The Home Office’s Racism Studies Before the Macpherson Inquiry: Revisiting Administrative Criminology’s Corpus

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the history of Home Office research on racism between 1976 and 1997. By analysing archival materials, the article focusses on the methodological orientations and bureaucratic negotiations associated with this corpus of administrative criminological studies. The article describes how Home Office criminologists adopted a stance that privileged quantification, restudies and aligning its research with pre-existing policy paradigms of Situational Crime Prevention and multi-agency coordination. In response to campaigners’ calls for racial justice, Home Office policy officials used this research to demonstrate governmental concern, manage media coverage and coordinate community stakeholders. The article argues that British criminology should move beyond dismissing administrative criminology as ‘theoretical empiricism’ to enable a more critical appraisal of the entangled histories of racism, criminology and crime policy.