Policing the Crisis

POLICING THE CRISIS

Mugging, the State and Law and Order
2nd Edition

Stuart Hall
ProfessorEmeritus,The Open University,UK
Chas Critcher
VisitingProfessorin Media and Communications,
SwanseaUniversity, UK

Tony Jefferson
ProfessorEmeritus,Keele University,UK
John Clarke
Professorof Social Policy,The Open University,UK
Brian Roberts
VisitingProfessor,School of Applied Social Sciences,
Durham University,UK

i<ffi>lRED GLOBE
W PRESS
ClStuart Hall,ChasCritcher,TonyJeffemin,John Clarke,BrianRoberts.
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 Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Prefaceto the Seco11d
Editio11

Introduction to the First Edition

PART I
I. The Social Historyofa 'Moral Panic'
Enter: a mugginggonewrong 7
A chronology II
The 'rising crime rate' equation 13
Careerof a label 22
2. The Origins of Social Control 32
The full majestyof the law 36
Face-to-facecontrol:the policeas amplifiers 40
Originsof a police 'campaign' 45
3. The Social Production of News 56
Primaryand secondarydefiners 60
Media in action:reproductionand transformation 63
The mediaand public opinion 65
Crime as news 68
Muggingand the media 72
Reciprocalrelations 77

PART II
4. BalancingAccounts:Cashingin on Handsworth 83
Event:the Handsworth'mugging' 83
Primarynews 85
The editorials 90
The Sun 95
Featuresin the nationalpress 97
The Birminghampapers 107
Conclusion:explanationsand imagesin the media 115
vi CONTENTS

5. Orchestrating Public Opinion 120

'Dear sir': letters to the editor 120
Local channels 125
Private-public channels: the abusives 128
Public opinion and ideology 135
6. Explanations and Ideologies of Crime 138
Images of society 138
Roots of the traditionalist world view: common sense 149
Social anxiety 155
Explanations and ideologies 163

PART Ill
7. Crime,LawandtheState 179
'Nonnal' crime and social crime 184
From 'control culture' to the state 192
The legal and political order of the state 198
Modes of hegemony, crisis in hegemony 206
8. The Law-and-Order Society: The Exhaustion of 'Consent' 215
The changing shape of 'panics' 216
Post-war hegemony: constructing consensus 223
Consensus: the social-democratic variant 231
Descent to dissensus 235
1968/(1848): cataclysm - the nation divides 236
1969: the 'cultural revolution' and the turn into authoritarianism 243
Working-class resistance: 'well grubbed, old mole!' 2SS
9. The Law-and-Order Society: Towards the 'Exceptional State' 268
1970: Selsdon man - birth of the 'law-and-order' society 268
1971-2: the mobilisation of the law 277
I 972: the moment of the 'mugger' 287
Aftermath: living with the crisis 300
Inside the yellow submarine 310

PART IV

10. The Politics of 'Mugging' 321

Return of the repressed 322
The structures of 'secondariness' 333
Culture, consciousness and resistance 341
Black crime, black proletariat 355
 vii
The 'wretchedoftheearLh' 374
Harlemto Handsworth:bringingit all back home 381

Afte,words 390
Notes and References 402
Index 433
 Acknowledgements

We have accumulated,already,a thousandintelleclUaland practicaldebts, only

some of which we can acknowledgehere.1anice Winshipand Roger Grimshaw
researchedand wrote the original drafts for Chapters4 and 5 respectively,and
haveboth helpfullycommentedand watchedwith goodwillthe processof further
absorptionandmutilationwhichtheirideashavebeensubjectedto inthelaterstages
of preparation.RogerGrimshawhas kept closely in touch with the manuscriptas
it developedand is indeedresponsiblefor its title.A numberof other peoplegave
us essentialhelp in the tediouswork of researchat the start of the project:among
them, our specialthanksto DaveCooper,HilaryWainwright,StephenGee,Alan
Clarke,AlasdairMcGowan,JessicaPickard,Dick Hebdigeand BobWillis.Even
our slow rate of progress would have been impossibleto maintain without the
invaluableassistanceand patienceof those who typed, xeroxedand stencilledfor
us: Aileen Hall, Linda Owen,Judy Jefferson,Deidre Barker,GeorgieRamseyer,
Anne Harris and the inestimableJoan Goode,who still - unaccountably- smiles
at us when we darken her door with anotherrequest.
In our efforts to consult press cuttings,backgroundarticles and other relevant
information,we were assistedby a great range of people who gavegenerouslyof
their time. The files of the NationalCouncil of Civil Libertiesand Ian Wolffof
the B.B.C. added massivelyto our stockpileof muggingreports.We would like
to thank the many friendsand colleagues,both withinand outsidethe Centre for
CulturalStudies,who have at one time or anothertalked to us about the project,
and offered valuable advice and criticism.We are specially grateful to Darcus
Howe of Race Todayand RickyCambridgeof The Black liberator for the time
from their more importantwork which they gave us. We are in special debt to
those who read the extremelylong first draft of this manuscript:and especially
to Stan Cohen, Mike Fitzgerald, Ian Taylor and Jock Young for their detailed
commentsand care. Althoughwe haveborrowedideas and conceptsand worked
them in directionswhich they may not altogetherapprove,we have had nothing
but positiveencouragementand support from those people in particular,and the
context in which those conversationsfirst arose - that of the NationalDeviancy
Conference.
To thosewho had their livesmessedaroundand frustratedby the complications
in ours - in so many ways,for so much longerthan they bargainedfor- it seems
somewhatredundantat this late stage to offer apologiesor thanks.We confessto
havingbeen- paradoxically-muchsupportedby the scepticalsmileswith which
they met our assurancesthat 'It's nearly finished',thoughthat may not havebeen
the intention!Finally,we acknowledgegratefullythe materialsupport given to
this project by the Centre for ContemporaryCultural Studies, and the constant
intellectualsupportand encouragementof its membersin the period 1973-7.
 ACKNOWLllDGf.MENTS ix

Needlessto say all the errors containedin this book are somebodyelse's fault,
and the good bits belongto the authors.
Althoughthe final text appearsin 1978,there have been a numberof attempts
on the way to make our on-goingresearchmore widely available.Some of those
'offshoots'of the study include:

20 years(The Paul, Jimmyand MustySupportCommittee,1973).

T.Jeffersonand J. Clarke,'DownTheseMeanStreets:The Meaningof Mugging',
Howard Journal XIV(l), 1974; also available as CCCS Stencilled Paper.
No./7.
J. Clarke.C. Critcher,T. Jeffersonand J. Lambert,'The Selectionof Evidenceand
the Avoidanceof Racialism:A Critiqueof the ParliamentarySelectCommittee
on Race Relationsand Immigration',New CommunityIIl(3), Summer 1974;
also availableas CCCSStencilledPaperNo.JS.
S. Hall, Mugging: A Case Study in the Media, Open University television
programmefor course D101 Making Sense of Society (Milton Keynes:The
Open UniversityPress, 1975):broadcaston 8.8.C.2 on 17April and 20 April
1975;subsequentlyextractedin the Listener, I May 1975.
S. Hall et al., Newsmaking and Crime, NACRO Conference on Journalism,
BroadcastingandUrbanCrime,January 1975;alsoavailableas CCCSStencilled
PaperNo. 37, and fromNACROas the pamphletTheMediaand UrbanCrime,
1976.
S. Hall et al., Mugging and law-a11d-Order,paper presented to the National
Deviancy Conference at Cardiff; also available as CCCS Stencilled Paper
No.35.
S. Hall,Muggingand StreetCrime,the thirdin a seriesof PersonalViewbroadcasts
for B.B.C.Radio (producer,MichaelGreen).
 Preface to the Second Edition

Policingthe Crisiswas first publishedover 30 years ago and has been positively
receivedby general readers,researchersand students.The book aimedto e,cplore
'"mugging"... as a social phenomenon,rather than as a particularform of street
crime' (p. I). It addressedhowand whythishighlyemotivelabel,'mugging',came
to be so widelydeployedin the early 1970s;how that definitionwas construcled
and amplified;why British society - the police, judiciary, media, the political
classes,moralguardiansand the state- reactedto it in so extremea way,and what
this told/tellsus about the socialand politicalconjuncturein whichthis sequence
unfolded.
This Preface is addressedto new readers, or to those already familiar with it
but who are looking at the book again from new perspectivesand in different
historicalcircumstances.It auemptsto answerthe question,'what does a contem-
porary reader need to know in order to understandthe book and get as much as
is possibleout of it?' It providesa brief retrospectiveaccount of why the book
was structuredas it was, the intellectualand theoreticaltraditionswhich were
drawn on in its makingand the nature of the historicalconjuncturein which it
appeared.
PTC was a responseto eventsconcerningthe robbery and injury of a man in
Birminghamby three boys of mixedethnic backgrounds.They weregiven long,
exemplarysentences (twenty years, in one case). However,these events were
not used to illustratea pre-existingtheoreticalargument.Writtenover six years,
the prolonged,difficult process of collectiveresearch served as the intellectual
'laboratory' out of which the ideas, theoriesand argumentsthat animatethe text
were produced.The book ends by makingconnectionsand offeringexplanations
that could not havebeen anticipatedat the beginning.
PTCwas conceivedand writtenat theCentrefor ContemporaryCulturalStudies
(CCCS), a new research centre in a new and evolving field, which opened in
1964.At the time, Stuart Hall was the only memberof staff involvedin the study;
John Clarke, Chas Critcher and Tony Jefferson were registered postgraduate
Centre membersand Brian Roberts was formallyauached to the Departmentof
Sociology.Many other Centre people contributedto it. The Centre's approach
was trans-disciplinaryand this facilitated authors bringing different perspec-
tives and concerns into the research.In a 'post-1968' participatoryspirit, CCCS
was committedto collectivemodesof intellectualwork, researchand writing,in
whichstaffand graduatestudentsworkedtogether.The ethos, projectand practice
of the Cent~ werethereforecrucialfor the formthat the projecttook.Indeed,this
collectiveauthorshipis one way in whichPTC is widelyviewedas an exemplary
text. For this second edition, this Preface has been collectivelyproducedwhile
the four Afterwords that take up specific themes from the book are ascribed to
individualauthors, reflecting the disjuncturesof time and place affectingtheir
 xi
produclion.However,all of them have been subject to an intensiveprocess of
collectivediscussionand debate.retainingat least some of the ethos that charac-
terisedPTC.
Although influenced by sociologicaland criminologicalthinking, the over-
archingobjectof analysisin PTC was not 'crime' or even 'society', but 'the social
formation', conceptualisedas an ensemble of practices, institutions,forces and
contradictions.PTC treated the cultural, ideologicaland discursive aspects of
the 'mugging' phenomenon,along with its legal, social, economicand political
dimensions,as constitutiveand over-determiningin their effects,not as secondary
and dependentfactorsdeterminedelsewhere.
The authors were not criminologistsin any fonnal sense, though the book
has been perhaps most consistentlydebated withincritical criminology.But we
were convinced,not only that crime and deviancewere fully social phenomena,
but that they representeda challengeto society's normativeassumptionsand the
maintenanceof socialorder,and could thereforebe read as symptomaticof wider
socialand politicalfactors.Our aim was to restorecrime to its socialand political
'conditionsof existence'.
The first half of the bookdrewon the Centre'ssubculturalworkand on deviancy
and subculturaltheory. Sourcesand influenceshere includedthe discussionsof
the recentlyformedNationalDeviancyConferenceand the writingsof American
interactionistsociologistslike HowardBecker,who arguedthat deviancywas not
a qualityof the act but of the social responseto it.1 They made the labellingand
definingof an action as deviant by the institutionsof social controlan essential
part of deviancy as a social process. PTC was strongly influencedby British
sociologistslike Jock Youngand Stan Cohen,who producedimportantstudiesof
sociallydeviant behaviourin Britain in this period, like drug-taking2 and clashes
betweenthe authoritiesand groups of 'mods' and 'rockers'.3
Since we have been both praised for our ethnographicapproach(in the related
CCCS projectResistance Through Rituals (RTR)4) and criticisedfor its absence
in PTC (in the last chapter particularly)/ it seems useful to add somethingon
our relationshipto ethnographybecause,for us, RTR and PTC are two sides of
the same coin and neitheris a conventionalethnography.Both projectsshare the
'abidingcommitment'of ethnographers'to the principledexplorationand recon-
structionof social worlds', their 'engagementwith...fellowmen and women'and
a 'commitmentto the interpretationof local and situatedcultures'.6 Our concern
was to use such a starting point - concrete events, practices,relationshipsand
cultures- to approachthe 'structuralconfigurationsthat cannot be reducedto the
interactionsand practicesthrough which they expressthemselves',as Bourdieu,
another sympathiserwith ethnographers,put it.7 In other words, we sought to
emulate the ethnographicimaginationbut also to move beyondthe focus on the
here and now of everyday 'interactionsand practices' by locating them in the
historiestaking place behindall our backs.
Although the classic methods of ethnography are participant observation,
listeningand interviewing,any approachthatassiststhejourneytowardsa detailed
empiricalknowledgeof a particular 'social world' can be ethnographic:wading
throughmoundsof newspapers(primarymaterialsfor the 'social world' of social
reaction);readingmassesof secondarymaterialin the form of books,articlesand
xii PRllfACETOTHESOCONDEDITION

commentaries(on the 'social worlds' or policeand blackyouth,ror example);and

livingand workingin the 'social world' or Handsworth(in the case of one or us).
It is this pragmaticapproach,an ethnographicorientationcombinedwith varieties
or sociologyand media studies framed by a Marxist approachto conjunctural
analysis,whichseems to haveconfusedsomeof our advocatesand critics.But its
strengthwouldseem to be evident,not least in the apparentrealismor our 'typical
biographyof the youth who ends up mugging', which one reviewerthoughtwas
'one of the most realistic-lookingaccounts or crime... [he] had ever seen'.• He
went on to say that 'Pryce's findingsin EndlessPressurestronglysupport their
picture'.9 Ken Pryce's book analysesWest Indian lifestylesin Bristol based on
four years ethnographicresearch, much or it with delinquent 'teeny boppers'
and 'hustlers'.mOur researchperiodscoincidealmost exactly;his book was first
publishedin I979, a year after PTC.
PTC certainlyowed much to the Centre's work in this area of youth from RTR
to studiesor schooling11 and youth fashionand style.12 It was followedby studies
or urban rock and black music1l and the position of girls in male-dominated
subculturalmovements.u In all thesearenas, 'youth' seemedto figureas recurring
agents of 'trouble', symptomaticor a certain social dis-affiliationand or wider
socialtrendsand problems,aroundwhichpublicand officialdisquietcircled.This
social anxiety contributedto the generationof 'moral panics' - excessivewaves
of fear and apprehensionamongstsectionsof the public about a perceivedthreat
to society itself and, in reaction,the recruitmentof the agenciesof socialcontrol
and wider politicalstructuresto deal with it.
PTC pursuedthis line of argument:the cultureand institutionsof socialcontrol
were as much part of deviant or criminal phenomenaas those who committed
crime.They playedan activerole, not only in the controlor anti-socialbehaviour
but in how that behaviourwas labelled,definedand publiclyunderstood.In this
expandedcontext,however,'control culture' came to seem too vaguea concept.
These institutionswere more appropriatelyidentifiedas that condensedsite or
differentkindsof power- the state.This moveto the state,then,drovethe analysis
of mugginginto the heart or society,the shirtingtides or public opinionand the
centresor social powerand politicalauthority.
The institutionsresponsiblefor the control of deviancethus becamea central
thread in the story. Control included, not only the capacity of institutionsto
practise authority,but also their ideologicaland cultural power to signify and
thus give events a social meaning,and to win society to their 'definitionor the
situation'. By putting these two functionstogether in the same frame, the tradi-
tional distinctionbetween the slate as an instanceor domination(e.g. depriving
individualsor their liberty,punishment,etc.) and as a site for 'winning popular
consent' was decisively undercut. Discursive practices - making definitions
prevailin both symbolicand materialways- were as much part or socialcontrol
as breakingup crowdsor imprisoningoffenders.
The police are seen as society's first line of defence in protectingthe liberty
of the individualand the rights or private property,and as a bulwark against
socialanarchy.They are authorisedto produceofficialmeasuresof overallcrime
levels- the crime statistics- and to providea rollingcommentaryon the relation
 PREFACETOTHE SECONDEDITION xiii
betweencrimeand widersocialtrends.Indeed,PTC startswith a discussionof the
discursivepracticesinvolvedin constructinga statisticalmeasurefor 'mugging'-
since at that lime there was no such crime on the statutebooksto 'record' statisti-
cally (and there still isn't). But there are few 'social facts' as persuasiveas a line
of numbers.
Thejudiciary,too, has enormousauthorityin this area.Judgesnot only interpret
the law, apply it to particular cases, impose punishment,but also exercise the
wider functions of commentingon crime, pronouncingon its social meaning,
interpretingits socialandpoliticalimplications.They too influencehowthe public
'makes sense' of the situation,what actions will be found politicallyacceptable
and legitimate,to whatconsentis given.
Incontemporarysocieties,theseideological,culturalandinterpretativepractices
are the primaryterritoryof the pressand mass media.Thoughnot formallypart of
the state, they play a criticalfunction- in articulationwith other institutions- in
the businessof popular influencevia 'the social productionof news', in which
crime always ranks very high. PTC regardedthese key institutionsas 'primary
definers'. They provide the base-line interpretations,influence 'lay' attitudes,
mouldthe ideologicalclimateand are instrumentalin the orchestrationof political
and publicresponses.
The public does not approachthis process of 'making sense of crime' rabu/a
rasa. It brings to bear interpretativeschema, uninspectedassumptions,common
sense, tacit knowledgeand forms of reasoning, many of which are already in
place, though not necessarilyin a logical,consistentor evidentialform (they are
no less compellingfor that). Especiallywhensocietyfeels threatenedby the pace
or direction of social change - as British society did when confrontedby the
unsettlingeffects of post-war 'affluence' and migrationin the 1950s/60s- the
majority tends, commonsensically,to reproduce definitionsand approaches to
problemswhich are supportiveof the existing structuresof power:adopting,for
example,'traditionalist'viewson crime, race and punishment.
Methodologically,this was a complexarea to research.Since these structures
of interpretationoperateoutsideconsciousawarenessor recall, the questionnaire
and traditionalintervieware too blunt as researchtools.We chose insteadto focus
on readers' letters in the popularpress, trying to catch public opinion,as it were,
unawares- in the very momentof its formation.We used that material,interpre-
tatively,to put togethera 'map' of the informalideologiesof crime, urban space
and race that provide the 'deep structures' of public opinion. Common sense,
Gramsci argued, may be obvious, confused, episodic, or contradictory.15 The
tracesof manydifferenttraditionsof thoughtare condensedinto it leavingbehind
no inventory.It has a low place in the hierarchyof knowledge.But, in formally
democraticsocieties, 'becoming common sense' is one key route to securing
popular legitimacyand complianceand thus the basis of what Gramsci called
'hegemonic'formsof power.16
This took the analysis to a new level. PTC argues that 'when a ruling class
alliance has achieved an undisputed authority... when it masters the political
struggle, protects and extends the needs of capital, leads authoritativelyin the
civiland ideologicalspheres,and commandsthe restrainingforcesof the coercive
xiv PREFACETOTHE SECONDEDITION

apparatuses of the state in its defence - when it achieves all this on the basis
of consent ... we can speak of the establishment of a period of hegemony or
hegemonic domination' (pp. 212-13).
Place and location are critical vectors in 'common sense', carrying powerful
social connotations and quasi-ellplanations in their slipstream. Handsworth,
where the key event of the book occurred, exemplified urban poverty and social
deprivation, with a long roster of so-called typical, inner-city problems. An old
residential area of Birmingham declining into multi-cultural, multi-occupation
as a result of poverty, poor housing and unemployment, it was also a space of
African Caribbean and Asian migration and seulement. Its problems werereal
enough. But they were compounded by the way in which those groups seen as
'different' and 'other' wereblamed for the problems, thus deepening stereotyping
and racial discrimination.
Post-war black migration, beginning in earnest with the arrival of the Empire
Windrush in 1948, transformed the face of British society and brought British
identity itself into question. It touched a deep reservoir of negative and stere-
otypical attitudes in Britain about racialised difference - a legacy inherited from
Britain's imperial role and brought to the surface by the arrival of significant
numbers of black migrants from the Caribbean on the 'home territory' of a
society which imagined itself to be liberal, tolerant and racially homogeneous.
Paul Gilroy calls the pathological response of an old imperial society like Britain
to the decline of its power a form of 'post-colonial melancholia' - the unrequited
grieving for a lost object that easily turns phobic. 17 It continues to have profound
resonances and effects in British society today.
These new emphases formed the hinge, and marked the transition, between
the first and second halves of the book. The convergence of crime, policing,
race and the city that we find at work in the 'mugging' phenomenon was an
explosive mixture. It precipitated social anxiety about how communities were
changing, strengthened the equation of 'Britishness' with 'whiteness' and
convinced many of the socially ellcluded that the cause of their deprivation was
not poverty but race. This stimulated from 'below' the demand for a political
response from those institutions 'above' ultimately responsible for the defence
of the social order. Clearly, then, 'mugging' - which had taken us from crime
and deviance, through the apparatuses of the 'control culture', to the state -
could not be fully explained without setting it in its wider societal, historical
and political contexts. We had to follow the not-yet-completed line that our
inquiries had opened up.
We use the term 'contelltualising' to describe this analytic process of widening
the frame. But it is a weak formulation. In the Grundrisse Marx argues that the
only way to produce 'the concrete by way of thought' is to add more determina-
tions: 'the concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determina-
tions'. 11 Contextualising is thus not the invocation of an inert 'background' but
involves treating these articulated processes as a real movement through time and
identifying, in their historical specificity, the links between the different levels of
abstraction.
What did the appearance of 'mugging' and the social reaction to it tell us
about the historical conjuncture in which it occurred? 'Conjuncture' is a concept
 PREFACETOTHESECONDEDrTION

developedby GramscP9 and Althusser° that designates a specific moment in

the lire of a social fonnation and refers lo a period when the antagonismsand
contradictions,which are always at work in society, begin to '''fuse'' into a
ruptural unity'.21 Conjuncturalanalysis deploys a type of periodisationbased
on a distinction between moments of relative stability and those of intensi-
fyingstrugglesand unrest, which may result in a more general social crisis. The
conceptcovers the developmentof contradictions,their fusion into a crisis and
its resolution.Resolutions10the crisiscan takedifferentforms:there is no preor-
dainedresult.They may allow the historicalprojectto continueor be renewed,or
they may provokea processof transformation.In some cases, protractedstruggle
may continue without resolution (what Gramsci calls 'a passive revolution').22
Conjunctureshave no fixed duration, but so long as the crisis (and its under-
lying contradictions)remain unresolved,further crises are likely to proliferate
and echo arounddifferentdomainsof the social formation.So long as a periodis
dominatedby roughlythe same strugglesand contradictionsand the same efforts
lo resolvethem,it can be said to constitutethe same conjuncture.This is the type
of 'crisis' to which the title of the book refers. 'The reaction to mugging', we
argued, 'constitute[s]an aspect of a general "crisis of hegemony"of the British
state'(p. 215).
The first conjuncture that framed our analysis is the welfare state/social
democraticpolitical'settlement'or 'historiccompromise'that emergedat the end
of WorldWarII with Labour'saccessionto power.Its mandatewas 10ensure full
(male) employment,avert economiccrises through Keynesianmeasures,redis-
tributewealth,take the 'commandingheights' of the privateeconomyinto public
ownershipandcreatenationalhealthandsocialsecuritysystems.This wasa major
momentin the redistributionof wealthand power in Britishsociety.
The welfare state was always a compromisedsocial fonnation - corporate
profitsand the public good, privatised'affluence' and collectivesocial provision
pulling in opposite directions.It dependedon the continuinggrowth of private
capitalto createthe wealththat the state then redistributed.However,the redistrib-
utive impactof the welfarestate cannot be under-estimated:it provedone of the
most successfulpeacefulsocialtransformationsof modemtimes.For this reason,
it was seen by its conservativeopponentsas an unwarrantedintrusionby the state
into the prerogativesof capital, privateproperty and the 'free' individualand as
an attemptfundamentally10shift the balanceof socialforcestowardsthe working
classesand the poor.They determinedto reverse this damaginginitiativeand 10
destroythe consensusthat developedaround it. Some would argue that this long
vendettais still workingits way throughthe politicalsystemtoday.
The socialdemocraticwelfarestate consensusbegan10fall apart in the 1960s.
The consensualmode of authorityon which the welfarestate was built could not
hold.Butwhatwasthe natureof the newconjuncturethat followed?PTCdescribes
the transitionprocessas 'the exhaustionof consent'. Increasingly,Labourgovern-
mentsadopteda more top-down,corporatist,'national interest' drivenvariantof
refonnistpolitics.HaroldWilsontried to constructa 'social bloc' - harmonising
capital and labour 'in place of strife' - based on 'the white heat of technology';
Jim Callaghanlaunched a new 'social contract'. They tried unsuccessfullyto
contain 'wildcat' strikesand 'wage drift' througha state-ledincomespolicy.But
xvi PRE.r-ACE
TO THESECONDEDITION

the economywas fundamentallyweak,a fact which 'affiuence'and consumerism

had tendedto mask.There was a seriouscollapsein productivityand profitability.
The public deficit soared.Mid-decade,the Chancellorwas obligedto call in the
IMF and devaluethe currency.
On one front after another, the social formation began to fracture. Student
protestsand occupations;global movementsagainst the VietnamWar; the alter-
native lifestylesof the counter-culturedetachingsectionsof young people from
identificationwith 'the system'; the unhingingof stablepauernsand moralpoints
of reference;the surge of social anxiety focussingon a hedonistic,'permissive'
youth culture; the arousedmoral guardianshipof organisationslike the National
Viewers and ListenersAssociation;the trial of the magazine,Ol., for obscene
publications.... In all this, '1968' markedsomethingof a climacteric.Increasingly,
the state turnedto the lawto containthe crisis:squattingwas metby strengthening
the laws againsttrespass;industrialmilitancyby the IndustrialRelationsAct; the
'troubles' in Northern Ireland by the EmergencyPowersAct and 'low-intensity
operations'; IRA bombingcampaigns by 'Bloody Sunday'. There emerged the
AngryBrigade,newfearsabout hijackingand terrorism,public-sectorstrikesand
the three-dayweek.At one point,Mr Heathdeclaredthe country 'ungovernable'.
There were parallel developmentson the race front: Enoch Powell's speech
prophesyingthat,as a resultof black immigration,'rivers of blood' wouldnow in
the streets;the perceivedthreat to the British way of life symbolisedby the black
presence;legislationredefiningcitizenshipand limitingthe flow of immigration;
the blackconsciousness-raisingimpactof anti-apartheid,Civil Rightsand 'black
power'in the U.S.;the floweringof a resistance,reggae-inspired,black,expressive
culture based on the affirmationof 'black identity'; the 'Rasta' and 'rude boy'
currents among black youth; a sustained and popular anti-racist resistance
campaignin reactionto racist practices,especiallythe movementagainst police
use of the 'sus' laws to stop and search black youth and the way black life and
culture were being policedand 'criminalised'in the 'colony' areas.And, overall,
the fixationon 'the biggestcrime waveof the century' (p. 270).
1970-4 witnessedthe shift of social regulationfrom consentto coercion,the
state's knee-jerkrecourseto 'the law' and the onset of a full crisis of hegemony.
The state providednot only the instrumentsof authoritariangovernancebut 'just
that ''sense of direction"which the lay public feelssocietyhas lost' (p. 315).This
process was much enhancedby the constructionof nightmares:the mappingof
discreteareas into one, commodious,all-inclusive,proteanbut invisible'Enemy'.
The Lord Chancellor linked into the law-and-ordertheme 'the interruptionof
high Court proceedingsby "a group of young hooligans"', the rise in the use of
firearms,the fatal violenceused by '"a group of youths"', the •"abuse, insults
and provocationnightlyhurled"•at the police '"by streetcornerhooligans"', and
those '"challenging the system of law itselr'' (pp. pp. 269-70). Powellmapped
striking teachers, 'students "destroying" universitiesand "terrorising" cities',
'the power of the "modern form" of the mob', demonstrations,'the govern-
ment's capitulation'to the anti-apartheidmovementdiggingup the pitchesduring
the South African cricket tour, 'the success of disorder', 'making governments
''tremble"', 'the near-destructionof civil governmentin NorthernIreland', 'and
 xvii
theaccumulationof"combustiblematerial"of"anotherkind" (i.e. race)' in Britain
into one figure: '"the enemyand his power"'(pp. pp. 270-1).
PTC called this 'transition from this tightening of control al the end of the
1960s into the full repressive "closure" of 1970' (p. 256) the drift into 'the
Law-and-OrderSociety' or, more simply, 'Towardsthe "ExceptionalState"' (p.
268).This was 'the combinedeffectof the "law-and-order"lead fromon high,lhe
sharpeningof the legal engine... [and] the steady percolationof a conspiratorial
readingof Britain's"troubles"•(p. 274). It legitimated'the recourseto the law,to
constraintand statuto1ypower' (p. 273) as a way of effectingwhatcould no longer
be achievedby consent. 'It ...groomed the society for the extensiveexerciseof
the repressiveside of state power.ll made this routinisationof control normal,
natural,and thus right and inevitable.It legitimatedthe duty of the state...to "go
campaigning"'(p.273).
In the final section,the book focused attentionon one of the main figuresor
tropesthat had beenconjuredup at the centre of the muggingphenomenon:black
youth. At a high point in the crisis, a journalist, drawingcomparisonsbetween
black crime in the U.S. and Britain,asked 'Must HarlemCome to Handsworth?'
The questionbecamea self-fulfillingprophesy.The tenn 'mugging' in its contem-
poraryAmericanmeaning,with its connotationsof race, crime and violence,was
first used to describea modernBritishcrime in 1972:'"To our Police,it's a fright-
ening new strain of crime"' (p. 7). The auack in Birminghamthat led to PTC
occurredin 1973.
We knewthe symbolicweightbeingcarriedby this figureof the black mugger.
But what was the structural position of, and political forms of struggle and
consciousnessamongst,blackpeople?The finalchaptertried to take the argument
to this deeper level.It analysedthe place of work and 'worklessness',and crime
and 'hustling' as survivalstrategiesamongstsectionsof the black population.It
examinedthe mobilisingrole played by the expressiveblack culture as a form
of symbolicresistance.It looked at internal distinctionsin the class positionof
blackmigrantsas a raciallydifferentiatedsectionof the 'proletariat'and the inter-
lockingmechanismsthrough which this position is reproduced.It examinedthe
lumpenproletariatthesis, in prevalentuse at the time. Finally,it contrastedtwo
viewsfromwithinMarxistperspectivesof howthe positionof blackpeoplecan be
read: as a 'reserve army of labour' or as insertedsimultaneouslyinto both 'First'
and 'Third' worldstructuresof exploitation.In their detail,these approacheshave
since been superseded.But the perspectivesthat informthem have not been fully
exhausted.
This was the end of the book but not quite the end of the story. The crises
in the 1970swere to be followedby the world-shatteringpoliticalaccessionof
Mrs Thatcher- 'There is no such thing as society' - and the blitzkrieglaunched
by 'Thatcherism', with its contradictoryauthoritarian and neo-liberal,strong
state/free market impulses, on the social fabric. In transmuted fonns, this
doubly inscribedtemplate has since dominated British society and politics (in
Conservative.New Labourand Coalitiongovernmentsalike). Few believedthat
this was a historicturningpoint.They definedit as anotherof the usual swingsof
the politicalpendulum.But those of us who had heard the ugly sound of an old
xviii PREFACETOTHESECONDEDITTON

conjunctureunravelling,watchedthe crisis unfold,understoodits populistroots

and ils long-termhegemonicproject, were in a positionto knowdifferently.And
this led to the final claim which PTC staked - that, unlike many great works of
sociologicalanalyses,it was genuinelyand, on the whole,accuratelypredictive.
For this, if for nothingelse, it remainsworthreadingand thinkingabout today.
One question that this poses to contemporaryreaders is, what are the signif-
icant differencesbetweenthe two conjunctures?Does the basic shape of social
control identified in our analysis persist? Are we still moving towards some
kind of 'exceptionalstate'? Or is the neo-liberal/'marketstate' which followed
fundamentallydifferentin its modalities?And, if so, what are we to make of the
continuingoscillationbetweenfree marketand 'authoritarianpopulist'impulses?
The book, publishedin 1978,could not have addressedthis question.But if its
republicationprovokesthe posing of new questions,not just the rehearsalof old
ones, the decisionto havea secondedition will havebeen vindicated.

