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Delinquency - 8
Université de Paris 8
A History of Delinquency?
A: Recap
Delinquency is a complex phenomenon ; there are some basic characteristics which are shared by a large proportion of those who commit acts which are labelled as delinquent. But - not all those who do share those characteristics do become delinquent. Moreover, a small number of delinquents do not, in fact, share these characteristics. One may surmise that it is not possible to understand delinquency simply in terms of the behaviour of those who are labelled as delinquent.
The structure of at least one basic institution, the school, and the behaviour of agents such as teachers and administrators, contribute to shaping delinquent behaviour and towards labelling delinquents. Chicago sociologists place the phenomenon within the context of the modern city, where certain areas produce greater crime rates than others, and within the structures of opportunity of a class society. It is suggested also that different groups, in conflict with each other, have different sub-cultures, some of which support and justify behaviours which are likely to be labelled delinquent by control agencies. According to the Chicago school, within the inner cities, there are groups who suffer from blocked opportunities, and who, in order to succeed, take to crime. But Albert Cohen suggests that whilst this may account for adult criminality, it does not help with juvenile delinquency, for it misses the aspect of playfulness which informs much youthful deviance.
We find this in Willis' research ; playfulness - the search for a 'laff' - is indeed of importance. Thieving, vandalism, under-age drinking and other 'deviant' activities are part of a pattern of undermining authority in the shape of the front-line control agents - teachers, policemen, small employers and foremen. However, Willis insists, thieving is also utilitarian - the young men he studied felt that they needed the cash. They used opportunities presented by their presence in the street and by their insertion in the casual labour market to take what they could.
Which brings us to consider working class attitudes to property - these are not necessarily be the same as those of the middle classes. Property is not defined naturally, but politically - that is to say through a power struggle based upon the divergent interests of different social groups. Capitalism is posited upon a specific concept of property which alienates the worker both from his tools and from the raw materials upon which he works - silver-smith, - textile worker, - docker. The natural divergence of interests in the workplace, which gives rise to a large amount of pilfering, or simply to the claiming of 'perks', leads to the developement of a pragmatic view of property relations among the working classes. This view is then carried over into the world outside work.
B : The development of delinquency as a historical phenomenon
We have now moved from an investigation of delinquency as a phenomenon arising from the flawed characteristics of certain individuals to an investigation of delinquency as a social phenomenon, to be placed within the context of a specific social system at a particular point in its development. This reminds us that a properly scientific study of the phenomenon must take into account not only the behaviour of those who are labelled as delinquent, but also those social agencies which produce and enforce the laws which delinquents are designated as having broken.
Delinquency is a modern phenomenon. This is not to say that young people prior to the 19thC were law-abiding - they were not. However, their criminality appeared to be assimilated to that of the dangerous classes as a whole, rather than singled out as specific, and demanding of different treatment. The development of the juvenile delinquent is coeval with
a) the development of a labour market which increasingly excluded women and children, and constructed the working class family around the central figure of the wage-earning husband and father.
b) the attempts to redefine public space in the city so as to facilitate the circulation of both labour and goods
c) the decision to school the mass of children
The first of these factors has set the terms of much of the subsequent debate about delinquency : the sins of the young are set firmly at the door of the home, and the parents are held to be responsible for the poor behaviour of their offspring. This is more particularly, the role of the mother, whose work outside the home is defined as being illegitimate in so far as it prevents her from bringing up and surveying her young. Definitions of 'juvenile' are to be seen as essentially arguments about the age at which parents, and in particular the mother, are no longer to be held responsible.
This weight of responsibility falls particularly on working class parents. This is partly because
- middle and upper class parents are able to organize child-minding in ways which remove their children from the street and thus from those areas in which deviant behaviour is likely to be defined as delinquent.
- also because normal working class patterns of behaviour and socialization were targeted as being particularly in need of reform and control in the attempts to rationalize the city which were one of the fundamental characteristics of 19thC politics.
This brings us to the second point. In the villages and in the early working class districts of the growing cities, the space within which work, leisure and social life took place was to a great extent undifferentiated. The street, the market place, the public house and the home itself were all integrated into a common sociality such that the labour market, the place of work, and the place of leisure were all geographically and temporally inextricably intertwined.
This state of affairs came under increasing pressure as the monetary economy became more important, and as the urban replaced the rural. First, the factory movement took work out of the home and put it under the direct control of the boss and the foreman. Secondly, rational employment practices came increasingly to replace the street corner or the public house with employment exchanges, or the interview at the factory gate. Thirdly, the demand for ease of transportation, allied with fear of working class political manifestations, lead to an assault on the street as a centre of leisure culture.
