Beyond ‘so what?’ criminology
| Author | Roger Matthews |
| Published date | 01 August 2009 |
| Date | 01 August 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1362480609336497 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Theoretical Criminology
© The Author(s), 2009
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Vol. 13(3): 341–362; 1362–4806
DOI: 10.1177/1362480609336497
Beyond ‘so what?’ criminology
Rediscovering realism
R O G E R M AT T H E W S
London South Bank University, UK
Abstract
There has been a growing concern about the lack of policy
relevance of criminology in recent years. Two influential responses to
this dilemma have been presented. On one hand, it has been
argued that academic criminologists should become more active in
mobilizing points of consensus about what works, while on the
other hand it has been suggested that there should be a division of
labour among academics and that the subject be broken down into
public, professional, policy and critical criminologies. This article
argues that neither of these responses are tenable and instead calls
for an approach that links theory, method and intervention with the
aim of developing a coherent critical realist approach that is able to
go beyond the existing forms of ‘so what?’ criminology.
Key Words
administrative criminology • critical criminology • empiricism
• intervention • liberalism • public criminology • realism
Introduction
There is, it would seem, an inverse relationship between the expansion
of academic criminology and its policy relevance. Despite the growing
numbers of criminology students and courses in many countries, and the
millions of pounds and dollars spent on criminological research aca-
demic criminology appears to be becoming more marginalized and irrel-
evant. Elliot Currie (2007), for example, has recently called for a more
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public criminology that can make a more worthwhile contribution to
crime related issues in order to resist and potentially reverse what he sees
as the development of spiralling punitive and regressive policies. Currie
argues that there is considerable knowledge about what works to reduce
crime and that there is a broad level of consensus regarding the causes of
crime and violence and the limited ability of incarceration to reduce crime.
He advocates more active engagement in public debate and the possible
development of advocacy organizations to disseminate criminological
knowledge. In this way he suggests we might move beyond what he
refers to as ‘so what?’ criminology, by which he means those highly tech-
nical and dauntingly quantitative studies that focus on trivial issues, are
conceptually weak or present their findings in impenetrable language.
Similar concerns have been presented by Michael Burawoy (2004) in rela-
tion to sociology. He suggests that there are, or should be, four interdepen-
dent sociologies that can mobilize different forms of knowledge and focus on
different levels of sociological enquiry. The growing interest in public soci-
ologies, he maintains, marks an increasing gap between the ethos of sociolo-
gists and the social, political and economic tendencies of wider society. Thus:
Public sociology aims to enrich the public debate about moral and political
issues by infusing them with sociological theory and research. It has to be dis-
tinguished from policy, professional and critical sociologies. Together, these
four interdependent sociologies enter into relations of domination and subor-
dination, forming a disciplinary division of labour that varies among academic
institutions as well as over time, both within and between nations. Applying
the same disciplinary matrix to other social sciences suggests sociology’s spe-
cific contribution lies in its relation to civil society, and, thus, in its defence of
human interests against the encroachment of states and markets.
(Burawoy, 2004: 1603)
In this classic liberal formulation which sees the fundamental role of soci-
ology to protect human interests against the State and market, Burawoy
suggests that the way forward is to distinguish public sociology from policy
sociology, because the latter ‘focuses on solutions to specific problems
defined by clients’(p. 6). Professional sociology, he claims, provides legiti-
macy and expertise while critical sociology is designed to ‘push forward the
frontiers and at the same time question its foundations’(p. 7). Although
Burawoy indicates that these four strands or ‘cells’ of sociology might over-
lap he suggests that most sociologists should concentrate their efforts in one
type of sociology (Burawoy, 2005).
However, the fragmentation of sociology or criminology into four cells or
strands does not solve the problem but rather exacerbates it. It is precisely
the inability to join up these different aspects of social inquiry that lies at
the heart of the problem. The division of labour that identifies some people
as ‘theorists’ and others as researchers or activists involves the breakdown
of the relation between theory and practice which in turn serves to under-
mine the policy relevance and coherence of the subject.
Matthews—Beyond ‘so what?’ criminology
343
At the same time the solution to the issue of policy relevance of sociology
or criminology cannot be found in mobilizing the fragile consensus that
exists in these subject areas. There may be a few areas of agreement in crim-
inology and while most would agree that prison has a limited effect on crime
rates, there is little agreement about what forms of punishment should be
used instead of prison and many argue that so-called ‘alternatives to custody’
can create more problems than they solve (Cohen, 1985).
Other criminologists have claimed that its limited policy relevance is a
function of the general lack of methodological rigour. Thus, James Austin
(2003) has argued that much research is of little value because of conceptual
imprecision and methodological deficiencies. From a different vantage point
Jock Young (2004) has criticized the fetish of numbers, the deficiency of stan-
dard survey methods and the limitations of the ‘numbers game’ in criminology
which serves to reduce the richness, vitality and excitement of the subject to a
series of dry numerical calculations that manufacture a spurious precision.
The discussion about criminological methods is important and there is no
doubt that much criminological research is flawed by the use of inadequate
methods. However, this is not just a technical issue about the appropriate-
ness or value of different techniques, but also a debate about the ‘problem
of method’. It is not simply a question of better sampling, statistical manip-
ulation or improved questionnaire design as many of the standard text books
on criminological research suggest, but a more philosophical question
about how the social world can be best appropriated and understood.
Another major theme which runs through commentaries of the limited
policy relevance of criminology centres around increased dominance of gov-
ernment funding and the narrow and constrained nature of this form of
research. Reese Walters (2003) has questioned how ‘market led criminology’
which focuses on risk management, privatization and cost-effectiveness has
influenced the production of criminological knowledge. Government funded
forms of ‘administrative criminology’, he suggests are not interested in gen-
erating critical and reflexive research and have in recent years come to
undermine and sideline critical criminological inquiry. There can be little
doubt that the changing nature of the academy coupled with the increas-
ingly narrow focus of much government sponsored research has produced
a growing body of largely a-theoretical research with a limited policy edge.
Consequently, much ‘administrative criminology’ tends to involve policy
driven evidence rather than evidence driven policy.
If criminologists want to increase the policy relevance of their work it is
unlikely to be achieved by mobilizing the limited and largely superficial con-
sensus that currently exists in the subject, or dividing criminology into differ-
ent sub sets. Rather we need to engage in theoretically informed interventions
employing an appropriate methodology. Thus the development of a crimi-
nology that is policy relevant necessarily involves the mobilization of the ‘holy
trinity’ that incorporates theory, method and practice. Realist criminologists,
in line with other radical and critical thinkers, have historically argued for an
approach that links theory to practice (Young, 1992). However, it is becoming
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increasingly recognized among critical realists that the method of analysis is
an essential component linking theory to effective intervention.
The growing concerns about the policy relevance of criminology can be seen
in part as a function of the demise of conservative criminology, which was
extremely influential in the 1980s, and early 1990s and typically called for
tougher punishments to deal with wilful lawbreakers (Wilson and Herrnstein,
1985; Murray, 1990; Herrnstein and Murray, 1994; Cullen et al., 1997). In
this period much of the liberal response centred around rejecting or opposing
conservative policies, while emphasizing what are considered to be more
benign policies such as welfare, education and more informal strategies to
deal with offenders. The demise of conservative criminology has created
something of a policy vacuum and given liberals little to object to or debate
with. Consequently, liberalism in its three major forms—humanist, radical
and pessimist—has moved from a debate with ‘get tough’ conservatives to
complaining about manipulative politicians who...
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