhere near an accurate measure of its extent and nature and that prosecutions and

punishment may not be an effective deterrent). Robert made other visits to the Centre and we have met

on numerous other occasions - all of which were framed by the warm glow Robert left us with after his

first visit to Toronto.”

Frances Heidensohn: “I've always found Robert the perfect, kind, gentlemanly colleague with

whom to work. I’ve given lectures on his courses, examined his students and contributed chapters

under his editorship. Most recently, I’ve submitted (with Marisa Silvestri) the latest version of a

chapter for the Oxford Handbook; he couldn’t have been more helpful or more appreciative. An

admirable scholar and very nice man.”


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Michael Levi: “I was particularly impressed by Robert’s statement that he studied sociology

rather than law because he wanted to understand and research about people, but after many years he

realised that actually law was more about people than sociology was. A sad inference, but with an

element of truth.” And when Mike recalled that Robert had started life studying economics at

Cambridge, and was only diverted into Sociology when he realised in his second year that he had no

facility with maths, Mike remarked “Robert could have done anything in the social sciences, but he

was too nice to become an economist.”

David Downes had many stories to tell but he particularly remembered an event back in 1984

around the time of the much revised Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. “Robert wrote an article in

New Society entitled “Is Britain becoming a Police State?” arguing against that view, with the

revisions to the Bill being highly relevant. But on the radio Paul Foot, no less, said that this

article made him realise for the first time what sociology was all about.”

And I would add that the prescience of that article in the light of the recent issues about bail

and detention times is compelling.

Maurice Punch said: “Robert richly deserves this award; he is an erudite scholar, highly

productive and with an excellent pen; he has been a dedicated and exemplary member of the

institutions where he has worked; and is truly one of the ‘greats’ in the policing and criminal justice

field.”

Tim Newburn: “There are many of Robert’s attributes that stand out. However, beyond his

kindness and his almost unparalleled collegiality, it is the breadth of his learning (always worn lightly)

and his extraordinary analytical mind that I’d point to. One brief illustration: many years ago now,

having been working on a book together for a couple of years, Trevor Jones and I gave a paper which

attempted to summarise some of our central arguments. I think it’s fair to say that we were reasonably

happy with the paper but aware, despite much effort, that there was still something important missing.

After the presentation, as he unfailingly does, Robert asked a question. Actually it was more a set of

reflections with a question tacked on the end. In it he managed both to capture what we were

attempting to argue, far better than we had, and also moved the argument on in ways that we had so

signally failed to achieve. Robert’s intervention, which proved so crucial to our work, was seemingly

effortless and was delivered in typically gentle and generous fashion. He’s been doing similar things

for students at all levels, and for colleagues across a range of subjects, for decades. For me, it’s simply

one of many debts that I could never hope to repay.”

Niki Lacey put it simply: “I’m sure I won’t be the only one who thinks of him as an absolutely

stellar colleague on every level.”

To my mind these tributes speak to Robert’s erudition, to the lightness of his touch in his writing, to

his modesty, and to the transformative effect his work and his personal style have had on the

intellectual and personal lives of others. He describes himself as a ‘dyed in the wool emotional

Menshevik, with a perennial soft-spot for heroes destined for the dustbin of history’. I think of him as

ultimate ethical man; someone whose commitment to social justice and fair-mindedness shines through

all that he writes and all that he is. But Robert is also the quintessential scholar; one who is an

undoubted specialist in his field, and yet who has the capacity to facilitate understanding in others. He

is a truly learned person in Criminology and a very worthy recipient of this award.


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British Society of Criminology Outstanding Achievement Award 2011 Acceptance Speech

Robert Reiner Emeritus Professor of Criminology, London School of Economics

Thanks

I have very little experience of award ceremonies, even as a spectator. As a great

movie fan, the model that comes immediately to my mind is the Oscars. Do I do a Gwyneth Paltrow

and burst into tears? I’m sorry, but I’m too repressed for that. Or a Marlon Brando and walk out in

protest at the treatment of native Americans? But I am too proud of my association over a quarter of a

century now with the BSC. I have seen it grow from what was essentially a monthly criminology club

in Bloomsbury to the truly national professional association it is now. And I am particularly proud of

following in the footsteps of two distinguished predecessors Stan Cohen and Pat Carlen, both stalwart

fighters for social justice whose records cannot be emulated.

But I will go down the Oscar route briefly by thanking a few of those who have helped me. My

late parents and my family above all, and especially my wife Joanna and young son Ben (sitting in

front of me) and my two adult children, Charlotte (a teacher whose struggle today is one that I am sure

we all support) and my son Toby, who just got his PhD at Berkeley for a thesis on social justice - so

he’s following the theoretical route. Too many colleagues have inspired me over the years for me to do

more than indicate my gratitude to those at Bristol, LSE Mannheim Centre and the BSC in particular.

And my profound gratitude to Jill, an admired colleague first at Brunel and then at LSE, for her kind

words.

Message

Giving these thanks is made a little harder this year by the publication of Ian Loader and Richard

Sparks’ thought-provoking book Public Criminology. In it they caricature five styles of mission

statement typically offered on occasions like this. I felt squarely nailed by one of them - but I imagine

anyone standing here would also be caught by one or the other. Social scientists like me who live by

the typology must squirm by the typology. But I must own up to feeling uncomfortably close to the

statements they attributed to the ‘lonely prophet’. Nevertheless, after suitable role-distancing, I shall

claim my ten minutes on the mountain.

