Abstract
Invisible Crimes and Social Harms is an edited volume by Pamela Davies, Peter Francis and Tanya Wyatt. In the foreword to this book, Professor Nigel South of the University of Essex intriguingly references Stan Cohen’s work States of Denial. I found his remarks here to be serendipitous because, in its potential utility, Invisible Crimes and Social Harms reminded me very much of Cohen’s earlier work Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics retains its status – at least in part – because of how its key concepts can be usefully applied to a range of issues in contemporary societies. As an edited volume, rather than a singular tour de force, Invisible Crimes and Social Harms may, at first glance, share little in common with Cohen’s earlier classic. Irrespective of form, however, Invisible Crimes and Social Harms also provides contemporary researchers with conceptual lenses with which to fruitfully analyse current criminological problems.
Invisible Crimes and Social Harms begins with an overview of the background to this volume – noting, for example, that it updates a previous edition published in 1999 and co-edited with the late Victor Jupp – before progressing to map the contours of invisibility as a criminological concept. Demonstrating a large degree of consistency with the previous edition, the editors outline seven features of invisibility: no knowledge; no statistics; no theory; no research; no control; no politics; and no panic (pp. 5–7). Astutely recognising the American idiom ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, the editors reposit a framework that remains a promising basis for criminological analysis. Crucially, this introduction does not neglect the inclusion of ‘social harm’ in the book’s title. The move to engage with social harm is welcome on the basis that criminologists have neglected to systematically identify, evaluate or compare the harms associated with different crimes, as distinct from the perceived seriousness or costs of crime (Greenfield and Paoli, 2013). The editors identify the dynamic relationship between crime and social harm, positing that this allows each to have different degrees of invisibility (p. 3). This introduction also discusses the power dynamics of invisible crimes and social harms, a common theme that is present throughout this edited volume.
The following 11 chapters use the concepts of invisible crimes and social harms to analyse a range of issues: from sexual crimes to fraud. Several of these chapters are worth discussing in more detail to demonstrate the effectiveness and value of the approaches developed in this book. The first chapter to apply these concepts, written by Pamela Davies, explores the uncovering of sexual crimes and victimisations. This topic has been of great significance in the UK in the past few years, and remains so today. Davies does not duck recent controversies, immediately asking the question ‘Why is it that it took over half a century to expose the UK television presenter and charity fundraiser Jimmy Savile as a serial sex offender?’ (p. 26). Davies uses the Savile case as a basis from which to discuss how sexual crimes can be hidden in plain sight. In doing so she demonstrates the ability to deploy and develop ideas about invisibility and harm alongside more traditional sociological concepts, insisting on the ‘salience of gender to unlocking the secrets of sexual crimes and victimisation’ (p. 40). The concept of invisibility is further explored in a later chapter by Mary Laing that examines solicitation by male sex workers. Drawing upon primary research undertaken in Manchester, UK, Laing explores the importance of perspectives and places on degrees of visibility, noting that the multitude of socio-cultural contexts and spaces in which male sex work takes place ‘are more-or-less visible depending on how you read the cityscape, who you ask, or what you type into your Internet search engine’ (p. 124). These chapters demonstrate the analytical promise of invisible crimes for the very different crimes of predatory sexual abuse and consensual solicitation.
Invisible Crimes and Social Harms examines the role of the media, politics and power in rendering certain ‘crimes’ and ‘harms’ visible, while simultaneously ensuring that other suffering and injury remain undiscovered and unchallenged. This important theme is apparent in Hayley Watson and Tanya Wyatt’s qualitative media analysis of ‘environmental terrorism’ and ‘eco-terrorism’ in the US. Watson and Wyatt’s chosen subject represents fertile ground for the dual concepts of invisible crimes and social harms. By its very nature, terrorism necessitates covertness in preparation and execution, but overtness and publicity in its consequences. However, more problematically, terrorism is prone to the vicissitudes of labelling across time and place – evidenced in the old, gendered maxim ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. The visibility of terrorism depends to a significant extent, therefore, on who has the ability to label actions as ‘terroristic’. Watson and Wyatt’s perspective on the labelling power of what one would consider the ‘traditional’ news media is clear: ‘The media has significant power in determining what is hidden and how it is perceived’ (p. 49). They conclude that the mislabelling of certain acts by environmental activists as ‘terrorism’ by the media and other powerful actors creates a climate of excessive stigma and punitiveness. This seems like a very defensible position. Nevertheless, one is left with the feeling that Watson and Wyatt do not give enough attention to the ways in which social media may now be used by some actors and activists to wrestle back control of the what they may consider to be a mislabelling discourse in traditional media. Social media now allows individuals to create their own particular narrative and communicate that narrative directly to an audience, free from the distorting lenses of the traditional media. Indeed, one could even posit that the use of social media by activists and groups can now shape the agenda of the traditional news media. These developments could change the nature of invisibility and social harm in these contexts. Such potential research seams, however, remain unexplored in Watson and Wyatt’s analysis.
The environment also forms the analytical focus of Reece Walters’ contribution, which explores air pollution, violence and corporate power. Traversing the development of ‘green criminology’, Walters’ chapter is particularly strong on social harm. In highlighting that the pernicious harms caused by air pollution are experienced disproportionately by the poorest people, Walters re-casts air pollution as ‘eco-violence’ (p. 151) and further develops the concept of ‘green justice’ (pp. 152–153). Walters’ work brings this subject firmly into the criminological purview. The interplay between invisibility and harm is further explored in Steve Tombs’ chapter on health and safety ‘crimes’ in the UK. Tombs is clear on this relationship from the outset: ‘The scale of health and safety harms associated with British workplaces is significant, although, as with much corporate harm, relatively obscured’ (p. 199). Throughout this chapter, Tombs traces the ‘disappearing act’ of the Health and Safety Executive, evidenced through declines in inspections, investigations and formal enforcement. Once more the theme of justice emerges in the contexts of invisibility and harm. Tombs notes, for example, the context of the general decriminalisation of health and safety (p. 213). Unlike other areas of criminological concern, health and safety in the UK has experienced ‘no penal or punitive turn, no culture of control, no surveillance society, nor any net-widening’ (p. 216). The concerns about justice, apparent in the contributions of both Walters and Tombs, resonate throughout this book.
In the concluding chapter to Invisible Crimes and Social Harms the editors return to common threads that run through all of the preceding chapters. In doing so they emphasise the importance of radical criminology in making sense of invisible crimes and social harms (p. 246). The editors consider the ‘usefulness’ of seven features of invisibility to be one of the principal themes running throughout this book (p. 247). The previous edition of this work proposed the same seven features, but did not gain the level of traction achieved by other sociological concepts such as moral panics, folk devils or risk society. Whilst such comparisons may seem slightly unfair given the esteem with which these other concepts are held, they are also indicative of the promise of Invisible Crimes and Social Harms. The concepts, themes and approaches contained in this book deserve a level of exposure and application that the previous edition, arguably, did not achieve. It remains to be seen if maintaining the same seven features of invisibility will attract further interest and application this time around. Yet, irrespective of the extent to which this edited volume causes ripples in the interdisciplinary sea of criminology, one thing is certain: this book is essential, stimulating reading for criminologists interested in extending their research vista and embedding their work in a firm but innovative radical criminological framework.