SH, CC, TI, JC and BR

 Introduction to the First Edition

This book started out with 'mugging', but it has ended in a different place - as
the discerning reader who notes the transition from the subMtitleto the main title
will already have noticed. At any rate it is not about 'mugging' in the sense most
readers might expect. Indeed, if we could abolish the word, that would have been
our principal - perhaps our only - 'practical proposal'. ILhas done incalculable
harm - raising the wrong things into sensational focus, hiding and mystifying the
deeper causes. A moratorium should now be declared on its highly suspect use,
especially by politicians,judges, the police, criminal statisticians, the mass media
and our moral guardians. Unfortunately you cannot resolve a social contradiction
by abolishing the label that has been attached to it. This book aims to go behind
the label to the contradictory social content which is mystifyingly reflected in it:
but it is not a book about why certain individuals, as individuals, turn to mugging;
nor about what practical steps can be taken to control or reduce its incidence; nor
about how awful a crime 'mugging' is. It is not a case study, a practical manual
nor a cry of moral outrage. Nor does it simply reverse the terms of reference -
it is not an 'appreciative' study of how exciting or revolutionary 'mugging' is,
either. Some of those books remain to be wriuen - though not all ought to be. But
we started somewhere else, developed a different conception of the relation of
'mugging' to British society, and have consequently produced a different kind of
book. We put it that way specifically to counter the view that the way books about
'social problems' are wriuen is that investigators simply walk into the streets,
their heads utterly void of any preconceptions about crime or society, look the
'empirical facts' in the face. and write about whatever 'problem' happens to sneak
up behind them and hit them over the head with its presence. This is not a book
like that. We doubt whether books ofthal order of innocence can be wriuen about
society - though there are plenty enough currently masquerading in that guise.
We are concerned with 'mugging' - but as a social phenomenon, rather than
as a particular form of street crime. We want to know what the social causes
of 'mugging' are. But we argue that this is only half - less than half - of the
'mugging' story. More important is why British society reactsto mugging,in the
extreme way ii does, at that precise historical conjuncture- the early 1970s. If it
is true that muggers suddenly appear on British streets- a fact which, in that stark
simplicity, we contest - ii is also true that the society enters a moral panic about
'mugging'. And this relates to the larger 'panic' about the 'steadily rising rate of
violent crime' which has been growing through the 1960s. And both these panics
are about other things than crime, per se. The society comes to perceive crime
in general, and 'mugging' in particular, as an index of the disintegration of the
social order, as a sign that the 'British way of life' is coming apart at the seams.
So the book is also about a society which is slipping into a certain kind of crisis.
It tries to examine why and how the themes of race,crimeand youth- condensed
into the image of 'mugging' - come to serve as the articulatorof lhe crisis, as
its ideologicalconductor.II is also about how these themes have functionedas
a mechanismfor the constructionof an authoritarianconsensus,a conservative
backlash:what we call the slow build-up towardsa 'soft' law-and-ordersociety.
But it also has to ask: to what social contradictionsdoes this trend towards the
'disciplinedsociety' - poweredby the fears mobilisedaround 'mugging' - really
refer?Howhas the 'law-and-order'ideologybeenconstructed?What socialforces
are constrainedand containedby its construction?What forces stand to benefit
from it? What role has the state played in its construction?What real fears and
anxietiesis it mobilising?These are someof the things we mean by 'mugging' as
a social phenomenon.It is why a study of 'mugging' has led us inevitablyto the
general 'crisis of hegemony'in the Britainof the 1970s.This is the groundtaken
in this book. Those who reject the logicof our argumentmust contestus on this
ground.
We came to redefine 'mugging' in this way because of how the book began,
and how it developed.Until we started the study,crime was not a special field of
interestto us. We becameinvolvedin a practicalway when,in 1973,sentencesof
ten and twenty years were handed down in court to three boys of mixed ethnic
backgroundafter a seriousincidentin Handsworth,Birmingham,in whicha man
on the way home from a pub was 'mugged' on a piece of waste ground, robbed
and badlyinjured.The sentencesseemedto us unnecessarilyvicious;but also- in
terms of the causeswhichproducedthis incident- pointless,dealingwith effects,
not causes. But we also wanted to do what the courts had signally failed to do:
understanda problemwhich awokecontradictoryfeelingsin us - outrageat the
sentence,sorrow for the needless victim, sympathyfor the boys caught in a fate
they did not make, perplexityat the conditionsproducingall this. In one sense
only,this starting-pointprovedpropitious,for if you enter the 'mugging' problem
with the Handsworthcase, it is impossibleto fall into the trap of thinking that
'mugging' is simply a term for what some poor boys do to some poor victims in
the poor areas of our large cities. 'Handsworlh' was, clearly,also an exemplary
sentence- a sentence intendedto have a social as well as a punitiveimpact; it
was, also, the fears and anxietieswhichthe sentenceaimed at allaying.It was the
massive press coverage,the reactionsof local people,experts and commentators,
the propheciesof doom which accompanied it, the mobilisationof the police
against certain sectors of the population in the 'mugging' areas. All this was
the 'Handsworthmugging'.Once you perceive 'mugging' not as a fact but as a
relation- the relationbetweencrime and the reactionto crime- the conventional
wisdomsabout 'mugging' fall apart in your hands. If you look at this relationin
terms of the social forces and the contradictionsaccumulatingwithin it (rather
than simply in terms of the danger to ordinary folks), or in terms of the wider
historicalcontext in which it occurs (i.e. in terms of a historicalconjucture,not
just a date on the calendar),the wholeterrain of the problemchangesin character.
The pattern of crime, but also the nature of the social reaction,has a pre-history;
conditionsof existence,strikingly absent from all the publicityconcentratedon
the single incident. Both have a location in institutionalprocesses and struc-
tures, apparentlyfar awayfrom the 'scene of the crime'. What is more,nobodyis
really lookingat these determiningconditions.Crime has been cul adrift from its
 INTRODUCTION

social roots. Something is standing in the way of these 'conditions of existence'

being treated as part of the phenomenon. And part of what is standing in the
way - producing crime, so to speak, as a simple and transparent fact- is the label
'mugging' itself. It cannot be allowed to stand in all its common-sense immediacy.
It has to be dismantled: dismantled in terms of its wider relations to these contra-
dictory social forces. This is the route our investigations took. It is this path we
have tried to reconstruct, to retrace,for the reader in the structure and argument
of this book. That is why we start with 'mugging', but we end with the way the
society is 'policing its crisis'. If the reader can grasp this movement, he or she will
not find it difficult to see how the structure of the book follows from it.
The book has been longer in preparation than its ultimate quality deserves:
partly this is because it was written while other things - working, teaching,
research - had to be done; but it is also because the book has been researched,
written, argued over, revised, edited and lived with as a piece of collective work. In
this il owes something to where it was done- in the Centre for Cultural Studies at
Birmingham, which has devoted some thought and pain to making critical social
research a more collaborative intellectual practice. The book reflects something
of the rewards - and the costs- of doing it as a collective enterprise. We are aware
of many limitations - above all, of the necessarily unfinished nature of some of
the arguments and positions we have marshalled. But its faults should not be laid
at the door of collective authorship. If it is a poor effort, it would have been poorer
had it been written by a single hand.
Now we have been able to draw at least a temporary line under our efforts, we
find it difficult Loimagine whom the book we have written will positivelyplease.
We have settled for the hope that, if it cannot please, it may convince- which is
more important. The courts, the police, the Home Office will certainly find it
wildly exaggerated about their negative role (to put it nicely), and inexcusably
'soft' on criminals, agitators and trouble-makers. The media will say it is biased.
Academics will find it too unbalanced, too committed. Liberals, people of
goodwill, active in the cause of penal reform or improving race relations, will
like it at least of all - perhaps because they will approach it with more positive
expectations. The lack of balance will worry them, the critique of reformism
will seem churlish and sectarian, and the absence or practical solutions irrespon-
sible. Perhaps the great majority of our readers will be worried, especially, on the
last count: analysis is all very well - but where are the remedies, the practical
reforms?
As to this last charge, we confess to have had our hearts hardened by what we
have discovered. It is a widespread but fatal trap - precisely, a trap of 'liberal
opinion' - to split analysis from action, and to assign the first to the instance
of the 'long term', which never comes, and reserve only the second to 'what is
practical and realistic in the short term'. In direct opposition to this most 'British'
of logics, we have determined to be 'unrealistic' in the short term, in the hope
that we might persuade some people to grasp the nettle or what has to be done
to be 'right' in the end. So, if someone says 10 us: 'Yes, but given the present
conditions, what are we to do now?', we can only reply 'Do something about the
"present conditions".' Oscar Wilde once said that it is an outrage for reformers to
spend time asking what can be done to ease the lot of the poor, or to make the
 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

poor bear their conditionswithgreaterdignity,whenthe only remedyis to abolish

the conditionof povertyitself.
The problemis that the 'present conditions',whichmake the poor poor (or the
criminal take to crime) are preciselythe same conditionswhich make the rich
rich (or allow the law-abidingto imagine that the social causes of crime will
disappear if you punish individualcriminals hard enough).There is something
deeply 'British' about our ability to abstract individualeffects from the contra-
dictorystructureswhichproducethem. So the 'practicalremedy' involvestaking
sides- strugglingwiththe contradictions.This bookmaybe disappointingto some
peoplewho know this hard truth, and who are alreadyengagedin the struggleto
change the structuresand conditionswhich producethe effects analysedin this
book. We greatly regret not feeling ourselvescompetentto take the argument
further along this road. We hope, however,that what we have wrillen may help
lo inform,deepenand strengthentheir practicalstruggle.We hope they will read
it as we have tried to write it: as an inle/"vention - albeit an interventionin the
battlegroundof ideas.
Part I
 1
The Social History of a
'Moral Panic'

ENTER:A MUGGINGGONEWRONG
On 15August 1972an eJderlywidower,Mr Arthur Hills, was stabbed to death
near WaterlooStation as he was returninghome from a visit to the theatre.The
motive was, apparently,robbery.Although the event occurred too late for the
followingmorning's papers, the national press reported it on 17 August. They
labelled it - borrowinga descriptionprofferedby a police officer- 'a mugging
gone wrong'. Thus the word 'mugging', hitherto used almost exclusivelyin an
Americancontext,or to refer in very generaltenns to the generalgrowthof crime
in Britain,was affilledto a particularcase,and enteredthe crime reporter'svocab-
ulary.Some reportersseemed to think the 'new' word also heraldedthe coming
of a new crime. All these notions were neatly encapsulatedin the Daily Mirror
headlineof 17August:'As Crimesof ViolenceEscalate,a WordCommonIn The
UnitedStates Enters the British Headlines:Mugging.To our Police, it's a fright-
ening newstrain of crime.'
The Daily Mirroroffereda furtherdevelopmentof this theme.It describedthe
event itself, provided a definitionof the word, and added supportingstatistical
infonnationabout 'mugging'and the escalationin crimesof violence.Since there
had been no eye witnessesto the event, the descriptionof what happenedmust
havebeen imaginativelyreconstructedby the reporters.Apparently,they said, Mr
Hills was attackedby three young men in their early twenties.They attemptedto
rob him, but he foughtback only to be stabbed in the ensuing struggle.So far as
definitionswereconcerned,the papercommentedthatthe word wasAmericanand
derivedfrom such phrasesas 'attackinga mug: an easy victim'. Americanpolice,
theMirroradded, 'describeit as an assault by crushingthe victim'shead or throat
in an armlockor to rob with any degreeof force, with or withoutweapons'.Then
followedthe statistics:(1) an increasein muggingsin the United States by 229
per cent in ten years;and (2) the reportingof about 150'muggings' a year,during
the previousthree years, on the Londonunderground.The Mil'rorspelledout the
implicationsof these statistics:'slowly muggingis comingto Britain'.
Was 'mugging' a new strain of crime'?The question is not as simple as it
appears.In an article in The 7imes a few weeks later (20 October 1972)Louis
Blom-Cooper,Q.C. expressedthe view that 'There is nothingnew in this world:
and mugging,apart from its omissionfrom the OxfordEnglishDictionary,is not
a new phenomenon.Little more than 100years ago there occurredin the streets
of Londonan outcropof robberywith violence.It was ca1led"garrotting",which
was an attempt to choke or strangle the victim of a robbery.'(Muggingdiffers
fromgarrottingonly in it.suse of offensiveweapons.)Blom-Cooper'sstresson the

chief who said: 'with or without weapons'. ore significantthan the question
of weaponsis what the Americandefinitionof 'mugging' shares with the British
phenomenonof 'garrotting': both refer to 'choking', 'strangling', 'an assault by
crushing the victim's head or throat in an armlock'. In the effort to get a clear
definitionof 'mugging', the British press referred to the United States, but the
similaritiessuggestthat whenAmericansfirstdefined 'mugging' they had at least
one eye on Britain.
In fact the more one looks at the historical parallels, the more striking are
the similaritiesbetween a number of earlier crimes and mugging.Street crimes
were of course a familiarpart of the general pattern of urban crime throughout
the nineteenth century. Well-off travellers passing through the lonely streets
of London after dark sometimeshad their luggage pinched off carts by skilful
'dragsmen'. Solitary strangers might be subject to sudden attack and robbery
by footpads, occasionallylured to their fate by an accomplice,a professional
street-walker.Chesney reminds us of forms of robbery with violence, known
variouslyas 'propping' or 'swinging the stick', practisedby 'rampsmen'. There
were outbreaksof 'garrouing' in both Manchesterand Londonin the 1850s,and
the famousoutbreakof 'garrotting' in London in 1862-3 triggeredoff a reaction
of epidemicproportions.1 Even so, 'garrotting' itself was not new: 'Chokee Bill,
the rampsmanwho grabbedhis prey by the neck, was alreadya well-established
underworldtype.'It was the boldnessand brutalityof the 'garrotting'attacksin the
summerof 1862,however,which triggeredoff a new alarm.What is striking,in
termsof the parallelwith 'mugging', is notjust the suddenrashof garrottingcases
but the natureand characterof the publicresponse.The CornhillMagazinestated,
in 1863,in terms which could have been transposed,withouta single change,to
1972:'Oncemorethestreetsof Londonareunsafebyday or night.Thepublicdread
has almost becomea panic'. The outbreakin Londonwas followedby reportsof
similareventsin Lancashire,Yorkshire,Nottingham,Chester: 'Credulitybecame
a social obligation'as 'the garrotters,lurking in the shadow of the wall, quick-
ening step behind one on the lonely footpath,becamesomethinglike a national
bogey ... Men of coarse appearancebut blameless intentions were auacked ...
undersuspicionof beinggarrotters.'Anti-garrottingsocietiesflourished.Then the
reaction began. More people were hanged in 1863 'than in any year since the
end of the bloody code'; in July, when the epidemichad ebbed somewhat,the
GarrottingAct was passed,providingfor floggingof offenders.Severalof these
punishmentswerein factbrutallyadministered.Finally,the epidemicbeganto die
awayas mysteriouslyas it had appeared;and, thoughthe Act and the extremityof
the punishmentsmay havehad somethingto do with its decline.Chesneyremarks
that this 'remainsan openquestion.... The real significanceof the garrottingscare
is thal the excitementand publicityii provokedmadecitizensreadierto acceptthe
need (and expense)of efficient,nation wide law enforcementand so speededthe
generalimprovementof public order.'1
Before the 'mugging' label took its own kind of strangleholdon the public
and official imagination,the police themselvesseemed alert to the traditional
nature of the crime concealedbehind its many labels. The MetropolitanPolice
Commissioner,in his Annual Repo11 of 1964,commentingon the 30 per cent
increasein 'robberiesor assaultswith intent to rob', explicitlyreferredto the fact
that 'London has always been the scene of robberiesfrom further back than the
days of highwaymenand footpads.'Werethe rising numbersof robberiesin 1964
the same as (or different from) 'garrotting' in the 1860s and 'mugging' in the
1970s?In Britain,there has alwaysbeen a legaldistinctionbetween'robbery' and
'larceny fromthe person': and the distinctionturns on lhe fact that, in robbery,an
individualis deprivedof his property,in a face-to-facesituation,by forceor threat
of force. 'Larceny from the person', in the period before the Theft Act of 1968,
was definedas 'Pickpocketing'or 'stealing fromshoppingbaskets', i.e. a situation
involvingstealth, not force or threats. Even after the Theft Act, when larcenies
were reclassified,robbery remained as a separate category, a 'major' offence
becauseof the use or threatof forceto depriveanotherof his property,l Though,at
the height of the 'mugging' scare, the police lost their senseof history,it is worth
recallingthat, to the end, no legalcategoryof 'mugging' as a crimeexists (though
the MetropolitanPolice Commissionerwas able, in his 1972Annual Report, to
reconstructstatistics for its incidenceback to 1968).The Home Secretarydid,
indeed, offer his own definitionfor clarity's sake (therebytacitly admittingthe
ambiguityof the situation)when he asked policechiefs to collectstatisticsfor the
incidenceof 'muggings',4 but ii never achievedproper legal status. 'Muggings'
were in fact alwayschargedas 'robberies' or 'assaults with intentto rob', or other
similarand conventionalcharges.
It is importantto rememberthat, thoughthe MetropolitanPoliceCommissioner
did not have the convenientlabel, 'mugging', to hand when he drafted his 1964
Annual Repo,1, somethingout of the ordinary had indeed alerted him to this
area of crime and called out his comment on its historical antecedents.What
disturbedthe Commissionerwas the fact that in 1964many more young people,
often 'without records' - i.e. unknownto the police - were taking to robberies
of this kind. Further, the Commissionerremarked,this trend was accompanied
by an increasingtendencyto resort to violence- a fact not borne out by his own
statistics,which he admittedto finding puzzling. It was this couplingof young
offendersand crime which had triggeredhis concern.
When, in 1972, Robert Carr, the Home Secretary,requestedmore statistical
information from his police chiefs on the new wave of 'muggings', a senior
county police officer of the Southamptonforce, in reply, once again remarked
on the conventionalnatureof the crime to which the new title had been attached.
He said he found it 'very difficult to differentiatemugging with [sic) the old
traditionalcrime of a seamangetting''rolled"• .s Interestingly,in the most publi-
cised British 'mugging' case of all - that of the three Handsworthboys in March
 POLICINOTHECRISIS

1973 - the accused spoke of their intention, not to 'mug' but to 'roll' their drunk
viclim.6 As the 'mugging' scare progressed, the press, which had seized on its
novelty, gradually began to rediscover the historical antecedents. Jn response to
the Handsworth case, the Daily Mail editorial of 20 March 1973 lifted the crime
altogether outside of history and deposited it in the realms of Nature: 'a crime as
old as sin itself'.
The fact is that it is extremely difficult to discover exactly what was new in
'mugging' - except the label itself. The matter is of the greatest significance
for our enquiry. Let us compare the 'mugging' of Mr Hills with the following
incidents. A Conservative M.P. is assaulted and kicked in the face and ribs in
Hyde Park by four youths. The attackers escape with £9 and a gold watch. Has
the M.P. been 'mugged'?The word 'mugged' was of course not used in this case.
The date was 12 December 1968, the report from the Daily Mirror.Let us take
a second example. In its report of the killing of Mr Hills - a 'mugging gone
wrong' - the Daily Telegraphmade a direct comparison with the street shooting
and killing, four years earlier, of a Mr Shaw by two unemployed men in their
early twenties. They chose Mr Shaw, the accused men had said, because they
were in a 'poor position' and he was 'well dressed' .1The shot-gun they carried
to threaten the victim accidentally went off. Although the prosecution accepted
the plea that murder had not been intended, the judge gave the man who pulled
the trigger 'life', his partner twelve years. Except for the choice of weapon the
Shaw incident is identical with the Hills murder: amateur robbery, bungled,
with unintended fatal consequences. The Shaw case, however, was not called a
'mugging'. To all intents and purposes, it was not seen at the time as a 'new strain
of crime'. Perhaps it became a 'new strain of crime' when the Daily Telegraph
resurrected it for comparison with the Hills case? Perhaps it was counted amongst
the 'rising mugging statistics' when, in 1973, the Metropolitan Police produced
for Mr Carr retrospective figures for 'mugging' going back to 1968? Was the
Shaw case a 'mugging' in 1972 but not a 'mugging' in 1969? Just to make matters
more complicated, the Guardianin 1969 quoted the two unfortunate attackers as
saying that they had attempted 'to roll' Mr Shaw....
What evidence we have suggests that, though the label 'mugging', as applied
in a British context, was new in August 1972, the crime it purported to describe
was not. Its incidence may or may not have increased (we examine the statistical
evidence in a moment). Its social content may have changed, but there is nothing
to support the view that it was a 'new strain of crime'. No doubt the press had
some interest in stressing its 'novelty'. No doubt the use of the term with reference
to American experience may have fostered the belief that something quite new to
Britain had turned up from across the Atlantic. It may have been only a coinci-
dence that the police officer who called the Hills case a 'mugging gone wrong'
had just returned from a study visit to the United States. Contingency, after all,
does play a role in the unfolding of history, and we must allow for it. We will try to
show, however, that the facts about the 'mugging' scare, like the 'gan'Otting panic'
of 1862 and many other 'great fears' about crime and the 'dangerous classes'
before that, are both less contingent and more significant than that.
 THESOCIALHISTORYOl'A 'MORALPANIC' II
A CHRONOLOGY
During the thirteen months betweenAugust 1972 and the end or August 1973,
'mugging'receiveda greatdealor coveragein thepress inthe formof crimereports,
features,editorials,statementsby representativesof the police,judges, the Home
Secretary,politiciansand variousprominentpublicspokesmen.Beforelookingat
this coveragein detail we want to providea brief chronologicalsynopsisof how
publicconcernwith this crime developedthroughoutthosethirteenmonths.
The labellingof the killing of Mr Hills as 'a mugginggone wrong' in August
1972 was followed by a brier lull. This calm before the storm was broken by
massivepresscoverageduringlate September,Octoberand early November.This
periodprovidedthe 'peak' of press coverage,not only for 1972,but for the whole
thirteen-monthperiod. The feature which not only precipitated this, but also
sustainedmuch of the press commentary,was the use or 'exemplary'sentences.
Almost withoutexception,young people chargedwith robberiesinvolvingsome
degree of force (not always referred to as 'muggings') were given 'detCJTent'
sentences. Three years' imprisonment became the 'norm', even for teenage
offenders.Traditionaltreatment centres for young offenders (i.e. Borstals and
detentioncentres) were bypassed.The justificationsfor these severesentences-
and manyjudges admittedthat they were unprecedented- were commonlymade
in the nameor 'the public interest', or the need to 'keep our streetssafe', or, more
simply,to 'deter'. Rehabilitationwas a secondaryconsiderationto the need to
preservepublicsafety.
Inshort,thejudiciarydeclared'war' onthe muggers.Editorialsquicklyfollowed.
Mostof thesedealt withthe questionof the fairnessof 'exemplary'sentences.This
often led on to an examinationof sentencingpolicy in general,wherethe consid-
erations affectingsuch policy (deterrence,retribution,public safety and rehabili-
tation) were variouslycorrelated,the argumentsbeing conductedwith varying
degrees of skill and subtlety.All the editorials,in the final analysis, supported
thejudges. Statisticsalso appearedto vindicateboth thejudiciary and the editors,
since reportsof the criminalstatisticsin the periodwere all headlinedin termsof
the rise in violentcrime,especiallymuggings.
Featurearticlesalso appearedduringthis period,wriueneitherby staffreporters
or freelancewriters.These attemptedto providebackgroundinformationon 'The
making of a mugger' or 'Why they go out mugging', to quote two examples.•
Most of these were factually well-informedand relativelyinformative.though
the explanationsthey offered, with perhaps two notable exceptions,9 neither or
whichappearedin the nationaldaily press,were less thanconvincing.One further
exception,from a differentperspective,was the featurearticle(alreadyquoted)by
Mr Louis Blom-Cooper,Q.C., the one lone 'voice in the wilderness'raisedagainst
a harsh reactionby thejudiciary.10
The police and the politicianstook their lead from the Bench. In London the
police instigateda 'clean-up-the-Royal-Parks' campaigndesignedto keep drug-
users,proslitutesandmuggersoutor London'sparks.11 Localcouncilsfollowedsuit
by setting up 'high-speed,anti-muggingpatrols,equippedwith vehicles,walkie-
talkie radios and sometimesguard dogs' to replace conventionalpark-keepers.11
12 POLICINGTHECRISIS

Specialsquads werealso set up by the police to 'crackdown'on mugging;patrols

at LondonTransportundergroundstationswere increased.•~
As early as 22 October 1972,the Sunday Mirror estimated lhat Britain was
winningits 'war' against muggers;but this did not lead to any let-up. Four days
later,the newChief Inspectorof Constabularypromisedan all-outdrive to stamp
out 'mugging' and other violent crime; he spoke of 'mugging' as his 'highest
priority',•• Six days later, the Home Secretary was reported as having written
to all Chief Constablesin England and Wales for details of recent muggings.
His definitionof mugging- 'robberies by gangs of 2 or more youths on people
walkingalone in the open' - was also made public at this time.15This definition
caused some immediatequeries:terms like 'youths' and 'in the open' were,at the
very least, ambiguousand the 'gang' notionseemedto rule out the possibilityof
an individual'mugger'.
The Dukeof Edinburgh,addressingthe RoyalCollegeof GeneralPractitioners,
referred to 'mugging' as a disease of the community,for which a cure had to be
found.16 Throughoutthe rest of the year media coverageof 'mugging' declined
considerably.Howeverin the courlsthree year sentencesremainedfairlystandard
practice. There weresome occasional articles on the effectivenessof various
anti-mugging devices.1' But perhaps the most significant report during this
period was the publicationof the resultsof an opinionpoll in the Daily Mail (10
November1972).Mugginghad apparentlytoucheda very delicatenervein public
consciousnesssince90 per cent of thoseinterviewedwantedtougherpunishments
and 70 per cent greatergovernmenturgency;and this despite the severereaction
alreadytakingplace.
In January 1973,the levelof press coveragewas higherthan in December,but
not significantlyso.The HomeSecretary,in a writtenCommonsreply,said thatthe
slate of the 'war' was not 'deterioratingfurther' and mightbe 'improvingin some
areas' :11 cautiouslyoptimistic.Howeverthe Marchheadline- 'Londonmuggings
up by 129%over fouryears' - carriedby manynationalpapers,19 seemedto shatter
that optimism.The SpecialSquads,accordingto black communityleaders,were
harassingand intimidatingblack youngsterssuspectedas potential 'muggers'.20
Then came the event which set the seal on Mr Carr's optimism:the sentencing
of three Handsworthyouths,one to twentyyears' detentionand the others to ten
years,on 19March 1973.This eventrevivedinterestin argumentsabout 'deterrent'
sentencesand featurearticlesreappeared;but the terms of referencehad changed
little, if at all. Security forces on London's undergroundstations were to be
strengthenedstill further.21 The same statistics, concerning London muggings,
were resurrectedand used again in April, with headlineslike: 'Muggings reach
four a day in London' and 'London mugging- police demand "action now" '.n
The Old Aged Pensioners'Conferencein May carried a resolutionurging more
drastic action be taken against hooligans. Inevitably Mr Carrr was forced to
renouncehis earlier optimismwhen he issued a specialdirectiveto police chiefs
to 'hot-up' their war on teenagemuggers.n
Five days later the Wandsworthpolice divisionwas reportedas having 'turned
the tide' on muggers; apparently its 'plain clothes anti-muggingsquads' were
winning the war.24 But four days after that on IS May, Sir Robert Mark, then
London's police chief, was reported to be 'getting every availableman back on
 13

the beat to crack downon crime - particularlymugging'.2' Londonhad obviously

not 'turned the tide' to Sir Robert's satisfaction.On 23 May,someseventeendays
later,RobertCarr was again reportedas 'optimistic'. He told 1200womenat the
ConservativeWomen'sConferencethat Britain'spolicewere 'winning'.26 Despite
these 'shifts' in the tides of the anti-muggingwar, 'mugging' was beginningto
waneas a news item.July and Augustproducedonly one 'mugging' report.This
declinein mediavisibilitywasaccompaniedby the settlingof the debateaboutthe
state of the war: it hadat last been 'won'. On 29 July the PrimeMinistercongratu-
lated himseJfon the country's progress and referred to the decline in mugging
and crime in general as examplesof that 'progress'.2''On I October 1973fraud
replaced'mugging' as 'PublicCrime Enemy-No. I': BriLain's'Biggestcriminal
headache'.211The 'mugging' epidemicwas temporarilyover.
So much for the fluctuationsin the mugging phenomenon.Crucially under-
pinningthe variousshiftsin concernwas the notionof massiveincreasesin crimes
of violencethroughoutthe period,especially'muggings'.Lessvisible,but present,
if only implicitly in certain insLances,were two other key themes: the notion
that criminalswere gettingoff lightly,that courts were becoming'soft'; and the
notion(really the corollaryof 'soft' sentences)that the only strategy was to 'get
tough'. Expressedas an equation,the argumentran: rapid increasein crimes of
violenceplus 'soft' sentencingpolicyequals need to return to traditional'tough'
{ordeterrent)measures.We wish now to examine these elements in the 'rising
crime rate' equation.