Instead of PowerPoint I shall use this T-shirt I bought recently and fittingly on the Berkeley

campus. What I want to say is pithily caught on its logo, ‘No Justice, No Peace’ … but handcuffs!. An

ancient theme, stretching back at least as far as the Old Testament injunction to love your neighbour as

yourself (Leviticus 19: 18), principles long hallowed as the foundation of all law. These principles are

the essence of what can be called the social democratic perspective on crime, which was the tacitly

assumed underpinning of much criminology up to the last quarter of the twentieth century.

There has been something of a trahison de criminologists (to paraphrase Benda) since then.

This is found in the relative absence of critical attention given to wider social and political-economic

sources of contemporary crime and criminal justice changes, with some few exceptions - notably

David Garland, Jock Young and others depicted by Loader and Sparks as ‘lonely prophets’. And much

of the larger scale analysis has been directed at critically deconstructing trends in crime control, what


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Hall, Winlow and Ancrum call the barbarism of order. Little has been said about the barbarism of

disorder, at any rate since the new left realists of the 1980s.

In the early stages of neo-liberalism’s rise, during the later 1970s and 80s, conservative

criminologists of course cheered the neo-liberal turn. But soi-disant radical criminology also

attenuated its critique of criminal justice in a variety of ways. For all their virtues, the various strands

of the realist turn after the 1970s did imply a change in the subject, diverting attention from the large-

scale social and cultural forces that were restructuring crime and criminal justice. Changes in funding

and career opportunities for academic criminologists encouraged this, but perhaps a deeper factor was

an excessive intellectual modesty in the wake of the political defeats of Soviet communism and

Western social democracy.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Zygmunt Bauman suggested that the role of intellectuals

shifted from ‘legislators’ to ‘interpreters’ as modernity melted into liquid postmodernity. They no

longer enjoyed the respect or self-confidence to lay down laws from on high, mandating new values

and directions, but could at best explain existing perspectives. In criminology as in other disciplines a

horror of judgmentalism eviscerated critique. Criminologists became either policy wonks or

interpreters of the florid cultures of deviance. But there is an excluded middle in Bauman’s dichotomy

(paradoxically as he is a prime exemplar of it). This ‘third way’ is the intellectual (or criminologist) as

prophet (to embrace Loader and Sparks’ caricature) - in the meaning that prophesy had in the Old

Testament, not its contemporary usage of Mystic Megs who purport to tell us next week’s Lottery

numbers. As Michael Walzer (1993: 71-74) puts it, the Old Testament prophets’ message “is not

something radically new; the prophet is not the first to find, nor does he make, the morality he

expounds…. The prophet need only show the people their own hearts”. The prophet pointed out the

way for people to realize values they already shared and accepted, but which their current practices

frustrated. This was always a controversial intervention - not for nothing did prophets from Isaiah and

Jeremiah to Jesus suffer grisly ends for reminding people of their falling short of their own principles.

Many criminologists used to talk in this manner, presuming that a major source of crime and

disorder was social injustice. For much of the twentieth century this social democratic perspective at

least implicitly informed most sociological criminology, suggesting limited potential for criminal

justice to control crime levels. Although intelligent policing and penal policy could more effectively

relieve the symptoms of criminogenic political economic structures and cultures, this was what (in the

context of the ‘war on terror’) Paul Rogers has dubbed ‘liddism’: an ultimately futile struggle to hold

the lid down on the smouldering sources of crime. Social peace required getting tough on these causes.

Whilst this perspective has for the time being lost the political battle, I would claim it has not lost the

argument. There are still mysteries in explaining the sudden rise of neoliberalism to dominance in the

1970s, sweeping away so rapidly the post-World War II social democratic consensus that had

delivered so much in terms of widely shared growth in material prosperity and security, as well as

relatively low crime and benign control strategies by historical standards. To my mind too many of the

existing accounts assume the success of neoliberalism is attributable to fatal rather than contingent

flaws in the social democratic or Keynesian models. In economics and political philosophy

possibilities of recapturing the virtues of social democracy are being vigorously explored, but as yet

with little echo in criminology.

Even more important, and at least as mysterious: where are we going now? It is remarkable that

so soon after the economic and financial crunch in late 2007 seemed to discredit the neoliberal model,

its savagely deflationary prescriptions for dealing with the sovereign debt crisis (resulting from

governmental support for banking) are the new orthodoxy. How can this zombie neoliberalism be

explained? And what will it mean for criminal justice in Britain, in the hands of the new Conservative-

led coalition?

Many liberals were impressed and surprised by early signs of coalition willingness to reverse

some of the trends to harsher punitiveness and the erosion of civil liberties under New Labour (and

Michael Howard before that). The philosophy of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act, that prison was an


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expensive way of making bad people worse, seemed back in favour. For the first time in nearly twenty

years, there was government questioning of Howard’s mantra that prison works. It was sadly

predictable that these liberal ambitions would be frustrated in practice by increasing crime and disorder

flowing from the financial cuts and downturn. As before, the ‘freeing’ of the economy was likely to

engender a strong state penal and policing response to the social dislocation it produces. The growth of

demonstrations and protests against the coalition’s cuts and the unjust burden placed on the relatively

poor by the legal tax avoidance of the rich, spearheaded by heroic groups like UK Uncut, and the harsh

policing tactics they have been met with, indicated this clearly. What was less predictable was the

speed and savagery with which David Cameron squashed Kenneth Clarke’s reforms, buckling under to

tabloid fury.

