Critical criminology, critical theory and social harm

Abstract

Introduction Critical criminology emerged in the late 1960s from a convergence between social science and the wider spirit of oppositional political movements that characterised those turbulent times on both sides of the Atlantic. Committed to ‘deconstructing’ crime and crime control (Cohen 1998) so as to illuminate the manifold ways in which they refl ect and reproduce patterns of power, inequality, exploitation and exclusion, the movement gained rapid momentum. In the intervening four decades, the critical orientation has expanded to include a wide range of overlapping, intersecting (and sometimes competing) perspectives, variously identifi ed as ‘radical’, ‘feminist’, ‘abolitionist’, ‘confl ict’, ‘peacemeaking’, ‘constitutive’, ‘integrative’, ‘postmodern’, ‘green’ and ‘cultural’ criminologies. However, despite the self-evident vigour of this critical propensity, it is notable that the tradition of critical theory (itself under constant development and revision since the 1920s) has found only a very limited purchase within critical criminology. In this paper (following some preliminary scene-setting) I sketch one way in which critical theory may make a decisive contribution to the development of critical criminology. Given the sheer diversity of perspectives that are encompassed within the ‘broad church’ of critical criminology, it is of course impossible to address the potential relevance of critical theory for even a handful of its specifi c formulations. Therefore, I have chosen here to focus on one important strand in recent critical criminology, namely the attempt to ‘decriminalise’ the discipline by shifting its object of analysis from the social construct of crime, and towards a focus upon the manifold social harms that are produced by patterns of inequality in advanced capitalism. While a harms-based conception of critical criminological inquiry is, I claim, one of its most promising avenues for development, it is nevertheless beset with problems in providing a coherent grounding for its key analytical-empirical category – that of harm itself. Turning to the recent development of critical theory based upon the concept of recognition, I attempt to show how such theory can resolve key problems facing harms-based perspectives, and so help shape critical criminology in a positive manner.