‘The Beast of Blenheim’, risk and the rise of the security sanction
| Author | Jordan Anderson,John Pratt |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865815590842 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2016, Vol. 49(4) 528–545
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865815590842
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Article
‘The Beast of Blenheim’, risk
and the rise of the security
sanction
John Pratt
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Jordan Anderson
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract
This paper discusses and explains a new penal phenomenon in the main Anglophone societies
– the rise of the security sanction. Rather than reacting to crime, its purpose is to protect
public safety by reducing the risk of future crime. It can be applied to both the most serious
offenders and those who have not committed any crime. It can involve extended/prolonged
terms of imprisonment and it can involve extensive restrictions on movement in public space.
Its emergence can be explained by the post-1980s political, economic and social restructuring
of these societies and the attendant uncaging of risk.
Keywords
Civil detention, incivilities, risk prevention, security, sex offenders
In September 2012, Stewart Murray Wilson, aged 66, was paroled from Whanganui
Prison, New Zealand, after serving 18.5 of a 21-year sentence. Most New Zealanders,
however, know Wilson by his ‘Beast of Blenheim’ alter ego, an identity awarded him by a
journalist in 1996 on his conviction for offences that began in the 1970s. These included
rape, attempted rape, indecent assault, stupefying his victims, ill-treatment of a child and
bestiality. They were committed against family members and other women living for a
while in his Blenheim home.
In addition to the condition that he live in a state house within the prison complex on
release, his parole licence contained 17 other restrictions on his movements: he would
only be allowed to leave the prison grounds in the company of at least two prison staff;
he would have to wear a GPS tracking device (the first New Zealander ever to be fitted
with one); he would be prohibited from having any female visitors unless permitted by
Corresponding author:
John Pratt, Department of Criminology, Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600,
Wellington 6011, New Zealand.
Email: John.pratt@vuw.ac.nz
his probation officer; from contact with anyone under 16 without supervision; from
attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; from keeping pets; from using the internet;
from riding a scooter; from attending church; from visiting the town library.
Nonetheless, amidst local outrage at the news of his parole, the Whanganui city council
petitioned the High Court to have him detained in prison. When this was dismissed on
the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction to intervene, the council organized a
‘community shunning’ of Wilson. Residents were encouraged to apply for trespass
orders that would bar him from any movement in private space or council-owned
property beyond the prison. As it was, Wilson was predictably returned to prison in
February 2013, not because he had committed more crimes but because of his ‘non-
normative behaviour.’ He had telephoned a woman (a relative of one of his victims)
without permission to thank her for a Christmas present she had sent him. He had also
spoken to her of ‘escaping to Australia’, notwithstanding that he had no passport and
very little money.
The government had by then introduced its Public Safety (Public Protection Orders)
Bill. Due to become law in 2015, this gives the courts power to indefinitely detain Wilson
– the legislation is retrospective – and similar others who are judged to be at ‘a high level
of imminent risk of serious sexual or violent offending’ at the end of any finite prison
sentence. Formally, they will be held in ‘civil detention’ (i.e. in prison). Evidence of
imminent risk of reoffending will be ‘an urge to reoffend’; an ‘inability to control
emotions’; an ‘absence of understanding of the impact of their offending’; and/or
‘poor interpersonal relationships’ and/or ‘social isolation.’
Clearly, these responses to Wilson contravene fundamental principles and norms
associated with penal law and practice in modern, democratic societies: parole was
intended to keep him apart from the rest of the community rather than reintegrate
him; he was detained in prison despite being released; the retrospective Public
Safety Bill gives de iure effect to such detention. But equally clearly, the responses are
quite consistent with an emerging new penal framework in the main Anglophone socie-
ties
1
that is ordered by a different set of principles and norms altogether. These are
intended to make the world more secure, more predictable and certain by controlling
those who would otherwise put this at risk. In these respects, Wilson’s case opens the
door to understanding how these new arrangements have been put in place.
Feeley and Simon (1992), of course, identified a growing preoccupation with risk in
penal policy. This was neither about ‘punishing nor rehabilitating individuals’ but was
primarily concerned with the management of growing prison populations through the
use of actuarial techniques to ‘identify [and] classify ...groupings sorted by dangerous-
ness’ (Feeley & Simon, 1992, p. 455). Thereafter, it is clear that risk-based penal arrange-
ments have become much more extensive. Actuarialism as a risk-calculator has certainly
become more embedded in the parole systems and other aspects of prison decision
making in these societies. In addition, though, risk itself has become a much more expan-
sive category.
2
On the one hand, it continues to justify the need for protection by means
of indefinite or extended prison terms. On the other, it can also control movement in
public space outside prison for a much larger amorphous mass, some of whom may not
yet have committed any crime at all but whose status – vagrant, beggar or some other
sort of street person – becomes an indicator that they might well do if left unchecked.
In such ways, risk has moved beyond the administrative role given to it by Feeley and
Pratt and Anderson 529
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