The bottom-line, to borrow one of its favourite clichés, is that neoliberalism fans social

injustice, and feeds the barbarisms of both disorder and order. An alternative narrative to neoliberal

instrumentalism and egoistic aspiration is needed, evoking the mutualism of Buber’s ideal of ‘I-thou’,

not I-it (as argued by Benjamin, 2010, in relation to financial markets). This echoes the ethics of the

Golden Rule that underpinned social democracy. A core criminological responsibility, I believe, is to

chart a way forward to reviving the conditions for social security and peace, which social democracy

had begun gradually to deliver. We cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again. 1940s techniques may

not work in the 21st century; but we must strive for new economic, social and criminal justice policies

that advance the peace and liberty of the majority of people. We must keep faith with the dream that I

believe brought most of us into criminology. Read my T-shirt: ‘No justice, no peace’! Criminologists

of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your research grants! And they’re disappearing

anyway.

Thank you BSC for this great honour that you have conferred on me. I hope and trust that you

will continue to flourish in the tough times ahead, under the wise guidance of Loraine Gelsthorpe,

continuing on from Mike Hough’s fine leadership.

Robert Reiner, June 2011

References

Walzer, M. (1993) Interpretation and Social Criticism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


12

Reading the Riots

Tim Newburn Professor of Criminology and Social Policy, London School of Economics

The “England Riots” began in Tottenham, London, on August 6, and quickly spread

to towns and cities across the country. After four nights of civil unrest, five people had been killed and

more than 2,000 arrested. Although the initial disturbances in Tottenham were recognisable in their

origins and development when compared with previous riots on the mainland, the following days saw

evidence of a type of systematic looting that did not appear to fit previous experience in the UK. A

major political debate about the causes of the riots and the appropriate policy response quickly ensued,

though rhetoric and assertion tended to dominate.

Opinion about the causes of the riots was extraordinarily varied. The Prime Minister rejected

the idea that they could be considered to be protests. On the contrary, in his view it was “people

showing indifference to right and wrong, people with a twisted moral code, people with a complete

absence of self-restraint.” Beyond this ‘sheer criminality’ as he called it, an array of other ideas have

been floated. The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, pointed to a ‘feral underclass’ who have been

insufficiently held to account by the penal system and who have never learnt the traditional values

associated with being a productive member of society.

From a slightly different political position, fingers were pointed at increasing social

inequalities, growing alienation among the young, and the poor example set by the greed of bankers

and of MPs’ fraudulent expenses. The Observer columnist, Nick Cohen, drew a link with the

deteriorating economic circumstances in Greece and Spain. Other commentators have weighed in, with

absent fathers and family breakdown, poor discipline in schools, the influence of gangs, and rap

music, all held up as possible causes of the riots and looting in August.

Then there are the new social media. Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry Messenger have come

in for particular attention, with critics arguing that they played a crucial role in the orchestration of the

riots. Indeed, immediately after the worst of the rioting, it was widely rumoured that a number of

senior government figures were actively considering the possibility of attempting to limit the use of

social media sites during any future civil disorder.

Speculation is easy however. What was missing among all the clamour was much of a desire to

stand back and collect evidence. On this occasion there was to be no Lord Justice Scarman, though

some smaller scale inquiries were to be set up. A “victims’ panel” was established by the Deputy

Prime Minister to hear from those affected by the riots, and the Home Affairs Committee also

announced that it would also hold hearings into the disturbances. HMIC also began an inquiry into the

policing of the disturbances, and the Home Secretary was to lead an inquiry into gang culture.

However, government resisted calls for a public inquiry and it quickly became clear that there was

unlikely to be any full-scale empirical assessment of the riots and their aftermath. It was in this context

that the Guardian and the LSE established the Reading the Riots research study, funded by the Joseph

Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations.

The study has two phases, the first of which has just been completed. We took the view that the

biggest gap in all the talk in the immediate aftermath of the riots, was the voices of the ‘rioters’

themselves. The first phase, therefore, sought to interview as many people as was possible in a short

period of time (less than a month) with a view to reporting as quickly as possible in order to maximise

the chances of having some chance of affecting political and policy debates. We therefore set about

recruiting interviewers – who we hoped would not only have interviewing skills, but also the personal

skills and contacts to enable successful contact to be made with people involved in the riots. We had

an ambitious target for this phase: approximately 200 interviews with people involved in the riots in


13

London, Birmingham, Manchester, Salford, Liverpool and Nottingham. In the event, through some

extraordinarily hard work by the research team by the end of October 2011, a total of 270 interviews

had been successfully completed. The vast majority of these were undertaken out in local communities

– though a small number were also done within prisons. In addition, colleagues from Manchester

University also undertook some analysis of a database of 2.57m tweets that the Guardian had managed

to secure from Twitter, in order to explore how this particular strand of the new social media had been

used during the riots.

