2014 Deviancy Conference
Teesside University 25-26th June
Organised by:
Deviancy Collective
…with the generous support of Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology
Conference Booklet
The deviancy collective would like to thank:
- All of our plenary speakers.Sandra Walklate, Vincenzo Ruggiero, Eamonn Carrabine, Louise Wattis, Rowland Atkinson, Mike Nellis and Steve Hall all kindly agreed to cover their own expenses and their generosity has helped us enormously.
- Tom Sutton from Routledge Publishers, who offered to cover the cost of Walter DeKeseredy’s flight from the United States, and of course Walter for agreeing to join us and undertaking the huge and burdensome journey to sunny Middlesbrough.
- SAGEPublishers and Palgrave MacMillan Publishers for lending their support.
- The Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology for hosting the event, and covering the cost of several postgraduate bursaries.
- Barbara Cox, Catherine Nesbitt and Jane Hutchinson for their administrative support, calm authority and expertise.
‘Critical Criminology and Post-Crash Capitalism’
The world is still in the grip of the worst economic crash in living memory. Unemployment remains high across many developed countries, and youth unemployment is often higher still. Perhaps more to the point, we have seen the wholesale degradation of work as the capitalist class demand yet further flexiblisation of the workforce. Those who can find work often remained trapped in low-wage and insecure jobs that do little to address the deadening experience of poverty and hardship. Across the West we have seen significant reductions to the incomes and lifestyles of ordinary working and non-working people while the wealth of the oligarchy continues to advance unchecked.
The global economic crash of 2007-8 revealed the structural flaws of liberal capitalism and its abstract financial system. It revealed that the free market is a myth, and that the appearance of unchecked economic enterprise can only exist if it is supported by the tax revenues of workers in the real economy. But the dazzling failure of neoliberal capitalism did little to encourage our political leaders to identify new economic strategies that might begin to address some of the huge challenges we face. Instead, we occupy a strange new terrain in which zombie neoliberalism continues to stumble forwards, its inherent failures unaddressed. Discontent with the injustices of the world is everywhere, but neoliberalism remains in place and none of our mainstream politicians appear willing to break ranks and propose something different. We see the stupid uniformity of contemporary politics in the ideological narrative of ‘austerity’, a narrative that positions massive cuts to state expenditure as the only conceivable means of boosting the economy and raising the living standards of ordinary people.
Mainstream criminology has had little to say about the profound harms and obscene injustices that flow from these events. It falls to critical criminology - and its various sub-categories - to do this, and to address the multitude of inequalities that exist in our world, from West to East, from North to South. While administrative criminology has tentatively declared victory in ‘the war against crime’, critical criminology seeks to look at the reality behind the numbers. It seeks to uncover and explain those problems that continue to exist in abundance across the world.
The 2014 Deviancy Conference seeks to look at the world as it is and as it could be. It will provide a supportive forum for those working in critical criminology and sociology across the world.
Background
The initial deviancy conferences began in the late sixties and ran throughout most of the seventies. They were conceived as a meeting place and discussion forum for those who had grown disillusioned with the dull and mechanical nature of much administrative criminology. Many of the key figures in the movement went on to forge important careers in the social sciences and their influence extended well beyond criminology. In many respects they completely changed the trajectory of criminology and the sociology of deviance. The discipline we see before us today reflects their political and philosophical allegiances,their intellectual preoccupations and their partial successes.
We revived the deviancy conferences in 2011 because it had become obvious to us that criminology had become lazy and self-satisfied and incapable of producing new and challenging accounts of post-crash social reality. Even critical criminology appeared at risk of becoming dull, its major ideas distilled into textbooks and reproduced in countless journal articles by established and aspirant criminologists keen to secure promotions and satisfy external audit. It had been successfully incorporated into the mainstream discipline. Its political energy seemed spent. The broader discipline of criminologyappeared trapped in a repetitive loop that propelled criminologists back towards a handful of key theories and theorists whenever a new crime problem came into view. Strain theory, moral panics, sub-cultures, labelling, control theory, rational choice: is this really all there is? Might it not be time to construct one or two new ideas more in keeping with the times?
