five - The second half: critical criminological theory andsport

Summary

Chapter Four set out what might be called mainstreamcriminological theories. This chapter examinesbroadly radical/critical theories, some of which, aswe shall see, may relate back to mainstream ones andall of which may relate to each other.

The scheme is to carry on from the discussion oflabelling in Chapter Four to examine the emergenceof new and radical criminologies. This requires anexamination of Marxist and conflict theories thatunderpin some of these, and which, along with otherstrands from sociology, have been woven into leftrealism. Feminism has its own roots outside of andwithin criminology, but left realism's concern withthe victim makes a link to the various feminisms.Some of those feminisms blamed men for thevictimisation of women but studied women. Feministsand gay men were behind the development of aninterest in masculinities that also found its wayinto criminology. We also see how sub-cultural andanarchist approaches link in to mainstream culturalcriminological theories. Finally, the chapterconsiders green and rural criminologies.

New criminology/radical criminology

Chronologically, we might tackle the work of Taylor andcolleagues (1973) after Marx and American radicalcriminology, but their arguments condense much ofthat theorising. We turn to those antecedents later,as Young noted it was labelling perspectives ‘whichset the creaking chariot of radical criminology offon its course’ (1988: 163). This wonky, andcertainly unintended, sporting metaphor might beextended by noting that the performance-enhancingdrug of the time for young theorists was Marxism,with perhaps a side order of feminism or criticalrace theory. The only brushing mention of sport inTaylor et al's (1973) book TheNew Criminology relates to work onfootball hooliganism by one of the authors, Taylor,who then saw it in terms of ‘resistance’.

This work was swiftly followed by an edited collectionon critical criminology (Taylor et al, 1975), whichprogressed the debate on radical criminology andcontained a spat between the editors and Paul Hirstabout Marxism. Hirst contended: ‘There is no“Marxist theory of deviance”…. Crime and devianceare no more a scientific field of for Marxism thaneducation, the family or sport’ (1975: 204).