Following the unusual template that the study has been working to, the initial results of the first

phase of Reading the Riots were published in six days of extensive newspaper coverage in the

Guardian. All the reports can be found on the project website: www.guardian.co.uk/uk/series/reading-

the-riots. The initial findings, in short, were:

A widespread anger and frustration at people’s everyday treatment at the hands of police was a

significant factor in every major city where disorder took place. At the heart of problematic

relations with the police was a sense of a lack of respect, and anger at what was felt to be

discriminatory treatment. The focus of much resentment was often police use of stop and search -

which was felt to be unfairly targeted and often undertaken in an aggressive and discourteous

manner.

Gangs behaved in an entirely atypical manner for the duration of the riots, temporarily suspending

hostilities with their postcode rivals. The effective four-day truce applied to towns and cities across

England. In the main, the study found the role of gangs in the riots to have been significantly

overstated.

Contrary to widespread speculation at the time, social media sites Facebook and Twitter were not

used in any significant way by rioters. In contrast, the free messaging service available on

BlackBerry phones - known as “BBM” - was used to extensively communicate, share information

and plan in advance of riots.

Although mainly young and male, those involved in the riots came from a cross-section of local

communities. Just under half of those interviewed in the study were students. Of those who were

not in education, 29 percent were unemployed. Although half of those interviewed were black,

those involved did not consider these “race riots”.

Many rioters conceded their involvement in looting was simply down to opportunism, saying that a

perceived suspension of normal rules presented them with an opportunity to acquire goods and

luxury items they could not ordinarily afford. They often described the riots as a chance to obtain

“free stuff”.

The evidence suggests rioters were generally poorer than the country at large. Analysis of more

than 1,000 court records suggests 58% of England rioters come from the most deprived 20% of

areas in the UK. Other analysis carried out by the Department for Education and Ministry of

Justice on young riot defendants found 64% came from the poorest fifth of areas – and only 3%

came from the richest fifth.

Rioters identified a number of other motivating grievances, from the increase in tuition fees, to the

closure of youth services and the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance. Many

complained about perceived social and economic injustices. Anger over the police shooting of

Mark Duggan, which triggered initial disturbances in Tottenham, was repeatedly mentioned - even

outside London.


14

Almost four-fifths (79%) of those interviewed said that they thought that riots would happen again,

and slightly under one third (30%) said that they would get involved if there were riots. Of those

that expressed a view, 63% said that they thought more riots would occur within 3 years.

Although analysis is continuing on the first phase material, and will do so for some time yet,

we are already in the early planning stages of the second phase of the study. A significant next step for

Reading the Riots will be to take the findings from phase one back to local communities as the basis

for a series of community debates and discussions. The intention is that these should be public debates

in the areas affected by the riots and led by the people most affected by them.

We will also be looking at a series of criminal justice issues raised by the riots. First, we will be

examining both the policing of the riots as they unfolded, as well as the work undertaken by the police

service to identify offenders in the aftermath. Our intention is to interview officers – both at a

command level and those involved in front-line policing – to hear their experiences of the riots as they

started, evolved and came to an end.

The second element of the criminal justice study will focus on the work of the courts. The

courts were required to work under unusual circumstances, with all night court sittings, high levels of

custodial remand, and the use of substantial prison sentences for many of those convicted of riot-

related offences. In this part of the study we will be interviewing court staff and sentencers, exploring

their experiences of working during and after the worst civil disturbances for a generation. As

previously, the findings from this second phase of the study will also begin to appear on the project

website as they emerge.


15

Reflections on the Riots

Jon Silverman Professor of Media and Criminal Justice, University of Bedfordshire (and former BBC Home Affairs Correspondent)

So, what was at the root of it? That summer storm of looting, arson and disorder which

broke over some of our major cities and towns in August, providing a spectacle which was beamed

around the world. One thing seems certain. Unlike Brixton in 1981 or Broadwater Farm in 1985, any

attempt to impose a meta-narrative on what happened is bound to fail. From the politicians who

offered instant opinion that the cause was gang-related, to the youth and community workers who

warned that the cuts would have consequences, to the eminence grise of modern sociology, Zygmunt

Bauman (2011), who fingered ‘defective and disqualified consumers’, no over-arching explanation

will suffice because the facts do not support one. So, eschewing a Hercule Poirot-type exposition with

all the suspects gathered in the library, how do we frame a plausible interpretation from the clues on

offer?

The first step is to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that, because we have some statistical

information about the profile of those arrested and charged, we can safely make assumptions about

why they rioted. As the Ministry of Justice bulletin released in October somewhat inelegantly put it:

‘…none of the factors explored imply causality with the public disorder events’ (Ministry of Justice

2011:3). But taken together, the data and analyses released by the MoJ, Home Office, and the

Metropolitan Police provide a picture (albeit a partial one) of social deprivation, educational under-

attainment and young male anomie. Two in five of the young people appearing in court were receiving

free school meals. Two in three were identified as having special educational needs. Of the adult

defendants, more than one in three was claiming some kind of benefit. From such raw material, it

would be tempting to construct a version of the riots as an uprising of the underclass, a playing-out of

the thesis of the Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009) that unaddressed inequality breeds

“psycho-social” frustration, to the point where violence is a predictable outcome.