Central in this assault was the development of a modern police-force. In England, the generalization of the new police forces pivoted upon the recognition on the part of the ruling classes that lower class rioting and strikes could only be held in check by the imposition of a local force, distinct from the army. The army was necessarily too remote from the working class communities which were to be controlled. The existing system, which relied upon elected officials and pensioners, was both inefficient and corrupt.
a) The temper of the times - the mid 19thC, - French revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, - threat of the Chartist movement - saw any congregation of working people as threatening, whether it be avowedly political, or otherwise - races, fêtes, dog-fighting and so on.
b) The street came to be defined as a thoroughfare, a way of getting from A to B as quickly as possible, and the knots of working men that might gather at street corners, taking up the sidewalk or even the street itself, came to be defined as a nuisance. The new police forces primary objective, once set up in a specific district, was to clear the streets - to 'move along' those who were not using the streets as a means of transport, but as a lieu of sociality.
Considerable resistance on the part of the working classes themselves. Particularly vocal in their opposition were the street-sellers and hawkers, who found their livelihood threatened. But ordinary working men, who found that their normal habits of stopping in the street for a chat with their mates were under attack, were also resentful of the new force.
Robert D. Storch describes - Hull, in 1839 - attempted arrest of a soldier - argument in a beerhouse - full-scale riot. The soldier's mates - working-men in the beerhouse - prevent the arrest, and reinforcements were called out. An arrest was made - the crowd tried to rescue the prisoner. The following evening, a large crowd, lead by soldiers but made up of working men as well, attacked the police office. Another police office nearby was broken into, and the constables were severely beaten.
In 1844, an even more severe incident occurred at Leeds. Once again, - arrest of some soldiers in a beer-house - petty theft.. The following day, - attempt on the part of the soldiers' comrades to free them - joined by a crowd of civilians - 'joined the soldiers not out of love to the soldiers themselves, but from ... feelings of hatred towards the police.' The crowd of working-men, joined by others, continued to fight with the police even after the soldiers had been returned to barracks by their officers. The disturbances continued on the following night as well.
We may note that in both cases, the police first intervened after the report of what would certainly be considered criminal behaviour today - physical violence on the first occasion, and theft accompanied by threats on the second. On both occasions, the crimes were committed by soldiers, a sector of the population who were by no means popular themselves. We may deduce from this that
a) crime is a behaviour that is noticed by the agents of the state
b) that there is nothing automatic in the equation of stealing or violent behaviour with crime.
The reasons why the working people were so hostile to the police were various. Radicals and trade-unionists were convinced that the new force would be used to interdict political meetings and to help employers break strikes. They were correct to be so convinced. Ordinary working class people saw them as imposing a new and unwanted discipline. Thus Storch reports that when the county police appeared in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1857, they very quickly aroused antagonism through their repression of normal popular activities.
For example, they cleared the roads on the outskirts of Wakefield, where young men had been used to holding foot races. Gambling on the highway was repressed - an activity which working class youths traditionally indulged in on Sunday mornings. The police also imposed licensing hours on the pubs in the outlying villages, forcing them to close during the hours of church services, much to the disgust of large numbers of working men. They also cracked down on cock-fighting, a popular sport and occasion for gambling. Eventually, one of the most active of the police officers in the district, was set upon, stripped naked and beaten with sticks. Then he was dragged round all the town's beerhouses and exhibited to the drinkers. Three men were arrested and fined £5 each; their fines were immediately paid by their local supporters.
The working classes - or at least, the young male sector of the working classes - resisted the implantation of the new police forces because they resisted the new definitions of public space. Colonel Constance, the officer in charge of troops sent to deal with an outbreak of violence occasioned by the introduction of police in the Colne valley near Lancaster gave this description of why the riots had taken place :
The lower orders of Colne are a particularly uncouthly set, and have hitherto been in entire possession of the place, occupying the streets, footpaths and public places in groups at nearly all hours to the great inconvenience of the more respectable part of the inhabitants ... who in moving about were obliged to thread their way ... through the general obstruction. I consider this uncivilised and rude manner is more from habit than from any real intention to incommode or be uncivil - a want of civilisation, a want of example in so old, and remote a place. The police, in correcting an inconvenience of so long a standing, may do well at first to correct it gradually, and by quiet measures ... The ignorant will resist ... if driven to it by harsh measures in introducing it.
Hostility not confined to the more rural or backward areas of the country. In London, the costers - street-sellers - continued to resist the interference of the police in their affairs down to at least the 1920s. Flat dwellers would keep flower pots on their window sills, so as to be able to throw them at any policemen who penetrated the courts.
In the 1920s, the police took particularly severe action against street gambling and street football. Phil Cohen claims that this was part of a process by which the labouring classes split into distinct groups - the 'rough' and the 'respectable'- the upper reaches of which are known as the 'labour aristocracy'. The latter accepted the new definitions of social order, and, building their identities around their employment in skilled trades, with formal apprenticeship. One of their great tasks was to ensure that their young people maintained the proprieties, and eventually followed in their parents' footsteps. The middle ranks, at the end of the 19thC, began to adopt the behaviour patterns of the labour aristocracy - through involvement in the trade unions and the Labour Party. As one man remembers
When Johnny was growing up in the flats, people had started using flower pots to grow flowers in. When I was a lad there, they kept them empty to throw at the Law.
