The illusion of control
| Author | Tim Hope |
| Published date | 01 May 2009 |
| Date | 01 May 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895809102548 |
| Subject Matter | Debate and Dialogue |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
© The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and Permissions:
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ISSN 1748–8958; Vol: 9(2): 125–134
DOI: 10.1177/1748895809102548
The illusion of control:
A response to Professor Sherman
TIM HOPE
Keele University, UK
There was once a sharpshooter, whose fame was renowned throughout all
of Texas. Folk would come from miles around to marvel at the accuracy
of his shooting. One day, a young cowboy visited the sharpshooter’s ranch
hoping to learn the secret of his success. Peering around a corner, he saw
the sharpshooter firing blind-fold at the side of his barn, and then, picking
up a piece of chalk, draw targets around those spots where the bullet-holes
happened to have clustered.1
The desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action … the
true is determined by the useful, the just by the circumstances. (Le Trahison
des Clercs, Julien Benda, 1927)
We may have been down this road before.2 More than 30 years ago there
was another wave of experimental evaluation in criminal justice, though
its fruits turned out to be less abundant than those promised by Professor
Sherman. Based on research conducted to the highest standards, including
the randomized, controlled trial design (Farrington, 1983), extensive re-
views of the effectiveness of penal treatment, criminal justice sentencing
and police practice all seemed to come to the same conclusion—‘nothing
worked’ (Martinson, 1974; Brody, 1975; Morris and Heal, 1981; Clarke
and Hough, 1984). Significant also was the reaction to what was perceived
to be the ‘Martinson Problem’. For some, it was a problem with Martinson’s
methods and criteria of assessing effectiveness; our conventional view of
scienti fic method—the experiment—was no way to get at any truth about
the world of crime and justice.3 For the ‘new’ criminologists of the day it was
not so much a problem, more a case of ‘well, what did you expect!’—their
theor etical expectations of the workings of criminal justice intervention
apparently confirmed by evidence of the negligible and counter-productive
impacts of control upon deviancy. More pertinent for authority at the time, 125
DEBATE AND DIALOGUE
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