We wanted to provide a meeting place for dissatisfied rebel criminologists keen to forge a new path, and that is what we will continue to do over the coming years. We believe that it is now vital that criminology begins from the beginning again, and that it constructs new theories that reflect a world of deep social rupture, panoramic harm, titanic injustices and universal insecurities.
Our group hopes to support likeminded criminologists and sociologists who want our disciplines to be filled once again with forthright debate and grand claims. Jefferson and Gadd have claimed that if you really want to know why criminals do what they do, the last person you should ask is a criminologist. They have a point, and this should spur is to look again at motivation, harm and the intricacies of subjectivity. It is time for us to decide what critical criminology will become. We must acknowledge our debt to those who have gone before, but we must also recognise that it is up to us to construct new and critical accounts of the world as it is. We continue to be trapped in a devastating economic collapse, and all the evidence suggests that there is no easy route back to the economic growth we have become accustomed to. We are already seeing the effects of ecological harm and the first signs of resources wars as oil and natural gas supplies dip. Neoliberalism stumbles onwards despite widespread acknowledgement that neoliberalism simply cannot continue, and that crisis awaits us unless there is a significant change of direction.
Like the original conferences we hope to spur critical criminologists to create new concepts, theories and accounts of the world. We hope to enable the development of a community of like-minded scholars in the hope of drawing strength from one another, and incubating new ideas and new ways of making sense of contemporary crime, deviance, order, disorder and harm. The deviancy conferences will provide a democratic, leaderless forum and they will be shaped by the theoretical and political allegiances of those who choose to get involved.
Get Involved!
Interested in hosting a deviancy conference? The deviancy collective can help with planning and logistics. We’re very keen to increase the frequency of our conferences, and to host them at institutions across Europe and further afield.
We’re also keen to diversify our activities. We’d like to organise workshops, newsletters, blogs and other free publications that we can send to like-minded scholars. To do this, we need your help. At the moment we are a very small community keen to encourage new and radical thinking in sociology and criminology. Having more people lend a hand can significantly increase our reach.
If you have ideas for a conference or something else associated with feminist, critical, cultural, radical, communist or social democratic criminologies, please get in touch.
Our Plenary Speakers
Walter DeKeseredy - Walter was the co-recipient of the American Society of Criminology's Division on Women and Crime's 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award. In 1995, he was awarded the American Society of Criminology's Division on Critical Criminology's Critical Criminologist of the Year Award. He was awarded the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Criminology's Division on Critical Criminology. His many books include Violence Against Women: Myths, Facts, Controversies (2011, University of Toronto Press), Contemporary Critical Criminology (2010, Routledge) and (with Joseph Donnemeyer) Rural Criminology (2013, Routledge).
Maggie O’Neill - Maggie is a critical and cultural criminologist and one of our most noted commentators on sex work. She has also written a great deal on migration and community life, and she has developed new agendas and strategies in research methodologies for the social sciences. Her latest book (co-authored with Lizzie Seal) is called Transgressive Imaginations (2012, Palgrave Macmillan).
John Lea - John is one of the most important figures in the development of Left Realist criminology. He is the co-author of What is to be Done about Law and Order? (1994, Pluto) and the author of Crime and Modernity (2002, Sage).
Rowland Atkinson – Rowland is currently Reader in Urban Studies and Criminology and at the University of York. He is also Director of York University’s Research Centre for the Social Sciences. Rowland is the editor of Shades of Deviance (2014, Routledge) and co-editor of New Directions in Crime and Deviancy (2012, Routledge).
Louise Wattis – Louise is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Teesside University and a key member of the Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology. Her work to date has focused on social class, family life, gender and locality.
Sandra Walklate - Sandra’s work spans numerous aspects of sociology and criminology. She has written key works in victimology, terrorism and the fear of crime and gender and criminal justice. She is the Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology at the University of Liverpool and the current editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Criminology.
