This week and next week are a two-parter to round off the term (I'm afraid the guest lecture which was planned for this term doesn't look like materialising). This week's and next week's lecture look at different areas in which radical victimology is useful. Next week we'll
be looking at ethnicity as a factor in crime, including crimes which
aren't overtly racist in nature or motivation. This week we looked at
corporate crime: crimes and other serious harms committed by businesses.
What these very different types of crime have in common is that they
both take place against the backdrop of unequal power relations, which
affect both the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime and the
likelihood of gaining recognition as a victim.
Corporate crime takes many different forms. When Ken Lay of Enron, or Robert Maxwell of the Mirror group, destroyed their own businesses from within for their own benefit, that was corporate crime. When banks sold people mortgage policies that were never going to pay
out adequately, or insurance policies that they were never going to be
able to claim on, that was corporate crime. When a Dutch company sold Romanian horsemeat to British supermarkets and food processors under the guise of beef, that was corporate crime. All these very different examples reflect a difference of power. Businesses large and
small have much more power over us than we do over them, and in some
cases the power they have is exercised in unlawful ways: overcharging us, selling us
sub-standard products, ordering us to work excessive hours.
Even when it takes directly life-threatening forms, corporate crime has a
tendency to remain invisible - "man crushed by machinery at workplace"
may be an item on the local news but it won't make the national press. Not only that, but it won't get into the crime statistics. Nobody knows how much
law-breaking goes on in business. One reason for this is that business
regulation - the main approach used to control commercial rule-breaking -
has a strong orientation towards gaining compliance rather than
prosecuting wrong-doers. Where prosecution is used, it is used as a last
resort: inspectors will try to get managers to co-operate, then use the
threat of prosecution to try and induce compliance. Actually taking a
company to court is an implicit admission that other methods have
failed, and is almost a punishment in itself.
There are good reasons for using this
'responsive', compliance-oriented approach: being treated with respect
encourages managers and employees to commit themselves to the rules
being enforced, rather than just treating them as a box-ticking
exercise. The more punitive approach of prosecuting everything that can
be prosecuted may lead to staff getting stressed and demotivated, and only caring
about sticking to the rules because they're afraid they'll lose their
jobs.
But even if it does produce better results, with less
disruption, than a more punitive approach, there's a question-mark over
the responsive approach when it comes to the victims of corporate crime. Should corporate criminals always be prosecuted for the sake of doing
justice to the victims? Alternatively, is it better to implement regulation
that leads to better practices being adopted, so that there are fewer
victims in future?
Monday 9 December 2013
Monday 2 December 2013
Week 9: Youth, old age and being a victim
This week we talked about two groups of people who don't entirely fit
into our usual ideas about crime and victimisation: old people and young
people, including children.
The majority of people in society are adult and able-bodied, and when we think about people becoming victims of crime we tend to assume an adult, able-bodied victim. (Even the little old lady Christie presented as the archetypal "ideal victim" is living a fairly active life.) People who aren't adult and able-bodied seem to drop out of the picture when we're thinking about victims - just as they do, arguably, in a lot of other contexts.
The way we overlook old people and children has two main consequences. Firstly, it means that we overlook the types of crime which those groups are particularly likely to experience. Adults may feel intimidated by fifteen-year-old hoodies, but what age-group is most likely to suffer actual crime at the hands of a fifteen-year-old - to be robbed or harassed or beaten up for looking weird? I'll tell you now, it's not adults. Crimes committed by children against children are a real dark figure, and they're a major factor in lots of kids' lives. Elder abuse is another example: it's a crime that is not so much hidden as completely invisible, except when a particularly scandalous example comes to light.
Secondly, and I think more importantly, we don't tend to see old people or children as people in their own right, who are affected by becoming victims of crime in the same way that we would be. We may be very kind and caring in the way that we interact with them, we may be selflessly dedicated to protecting and looking after them, but we don't usually think they should have a say in what happens to them - or what's done about it when something bad happens to them.
In this sense, the way that we think about old people and children is an example of a much broader issue, which is central to contemporary victimology. This is the question of who counts - who matters in society, who has rights which are violated by crime. Classical victimology drew a line that excluded lots of scruffy, disreputable, unbalanced people, and ended up drawing the category of deserving victims very narrowly indeed. Feminist victimology came on to the scene saying that women count: women have rights which are violated by crime, and by lots of other forms of unjust male power (including within the criminal justice system). Radical victimology, in its different forms, asserts the rights of other groups which have historically been pushed to the margins. All of these ways of looking at victims say that this group counts, and members of this group should be able to say when they think they've been a victim, when they think their rights have been violated.
Is there a strand of radical victimology for children, or for old people? Is anyone out there saying that a boy being beaten up for his dinner money is just as bad as a man being mugged, or that an old woman being taunted and slapped by her daughter-in-law is just as bad as a prisoner being brutalised by prison warders?
If not, do you think there ever will be?
Why, or why not?
The majority of people in society are adult and able-bodied, and when we think about people becoming victims of crime we tend to assume an adult, able-bodied victim. (Even the little old lady Christie presented as the archetypal "ideal victim" is living a fairly active life.) People who aren't adult and able-bodied seem to drop out of the picture when we're thinking about victims - just as they do, arguably, in a lot of other contexts.
The way we overlook old people and children has two main consequences. Firstly, it means that we overlook the types of crime which those groups are particularly likely to experience. Adults may feel intimidated by fifteen-year-old hoodies, but what age-group is most likely to suffer actual crime at the hands of a fifteen-year-old - to be robbed or harassed or beaten up for looking weird? I'll tell you now, it's not adults. Crimes committed by children against children are a real dark figure, and they're a major factor in lots of kids' lives. Elder abuse is another example: it's a crime that is not so much hidden as completely invisible, except when a particularly scandalous example comes to light.
Secondly, and I think more importantly, we don't tend to see old people or children as people in their own right, who are affected by becoming victims of crime in the same way that we would be. We may be very kind and caring in the way that we interact with them, we may be selflessly dedicated to protecting and looking after them, but we don't usually think they should have a say in what happens to them - or what's done about it when something bad happens to them.
In this sense, the way that we think about old people and children is an example of a much broader issue, which is central to contemporary victimology. This is the question of who counts - who matters in society, who has rights which are violated by crime. Classical victimology drew a line that excluded lots of scruffy, disreputable, unbalanced people, and ended up drawing the category of deserving victims very narrowly indeed. Feminist victimology came on to the scene saying that women count: women have rights which are violated by crime, and by lots of other forms of unjust male power (including within the criminal justice system). Radical victimology, in its different forms, asserts the rights of other groups which have historically been pushed to the margins. All of these ways of looking at victims say that this group counts, and members of this group should be able to say when they think they've been a victim, when they think their rights have been violated.
Is there a strand of radical victimology for children, or for old people? Is anyone out there saying that a boy being beaten up for his dinner money is just as bad as a man being mugged, or that an old woman being taunted and slapped by her daughter-in-law is just as bad as a prisoner being brutalised by prison warders?
If not, do you think there ever will be?
Why, or why not?
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