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A Bloody Shame
I find it fascinating that when I ask my students whether they watch or read the news the reply is generally in the negative. Maybe part of the reason might be found in the fact that so much news resides only temporarily in our conscience before it is replaced by yet another item of news, ‘fake or not’ and we are bombarded with information churned out 24/7, minute by minute. What is alarming is that important issues are reported on, sometimes in a somewhat perfunctory manner, and lost in the mix of other important and less important issues.
And so it is for an item of news that caught my eye just before Christmas. I didn’t really think much about it until somewhere in the back of my mind I had a niggling feeling that just can’t be right. The news item, as I recall it, related to a protest outside Downing Street about women’s sanitary products. A young lady led the protest about the lack of availability of the products for young people, or was it that V.A.T was being added to the products? I just remember the banal comments made by some supporting actress and what I thought were somewhat distasteful banners being displayed. But on reflection all of this masked a serious issue, that of equality and Human Rights. Part of the storyline behind the news was that some young women were not going to school at certain times because they could not afford sanitary products. I couldn’t even imagine the embarrassment this must cause for young ladies. And then I thought about how it might affect other women on low or no income.
There has been much in the news about equality for women recently, most notably around the issue of equal pay. But this issue of sanitary products is even more fundamental. If you don’t have a decent education, how can you get into the work place, let alone achieve parity on pay?
The last time I looked, education was a Human Right. I don’t think the basis of this was something along part time education according to certain times of the month. Women did not ask to be put into this position and it isn’t something that afflicts men. I bet if it did, sanitary products would be available in every public toilet for free and you could probably order your free delivery on line.
I’m not sure how it should work but if we believe in Human Rights and we believe in equality, sanitary products, or the lack of should not be allowed to hold women back. There may be a cost but the payback would be tremendous.
More recently in the news, the Prime Minister, Mrs May, has been visiting China and according to the news had some difficult conversations about Human Rights records. I would suggest that perhaps she ought to look closer to home. And as for the media, perhaps some issues should linger longer to have a chance of embedding themselves in the public’s conscience.
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The true message of Christmas
One of the seasonal discussions we have at social fora is how early the Christmas celebrations start in the streets, shops and the media. An image of snowy landscapes and joyful renditions of festive themes that appear sometime in October and intensify as the weeks unforld. It seems that every year the preparations for the festive season start a little bit earlier, making some of us to wonder why make this fuss? Employees in shops wearing festive antlers and jumpers add to the general merriment and fun usually “enforced” by insistent management whose only wish is to enhance our celebratory mood. Even in my classes some of the students decided to chip in the holiday fun wearing oversized festive jumpers (you know who you are!). In one of those classes I pointed out that this phenomenon panders to the commercialisation of festivals only to be called a “grinch” by one of the gobby ones. Of course all in good humour, I thought.
Nonetheless it was strange considering that we live in a consumerist society that the festive season is marred with the pressure to buy as much food as possible so much so, that those who cannot (according to a number of charities) feel embarrassed to go shopping; or the promotion of new toys, cosmetics and other trendy items that people have to have badly wrapped ready for the big day. The emphasis on consumption is not something that happened overnight. There have been years of making the special season into a family event of Olympic proportions. Personal and family budgets will dwindle in the need to buy parcels of goods, consume volumes of food and alcohol so that we can rejoice.
Many of us by the end of the festive season will look back with regret, for the pounds we put on, the pounds we spent and the things we wanted to do but deferred them until next Christmas. Which poses the question; What is the point of the holiday or even better, why celebrate Christmas anymore? Maybe a secular society needs to move away from religious festivities and instead concentrate on civic matters alone. Why does religion get to dictate the “season to be jolly” and not people’s own desire to be with the ones they want to be with? If there is a message within the religious symbolism this is not reflected in the shop-windows that promote a round-shaped old man in red, non-existent (pagan) creatures and polar animals.
According to the religious message about 2000 years ago a refugee family gave birth to a child on their way to exile. The child would live for about 33 years but will change the face of modern religion. He promised to come back and millions of people still wait for his second coming but in the meantime millions of refugee children are piling up in detention centers and hundreds of others are dying in the journey of the damned. “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, because her children are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15). This is the true message of Christmas today.
Happy Holidays to our students and colleagues.
FYI: Ramah is a town in war torn Middle East
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“Letters from America”: III
For those of you who follow The Criminology Team on Facebook you might have caught @manosdaskalou and I live from Eastern State Penitentiary [ESP]. In this entry, I plan to reflect on that visit in a little more depth.