THE 'RISINGCRIMERATE'EQUATION
This is what we might call the 'equation of concern' into which 'mugging' was
inserted. It rested on an implied chain of argument: the rate of violent crime
was on the increase,a trend encouragedby a 'soft-on-the-criminal'policy in the
courts {aswell as in the countryat large, the result of 'permissive'attitudes);the
only way to deal with this was to revert to traditional'get-tough' policieswhich
were guaranteedto havethe requireddeterringeffect on thoseattractedto violent
crime.We wantto examineeach elementin the argumentin turn;but we start with
a word of warningabout statistics.
SLatistics- whethercrime rates or opinionpolls- havean ideologicalfunction:
they appear to groundfree floating and controversialimpressionsin the hard,
incontrovertiblesoil of numbers.Both the media and the public have enormous
respect for 'the facts' - hardfacts. And there is no fact so 'hard' as a number-
unlessit is the percentagedifferencebetweentwo numbers.Withregardto criminal
statistics, these are not - as one might suppose- sure indicatorsof the volume
of crime committed,or very meaningfulones. This has long been recognised
even by those who make most use of them, the police themselves.The reasons
are not difficultto understand:(1) crime statisticsrefer only to reportedcrime:
they cannot quantify the 'dark figure'; (2) differentareas collate their statistics
differently;(3) police sensitisationto, and mobilisationto deal with, selected,
'targeted' crimes increase both the number the police turn up, and the number
the public report; (4) public anxiety about particular 'highlighted' offencesalso
leads to 'over-reporting';(5) crime statisticsare based on legal (not sociological)
14
categoriesand are, thus, arbitrary.This remainsthe case despitethe deliberations
of the official Perks Committee,29 and the efforts of the CambridgeInstituteof
Criminology30 to providemore meaningfulindicators;(6) changesin the law (e.g.
the 1968TheftAct) makestrict comparisonsover time difficult.31
In general it must also be rememberedthat everythingdepends on how the
crime statisticsare interpreted(by the police),and then on how these interpreta•
lions are repo11ed(in the media). Howeveraccurate or inaccuratethe statistics
quotedearlier,they were used to identifythe existenceof a muggingcrime wave
and to justify public reaction to it. W. I. Thomas once remarked:'Those things
whichmen believeto be true, are true in their consequences.'32 The statisticsabout
muggingthereforehad real enough consequencesin terms of officialand public
reactions.Hencewe need to look at the figures 'straight' as if they were accurate
beforequestioningtheir basis in reality.But first we ought to reiterateour purpose
in makingthis statisticaldetour, i.e. we wish lo look at the statisticalbasis to the
first 'mugging panic' in 1972. For this reason we present here only statistical
informationup until 1972-3.For those readers interestedin the years since then
we surveythese brieflyat the end of this particularsection.
When we look at the criminal statisticsand the trends that they reveal,some
interestingfactsemerge.The first is that crime, as a whole, has been increasing
(though not uniformly)year by yearfor most of this centu,y: since l915 in fact
(only 1949-54showinga net reduction,as a period,duringthis time).The period
whichsaw the greatestincreasein crime generallywas the period l 95S-65, where
the averageannualincreasewasabout 10per cent.JJThesevenyearsfrom 1966to
1972saw a decreasedrate of increase,the averageincreasebeing of the order of
5 per cent.34 Statisticallyspeaking,then, the periodof the greatestcrime increase
had passed by 1972.We were then in a rather mixed and indeterminateperiod-
not at the crest of a 'crime wave', as certain publicspokesmenwouldhavehad us
believe.The rise, in short,was neitherparticularlynewin 1972,nor sudden;it was
nearlyas old as this century.In statisticalterms, it was, temporarilyanyway,past
its peak. Nor, whencomparedwith earliertrends,was it especiallyalarming.
But public spokesmen usually have not meant crime generally when they
have spoken of the 'crime wave'. They have meant, specifically,the growth of
'serious' crimes, and especially the growth of 'crimes of violence'. Was this
new? Statisticallyspeaking,no. ReginaldMaudling,during his period as Home
Secretary,spoke, with concern,of 'crimes of violence' having risen by 61.9 per
cent between 1967and 1971.35 The figuresfor the years 1957-61 (i.e. a decade
earlier) reveal an even gl'eaterincrease,one of 68 per cent.36 (We are aware of
the problem of using statistics quoted by public figures and the press without
revealingtheir sources. However,this somewhatcavalier attitude is not without
intent since it is preciselysuch public statements- the popularisationof official
statistics- which providethe statistical 'back-up' for subsequentaction. In point
of fact we have checked both these statements with the official statistics, and
thoughthere are slight discrepanciesdue to the fact that the former appear to be
taken from the Reportsof He,·Majesty's ChiefInspectorof Constabulary,which
only includefiguresfor Englandand Wales(exceptingthose for the Metropolitan
PoliceDistrict),and the latter fromtheAnnualAbstractof Statistics(1969),which
combines figures for England and Wales with those for Northern Ireland and
 THESOCIALHISTORYOFA 'MORALPANIC' 15

Scolland, the overall point, lhat the two periods are substantially similar statis-
lically, remains valid,) So the increase, even in the specific area of 'crimes of
violence', was not dramatically new.
Let us look specifically at the calegory, 'robbery or assault with intent to rob',
lhe criminal statistical category nearest to 'mugging', and certainly the charge
to which most 'muggers' were subject. Was the increase in this category as
dramatic as the reaction to mugging suggested? The answer must again be no.
During the ten years between 1955 and 1965 'robberies' increased by 354 per
cent.31 Between 1965 and 1972, however, they increased by only 98½:per cent.31
Expressed as a percentage, the average annual increase between 1955 and 1965
was 35.4 per cent but during the seven years between 1965 and 1972 it was
only 14 per cent. Even if we only use statistics for 'mugging', basing ourselves
on the one universally quoted, namely the rise in London muggings by 129 per
cent over four years 1968-72,39 we still find the average annual increase (32 per
cent) is less than that (35 per cent) for robberies generally over the ten years
1955-65. So even the statistics most closely related to the reaction to mugging,
i.e. statistics of robberies and mugging, were far from being without precedent in
the post-war period, The situation with relation to crimes roughly categorisable
as 'muggings' was certainly no worse in 1972 than it was between 1955-65
and, it could be argued statistically that it was, if anything, slightly better. Thus,
whatever statistics are used, whether the over-all 'crimes of violence' figures, or,
more specifically those referring to 'robberies' or 'muggings', it is not possible to
demonstrate that the situation was dramatically worse in 1972 than it was in the
period 1955-65. In other words, it is impossible to 'explain' the severity of the
reaction to mugging by using arguments based solely on the objective, quanti-
fiable, statislical facts. A final word of caution. We have based much of our statis-
tical evidence on McClintock and Avison"°since it is a large--scale,prestigious,
quasi-official study, and certainly the mosl exhaustive survey of its kind ever
undertaken in this country. Since then, McDonald has taken the authors to task on
methodological grounds and especially for confining most of the analysis to the
period 1955-65.• 1 McDonald demonstrates, convincingly, thal taking a slightly
longer time span ( 1948-68) reduces substantially the increases that McClintock
and Avison found. Anybody seriously interested in the problem of criminal
statistics should undoubtedly consult McDonald's important text. However,
since our purpose is not to develop more adequate ways of computing increases
in crime but simply to examine the kinds of simple statistics used to juslify lhe
reaction to mugging, we feel that our use of short time spans is justified. In
fact, it is precisely the annual statistical increase in certain crimes, dramatically
presented in the media, which fuel and legitimate the concern about crime.
What about the second element in our equation: the 'softness' of the courts?
How well was this grounded, statistically? There are lwo strands involved here:
the 'acquittal versus conviction rate'; and sentencing policy. A major assumption
behind some of the proposals of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, and the
remarks of vociferous supporters of it, like Sir Robert Mark, was that professional
criminals are being found 'not guilty' too easily. Sir Robert Mark's contention was
based on the assumption that about half of the defendants who plead 'not guilty'
are acquitted by juries. 42 The evidence concerning 'acquittal rates' is not nearly so
16

easy to come by as the evidencerelatingto criminalstatistics,but what little there

is tends not to supportthisjudgement.
McCabeand Purves,of the OxfordPenalResearchUnit,foundthat in one-third
of the acquittalsthey examined(fifty-threeout of 173},the prosecutionevidence
was so thin that thejudge directedan acquittalwithoutleavingit to thejury;4~ and
second,that most acquittalsin highercourts,evenwherethe accusedhad previous
convictions,involvedrelativelyminor offences.Elgrod and Lew re-examinedthe
records of a firm of Londonsolicitorsfor the period 1964-73and found that the
proportionof acquittalsbrought in by juries had remainedstable and averaged
out at about 31 per cent.41 In other words, it lent support to the view of many
practisinglawyersof an acquiualrate of one in three of thosepeoplepleading'not
guilty', a findingwhichdid not supportSir RobertMark's case.
Acquiualratesappear,then,to havealteredlittle in recentyears,to affectchiefly
'minor' criminals,and to be muchless than the 50 per cent claimed.But probably
more pivotal to the perceptionof 'softness' to 'toughness' in the courtroomis
sentencingpolicy.
Sentencesfor violentoffenceshaveactuallybeengettinglonger.Sparks found,
using the 'year-end' figures, that those serving fixed-term sentences of seven
years or more (the majorityof whom were convictedfor crimes of violence)had
'roughlydoubled'in numberbetween 1960and 1967,while the numbersof those
servingten years or more had 'tripled'."-
1 This findingis very differentfrom those

of the H.M.S.O.Report, People in Priso11s. 46 One essential differencebetween

the two documentsis that the H.M.S.O. Report largely deals with admissions
in any one year. On this basis ii argues that apart from the increasein numbers
serving fixed-termsentencesof over fourteenyears, largelyconsequentupon the
abolition of capital punishment,there has been little change in 'intermediate'
sentences.Sparks,on the other hand, using the statisticsin a more complexway
(and beratingPeoplei11 Priwns for its 'simple' use of the statistics),finds a very
different picture: one of an increasingbuild-up of 'long-stay' prisoners (those
serving seven-plus, ten-plus, fourteen-plus and 'life') throughout the period
1960-7, practicallyall of whom, by 1967,were convictedof 'violent' offences.
Post-abolition,the numberof 'lifers' has increased,as has the averagelength of
such sentences.47 Furthermore,it has been argued that 1950-7 was a period of
'lenient' sentencingwhichsaw a twofoldincreasein robberies,whereas1957--66
witnesseda reversalin sentencingpolicy- and a threefoldincreasein robberies.
ProfessorRadzinowiczalso notes the change, in 1960,from the lenienceof the
years 1950-7:
Recentlythe courts seem to have been taking a sterner view,and in 1960the
standardsrevertedto those of 1950... The trend towardsincreasedseverity is
also reflectedin muchsharpersentencesfor youngerand for first offenders.411
These are hardlyindexesof a growing 'soft policy' by the courts.
Whetherthese policieshavebeendeterring- the thirdelementin our equation-
is anothermatter.McClintockandAvison,49 reviewingthe 1955--65periodin their
chapteron 'The Recidivist',argue for a percentageincreaseof 160percent in the
 THESOCIALHISTORYOFA 'MORALPANIC' 17
numberscomingback beforethe courts; with an even higherrate for the younger
recidivists(aged 14-21). The reconvictionrate for 'serious' recidivists(five or
more provedindictableoffences)was higherthan that for other recidivists;a third
of young robbers had 'high' rates of recidivism(two or more previousproved
indictableoffences);and 'offences of robbery and breakingshowedthe greatest
proportionof "high" recidivism'.
As it happens, there i.r importantevidence about lhe relation between tough
sentencingand deterrencedrawnspecificallyfrom 'mugging'. Baxterand Nuttall,
Home Office research officers,examinedthe long and severe sentences passed
on the three boys in the Handsworth'mugging' case for subsequent 'deterrent'
effect.'°They experiencedthe same difficultythe present authors did in finding
an acceptablestatisticalbasis for 'mugging'. But, taking the 'robberyand assault
with intentto rob' as their statisticalbase-line(and acknowledgingthat this figure
would include 'crimes other than mugging'), the authors had to conclude: 'In
none of the police areas studieddid 1hesentencehave the anticipatedimpacton
the numberof reportedrobberies.'In Birmingham,where the initial offencewas
committed,the robberyoffencerate continueduninterrupted(i.e. 'relativelylow
throughoutthe two relevantyears').
In shon, the statisticssuch as we have do 1101 support the 'rising crime rate'
equation.An 'unprecedented'rise in robberieswith violencewasnot newin 1972.
Sentencesfor seriousoffenceswere growinglongerratherthan shorter,and more
people were receiving them; acquittal rates seemed not to have changed.And
these tough policies were 11otdeterring,In fact, if we regard the 'toughness' in
the courts throughoutthe 1960sas an 'experimentin deterrence',the rising rate
of crime and recidivismdemonstratesjust how bad is the recordof deterrenceas
an instrumentof penal policy.This general picture- true for serious crime as a
whole-was also true for 'mugging'.
However,in the specific case of the mugging statistics, we can go further
still. We have just alluded to the difficultiesthat Ba,c:terand Nuttall found in
isolatinga statistical base in their work on the 'mugging' figures, and we also
mentionedwe had similar difficulties.This point bears amplification.The much
publicisedI973 headlinesthat London 'muggings' were 129per cent up over the
four years 1968-72seem to have their base in Robberyand KindredOffencesIn
the MetropolitanPoliceDi.rtrict,1968-72.51 Their preciseorigin remainsa deep
mysteryto us. Our effortsto 'crack' themhavebeen in vain.Sincethere is no legal
offencecalled 'mugging', the figurescannot be deriveddirect from the Annual
Report.r.Some Chief Constablesexpresseddoubt as to what to include under
'mugging' when the Home Secretaryasked for figuresfor I968 (thoughthere is
evidencethat, since the 1972-3 period, regionalfiguresfor crimes descriptively
arranged under the 'mugging' category, together with some figures, however
loose,on the ethnic identityof assailants,have been kept).The graph in the 1973
Report must therefore be a back-projection;but based on what? Since none of
the existing 'robbery' figuresfor I968, or the other years, square with the recon-
structed 'mugging' figures, these must be a selectiveconflation of proportions
of a numberof differentsub-categorieswithin the over-all 'robbery' figures.But
how much of which?(We have tried as many permutationsas ingenuityallows,
18 POLICINGTHECRISIS

though without success.) And what statistical checks were there on this selective
clustering under the 'mugging' label, performed in 1973 (when the 'mugging'
panic was at its peak), for a year- 1968 - when the label was not in use?
We mentionedearlierthat we would end with some general updating on statistics.
We offer them for completeness, rather than in the hope that they will clarify
much. 1973 saw practically no change in the over-all crime figures, substantial
percentage reductio11s in the robbery figures, substantial percentage increasesin
'crimes of violence' generally, and a mixed set of figures for thefts from the person
(a large percentage increase (12.S per cent) in London and a largish percentage
reduction in the provinces (8.4 per cent)), 1974 saw larger percentage increases
in crime generally and robbery, massive percentage increases in theft from the
person (42 per cent in the provinces, 71 per cent in London), but small percentage
increases in 'crimes of violence' generally. 197Ssaw smaller percentage increases
in crime generally but even larger percentage increases in robbery (24 per cent
in the provinces, 41.2 per cent in London). The percentage increases in theft
rrom the person, still large, were less dramatic than in I 974, while the 'crimes
of violence' category showed far larger percentage increases. Over all, then, the
period seems 'mixed', but, for those interested in trends in statistically recorded
crimes, it may be of interest that, except for sexual offences, everycrime category
recorded an increase in both the provinces and London during 1974 and 1975 -
quite an unusual occurrence.
We have left the mugging statistics until last; these are, as usual, the most
complicated. After the London figures produced in 1973 by the Statistical Unit
for the years 1968-72, which were also reproduced in the Metropolitan Police
Commissioner's Report for 1972, a separate 'mugging' statistic does not appear
again in any of the Annual Reports until the publication of the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner's Report for 1975. This report carries an identical table to
the I 972 Report,i.e. a table of robberies sub-divided into smaller categories based
on the circumstances of the crime. One of these categories - robbery following
an attack in the open - is clearly the mugging statistic since both the category
and the figures for 1971 and 1972 tally with those in the 1972 Report, where it
was announced that this particular category was popularly known as 'mugging'.
So, despite a certain coyness on the Commissioner's part about using the label
(and this despite the fact that the original decision to sub-categorise the robbery
statistics undoubtedly stemmed from, or was sanctioned by, him), we can at least
be certain that the figures collected for 1975 were based on the same criteria,
whatever these were, as those collected in 1972.Analysing these figures, it would
appear that after the dramatic 32 per cent increase in 1972, muggings decreased
during 1973 (by 20.7 per cent), only to increaseby 18.7 per cent in 1974 and by
35.9 per cent in 1975. Whatever the reason for the I 973 decrease, what is certain
is that the drop was only temporary. And as sentences in the courts have certainly
not been getting any lighter for these offences, and police activity - in the light of
much high-level concern - is unlikely to have diminished, we can only see these
figures as further confinnation of the bankruptcy of policies of containment and
deterrence.
However, the statistical situation regarding these figures becomes more inter-
esting, if more confusing, during this period. In the Metropolitan Commissioner's
 19

1972Report we see the beginningsof a developmentwhich was to culminatein

the productionof a completelynew set of crime categoriesin the 1974Report.
We have already mentioned the sub-divisionof the 'robbery' category which
produced,as one outcome,the muggingstatistics. 'Theft from the person' was
similarlysub-divided,and one particularcategory- 'snatchings'- was included
in a table showingthe increasesin 'selected crimes of violence, 1968-72'. We
were told that 'snatchings'appear there since there was little distinctionbetween
such offencesand robbery.The implication,since both were includedin the table,
is that the elementcommonto both categoriesis that of 'violence'. But, then, in
the 1973Repo11we were told that 'snatches' were 'similar to robberiesdiffering
only in that the victim is neither threate11ed nor injured by the assailant' (our
emphasis).In view of the fact that snatchingshad appearedin a 1ableof selected
crimesof violencethepreviousyear,and that il is preciselythe elementof violence
which distinguishesrobbery from theft, this is a very strange statementindeed.
However,there is yet a further 'mystery' in the 1973 figures.We have already
mentionedthat this was the year which showeda dramaticdrop in the numbers
of robberiesand muggings.'Snatchings' followedthis pattern. But 'thefts from
the person' (e.g. 'pickpocketing')showed a large increase.How do we eJtplain
these divergenttrends?Giventhe ambiguitysurroundingall these categoriesand
the failure to specify publicly the criteria for differentiatingthe categories,is it
not
a conspiracy- that what were perceivedand classifiedas
were differentlyperceivedand classifiedin 1973- as more
pickpocketingfor example? Such selective perception,and the accompanying
decline in the mugging statistics, would certainly retrospectivelyjustify the
controlmeasurestaken.
In the 1974and 1975Repo11s,the incipientunhappinesswith the officiallegal,
HomeOfficeclassificationsfoundfull expressionin theproductionof a completely
newset of 'circumstantial'categories(i.e. ones reflectingthe circumstancesof the
crime)whichappearedin additionto the HomeOfficeclassifications.Of principal
interestto us was the productionof a 'robbery and other violentthefts' category;
though, again, the criteria for adjudginga theft 'violent' were not slated. In the
light of the Commissioner'searlier sub-divisionof 'thefts from the person', it
wouldappearthat 'snatchings'had finallybecomeso similarto robberies(despite
being 'non-violent'!)as to warrantthe productionof a joint statistic.In 1975there
were7959 such 'robberiesand other violentthefts' (up 43 per cent),4452 official
robberies (up 41.2 per cent) and 1977 'muggings' (up 35.9 per cent); though
the official 'theft from the person' category had no equivalentcategory in the
Commissioner'sclassification.What are we to makeof the newcategory'robbery
andother violentthefts'? Violenttheftswereobviouslysimilarto robberies;hence
thejoint statistic:yet officialrobberieswere then furthersub-dividedwithoutany
referenceto thejoint statistic.This meansthat the muggingstatisticwas produced
withoutreferenceto the 'violent theft' category.Yet it seems hard to believethat
the introductionof these newcategories- first 'snatches' and then 'violent thefts'
- were entirelyunrelatedto the originalbreakdownof the robberyfigureswhich
had, as one outcome,the productionof a set of figuresfor 'mugging'; particularly
since the very reasongiven for the sub-divisionof 'thefts from the person' was to
20 POLICINGTHECRISIS

differentiatethe more 'robbery-like'from the rest. Given this line of reasoning,

the current publicity and concern aroused by the London muggingstatistics is
very difficultto understand,on purelystatisticalgrounds,since the 1975figures
reveal that, of the 'robberies and violent thefts', only 25 per cent were actually
'muggings'. Finally,it should be emphasisedthat none of these statisticalconvo-
lutions have ever affectedthe Chief Inspectorof Constabulary'sReports,which
have always stuck to the official classifications.One importantresult of this is
that, despite the grave concern expressed in these reports about mugging (c.f.
the 1973 Report), we have never had any figures at all concerningthe scale,
and rate of increase,of p,vvincial muggings.Ir the reactionto muggingcannot
then be explainedby a straightforwardreferenceto the statistics, how can it be
explained?
When the officialreactionto a person,groups of personsor series of eventsis
out of all proportionto the actual threat offered,when 'experts', in the form of
police chiefs, the judiciary, politiciansand editors perceive the threat in all but
identicalterms,and appearto talk 'with one voice' of rates, diagnoses,prognoses
and solutions, when the media representationsuniversallystress 'sudden and
dramatic' increases (in numbers involvedor events) and 'novelty', above and
beyondthat which a sober, realisticappraisalcould sustain, then we believeit is
appropriateto speak of the beginningsof a moralpanic.
A moral panic has been definedas followsby Stan Cohen in his study of the
'mods and rockers', FolkDevilsand Moral Panic:

Societiesappear to be subject,every now and then, to periodsof moral panic.

A condition,episode,personor groupof personsemergesto becomedefinedas
a threat to societalvaluesand interests;its natureis presentedin a stylizedand
stereotypicalfashion by the mass media; the moral barricadesare manned by
editors,bishops,politiciansand other right-thinkingpeople;sociallyaccredited
expens pronouncetheir diagnosesand solutions;waysof copingare evolvedor
(more often) resortedto; the conditionthen disappears,submergesor deterio-
ratesandbecomesmore visible.Sometimesthe objectof the panicis quite novel
and at other timesit is somethingwhichhas been in existencelong enough,but
suddenlyappears in the limelight.Sometimesthe panic is passed over and is
forgotten,except in folkloreand collectivememory;at other times it has more
seriousand long-lastingrepercussionsand mightproducesuchchangesas those
in legal and social policyor even in the way societyconceivesitself."

In this study we argue that there was a moralpanic about 'mugging' in 1972-3;
a panic which fits in almost every detail the processdescribed by Cohen in the
passageabove. This is not to deny that, on occasionsduring the past few years
(but also, almost cenainly, for at least a century), individualmen and women
have been suddenlyattacked,rough-handledand robbed in the street. We think,
however,that it requiresexplanationhow and why a versionof this rather tradi-
tional street crime was perceived,at a certain point in the early 1970s,as a 'new
strain of crime'. The numberof such incidentsmay indeed have gone up - it is
virtually impossibleto tell from the statistical evidence which has been made
publiclyavailable.In the light of that, we think it requires to be explainedwhy
 THESOCIALHISTORYOFA 'MORALPANIC' 21

and how the weak and confused statisticalevidencecame to be convertedinto

such hard and massivelypublicisedfactsand figures.It also needsto be explained
how and why these 'facts' came to be identifiedas part and parcel - indeed,as
someof the strongestevidencefor- a generalbelief in the dramaticrise in the rate
of 'violent crime'. The impressionthat 'violent crime', particularly'mugging',
was increasingproduceda massive and intense coverage by the press, official
and semi-officialspokesmen,and sentencesof an increasingseverityin court. In
short 'mugging' had consequencesin the real world,quite apart from the number
of people muggedon the streets; and these consequencesappear to have less to
do with what actually was knownto be happening,than with the character,scale
and intensityof this reaction.All these other aspects are pa11of the 'mugging'
phenomenon,too. They,too, requireexpla11ation.
This representsa majorshift of focusfromconventionalstudiesof crime.Cohen
definesthis in terms of a shift of attentionfrom the deviant act (i.e. 'mugging'),
treated in isolationto the l'fllationbetweenthe deviantact and the reactionof the
public and the co11trol age11cies to the act.53 This shift of focusalters the natureof
the 'object' or phenomenonwhich needs to be explained.In what we mightcall
thecommon-senseview,sometimein the early 1970sBritishcities werevisitedby
a dramaticand unexpectedepidemicof 'mugging'. The police, reactingto these
events, spurred on by a vigilant press, by public anxiety and professionalduty,
took rapid steps to isolatethe 'virus' and bringthe feverunder control.The courts
administereda strong inoculatingdose of medicine.It disappearedwithintwelve
months,as swiftly and suddenlyas it had appeared.It departedas mysteriously
as ii had arrived.In the 'common-sense'view,this little sequenceof eventswas
'mugging',at least in its primaryphase.Weargue,on theother hand,thattherewas
also a massiveblazeof publicityin the press, the use of a new 'label', widespread
public commentand anxiety,a strong and vigorousofficialreaction. Moreover,
the scale and intensityof this reactionis quite at odds with the scale of the threat
to which it was a response.Thus there is strong evidenceof a 'moral panic' about
mugging.We insist that this 'moral panic' is also crucial to the meaningof the
'mugging' phenomenonitself. It is this whole complex- action and reaction-
as well as what produced ii and what its consequenceswere, which requires to
be explained.We suggest that there is no simple 'event' here to be understood,
apart from the social processesby which such events are produced,perceived,
classified,explainedand respondedto. The more we examinethis wholecomplex
in detail,the more it seemsthat it is the 'moral panic' about 'mugging' ratherthan
the appearanceof 'mugging' itself, to which we must first give our attention.
In the followingchapter,then,we bringinto focussomeof theseso far neglected
aspectsof 'mugging': the way the 'moral panic' was articulatedin the courts,and
the reactionto it of the police - in short, the growthto visibilityand subsidence,
betweenAugust 1972 and the latter months of 1973, of a 'moral panic' about
'mugging' and its passagethroughthejudicial and controlapparatus.
However,beforewe turn to that we must makea detour back to the point from
which we started: the appearanceof the label which identified'a new strain of
crime'. It was the use of this label which providedthe stimulusfor the take-offof
a moral panic about 'mugging'. But what was the birth and subsequentcareer of
the 'mugging' label?
22 POUCINO'rHECRISIS

CARBEROFA LABEL
NEWYORK CITY ... the science fictionmetropolisof the future... the cancer
capital, a laboratorywhere all the splendoursand miseriesof the new age are
beingtriedout in experimentalfonn.... ProfessorNathanGlazer.the sociologist,
remarks:'We're threatenedwith the destructionof the entire socialfabric.'
Americais whereour weathercomesfrom- the prevailingculturalwindsare
carryingthe same challengesand threats across the Atlanticto Europe.... The
forecastdoes not seem very favourable... when I last investigatedNewYorkin
1966,half a millionof its citizenswere livingon welfaredoles. Nowthe figure
has reacheda million.... Only last week,massivecuts, the first since the second
worldwar,were made by the state legislaturein aid to the poor....
NewYork's major problem is this widespreadpoverty with the inevitable
aftermath of growing crime, vandalism,rioting and drug-addiction.Already
more than 70 per cent of the serious crimes are committed by youngsters
under twenty-one. And crime means crime here - with a murder every
twelve hours - many of them motiveless acts of violence with no thought
of gain....
... the NewYorkCity Handbook[has]... an entiresectionon howto deal with
burglars,double-lockand protectdoors and windowsand the generalwarning:
'ON TIIE STREETwalk where it is well-lightedand where there are people'
... one symptom[of NewYork's 'ills'] is the deepeningbankruptcyof the city's
public finances.
THE WORST RESULTS... [are] the hatred and contempt engenderedin
one section of the populationfor another ... friends ... accept the hazards of
New York rather as Londoners accepted the Blitz. (Alan Brien, 'New York
Nightmare',Sunday7imes,6 April 1969.)

