Anarchist criminology is a school of thought in criminology that draws on influences and insights from anarchist theory and practice. Building on insights from anarchist theorists including Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Peter Kropotkin, anarchist criminologists' approach to the causes of crime emphasises what they argue are the harmful effects of the state. Anarchist criminologists, a number of whom have produced work in the field since the 1970s, have critiqued the political underpinnings of criminology and emphasised the political significance of forms of crime not ordinarily considered to be political. Anarchists propose the abolition of the state; accordingly, anarchist criminologists tend to argue in favour of forms of non-state justice. The principles and arguments of anarchist criminology share certain features with those of Marxist criminology, critical criminology and other schools of thought within the discipline, while also differing in certain respects.
Background and precursors
Anarchism is not a single ideology but rather a tradition that encompasses a variety of belief systems and practices, united by a belief that the state is coercive, exploitative, and destructive, and by advocacy on behalf of non-hierarchical organisational forms and mutual aid. Anarchism is anti-authoritarian: whereas ideologies such as Marxism and feminism oppose particular forms of power, anarchists oppose power as such, including capitalism, the state, organised religion and patriarchy, which they see as interwoven with one another. Accordingly, anarchism questions the conventional wisdom produced by these forms of power, including ideas about universality, and pursues pluralism and multiplicity in the epistemic and aesthetic domains. "Anarchy", for anarchists, means a society without rulers, but not one without order.
The roots of anarchist criminology lie in the critiques of law and legality formulated by classical anarchists including Mikhail Bakunin, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Max Stirner, each of whom envisioned forms of social order that would, in the absence of the state, maximise individual freedom and encourage self-organisation. Kropotkin developed an expansive account of the sociology of law, in which he argued that aspects of existing legal structures serve primarily to protect the wealthy or to protect the state, and was among the first criminologists to examine crime's social causes. Kropotkin argued that law, especially law protecting private property and the state, was to blame for sustaining criminality and generating social pathologies. Rather than preventing crime, Kropotkin argued that punishment only brings out the worst in people and enhances the power of the state over people's lives. Kropotkin thought that most crime would vanish following the abolition of private property and the replacement of profit and competition by cooperation and human need as society's guiding principles. In this framework, alternative notions of social justice and alternative forms of solidarity would supersede existing structures of criminal justice and the rule of law as tools for mitigating anti-social behaviour.
Jeff Shantz and Dana M. Williams argue that "grappling with an anarchist criminology means engaging more directly and more fully with the history of anarchist writings on crime and social order", and that Proudhon's work in particular anticipates the insights of left realist criminology, while also transcending it by maintaining a critical attitude toward state power. Shantz and Williams argue that Proudhon's thought is "an antidote to the authoritarian, mythic conceptions of justice presented by social contract theory and mainstream criminology but also the limited and constrained notions of justice posited by statist critical theory and socialism", and a precursor to peacemaking criminology and theories of restorative justice.
The anarchist criminologist Jeff Ferrell also identifies the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), an anarcho-syndicalist trade union, as a precursor of anarchist criminology. In the United States in the early 20th century, the IWW identified "law and order" as a form of power instantiated by the ruling class at the expense of the working class, and developed the tactic of the "on the job strike", in which workers stringently obey rules and regulations in order to slow work. Ferrell argues that criminologists can draw on the anarchist tradition in order to oppose "an increasingly authoritarian social order". Within this framework, anarchist perspectives aid in understanding forms of both authority and resistance.
Overview
Causes of crime
Anarchist criminologists hold that crime is caused by structures of oppression and domination. Accordingly, their priority is often to critique these structures, with the goal of replacing them, rather than to develop detailed analyses of how they cause crime.
Anarchist criminologists have theorised the law as a "state protection racket", arguing that phenomena such as speed traps and seizure laws are similarly backed by the threat of violence. They argue that these and similar phenomena are a feature of all legal systems—found in democracies as much as in dictatorships—and that their ubiquity indicates that law does not protect from harm, but is itself a form of harm.
Anarchist criminologists also emphasise the "definitional" role of criminal justice systems, through which such systems are empowered to define certain behaviours as criminal, and argue that many acts considered criminal are only deemed so because they are associated with less powerful social groups or with efforts to dislodge existing power structures.