We first visited ESP in 2011 when the ASC conference was held in Washington, DC. That visit has never left me for a number of reasons, not least the lengths societies are prepared to go in order to tackle crime. ESP is very much a product of its time and demonstrates extraordinarily radical thinking about crime and punishment. For those who have studied the plans for Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon there is much which is familiar, not least the radial design (see illustration below).
This is an institution designed to resolve a particular social problem; crime and indeed deter others from engaging in similar behaviour through humane and philosophically driven measures. The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons* was philanthropic and guided by religious principles. This is reflected in the term penitentiary; a place for sinners to repent and In turn become truly penitent.
This philosophy was distinct and radical with a focus on reformation of character rather than brutal physical punishment. Of course, scholars such as Ignatieff and Foucault have drawn attention to the inhumanity of such a regime, whether deliberate or unintentional, but that should not detract from its groundbreaking history. What is important, as criminologists, is to recognise ESP’s place in the history of penology. That history is one of coercion, pleading, physical and mental brutality and still permeates all aspects of incarceration in the twenty-first century. ESP have tried extremely hard to demonstrate this continuum of punishment, acknowledging its place among many other institutions both home and abroad.
For me the question remains; can we make an individual change their behaviour through the pains of incarceration? I have argued previously in this blog in relation to Conscientious Objectors, that all the evidence suggests we cannot. ESP, as daunting as it may have been in its heyday, would also seem to offer the same answer. Until society recognises the harm and futility of incarceration it is unlikely that penal reform, let alone abolition, will gain traction.
*For those studying CRI1007 it is worth noting the role of Benjamin Rush in this organisation.
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Do you consent to read on?
The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted that @manosdaskalou and I are due to present during ‘I Heart Consent’ Week (still plenty of time to book a space!). The topic – ‘Consent in the Classroom’ is one that is close to our hearts and something we have discussed in different environments with different people. In this week’s entry I want to consider why the subject of consent is particularly important for criminologists.
An obvious area to start is research; ethics are fundamental to all of the projects we do from undergraduate all the way through to seasoned academic. Discussions around ensuring participants are able to fully engage in the process of gaining informed consent are imperative. At times this may be viewed as procedural; simply going through the motions but given the sensitivity of much criminological research it has a primacy and an urgency necessary to avoid harm.
The last few weeks have seen a flurry of accusations directed at Hollywood’s “finest” (cf. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Ed Westwick et al.) and government ministers and MPs (cf. Michael Fallon, Stephen Crabb, Kelvin Hopkins et al.). These often, light on factual evidence and heavy on prurient judgement, throw the spotlight once more on the issue of sexual consent. These cases are concerning on many levels and it is apparent from much of the discussion which often ensues whether on television, radio, in the newspapers or on social media, that many people are confused around the very nature of consent. Attempts have been made to counteract these lack of knowledge, often in creative ways; for example ‘Consent: It’s as simple as tea’ but looking at many of the comments, there is still a great deal of work to do. There are also wider issues in relation to consent; the absence of the victims’ consent to have their information paraded to feed the public’s desire for detail Likewise, the nature of summary justice being dispensed (e.g. expulsion from organisations, cancellation of contracts and resignations) deprives suspects of their right to defend themselves in court; there is no option for those suspected to opt for a trial by media.
Notwithstanding, the imperative to understand sexual consent, for Criminology, there is a further complication. When much, if not all crime, criminality and criminal justice, is predicated on the absence of consent, the issue becomes even more tenacious. If we consider that victims don’t consent, offenders may not consent to what ensues; certainly the criminal justice system’s [CJS] apparatus deliberately and meticulously removes consent throughout the process. Even when it comes to the professionals who work within the CJS, they may not consent, rather they are obeying guidance/policy/instructions/orders (delete as appropriate). After all, it cannot be consent if derived at the barrel of a gun, or in a police interview suite or a prison cell or when the economic situation is so bleak you are terrified of losing your job. When there is no room for manoeuvre, there can be no consent. Institutions and individuals may decide that this is a necessary price to pay in respect of crime and punishment, but that decision should never be taken without reflection.
All of the above shows the importance of consent, not only between the sheets, but in all aspects of criminology. Whatever side of criminal justice you might find yourself on, an understanding of consent is essential.
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Leave my country
One image, one word, one report can generate so much emotion and discussion. The image of the naked girl running away from a napalm bombed village, the word “paedo” used in tabloids to signal particular cases and reports such as the Hillsborough or the Lamy reports which brought centre stage major social issues that we dare not talk about.*
Regardless of the source, it is those media that make a cultural statement making an impact that in some cases transcends their time and forms our collective consciousness. There are numerous images, words and reports, and we choose to make some of these symbols that explain our theory of the world around us.
