Abstract
UK criminologists Gadd and Jefferson’s short treatise on the possibilities of a ‘psychosocial criminology’ is an ambitious text. Through the presentation of detailed case studies, it applies a psychoanalytic approach to serious criminal behaviour, seeking to answer that fundamental yet, the authors contend, often-neglected criminological question: why do some individuals commit crime? As the authors explain: Our starting point is a concern, developed over many years of teaching criminology that the individual criminal offender has long ceased to be of much interest to criminologists, especially those of a radical persuasion. The result is that the subject … presupposed in existing theories of crime … is woefully inadequate, unrecognizable as the complex and contradictory human being operating in often difficult and cross-pressured social circumstances, we know to be the reality of all our lives. (p. 1)
This phenomenon is explored in relation to the current state of British criminology, emphasising both the predominance of pragmatic, scientific research into the management of the administrative problem of crime, particularly in Home Office and other government funded studies, and the alternative, ‘critical’ criminological emphasis on the structure and sociological aspects of deviance.
It is argued that, as a result, the discipline may often rely on abstraction, emphasising aggregates and ‘risk factors’ and when the individual is the focus, provides limited insights on what differentiates offenders and non-offenders. In relation to this second point, the authors argue that, while, often psychological accounts may offer insights into the psychological ‘mechanisms’ at play in offending, they do not adequately account for the individual as a contradictory and anxious subject. Theorising this, in turn, will permit us to account for what prompts certain individuals to commit certain crimes in particular situations, distinct from the broader explanations which look more generally at concepts like ‘delinquency’ or the social construction of crime; as well as complicate more straightforwardly deterministic views of the relationship between circumstances and offending behaviour. The wager of the book is that through a more focused look at the offenders themselves, a more convincing and adequately complex account of criminal behaviour will emerge.
The book’s structure is straightforward. Following the literature review of the first four chapters, which draws out the various aspects of sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis and criminology that frame the endeavour, the book develops a number of case studies to demonstrate key points. While some of this work draws upon the authors’ research and interviews, other parts rely more on close readings of the account of others. Of these, it is the interviews, applying the free association narrative interview technique, wherein participants are given a wide berth to tell the story of their life and discuss their offending in that context, that provide the richest results for analysis.
Chapter 5 draws on an example of research that uses this method, namely in-depth qualitative research conducted by Hollway and Jefferson (2000) into the public’s fear of crime. Gadd and Jefferson emphasise the need to understand fear not as an abstract variable that can be easily addressed by policy responses but as a complex outcome of individual and social factors. Chapter 6 considers sexual assault, noting the shortcomings of early feminist critiques, which fail to account sufficiently for the mediation between the ‘inner' worlds of offenders and the ‘outer' world of social relationships. Chapter 7 discusses the gruesome case of the American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, offering an account that emphasises Dahmer's own internal life – insofar as it can be inferred from secondary materials, at least – and accounts for his offending in these terms. Chapter 8 discusses perpetrators of racial harassment. Following a review of relevant perspectives on the psychology of racism, the authors again use a case study to demonstrate how these insights can be applied to a subject trying to make sense of their social constraints and self-perception. Chapter 9 discusses the ‘Jack-roller' case, an early Chicago School study from the 1930s, demonstrating what the psychosocial approach can bring to analyses of this case and add to the varying interpretations.
Underpinning these case studies is a considered reading of Klein, which forms the theoretical basis for the analysis of individual offending histories. As such, in Chapter 10, the authors consider the shortcomings of group therapy interventions with perpetrators of domestic abuse. Here, a review of the evidence of interventions with violent men based on the ‘Duluth’ model (imported from the United States to the United Kingdom in the 1980s and embraced by New Labour) that is described as directly equating men, masculinity, social power and violence as given. This approach is critiqued, along with the mixed results of the application of the model itself. The authors emphasises – in a typically psychoanalytic fashion – the extent to which men draw upon both violence and masculinity in order to contradict their experience of weakness and vulnerability. The conceptual work in the book draws upon various strands of psychoanalysis, with a particular emphasis on the Kleinian account of ego development and defense mechanisms. Crucial here is the notion of ‘splitting’, wherein a subject can invest external objects with the negative self-perceptions and anxieties that they personally struggle to resist. While, consistent with the Kleinian position, these anxieties may be overcome and return to the subject – over time – in a less toxic form, there are also a number of situations in which this attempt at containment may fail.