However, other factors may have played an equally influential part. The MoJ stats show that

26% of those brought before the courts for disorder-related offences were juveniles (i.e. 10-17 years

old) and a further 27% were aged 18-20. Only 5% were over 40 years old. This differs quite markedly

from the age profile of those appearing in court for similar offences in 2010 when the proportion of

juveniles was 16%; that of 18-20 year-olds, 15% and those 40-plus, 15%. Conclusion? That the

opportunity of an adrenaline rush during the school-free days of August was a seductive incentive for

many teenagers, whether or not they were encouraged onto the streets by Blackberry Messenger. And

this was confirmed by the interviews of 50 young people carried out for the NatCen survey,

commissioned by the Cabinet Office. It was ‘described in terms of a wild party or “like a rave”,’

(Morrell et al., 2011).

The NatCen ethnographic evidence also suggests that opportunism and a dissatisfaction with

the police were motivational factors and it is highly likely that they came together in the pallid

response by the Metropolitan Police (MPS) to the first outbreaks of trouble in London. The ‘early

emerging findings’ of the MPS internal review conceded that the force did not have enough officers

available on the first night of disturbances, despite the activation of the force mobilisation plan. This

was critical, not just for London but for other cities too. As the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester,

Peter Fahy, commented: ‘A certain group of people saw what was happening in London and decided

they seemed to be getting away with it. The authorities weren’t in control and they decided they

wanted their opportunity’ (BBC Panorama, November 14, 2011). More disturbing still, from a

policing perspective, the impression was given, perhaps for the first time in living memory, that, for a


16

period, operational decisions were being made, not at BCU level, not at management board level at

Scotland Yard but by local and national politicians. In retrospect, for all the talk about the usefulness

of deploying water cannon and plastic baton rounds, this is the most significant legacy of the riots for

the Met. Here was a force consistently wrong-footed by public order challenges in recent times and

reeling from the loss of two commissioners in under three years. Nothing has done more to reinforce

the Prime Minister’s (misplaced) faith in elected police commissioners than the sight of the police in

London seemingly caught in a directionless funk by a rag-tag bunch of kids in hoodies.

The Met has also acknowledged that its most important weapon in tackling public order

challenges, reliable intelligence, was neutralised by the speed with which information was transmitted

on social networks. It has to be said that this is not an unexpected failure. The Met has tended to see

the output of the media as a flow which needs to be tamed and channelled in the service of a tailored

version of events. It is the ‘golden hour’ theory of policing, that what gets put into the public domain

in the first 60 minutes after a crime will shape perceptions thereafter. But the fluidity and interactivity

of new media makes it a slippery foe. As the former deputy assistant commissioner, Brian Paddick,

says:

The Met has already had problems with Facebook and other social networking sites, where, in

the run-up to the G20 protests, officers were publishing what might have been seen as

inflammatory stuff - how they were up for it, or whatever. So, it is going to become

increasingly difficult for the Met to control information in the way they have liked to in the

past (cited in Silverman, 2011:122).

Paddick’s own experience, when he was a commander in Lambeth a decade ago and decided to engage

with a locally-based website called urban75, in a discussion about anarchy, spoke volumes for the

normative cultural outlook of the Met at that time and of sections of the media. Dubbed ‘Commander

Crackpot’ both by The Sun and Daily Telegraph (in a column by one, Boris Johnson!) and the subject

of a whispering campaign by some in the Met hierarchy, Paddick’s unauthorised foray into virgin

territory became a warning to others. On the evidence of last summer, the organisation has some way

to go before it discovers sufficient self-confidence to thrive in the new media ecology rather than be

lost in it.

References

Bauman Z. (2011) The London riots – on consumerism coming home to roost, Available at:

www.social-europe.eu/2011/08

Home Office (2011) An Overview of Recorded Crimes and Arrests Resulting from Disorder Events in

August 2011, London: Home Office.

Metropolitan Police (2011) Strategic Review of MPS Response to Disorder: Early Learnings and

initial Findings, London: MPS.

Ministry of Justice (2011) Statistical Bulletin on the public disorder of 6th

to 9th

August 2011 –

October update, Ministry of Justice Statistical Bulletin, London: Ministry of Justice.

NatCen (2011) The August Riots in England and Wales: Understanding the Involvement of Young

People. London: NatCen.

Silverman J. (2011) Crime, Policy and the Media, Abingdon: Routledge.

Wilkinson R., and Pickett K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do

Better, London: Allen Lane.


17

Shock Horror: Rioters Cause Riots! Criminals Cause Crime!

John Lea Visiting Professor of Criminology, University of Brighton

So now we know: the interim report of the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel discovered,

after talking to a few people, that “there was no one single motivating factor for the riots. We heard of

motivations from the need for new trainers to a desire to attack society” (Singh, 2011: 12). This

superficial verdict is only partially redeemed by such additional observations as that most convicted

rioters were not gang members and that up to a third of under-18s who came before the courts had not

committed previous offences. But these and other statistics were already well known and aired in the

media. The fact is that the nearest thing to an official inquiry into last August’s riots tells us very little

we did not already know. The inquiry was the outcome neither of systematic social research nor a high

profile mobilisation of leading practitioners and social planners. The real tasks of research into the

riots have been left to the private and voluntary sectors - notably the consortium of the LSE, The

Guardian, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations.