Is it a lack of courage to think big'?Could not the countrythat thoughtup the

Marshallplando the same for its own good'?Is it becausethe prejudicesagainst
race and welfare programmesare no obstacles to a grand rescue operation
abroad but they assert themselvesstubbornlyagainst such a vision at home'?
And why is a small nationsuch as NorthVietnamcapableof resistinga super-
power,despite the technicalsuperiorityof Americanweapons,firepowerand
mobility'?
Suchare the questionson the lips of Americanstoday.Theyare all symptoms
of the doubts and anxietiesthat assail a large majorityof the people about the
trust in the Americathey believein.
They are appalledby the massiveconfrontationat home betweenblack and
while,hawksanddoves,intellectualsand non-intellectuals,betweenyoungand
old, the law and the protesters.I doubt whetherso manysegmentsof American
society haveever been as dividedas they are today.It is more than a malaise;
somehowthe Americanspirit is temporarilyunhinged.
They are afraidof walkingin the streetsat nightand beingattacked.This fear
is greaterthan ever before.Crime in the street,unless the republicancandidate
for Presidentis able to offer an alternativeto PresidentJohnson's policies in
Vietnam,will be the big issue of this electioncampaign.(HenryBrandon,'The
DisunitedStates', Sunday7imes,IOMarch 1968.)
 THESOCIALHISTORYOFA 'MORALPANIC' 23

Lejeune and Alex note that 'The term mugging assumed its present meaning
[in America] in the 1940s. Derived rrom criminal and police parlance, it refers
to a certain manner of robbing and/or beating of a victim by petty professional
operators or thieves who often work in touring packs of three or more.'54 This is the
classic meaning of the term 'mugging'. Its American location is, of course, crucial.
Whatever its earlier usages." it is in the United States that the tenn achieves its
decisive contemporary definition. It was from this American context that the term
was 'reimported' into British usage in the later 1960s and the 1970s.
Labels are important, especially when applied to dramatic public evenlS.
They not only place and identify those events; they assign events to a context.
Thereafter the use of the label is likely to mobilise this wholereferentialcontext,
with all its associated meanings and connotations. It is this wider, more conno-
tative usage which was 'borrowed' when the British press picked up the term
and began to apply it to the British setting. It is crucial to bear in mind, therefore,
what this wider, contextual field of reference of the term was or had become in
the United States. By the 1960s, 'mugging' was no longer being used in the
United States simply as a descriptive and identifying term for a specific kind
of urban crime. It not only dominated the whole public discussion of crime
and public disorder - it had become a central symbol for the many tensions
and problems besetting American social and political life in general. 'Mugging'
achieved this status because of its ability to connote a whole complex of social
themes in which the 'crisis of American society' was reflected. These themes
included: the involvement of blacks and drug addicts in crime; the expansion
of the black ghettoes, coupled with the growth of black social and political
militancy; the threatened crisis and collapse of the cities; the crime panic and
the appeal to 'law and order'; the sharpening political tensions and protest
movements of the 1960s leading into and out from the Nixon-Agnew mobili-
sation of 'the silent majority' and their presidential victory in 1968. These topics
and themes were not as clearly separated as these headings imply. They tended,
in public discussion, to come together into a general scenario of conflict and
crisis. In an important sense the image of 'mugging' came ultimately to contain
and express them all.
During the 1960s, the principal venue of muggings in the United States was
the black ghetto. Such areas in most of the large cities have traditionally been
areas associated with high rates of crime. Following the black 'ghetto rebellions'
of the mid-1960s, and against the background of an extended debate about the
nature of social and family 'disorganisation' amongst ghetto blacks, the issue
of black crime surfaced as a major and continuing topic of concern. Crime was
taken as an index of the permanent state of tension among urban blacks: perhaps,
also, as a means through which racial tension was worked out and expressed - a
preoccupation no doubt supported by the fact that, of all violent offences in the
United States, only robbery involves a high inter-racial element.56 This equation
of violent robbery with blacks was compounded by the spread of the ghettoes in
most of the large cities through the 1950s and 1960s. Black crime was troubling
enough when confined within the clearly demarcated zones of the ghettoes; but
it became the central concern of a far more diffused and generalised threat when
coupled with the spread of the ghelloes 'up-town', and the spill over of black
24 POLICINGTHECRISIS

populationsinto rormerlywhite residentialareas. The effectsof this 'spill over'

(which, in any event,compoundedthe many other serious problemsof the large
cities in the UnitedStates)was differentlyexperiencedand perceivedby different
sectorsof the whitepopulation.Working-classwhites- often of distinctiveethnic
origin - perceivedthe 'black invasion' as a major intrusionfrom an even more
disadvantagedgroup into their limitedeconomic,social and geographicalspace.
The tensionsbetweenthese two groupshavebeenconsiderablysharpened,'white
ethnics' often providinglhe spearheadfor a whitebacklashagainstblacksand the
povertyprogrammes(whichseemedto be givingblacksan unfairadvantage).This
was undoubtedlyone of the keysectorsto whichthe Nixon 'silent-majority'appeal
was directed, and provided active recruits into the 'law and order' campaigns.
White middle-classresidentswere protectedfor longerfrom the black incursion;
but graduallythe spread of the ghettoes(and all that was associatedwith it) also
began to make its impact here, as sectors of the cities hitherto thought 'safe'
becameredefinedas dangerousor unsafeterritory.The changingclass and ethnic
compositionof the cities, and a shift in the whole flavourand ambienceof 'urban
living' for the whitemiddleclasses,precipitatednot only a senseof panicbut also
the steady movementof whites out of the city (the so-calledaccelerated'flight
to the suburbs') and the adoption of a whole series of protectiveand defensive
moves.The actual incidenceof violent inter-racialcrime was outstrippedby the
general sense of fear and anxiety on the part of the white urban dwellers;even if
not actual victims,more peoplecame to see themselvesas potential victims,and
undoubtedlya sense of 'trust' and security had been undermined.Lejeuneand
Alex verysensitivelydescribewhat theycall the growthof a 'defensivementality'
amongstwhites;57 and the imageof the 'mugger' eruptingout of the urbandark in
a violentand whollyunexpectedattackor penetratingright into apartmentblocks
became,in manyways,the precipitatefor what were in fact much largerfearsand
anxietiesabout the racial issue in general.By the end of the 1960s,then, the term
'mugging' had come to stand as a referentialsymbol for this whole complexof
attitudesand anxietiesabout the generaldrift of Americansociety- a cause for
concernmade more urgentby the rising politicalconflictsrelatingto the Vietnam
War,and the growthof studentmilitancyand black power.
Now this 'crisis' of American society in the 1960s was widely and vividly
covered in the British press.'1 It fitted well into a whole 'structure of attention'
in the British media.Americanreportagehas alwaysplayed an importantpart in
foreignnewscoveragein the Britishmedia,since. for both historicaland contem-
porary reasons, the United States is taken as a sort of paradigmcase for future
trendsand tendenciesin the Westernworld,especiallyin Britain.In the 1950sthe
United States stood, and was reported,as the symbol of affluentsuccess;in the
1960sit became the symbol of a modem industrialcapitalistsociety 'in crisis'.
In both cases, the British media presentationof 'the UnitedStates' sufferedfrom
selectiveexaggeration.The UnitedStatesseems alwaysto be presentedin 'larger-
than-life' terms: more extravagant,more quirky,more bizarre, more sensational
than anythingcomparablein Britain.And when Americansociety began lo run
into seriousdifficullies,these too werepresentedin an exaggeratedfashion.What
is more, the British coverageof Americansocial problems,like race and crime,
reproducedthe definitionsof thoseproblemswhichhad been alreadygeneratedin
 25

the United States. When the British press reported on American cities, the already
forged connections between black unrest, inter-racial tension, the spreading
ghettoes and crime tended to be reproduced in that form (though there is no
doubt that 'selective exaggeralions' solidified some of the looser connections).
Thus, long before British 'muggings' appeared in the British media, the British
presentation of 'mugging' as an American crime reproduced the wholecontextof
'mugging'as it had already been defined in the American selling. It reproduced
the idea of Americanmugging for British consumption (c.f. the extracts at the
beginning of the section). The graphic stories by Henry Fairlie- who was himself
twice 'mugged' - in the Su11dayExpressin this period offer further highly specific
examples of this type of coverage of American problems for British readers.' 9
Similar kinds of reports can be found at both ends of lhe press spectrum in Britain
in this period- for example, in Henry Brandon's pieces for the Su11day Timesand
in Mileva Ross's 'I Live With Crime In The Fun City' in the SundayExpress:

MY HOUSEKEEPER arrived one morning shaken by the experience of

witnessing the mugging and robbing of a man in front of her own house which
is just inside Washington's Negro ghetto.
It seems almosl as if crime in Washington has become a sport, as if robbing
for money is as easy as shopping for bread.... In 80 percent of the cases [of
armed robberies in one day] Negroes were both assailants and victims. For the
rest, whites were the victims of Negroes.
President Kennedy ... worried about Washington's reputation as culturally
underdeveloped; Mr Nixon will be worrying about crime and how to live up to
his election campaign promise 'to restore freedom from fear in the capital' ....
Hair-raising accounts of escape from purse-snatchers or hold-up men and their
easy getaways have stimulated fear, if not panic.... But many Washingtonians
have become accustomed to living with crime almost in the way that Londoners
learned to live with the blitz. You carry only sufficient money to keep the
hold-up men satisfied.... You acquire a burglar alarm or watchdog; you don't
stay out late ... you acquire your own gun .... Whites are afraid that they will be
increasingly unsafe in this city where 67 percent of the population is Negro....
In the past, newspapers here have avoided racial identification of criminals....
The fact that this is now done so conspicuously ... is also an indication of how
old liberal principles are being swept away by the crime wave. (Henry Brandon,
'Living round the Crime-Clock', SundayTimes,26 January 1969.)

SUCH IS the amount of crime in America today that ... President Nixon ...
ordered that the lights in the grounds of the White House should be kept on all
night ... to stop the recent wave of attacks on Washington citizens - at least on
his new doorstep.
So far ... [this] pledge of his presidential campaign - has been a notable
failure.... To the harried police forces of Washington and New York, incidents
[of robbery] ... are now almost as routine as parking offences.... My own
experience in New York ... was a classic case of what Americans call 'a
mugging'. This means that I was robbed by an unarmed attacker who jumped
on me from behind.... It has happened to many of my friends.
26 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

My first-hand experience ... came early one evening.... I whirled round [upon
being attacked] and looked straight ... [at] a hefty Negro youth.
Within days we seemed to be living right on top of a crime explosion....
After a few weeks the superintendent of our building ... pinned up a notice ...
saying that ... a porter would be on duty ... every evening. I took all important
documents ... out of my handbag. I carried the minimum of money in my purse
... One night we were awakened by a terrible noise outside ... we learned thal
the victim was an elderly doctor ... he was seriously hurt.... The theory was that
the attackers were drug addicts.... The next morning we went out flat hunting
... we found what we were looking for ... 1\vo doonnen are on duty round the
clock. And at night there is also an armed guard in the lobby. Everyone entering
the building is stopped. The doorman rings me on the intercom before any
visitor is allowed up.... I accept all this security as normal living now. (Mileva
Ross, 'I Live With Crime In The "Fun City": spotlighting the rising tide of
violence in America', SundayExpress,23 February 1969.)

We offer substantial sections of these two crime reports, one from Washington, one
from New York. They range from the highly personalised and dramatised account
of the SundayExpressreporter lo the more general Sunday1imesone. Yet, despite
obvious differences in style, the same images and associations are evoked; the total
'message' is all but identical, and unequivocal, 'multifaceted', but unambiguous.
The crime problem referred 10 here is not the problem of 'white-collar' frauds
and tax evasion, nor even the problem of professional organised crime, and the
legendary Mafia. What crime 'means', in these reports, is something completely
different: lhe sudden attack, the brutal assault, the brazen threat; the 'amateur',
uncouth and arrogant 'face-to-face' street and apartment encounters with young
blacks/drugtakers desperate either for cash or a quick fix - in a word, the crime
problem, in these reports, means mugging.It is this which is contextualised in
both reports as being the 'primary' cause of the other elements mentioned: the
escalation in crime; the 'resigned' acceptance of this state of affairs by both
law-enforcement agencies and citizens; the fear, defensiveness and 'security-
consciousness' of ordinary citizens; and, with the mention of President Nixon's
electoral pledge, the notion of all this constituting a national political issue to
which liberal responses have proved inadequate.
The kind of reporting exemplified in these early articles, and in a good deal
of the American coverage of a similar kind in the British press in this period,
acted as 'scene-setters' for the later English usage. It made 'mugging' familiar to
English readers; and it did so, not by the coinage of a simple term but by trans-
mitting 'mugging' as part of a whole context of troubling themes and images - it
delivered something like a whole ima,e of 'mugging' to the English reader. It
presented American 'mugging' as in some ways at the centre of this complex
of connected themes, drawn together with them into a single, rather terrifying
scenario. Subsequent reports in the British press then employ the term 'mugging'
unproblematically: the crime it indexes is already familiar to British readers,
and so are its contexts.It is this whole composite image which was positively
translated. And this helps to explain an oddity. So far as we can discover, the term
 THESOCIALHISTORYOF A 'MORALPANIC' 27
'mugging' is 11otapplied to a specificallyEnglish crime until midway through
1972;but even as early as 1970,the tenn is generallyand unspecificallyapplied
lo describe a sort of incipient breakdown in 'law and order' and general rise
in violent crime and lawlessnessin Britain.!10 Normally such a label would be
appliedin specificinstancesfirst,beforegaininga wider,more generalisedappli-
cation. Here we find the reverse- the label is applied to Britain.firstin its wider,
connotativesense; only then, subsequently,are concrete instances discovered.
This can only be because the tenn was already appropriatedfrom the United
States in its more inclusivesense- signifyingsuch generalthemesas crime in the
streets,breakdownin lawand order,race and poverty,a generalrise in lawlessness
and violence.To put it simply, if paradoxically:'mugging' for British readers
meant 'general social crisis and rising crime' first, a particular kind of robbery
occurringon British streets second, and later. It is this paradox which accounts
for the particular way in which the 'mugging' label is first applied to a specific
British 'event' - the Hills killing near Waterloo Station. Although 'mugging'
had been made thoroughlyfamiliar to British readers - as we have seen, in the
popularas well as the 'serious' press - the specificapplicationof the 'mugging'
label to a specific incidenton a Londonstreet is problematicfor the newspapers
which first employ it, and seems to require some new definitional'work' on the
journalists' part. The policemanwho used it first, qualifiesit - 'a mugginggone
wrong'(our emphasis).Manyof the papers use quotationmarks aroundthe term
- 'mugging'. Some papers (e.g. the Daily Mirror)offer a definition.This marks
the second significant moment in the British appropriationof the 'mugging'
label.The translationof 'mugging' and its context to Britishaudiences,through
the representationof Americanthemes in the British coverage,is the first stage.
But the applicationof the label to British events, and not in a general way but in
a specificway to describe a concrete case of crime, is a shift in applicationand
requires a new explanatoryand contextualisingmove. This is the moment,not
of the referencingof the 'mugging' idea in the Americanexperience,but of the
specific transfer of the label from one social setting to another:the momentof
the naturalisationof the label on British soil.
The culminationof the Englishreportingof Americanmuggingdid not come
until 4 March 1973(ironicallyonly two weeks beforethe Handsworthcase).This
was the long Sunday 7imes feature by George Peiffer on, 'New York:a Lesson
for the World'. The article was in the colour supplement,and the front page of
the magazinewas a reproductionof a New York Daily News front page headed
'Thugs, Mugs, Drugs: City in Terror', which went some way towardsencapsu-
lating the article's extensivedocumentationof the violentdecline and decay of
NewYork.The article,whichran for eighteenpages,is too long to fullydocument
here.It was graphicallyillustrated.It carriedan extensiveanalysis,whichbrought
together all the major themes of 'mugging' in the United States: the influx of
Southernblacks, the spread of the gheuoes, the reactionsof various sectionsof
the white population,the failure of welfareprogrammes,the drug problem,the
collapseof the educationsystem,policecorruptionand ineffectivenessin dealing
with growingcrime, and, crucially,the major threat of violenceon the streets.
As the followingextract demonstrates,the threat of violenceon the streets was
perceivedas undoubtedlyNewYork'smostdamagingproblem.Here,moreclearly
28 POLICINGTHECRISIS

than anywhere,the equationor the crime problem with the problemof 'mugging'
reachesits apotheosis:

By virtually unanimous agreement, the most damaging of New York's

seeminglyinsolublecrises is crime. Not crime in general,not even the Mafia's
illegal operationsand hydra-headedleechingof fonner legitimatebusinesses.
Headlinesnotwithstanding,most observers feel that the Mafia's great spoils
are trivialin the contextof NewYork'stotal lawlessness,just as gang rub-outs
compriseda triflingpercentageof its 1346murders- roughlyten timesthe total
for the wholeof Britain- in the first nine monthsof last year.It is a newkind of
crime which beleaguersthe city - more accurately,an ancient,crudely simple
kind: an atavismperceivedas a return to the dark ages.
'What disturbs New Yorkers', said Roger Starr, a widely read specialist,
'is not cheating on income tax or even embezzlingfrom firms. Millions are
steadily swindled, often with official participation- but that's middle-class
crime, which scares no--one.What haunts us is being muggedon your own
street or in your own elevator.The poor and desperatesimply push, slash or
kick the nearestvictimfor his purse - which is terrifying.No-oneis ever fully
free of that fear.'

It might be useful here to say how in general this slow translationof 'mugging'
from its Americansetting to British ground was shaped and structuredby what
we mightcall 'the specialrelationship'whichexistsbetweenthe media in Britain
and the UnitedStates.In generalthis coverageis sustainedby thecontinualsearch
for parallelsand prophecies:will what is happeningin the UnitedStates happen
here? In the wordsof one famousheadline,'Will HarlemCome to Handsworlh'?
This is often offset by a notion of time lag: yes, Britain generallyfollows the
United States but later, more slowly.There is also what we might call a 'reser-
vationon traditions'.Britainis, it is assumed,a morestableand traditionalsociety,
and this might provide some buttressor defence againstAmericanexperiences
being reproducedhere - providedwe take immediateand urgentsteps. We must
learn the lessons- if necessary,in anticipation.The notionthat the UnitedStates
providesthe 'laboratoryof democracy', a previewof 'the problemsof Western
democracy',can be clearly seen in Henry Fairlie's SundayExpressarticle of 22
September 1968: 'In Americathis year one can see the politics of the future: in
Britainas much as anywhereelse.' There is a fuller viewabout how Britainmight
then 'learn the lessons' in AngusMaude's long article on 'The EnemyWithin':
Everyobserverof the Americanscene had wonderedwhat wouldbecomeof a
generationof spoiled children with too much money to spend, encouragedto
behavelikeadultsin the insecureyearsof immatureadolescence.The spreadof
violence,vandalism,drugs,sexualpromiscuity- in short,the growingrejection
of civilized social standards - has provided the answer. Two things have
contributedto this trend. First, the commercialexploitationof the prosperous
teenage market, seeking to inculcate a totally material standard of values.
Secondly,the propagandaof 'liberal' intellectualswho havepreachedthe desir-
ability and inevitabilityof the emancipationof the young.These are the siren
 THESOCIALHISTORYOf A 'MORALPANIC' 29

voices we have been hearing,ever more brazen, in this country.As we try to

grapplewith our major importsfrom America- violence,drug-taking,student
unrest,the hippycult and pornography- our own permissiveleftistshavebeen
hailingthem as signs of progress. Wemight as well begin to leam the lessons
of AmericanQl¾[ouremphasis)for our own traditionalstandardsare under the
same kind of attack.Heretoo, parentsare becomingbemusedand uncertainof
their responsibilities,as authority and disciplineare derided and diminished.
The Americanradical intellecluals,who have done more than anyone to set
the Americanpeople at odds with itself, have preachedthe rejectionof patri-
otism,of pride in their countryand its history,of all the traditions,and heritage
of the past. The same gospel of anarchy is being promulgatedhere. We in
Britainhavecertain advantages.We have a longertraditionof civilizedliving,
a greaterheritageof beautyand history from the past. We must treasureit and
be preparedto defend it. At the same time we are going to haveto fightfor our
futureprosperity,to work harderand meet our challengeswith more spirit and
enterpriselhan are now necessaryin America.This may yet be our salvation,
for we have the ability to triumph if we have the will. If we fail, it will be
becausewe havebeendestroyedfrom within- by the same kind of peoplewho
have done their best to destroy the richest and most powerfulnation on earth.
(AngusMaude, 'The EnemyWithin', SundayExpress,2 May 1971.)
Here the picture of the 'special relationship' is marginally,but significantly,
redrawn.The United States is not solely a source of models and patterns ('the
same kind of people', etc.), but seems to play a more active role, 'exporting' a
varietyof socialills to us.This indeedmightstandon its ownas anotherdistinctive
elementof the relationship- one which comes more into play after 1968,which
stressesthat, becauseof the status of the United States as the 'richest and most
powerfulnationon earth', it does not simplyset the patternwhichBritain,like all
other 'modernisingsocieties', will follow,but may activelyimposeaspectsof that
patternon our society by force of imitationand example,if not by direct cultural
influence.
The underlyingimage of the United States, and its 'special relationship' to
the Britishcase, is central to our understandingof the way the campaignagainst
'mugging'developedin Britain,for it playeda majorpart in the three stagesof the
transferof the 'mugging' labelfrom the UnitedStatesto Britain.First, the idea of
a 'special relationship'legitimatedthe tra11sfer
of an Americanterm to the British
situation.Second,this transferallowedthe designationof Britisheventsas incipi-
e11tly'American'in character.Third, the vision of the United States as 'potential
future' could then be used to legitimatethe measuresbeing demandedand taken
to control 'mugging'.
In thepublicdebatefollowingtheextremelyheavysentencesin the 'Handsworth'
mugging case, the image of the United States was explicitly summonedonce
again in supportof a policyof deterrentsentencing.A BirminghamEveningMail
editorialof 20 March 1973on the sentencecommented:'Of course the innocent
must be protectedfrom assault in the streets.The more so at a time whenBritain
seems to be edging too close for comfort to the American pattern of urba11
violence'[ouremphasis].The Americanthreatappearedin a morefullydeveloped
30 POLICINGTHECRISIS

form, and made more explicitlyabout muggingand the safety of the streets, in
a stalement by BirminghamM.P., Mrs Jill Knight (quoted in the Birmingham
EveningMailon the same day):
In my view it is absolutelyessentialto stop this rising tide of muggingin our
cities. I have seen what happens in America where muggings are rife. It is
absolutelyhoJTifyingto knowthat in all the big Americancities,coast to coast,
thereare areas wherepeopledare not go after dark. I am extremelyanxiousthat
such a situationshouldnevercome to Britain.

The ultimateeffectivenessof the Americanimageryis the almost routineway in

which it came to providea basis for the justificationof extremereaction(social,
judiciaJ,political) to the crime problem.The language in this final example is
almost classic, in its down-beatway, of the rhetoric of the law-and-orderlobby:
the clich6sensationalismof the 'rising tide of mugging'and the modeste1U1gger-
ation of 'coast to coast' providingjust that commontouch that mobilisesa silent
majorityand provokesit into speech.It is not at all uncharacteristicthat this final
use of the label - to start a crusade- should be accompaniedby the mildesttrace
of anIi-Americanism.
The 'mugging' label played a key role in the developmentof the moral panic
about 'mugging' and the United States effectivelyprovidedboth the label itself
and its field of associationsand references,which lent meaningand substance
to the term. The mass media here was the key apparatuswhich formedthe link
and framed the passage of the term from one context to the other. This is no
simplecoupling.First,there is the wholeAmericanexperienceof 'mugging'; then
there is the way an already fully elaboratedand troublingtheme in the United
Statesis pickedup and representedin the Britishpress.This representationfamil-
iarisesthe Britishaudiencenot only with the term but also with what it has come
to mean, to signify, to stand for in the Americancontext. 'Mugging' comes to
Britainfirstas an Americanphenomenon,but fullythematisedandcontextualised.
It is embeddedin a numberof linked frames:the race conflict;the urban crisis;
rising crime; the breakdownof 'law and order'; the liberalconspiracy;the while
blacklash.It is no mere fact about crime in the United States which is reported.
It connotes a whole historical constructionabout the nature and dilemmas of
American society.The British media pick up American 'mugging' within this
clusterof connotativereferences.The term is indexical:simplyby usingthe label,
a whole social history of the contemporaryUnited States can be immediately
and graphicallymapped into place. Then the label is appropriatedand applied
to the British situation. Significantly,it is applied in Britain, first, precisely in
its connotativedimensions.It is used in a loose and unspecifiedway, to indicate
rising street crime, a general breakdownof 'law and order' in certain pans of
London.Only then,finally,is it appliedto a particularformof crime.Butthis later
more preciseusagealso carrieswith it the alreadypowerfuland threateningsocial
themes.And gradually throughoutthe peak of the wave of British 'muggings'
these themes,already latent in the Americanuse of the label, re-emergeas part
and parcel of the meaningof 'mugging' in Britaintoo. The 'mugging' label thus
has a career: American 'mugging'/the image of American 'mugging' in the
 THESOCIALHISTORYOr-A 'MORALPANIC' 31
British media/British'mugging'. This is a process,not or suddentransplantation
but or progressivenaturalisatio11. And this process is framed by a more general
relationship- a 'special relationship', we have called it - between the United
States and Britain,commonto the media in many areas other than that or crime,
whichsupportsthe passageor the label.
This export-importtrade in social labels has consequencesfor how 'mugging'
was understoodin Britain,and for how the media treated it when it arrived,and
for how and why the reactionto it was so rapid, intenseand far-reaching.It may
have helped to establish an anticipationin the minds of the British public and
in official circles that 'mugging' was on its way here; and that, if and when it
arrived,it would relate to other issues- such as race, poverty,urban deprivation,
lawlessness,violenceand the crime wave- just as it had in the United States. It
maythus havehelpedto sensitisethe Britishpublicto its troublingsocialfeatures,
as well as to create an expectancythat it would becomean everydayoccurrence
on Britishstreets, and an unstoppableone at that - just as it was said to be in the
United States. It may also have had an effect on the speed and directionof the
officialreaction,both in the 'closed' seasonbeforeAugust 1972,whenprincipally
the policeand the specialTransportAnti-Muggingsquadswereat the forefrontof
containment;and subsequently,when open warfareagainst 'mugging' was in full
spate, in the courts,the media,amongthe police,politiciansand moralguardians.
Further,it may have helped to set 'mugging' going in the public mind at a very
high pitch. Giventhe Americanscene-setting,British 'mugging' had no career as
a descriptiveterm referringto a versionor streetrobberywith which,in anyevent,
mostBritishcitieshavelong beenfamiliar.The labelhadno unsensationa/origins
in Britain.It was a complex,social theme from its inception.It arrivedin Britain
alreadyestablishedin its most se11satio11al and sensationali.redform.It is hardly
surprising,given this pre-history,that it triggeredoff at once its own sensational
spiral. What is more, the Americanrepresentationin the British press may have
helpedto shape the natureof the unofficialreactionto 'mugging'; for if American
'mugging' arrivedentrammelledin the wholeAmericanpanic about race, crime,
riot and lawlessness,it was also fullyentrammelledin the anti-crime,anti-black,
anti-riot,a11ti-liberal,
'law-and-order'backlash.Thus,via theAmericantransplant,
Britainadopted,not only 'mugging', but the rear and panic about 'mugging' and
the backlashreactioninto which those rears and anxietiesissued. If 'mugging',
by mid-1972,in Britain meant slums and cities and innocentfolk and daylight
robbery,it also meant liberal politiciansversus decent white folks, the Nixon-
Agnew coalition, the 1968 Crime Control Act, the politics or 'law and order'
and 'silent majorities'. If the career or the label made a certain kind or social
knowledgewidely available in Britain, it also made a certain kind of response
thoroughlypredictable.No wonder police patrols jumped in anticipation,and
judges deliveredthemselvesor homiliesas if they already knew what 'mugging'
meant,and had only been waitingfor its appearance;no wondersilent majorities
spokeup demandingswift action,tough sentencesand better protection.The soil
of judicial and socialreactionwas alreadywell tilled in preparationfor its timely
and long-preparedadvent.
 2
The Origins of Social Control

We started by lookingat the emergenceof a 'new strain of crime', dramatically

pinpointedby the use of a new label: 'mugging'. We showed that neither the
'crime' nor its label were. in the strict sense, new.Yetthe agenciesof controland
the mediaapproachedthe phenomenonwith absoluteconvictionof its 'novelty'.
This in itself required explanation.Of course, 'novelty' is a conventionalnews
value;but it is not necessaryfor the press to inventa wholenewcategoryin order
to catch public auentionwith 'somethingnew and different'. Moreover,the label
and the convictionof noveltyseemed to prevail,also, amongst the professional
and expert agencieswho ought to know about such things. Strictlyspeaking,the
factsabout the crimeswhichboth policeand the media weredescribingas 'novel'
were not new;what was newwas the way the labelhelpedto break up and recate•
gorise the general field of crime - the ideologicalframe which it laid across the
field of social vision.What the agenciesand the press were respondingto was
not a simpleset of factsbut a newdefinitionof the situation- a newconstruction
of the social realityof crime. 'Mugging' provokedan organisedresponse,in part
becauseit was linkedwith a widespreadbelief about the alanningrate of crime in
general,and with a commonperceptionthat this rising crime was also becoming
more violent.These social aspectshad enteredinto its meaning.We havealready
travelledsome distance from the world of hard facts - 'social facts as things'.
We have entered the realm of 1herelation of facts to the ideologicalconstrue•
lions of 'reality'. Next we examined the statistical basis to this reconstruction
of events.This basis does not stand up well under scrutiny.When we first came
to this conclusion,it constitutedsomethingof a controversial,even tendentious
finding;but graduallythe suspect nature of the 'mugging' statisticshas come to
be quite widelyestablished.We concludedfrom thisexaminationthat the reaction
to 'mugging' was out of all proportionto any level of actual threat which could
be reconstructedthrough the unreliablestatistics.And since it appearedto be a
response,at least in part, not to the actual threat, it must have been a reaction
by the control agencies and the media to the perceived 01· symbolic threat lo
society- what the 'mugging' label represented.But this made the social reaction
to muggingnow as problematic- if not more so - than 'mugging' itself. When
such discrepanciesappearbetweenthreat and reaction,betweenwhat is perceived
and what that is a perceptionof, we havegood evidenceto suggestwe are in the
presenceof an ideologicaldisplacement.Wecall this displacementa moralpanic.
This is the criticaltransitionpoint in the wholeargument.
Since the public has lillle direct experienceof crime, and very few people
comparativelywere 'mugged', the media must bear some responsibility for
 THEORIGINSOf SOCIALCONTROL 33
relayingthe dominantdefinitionof muggingto the publicat large(see Chapter 1).
Butthis keyrole of the mediacannotbe treatedin isolation.It can only be analysed
togetherwith thoseother collectiveagenciesin the 'mugging'drama- the central
apparatusof social control in the state: the police and the courts. II is to these
apparatusesof social control that we tum first, and to the context out of which
the strategiesof each flowed.In Chapter 3 we shall look at how these agencies
articulatedwith the mediain order to understandhow the rationalesfor action or
dominantideologiesof the powerfulcompletetheir passagefrom the closedinsti-
tutionalworldof the controlcultureto the forum of societyas a whole.
The thirteenmonthperiodfromAugust 1972to the end of the followingAugust
yielded sixty differentevents reportedas 'muggings' (if all the reports referring
to one mugging- includingsubsequent'follow-up'reports- count as one). If we
look specificallyat how 'muggings' were reported,the most obviousdistinction
seems to be between stories which are reports of 'mugging events' and stories
whichare reportsof court cases about muggingevents(for the exact basis of the
sample,see Chapter3).
In the 'peak' month- October 1972- the vast bulk of the reportsare of court
cases. DuringJanuaryand Februaryeventspredominate,but in Marchand April,
whenthe coverageis dominatedby the Handsworthcase, courtcases predominate
once again. Over all, news reports of 'mugging' events take second place to the
reports of trials and sentencingof 'mugging' in court. This becomesmassively
the case if weincludethe relativespaceand positionof stories.'Mugging'events,
when reported in the followingday's press, are much briefer, less prominently
positioned,withshorterand smallerheadlines.Court reports,especiallyon the day
of sentencing,and mostof all if theyincludequotesfromthejudge's summingup,
get fuller,longer,more dramatictreatment,and are more prominentlypositioned.

