Shadow Boxing with an Imaginary Enemy — A Response to “Law and Order Blues”
| Date | 01 August 2002 |
| Published date | 01 August 2002 |
| Author | Sandra Egger,David Brown,Russell Hogg,David Indermaur |
| DOI | 10.1375/acri.35.2.145 |
145
THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 35 NUMBER 2 2002 PP.145–158
Address for correspondence: Dr David Indermaur, Senior Research Fellow, Crime Research
Centre, University of Western Australia, WA 6907.
Shadow Boxing with an Imaginary Enemy
— A Response to “Law and Order Blues”
David Indermaur
University of Western Australia
David Brown and Sandra Egger
University of New South Wales
Russell Hogg
University of Western Sydney
In our rejoinder to Don Weatherburn’s paper,“Law and Order Blues”,
we do not take issue with his advocacy of the need to take crime
seriously and to foster a more rational approach to the problems it
poses.Where differences do emerge is (1) with his claim that he is willing
to do so whilst we (in our different ways) are not; and (2) on the
question of what this involves. Of particular concern is the way in which
his argument proceeds by a combination of simple misrepresentation of
the positions it seeks to disparage, and silence concerning issues of real
substance where intellectual debate and exchange would be welcome
and useful. Our paper challenges, in turn, the misrepresentation of
Indermaur’s analysis of trends in violent crime, the misrepresentation of
Hogg and Brown’s Rethinking Law and Order, the misrepresentation of the
findings of some of the research into the effectiveness of punitive policies
and the silence on sexual assault in “Law and Order Blues”. We suggest
that his silence on sexual assault reflects a more widespread unwilling-
ness to acknowledge the methodological problems that arise in the
measurement of crime because such problems severely limit the extent
to which confident assertions can be made about prevalence and trends.
Apart from its remarkable schismatic qualities, and the construction of largely non-
existent conflict reminiscent of the wonderful skit in The Life of Brian, “Law and
Order Blues” (“LOB”) also illustrates a form of forgetting. It is now nearly 20 years
since Jock Young and his colleagues began a series of crime victim surveys and
subsequent publications and activities under the banner of “left realism”, the key
slogan of which was “taking crime seriously” (see e.g., Young, 1979; Lea & Young,
1984; Kinsey, 1985; Mathews & Young, 1986; Jones, Maclean & Young, 1986;
Jones, Lea & Young, 1987; Lea, 1987; Lea, Mathews & Young, 1987; Young, 1987;
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