This fact itself, the lack of a systematic public inquiry, is the real key to what has been taking

place. David Cameron originally did not want an inquiry. The appointment of the head of Jobcentre

Plus to lead the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel was arguably the result of pressure from Nick

Clegg and Ed Miliband. Cameron, having characterised the riots as an ‘outbreak of mindless

criminality’, did not see much point in an inquiry which would either show that criminals cause crime

or, if it started talking about causes, might lead to dangerous critiques of the neoliberal project upon

which the Coalition government is based.

The contrast with the Scarman report into the 1981 riots could not be more stark. In the

aftermath to rioting in Brixton (South London) followed by disturbances in Liverpool and the

Midlands, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher voiced sentiments not dissimilar to Cameron’s. However,

this did not prevent her liberal Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw from commissioning Lord Scarman,

a leading liberal judge with all the accompanying gravitas, to conduct a systematic public inquiry. Two

aspects of Scarman’s report would be most unwelcome in government circles today. Firstly, his

conclusion that the rioters did indeed have a legitimate grievance. Systematic aggressive over-policing

of young blacks, epitomised by massive disproportionalities in stop and search had led to the belief

that rioting, “though wrong, is a very effective means of protest” (Scarman, 1981: para 2.38). In the

current climate he would be simply shouted down. The second thing Scarman recommended was that

“in order to secure social stability there will be a long term need to provide useful, gainful employment

and suitable educational, recreational and leisure opportunities for young people, especially in the

inner city” (Scarman, 1981: para 6.29).

Of course this interventionist Welfare State Keynesianism was already out-dated. What we got

instead was the visit to Liverpool by environment secretary Michael Heseltine aiming to attract private

investment to urban regeneration. The result was a renewal of the city centre based on middle class

consumption, while poor riot-torn areas like Toxteth were largely ignored. Liverpool, as writers like

Roy Coleman and Anna Minton have documented, has become “one of the most segregated and

security-conscious places in the country” (Minton, 2008: 4). Neoliberal urban renewal (dominated by

private investment and the free market) was clearing out the young, the poor and unemployed. Rather

than trying to counter these tendencies, governments helped out with diminishing workfare benefits,

ASBOs, CCTV and private security guards. The foundations for the next wave of riots were being laid.


18

The riots in Bradford and other West Yorkshire towns in 2001 were the final death of Scarman’s

Keynesian approach. His ‘how did we fail to integrate these communities?’ was replaced, in the

various reports on the riots (each town had its own report, written by a public sector bureaucrat) by

‘how did these communities fail to succeed in local labour markets?’. Whites and Asians needed to

stop fighting each other over the dregs of the collapsing Yorkshire steel and textile industries and

develop ‘community cohesion’. That is, they had to become more entrepreneurial and attract new

business (Cantle, 2001).

New Labour, now in power, had adopted the neoliberal agenda. It was ready to intervene, but

not with state-led employment generation. Rather a battery of community renewal and cohesion

initiatives came forth which did little to reverse the trends to social polarisation, social exclusion and

the growth of the ‘precariat’ in which a growing army of NEETS (not in employment, education or

training) found themselves: a toxic mixture of unemployment, low wage, insecure dead end work, a

punitive police and ‘workfare state’.

There are some key differences which can be identified between the recent riots and the

previous ones discussed above. Firstly, the rioters themselves. All the previous ingredients can of

course be found: massive alienation from and hatred of the police. Rather than superficial comments

(of which the media are full) to the effect that these rioters had criminal convictions so of course they

hated the police, it might be more worthwhile to ponder why so little has changed in the relationship

between the police and young people in deprived areas in the thirty years since the Scarman report.

Could it be that, in some respects, the situation has got worse? Among rioters interviewed (by the

Guardian researchers in particular) there was certainly anger and resentment against stop and search,

today as in Scarman’s time. But the resentment seems more diffuse, not simply police disrespect or

disproportional stopping of young blacks, but a much more generalised notion of battle against the

police for the control of public space. “We rioted to show the police we could” was a frequent

comment.

In a similar way, while there was plenty of looting in Brixton in 1981 it was largely people

taking advantage of the chaos. In last August’s riots ‘taking stuff’ was much more systematic. For

many it was the main thing. If neoliberalism had told people that they were utterly worthless except in

terms of their power as consumers then here was the revolt of what Zygmunt Bauman has called the

‘failed consumer’. But underlying all this was a huge reservoir of rage and hatred directed not just at

the police, or big stores, but at ‘everything’ that has condemned thousands of young people to utterly

worthless lives and denied them even the dignity that comes from a lifetime in the service of

capitalism. “Have you any regrets?” a rioter was asked in the excellent Newsnight film by Paul Lewis

(BBC Newsnight, 5/12/2011). “Yes, that I didn’t do more damage. That I didn’t burn down a police

station.” This is politics alright. But not the sort any of us, at least in Britain, have seen for a very long

time.

This brings us back, finally, to government’s reluctance to concede an inquiry. There is in fact

a symmetry between Cameron’s view of the riots as ‘mindless criminality’ and the notion of a revolt

against ‘everything’, what Slavoj Žižek described as ‘zero-degree’ protest. The latter, in the mind of a

conservative, can only appear as the former. As soon as we start letting loose academics and other

busybodies to opine about causes, then this mindless revolt against everything is broken down into

specific things that have gone wrong - with economic and social policy, with education and with

policing and criminal justice - and before you know it we have specific remedies being proposed and

the danger is we are back with Scarman and a high profile media debate about state-led investment in

jobs and education.