TADLE2.I
Press reportsof mugging eve11tsand court cases (August 1972 to August 1973)

Month/Year Reportsof court cases Reportsof events

August 1972 I I
September 1972 4 0
October 1972 IS 8
November 1972 I I
December 1972 2 2
January 1973 I 4
February 1973 I 3
March 1973 4 0
April 1973 4 I
May 1973 I 0
June 1973 2 3
Iuly 1973 0 0
August 1973 0 I
Total 36 24
34 POI.ICINOTHECRISIS

'Sentencing', together with judges' homilies and comments, are really what
commandedpress attentionduring this period.The reportsof court cases are not
simply the 'natural' news follow-upsof eventspreviouslyreported,as one might
suppose.In the majorityof cases, the court report is the.first referencethere is in
the pressto theevent.The casesbecomeprominentbecauseof whatthejudges say
and do, ratherthanbecauseof whattheoffenderhas doneor said.Strictlyspeaking
these reportsare not coverageof 'muggings' but, rather of the nature.extent and
severityof the officialreaclionto the so-calledmugging'crime-wave'.
Most crimes that are reportedin the press at the time they occur are not subse-
quentlyfollowedthroughat all, partlybecausethe criminalsare notalwayscaught,
but partly becausecoverageof the trial is not 'news-worthy'.These crimes and
their passagethroughthe courts are routi11e, mundane;they contravenethe legal
order,but in a 'normal' way; theydo not threatenthe normativecontoursor break
the establishedexpectationsabout crime, in genera], held either by the police
and the courts, the press or the public. It is differentwhen the crime is felt to be
particularlyheinous,like child rape; or particularlydramatic,like the GreatTrain
Robbery;or whenthe Krays,the Richardsonsand the Messinasof this world- the
professionals- appear in Court. Figureslike these, thoughno doubt also part of
the worldof 'normal' crime,appear,in the courtsand in the media,as markedout
from routinecrime by a so-calledpathologicalcriminalmentality,or by the very
extremityof the meansthey adopt.They are presentedas outsidewhat is 'normal'
in our society- even 'normal' to crime.
In the press reports of these outstandingcrimes and criminals,their bizarre,
outrageousor threateningaspects will be centrallyfocused.If provenguilty,the
criminalswill be dealt with as harshlyas the law allows.More significantly,few
judges will pass sentencein such cases withouta lengthyhomilyor admonition,
which picks out what is special about the accused or crime, comments on it,
usuallyin terms of what societywill or will not tolerate,and, in closing,provides
some justificationfor the sentence passed. Such criminals and their crimes get
a treatment- in courts and the media - which consciouslymarks them out as
diITerentfrom the rest of society. It is the marking of this distinclionbetween
the 'normal' and 'abnormal', as instanced in crime, or, to put it another way,
the degree to which the social order represents itself as powerfullychallenged,
threatenedor underminedin some fundamentalway by crime, which provides
both the occasion for, and the nub of, the judge's remarks.1 And it is this ritual
enactment,as muchas the actualsentencepassed- in short, notjust the crime but
thejudicial responseto the crime- whichleads the mediato treat such courtcases
as 'news-worthy'.It is this element,aboveall, whichfocusesthe mediatreatment.
'Mugging' is no eJtceptionto this rule.2
This ceremonialritualact of thejudge is particularlyin evidencenot only when
the guilty are notoriousand the crime grave but also when there is evidenceof
a 'wave' of certain kinds of crime - whetherbank-snatchesor shop liftings.The
judge's admonitionsin such cases are not restrictedto the particularcrime or
criminalsat hand;the widersocialsignificanceof the parlicularcrime 'epidemic',
society'srevulsionfromit and thusthesocialjustificationfor exemplarysentences,
are also directlyinvoked.These denunciationsand ritualdegradingsof the courts
are the visible responseto - and thus part of - the perceived'wave' of criminal
 THEORIGINSOF SOCIALCONTROL 35
eventsbecausetheyforman elementin the 'moralpanic'. For the newspapers,this
official responseis as news-worthy,at lhe height of a moral panic, as the 'real'
events which are said Loconstitutethe crime wave. Thus the shifts in the press
coverageof 'mugging' from 'events' to 'court cases', and laterthe shift backto the
'eventsonly', were not random:the first marks the 'peak'; the secondthe decline
in the 'moral panic' itself.
Thesejudicial admonitionswere intendedthen, as much for the public(via the
media)as for those accused.They are one means by which the courts contribute
to the ideologicalconstructionof 'crime'. Signiticantly,judges' closingspeeches
werereportedin twenty-sixof the thirty-six'court cases' reported.Thus the media
concentrationon 'courtcases' allowedthejudges to defineand structurethe public
definitionof 'mugging', andof the 'waveof muggings'in particular.Thesejudges'
speechesshowa remarkablesimilarity:the same tone, languageand imagesrecur
throughout.The effectof thisuniformandweightyjudicialdefinitionin structuring
the publicperceptionof the 'moral panic' was very powerfulindeed.The sense of
'moral outrage' best capturesits essence.The commonthemewhich underpinned
the great majority of these observationsby judges was the need to justify the
increasesin the sentencesbeing passed.The differenttacit explanationsoffered
all appeared,therefore,as variationson the same basic theme:the responseby the
judiciary,within the court room, to public feeling, interestand pressureoutside.
To get the full flavourof what we may call the commonjudicial definitionof the
muggingcrime wavein the high peakof the 'panic' (Oct-Nov 1972),we selectfor
quotationinfull twojudges' commentsas reportedin the press:
This offence is serious because it involvesone person,who was alone, being
set upon by three active young men, making him believethey were offering
violencewith a knife in order to rob him.This is the sort of offencewhichis so
seriousthat the courts are takingthe view that the overwhelmingneed is to put
a stop to it. I am sorry to say that althoughthe course I feel bound to take may
not be the best for you youngmen individually,it is one I feeldrivento take in
the public interest.(Judge Hines,Daily Telegraph,6 October 1972.)
Oneof the worstcases I havehad to deal with fora very longtime.... Everybody
in this country thinks that offencesof this kind - muggingoffences- are on
the increaseand the public havegot to be protected.This is a frightfulcase ... I
don't see anythingexceptionalin the mitigatingcircumstancesof this case. It is
frightful.Had you been older the sentencewould have been doubled... [Later,
he said] I think I was lenient with him. It is becauseof the defendant'syouth
that you make the sentenceless. If he had been 20 or 21 I would havedoubled
the prison term. Violenceis on the increase and the only way to stop it is to
imposeharsher sentences.It deters other people. I have talked to otherjudges
about muggingand they are all very concernedabout it. (JudgeGen-ard,Daily
Mail,29 March 1973.)
This 'consensusof judges' - saying much the same thing in much the same way,
taking leads off each other and mutuallyreinforcingeach other - was rendered
morepersuasiveby the lackof counter-definitions.Counter-definitionscouldonly
havecome from the boys themselves,their defencecounsels,or peoplespeaking
36 POLICINGTHECRISIS

on their behalf.These were all conspicuousby their absence(the Daily Mail of

27 September 1972and the Daily Express of 6 April 1973ca1Tiedthe only two
interviews'with muggers'that we found in the nationaldailiesduring the whole
period),except in the Handsworthcase, where the extraordinaryseverityof the
sentence demandeda counter-presence.If this exception is ignored (we shall
be dealing with this case in full later), only five defence counsels were quoted
and parents only twice- the defendantsnever were (except once - the cry from
the dock, as the 'Oval 4' were being sentenced:'These atrocitieswill be repaid
whenwe comeout').3 Even these quoteshardlyaddedup to a substantialcounter-
definition,since the parts of the defence counsels' speechesquoted were unilat-
erally apologetic,bewilderedand totallyat a loss to makeout a positivecase for
their clients.

THE FULLMAJESTYOF THE LA.W

As our accountof the press coverageof 'mugging' amply demonstrates,to pick
up the trail in the press is, in large measure,the same thing as tuning in to what
the judges said and thought, publicly, about 'mugging'. As we have shown,
both in its reportsof particular'muggings' and in its treatmentof the 'mugging'
phenomenonas a whole, the press tended to orientateitself to court proceedings
and the judicial process,and to treat, as a privilegedpoint of departure,what the
judges said in court about the wider meaningsof the crimes they were judging
and the sentencesthey were passing,To understandfully the context of judicial
action(and its relationto the 'muggingpanic'), it is necessarynowto pass beyond
the ideologicalinterdependencebetween the media and the judiciary which we
examinemorefullyin the nextchapter,in orderto lookat thoseprocessespeculiar
to the internalorganisationof thejudicial 'world': to lookat thejudicial apparatus
itself, to go behind its routine practicesand attempt to reconstructthe 'judicial
mood' in the periodleadingup to 'mugging'. This task of reconstructionis not an
easy one. The law stands, fonnally,outsideof the politicalprocessesof the state,
and abovethe ordinarycitizen.Its ritualsand conventionshelp to shieldits opera-
tions from the full blaze of publicityand from the force of public criticism.The
'judicial fiction' is that all judges impartiallyembodyand represent'the Law' as
an abstract and impartialforce: individualdifferencesof attitude and viewpoint
betweendifferentjudges, and the informalprocessesby which commonjudicial
perspectivescome to be fonned, and by which the judiciary orientatesitself, in
a general way, within the field of force providedby public opinionand official,
political or administrativeopinion, are normally shielded from public scrutiny,
and haverarelybeenstudiedor writtenabout in any systematicway.Thejudiciary
remainsa closedinstitutionalspherewithinthe state,relativelyanonymous,repre-
sentedin its institutionalratherthan its individualperson,and protected,in the last
resort, by the threat of contempt.We have thereforehad to rely on reconstructing
the judicial context from the rather scrappy infonnation and public statements
which are made availablefrom time to time in the press and in quoted remarks
about policy issuesand public opinionpassedby judges in the courts.
The factorwhichseemsof greatestimportancein shapingthe 'judicialauitude'
in this period is anxiety about growing 'social permissiveness'.This affectedthe
 THEORIGINSor SOCIALCONl'ROL 37

judiciaryin threeways.First,as societybecamegenerallymorelaxandpennissive,

so the boundariesbetweensanctionedand illegitimateactivity becameprogres-
sivelyblurred.There was undoubtedlya feelingamongstsome socialgroups that
the erosionof moralconstraints,even if not directlychallengingthe law,wouldin
the end precipitatea weakeningin the authorityof the law itself.This was specifi-
cally the case as Parliament,in the periodof Roy Jenkins's Home Secretaryship,
enacteda numberof 'permissive'pieces of legislationin the social field;here the
tide of social permissivenesscould be seen as taking a distinctlyofficial fonn.
Second,the apprehensionabout 'permissiveness'was one of the factors leading
to a growingpreoccupationwith the rise of crime,especially'crimes of violence'
committedby young offenders.The growth of crime was depicted as the inevi-
tableoutcomeof this weakeningof moralauthority;youngpeoplewerethe group
mostat risk in this process;and violencewas the indexby whichthis vulnerability
could most tangiblybe measured.But, third, this coincidedwith a generalbelief
that, in the face of spreading 'permissiveness'and 'rising crime', the courts had
become not tougher but softer.In response,from the mid-l 960s onwards,there
is clear evidenceof a stiffeningof judicial attitudestowardscrime, violenceand
sentencingpolicies.
We might beginto chart this swing in October 1969,a particularlyrich month
for predictiveannouncementsfrom thejudiciary.On 9 October,for example,the
Gual'dianreported Mr Justice Lawton as saying: 'If violence results in bodily
harm, or worse, to other people, then the police should consider very carefully
whetherthe time has come for all such cases to be sent to trial.' Later,in response
to hearinghow a 21-year-oldman had beenput on probationand fined by magis-
trates for offencesof violence,he added:

Withall this violencethat youngpeopleare indulgingin today,I am wondering

whether leniencywith the young is best for the public. In my view,this kind
of violenceto other peoplein our streetsis not going to be cured by probation,
fines or day attendancecentres and the like. Word has got to go round that
anyonewho commitsthis kind of oITencehas got to lose his liberty.
Of particularinteresthere is the expressedneed to 'get word round'.
On the same day, Mr Justice Roskill, a leading High Court judge, addressed
the Annual Meetingof the Magistrates'Associationin London.He urged magis-
trates not to shrink from imposingstern sentenceson peopleconvictedof crimes
of violence,particularlythe young. He justified this view by referringto 'public
opinion' and the need for 'the courts not to lose public respectand confidence•.~
At the end of the month Mr Justice Lawton, sentencinga 22-year-oldman to
eighteenmonths for maliciouswounding,urged magistrates,once again,to send
peopleconvictedof violenceto prison,rather than lining them.'
If we now moveforwardto June 1971,we can see somethingof the persistence
of these themes: but, also, something of the reinforcementand amplification
provided by the police/judiciary/medianetwork. Speaking at York assizes, Mr
Justice Willis said that the big increase in violent crime could lead to judges
considering returning to 'former traditionaltreatment', These comments were
repor1edin The 1imes and lhe Guardian on 10 June 1971 - one day after the
38 POLICINOTH!.CRISIS

MetropolitanPolice Commissionerand the Chief Constable of Yorkshireand

North-EastYorkshirehad had similar comments noted in the press. Lest it be
thoughtthat this convergencewas coincidenlal,the judge himselfused the actual
words of the YorkshireChief Constable('former traditionaltreatment') and one
paper madethe link quiteexplicit.The Timesheadlineran: 'Judge supportspolice
chiefson punishment.'
The notion of a qualitativecontrast between the present and the past was
also a featureof manyof the judge's remarksat this lime (as it was later,during
the 'mugging' wave). For example, Lord Justice Lawton,rejecting the applica-
tions of two men for leave to appeal (against two-year sentences for 'causing
an affray') as 'impertinent', said that until fifteen years ago such attacks (with
knives and guns for 'revenge') were virtuallyunknown,but that now they were
very common.6 The next ex.ampleis from May 1972.At the end of a general
attack on 'permissivelegislation' and its links with the rising crime rate, easy
divorces,drug-takingand abortion for foreign girls, and on the replacementof
past 'tolerance and kindness' with the present 'unkindness, intolerance,greed
and no faith in anyone or anything', the High Court judge, Sir R. Hinchcliffe,
speakingat a JusticeClerks' Societymeetingin York,remarkedon the growthof
two kindsof robbery:the 'professionalcriminalcarryingout big scale robberies',
and young 'amateurs' committingsmall-scalerobberywith violence.He warned
the courts against taking 'a soft line' againstthe latter and urged magistratesnot
to fear 'unfounded, ill-informed'criticismfrom the media. He ended by asking
for greater jurisdiction and sentencing powers for magistrates.7 His remarks
seemedto indicatethe need for a shift of focus towardsthe 'amateurs', premised
on the notion that today's 'amateurs' are tomorrow's 'professionals'.Certainly,
this latter notionhad becomeex.plicitby 1973in the Annual Report for 1972by
the Commissionerof the MetropolitanPolice.Althoughwe cannot quantifythis
changingjudicial mood,it seems correctto speak of a growingmood of 'anx.iety'
and 'concern' amongstat least conservativejudges.
A numberof pieces of 'permissivelegislation'wereenacted in the late 1960s.
Most directlyrelevantto the shift in thejudicial mood was the 'pennissive legis-
lation' affectingthe exerciseof thejudicial functionitself,especiallyin relationto
potentialyoung and violentoffenders,Amongstthe latter we would numberthe
legislationaffectingthe ParoleBoard(1968),the Childrena11dYoungPerson'sAct
of 1969,and the CriminalJusticeAct of 1972.This body of legislationis linked
by its 'softness': the parolesystembecauseit aimsto releasesomeprisonersearly;
the Childrenand YoungPerso11's Act becauseit aims to keepjuveniledelinquents
out of court; and the CriminalJustice Act because it aims to implementmore
imaginative,non-custodialalternativesto prison for some offenders.Although
the impact of this legislation,in practice,has been sJight,8 and the actual drift in
sentencingpolicy has been towards longer sentences,especiallyfor the violent
criminal,spokesmenfor the 'controlculture' haverepeatedlycited it as 'evidence'
(of pennissiveness),the 'outcome' (of liberal 'do-gooding'), a 'justification'(for
'getting tough'), and an 'explanation'(of the 'crime wave') - in short, to support
an alreadystrong and growingimpression.
The intention behind the Children and Young Person's Act was to treat
'very manyjuvenile delinquents(in common with children in trouble for other
 39

reasons)as in needof care and treatmentratherthan some formof punishmentor

disciplining'.9 When the ConservativeGovernmentreturnedto power in 1970,it
announcedthat 'it would not beimplementingthose parts of the Act with which
°
it disagreed'.1 Consequently,the changes, in so far as they affectedthe powers
of the magistrates,were minimal: 15- and 16-year-oldscould still be sent to
the Crown Couns for sentencingto Borstal and detentioncentres and only the
power to make an order sending childrendirectly to an approvedschool (now a
'CommunityHome') had been lost. But magistratesregardedthis loss of their
poweras crucialsince theycouldnowonly placechildreninto the care of the local
authority.The decisionas to whetherto send a child to a CommunityHome was
now with the Social ServicesDepartment- a 'soft' institutionreluctantto make
such committals,in many magistrates'eyes.
However,there were clauses available, within the Act, for overcomingthe
courts' 'impotence'. For example,section 23(2) of the Act gave magistratesthe
'power to commit a child under seventeento prison or to a remandcentre ... for
those cases where a child is "of so unruly a characterthat he cannot safely be
committedto the care of a localauthority".'11 So if the localauthoritysaid it could
not providesecureaccommodationor the magistrate,in his wisdom,decidedthat
theaccommodationwas notsecureenough,or thechild too unrulyor too persistent
an offender,commilalto prison or remandcentre could still ensue.There is good
evidencethat this 'option' was increasinglyadoptedby magistrates.12
The relevancefor 'mugging' of this judicial way of interpretingthe Children
and YoungPerson'sAct should now be clear.We do not know how many young
personsunder 17,chargedwith 'theft from the person' or 'robbery', were recom-
mendedfor Borstalin order to 'rescue' them from 'soft' social workersand give
them a taste of prison. We do know that many of this age, tried in the Crown
Courts for such offencesafter Autumn 1972,had had a lengthycustodia1remand
and were sentenced to Borstal. If Borstal was appropriatefor the 16-year-old
'mugger', somethingstifferwas requiredfor the 17-21-year-olds;this could only
be imprisonment;but, having settled for imprisonment,the judiciary had little
alternativebut to sentence to three years or more. Short, six-month sentences
wouldnormallyhavebeensuspended,despitethe removal,in the Crimi11al Justice
Act of 1972,of mandatorysuspension.Intermediatesentences(eighteenmonths
to two years)could not be imposed.(Blom-Cooperremindsus that the mandatory
three years, embodiedin the CriminalJusticeAct of 1961,was in force, despite
pressure for it to be revoked, while the whole field of the treatment of young
offenderswas still under review.LJ) So Borstal sentencesfor child 'muggers' and
three-yearprison sentencesfor older ones not only flowedfrom the mood of the
judiciaryin reactionagainst'soft legislation'but wereinextricablylinkedwith the
tough way legislationwas being implementedin the courts - 'clearly againstthe
philosophyand spirit of the Act', as magistratesadmitted.
Another aspect of the judicial reaction against 'softness' was the desire to
distinguish between the serious/hardened/unregeneratecriminals and the
unfortunate/mistaken/foolish/corrupted 'misfits': between 'the depraved and
the deprived'. If we look at the Parole Board's terms of reference- weighing
'the interests of the prisoner' against 'those of the community'- we find this
distinction at the heart of its policy.14 Magistrates implementingthe Children
40 POLICINGTHECRISIS

and YoungPerso11 's Act were. in practice, determined to differentiale the minor
offenders from the 'unruly' and the serious recidivists in a way which Fundamen-
tally undercut the thinking behind the Act. (It should not pass unnoticed that this
more traditional view of delinquency is increasingly dominating the discussion
of the subject in official circles, as Morris and Giller have aplly demonstrated.1j)
While the CriminalJusticeAct of 1972 provides non-custodial alternatives for the
'misfits', the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report, which preceded it, has
been widely regarded as an attempt to make it easier for the police and courts to
secure convictions against the minority of seasoned professionals, and to make
sentences, against these, tougher.16 The legislation thus embodied, in an extreme
form, the depraved/deprived distinction. This distinction between 'hard-core' and
'soft-headed' criminals is often used to underpin deterrent sentencing, directed
principally against the minority of depraved offenders. But it was also a feature
of the wider debate about social deviance in the period.11 It is possible of course
for the depraved/deprived paradigm to be retained, but the content of each side lo
alter. Once the judiciary has pinpointed 'violence' as an important threshold, any
show of force is likely to be redefined as 'serious', and its perpetrators assigned
to the 'depraved' category. The culmination of this slide may be found in the
sentencing in September 1972 of young pocket-pickers(a skill requiring mi11imal
body contact, hence by definition 'non-violent') to three years, to the accompa-
nying rhetoric of 'violence', 'thugs', 'animals' and so on.
The judiciary occupied an extremeJy prominent position during the 'mugging'
panic of 1972-3. But in a longer perspective the judiciary contributed in a positive
way al the begimiingof the panic, too, as well as at one of its early peaks. They
seemed to share public anxiety about 'permissiveness'; they took a stringent line
in implementing legislation which they interpreted as too 'soft'; they helped
to generate, by some or their statements on 'violent crime', the initial concern,
which, then, delivered the 'mugging' clamp-down; indeed, in the latter phase,
as we shall see in the next chapter, they invoked as a justification for deterrent
sentencing the public anxiety they had helped to focus, articulate and awaken in
the first place.

FACE-TO-FACE
CONTROL;THEPOLICEAS AMPLIFIERS
If the 'world' of the judiciary is a closed one by custom and convention, then the
'world' of the police is closed by deliberation and intent. In the era of Sir Robert
Mark, the police have become more accustomed to, and more skilled at handling,
the media. But the routine tasks of crime prevention and control are certainly not
regularly exposed to public scrutiny. In the 'mugging' period the police gained
deliberate publicity in the media for their statements or concern about 'crime
and violence'; this was part and parcel or the control strategy. More controver-
sially, there were a few strongly partisan police statements about the general need
for 'tougher action' which seem rather more like tactical indiscretions. Internal
policing mobilisation - the establishment and brief or the Special Squads, or of
the Anti-Mugging Squads - is, however, difficult to see, until 'after the event', or
unless there is a concerted effort to bring it into the open.
 THE ORICllNS01' SOCIALCONTROL 41

The role of the policein any campaignof the sort conductedagainst 'mugging'
is similar to that of the media, but they come in to play at an earlier stage in
the cycle. They, too, 'structure' and 'amplify'. They 'structure' the total picture
of crime in two related ways. For example, petty larceniesof under £5, though
recordedand centrallycollated, are no longer publishedin the officialstatistics.
Sincethese formthe great bulk of routinecrime,this informalpracticecontributes
to the sensationalisingof those more serious crimes that do get recorded.There
is also a necessaryselectivityin allocatingpoliceresourcesto certain highlighted
aspectsof crime at the expenseof others.
The one objectivemeasure of police efficiencyis the 'clear-up rate'. This,
plus the problems of manpowerand resources, makes it logical for the police
to concentrateon crimes with high detection potential,at the expense of, say,
petty larceniesfrom cars in the city centre, which are virtually unsolvable.But
this logical practice is also a structuringone; it amplifiesthe volumeof these
selectedcrimes,sincethe more resourcesare concentrated,the greaterthe number
recorded.The paradoxis that the selectivityof police reactionto selectedcrimes
almostcertainlyservesto increasetheir number(what is calleda 'deviancyampli-
ficationspiral').11 It will also tend to producethis increasein the formof a cluster,
or 'crime wave'. When the 'crime wave' is then invoked to justify a 'control
campaign', it has becomea 'self-fulfillingprophecy'. Of course, public concern
about parlicularcrimes can also be the cause of a focused police response.But
publicconcernis itself stronglyshapedby the criminalstatistics(whichthe police
produceand interpretfor the media)and the impressionthat there is 'wave after
wave' of new kinds of crime. Of course, the contributionof criminalsto 'crime
waves' is only too visible,whereasthe contributionthe policethemselvesmake to
the constructionof crime wavesis virtuallyinvisible.
Let us apply this model to 'mugging'. If there was a cluster of similarcases,
appearingsimultaneouslyincourt,and labelled'muggings'in September-October
1972,this could only be the resultof policeactivityand arrestsanythingup to six
or eight months earlier.The media and the courts appropriated'mugging' as ~

in January 1972.Let us look at

six teenagers,was the occasion
'decent citizens' being afraid to 'use the undergroundlate at night ... for fear of
mugging'- the first media-recordedjudicial invectiveagainst 'mugging'.19 The
eveningpaper report added that 'Mr TimothyDavis,prosecuting,said that after
a series of attackson the NorthernLine BritishTransportPolice set up a special
patrol. Shortlybefore 11 p.m. on February 18 Det. Sgt. Derek Ridgewellgot into
an emptycarriageat StockwellStation- and the gang followedhim'. The 'leader'
then threatenedhim with a knife, and demandedmoney.The gang closed in and
Ridgewellwas punched in the face, it was alleged.He then signalledto fellow-
officerswaitingin the nextcarriage.A fightensuedandthe teenagerswerearrested.
Five were found guilty of a varietyof charges,ranging from 'attemptingto rob'
to 'assault with intent to rob' and were variouslysentenced from six months'
detentionto threeyears' imprisonment.The reportdid not mentionthat this was a
WestIndian 'gang', or that the policethemselveswerethe only witnesses.
42 POLICINGTHECRISIS

The second was a case involving four West Indians aged between 20-25.
This became known as the case of the 'Oval 4'. Despite the fact that the trial
lastedtwenty-threedays at the Old Bailey,the nationalpapersonly pickedup the
proceedingson the final day: the day of judgement and sentence.The 'facts of
the case' were, as usual, recountedthrough the quoted statementsof the prose-
cution counsel.He said: 'On March 16ththis year,LondonTransportPolice were
keepingobservationat the Oval station when they saw the four accusedhanging
aroundand it was clear that they intendedto pick the pocketsof passengers.'The
Evening Standardadded: 'There were two intendedvictims, both elderly men.
One of them was jostled on the platfonn and a hand was put into his pocket but
nothing was taken. The other suffered a similar experienceon the escalator.'20
By a majority of ten to two the jury found all four guilty of 'attempted theft'
and 'assault on the police', but they were dischargedby the judge 'from giving
verdictson twocountsof conspiracyto rob and conspiracyto steal'. The youngest
was sentencedto Borstal,the other three to two years' imprisonmenteach. It was
one of the accusedwho said: 'These atrocitieswill be repaid when we come out.'
The paper also mentioned'loud protestsfrom weepingrelativesand friends'.
These angry remarksof the accusedbecomemuch more comprehensibleif we
set the case in the context of a numberof additionalfacts (which,however,only
the 'alternativepress' reported).TuneOut remindedus that:21

(I) these four men were membersof the Fasimbas,a South London black,
politicalorganisation;
(2) on the night in questionthe men claimedthat the plain-clotheddetectives
first pouncedon them, swore at them, producedno identificationand so
initiatedthe fight that led to the assaultcharges:
(3) the defendantsalleged that they were beaten up at the police station and
forcedto sign confessions;
(4) the policeofficerin chargeof the arrestingpatrolwas DetectiveSergeant
Ridgewell;
(5) the only prosecutionwitnesseswere.once again,the policeofficersthem
selves;
(6) no stolenpropertywas foundon the accused;
(7) no 'victims' were approachednor produced'in evidence'by the police;
(8) the judge himselfdirected the jury to consider carefullywhether 'these
statementsare really fictionmade up by DetectiveSergeantRidgewell';
(9) thejudge dischargedthejury fromgivingverdictson the chargesalleging
conspiracylo rob and to steal. Thus only the chargesof attemptedthefts
the policeclaim to haveseen on the night in questionand the assaultson
the police were upheld;
(10) the chargeswhichwere not sustainedrelatedto a seriesof theftsof hand-
bags and purses around markets and tube stations in Central London
whichthe four were allegedto haveconfessedto.
(They were subsequentlyreleasedon appeal havingservedeight monthsof their
sentences.)22
 THEORIGINSOF SOCIALCONTROL 43
Februaryand March 1972:these two cases are taking place monthsbefore the
'mugging' panic appears.Yet,already,the police had initiatedspecialpatrols on
the undergrounds.The organisationalresponseon the ground long predates any
officialjudicial or media expressionor public anxiety.The situationwas defined
by the police as one requiringswift, vigorous,more-than-usualmeasures.This
is where what came to be seen in Novemberas a 'sharp rise in muggings'really
begins.
In April or the followingyear,a judge stoppedthe trial or two blackRhodesian
students- men or characterand good repute,studyingsocial work at a college in
Oxford- with the remarkthat, 'The inconsistenciesin relationto the movements
of the two menon the platformare such that all six officersgavedifferentaccounts
or it ... I find it te1Tiblethat here in London,people using public transportshould
be pouncedon by police officerswithout a word to anyone that they are police
officers.'23 The chargesand allegationsin this case, resultingfrom an incidentat a
tube station,and the defenceoffered,were both strikinglysimilarto the 'Oval 4'
case. The policeaccusedthem or 'attemptingto steal' and 'assaultingthe police'.
The defendantsclaimed to have been set upon by five men, who produced no
identification;after the ensuing fight, the two men were arrested. No 'victims'
were produced.There were no other witnessesapart from the police.The group
involvedwere the TransportSpecial Squad, and the operation was also led by
DetectiveSergeantRidgewell.
Wastherea patternhere?The 'Oval 4' judge did not believethe accuseds'story:
thejudge in the Oxfordcasedid. Nevertheless,a patternis clear.This is the pattern
of a 'focused police response', The TransportPolice Special Squad came to be
knownas the 'Anti-Mugging'Squad,the prototypefor others,thoughthe precise
date when this label is attached is not knownfor certain. No matter.This police
patrolknewwhatkindof troubleit was lookingfor: whoand where.Thereis more
than a hint or anticipatoryenthusiasmin the accountsof their routineemerging
from all three cases. On the ground, face-to-faceon the undergroundplatforms
or in the empty tube carriages- the 'mugging' panic had commenced.Demands
were made for a Home Officeenquiry into the activitiesof the 'Anti-Mugging'
squad by the N.C.C.L.,Race Today. the 'Oval 4 DefenceCommittee'.Later the
Labour spokesmanon race, John Fraser, M.P., wrote to the Home Secretaryin
similar vein. There was no official reply, apart from the transfer or Detective
SergeantRidgewellto a newpost, withoutloss of rank.Accordingto the statistics
publishedby the MetropolitanPolice District's StatisticalUnit, '1972 has seen
the greatestever growthrate in this type of crime' .24 This suggeststhat it was the
'muggers' who escalatedtheir activitiesin 1972.But it is clear that, throughout
1972(and before the crime waveis made publicin court or the media),the police,
too, wereextremelyactivein the Londonarea against 'muggers'; the war between
the police and the muggershad already beenjoined.
Once we know that the police were already alerted to, mobilisedto deal with,
and active against the 'mugger', in the period before 'mugging' had become a
publicissue,we mustask, whether,conceivably,this very mobilisationcouldhave
in any wayhelped to produce the 'mugging' crimewavewhichlater appearsin the
courtsand the media,andhencethe publicconcernwhichthreatenedto overwhelm
44 POUCIN0°tHE CRISIS

and displace all other crime concerns for almost a year. Did the activily of the
policeamplify 'mugging'?
One possible amplifying factor is, precisely,the decision to set up special
squads in the first place. Special 'Anti-Mugging'Squads were almost certain to
producemore 'muggings': an unintendedbut inevitableconsequenceof specialist
mobilisation.Then there is the questionof preciselywhat it is whichthese special
squads were mobilisedagainst. In the 'Oval 4' and 'Rhodesianstudents' cases,
the Anti-MuggingSquadbroughtchargesof 'attemptedtheft', i.e.pick-pocketing.
Pick-pocketingis an example of 'petty larceny', not of 'robbery', i.e. involves
no force or threat of force. It is a quite differentsituation, however,when the
Anti-MuggingSquaddescendson a group, accusesthem of pickingpockets,and
thenimpliesthat they are membersof a 'mugginggang'. Herea 'petty larceny'has
been escalatedby being relabelleda 'mugging'. Further,there are signs in these
early casesof a tendencyon the part of theseAnti-MuggingSquadsto be so eager
to prosecutetheir task as to be prone to jump the gap betweenwhat Jock Young
has called 'theoretical and empirical guilt' - in the interests of 'administrative
efficiency':25 what is sometimescalled 'pre-emptivepolicing'.26 In a subsequent
article in the Sunday Telegraphon I October 1972 entitled 'War on Muggers',
it was suggestedthat the police 'have tried to arrest muggersbefore they go to
work, accusingthem of possessingoffensiveweapons,loitering,trespassingand
being undesirablepersons' (our emphasis).Colin McGlashanechoed the same
sentimentabout anticipatoryarrest, suppor1ingit with some tellingquotes from
an unidentified'Senior PoliceOfficer', who referredto the Brixton SpecialPatrol
Groupas 'a bloodygroupof mercenaries'whowere 'figureconsciousall thetime',
concernedwith the numbersof stops, arrests and crimes cleared up, and making
manyarrestsfor 'suspicion', 'loiteringwith intent', and so on.27 It is of coursealso
whatcountlessspokesmenfor the blackcommunityallegedsomemonths later in
their evidence to the Select Committeeon Police/ImmigrantRelations,though
their evidencewas not given much credence.28 It was also the main burdenof the
extremelystormymeetingin March 1973in South Londonon 'black peopleand
the forcesof law and order'.:t11Yet,when TimeOut tried to get furtherinformation
on the activitiesof the LondonTransportAnti-MuggingSquads,the spokesman
repli with this problem.Bui we don't disclose
them
An may serve to amplify 'mugging' is in
terms of its effect on those reactedagainst.Jock Youngcalls the processwhereby
the behaviourof a stigmatisedor deviant group comes progressivelyto fit the
stereotypeof it which the control agencies already hold as 'the translation of
fantasy into reality'.31 The actions of the police, for example,can elicit from a
group under suspicion the behaviourof which they are already suspected. Jn
the 'Oval 4' case, the police who approachedthe four men werein plain clothes
and producedno identification;the youths were later accused of assaultingthe
police. But the fact that a group of politically consciousblack youths resisted
an unexpectedarrest may tell us somethingabout the mutual stale of suspicion
betweenblacksand the police in SouthLondon;it does not prove that the youths
were 'loiteringwith intent' lo mug.This process- whereofficialreactionbecomes
a 'self-fulfillingprophecy'- may include interactionprocessesduring the actual
 45

course of an arrest. Becker argues that much social-control activity is not so much
for the enforcement of rules as for the gaining of respect ~2 Questions of 'respect'
become especially important during periods of police hypersensitisation.33 But,
as John Lambert has argued, 'Police relations seem moulded on expectations of
excitability and arrogance on the part of the immigrant and on immigrant expecta-
tions of police violence.'34 The 'Oval' scene was thus already pre--setto provoke an
incident through the mutual expectations by blacks and the police of one another.
Deviancy amplification can depend as much on this level of perceivedbehaviour
as on what people actually do.
Once the anti-mugging campaign officially opened, as we have seen, it
escalated - in terms of official police mobilisation - at an extraordinarily rapid
rate. There was intensified activity against 'mugging' on the ground.JS This
wave culminated in its being declared 'top priority' by the Chief Inspector of
Constabulary for England and Wales,36 There was then the request, higher up the
official and political chain, by the Home Secretary lo all Chief Constables for
details about 'mugging', followed by the further taking of 'special measures',
including the pulling into the field of more special Anti-Mugging Squads.17 The
Home Secretary issued another special directive to police chiefs in May 1973.38
Sir Robert Mark's new initiative39 was quickly to have some effect.40 By October,
the Daily Mirrorcould report that fraud had become Britain's new 'top priority':
'Britain's biggest criminal headache.'41 For the moment, the crime-prevention-
crime-news spiral had undergone another twist.

