Introduction

Published date12 March 2018
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JCRPP-01-2018-0001
Pages1-4
Date12 March 2018
AuthorStephen Wagg,Tim Crabbe
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology
Stephen Wagg and Tim Crabbe
Sport, crime and deviance
Sport, it hardly now seems necessary to say, is an important global social phenomenon for at
least three reasons. First, it constitutes a huge industry, recently estimated to reach a turnover of
$73.5 billion by the year 2019, 12 months from the time of writing (Heitner, 2015). Second, for a
growing number of people across the world, sport represents a key part of their identity, whether
they see themselves as participants (joggers, cyclists, golfers, etc.) or as fans (of Manchester
United, of the New York Mets, of Roger Federer, etc.) or, perhaps, sport represents a key part of
their identity in terms of their body image, maybe, or hardness/toughness or related behaviours,
such as gambling.
Third, and most significantly for this volume, sport carries with it our taken-for-granted notions of
fair play. It is an inherently rule-bound activity which risks losing all credibility if, for example, a
competitor is known to have taken some kind of proscribed performance enhancement. One is
reminded here of the American academic John Hobermans (1998) famous denunciation of the
Tour de France of 1998 as a pharmacy on wheels. Likewise, it is intrinsic to sport as a social
activity that unlike, say, drama the outcome should not be predetermined: any notion of
contrivance and sport loses its defining characteristic. Yet, largely due both to the globalisation
and the televisualisation of sport, the possibilities and indeed attraction of such contrivance has
escalated as the consumption of sport extends into the darkly seductive domains of sex,
corruption, scandal and celebrity deviance.
Sport, then, thoug h still an importan t voluntary and plea surable activity f or many (runners,
golfers, anglers , cyclists, etc.) is now huge ly commercialised in the wid est possible sense. Even
the Olympics, historic bastion of the amateur sporting ethos, have long since succumbed to
market forces. Few cities can today afford to stage the Olympic Games and none can do so
without the substantial patronage of a range of corporate partners: indeed Helen Lenskyj
(2000), one of the contributors to this special issue, coined the term Olympic industryin her
book on the Sydney Sum mer Games of 2000. W e can say with reasona ble certainty that t he
greater the possib ilities for profit from a social activity, the greater the likelihood of, and scope
for, breaches of cr iminal law and of the regulati ons governing individual spo rts as well as public
interest in those transgressions.
It was to be expected then that literature on the relationship between sport, crime and deviance
would begin to grow. A substantial body of work on sport and deviance has dwelt on the
possibilities of using sport for the purposes of crime prevention. The principle embodied in
the old tradition of getting young ghetto males out of the street and into the boxing ring still has
strong echoes in the contemporary worlds of academic enquiry and policy-making. Recent
examples include the work of Cameron and MacDougall (2000) as part of a collaborative project
between the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Institute of Criminology and
Hartmann and Brooks (2006) in the USA.
At the level of policy, much political/social work has been done under the rubric of social
inclusion,a concept closely correlated tothe neoliberal ethos, whereingovernments undertake to
promote equal opportunitiesfor socially marginalised groups in an increasingly market-based
society. In 2000 in the UK, this thinking saw the institution by the first Labour Administration of
Tony Blair of SportAction Zones (Wheatley, 2007) andsubsequently a movement of charitiesand
social enterprisesunder the banner of sport for development or sport forsocial change. Critiques
of the basis forsome of these responses have beenoffered by, among others, Crabbe(2007) and
Smith and Waddington (2004).
Stephen Wagg is a Professor at
the Leeds Beckett University,
Leeds, UK.
Tim Crabbe is the Chief
Executive at Substance,
Manchester, UK.
DOI 10.1108/JCRPP-01-2018-0001 VOL. 4 NO. 1 2018, pp.1-4, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2056-3841
j
JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE
j
PAGE 1
Introduction

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