It was in the news that I saw a picture of a broken window, a stone and a sign next to it: “Leave my country”. The sign was held by an 11 year old refugee with big brown eyes asking why. This is not the only image that made it to the news this week; some days ago following the fatal car crash in New York the image of a 29 year old suspect from Uzbekistan appeared everywhere. These two images are of course unconnected across continents and time but there is some semiology worth noting.
We make sense of the world around us by observing. It is the media that are our eyes helping us to explore this wider world and witness relationships, events and situations that we may never considered possible. It must have been a very different world when over a century ago news of the sinking of the Titanic came through. We store images and words that help us define the way our world functions. In criminology, words are always attached to emotion and prejudice.
I deliberately chose two images: a victimised child and an adult suspect of an act of terror. They have nothing in common other than both appear foreign in the way I understand those who are not like me. Of course neither of these images is personally relatable to me but their story is compelling for different reasons. Then of course as I explore both stories and images, I wonder what is that remains of my understanding of the foreigner?
Last year, the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo produced a caricature of what would little Aylan would have done if he was to grow up, presented as a sex pest. The caricature caused public outcry but at the time, like this week, I started considering the images and their meanings. Do we put stories together based on the images we see around us? If that is a way of defining and explaining our social world then the imagery of good and bad foreigners, young and old, victims and villains may merge in a deconstruction of social reality that defines the foreigner. In that case and at that point the sign next to the 11 year old may not be voiced but it can become an implicit collective objective.
*At this stage I would like to mention that I was considering to write about the media’s “surprise” over the abuse allegations following revelations for a Hollywood producer but decide not to, due to the media’s attempt to saturate one of the most significant social issues of our times with other studies with varying levels of credibility. We observed a similar situation after the Jimmy Saville case.
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A Troubling Ambiguous Order?
Sallek is a graduate from the MSc Criminology. He is currently undertaking doctoral studies at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Having spent the early years of my life in Nigeria, one of the first culture shock I experienced in the UK was seeing that its regular police do not wield arms. Unsurprising, in my lecture on the nature and causes of war in Africa, a young British student studying in Stellenbosch University also shared a similar but reverse sentiment – the South African police and private security forces wield arms openly. To her, this was troubling, but, even more distressing is the everyday use of most African militaries in society for internal security enforcement duties. This is either in direct conflict to the conventional understanding on the institutions involved in the criminal justice system, or African States have developed a unique and unconventional system. Thus, this raises a lot of questions needing answers and this entry is an attempt to stimulate further, thoughts and debate on this issue.
Conventionally, two spheres make up state security, the internal sphere of policing and law enforcement and the external sphere of defence and war-fighting. However, since the end of the Cold War, distinguishing between the two has become particularly difficult because of the internal involvement of the military in society. Several explanations explain why the military has become an active player in the internal sphere doing security enforcement duties in support of the police or as an independent player. Key among this is the general weakness and lack of legitimacy of the police, thus, the use of the military which has the capacity to suppress violence and ‘insurgence.’ Also, a lack of public trust, confidence, and legitimacy of the government is another key reason States resort to authoritarian practices, particularly using the military to clamp down civil society. The recent protests in Togo which turned ‘bloody’ following violent State repression presents a case in point. The recent carnage in Plateau State, Nigeria where herdsmen of similar ethnic origin as the President ‘allegedly’ killed over fifty civilians in cold blood also presents another instance. The President neither condemned the attacks nor declared a national mourning despite public outcry over the complicity of the military in the massacre.
Certainly, using the military for internal security enforcement otherwise known as military aid to civil authority in society comes with attendant challenges. One reason for this is the discrepancy of this role with its training particularly because military training and indoctrination focuses extensively on lethality and the application of force. This often results to several incidences of human rights abuses, the restriction of civil liberty and in extreme cases, summary extrajudicial killings. This situation worsens in societies affected by sectarian violence where the military assumes the leading role of law enforcement to force the return to peace as is the case in Plateau State, Nigeria. The problem with this is, in many of these States, the criminal justice system is also weak and thereby unable to guarantee judicial remedy to victims of State repression.
Consequently, citizens faced by the security dilemma of State repression and violence from armed groups may be compelled to join or seek protection from opposition groups thereby creating further security quandary. In turn, this affects the interaction of the citizenry with the military thereby straining civil-military relations in the State with the end result been the spinning of violence cycle. It also places huge economic burden with lasting impact on State resources, individuals, and corporate bodies and where the military is predatory, insecurity could worsen. The sectarian violence in Plateau State and the Niger Delta region in Nigeria where such military heavy-handedness remains the source of (in)security shows the weakness of this approach, and unless reconsidered, peace could remain elusive. Thus, now more than ever, this ambiguous (dis)order requires reconsideration for a civil approach to security in Africa.
Thoughts from the criminology team 