In this sense, while acknowledging that gender discourses play a role in the phenomenon of domestic violence, their thesis points more to the extent to which abusive partners, having invested in their partner as a safe ‘container’ for their anxieties and self-doubts, may resort to rage should their partner refuse to collude in their fantasies of power and denials. In the sense that this behaviour has roots in normal inter-subjective dynamics, the authors are keen to emphasise that the perspectives of offenders in these areas may not be radically distinct from non-offending populations. Oppressive discourses – whether gendered or racial – are found amongst offenders and non-offenders, and they can provide support for aggressive projections resulting from insecurity. Crucially, however, the extent to which these discourses become entrenched and produce violent behaviour may hinge on how defended the subject in question is, as ‘they are liable to oscillate because they are always socially situated and situations are always more or less containing, more or less anxiety provoking’ (p. 186). This, in turn, requires both a theory of the psychological and biographical dimensions accompanying serious offending, which do not simplify the subject in question. In Chapter 11, on restorative justice, the authors’ use of a Kleinian perspective and the presentation of their qualitative data draws attention to the extent to which the infliction of shame – whether in the guise of ‘overcoming denial’ or in its ‘re-integrative’ form – may increase a participant’s defensiveness and limit the effectiveness of interventions. While the success or otherwise of criminal justice interventions will always provide a subject for controversy, particularly with respect to violent offending, the authors’ perspective provides an interesting application of theory that outlines a potentially productive line of inquiry for conceptualising and addressing some criminal behaviour.
Overall, the book is a strong endorsement of the necessity of conducting in-depth research into individuals. The case studies effectively demonstrate that the psychosocial approach can add coherency to contradictions and, by introducing such an informed account of the unconscious, address some of the incongruities of current explanatory approaches. Similarly, the methods applied, while time consuming and challenging, provide considerable insight in how the ‘subject’ might be recorded and understood. In the conclusion, the threads are drawn together to emphasise that serious criminal behaviour can be conceptualised as permutations of more familiar human anxieties and intersubjective dynamics. This avoids both the temptation to overlook serious offending as in need of theoretical explanation or, in the process of providing this kind of explanation, to pathologise and otherwise ‘Other' the serious criminal.
Of course, the approach outlined here will not attract universal acclaim. Certainly, those who are sceptical towards or otherwise put off by the psychoanalytic approach may be unimpressed given the application of concepts from this tradition. More broadly, even if the premises are granted and the analysis sound, translating the insights here into practical proposals is ‘no easy task’ (p. 186). In the context of racially motivated offending, for example, what makes some people and not others act hatefully is a pivotal question. However, what the answers provided here share with the psychoanalytic approach more broadly is an account of the individual that is both grounded and somewhat tragic, providing no easy answers and promising no quick-fixes for policy-makers or political actors.
Methodologically, the book is perhaps vulnerable to critique in the sense that, by drawing on case studies rather than more ‘representative’ methods, the analysis is too specific to provide much of ‘general’ use. Here, in-depth qualitative interviews with offenders are used to develop broad theoretical insights from a detailed understanding of the particular. However, the authors are keen to emphasise the ‘abstract’ subject of criminology as part of the problem when it comes to understanding particular individuals. In this sense, case studies are essential both for theory building and for obtaining sufficient detail on a case such that the underlying mechanisms can be adequately understood.
In terms of scope, the book deals with a wide range of theorists and complex ideas in its relatively small page count. Despite the range of ideas and theories on offer, the text is clear and concise, often keeping theoretical matters grounded in real-life examples. Indeed, the ‘pen portraits’ and individual case studies allow the reader to move comfortably from the abstract and esoteric to the more familiar and immediate. Partly for this reason, the book would be of interest to postgraduates and researchers specialising in this area, while also providing a stimulating and accessible read for undergraduates for whom an attempt to define a properly psychosocial account of serious criminal behaviour – integrating both social context and interpersonal dynamics – sounds like an interesting prospect.