Opposition to the law, Cohen shows, increasingly becomes a characteristic of the young. Thus he notes that the number of anti-police disturbances drops considerably after WWI, and that,
whereas men, women and children were reported as being among the hostile crowds in the early periods, it is increasingly the 14-18 year-old age band that continue the tradition through to the 1920s.
Moreover, the social make-up of the crowd also changes. Pre-war crowds were made up of members of all sections of the working classes, but after the war, they are increasingly drawn from the street-traders.
The anti-police riot today often is sparked by very similar concerns. This is particularly true of the riots of the early 80s, many of which were sparked off by incidents between the police and the West Indian community. Young West Indians come from a culture in which street life is still particularly strong. This cultural tradition was reinforced by the poor housing, difficult labour market and family breakdown that the West Indians suffered from, and which was particularly difficult for young males. The Brixton riots of 1981 were largely set in action when police decided to clean up the streets, which had become the domain of a predominantly - but not simply - black trading and leisure culture. Young black males, who faced a tough and racially biassed employment market, had for some time been a privileged target of police action.
Drug dealing, petty crime, and 'hanging around in the streets' were seen by the police as the main characteristic of this population. So as to deal with the breakdown of public order that they represented, the police revived an old law which had fallen into disuse - young males were picked up on the 'sus' laws, which allowed the police to arrest someone on the mere suspicion that they were about to commit a crime - conviction could be obtained on the word of two police officers that they had seen the accused behaving in a suspicious manner - which might be simply looking in two shop windows, or passing by a bus stop on a couple of occasions. This was, predictably, much represented by the young blacks, who believed, probably not without reason, that they were being victimized on account of the colour of their skin.
A special police unit was sent in to deal with the growing problem of street crime. Not being local officers, they saw their job in simple crime-busting terms. Operation 'Swamp 81' took place against a background of poor relations between police and the black population of the borough. As Lea and Young put it, in their study of the actions leading up to the rioting :
The Swamp 81 operation serves as a tailor-made example of how to antagonise the greatest possible number of people while at the same time achieving the minimum efficiency in the direct control of a particular type of crime, in this case, footpad robbery. As it was unlikely that a mugging was going to occur directly in front of the eyes of police officers, the operation involved random stopping of 'suspicious' youth. Such an operation was not only alienating as far as the community was concerned but doomed to failure as a crime prevention exercise. The typical footpad is hardly likely to be carrying a snatched bag with him, stolen money is undetectable, and weapons are sued only in a minority of such offences. Such operations, therefore, make little sense as part of an attempt to locate particular offenders and apprehend them ... But they can be seen to make sense in terms of a strategy of generalised deterrence, a show of force to remind the community that the police can control the streets.
Under such conditions, where the police stop people indiscriminately, they unite the community against them, so that those who are arrested are likely to gain the sympathy of bystanders, whether they have committed a crime or not. The police are seen as attacking the community as a whole, rather than simply arresting the criminals. this leads first to a refusal to cooperate with the police and later to concerted action to prevent arrests.
Present day alienation from the police of inner-city populations is exacerbated by the fact that it is in these areas that crime of the most brutal face-to-face variety is most common. Much of this predatory crime is of a nature which makes it difficult for the police to identify the villains and bring them to justice. Thus the crimes continue, despite a heavy police presence. This means that the police lose their legitimacy - which is posited on their defending the community against crime. The police themselves, young men often of fairly low educational qualifications, and themselves of the working classes, are frustrated in their efforts to fight crime, and develop rationalizations for their lack of success. Often these rationalisations lead to their rejecting the whole community which they are supposed to be protecting - thus one police officer working in the rough areas of Liverpool, characterized the people living their as 'animals'. The inner city is a jungle, and the police are game wardens, or perhaps white hunters, trying to maintain a minimum of order in a largely hostile environment.
Some observers have suggested that ultimately, the relationship between the police and the young males of inner-city areas have come to be similar to those between two gangs of youths - only one of the gangs happens to have the power of the state behind them.
Conclusion
The modern phenomenon of delinquency is related to the changes in the means adopted by the ruling classes in their attempts to control the masses. These changes in control, involving a clearing of the streets, and a change in lower class cultural habits, met much resistance, and still do meet resistance at times. However, it is also to be noticed that large sectors of the working classes were persuaded of the benefits of the new order, and have invested largely in it. This, according to Cohen, brought about an increasingly sharp differentiation between different sectors of the working classes - broadly dividing them into the rough and the respectable. During the period of adolescence, the street culture of the rough working classes holds out a number of attractions for the young sons of the respectable working class, and the parents have to impose a considerable degree of discipline in order to maintain the distinctions.
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