Criminological futures and gendered violence(s): Lessons from the global pandemic for criminology

Sandra Walklate

doi:10.1177/00048658211003629

Sandra Walklate

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/00048658211003629

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to foreground the gendered crime consequences of the global pandemic and to raise questions emanating from them for the future(s) of criminology. The paper reviews some of the criminological response to the pandemic offered during 2020. The global pandemic was constituted by some as providing the opportunity for a natural experiment in which criminological theories and concepts could be tested in real time and by others as an opportunity to further raise the profile of crimes more hidden from view, particularly domestic abuse. For the former, domestic abuse is constituted as an exception to what might be learned from this experimental moment. For the latter, gendered violence(s) are central to making sense of this moment as ongoing, mundane and ordinary features of (women’s) everyday lives. This paper makes the case that the evidence relating to the gendered consequences of Covid-19, renders it no longer possible for the discipline to regard feminist informed work (largely found within the latter view above) as the stranger, outside of, or an exception to, the discipline’s central concerns. It is suggested that the future(s) of criminology lie in rendering that stranger’s voice, focusing as it does on the continuities of men’s gendered violence(s) in all spheres of life, as the discipline’s central problematic.

Highlights

Downes (1988) defined criminology as a rendezvous subject, pointing to the potential for the discipline, insofar as ‘the most creative thinking occurs at the meeting places of disciplines. . ..at the edges where the lines are blurred, it is easier to imagine that the world might be different’ (Bateson, 1989, p. 73)
This potential for creativity might be seen as a key characteristic of this area of investigation given that there is not just one criminology but, arguably, many criminologies
An early Policy Brief set the tone for some of the work that followed. This brief entitled, ‘Crime and Contagion: The Impact of a Pandemic on Organized Crime’ was far reaching in its focus commenting on the constraints and the opportunities for further exploitation of those already vulnerable to organised crime and the virus effects that might ensue in worsening those vulnerabilities

Summary

Introduction

Downes (1988) defined criminology as a rendezvous subject (a meeting place in which those with different disciplinary orientations were brought together by the single problematic of crime), pointing to the potential for the discipline, insofar as ‘the most creative thinking occurs at the meeting places of disciplines. . ..at the edges where the lines are blurred, it is easier to imagine that the world might be different’ (Bateson, 1989, p. 73). An early Policy Brief (published in March 2020 by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime) set the tone for some of the work that followed. This brief entitled, ‘Crime and Contagion: The Impact of a Pandemic on Organized Crime’ was far reaching in its focus commenting on the constraints and the opportunities for further exploitation of those already vulnerable to organised crime and the virus effects that might ensue in worsening those vulnerabilities. Cybercrime, trafficking of all kinds, the consequent effects of lockdowns, are all mentioned This brief spoke of the problematic consequences of possible social disorder and associated questions of legitimacy posed for criminal justice professionals because of pandemic-imposed restrictions on behaviour. The temptation of prediction to inform criminal justice policy remains clear

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Conclusion