Aradical Grounding for Social Disorganization Theory
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Radical Criminology issue six ✶ fall 2016 ISSN: 1929-7904 I S B N 1 0 : 0-9982375-2-3 ISBN 13: 978-0-9982375-2-7 a publication of the !ritical !riminolo$% &o"'in$ ("oup at )wantlen +ol%tec nic ,ni-e"sit% .12666 72 /-enue, Su""e%0 B! 13W 2283 ***4"a5icalc"i#inolo$%4o"$ punctu# boo's ✶ ea"t 0 #il'% *a% ***4punctu#boo's4co# Radical Criminology ✶ Issue 6 November 2016 ✶ ISSN 1929-7904 General Editor: Jeff Shantz Advisory Board: Olga Aksyutina, Institute for African Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; Davina Bhandar (Trent U.); Jeff Ferrell (Texas Christian U.); Hollis Johnson (Kwantlen Polytechnic U.); Michael J. Lynch (U. of South Florida); Mike CK Ma (Kwantlen Polytechnic U.); Lisa Monchalin (Kwantlen Polytechnic U.); Heidi Rimke (U.Winnipeg); Jeffrey Ian Ross (U.Baltimore); Herman Schwendinger, independent scholar Production Editor: PJ Lilley Cover Artist: Artact QC (see pg. 324) Unless otherwise stated, contributions express the opinions of their writers and are not (necessarily) those of the Editors or Advisory Board. 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Paperback. | 721 pages. | ISBN: 0692715169 Digital formats free online. thoughtcrimespress . org INSIDE editorial / 1 ) Insurgent Criminology in a Period of Open Social War Jeff Shantz features / 11 ) A Radical Grounding for Social Disorganization Theory: A Political Economic Investigation of the Causes of Poverty, Inequality and Crime in Urban Areas Michael Lynch & Lyndsay N. Boggess 71 ) Coercive Occupations as State Facilitation: Understanding the U.S. State’s Strategy of Control Vince Montes 131 ) Squatting in Racialized Berlin 1975- 2015: Vietnamese Transnational Subjectivity in a Climactic Double Division Trangđài Glassey-Trầnguyễn 209 ) Social Control and Security in Times of Crisis: The Criminalization of the Seropositive Women in Greece Maria Gkresta & Manuel Mireanu 247 ) Making Sense of Repression in Police Studies: Whither Theorizing in the Descent Toward Fascism Tamari Kitossa arts / 323 ) Selected Images and Commentary from ArtACT QC 347 ) “All Eyes are Upon Us” (Poem) Gene Grabiner book reviews / 351 ) Crashing the Party: Legacies and Lessons from the RNC 2000 (Kris Hermes) Reviewed by—Irina Ceric 356 ) Who Killed the Berkeley School? Struggles Over Radical Criminology (Herman & Julia Schwendinger) Reviewed by—Aaron Philip editorial INSURGENT CRIMINOLOGY IN A ERIO! O" O EN SOCIAL #AR JEFF SHANTZ riminology has throughout its history been - a dualist field of knowledge proceeding along distinct, often separate tracks. n the one hand is academic criminology based in institu! tions of post!secondary education or public policy. On the other hand is a community crim! inology, often insurgent, coming from and e"! pressing the experiences of people and com! munities subjected to the $iolence of the state and institutions of criminal justice. %his goes back to the early days of criminology when the first and sharpest criticisms of academic crimi! nology—such as that of &ombroso, for example —were being pro$ided by insurgent criminolo! gists, primarily anarchists like 'eter (ropotkin and criminalized rebels. %oday these dual tracks stand in somewhat stark contrast as community mo$ements opposing state violence and brutal! ity, from *lack &i$es +atter to Idle No +ore to new poor people,s mo$ements, are de$eloping 1 2| RADICAL CRIMINOLOGY (ISSN 1929-7904) and asserting some of the strongest and most incisi$e analyses and opposition to systems and institutions of criminal justice in liberal democ! racies like Canada and the US. %he struggles of the present period are strip! ping the co$er o/ of policing as military institu! tions for social war waged against the working class, especially racialized and poorest sectors, in defense of statist management, capitalist ownership, and accumulation. %he police are increasingly re$ealed as agents of pacification and regulation 0as they ha$e always been1 rather than of public safety or security. %here is an insurgent criminology2li$ely, engaged, informed, $ital, analytical, honest, bra$e—emerging not in the halls of the acad! emy nor in the sessions of academic confer! ences but rather in the streets and neighbor! hoods of those who are targeted by the state for ongoing punishment, repression, $iolence. %hat insurgency is bringing with it important cri! ti3ues of criminal