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25 Aust. & N.Z. J. Criminology 1 (1992)

handle is hein.journals/anzjc25 and id is 1 raw text is: AUST & NZ JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (March 1992) 25 (1-10) REDUCING THE CRIME PROBLEM: A NOT SO DISMAL CRIMINOLOGY* John Braithwaitet A normative criminology is possible which offers guidance on the types of crimes we should struggle to reduce and how. An aplanatory criminology is possible that suggests which practical strategies may work in reducing these types of crimes. These possibilities have eluded us, however, because of the ecessive emphasis on state policies within prevailing theoretical traditions. A theoretical revolution in criminology is needed to cause us to look in the right places for practical stnggles that might bear fuit. Republican criminology is advanced as one theoretical alternative. Republicanism causes us to see that those crime problems which are our most serious are actually problems on which we may be making some progress. A theoretical reorientation might help us grasp the sources of our contemporary successes in crime control so that we might apply ourselves to reinforcing them. Criminologists are pessimists and cynics. There seem good reasons for this. Our science has largely failed to deliver criminal justice policies that will prevent crime. The grand 19th century utilitarian doctrines - deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation - are manifest failures. The return to classicism in criminology - the just deserts movement - has been worse than a failure. It has been a disastrous step backwards. My own view is that we need a theoretical revolution in criminology to extricate us from our contemporary nihilism. In this lecture, I will argue for a theoretical revolution that causes us to look at the crime problem in a decisively changed way. It replaces pessimism that nothing works in reducing crime with an optimistic vision. The theory enables us to see that: (1) the most serious crime problems in contemporary societies are precisely the crime problems we are in the best position to reduce; and (2) the changes needed to effect these reductions have gathered significant momentum in Australia since the mid-1970s. To find the foundations for the theory that will ultimately lead us to this conclusion, we need to go back beyond the failed 19th century theories of liberalism, Marxism and utilitarism to the political theory which was dominant for several centuries up to the 18th century. That political theory is republicanism. This does not mean that I advocate creating Montesquieu's or Machiavelli's or Jefferson's republic in 21st century Melbourne. The intellectual challenge before us is to construct models of contemporary urban republics, practical strategies for injecting republican elements into liberal urban life. So what are the lights on the republican hill that we might reformulate in a contemporarily relevant way? Cass Sunstein (1988) advances four commitments as basic to republicanism: (1) deliberation in governance which shapes as well as balances interests (as opposed to simply doing deals between pre-political interests); (2) political equality; (3) universality, or debate to reconcile competing views, as a regulative ideal; and (4) citizenship, community participation in public life. It will perhaps already be obvious to you how these republican values underwrite the importance of community policing as a practical strategy. I will be as brief as I can on the philosophy of republicanism as a foundation for criminal justice policy. These foundations are discussed at length in my book with * The Eighteenth Annual John Barry Memorial Lcture, delivered at University of Melbourne on 2 October 1991. t PhD, FASSA, Professorial Fellow, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.

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