Ferrell argues that anarchist criminology is a critique of the way that human relationships become submerged in, and immobilised by, structures of legal authority. Anarchist criminology contends that law solidifies and reproduces existing structures of power, thereby placing limitations on possible social relations and exacerbating crime and violence.
Approach to the discipline
Anarchist criminology argues that the state is not politically neutral, and that criminology cannot be neutral either. Within this framework, anarchist criminologists argue that while much criminology takes the side of the powerful, other traditions in criminology side with the oppressed and exploited.
Anarchist criminologists argue that state law and criminalisation are inherently political, so acts of crime are by extension always imbued with political significance. As such, anarchist criminology calls for close attention to be paid to criminal (or criminalised) behaviour such as graffiti writing, "obscene" artistic and musical performances, pirate radio broadcasts, illegal strikes, shoplifting, drug use and hacking, and finds forms of political resistance in behaviours and lifestyles commonly considered criminal.
Ferrell describes anarchist criminology as invested in a process of demystification through which the epistemologies of certainty, truth and justice that are used to justify authority are called into question. Ferrell expresses hope that this process of "dismantling" the mythologies surrounding the law will "contribute to a more general disrespect for law and authority" by calling law's legitimacy into question.
Ferrell argues that instead of adhering to a single masterplan, anarchist criminology is characterised by a "spirit of eclectic inclusivity" and an embrace of "fluid communities of uncertainty and critique." He also proposes that anarchist criminological orientations "can serve not as some rigid corrective, nor competing paradigm, but as analytic sparks within an already lively alternative criminology." Ferrell argues that anarchist criminology does not purport "to incorporate reasoned or reasonable critiques of law and legal authority," but rather argues that social change requires "unreasonable" approaches.
Practical implications
Anarchist criminologists propose the replacement of existing legal systems with decentralised, negotiated, participatory justice. Such a system would, it is thought, encourage individuals to accept responsibility for their behaviour by reminding them of their connections to others in society. Anarchist criminology argues that if law must exist, its function must be transformed so that instead of protecting private property, social privilege and state power, it would ensure tolerance and diversity. Anarchist criminology tends to favour holistic transformative justice approaches over restorative justice, which it tends to argue is too beholden to the existing criminal justice system.
Many anarchist criminologists endorse prison abolition, arguing that prisons encourage recidivism and should be replaced by efforts to rehabilitate offenders and reintegrate them into communities. Ferrell argues that anarchist criminology must oppose moral entrepreneurs and associated "wars" (the war on drugs, war on gangs, etc.), which he argues "operate as well-planned exercises in victimization and blame, deflecting the public gaze from those in authority and toward those least able to resist it." Declaring "war" in this way, Ferrell argues, "exacerbates and perpetuates the very problems it claims to address" and leads to heightened violence.
Larry Tifft and Dennis Sullivan argue that advocates of anarchist criminology "are interested not only in pointing to those persons, groups, organizations, and nation-states that deny people their needs in everyday life but also in fostering social arrangements that alleviate pain and suffering by providing for everyone's needs." Tifft and Sullivan argue that "an anarchist needs-based criminology should transcend criminology", resulting in "changes in our daily lives: interacting with your intimate partner differently, living with your children differently; collaborating with coworkers differently; helping children develop their talents differently; making collective investment decisions differently; and making self-development decisions differently."
Relation to other schools of criminological thought
The core principles of anarchist criminology are linked to those of abolitionism, critical race theory, left realism, peacemaking criminology and restorative justice. Anarchist criminology also informs new criminology, labeling theory, postmodern criminology and cultural criminology. Stuart Henry and Scott A. Lukas argue that anarchist criminology is related to constitutive criminology, cultural criminology, left realism and critical race theory, all of which they argue represent divergences from a single perspective but which also have in common the themes of peacemaking criminology and restorative justice. Peacemaking criminology, which argues that violent responses to social problems result in further violence and seeks to develop ways to transform violent relationships into safe and respectful relationships, also emerged from work in anarchist criminology. Ferrell also identifies anarchist criminology as a type of newsmaking criminology.