ORIGINSOP A POLICE'CAMPAIGN'
We have looked at the police reaction to 'mugging', and seen that, in fact, and
contrary to the 'common-sense' view of how 'mugging' arose, this must be seen
as occurring in two distinct phases. First, the period of preparation for the 'war
on mugging', a period of liUle or no publicity, but of intense police mobilisation
on the ground, targeted around particular urban trouble-spots (the underground
stations and trains in London) and particular groups defined in the view of the
police as 'potential muggers' - above all, groups of black youths. It is this period
of closed but intensifying police reaction, when there is an institutional definition
of 'mugging' already in operation, but as yet no 'public' definition which
produces,as its effect, the second phase: cases in court, editorials in the papers,
official Home Office enquiries about 'mugging', a publicly engaged campaign,
open warfare. The whole of the first phase has been largely obscured so far in the
'history of mugging', partly because it predatesthe public panic, partly because
it was a response confined to the closed institutional world of the police. The
pre-history of the police reaction to 'mugging', then, has to be reconstructed for
this earlier period. The origins of the panic response lie buried in this prior insti-
tutional mobilisation.
What concerns us here is not the individual abuses of police power by this or
that policeman on this or that occasion, but effects which stem from the organi-
sational structure and social role of the police force itself in its broad relation to
'mugging'. Cases of police corruption have grown in recent years, and so has
the publicity attaching to them. Under Sir Robert Mark's guidance, the new AIO
46 POUCINOTHECRISIS

'anli-corruption'squad,designedto weedout the 'rottenapples'in the policebarrel

has beenextremelyactive- again with appropriatepublicity.This is an important
question,but a differentone fromthat whichengagesus here.Individualmembers
of the Anti-MuggingSquads, long before 'mugging' assumedits public shape,
were intenselyactive in certain areas. But they were acting within an organi-
sationalframeworkwhich transcendedthe initiativeswhich individualmembers
of the squads took within that framework.The situation in South London and
elsewherehad alreadybeen definedfor these specialistofficersin such a way as
to lead them to expector anticipatean avalancheof 'muggings'.
Why were the police so sensitised,and how? Why was the situation already
so defined?If individualmembersof the Anti-MuggingSquads oversteppedthe
difficultand ambiguousline betweentheoreticaland empiricalguilt, it was - we
would argue - because they were working in a situation in which such distinc-
tions were already damaginglyblurred. It cannot escape our notice where this
institutionalpolice mobilisationfirst reveals itself - the South London area and
tube stations:or who is being pickedup in the anti-mugging'sweep' - aboveall,
groupsof black youth.So the specifictargetingagainst 'mugging' has the closest
of links with another,more inclusive,thoughequallypowelfullychargedcontext:
the seriouslydeterioratedrelationsbetweenthe policeand the blackcommunity,a
featureof 'communityrelations'throughoutthe 1970s.It mustseriouslybe asked
whetherthesensitisationof the policeto 'mugging'wasaltogetherunrelatedto that
other and troublingsaga of 'police powerand black people'. It is from this angle
that we tum to look al a quote from DetectiveSergeantRidgewell,whose name
figuredso prominentlyin severalof the anticipatory'mugging'affairs.Ridgewell
was the leader on the ground of the squad's tactics, and a former memberof the
Rhodesianpolice force. When asked at the trial of the two Rhodesianstudents
whetherhe would be particularlyon the look out for 'colouredyoung men', he
replied: 'On the Northern line I would agree with that.'42 This squares with a
greatdeal of the evidenceaboutpoliceattitudesfrom othersources.This evidence
suggests that many policemenin the London area were particularlyon the look
out for 'coloured young men', and when they found them treated them rather
differentlyfrom the way they wouldhave been treatedhad they been white.
DerekHumphr/l and JohnLambert..,. havebothsurveyed,in differentways,the
troubledstory of police-blackrelationsin this period. Humphry'sbook contains
detailedcase studiesof the injusticessufferedby blacksat the handsof the police.
Lambert'sbookis a moregeneralsurveyof police/immigrantrelations,and, being
more sociologicallyorientated,is more concernedwith uncoveringthe structural
conditionsunderlyingpolice activitiesin relationto immigrants.The chapter on
'The Police and Race Relations', apart from offering some initial evidence of
police brutality from the CampaignAgainst Racial Discrimination'sReport 011
Racial Discrimination(1967), is concerned, basically,to demonstratehow the
professionalrole of the policemanaffects his attitudetowards immigrants.This
perspectiveis based on a 'social' view of prejudice:'If this "social" prejudiceis
an attitudeof citizensat large,policemenas citizensmay be expectedto share that
attitude.The question raised is how such prejudiceaffects the professionalrole
of policemen.'.isThis view, which places the individualpoliceman,first, within
the generalsocial frameworkand, second,within his specificorganisationalrole
 THE ORIGINSOF SOCIALCONTROL 47

in order to accountfor prejudice,is the kind of structuralexplanationof police-

black relationsthat we intendlo adopt.
Relationsbetweenthe policeand the black communitydeterioratedso rapidly
in this period that, as we have seen, a Select ParliamentaryCommitteewas set
up to take evidenceon the matter.The evidenceoffered is more importantthan
the particular implicationswhich M.P.sdrew from this evidence at the lime.46
CliffordLynch,on behalf of the West IndianStandingConference,spokeof 'The
systematicbrutalizationof blackpeople' and of police 'blackmail,drug planting,
trumped up charges and physical assaults'.47 Several witnesses in the Nolting
Hill evidence alleged police harassment,particularlyof young West lndians.•8
The BirminghamevidenceincludedmaterialfromCouncillorMrs SheilaWright,
who spoke of three policemenshe knew who 'went out of their way to pick on
the colouredcommunity';and of having received'quite a few' complaintsabout
police treatment of immigrants;and from John Lambert, who said: 'A great
many - even the majority- of complaintsby black people about their police are
justitied.'49 Blackyouths in Islington'dread harassmentby the police', according
to a memo submitted by the Islington Committee for Community Relations
(C.R.C.).Similar memoswere submittedby Jeff Crawfordof the North London
WestIndianAssociationand the WandsworthC.R.C.50
In all, only twenty-fiveof the forty-eight Community Relations Councils
reportedgood local relations,and these were mainly in mediumor small towns
and in substantiallyAsian rather than West Indian areas.51 The Deedes Report
itself was obliged to concede that 'it was made clear by all witnesses,police,
CommunityRelations Councils and other bodies, but chiefly by West Indians
themselves,that relationsbetweenthe policeand youngerWestIndians(by which
we mean those between 16and 25) are fragile,sometimesexplosive.'52
The pictureof relationsin this period that emergesfrom the N.C.C.L.files is
similar.Their Annual Repo11for 197I singled out 'police-immigrant'relations
for special mention: 'it is clear from files that allegedharassmentof immigrants
far outweighs the proportionthey represent in this Country'.51 Its evidence to
the Select Committeespoke of 'the worseningsituation' betweenpolice and the
black community.It was, they said 'Very serious indeed ... in some areas it has
reached crisis proportions.There, the breakdownof communicationsand confi-
denceis almosttotal.'s,iWhenan enquiryinto eventsat Lewishampolicestation-
which figured prominentlyin the evidence- was requested,the police defined
the accusationsas 'stereotyped'.~~More alarmingly,the police spokesmanalso
publiclydenied knowledgeof any enquiriesthen being investigatedconcerning
complaintsagainst the police,despite the fact that the N.C.C.L.groups said that
they had referredat least fifteencases in the previousyear.56 A major surveyinto
race relationswas carried out in May 1971 by NationalOpinionPolls. The poll
reported:
It is somewhatdismayingto see the extentto whichcolouredpeopleare critical
of the police.The West Indians in Brent were particularlycritical in thinking
that the police generallypick on coloured people and did not deal with them
fairly in their locality.Our impressionis that this criticismis too widespreadto
be a figmentof the imagination.
48 POLICINGTHECRISIS

Eightypercent of the whilepeopleinlerviewedin this surveythink the police

are helpful.As manyas 70% of the Indiansand Pakistanisalso thinkso, but less
than half of the WestIndianssharethat view.In fact,as manyas one fifth of the
WestIndiansthink that the policeare positivelyunhelpful- a viewparticularly
strong amongstthe young workingclass West Indians.s1

Finally,the special Report commissionedby the CommunityRelationsCouncil

on Police/ImmigrantRelations in Ealing added further substantiationto this
picture.58
This general deterioration of police-black relations produced increased
hostilityand mutualsuspicionon both sides.On the police 'side' this meantinevi-
tablyheightenedsensitivityto, and expectationof, blackinvolvementin 'trouble',
and, by extension,'crime', especiallyin heavily 'immigrant' areas. These high-
immigrant,multiplydeprivedzones or the city are, or course, in statisticalract,
'criminal' arcas,59 i.e. areas or above-averagecrime rates, though at the time
black immigrantswere under-represented in the crime rates of these 'criminal'
areas.60 Mutual suspicionand hostilitybetween police and black people did not
rest on this kind of 'hard' evidence.As race relationshaveworsenedin the country
generally,as black militancyand politicisationhave grown, and as the number
of black youths unable to find employmenthas multiplied(accordingto recent
estimatesat June 1974,21 per cent of British black youths between 15 and 19
were unemployed), 61 so the police in the black communitieshave come, progres-

sively,to perceivethe black populationas a potential threat to 'law and order',

potentially hostile, potential troublemakers,potential 'disturbers of the peace',
and potentialcriminals.It is hardlysurprisingthat,at a certainpoint in time,black
youthswerealso perceivedas 'potentialmuggers'.In effect,this is whatDetective
SergeantRidgewellwas saying.
The stale of police-blackrelations, in the period leading up lo, and after, the
heightof the 'mugging'epidemic,providesone strand whichenablesus to under-
stand more fully the source or that preparednessin the police which predates
the onset of the 'anti-mugging'campaignitself.Anotherractoris internalpolice
reorganisationin the previousdecade,which,in our view,a1soplayeda part.
Changes within the police force during the 1960s rundamentallyaltered the
role of the policeman.There was the amalgamationor police forces into larger
divisions6 2 which eventuallyreduced the numberof police forces rrom the I 955
figureof 125to forty-three.More directlyrelevantto the 'mugging' context was
lhe growthof squads with specialisedrunctionsand the spread or technological
devicesto improvethe efficiencyof crime control (especiallythe growinguse of
motorisedtransportandpersonalradios).Thesechangescombinedto decreasethe
traditional'independence'of the policemanon the beat (incidentallyan important
source or the policeman's status); to accentuate the move away from 'peace-
keeper' to 'crime-fighter';and to weakenthe remaininglinks betweenpoliceand
community.The 'typical' policemanwas no longerthe friendly,helprul 'bobby',
keeping the peace and thereby preventingcrime, knowledgeableabout 'his'
communityand sharing some of its values, with a large degree of 'on-the-spot'
independencefrom his immediatesuperiors.Today,despite the introductionof
Unit Beat Policingin 1967and CommunityLiaisonSchemesin 1969,undertaken
 TH£ ORIGINSOF SOCIALCONTROL 49

partly to help restore these disappearingelements in the policeman'srole, the

'typical' policemanis a professional'cop', memberof a crime-fightingunit,whose
cultural contact with the people he polices is minimal.He is more 'car-bound',
less 'beat-bound', less likely to live on-the-spot,and, with the comingof the now
ubiquitous 'walkie-talkie'and car radio, his contact with superiors, and hence
dependenceon them,is constant.Althoughboth these pen-portraitsare over-sim-
plified,the directionof the changeis undeniable.'- 1

This trend towardsgreater professionalroutinisationof the individualpolice-

man's role in crime preventionand controlhas been furtheraffectedby increasing
specialisationwithin the force: the growingtendencyto set up specialsquads to
deal with particularareas of crime. The first of these to be establishedwere the
Regional Crime Squads, set up in 1964 to deal with specific 'serious' crimes.
Nationally coordinated, and with Criminal Intelligence Bureaux as 'back-up'
devices, the MetropolitanRegional Crime Squad quickly moved on from a
concern with 'breaking' offences (1964) to a concern with 'organised' serious
crime (1965), and then from a concern with crime to a concern with 'keeping
tabs' on known professionalcriminals.64 Their basic importance,however,lies
in their freedomto concentratespecificallyon one aspect of crime togetherwith
their potentialfor swift mobilisationagainstany type of crime or criminals:their
abilityto movequicklywhereverand wheneverneeded.
A second,relateddevelopment,which also provideda 'model' for later devel-
opments,was the establishmentof the SpecialPatrolGroup (S.P.G.)by Scotland
Yard in London in I965. The S.P.G. was set up (according to a senior police
officer),as an 'elite force' but was later brought 'back under control' when 'the
people at the top got cold feet'.65 Today,despite ScotlandYard's insistencethat
the SpecialPatrolGroup is not a 'force withina force', this apparentlyis the way
it has developed.The Special Patrol Groups 'have their own chain of command
totallyseparatefrom the senior officersin whateverarea they are workingin, and
their own radio communicationsnetwork'.Todaythereare six units and a total of
200 'hand-pickedpolicemen'.The origin of the group apparentlywas the 1961
HomeOfficeWorkingParty,set up 'to investigatethe need for a "third separate
policingforce" in Britain'.

The logic behind the proposalsbefore the workingparty was that a gap exists
between the role and practice of the Army and our security forces and the
civilianpolice- which anywaywas understrength.The gap, in practicalterms,
was who should deal with increasingmilitant industrialdisputes; increasing
politicalprotest;possibleracialriots; threatsfromabroad-'terrorism' - and the
possibilityof increasingsocialstrife as the economicand socialdividebetween
the classes in Britainwidened.116

The WorkingPartytook ten yearsto consider,and reject,the ideaof a paramilitary

'third force'. Meanwhile,however,senior officers at ScotlandYard had set up
their own 'third force'. Essentiallythe Special PatrolGroup is a 'backup' squad.
The 'central Londoncommitment'(two units of the S.P.G.)providesupport, for
example, to 'officers on protection duties and are also available for any other
seriousincident.... In the transit vans in each of the two units on "centralLondon
50 POUCINOTH6CRISIS

commitment"duty there will always be two anned officers.'The Report also

referredto their other duties. 'When not on duty as part of the "central London
commitment",or involvedin policing serious incidents,units of the S.P.G. are
used to swampan area that has beenexperiencingan increasein crime of one sort
or another.' In this 'swamping' role the Special Patrol Group becomesdirectly
relevantto our concern,since severaltimes unitsof the S.P.G.'swamped'Brixton
in order to 'stamp out' mugging:and there were incidents of a similar type in
Handsworth,Birminghamand elsewhere.In this waytheybecamea sort of 'super'
regionalcrime squad.They have been widelycopiedelsewherein the country.67
Both these deveJopments- the RegionalCrime Squads and the S.P.G.s- have
helpedto loosenfurtherthe bondsbetweenpoliceand community.But the second
development,that of the S.P.G.,had additionalimplications.Organisedoutside
the conventionalpatternof policeand communitycontrols,and with an emphasis
on preparedness,swiftnessand mobility,their behaviourhad somethingof the
militarystyle and philosophyabout it. Like an anny unit, they were often armed;
unlike the anny, they possessedthe traditionalpower of the police arrest. The
implicationsof these developmentsfor the creationof Anti-MuggingSquadsare
not difficultto see. Based in part on the models of the RegionalCrime Squads
and the S.P.G.s,the new squadswere organisationallycommittedto the specialist
role,styleand approachwith respectto 'mugging': to expecttrouble,to anticipate
troubleand Lotake the offensive.Giventhis style, whichwas a long way from the
traditional'delicate' handlingof a situationwhichhas giventhe Britishpoliceman
an internationalreputation for tolerance and good humour, some degree of
harassmentand intimidationwas almost inevitable.
If the individual policeman is constrained by his organisation,he is also
constrainedby the society of which he is a part. Formally,the police enforce
and apply the law and uphold public order; in this they see themselvesand are
seen as acting 'on society's behalf'. But in a more informal sense, they must
also be sensitiveto shifts in public feeling,in society's anxietiesand concerns.In
mediatingbetweenthese two 'social' functions,Youngargues,the force tends to
see itselfas 'representingthe desiresof a hypothesized"nonnal" decentcitizen'.61
Even where, fonnally,they apply the law, how, where and in what manner it is
enforced- keyareas of policediscretion- are influencedby the prevailing'social
temperature'. In the period leading up to 'mugging' there were two contexts,
directlyaffectingpolice work,where the public temperaturewas also rising.The
police undoubtedlybecamesensitisedin both areas.The first is that of 'law and
order'; the second is the context of anti-immigrantfeeling.(Both are treated in
more detail in later chapters on 'Law and Order,' and are thereforeonly briefly
skeLChed in here.)
Withinthe 'law-and-order'arena, we can identify three strands:youth, crime
as a public issue,and politicaldissent.The 'youth' strand includesrisingjuvenile
delinquency,the growth of the young criminal offender,vandalismand hooli-
ganism,as well as the 'anti-social' behaviourof the successionof youth-culture
movementsof the period (from Teddy-Boysto Skinheads).Often spectacular
in form, the restlessness,visibility and anti-authorityattitudes of youth came
to stand, in the public consciousness,as a metaphorfor social change; but even
more, for all the things wrong with social change.69 Within the 'crime' strand,
 THI!ORIGINSOf SOCIALCONTROL SI
there were also a series of 'focused concerns' - the scale and professionalisation
of robbery, the spread of criminal 'empires' and gang-warfare. the technological
sophistication of crime, and, above all, the greater use of guns and violence and
the prevalence of a 'stop-at-nothing' mentality. The police found this harder to
bear in the light of their belief that it was also becoming easier for professionaJ
criminals lo escape conviction.70 The 'politics-of-dissent' strand is also a broad
front, including many aspects; but, from the C.N.D. marches of the 1950s to the
big demonstrations of the late 1960s, the police found themselves involved in
public-order tests of strength. This was complicated by the extra-parliamentary
politics of the 1960s (sit-ins, demonstrations, squatting, etc.); by the rise of the
'counter-culture' (drugs, communes, drop-outs, the pop festivals, etc.); later, by
the growth of the left political sects, the student movement, and ultimately by
the threat of domestic terrorism. On other fronts, rising industrial militancy, and
the Northern Ireland crisis, with its threat of domestic bombings, both seemed
10 require a tougher, more visible police presence. (The increased involvement
in 'public order' was constantly commented on in successive Chief Constables'
Annual Reports.) In relation to all these issues, the police progressively found
themselves 'in the front line' - in areas well beyond the frontiers of traditional
policing, dealing with issues where the line between legality and illegality is most
ill-defined and emotions run high.71 In crowd control, one police commander
commented, the police have 'got to be both quick and right' .72 By making police
work more exposed and vulnerable, these new policing tasks made the actual
job harder, and, in requiring rest-day working, longer. These developments inter-
sected directly with the growth of an explicit anti-police ideology on the left and
a general lowering in police morale.
Between 1955 and 1965, national detection rates for all indictable crime fell
from 49 to 39 per cent. This did not necessarily indicate a loss of efficiency, since
the total annual volume of crime cleared up increased by 108 per cent; but it
showed a striking inability of detection to keeppace with the increasing volume
of reported crime. During the same period ( 1955-65) the force was consistently
'below authorised strength' (by 13 per cent in 1955, 14 per cent in 1965) and
'wastage' became a growing problem. As with detection rates, the position in
London was worse.73 The Royal Commission on the Police (1962) led to, propor-
tionately, the biggest pay increase for the police 'this century' ,14but this failed to
offset the growing arduousness of the job and the frustrating sense of losing the
'war against crime' .'JS
We have referred to the deterioration of police-black relations in this period.
But, in terms of the social context of police work, we must also note its structuring
context - the growth of anti-immigrant feeling in the country. Here we need only
refer to a succession of key points to make the over-all tendency of the swing
clear: the first Commonweal/hImmigrationAct ( 1962) restricting immigration,
followed by the success of Peter Griffiths on an anti-immigrant ticket at
Smethwick in 1964; the reversal of Labour's policy on immigration in 1965. This
first phase made anti-immigrant feeling both more visible and more acceptable,
officially. Then there came the burst of 'Powellism' in 1968, the mounting talk
of 'repatriation', the growth of the National Front and of an anti-immigration
lobby within the Conservative Party, the witch-hunting of illegal immigrants.
52

It became progressivelyeasier to equate blacks with 'social problems'; and as

'social problems'they were brough1increasinglyinto contactwith the police.16
Lambertwasrightwhenhe said: 'Policemenas membersof BritishSocietymay
be expectedto be no more or less prejudicedthan their neighboursand equals'.
However,the qualificationhe made was equally important:'but their profession
brings them in contact with colouredimmigrantsto a degree more markedthan
that of their neighboursand equals'.77 In their roles as membersof the police
force, policemenhave more opportunitiesto have their prejudicesreinforcedor
negated,more scope and legitimacyto act on their feelings,than most ordinary
membersof the public. Lambert adds that 'because of social segregationpolice
have little or no opportunityto meet coloured citizens except in the context of
professionalcontact'.71 It is in just these situations,of restricted 'professional
contact', that police stereotypesabout immigrantswere reinforced.The police
susceptibilityin general to stereotypesis a functionof their peculiarly isolated
social position:partly self-induced,partly imposedby the ambivalenceof public
attitudes towards them, which range, as Jock Younghas said, from 'ubiquitous
suspicionto downrighthostility'.19 As Lambertobserved:'A policemanmust be
able 10sum up a personveryquicklyand determinea suitablemannerwith which
to treat him'.80 Immigrantsare only one of the easilyavailable'scapegoats'for the
recurringeconomicand social ills of a systemin crisis; other familiarones in the
sameperiodwere 'militants', 'subversives','communists','foreignagitators',and
so on. But whereasthe latter have little actual presence,thoughmuch 'mythical'
media presence,immigrantsare both highlyvisibleand highlyvulnerable.
The most immediateeffect of these societal contexts was the growth of a
particular'mood' withinthe police:a moodcharacterisedbya growingimpatience,
frustrationand anger.This mood achievedits clearestexpressionin public state-
ments about the crime 'war'. It clearly parallels the 'judicial mood' described
earlier.One of the most publicisedof these statementswas that deliveredby Sir
John Waldronin his penultimateReportof the Commissionerof the Metropolitan
Policefor the year 1970.11 In it, Sir John - then nearing retirement- said that
during his service he had seen the penal sanclionsbecomeless and less punitive
andat thesame time had witnessedthe gradualgrowthof violentcrime in London.
He complainedthat the small cadre of professionalcriminals had little fear of
going to prison; that they built their future on hopes of parole; that they had a
successionof convictionsover a decade or more; and that when at liberty they
had never made any endeavourto followhonest employment.His 'remedy' was
to suggest long sentences in spartan, hard-workingconditions.82 The dominant
police 'concerns' are here made explicit:greater leniency;the growth of violent
crime; the growing 'immunity' of professionalcriminals; the 'softening' effect
of parole;and its ineffectuality.As if to demonstratethat Sir John was not alone
in his viewsThe 1imes also carried (on the same page) an all but identicalattack
on the 'soft' treatmentof young people by the Chief Constableof Yorkshireand
North-eastYorkshire.Significantly,the latter made it explicitthat he thoughtthat
his viewswere those of 'many police'.
The sharpest,mostforthrightand angriestattackon this frontcametwo months
later from two senior police officersat ScotlandYard,in a specialinterviewwith
The 1imes.113The substanceof the reportwas similarto Sir John's, thoughit went
 THEORIGINSOf SOCII\LCONTROL 53

furlher;bul lhe lone was altogelhermore slridenl.In it, they angrilycondemned

Parliament,the courts and the Home Officefor their persistentleniencytowards
peopleconvictedof crimes of violence.They regrettedthe endingof harshprison
conditions;they asserted that this 'harshness' had had a deterrent effect; they
expressedalarm at the rapid increasein violentcrimes.They were convincedthat
unless finn measureswere taken, the streets of London would be as dangerous
in five years' time as those of NewYork and Washingtonnow; and, predictably,
their suggestedremedieswere a return to the 'good old days' of long sentences
and harsher prison conditions.Though the report appeared on the same day as
that of the killing of the Police Superintendentof Blackpool, the two events
were unrelated- the officerswere not simply reactingangrily to the killing of a
fellowofficer(thoughthis event undoubtedlystrengthenedtheir case). The 1imes
editorial of the followingday drew attention to the statement's politicalsignifi•
cance.84 After citing the fact that these views were 'the corporate view of the
senior ranks of the MetropolitanPolice', some membersof the public and the
ConservativeParty - a not insignificantlobby - it added an ominous 'winds of
change' predictionabout the statementsignifying'perhaps the directionin which
the pendulumof penal treatmentis about to swing'. (We should add in passing
that the officers' statement was critically scrutinisedby the liberal press, either
directlyor via eminentliberalspokesmen,and was foundwanting.However,this
same responsewas not forthcomingtwelve months later when mugging 'broke'
as a majormedia news item.85) In additionto this politicalsignificance,the refer•
ences to the 'streets of London' and the London/NewYork comparisonswere
revealing.After all, organised professionalcrime - hijacking lorries, robbing
banks, smugglingdrugs, protectionrackets,prostitution,gang 'shoot•outs'- do
not, exceptinadvertently,take placeon the streets,What does affectthe 'safety of
the streets' is 'amateur'crime:the snatchedwalletor handbag,the pickedpocket,
the 'purse pinch', where 'everyone' is a potentialvictim.And here the reference
to the United States is significant;ii can mean only one thing - street robberies
or 'muggings'. (A year later,sentencinga 'Tube knife gang', JudgeKarmelmade
the connectionquite explicit in one of the first 'deterrent' muggingsentences.16)
The day after The 1imes interview, the Daily Telegraphran a 'supporting'
editorialon 'violentcrimes'. It made explicitreferenceto 'senselessattacks' and
'muggings'.

