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Crime, Punishment and Socialism
We can think of crime in two ways:
- It is defined by law – that is by the state;
- defined by social custom and our sense of right and wrong – thus, crime varies according to class and other positions in society.
What is happening to crime (as defined by law) now?
- Figures are notoriously difficult. They are generally taken from either the police or from the British Crime Survey. Police figures depend on their focus, our willingness to report crime, etc.
- The British Crime Survey is more accurate. However, we tend not to report crimes we have committed and the most successful crime is one that only the criminal knows happened.
- Overall crime figures seem to be falling slightly after a long term trend to rise since the War.
- Certain crimes seem to be becoming more common, especially gun crime and casual violence.
Why the changes?
- Overall, small falls are difficult to explain;
- The rise in gun and violent crime over a long period would seem to be associated with an increasing sense of powerlessness and alienation in the young. The rise of a culture of drinking is part of the same thing.
The state broadly uses its control of law and crime to control society and especially the poor.
Modern concern is mainly with crime as violent assault. A glance at the papers tells us this. It is mainly crime by the poor and young and most of those affected are also poor (and often young). The Home Office points out that those most at risk of violence are young men (16 – 24), full-time students and unemployed people.1
State has used two moral panics to strengthen its powers against society:
- Terrorism; we have all seen that there is a real threat with the 2007 London bombings. However, more to the point has been a massive level of fear based on the publicity around the bombs. The Home Office tells us that the current threat level is severe that is that an attack is highly likely. There is only one higher level – critical which suggests an imminent attack. There are clearly a lot of people willing and able to commit insane crimes against just anybody in Britain as we have seen from the Osama Bin London trial in London.
However, the terror threat has been used to justify the stripping out of basic rights –28 days without trial on the basis of suspicion. The government hopes to raise it to 42 days. When such laws come in they tend to stay and their use is extended beyond the original stated purpose.
The anti-terror laws are used to suppress free speech in general. The uses range from a man in his 80s being threatened for the serious offence of heckling Jack Straw and the great restrictions on demonstrations outside Parliament.
Trespassing on nuclear sites was also slipped in as an offence.
- Youth violence and anti-social behaviour. The overall figures show that the public believes crime is rising whereas it is actually falling.2 Violent crime is roughly static.3
The Telegraph (2/7/07) said:
At face value, Home Office statistics do not reveal a startling increase in knife-crime deaths: 246 people died as a result of stabbing last year, compared with 231 in 1994. But what has changed dramatically is the expectation that young boys, and often girls, will carry knives. Three years ago, a British Crime Survey found that 60,000 11- to 16-year-olds carried them habitually. And even if many said they did it merely to look "cool", to be "tooled up" is common among the young.
The Home Office has no figures for the number of teenagers who are in jail as murder suspects, but research by King's College London indicates that at least 15 murder and attempted murder suspects, aged 18 or under, are being held after being charged in the past six months. Frighteningly, 69 teenagers were shot dead in 2006, almost double the 35 killed by guns in 1997. Four years ago, 31 youths under 20 were charged with gun-related murder in London. Interim figures for this year show that this has already risen to 76.
This seems to show a rather alarming knife carrying habit but there has not a significant rise in the overall number of killings. Homicides (murder, manslaughter and infanticide) in 1993 were about 630 rising to a peak of over a 1,000 in 2003 – 4 and falling to 765 in 2005 – 6.4 The Murder UK site gives 755 for 2006 -7.5 Note that Shipman’s murders all come in 2002 – 3 although they were done over a long period. 2000 – 1 includes the Chinese cockle pickers in MorecambeBay.
This panic has been used to invent new powers for the state against society. The rise of the ASBO, detention without trial, more widespread imprisonment, etc. marks this out. Anti social behaviour is described by the Home Office as “behaviour which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people who are not in the same household as the perpetrator.”6 The examples given on the web site include:
- Graffiti; abusive and intimidating language, too often directed at minorities;
- excessive noise, particularly late at night;
- fouling the street with litter;
- drunken behaviour in the streets, and the mess it creates;
- dealing drugs, with all the problems to which it gives rise.