This is simply not possible (though Keynesians would disagree) in the middle of the worst

economic crisis since the 1930s - or even in the history of capitalism. The Coalition government is in

the middle of a programme of massive public spending cuts, from which the criminal justice agencies

are not excluded. So what, in my opinion, the government is doing is trying to maintain a focus on

those forms of remedy in which social investment can be effectively replaced by private and voluntary


19

sector initiatives. That is why, in the face of nearly all the evidence, there is still a focus on gangs and

individual problem families. These are the sorts of micro-problems that could conceivably be targeted

by non-state agencies.

But the real danger is this. The lack of anything resembling a serious attempt to stop the rot and

create a future for an expanding population of unemployed young people has left the ground clear for a

continued emphasis on policing and repression. In all riots the policing issues usually dominate the

early post-riot debates. This was true of Scarman, even though he did make some attempt to attribute a

measure of responsibility for the 1981 riots to police racism. However, this debate should be rapidly

joined and superseded by careful analysis of causes and a shift to social policy.

But a key feature of the present situation is the way that the lack of any serious debate about a

shift in social and economic policy has been accompanied by a prolongation of the repressive and

punitive response. Police tracking and arresting of rioters has continued much longer after the riots

than on previous occasions with far more arrests (at the time of writing around 3,000 with many still to

come as the police pour over CCTV footage). Certainly, the surveillance technology - in particular

CCTV - is immensely more sophisticated than in previous public disorders. But behind this lies a

political motive to maintain the theme of ‘mindless criminality’ in the public consciousness and to

prepare for a decade of worsening social deprivation by sending a clear message that urban disorder

will be met with heavy policing and exemplary sentences by the courts. Meanwhile the attempt to

incorporate welfare and housing agencies into the ‘extended police family’ with threats of benefit

reduction and termination of housing tenancies against families with members convicted of rioting

seems aimed at achieving what the military call ‘full spectrum dominance’.

Neoliberalism, having renounced as irrational any attempt at social reform, falls back on

repression, hoping that ‘shock and awe’ inflicted by a joined up security state will be sufficient to

contain the anger and rage of a lost generation of young people through the coming years of the worst

global economic recession since the 1930s.

References

Cantle T. (2001) Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team, London: Home

Office.

Lea, J. (2004) ‘From Brixton to Bradford: Ideology and discourse on race and urban violence in the

United Kingdom’. In G. Gilligan and J. Pratt (eds.) Crime, Truth and Justice, Cullompton: Willan.

Minton, A, (2008) Why are fear and distrust spiralling in twenty-first century Britain? York: Joseph

Rowntree Foundation.

Scarman, Lord Justice (1981) The Brixton Disorders 10-12 April 1981, Cmnd 8427, London: Home

Office

Singh, D. (2011) 5 Days in August: An Interim Report on the 2011 English Riots. London: Riots,

Communities and Victims Panel.

John Lea is Visiting Professor of Criminology at University of Brighton. He authored (with Jock

Young) What Is To Be Done About Law and Order (1984). His most recent book was Crime and

Modernity (2002). He worked for Lord Gifford’s inquiry into the Broadwater Farm (Tottenham) riots

in 1985 and has published a number of essays on race and policing. The above article is based on talks

he gave in recent months at both the South West Branch (Plymouth) and the Southern (London)

Branches of the BSC. Email: [email protected]


20

Developments in the BSC Postgraduate Committee

As Christmas looms, thoughts about the next Postgraduate conference may not be foremost in our

minds, but there is work going on in preparation for Portsmouth 2012. One pleasing development is

that the conference this year starts on a Tuesday, meaning delegates can travel on a Monday when

trains are frequent and we can avoid some of the issues of the Sunday start. It is clear sometimes that

logistical issues or institutional constraints may mean this is not always possible, but it will be

important this year to gauge from feedback just how much of an impact this has.

Since Lystra Hagley-Dickinson left the committee last year, we now have five new members so

welcome to Rachel Morris, Linda Asquith, Jean-Loup Richet, Anna Sergi and Daniel Bear. I have now

taken over as Chair, so it is very nice to have new members joining up to keep up the profile and

maintain the activities of the group.

One new development for the committee is the new Facebook page - “British Society of

Criminology Post Graduate Community” - which now has 75 members from far and wide.

Membership of the BSC is not a condition of joining the Facebook page, it really is meant to make use

of social networking to share articles, promote events or just add thoughts for the day! It will promote

the BSC and events led by the BSC to encourage members to join, so it will be interesting to see if this

has an impact on numbers. I have asked all members of the committee to contribute to monitoring and

adding to the site and we are planning a rota to formalise this a little more. Monitoring will be

important to make sure the site is used appropriately, but at the moment there has been no problems

and it does seem to be a useful networking tool. From the committee, I have had some positive

responses including making links with a group in New Zealand and with one ex-committee member

Ali Fraser now working in Hong Kong, we can truly make this an international group!