Keith Hayward - Keith is one of our most noted criminological theorists, and he has played a major role in the development of cultural criminology globally. Among many other works, he is the author of City Limits (2004, Cavendish) and co-author of Cultural Criminology: An Invitation (2008, Sage). He is Professor of Criminology at the University of Kent.
Steve Hall – Steve’s work is at the cutting edge of criminological and social theory. His Theorizing Crime and Deviance: A New Perspective (2012, Sage) has been lauded as one of the most important criminology books of the twenty-first century. He is also the co-author of Violent Night: Urban Leisure and Contemporary Culture (2006, Berg), Rethinking Social Exclusion: The End of the Social? (2013, Sage) and co-editor of New Directions in Criminological Theory (2012, Routledge).
Mike Nellis -Mike Nellis is Emeritus Professor of Criminal and Community Justice in the Centre for Law, Crime & Justice, Law School University of Strathclyde. He was formerly a social worker with young offenders in London, has a PhD from the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge, and was involved in the training of probation officers at the University of Birmingham. He has written widely on the fortunes of the probation service, alternatives to imprisonment and particularly the electronic monitoring of offenders, on which he is an acknowledged expert. He teachers a Masters degree course on “surveillance, technology and criminal justice” studies in the Strathclyde Law School, and has recently co-edited Electronically Monitored Punishment: international and critical perspectives (2013), with Belgian colleagues Kristel Beyens and Dan Kaminski.
Vincenzo Ruggiero – is Professor of Sociology at Middlesex University. He has published widely, addressing such topics as penal systems, organised crime, corporate crime and social movements. He is the author of Crime and Markets (2000, Oxford University Press), Understanding Political Violence (2006, Open University Press) and The Crimes of the Economy (2013, Routledge).
Programme
25th June
10.00- 10.30 -Tea and Coffee– in the foyer in the Centuria Building
10.30 – 10.35 - Welcome to the 2014 Deviancy Conference - Room H.053
Philip Whitehead (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology)
10.35 – 11.15 - Roundtable discussion - Room H.053
Reflecting on the contributions of Geoff Pearson, Barbara Hudson, Stan Cohen and Jock Young, all of whom passed away recently
11.15 – 12.15 – Debate on the English Riots of 2011 - Room H.053
John Lea (University of Brighton) - ‘The riots were ‘political’’
Simon Winlow (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology) – ‘The riots were not ‘political’’
12.15 – 1.00 – Lunch – in the foyer in the Centuria Building
1.00 – 3.00- Parallel Sessions
Session One – Room H0.53
Ultra-Realist Criminology
Chair: Steve Hall (TCRC)
Mark Horsley (University of the West of England) - The Soul of the Damned: Late Modernity and the Criminal Subject
Justin Kotze and David Temple (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology) –Analysing the Crime Decline: News from Nowhere
Oliver Smith (Plymouth University) - Neknomination and ‘Moral Panic Theory’
Anthony Ellis (Sheffield University) - It’s ‘not me’…it’s ‘them’: Male Violence, Insecurities and Post-Crash Capitalism
Theo Kindynis (University of Greenwich) - Shoplifting in space: Situating the crime-consumerism nexus
Session Two – Room H.038
Drugs, doping and medication
Chair: Alexandra Hall (TCRC)
Alexandra Hall and Georgios A. Antonopoulos (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology) - The Online Trade in Fake Medicines in the United Kingdom
Lisa Sigiura (University of Southampton) - Is the purchase of prescription medicine from the Web a form of respectable deviancy?