Yet anyone who reads local newspapers must have noticed the increasing
numberof apparentlysenselessauacks reported.... In many semi•urbanareas,
where there are open stretches of what used to be peaceful canal•side or
common moor, local inhabitantshave perforce become wary of walking on
them. Muggingsand pick•pocketingsinvolvingviolence are becomingmore
frequenton London's Underground. 17

Almostcertainly,sometime betweenthis statementand the beginningof the new

year, the first anti•muggingspecialpatrol was fonned.
Our narrativebegan with the 'first' British mugging.But it has ended with a
different, and perhaps rather unexpectedtheme: the confrontationin our cities
between 'police power and black people'. Althoughby no means all 'muggers'
54 POi.iCiNGTHECRISIS

charged in this period were black, the situationand experienceof black youths
has, we believe,a paradigmatic relation to the whole 'mugging' phenomenon.
We hope to enforcethis link by evidence,illustrationand argumentas the book
proceeds.However,let us recall at this point how we arrived at the connection
in the first place. Our focus initially was on the period when 'mugging' became
publicly visible.in the courts and the mass media, as a social problem,through
to its relative'decline': roughly,August 1972to October 1973.The intersection
betweenthecourts,themediaand 'mugging' in this periodare not hardto discover.
We then turned to the internalorganisationof the judicial worldand Lo some of
the developmentstakingplacethere.Then we turnedto the police.But, in contrast
with the courts and the media, the role of the police seemed to us peculiarly,
though not perhaps surprisingly,'invisible'. In some senses this 'invisibility'
was only to be expected.The police do figure in certain ways in the media and
in public debate. But the internal organisationof the police, by contrast,is not,
normally,muchpublicised;and their plans,contingencyschemes,mobilisationon
the ground,and so on are very reticentlyhandled indeed- as, given their role in
crime detection,apprehensionand prevention,is only to be expected.
This partial 'invisibility'of the police role seemedto us especiallysignificant,
because what evidencethere was seemedclearly to point to the fact that a major
mobilisationof police resources,auention and energies had taken place some
months before 'mugging' came to be signified,by the courts and the media,as a
pressingsocialproblem.Indeed,the courts could not havebeen overflowingwith
'mugging'cases in September1972unlessthe police had been activeon this very
front some monthsbefore.This forced us to look at the role of the police in the
'mugging' panic in a somewhatdifferentway. If the police were so sensitisedto
the real or perceivedthreat from 'muggings' before 'mugging' had been appro-
priatedto the publicdomain,then that prioractivitymust havebeenpredicatedon
an i11stitutionaldefinitionof certain kinds or pallernsof crime as 'adding up to',
or 'being interpretableas', the beginningsofa 'mugging' wave- a 'new strain of
crime'. In lookingat the police, then, we are pushed back, behind the headlines
and before the judges' homilies, to an earlier, 'pre-mugging', period; to activ-
ities which belong to the restrictedrather than to the public aspects,of the state;
or to relations between the police and the society which predate, and postdate,
the immediateexchangesbetweenthe police and the mugger.On the marginsof
the 'mugging' epidemic,then, there arises its pre-history:the longer and more
complexstory of the striking deteriorationin police-black relations,especially
betweenthe police in certain areas of the big cities and sectionsof blackyouth. It
is only in this contextthat the innovato,y role of the police,in the generationof a
moralpanic,can be properlyassessedand understood.
The examinationof the role of the media, the judiciary and the police under-
taken in these chapterspoints to the social rather than the strictly legal or statis-
tical nature of the kind of crime under discussionhere, which producesdifferent
sorts of response from within the state. Once this point has been grasped, it is
difficultto continueto consider the agenciesof public significationand control,
like the police, the courts and the media, as if they were passive reactors to
immediate,simpleand clear-cutcrime situations.These agenciesmust be under-
stood as activelyand continuouslypart of the whole processto which,also, they
 TH6 ORIOINSOF SOCIALCONTROL 55
are 'reacting'. They are aclive in definingsituations,in selectingtargets,in initi-
ating 'campaigns', in structuringthese campaigns,in selectivelysignifyingtheir
actions to the public at large, in legitimatingtheir actions throughthe accounts
of situationswhich they produce.They do not simply respondto 'moral panics'.
They form part of the circle out of which 'moral panics' develop.ll is part of the
paradoxthat they also, advertentlyand inadvertently,amplify the deviancythey
seem so absolutelycommittedto controlling.This tends to suggest that, though
they are crucial actors in the drama of the 'moral panic', they,too, are acting out
a script which they do not write.
 3
The Social Productionof News
The media do nol simply and transparentlyreport events which are 'naturally'
newsworthyin themselves.'News' is the end-productof a complexprocesswhich
beginswith a systematicsortingand selectingof eventsand topicsaccordingto a
sociallyconstructedset of categories.As MacDougallputs it:
At any given moment billions of simultaneousevents occur throughout the
world.... All of these occurrencesare potentiallynews. They do not become
so until some purveyorof news gives an account of them. The news, in other
words,is the accountof the event,not somethingintrinsicin the event itself.1

One aspect of the structureof selectioncan be seen in the routineorganisationof

newspaperswith respectto regulartypes or areas of news.Since newspapersare
committed to the regular productionof news, these organisationalfactors will,
in turn, affect what is selected. For example.newspapersbecomepredirectedlo
certain types of event and topic in terms of the organisationof their own work-
force(e.g. specialistcorrespondentsand departments,the fosteringof institutional
contacts,etc.) and the structureof the papersthemselves(e.g. homenews,foreign,
political,sporl,etc.).2
Given that the organisation and staffing of a paper regularly direct it to
certain categoriesof items,there is still the problemof selecting,from the many
contendingitems within any one category,those that are felt will be of interest
to the reader.This is where the professionalideologyof what constitutes'good
news'- the newsman'ssense of news values- beginsto structurethe process.At
lhe most general level this involvesan orientationto items which are 'out of the
ordinary', which in some way breachour 'normal' expectationsabout social life,
the sudden earthquakeor the moon-landing,for example.We might call this the
primaryor cardblalnews value. Yet,clearly 'extraordinariness'does not exhaust
the list, as a glance at any newspaper will reveal: events which concern elite
personsor nations;eventswhich are dramatic;eventswhich can be personalised
so as to point up the essentiallyhumancharacteristicsof humour,sadness,senti-
mentality,etc.; events which have negativeconsequences,and events which are
part of, or can be made to appear part of, an existing newsworthytheme, are all
possiblenewsstories.lDisasters,dramas,the everydayantics-funny and tragic-
of ordinaryfolk, the livesof the rich and the powerful,and such perennialthemes
as football(in winter)and cricket (in summer),all find a regularplace withinthe
pages of a newspaper.'Iwo things followfrom this: the first is thatjournalistswill
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
OF NEWS 51

tend to play up the extraordinary,dramatic,tragic,etc. elementsin a story in order

to enhance its newsworthiness;the second is that events which score high on a
number of these news values will have greater news potenlialthan ones that do
not.And events whichscore high on all dimensions,such as the Kennedyassas-
sinations(i.e. whichare unexpectedanddramatic,with negativeconsequences,as
well as human tragediesinvolvingelitepersons who were heads of an extremely
powe,ful natio11,which possessesthe status of a recurrenttheme in the British
press), will becomeso newsworthythat programmeswill be interrupted- as in
the radio or television news-flash- so that these items can be communicated
immediately.
When we come later to consider the case of mugging, we will want to say
somethingabout how these news values tend to operate together,as a structure.
For our presentpurposes,however,it is sufficientto say that news valuesprovide
the criteriain the routinepracticesof journalismwhichenablejournalists,editors
and newsmento decide routinely and regularlywhich stories are 'newsworthy'
and whichare not, whichstoriesare major 'lead' storiesand which are relatively
insignificant,whichstoriesto run and which to drop.4 Althoughthey are nowhere
written down, formallytransmittedor codified,news values seem to be widely
shared as between the different news media (though we shall have more to say
later on the way these are differentlyinflected by particular newspapers),and
form a core element in the professionalsocialisation,practice and ideology of
newsmen.
These two aspects of the social productionof news - the bureaucraticorgani-
sation of the media which producesthe news in specifictypes or categoriesand
the structureof news valueswhich orders the selectionand rankingof particular
storieswithinthesecategories- are only part of the process.The thirdaspect- the
momentof the constructio11 of the news story itself - is equally important,if less
obvious.This involvesthe presentationof the itemto its assumedaudience,in terms
which,as far as the presentersof the item can judge, will make it comprehensible
to that audience.If the world is not to be representedas a jumble of randomand
chaotic events,then they must be identified(i.e. named,defined,related to other
eventsknownto the audience),and assignedto a socialcontext(i.e. placedwithin
a frame of meaningsfamiliarto the audience).This process- identificationand
contextualisation- is one of the most importantthroughwhicheventsare 'made
to mean' by the media.An event only 'makes sense' if it can be located within
a range of known social and cultural identifications.If newsmendid not have
available- in howeverroutine a way - such cultural 'maps' of the social world,
they could not 'make sense' for their audiencesof the unusual, unexpectedand
unpredictedeventswhichform the basic contentof what is 'newsworthy'.Things
are newsworthybecause they represent the changefulness,the unpredictability
and the conflictful nature of the world. But such events cannot be allowed to
remainin the limboof the 'random' - they must be broughtwithinthe horizonof
the 'meaningful'.This bringingof eventswithinthe realm of meaningsmeans,in
essence,referringunusualand unexpectedeventsto the 'maps of meaning'which
already form the basis of our cultural knowledge,into which the social world is
already'mapped'. The socialidentification,classificationandcontextualisationof
58 POUCINGTHECRISIS

news eventsin Lermsof these backgroundframesof referenceis the fundamental

processby which the media make the world they report on intelligibleto readers
and viewers.This processof 'making an event intelligible'is a social process-
constitutedby a numberof specificjournalistic practices,which embody (often
only implicitly)crucial assumptionsabout whatsocietyis and how it works.
One such backgroundassumption is the co,1sensualnalUreof society: the
process of significatio11- giving social meaningsto events- both assumesand
helps to construct 1ocietyas a 'consensus', We exist as membersof one society
because - it is assumed- we share a commonstock of cultural knowledgewith
our fellow men: we have access to the same 'maps of meanings'. Not only are
we all able to manipulatethese 'maps of meaning' to understandevents, but we
have fundamentalinterests,values and concerns in common,which these maps
embodyor reflect.We all want to, or do, maintainbasicallythe same perspective
011 events.In this view,what unitesus, as a societyand a culture- its consensual
side - far outweighswhat dividesand distinguishesus as groups or classes from
othergroups.Now,at one level,the existenceof a culturalconsensusis an obvious
5 If wewere not membersof the
truth; it is the basis of all social communication.
same languagecommunitywe literallycould not communicatewith one another.
On a broader level, if we did not inhabit, to some degree, the same classifica-
tions of social reality,we could not 'make sense of the world together'. In recent
years, however,this basic culturalfact aboutsocietyhas beenraisedto an extreme
ideologicallevel. Because we occupy the same society and belong to roughly
the same 'culture', it is assumed that there is, basically,only one perspective
on events: that provided by what is sometimescalled the culture, or (by some
socialscientists)the 'central valuesystem'. This viewdeniesany majorstructural
discrepanciesbetween different groups, or between the very different maps of
meaningin a society.This 'consensual'viewpointhas importantpoliticalconse--
quences, when used as the taken-for-grantedbasis of communication.It carries
the assumptionthat we also all haveroughlythe same inte/'estsin the society,and
that we all roughlyhavean equal shareof powerin the society.This is the essence
of the idea of the political consensus. 'Consensual' views of society represent
society as if there are no major cultural or economicbreaks, no major conflicts
of interestsbetweenclasses and groups.Whateverdisagreementsexist, it is said,
there are legitimateand institutionalisedmeans for expressingand reconciling
them. The 'free market' in opinionsand in the media is supposedto guarantee
the reconciliationof culturaldiscontinuitiesbetweenone groupand another.The
politicalinstitutions- parliament,the two-partysystem,politicalrepresentation,
etc. - are supposedto guaranteeequalaccessfor all groupsto the decision-making
process. The growth of a 'consumer' economy is supposed to have created the
economicconditionsfor everyoneto havea stake in the makingand distribution
of wealth.The rule of law protects us all equally.This consensusview of society
is particularlystrong in modem, democratic,organisedcapitalist societies;and
the mediaare amongthe institutionswhosepracticesare most widelyand consist-
ently predicatedupon the assumptionof a 'national consensus', So that, when
eventsare 'mapped' by the mediainto frameworksof meaningand interpretation,
it is assumedthat we all equally possessand know how to use these frameworks,
that they are drawn from fundamentallythe same structuresof understandingfor
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
OF NEWS 59
all social groups and audiences.Of course. in the fonnation of opinion, as in
politicsand economiclife, it is concededthat there will be differencesof outlook,
disagreement,argumentand opposition;but these are understoodas taking place
within a broader basic frameworkof agreement- 'the consensus' - to which
everyonesubscribes,and within which every dispute, disagreementor conflict
of interest can be reconciledby discussion,without recourse to confrontation
or violence.The strength of this appeal to consensus was vividly encapsulated
in Edward Heath's prime ministerialbroadcast,followingthe settlementof the
miners' strike in 1972(suggestingthat open appealsto consensusare particularly
prevalentwhenconflictis most visible):

In the kind of country we live in there cannot be any 'we' or 'they'. There
is only 'us'; all of us. If the Governmentis 'defeated', then the country is
defeated,becausethe Governmentis just a group of peopleelected to do what
the majorityof 'us' want to see done.That is what our way of life is all about.
It reallydoes not matterwhetherit is a picketline,a demonstrationor the House
of Commons.We are all used to peacefulargument.But when violenceor the
threat of violenceis used, it challengeswhat most of us considerto be the right
way of doing things.I do not believeyou elect any governmentto allowthat to
happenand I can promiseyou that it will not be toleratedwhereverit occurs.6

Events,as news, then, are regularlyinterpretedwithin frameworkswhichderive,

in part, from this notionof the conse,isusas a basic featureof everydaylife.They
are elaboratedthrougha varietyof 'explanations',imagesand discourseswhich
articulatewhat the audienceis assumedto think and know about the society.The
importanceof this process,in reinforcingconsensualnotions,has been recently
stressedby Murdock:

This habitual presentation of news within frameworks which are already

familiarhas two importantconsequences,Firstly,it rechargesand extendsthe
definitionsand images in question and keeps them circulatingas part of the
common stock of taken-for-grantedknowledge.... Secondly, it 'conveys an
impressionof eternal recurrence,of societyas a socialorder which is made up
of movement,but not innovation'.1 Here again, by stressingthe continuityand
stabilityof the social structure,and by assertingthe existenceof a commonly
shared set of assumptions,the definitions of the situationcoincide with and
reinforceessentialconsensualnotions.•

What,then,is the underlyingsignificanceof the framingand interpretivefunction

of news presentation'!We suggestthat it lies in the fact that the media are often
presentinginfonnationabout eventswhich occur outsidethe direct experienceof
the majorityofthesociety.The mediathusrepresenttheprimary,andoftenthe only,
source of informationabout many importantevents and topics. Further,because
news is recurrentlyconcernedwith events which are 'new' or 'unexpected', the
media are involvedin the task of makingcomp1-ehensible what we would term
'problematicreality'. Problematicevents breach our commonly held expecta-
tions and are thereforethreateningto a society based around the expectationof
60 l'OLICINOTHli CRISIS

consensus,order and routine.Thus the media's mapping of problematicevents

withinthe conventionalunderstandingsof the society is crucial in two ways.The
mediadefine for the majorityof the populationwhat signiticanteventsare taking
place, but, also, they offer powerful interpretalionsof how to understandthese
events.Implicitin thoseinterpretationsare orientationstowardsthe eventsand the
peopleor groups involvedin them.

PRIMARYANDSECONDARYDEFINERS
In thissectionwe wantto beginto accountfor the 'fit' betweendominantideasand
professionalmediaideologiesand practices.This cannotbe simplyattributed- as
it sometimesis in simple conspiracytheories- to the fact that the media are in
large part capitalist-owned(though that structure of ownershipis widespread),
since this would be to ignorethe day-to-day'relativeautonomy'of thejournalist
and news producers from direct economic control. Instead we want to draw
attentionto the more routinestructuresof news productionto see how the media
come in fact, in the 'last instance', to reproducethe definitionsof the powerful,
withoutbeing, in a simple sense, in their pay. Here we must insist on a crucial
distinctionbetweenprima1yand secondarydefinersof socialevents.
The media do not themselvesautonomouslycreate news items;rather they are
'cued in' to specific new topics by regularand reliable institutionalsources.As
Paul Rocknotes:

In the mainjournalistspositionthemselvesso that they have access to institu-

tions whichgeneratea useful volumeof reportableactivityat regularintervals.
Some of these institutionsdo, of course, makethemselvesvisible by meansof
dramatization,or through press releases and press agents. Others are known
to regularly produce consequentialevents. The courts, sports grounds and
parliament mechanicallymanufacturenews which is ... assimilated by the
press.9
One reason for this has to do with the internalpressuresof newsproduction- as
Murdocknotes:

The incessant pressures of time and the consequent problems of resource

allocation and work scheduling in news organisationscan be reduced or
alleviatedby covering 'pre-scheduledevents'; that is, events that have been
announcedin advanceby their convenors.However,one of the consequences
of adoptingthis solutionto schedulingproblemsis to increasethe newsmen's
dependanceon news sourceswillingand able to prescheduletheir activities.10
The secondhas to do with the fact that mediareportingis underwrittenby notions
of 'impartiality','balance'and 'objectivity'.This is formallyenforcedin television
(a near-monopolysituation, where the stale is directly involvedin a regulatory
sense) but there are also similar professionalideological'rules' in journalism.11
One product of these rules is the carefully structureddistinctionbetween 'fact'
and 'opinion', about whichwe havemore to say in a later chapter.For our present
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
OF NEWS 61
purposes, the important point is that these professionalrules give rise to the
practice of ensuringthat media statementsare, whereverpossible,grounded in
'objective' and 'authoritative'statementsfrom 'accredited' sources.This means
constantlyturningto accreditedrepresentativesof majorsocialinstitutions-M.P.s
for politicaltopics,employersand trade-unionleadersfor industrialmatters,and
so on. Such institutionalrepresentativesare 'accredited'becauseof their institu-
tional power and pos.ition,but also becauseof their 'representative'status:either
they represent 'the people' (M.P.s,Ministers,etc.) or organisedinterest groups
(whichis how the T.U.C.and the C.B.I, are now regarded).One final 'accredited
source' is 'the expert': his calling- the 'disinterested'pursuitof knowledge- not
his positionor his representativeness,confers on his statements'objectivity'and
'authority'. Ironically,the very rules whichaim to preservethe impartialityof the
media,and whichgrewout of desiresfor greaterprofessionalneutrality,also serve
powerfullyto orientatethe media in the 'definitionsof social reality' which their
'accreditedsources'- the institutionalspokesmen- provide.
These two aspects of news production- the practicalpressuresof constantly
workingagainsttheclock and the professionaldemandsof impartialityand objec-
tivity - combine to produce a systematicallystructured ove1·-accessing to the
mediaof those in powerfuland privilegedinstitutionalpositions.The media thus
tend,faithfullyand impartially,to reproducesymbolicallythe existingstructureof
powerin society'sinstitutionalorder.This is whatBeckerhas calledthe 'hierarchy
of credibility' - the likelihood that those in powerful or high-statuspositions
in society who offer opinionsabout controversialtopics will have their defini-
tions accepted,because such spokesmenare understoodto have access to more
accurate or more specialisedinformationon particulartopics than the majority
of the population.12 The result of this structuredpreferencegiven in the media to
the opinionsof the powerfulis that these 'spokesmen'become what we call the
prima1ydefinersof topics.
What is the significanceof this'?It could rightly be argued that through the
requirementof 'balance' - one of the professionalrules we have not yet dealt
with - alternativedefinitionsdo get a hearing:each 'side' is allowedto presentits
case. In point of fact, as we shall see in detail in the next chapter,the setting up
of a topic in terms of a debate within which there are oppositionsand conflicts
is also one way of dramatisingan event so as to enhance its newsworthiness.
The importantpoint about the structuredrelationshipbetweenthe media and the
primaryinstitutionaldefinersis that it permitsthe institutionaldefinersto establish
the initialdefinitionor primaryi11terpretation of the topic in question.This inter-
pretationthen 'commandsthe field' in all subsequenttreatmentand sets the terms
of referencewithin which all furthercoverageor debate takes place.Arguments
againsta primaryinterpretationare forcedto insert themselvesinto its definition
of 'what is at issue' - they must begin from this frameworkof interpretationas
their starting-point.This initial interpretativeframework- what Lang and Lang
havecalled an 'inferentialstructure••l_ is extremelydifficultto alter fundamen-
tally, once established.For example, once race relations in Britain have been
definedas a 'problemof numbers'(i.e. how manyblacksthere are in the country),
then even liberal spokesmen,in proving that the figures for black immigrants
have been exaggerated,are neverthelessobliged to subscribe, implicitly,to the
62 POLICINGTHECRISIS

view that the debate is 'essentially' about numbers. Similarly,Halloranand his

co-workershaveclearlydemonstratedhowthe 'inferentialstructure'of violence-
once it became establishedin the lead-up period - dominatedthe coverage of
the secondAnti-VietnamRally and the events of GrosvenorSquare, despite all
the first-handevidence directly contradicling this interpretation.1 ◄ Effectively,
then,the primarydefinitionsets the limit for all subsequentdiscussionbyframi11g
what the problem is. This initialframeworkthen providesthe criteriaby whichall
subsequentcontributionsare labelledas 'relevant' to the debate,or 'irrelevant'-
beside the point. Contributionswhich stray from this frameworkare exposedto
the chargethat they are 'not addressingthe problem',15
The media, then,do not simply 'create' the news; nor do they simplytransmit
the ideology of the 'ruling class' in a conspiratorialfashion. Indeed, we have
suggested that, in a critical sense, the media are frequently not the 'primary
definers' of news events at all; but their structuredrelationshipto power has the
effect of makingthem play a crucial but secondaryrole in reproduciiiglhe defini-
tions of those who haveprivilegedaccess,as of right, to the mediaas 'accredited
sources'. From this point of view,in the momentof news production,the media
stand in a positionof structuredsubordinationto the primarydefiners.
It is this structuredrelationship- betweenthe media and its 'powerful'sources
- which begins to open up the neglectedquestionof the ideologicalrole of the
media. It is this which begins to give substanceand specificityto Marx's basic
propositionthat 'the rulingideasof anyage are the ideasof its rulingclass'. Marx's
contentionis that this dominanceof 'ruling ideas' operatesprimarilybecause,in
addition to its ownershipand control of the means of materialproduction,this
class also owns and controls the means of 'mental production'. In producing
their definitionof social reality,and the place of 'ordinary people' within it, they
constructa particularimage of society which representsparticularclass interests
as the interestsof all membersof society.Becauseof their controlover material
and mental resources,and their dominationof the major institutionsof society,
this class's definitionsof the social world provide the basic rationale for those
institutionswhichprotectand reproducetheir 'way of life'. This controlof mental
resourcesensuresthat theirsare the most powerfuland 'universal'of the available
definitionsof the social world. Their universalityensuresthat they are shared to
somedegreeby the subordinateclassesof the society.Those who govern,govern
also throughideas; thus they governwith the consent of the subordinateclasses,
and not principallythrough their overt coercion. Parkin makes a similar point:
'the socialand politicaldefinitionsof those in dominantpositionstend to become
objectifiedin the majorinstitutionalorders,so providingthe moralframeworkfor
the entire socialsystem.'16
In the major social, political and legal institutionsof society,coercion and
constraintare neverwhollyabsent.This is as true for the mediaas elsewhere.For
example,reportersand reportingare subject to economicand legal constraints,
as well as to more overt forms of censorship(e.g. over the coverage of events
in Northern Ireland). But the transmissionof 'dominant ideas' depends more
on non-coercivemechanismsfor their reproduction.Hierarchicalstructures of
commandandreview,informalsocialisationintoinstitutionalroles,thesedimenting
of dominantideas into the 'professionalideology'- all help to ensure, withinthe
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
OF NEWS 63
media, their continuedreproductionin the dominant form. What we have been
pointing to in this section is precisely how 011eparticularprofessionalpractice
ensuresthat the media,effectivelybut 'objectively',play a key role i11repl'oducing
the domi11antfield of the rulingideologies.

MEDIA IN ACTION:REPRODUCTIONAND TRANSFORMATION

So far we have considered the processes through which the 'reproductionof
the dominantideologies'is securedin the media.As should be clear, this repro-
duction, in our view,is the product of a set of structuralimperatives,not of an
open conspiracywith those in powerfulpositions.However,the whole cycle of
'ideologicalreproduction'is not completeduntil we have shown the processof
transformationwhich the media themselvesmust performon the 'raw materials'
(facts and interpretations)which the powerfulprovide, in order to processthese
'potential' stories into their finishedcommoditynews form.If the formersection
stresseda relativelypassiveorientationto powerful'authoritative'definitions,in
this sectionwe are concernedto examinethose aspectsof newscreationin which
the mediaplay a more autonomousand activerole.
The first point at whichthe media activelycome into their own is with respect
to selectivity.Not every statement by a relevantprimary definer in respect of a
particulartopic is likely to be reproducedin the media; nor is every part of each
statement.By exercisingselectivitythe media begin to imposetheir own criteria
on the structured 'raw materials' - and thus actively appropriateand transform
them.We emphasisedearlier how the criteria of selection- a mixtureof profes-
sional, technical and commercialconstraints- served to orientatethe media in
general to the 'definitionsof the powerful'. Here, on the other hand, we wish to
stressthat such criteria- commonto all newspapers- are, nevertheless,differently
appropriated,evaluatedand madeoperationalby each newspaper.To put it simply,
each paper's professionalsense of the newsworthy,its organisationand technical
framework(in terms of numbersof journalistsworkingin particularnews areas,
amountof columnspace routinelygiven over to certain kinds of news items,and
so on), and sense of audienceor regular readers, is different.Such differences,
takentogether,are whatproducethe verydifferent'social personalities'of papers.
The News of the World'sdominantorientationtowardsthe 'scandalous' and the
sexual,and the DailyMirrorsconcernwith the 'human-interest'aspect of stories,
are but two obviousexamplesof such internaldifferencesin 'social personalities'.
It is here - as each paper's own 'social personality'comes into play - that the
transformatorywork properbegins.17
An even more significantaspect of 'media work' is the activityof transforming
an event into a finishednews item.This has to do with the way an item is coded
by the media into a particularlanguageform.Just as each paper,as we havejust
argued,has a particularorganisationalframework,sense of news and readership,
so each will also developa regularand characteristicmodeof address.This means
that the same topic,sourcesand inferentialstructureswill appeardifferentlyeven
in paperswith a similaroutlook,since the differentrhetoricsof addresswill have
an importanteffect in inflectingthe originalitem.Of specialimportancein deter-
mining the particularmode of address adopted will be the particularpart of the
64 POLICINGTHECRISIS

readership spectrum the paper sees itself as customarilyaddressing:its targel

audience.The languageemployedwill thus be the newspape,.•sown version of
the languageof the public to whom it is principallyaddressed:its versionof the
rhetoric,imageryand underlyingcommonstock of knowledgewhich it assumes
its audienceshares and whichthus formsthe basis of lhe reciprocityof producer/
reader.For this reason we want to call this form of address- differentfor each
news outlet- thepublic idiom of the media.
Although we have stressed here the different languagesof different papers,
this emphasisshould not be taken too far. It is not the vast pluralisticrange of
voices which the media are sometimes held to represent, but a range wirhi11
certaindistinctideologicallimits.Whileeach papermay see itselfas addressinga
differentsectionof the newspaper-readingpublic(or differenttypesof newspapers
will be in competitionfor differentsectorsof the public),the 'consensusofvalues'
which is so deeplyembeddedin all the forms of public languageis more limited
than the variety of the forms of public 'language in use' would suggest. Their
publics,howeverdistinct,are assumedto fall withinthat very broad spectrumof
'reasonablemen', and readersare addressedbroadlyin those terms.
The coding of items and topics into variationsof the public languageprovides
a significantelementof variationin the processof transformingthe news into its
finishedform; but, as with 'objectivity'and 'impartiality'before,this variationis
not necessarilystructurallyat odds with the process we have called 'ideological
reproduction'- for translatinga news item into a variantof the public language
serves, also, to translate into a public idiom the statementsand viewpointsof
the pl'imarydefiners.This translationof official viewpointsinto a public idiom
not only makes the former more 'available' to the uninitiated;it invests them
with popularforce and resonance,naturalisingthem withinthe horizonof under-
standingsof the various publics. The followingexample will serve as an illus-
tration.The Daily Mirrorof 14Iune 1973reportedthe presentationby the Chief
Inspectorof the Constabularyof his Annual Report, in which he claimed that
'the increase in violent crimes in England and Wales had aroused justifiable
public concern'. What the Mirror does in this case is to translate the Chief
Inspector's concern with rising violent crime amongst the young into a more
dramatic,more connotativeand more popularform- a newsheadlinewhichruns,
simply,'AGOROBRITAIN:"MindlessViolence"of the Bully BoysWorriesTop
Policeman'.This headlineinveststhe sober Reporl with dramaticnews value. It
transposesthe Report's staid officialeseinto more newsworthyrhetoric. But it
also insertsthe statementinto the stockof popularimagery,establishedover long
usage, includingthat usage created by the paper's own previouscoverageof the
activitiesof 'aggro' footballhooligansand skinhead'gangs'. This transformation
into a public idiomthus givesthe item an externalpublic referenceand validityin
imagesand connotationsalreadysedimentedin the stockof knowledgewhichthe
paper and its public share.The importanceof this externalpublicreferencepoint
is that it servesto objectifl a publicissue.That is, the publicisingof an issue in the
mediacan give it more 'objective'status as a real (valid)issue of public concern
than wouldhavebeen the case had it remainedas merelya reportmade by experts
and specialists.Concentratedmedia attentionconfers the status of high public
concern on issues which are highlighted;these generallybecomeunderstoodby
 THE SOCIAL PRODUCTIONOf NEWS 65
everyoneas the 'pressing issues of the day'. This is part of the media's agenda-
setting function.Settingagendasalso has a reality-confinningeffect.
The significanceof usinga publicidiomwith whichto 'set the agenda' is that it
inserts the languageof everydaycommunicationback i11tothe conse11sus. While
it is true that 'everyday' languageis already saturatedwith dominantinferences
and interpretations,the continualprocessof translatingformalofficialdefinitions
into the termsof ordinaryconversationreinforces,at the same time as it disguises,
the links betweenthe two discourses.That is, the media 'take' the languageof
the public and, on each occasion,return it to them inflectedwith domina11t a11d
consensualconnotations.
This more 'creative' media role is not obviously fully autonomous.Such
translationsdepend on the story's potential-for-translation(its newsworthiness)
and on its anchoragein familiar and long-standingtopics of concern - hooli-
ganism, crowd violence, 'aggro' gang behaviour.This process is neither totally
free and unconstrained,nor is it a simple, direct reproduction.It is a transfor-
mation;and such transformationsrequire active 'work' on the part of the media.
Their over-alleffect is neverthelessto help close the circle by which the defini-
tions of the powerfulbecome part of the taken-for-grantedreality of the public
by translatingthe unfamiliarinto the familiar world. All this is entailed in the
over-simpleformulathatjournalists,after all, knowbest how to 'get thingsacross
to the public'.