The ASBO is essentially an injunction which binds the person not to do certain things (which may or may not themselves be illegal). Breach of the order is an offence. Thus, if a person is forbidden under an ASBO from going to a particular place they can be punished for merely going there. They could be put in jail for something that is not itself illegal.
Drugs and Crime
The common portrayal of this is roughly that young people become drug fiends and then commit crimes either to feed their habits or because they are driven to a frenzy of violence by their drugs.
The facts are more complex. The Home Office points out that crime often comes first and drug use follows.7 It seems that deep social problems lead some people to engage in both crime and drug abuse.
However, whether drugs or crime come first there is no doubt that they often then go together with the drugs driving the problem:
‘The links between drug use and crime are clearly established. In fact, around three-quarters of crack and heroin users claim they commit crime to feed their habit. It is our priority to break this damaging chain.’8
A drink after a hard day’s work (or play) is pleasant and relaxing. However, the risks of excessive drink are considerable:
‘The links between drug use and crime are clearly established. In fact, around three-quarters of crack and heroin users claim they commit crime to feed their habit. It is our priority to break this damaging chain.’ 9
Lock ‘em up?
All the evidence shows that increased penal severity and massive incarceration, a policy followed with catastrophic consequences in the United States, does not reduce the drug problem. On the other hand, there is strong evidence, from The Netherlands and elsewhere, that a policy of decriminalisation of drug use, notably cannabis use, contributes to ‘harm reduction.10
A more radical approach is to legalise all drugs. Some could then be restricted to prescription only provision and others subject to some restrictions about marketing, e.g., in the way that cigarettes are now. This would remove a large number of crimes from the law. It would also help to reduce the many crimes driven by the need to buy drugs.11
The major parties (Labour and Tory) are both exploiting this situation. The Lib. Dems. seek out old reformist solutions. I am sure that Labour and the Tories are pouring petrol on the flames while the Lib. Dems’ policies can do no more than temporarily reduce the intensity of the problem for a while.
What are the problems for us as socialists?
- The anger and hostility of young people to much of their current situation is a basis for radical/revolutionary action. But while it is expressed in the forms of drunkenness and random violence it is a barrier to class unity.
- Many older workers are paralysed by violence. The elderly are often frightened to leave their homes in the evenings as are many younger people. Public meetings and other actions are undermined by this.
- Rising social tensions do not have a socially progressive expression at present. Our job is not to tame or control young people but help them to see the real problems –so they are able to demystify their lives. This is not easy.
- Older and younger working people need to find ways to act collectively against crime, without demonising or terrorising youth, and against the authorities who have built up social tension and made this situation worse.
- Prison numbers are massive: The Home Office monthly bulletin shows that 82,180 people were locked up. Prison capacity is only 74,201. The Economist 6/12/07 pointed out that our rate of imprisonment is growing more rapidly than the US (which jails 1% of its population). We jail about 148 per 100,000 of population.12 This leaves us well ahead of France (85 per 100,000, Germany (95 per 100,000) Italy (104 per 100,000). Even Turkey imprisons a smaller proportion of its people than us (91 per 100,000).13 Massive prisons for 2,500 prisoners each are planned to ensure that more people are locked up. These would be far from population centres making visits by relatives more difficult than they are now.
This policy is vastly expensive – it costs £2.7billion per year says the Economist.
What should we be doing as socialists?
- We should oppose the attacks on civil liberties and insist that these attacks do not protect us against either terrorist attacks or violence. This includes opposition to the massive use of prison.
- We need to win young people to a socialist project which is the only thing that can overcome their alienation.
- We need to urge communities to organise in tenants’ associations, etc. to ensure that ordinary people can socially function. This requires protection against young violent offenders but it also needs to develop broader social activities.
- A real problem is how we relate to the police. Any organisation against local violence will either itself approach the police or they will approach it. They will attempt to incorporate it into things like neighbourhood watch. Some degree of co-operation is probably inevitable here. But what limits do we propose? The far left has always been ambivalent about the police. The general proposition that the forces of the state protect the capitalist system has meant that we oppose any dealings with them. Yet we cannot live that way; if the personal is the political we have to be consistent here.
- The thrust of our policy is to encourage the movement by society to take conscious control of its own processes as part of a broad movement to develop socialist consciousness and policies.
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