Caroline Chatwin (University of Kent) - New Psychoactive substances: new European drug policy landscapes
Katinka Van de Ven (University of Kent) A critical analysis of the diverging anti-doping policies of Belgium and the Netherlands and their effect on performance and image enhancing drugs markets
Session Three – Room H0.49
Perspectives on Desistance, and domestic violence
Chair: Louise Wattis (TCRC)
Robin Robinson (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth) and Jo Deakin (University of Manchester) - A Psychosocial Consideration of Women’s Desistance from Criminal Behaviour
David Honeywell (University of York) - Ex-prisoners in higher education: A study of desistance, self-change, identity and negotiation through higher education
Sarah Goodwin (University of Sheffield) - “If you’re gonna stop, you’re gonna stop”: Women’s experiences of personal agency in desistance
Catherine Nixon, Catherine Donovan (University of Sunderland) and Dr Rebecca Barnes (University of Leicester) - Researching perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse in same-sex, bisexual and/or transgender relationships: help-seeking and service provision in an age of austerity
Ian Mahoney (Keele University) – Resisting Abjection: Crime and deviance as a response to the abject politics of contemporary Britain
3.00 – 3.20 – tea and coffee – in the foyer of Centuria Building
3.20 – 5.30 – Plenary Presentations – Room H0.53
Chair: Simon Winlow (TCRC)
John Lea (University of Brighton) - The privatisation of criminal justice: towards the private state?
Mike Nellis (University of Stratherclyde) - electronic monitoring as the emerging community penalty of choice within neoliberalism
Steve Hall (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology) - The Insistent Call of Realism: Why criminology needs to begin from the beginning
6.30 – late – Conference Meal in the Students Union Building, followed by drinks at the bar
Day 2
26th June
8.30-9.00 – Tea and Coffee – in the foyer of the Centuria Building
9.00 – 10.45 – Plenary Presentation – Room H0.53
Chair: Philip Whitehead (TCRC)
Eamonn Carrabine (University of Essex) - Contemporary Criminology and the Sociological Imagination
Sandra Walklate (University of Liverpool) - Criminology-victimology and War: Competing for the ‘Trace’
Vincenzo Ruggiero (Middlesex University) – The Law of Power
10.45 – 11.00 – Tea and Coffee – in the foyer of the Centuria Building
11.00 – 12.30 – Parallel Sessions
Session One – Room H0.38
‘Race’, crime and criminal justice
Chair:
Carly Speed (Liverpool John Moores University) - Making the Invisible Visible: Examining the Deaths of Individuals with Mental Health Problems in Differing Forms of State Custody
Lisa Long (University of Leeds) - Still policing the crisis? Black and black and white mixed 'race' peoples experiences of policing in 21st century Britain
Tallace Bissett (University of Melbourne) - Change and Continuity in Policing of Racialised Populations in Melbourne, Australia
Kyle Mulrooney (University of Kent) - Structural Destruction and Carceral Colonialism: Exploring difference in Canadian provincial and territorial punishment
Session Two – RoomH0.53
Neoliberalism, Policing and Criminal Justice
Chair: Philip Whitehead (TCRC)
Liz Turner (University of Liverpool) - Critical criminology and democratic policing
Philip Whitehead (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology) - Probation: Neoliberalism’s destruction of a criminal justice organisation
Jill Annison (Plymouth University) - Interrogating the Implementation of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in an English Community Justice Court
Pauline Ramshaw (Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology) - The Police Service, Effective Leadership and Cultural Change
Session Three – Room HS3.15
Migration and trafficking
Chair: Louise Wattis (TCRC)
Olga Petintseva (Ghent University) - On criminological ‘taboos’: the academic discourse on migration and crime
Laura Connelly (University of Leeds)- Blurred Lines: Anti-Trafficking Politics in the UK
Alison Jobe (Durham University) - Sexual Trafficking Stories and the British Asylum System
Shaun McMann (Open University) - Imprisonment, Distance Learning & Desistence
Session Four – Room
Spaces of neoliberalism
Chair: Simon Winlow (TCRC)
Benedikt Lehmann (University of Hamburg) and Mark Horsley (University of the West of England) - International Finance and Criminal Opportunity
Jörg Wiegratz (University of Leeds) - Follow the norm: the routinisation of fraud and harm in market societies
Jo Deakin (University of Manchester) and Aaron Kupchik (University of Delaware) - School Exclusions and Institutional Supports in the Neoliberal School
Thomas Raymen (University of Durham) - Addition by Subtraction? Re-thinking the ‘resistance’ politics of parkour and freerunning and its potential for criminological analyses of young people, deviance, and urban space