The Truly Conceited: Ex Cathedra Doctrine and the Policing of Crime
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00048658950280S105 |
| Author | Lawrence W Sherman |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Truly Conceited:
Ex
Cathedra
Doctrine and the Policing
of
Crime
Lawrence
W
Sherman’
Manning’s
(1993:639)
concept of the ‘preventive conceit’ of police
effectiveness is a useful contribution to the sociology of criminology. In two
words, the concept summarises volumes about the differences in epistemology
among criminologists. It is a virtual Rorschach test for the multi-dimensional
varieties of criminological thinking throughout the English-speaking world,
the rich diversity of which is normally found in tolerant co-existence. But as
Elizabeth Stanko’s use of Manning’s concept in the
1994
John Barry
Memorial Lecture reveals, such strong labels can be used to feed intolerance
of one school of criminological thought for another.
The gracious invitation from the editor to reply to the
1994
Barry Lecture
affords an opportunity to make several important points. One is to explore the
contrast between Manning and Stanko’s ‘doctrinal’ approach and more
tolerant forms of criminology. Another is to compare doctrinal criminology to
previous efforts to stifle hypothesis testing. A third is to show that macro-level
criminology does not even need to stifle micro-level experiments. All these
points provide a suitable framework for introducing the multi-year Canberra
Re-Integrative Shaming Experiment (RISE) to the pages of this journal,
so
that readers may judge for themselves whether the experimenters have fallen
into the grip of Manning’s ‘preventive conceit.’
Varieties
of
criminology
A quick glance at criminology journals from around the world reveals an
endless array of approaches to criminology. Some derives from legal
scholarship, some from medical research, some from sociology, economics,
and other social sciences. Whatever its disciplinary origins, there are at least
three major forms of empirical criminology.
One branch of empirical criminology is the formulation of hypotheses about
crime based on a holistic understanding of a wide range of evidence.
This
is
the enterprise I understand Dr Stanko to pursue in her lecture, quite helpfully,
when she claims that battered women use a variety of strategies to stop the
assaults on them, some with greater success than others. Her understanding of
the evidence leading to this hypothesis is no doubt based upon many years of
hard work on the topic, wide-ranging reading in the empirical literature, and
her own collection of empirical evidence.
Another form of empirical criminology is devoted to the testing of
hypotheses. Such tests can
be
conducted in many different ways, drawing on
*
Adjunct
Professor
of
Law,
Research School
of
Social Sciences, Australian National
University, and
Professor
of
Criminology, University
of
Maryland,
2220
LeFrak
Hall,
College Park,
MD
20742,
USAemail: wsheman@bss2.umd.edu
45
at SAGE Publications on June 20, 2016anj.sagepub.comDownloaded from
To continue reading
Request your trial