There will no doubt be more developments in the New Year on the conference planning and on

the Facebook page. In the meantime, I wish you all a happy Christmas and New Year.

Susie Atherton, De Montfort University


21

BSC Learning & Teaching Committee News

Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences (ELiSS) Announcement of Special Issue on Digital Literacies

Extended deadline 5th January 2012

ELiSS want critical thinkers to write on the issues involved in the processes of producing digitally

literate students, acknowledging similarities and differences and factoring in gender, class, ethnicity

and broad socio-economic contexts. Can universities re-model their approaches to students,

challenging the notion of the traditional student and managing digital diversity in a digital age?

Perhaps universities need to cultivate a greater sense of digital maturity to provide the infrastructure

necessary to nurture the digital literacies of students and ensure staff are sufficiently skilled in their

own understanding of digital literacies to enhance teaching. What do we want from the next-generation

of universities, educators and students?

For more information see:

www.eliss.org.uk/CallforPapers/SpecialIssueApril2012/tabid/274/Default.aspx

Submissions to: [email protected]

Helen Jones, Manchester Metropolitan University

Publications News: “Papers from the British Criminology Conference”

Volume 11 of “Papers from the British Criminology Conference” has just been published, drawing on

papers from the 2011 BSC Conference at Northumbria University. The journal is available at:

www.britsoccrim.org/publications.htm#002. Papers were reviewed by at least two academics. We are

pleased to include a paper from Professor Jill Peay’s plenary address to the conference. We also have

contributions from Rod Earle, Angus Nurse and Shaun Elder.

The production of this journal was only possible with the assistance of colleagues

who all gave their time freely. Thanks are due to the editorial team of Karen Bullock

and Simon Mackenzie. Thanks also to Spencer Chainey, Ben Crewe, Hazel Croall,

Rosie Erol, Alex Hirschfield, Christina Pantazis, Peter Squires and Rob White who

all proved to be excellent reviewers. We hope to produce Volume 12 of our online

journal “Papers from the British Criminology Conference” for the Portsmouth event,

so if you are planning to speak it would be great if you would also consider

submitting your paper to this journal.

Andrew Millie, Edge Hill University


22

BSC Regional News

Forthcoming Seminars

BSC Yorkshire and Humberside 2nd Research Seminar: Qualitative Research with Offenders Thursday 22nd March 2012 This day-long (10am to 3pm) seminar will be devoted to papers which explore recent qualitative

research on offenders. Qualitative research is understood broadly (and would include research based

on 1-1 interviews, focus groups, ethnographic observation, archival research and other innovative

methods). No specific groups of offenders will be excluded, so research on drug users, sex workers,

those on probation or in prison, amongst others, are all welcome. Papers based on research which

explores offender-CJS interactions (such as arrest, 'treatment' or supervision) are also of relevance.

Presentations by PhD students are encouraged. We expect that there will be about 6 papers.

The seminar will take place at the School of Law at Leeds University. Lunch will be provided.

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Emma ([email protected]) or Steve

([email protected]).

Emma Wincup (University of Leeds) and Stephen Farrall (University of Sheffield)

BSC North East Branch Seminar

Community, Politics and Resistance in Down Town East Side Vancouver: Using participatory and visual methods in criminological research Maggie O'Neill, Professor of Criminology, Durham University

Wednesday 25 January 2012. Teesside University, Clarendon Building, CL 1.01, 16:00-17:30

Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) is consistently described in the mainstream media as a

problem community and ‘Canada's poorest postal code.’ DTES also has a long and deeply embedded

history of community activism and resistance. This paper presents the participatory action research

undertaken in DTES between January and September 2011 to show what 'community' means, looks

and feels like and the relations, spaces and places of marginality and resistance through the eyes,

photographs, digital stories and lived experiences of DTES residents.

Georgios Antonopoulos, Teesside University


23

BSC Regional News

News from the South West Branch of the BSC

The South West branch of the British Society of Criminology held the first seminar of the 2011/12

academic year in conjunction with the Plymouth Law School at Plymouth University on the 8th

September 2011. The seminar saw Professor John Lea present a paper entitled ‘Riots, citizenship and

the crisis of the neoliberal state’. [A development of this paper is included in this newsletter]. John’s

paper addressed the management of recent riots across the UK comparatively with previous riots in

2001 and 1981. The seminar was very well attended and John’s paper resulted in an interesting debate

on the genesis of the recent riots and their management. His excellent website is well worth a visit for

further information and knowledge about criminology: www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

See also:

Lea, J. (2011) Riots and the Crisis of Neoliberalism

Available from: www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/misc/riots2011.html

Following the seminar an informal meeting of the South West Branch was held to plan for future

events. It was agreed that the branch would hold further seminars and is keen to support small,

conference style, themed events in the next academic year. It was also agreed at this meeting that the

Branch would support, alongside Plymouth Law School, a new film club for Plymouth University staff

and students interested in crime films. The new CrimiFilm Club will run alongside the Polifilm Club

which is organised by the International Relations team. Films chosen for CrimiFilm have been

identified by a film editor, Jono Griffith, that address different aspects of criminality and the criminal

justice system which are also considered film classics. Forthcoming CrimiFilm dates are 24 January

and 28 February 2012.

Zoë James, University of Plymouth

british society of criminology newsletter ·...

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