justice as well as the begin! nings of compelling challenges and alternati$es, mo$ing through and beyond reformist de! mands. ne of the most important and promis! ing de$elopments has been the posing and pon! dering of alternati$es to policing and the raising of abolitionist perspecti$es, responses, and projects. %hese are the $oices academic crimi! nology must hear and must heed. 4nd the mo$ements they must support as acti$e allies, e$en more as accomplices and public defend! ers. SHANTZ: INSURGENT CRIM IN A PERIOD OF OPEN SOCIAL WAR |3 TA$ING SIDES 5hen *lack &i$es +atter %oronto 0*&+% 1 stopped marching during the %oronto Pride pa! rade and demanded that police be kept out of Pride parades they were openly, courageously, with clear sight affirming that police are not part of communities of the oppressed. That the police are in fact oppressors. %his position mo$es $ibrantly, $ocally, beyond liberal 0and e$en too many critical1 approaches in criminol! ogy that seek conciliation, compromise, or ac! commodation with police 0often on supposedly 7realist8 grounds1. 9et the *&+% approach is a profoundly realist one. It identifies and ac! knowledges and opposes the reality of policing as a historic force of brutality, harm, inequality, and injustice in the day to day li$es of op! pressed and exploited people and communities. -riminologists need to follow the coura! geous, principled example set by B&+% in the Pride parade and openly challenge the attempts to normalize the presence of acti$e police o6! cers in sites of social life such as uni$ersity de! partments. 4cti$e officers must be openly op! posed, their presence in uni$ersity departments as acti$e agents of surveillance and repression rejected. Not only the demilitarization of cam! pus police:, but the full call for 7-ops o/ -am! pus8 as raised in the ci$il rights and student struggles of the :;<=s and :;>=s? must once again be taken up in mo$ements of engaged, 1 Movement for Black Lives: Demilitarization of Law Enforcement policy brief: https://policy.m4bl.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Demilitarization-of-Law-Enforcement- Policy-Briefs.pdf 4| RADICAL CRIMINOLOGY (ISSN 1929-7904) critical criminology today. -riminologists need to challenge openly all attempts by police 0bor! der security, state intelligence, police, etc.1 to re! cruit students behind the co$er of faculty posi! tions. .ni$ersity campuses and departments must not be transformed into recruitment of! fices. 4n appropriate response would also in! clude opposing recruitment tables at job fairs and other e$ents on campus. 4t the same time police must not be allowed to gain the ideologi! cal benefit of presenting police propaganda— let,s call it copaganda—from the respected status conferred by a faculty posting—neither from a position at the front of a classroom, nor through media appearances nor $ia 7public ad! $ocacy8 efforts such as townhall meetings de! signed to promote growth of snitch culture in working class communities. 4cademic criminologists need to stop the subservience to a false collegiality with oppres! sors in their own departments or schools and recognize that social struggle does not stop at the doors to the academy or on the pa$ement outside campus. Social war infuses, pervades in! stitutions of higher learning as it does all areas of social life. %his is true perhaps especially within criminology departments. It is true in funding, programming, co!op and practicum 2 See also the Schwendingers’ “Who Killed the Berkeley School? Struggles in Radical Criminology” an open publication from our Thought|Crimes press imprint at http://thoughtcrimespress.org/BerkeleySchool For more on the recent campaign in London (in historical context), see “How to Get Cops Off Campus”: http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2014/01/15/how-get-cops- campus or on twitter, look for #CopsOffCampus SHANTZ: INSURGENT CRIM IN A PERIOD OF OPEN SOCIAL WAR |5 placements 0which go o$erwhelmingly to sys! temic institutions1, boards of go$ernors, ad$i! sory committees, research grants, etc. %he insurgent criminologists of the commu! nity uprisings are in many ways far ahead of e$en the critical criminologists in their analysis of the nature of policing, incarceration, the prison!industrial complex, and in understand! ing how to mobilize to confront these. In many respects, they are also out front in their willing! ness and preparedness to consider and de$elop alternati$es.