THE MEDIAANDPUBLICOPINION
So far we havebeen addressingthe questionof the productionof news reports.In
the nextchapter we shall be lookingmore closelyat differencesbetweentypesof
news,featurearticlesandeditorials.At this stage we wantsimplyto draw auention
to the relationshipbetweena newspaper's 'public idiom' and its editorialvoice.
We haveso far discussedthe transformationsinvolvedin transposinga statement
made by a primarydefiner into an everydaylanguage:into the code, or mode of
addresscustomarilyused by that paper- its 'public idiom'. But the press is also
free to editorialiseand expressan opinionabout topicsof majorconcern;it is not
limitedto 'reproducing',through its own 'code', the statementsof the powerful.
Now,one commonkind of editorialisingis for the press to speak its own mind,
to say what it thinks,but expressedin its public idiom. In other wordsthe paper's
own statementsand thoughtson an event - the productof editorialjudgement-
are representedin the paper'spublic languagein the same wayas the statementsof
primarydefiners:the processis very similar.Whetherarguingfor or againsta line
of action,the languageemployedis that customarilyused by the particularpaper.
However,there is a second type of editorial which adds a further transforming
twist; i.e. the editorialwhichactivelyclaimsto speak/or thepublic- the editorial
whichgoes beyondexpressingits ow11viewsin a public idiom and actuallyclaims
to be expressingthe public's views. We call this more active process,taking the
public voice (as opposed to simply using a public idiom). Some such editorial
voicesare so distinctive(e.g. The nmes) that it mightbe more accurateto talk of
these as the paper's ow11'voice'. However,it is unlikelythat such a voice is ever
completelyindependentin its rhetoric of the editor's sense of the 'public idiom'
66 POLICINGTHECRISIS

of his assumedaudience.The essenceof the difference,whichwe shallexemplify

whenweconsiderbrieflysome muggingeditorialsin the finalpart of this chapter,
is that betweenthe editorialwhich says 'We beJieve...' and that whichsays. 'The
public believes...' This 'taking the public voice', this form of articulatingwhat
the vast majorityof the public are supposedto think,this enlistingof publiclegit-
imacy for viewswhichthe newspaperitself is expressing,representsthe mediain
its most active,campaig11ing role - the point where the media most activelyand
openlyshapeand structurepublicopinion.This kind of editorialusuallytakes the
form either of support for some countervailingaction which has been taken, or,
even more frequently,of a demand that strong action should be taken - because
the majoritydemand it.
In either form of editorialising,the media provide a crucial mediating link
betweenthe apparatusof social control and the public.The press can legitimate
and reinforce the actions of the controllersby bringing their own independent
argumentsto bear on the public in supportof the actionsproposed('using a public
idiom'); or it can bring pressure to bear on the controllers by summoningup
'public opinion' in supportof its own views that 'stronger measuresare needed'
('taking the public voice'). But, in either case, the editorial seems to provide
an objectiveand externalpoint of referencewhich can be used either to justify
officialactionor to mobilisepublic opinion.It should not be overlookedthat this
playingbackof (assumed)public opinionto the powerful,whichis the reverseof
the earlierprocessdescribedof translatingdominantdefinitionsinto an (assumed)
publicidiom,takesthe publicas an importantpointof referenceon both occasions
(legitimation),while actually bypassing it. By means of a further twist, these
representationsof public opinion are then often enlisted by the controllersas
'impartialevidence'of what the public,in fact,believesand wants.The spiralsof
amplificationare, in this last instance,particularlyintricateand tight. (We shall
look at someexamplesfrom 'mugging' later.)
What we are concernedwith here is the generalrole of the mediain the process
of activelyshapingpublic opinion.In societieswhere the bulk of the population
has neitherdirect accessto nor powerover the centraldecisionswhichaffect their
lives, where official policy and opinion is concentratedand popular opinion is
dispersed,the mediaplay a criticalmediatingand connectingrole in the formation
of public opinion,and in orchestratingthat opiniontogetherwith the actionsand
viewsof the powerful.The mediado not onlypossessa near-monopolyover 'social
knowledge',as the primarysource of informationabout what is happening;they
also commandthe passagebetweenthosewhoare 'in the know' and the structured
ignoranceof the generalpublic.In performingthis connectiveand mediatingrole,
the media are enhanced,not weakened,by the very fact that they are, formally
and structurally,independentboth of the sourcesto which they refer and of the
'public' on whose behalf they speak. This picture may now tend to suggest a
situationof 'perfectclosure', wherethe free passageof the dominantideologiesis
permanentlysecured.But this tightlyconspiratorialimageis not an accurateone,
and we should bewareof its apparentsimplicityand elegance.The central factor
which preventssuch a 'perfect closure', however,is not a matterof technicalor
formalcontrols, or the randomnessof chance,or the good sense and conscience
of the professionals.
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
Of NEWS 67
If the tendency lowards ideological closure - the prevailing tendency - is
maintained by the way the different apparatusesare structurally linked so as
to promote the dominant definitionsof events, then the counter-tendencymust
also depend on the existenceof organisedand articulatesources whichgenerate
counter-definitionsof the situation.(As Goldmannremarked,18socialgroups and
collectivitiesare alwaysthe infrastructureof ideologies- andcounter-ideologies.)
This dependsto somedegreeon whetherthe collectivitywhichgeneratescounter-
ideologiesand explanationsis a powerfulcountervailingforce in society;whether
it representsan organisedmajorityor substantialminority;and whetheror not it
has a degree of legitimacywithinthe systemor can win such a positionthrough
struggle.19 Primarydefiners,acting in or throughthe media,wouldfind it difficult
to establisha completeclosurearounda definitionof a controversialissue in, say,
industrialrelationswithouthavingto deal with an alternativedefinitiongenerated
by spokesmenfo1·the trade unions, since the unions are now a recognisedpart
of the system of institutionalisedbargainingin the industrialfield, possess an
articulateview of their situationand interests,and have won 'legitimacy' in the
terrainwhereeconomicconflictand consensusare debatedand negotiated.Many
emergentcounter-definers,however,have no access to the defining process at
all. Even regularlyaccesseddefiners,like officialtrade-unionspokesmen,must
respondin termspre-establishedby the primarydefinersand the privilegeddefini-
tions, and have a better chanceof securinga hearingand influencingthe process
preciselyif they cast their case within the limits of that consensus.The General
Secretaryof the T.U.C. has an easier passage if he makes a 'reasonable' trade-
unioncase againsta reasonableemployers'one, if he is arguingand debatingand
negotiatingwithinthe rules, ratherthan if he is defendingunofficialstrike action,
and so on. If they do not play within the rules of the game, counter-spokesmen
run the risk of being defined oul of the debate (becausethey have broken the
rulesof reasonableopposition)- labelledas 'extremist'or 'irrational'or as acting
illegallyor unconstitutionally.Groups which have not securedeven this limited
measureof access are regularlyand systemalicallystigmatised,in their absence,
as 'extreme', their actions systematicallyde-authenticatedby being labelled as
'irrational'. The closure of the topic around its initial definitionis far easier to
achieveagainst groups which are fragmented,relativelyinarticulate,or refuse to
order their 'aims' in terms of reasonabledemandsand a practicalprogrammeof
reforms,or which adopt extremeoppositionalmeans of struggleto secure their
ends, win a hearingor defend their interests.Any of these characteristicsmake it
easier for the privilegeddefiners to label them freely,and to refuse to take their
counter-definitionsinto account.
The media thus help to reproduceand sustain the definitionsof the situation
which favour the powerful, not only by actively recruitingthe powerful in the
initialstageswheretopicsare structured,20 but by favouringcertainwaysof setting
up topics,and maintainingcertain strategicareas of silence.Manyof these struc-
tured formsof communicationare so common,so natural,so takenfor granted,so
deeplyembeddedin the verycommunicationformswhichare employed,that they
are hardlyvisibleat all, as ideologicalconstructs,unlesswe deliberatelyset out to
ask, 'Whal, other than what has been said about this topic, could be said?' 'What
questionsare omitted?''Why do the questions-which alwayspresupposeanswers
68

of a parlicularkind - so ofien recur in this form?Why do cerlainother questions

never appear?' In the arena of industrialconflict, for example,Westergaardhas
recentlyobserved:

The exclusionof wider issuesis itself a resultof the general 'balanceof power'
betweenunionsandemployers-far morecrucialfor the analysisof the situation
than the upshotof particulardisputeswithinthe terms of that restriction.... The
locus of power has to be sought primarilyin the limits which define areas of
conflictand restrictthe range of alternativeseffectivelyput into dispute.Often
indeed,they may be so tightly drawn that there are no alternativesventilated.
Thereis then no 'decisionmaking'becausepoliciesappearas self-evident.They
simply flow from assumptionsthat renderall potentialalternativesinvisible....
It follows that the locus of power cannot be seen except from a standpoint
outside the parametersof everydayconflict: for those parametersare barely
visiblefrom within.21

In this section we have tried to indicate the way in which the routinestructures
and practices of the media in relation to news-makingserve to 'frame' events
within dominant interpretativeparadigms,and thus to hold opinions together
withinwhat Urry calls 'the same sort of range'.22
Sincethe mediaare institutionallydistinct from the other agenciesof the state,
they do not automaticallytake their lead from the state. Indeed,oppositionscan
and frequentlydo arisebetweenthese institutionswithinthe complexof power in
society.The mediaare also impelledby institutionalmotivesand rationaleswhich
are differentfrom thoseof other sectorsof the state; for example,the competitive
drive to be 'first with the news' may not be immediatelyin the interestor to the
advantageof the state.The mediaoften wantto find out thingswhichthe primary
definers would rather keep quiet. The recurrent conflicts between politicians-
especiallyLabour Party politicians- and the media indicatethat the aims of the
media and those of the primarydefinersdo not alwayscoincide.23 Despitethese
reservations,however,it seems undeniablethat the prevailingtendency in the
media is towardsthe reproduction,amidst all their contradictions,of the defini-
tionsof the powerful,of the dominantideology.We havetried to suggestwhy this
tendencyis inscribedin the very structuresand processesof news-makingitself,
and cannot be ascribedto the wickednessof journalistsor their employers.

CRIME AS NEWS
Now we wish to specify how the general elements and processes of news
productionoperate in the productionof crime news as one particularvariantof
newsproduction.We beganby notingthat news is shapedby being set in relation
to a specific conceptionof society as a 'consensus'. Against this background
newsworthyeventsare those which seem to interruptthe unchangingconsensual
calm. Crime marks one of the major boundariesof that consensus.We have
already suggested that the consensus is based around legitimate and institu-
tionalisedmeans of action. Crime involvesthe negativeside of that consensus,
since the law defines what the societyjudges 10be illegitimatetypes of action.
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
Of NEWS 69

Ultimately,the law,created by Parliament,executedin the courts,embodyingthe

will of the population,providessociety with the basic definitionof what actions
are acceptableand unacceptable;it is the 'frontier' marking 'our way of life' and
its connected values.Action to stigmatiseand punish those who break the law,
taken by the agents formallyappointedas the guardiansof public moralityand
order,standsas a dramatisedsymbolicreasse11ion of the valuesof the societyand
of its limits of tolerance.If we conceiveof news as mappingproblematicreality,
then crime is almostby definition'news', as Eriksonhas suggested:

It may be important to note in this connection that confrontationsbetween

deviantoffendersand the agentsof controlhavealwaysattracteda gooddeal of
public attention.... A considerableportionof what we call 'news' is devotedto
reportsaboutdeviantbehaviourand its consequences,and it is no simplematter
to explainwhytheseitemsshouldbe considerednewsworthyor whytheyshould
commandthe extraordinaryattentionthey do. Perhapsthey appealto a number
of psychologicalperversitiesamongthe mass audience,as commentatorshave
suggested,but at the same time they constitute one of our main sources of
informationabout the nonnativeoutlinesof our society.In a figurativesense,at
least, moralityand immoralitymeet at the public scaffold,and it is during this
meetingthe line betweenthem is drawn.24

Crime, then, is 'news' becauseits treatmentevokesthreats to, but also reaffirms,

the consensualmoralityof the society:a modernmoralityplay takes place before
us in whichthe 'devil' is bothsymbolicallyand physicallycast out fromthe society
by its guardians- the policeand thejudiciary.Lest this statementbe thoughtover-
dramatised,it shouldbe comparedwiththe followingDailyMail comment(headed
'The men we take for granted') on the killingof three policemenin 1966:
The Shepherd's Bush crime remindsBritain of what it really thinks about its
police.In Britainthe policemanis still the walkingsign whichsays that society
has reached and takes for granted a certain stable normalityof public order
and decency.BernardShaw once said that for him the picture of unchanging
Britain was symbolizedby a policemanstanding with the rain glisteningon
his cape. He is slill the man you ask the time, or the way to the TownHall or
whetherthe last bus has gone. He is still the man, who, whensocietyasks him,
goes along into the unlit alley to investigatethe noise. That is why the death
of a policemanby violenceis felt so deeply by us all. The deaths of the three
men al Shepherd'sBush, senselesslyand deliberatelygunned down on the job
of maintainingthat order and decency,come as a frightfulshock that seems to
rock the veryearth.A dazed incredulityis followedby the realizationthat order
is not to be taken for granted.Thejungle is still !here.There are still wild beasts
in it to be controlled.25
Crime news is not of course uniformlyof this dramatic nature. Much of it is
routine and brief, because the bulk of crime itself is seen as routine. Crime
is understoodas a permanentand recurrentphenomenon,and hence muchof it is
surveyedby the mediain an equallyroutinisedmanner.Shuttleworth,in his study
70 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

of the reportingof violencein the Daily Mirro1;has notedthe verydifferentkinds

of presentationused, depending on the nature of the violence being treated.26
He commentedespeciallyon the relativelysmall space, and the impersonaland
abbreviatedmannerin which many 'mundane' fonns of crime are reported.(The
brevityof these reportsis furtherconstrainedby the subjudicerule whichprevents
the presscommentingon a case whichis beforethe courts,andthe recentstrength-
ening of the rules against the press presumingguilt before it has been proven.)
Many news items about crime therefore do little more than note that another
'serious' crime has beencommitted.Nevertheless,the mediaremainhighlysensi-
tised to crime as a potentialsourceof news.Muchof this 'mundane'reportingof
crime still fits our over-allargument- it marksout the transgressionof normative
boundaries,followedby investigation,arrest,and socialretributionin termsof the
sentencingof the offender.(The routinework of the policeand the courts provide
such a permanentcategory of news that many 'cub reporters' are assigned, as
their first task, to the 'crime beat'. If they survivethis routinejob - most senior
editors learn to assume- then they are ready for bigger and more testing news
assignments.}The reporting,al greater length, of certain dramatic instancesof
crime, then, arises from and stands out againstthe backgroundof this routinised
treatmentof crime. The alteration in the visibilityof certain crime-newsitems
works in conjunctionwith other organisationaland ideologicalprocesseswithin
the news media- for example,the relative'competitiveness'of other news items
for space and auention,the item's novelty,or its topicality,andso on. Crime,here,
is not significantlydifferentfrom other kinds of regularnewsitems.What selects
particularcrime storiesfor specialattention,and determinesthe relativedegreeof
attentiongivento them, is the same structureof 'news values' whichis appliedto
other newsareas.
One specialpoint about crime as news:this is the specialstatus of violenceas
a news value.Any crime can be lifted into news visibilityif violence becomes
associatedwith it, since violence is perhaps the supreme example of the news
value 'negative consequences'. Violence represents a basic violation of the
person;the greatestpersonalcrime is 'murder', betteredonly by the murderof a
law-enforcementagent, a policeman.Violenceis also the ultimatecrime against
property,and against the state. It thus represents a fundamentalrupture in the
social order. The use of violence marks the distinctionbetween those who are
fundamentallyo/society and those who are outside it. It is coterminouswith the
boundaryof 'society' itself.In the speechquotedearlier,Mr Heathdrewthecrucial
distinctionbetween'peaceful argument', 'what most of us believeto be the right
way of doing things', and 'violence', which 'challenges' that way. The basis of
the law is to safeguardthat 'right way of doing things'; to protectthe individual,
propertyand the state againstthosewho would 'do violence'to them.This is also
the basis of law enforcementand of social control.The state, and the state only,
has the monopolyof legitimateviolence,and this 'violence' is used to safeguard
societyagainst 'illegitimate'uses.Violencethus constitutesa criticalthresholdin
society;all acts, especiallycriminalones, whichtransgressthat boundary,are, by
definition,worthy of news attention.It is often complainedthat in general 'the
news' is too full of violence:an item can escalate to the top of the news agenda
simplybecauseit containsa 'big bang'. Those whoso complaindo not understand
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
OF NEWS 71
what 'the news' is about. It is impossibleto define 'news values' in ways which
would not rank 'violence' at or near the summitof newsattention.
We saw previouslyhow the productionof news is dependenton the role played
by primary definers. In the area of crime news, the media appear to be more
heavilydependenton the institutionsof crime control for their news stories than
in practicallyany other area. The police,Home Officespokesmenand the courts
form a near-monopolyas sourcesof crime news in the media.Manyprofessional
groups have contact with crime, but it is only the police who claim a profes-
sional expertisein the 'war against crime', based on daily,personal experience.
This exclusiveand particular 'double expertise' seems to give police spokesmen
especiallyauthoritativecredence.In addition,both the fonnal and informalsocial
relationsof news-makingfrom which the journalist derives his 'crime' material
are dependenton a notionof 'trust', e.g. betweenthe police and the crime corre-
spondent;i.e. on reliableandobjectivereportingby thejournalistof the privileged
infonnationto which he is allowedaccess. A 'betrayal' of that trust will lead to
the drying up of the flow of information.27 The Home Office, which is invested
with the ultimatepoliticaland administrativeresponsibilityfor crime control, is
accreditedbecause of its responsibilityto Parliamentand hence. ultimately,to
the 'will of the people'. The special status of the courts we have noted earlier.
Judges havethe responsibilityfor disposingof the transgressorsof society's legal
code; this inevitablygives them authority.But the constant media attention to
their weighty pronunciationsunderlines the importanceof their symbolic role:
their status as representativesand 'ventriloquists'for the good and the upright
againstthe forces of evil and darkness.What is most striking about crime news
is that it very rarely involvesa first-handaccount of the crime itself, unlike the
'eye-witness'report from the battlefrontof the war correspondent.Crime stories
are almost wholly producedfrom the definitionsand perspectivesof the institu-
tional primarydefiners.
This near-monopolysituationprovidesthe basis for the three typical fonnats
for crime news which together cover most variants of crime stories. First, the
reportbasedon policestatementsabout investigationsof a particularcase- which
involvea police reconstructionof the event and details of the action they are
taking. Second, the 'state of the war against crime report' - normallybased on
Chief Constables' or Home Office statistics about current crime, together with
an interpretationby the spokesmenof what the bare figuresmean - what is the
most seriouschallenge,wherethere has been most police success,etc. Third, the
staple diet of crime reporting- the story based on a court case: some, where the
case is held to be especiallynewsworthy,followingthe day-to-dayeventsof the
lrial;others wherejust the day of sentencing,and especiallythejudge's remarks,
are deemed newsworthy;and still others which consist merelyof brief summary
reports.
However,the reasonwhy the primarydefinersof crime figureso prominentlyin
mediacrimereportingis not exclusivelya functionof their especiallyauthoritative
status.It has also to do with the fact that crime is lessopen than mostpublicissues
to competingand alternativedefinitions.A C.B.I, statementis usually 'balanced'
by a T.U.C.statement,but a policestatementon crime is rarely 'balanced' by one
from a professionalcriminal,thoughthe latter probablypossessesmoreexpertise
72 POLICINGTHECRISIS

on crime. But, as an opposition,criminalsare neither 'legitimate' nor organised.

By virtueof beingcriminals,theyhaveforfeitedthe rightto takepart in the negoti-
ation of the consensusabout crime; and in the nature of most criminal activity
itself,they are a relativelyunorganised,individualisedand fragmentedstratum.It
is only in very recenttimes that prisonershave becomesufficientlyorganisedand
articulateon their own behalfto win accessto the debate,say,aboutpenalreform,
even whenthis is about prisonconditionsor methodsof prisondiscipline.By and
large,the criminal,by his actions, is assumedto have forfeited,along with other
citizenshiprights, his 'right of reply' until he has repaid his debt to society.Such
organisedoppositionas does exist - in the form usually of specific reforming
groupsand experts- oftenshares the same basic definitionof the 'problem' as the
primary definers,and is concernedmerely to propoundalternativemeansto the
same objective:the returningof the criminalto the fold.
What this amounts to, where there seems lo be a very wide consensus,and
counter-definitionsare almost absent, is that dominant definitions command
the field of significationrelativelyunchallenged.What debate there is tends to
take place almost exclusivelywithin the terms of reference of the controllers.
And this tends to repressany play betweendominantand alternativedefinitions;
by 'rendering all potential alternativesinvisible', it pushes the treatmentof the
crime in questionsharplyon to the terrain of the pragmatic- given that there is
a problemabout crime, what can wedo about it? In the absenceor an alternative
definition, powerfullyand articulatelyproposed, the scope for any reinterpre-
tation of crime by the public as an issue or public concern is extremelylimited.
Consequently,one or the areas where the media are most likely to be successful
in mobilisingpublic opinionwithinthe dominantframeworkof ideas is on issues
about crime and its threat to society.This makesthe avenueof crime a peculiarly
one-dimensionaland transparentone so far as the mass mediaand publicopinion
is concerned:one where issuesare simple,uncontroversialand clear cut. For this
reason, too, crime and deviance providetwo or the main sources for images or
pollution and stigma in the public rhetoric.11 It is not merely coincidentalthat
the languageused to justify action againstany potentialgroup of trouble-makers
deploys,as one of its critical boundarymarkers,the imageryof criminalityand
illegality,applyingit either directly,or indirectly,by association;29 for example,
the significationor student protestorsas 'student hooligans', or 'hoodlums', or
academic'thugs' (discussedmore fully in Chapter 8).

MUGGINGANDTHBMeDIA
So far we have been discussingthe general characteristicsof news production;
then more tightlyfocusingon the formsthese take in relationto the productionof
crime-as-news.In this sectionwe shallconnectthese analysesor newsproduction
with the press treatmentof 'mugging' news stories specifically.In examining,
chronologically,the changing nature or this press treatment, we shall be able
to see not only the applicationor specific news values, but, more importantly,
how these operate as a structure in relation to a particulartopic - in this case a
particularkind of crime - to maintainits newsworthiness.
 Of NEWS
THESOCIALPRODUCTION 73

It might help to start with Table 3.1, which illustratesthe general pauern of
press reportingof muggingevents during our sample period - August 1972 to
August 1973;but first we need to say somethingabout its empiricalbasis. Our
sample was based on a daily readingof both the Guardianand the Daily Mirror
for the thirteen-monthsample period. We also had access to substantialfiles of
cuuingsreferringto muggingeventsin this sameperiod,whichhad beencollected
as a result of an extensive.but not exhaustive,readingof other nationaldailies,the
nationalSunday papers and the Londonevening papers.Becauseor the slightly
differentnewsemphasesin both the Sundaypapersand the Londonones, we have
not includedstories from these sources in Table 3.1 or the accompanyingtext,
thoughwe have used materialfrom these papers,in illustration,elsewherein the
book.Our search,based only on the nationaldailies,yieldedthirty-threedifferent
eventsreported as muggingsin the Daily Mirror,eighteen in the Guardian,and
sixty over all. In arriving at these figures, we decided to count all the different
reports referring to one parlicularmugging (i.e. 'follow ups' of the same event
through to the later stages such as court case, appeal, etc.) as one; and we also
decided that the first month in which the event was mentionedshould become
the monthin which it was recordedin the table.Further,we also decidedthat the
'whole sample' columnshould includeonly the total numberof differentevents.
Thus in arriving at our figures for each month, the same event reportedin, say,
four differentpapers was counted as only one event.In the separatecolumns for
the Guardia11 and the Daily Mirror,on the other hand,if the same event appeared
in both papers it was recorded in both columns.Foreign muggingreports were
excludedfromthe table.(Thoseinterestedin presscoverageor mugginggenerally,
as opposedto the coverageof muggingevents- reportsof crimesor court cases-
shouldconsultTable3.2 at the end of this chapter.)
It shouldbe clear fromTable3.1 that the peak of the presscoverageof mugging
eventsoccurred in October 1972.Thereafterthere is a decline in press interest.
The maintenanceof interest beyond the new year, through March and April,
probablyowesa lot to the effectof the Handsworthcase.Afterthat, onlya spateof
stories in the Daily Mirror in June providemuggingwith any appreciablemedia
visibility.Although,as we now know,August 1973 was by no means the end or
'the muggingstory', it seems fair to concludethat by August 1973mugginghad
concluded'one cycle' of its newsworthiness.Whilethe figuresinvolvedare admit-
tedly small, and not very revealingon their own, when we turn to the changi11g
natureof the coverage.a moredistinctpatterndoes emerge- and one whichbears
out the notionor a 'cycle' of newsworthiness.
'Mugging' breaksas a news story becauseof its extraordinariness,its novelty.
This fits with our notion of the extraordinaryas the cardinal news value: most
storiesseemto requiresomenovelelementin orderto lift them into newsvisibility
in the first instance; mugging was no exception.The WaterlooBridge killing,
defined by the police as a 'mugging gone wrong', was located and signifiedto
its audienceby the Daily Mirroras a 'frighteningnew strain of crime'. Someone
stabbedor even killed in the courseof a robberyis by no meansnovel.What lifts
this particularmurderout of the categoryof the 'run of the mill' is the attribution
of a 'new' label; this sig11a/sits novelty. Importantly,in line with our earlier
74 POLICINGTHECRISIS

TAnu.;3.1
Muggi11gevents reportedin the press (August 1972 to August 1973)

Month/Year DailyMirror Guardian Whole sample

August 1972 I 2 2
September I972 4 I 4
October 1972 12 9 23
November 1972 2 0 4
December 1972 0 I 2
January 1973 3 2 5
February 1973 I 0 4
March 1973 2 2 4
April 1973 2 0 5
May 1973 0 I I
June 1973 5 0 5
July 1973 0 0 0
August 1973 I 0 I
Total 33 18 60

argument,this event is mediated by lhe police investigatingit; they providethe

mugginglabel, and hence the legitimationfor its use by the press.The journalist
then buildson this skeletaldefinition.He framesand contextualisesthe detailsof
the story in line with the operatinglogicof news values;he emphasisesits novelty
(a 'frighteningnew strain of crime') and the Americanconnection.
Galtungand Rugehavehypothesisedthat 'once somethinghas hit the headlines
and been definedas "news", then it will continueto be definedas news for some
time',30 andour examplecertainlyvalidatedthis.Perhapsmoreimportantlythough,
for a time,the simpleattributionof the mugginglabelwas sufficientto bringmany
discrete and commonplacecrime events into the orbit of the newsworthy.The
clearestexamplesof this process were providedby some of the most publicised
early 'mugging' court cases; as we saw in Chapter2, these were,in fact, trials for
pickpocketing(or even'attemptedpickpocketing').Otherexampleswerethe small
spate of stories in September/Octoberof attackscommittedby girls. Mugging,it
wouldseem,providedsomethingof a focusingelement for a latentconcernabout
the growthof femaleviolence- a concernwhich has since becomemanifestand
independentfromthe concernabout mugging.This process-what Hall has called
the 'generativeand associative'effectof newlabels31 - was also much in evidence
duringthe periodwhenthe 'mod' /'rocker' labels had some novelty.32
However,the newsvalueof 'novelty'is eventuallye~pended;throughrepetition
the extraordinaryeventuallybecomes ordinary. Indeed, in relation to any one
particular news story, 'novelty' clearly has the most limited life span of all the
news values.At this point in the 'cycle' of a news story, other, more enduring
news valuesare neededin order to supplementdecliningnewsworthiness,and so
sustainits 'news-life'. Two in particularseemedto play such an augmentingrole
in relationto mugging:those of the 'bizarre' and 'violence'. In respectof both of
 THE SOCIALPRODUCTIONOF NEWS 75
these newsvalues,we find a growthin the numberor muggingreports,throughout
our sampleperiod, whichseemedto gain news visibilityprimarilybecauseor the
presenceof such supplementarynews values.Althoughthe numbersinvolvedare
small, they do seem 10 us to be sufficientlymarkedto warrantour makinginfer-
ences about them. On the other hand, the news-value'elite or famous person'
does not appear to play,in our sampleanyway,such an augmentingrole. In all we
foundonly five storieswhichseemedlo gain news visibilityprimarilybecauseof
the famousname of the victim:two appearedin 1972,JJand three in 1973.3'1
By the 'bizarre' report we mean one with highly unusual, odd, eccentric,
quaint, strange or grotesque characteristics.In our sample such reports could
be sub-divided into two - those with a humorous twist and those with more
menacingand grotesque overtones- but the term 'bizarre' seems adequate to
cover the element of newsworthinesscommon to both types. During 1972 we
foundonly one such reporl:the Guardianstory of 10Novemberlr:.Tl2 ofa youth
marchinga man, who had no money,into a bank at knife-pointin order to cash a
cheque.But betweenMarchandJuly 1973we foundfive- somehumorous,some
grotesque.As an exampleof each we havechosentwo DailyMirrorstories,l' The
first, headlined'Muggers pick on the wrong man', 5 June Ir:.Tl3, was a humorous
story full of unusual twists and reversals.The report spoke of an unsuccessful
mugging by three 'would-be' muggers. Their intended victim 'waded in with
fists flying', lef'tthem 'lying dazed and battered', and then called at the nearest
police station to inform them of the incident. The police then went to look for
the men, not, apparently,to charge them but to see if any of them were 'seriously
hurt'. Later in the same month, 27 June 1973,came a report with strange and
menacingovertones:the story of the hurlingover a clirf, in the small hours, of a
hairdresser... 'for 30p'.
The bizarre base for this last story is obviouslythe strange and extremeform
that the assault took. But implicitin the story line is a second news angle, which
castsan interestinglighton the broadersocialunderstandingof crime.Thissecond
angle is carried in the juxtaposition, in both the headline and the story itself,
betweenthe assaultand the rewardgained by the muggers- •ror 30p'. Thejuxta-
positioncan only work (creatinga dissonancebetweenthe twoelements)givenan
implied'rationalcalculus'about crime, and especiallyabout the relationbetween
violenceand the resultsgainedfromits use.The implicationof theMirror'sjuxta-
positionis that '30p' is not a rationalmotivefor the degree of violenceinvolved
in the assault.This impliedcalculusis often at work in the public significationor
mugging- an implieddisparitybetweenthe violenceused in muggingattacksand
the 'loot' taken.The contrastimplicitlyidentifiesa subordinatethemewhichcame
to be associatedwith the socialconcern about mugging- what was identifiedby
policespokesmenas its 'gratuitousviolence'.
Since we foundit very difficultto differentiatepreciselythe purely 'gratuitous'
frommore 'instrumentally'violentmuggingreports- for example,a 'gratuitously
violent'headlinemightbeliea more ambiguous,'instrumental'report36 - we have
no precise,quantitativeevidenceof an increasein 'violent' reportsof a specifi-
cally gratuitouskind. However,we do haveevidenceof a relativeincreasein the
numberof 'violent' muggingstories in general which bears out our notionabout
violencehaving an importantrole to play as a supplementarynews value in the
case of mugging.
76 POI.ICJNOTHECRISIS

Taking the coverage as a whole. of the sixty different mugging cases found,
thirty-eight were reports of 'violent' muggings (i.e. involving actual physical
assault), whereas only twenty-two were 'non-violent' (i.e. instances where there
was only the threat of violence or no reported violence): a ratio of slightly under
two-to-one. (Our estimates were based on the reported descriptions of the crimes,
not on the formal charges brought against the defendants.) Yet ir we contrast the
reports found during 1972 (twenty violent and fifteen non-violent) with those
found during 1973 (eighteen violent and seven non-violent), we find a change in
the ratio from just over one-to-one to nearly three-to-one; and if we take only the
last five months of the sample period (April-August 1973) we get a ratio of five-
to-one (ten violent reports and two non-violent ones).
Of course, these ratios, and the pattern of intensification around the violence
theme that they reveal, would not be particularly significant if they corresponded
with the official statistics used to justify the reaction to mugging. Obviously, as
our earlier section on statistics should have demonstrated, the problems of using
official crime statistics as a base - and especially mugging statistics - are many.
However, we offer the following evidence as our basis for saying that of the cases
collectively perceived by the police lo be 'part of the mugging problem' in the
1972-3 period, about 50 per cent were 'non-violent', and the ratio of one-lo-one
that this revealed remained fairly constant:

So far this year about 450 cases have been reported to the squad [set up to
deal with South London 'muggings']. Of these 160 have been substantiated as
violent robberies and a further 200 confirmed as thefts from the person, either
by snatching or pocketpicking. (Sunday 1lmes, I October 1972.)
Nor is there such a thing as a typical mugger. But there is a pattern. Go to
Brixlon Police Station, for example, and it's all there on the wall charts and
in the statistics. In the past year, 2 I I robberies with violence or threats - 40
more than the previous year. Snatching without violence - 300 cases. (Lo11do11
EveningNews, 22 March 1973.)

The ratio between the statistics for 'robberies' and 'snatchings' is similar in
both sets of statistics, though one set refers to 1972 and the other to early 1973.
In fact there are slightly more 'non-violent' than 'violent' cases. Since neither
article gives any further, separate, figures for 'muggings', it seems fair to assume
that both 'robbery' and 'snatching without violence' were being treated, for
all practical purposes, as muggings. As a further vindication of this view, we
would refer readers to the Report of the Commissionerof the Metropolita11 Police
for the Year 1972 which explicitly states that there is little difference between
'snatchings' and 'robbery': 'Although they are not strictly crimes of violence,
"snatchings" are included in the table [crimes of violence (selected)] because
there is no great distinction between these offences and those of robbery and
because a similar increase is evident over the last two years.'" The Commissioner
is talking - though he claims not to like the term - of 'muggings'. Although the
tendency of the media to over report violent crime in general has frequently
been noled,38 what we have been drawing attention to here is the way 'violence'
 THESOCIALPRODUCTION
OF NEWS 17
is increasinglyused, as a structuringelement,in relation to the life cycle of one
particularnews theme.
In Roshier'slook at the selectionof crime news in the press, he foundfour sets
of factors to be particularlyimportant:'(I) the seriousnessof the offence... (2)
"Whimsical"circumstances,i.e. humorous,ironic, unusual... (3) Sentimentalor
dramaticcircumstances... (4) The involvementof a famousor high status person
in any capacity (although particularlyas offender or victim).'19 These are very
similar factors to the news values we found to be importantas supplementary
sourcesof newsworthiness,i.e.the 'famouspersonality',the 'bizarre'andviolence.
However,our emphasishas been on how these news valuesoperateas a structure
or set how they operate in relation to the primary value of novelty,principally
as differentways of revivinga 'flagging' news story.This emphasis,we believe,
justifies our talkingof a 'cycle of newsworthiness',and supportsour conclusion
that by August 1973this particularcycle was at, or very near, its end.

RECIPROCAL
RELATIONS
Finally, we want to look at the /'elationsof recip1vcitybetween the primary
definers and the media, as exemplifiedin the muggingcase. On 26 September
1972the Daily Mirivr carried a story with the headline 'A Judge Cracks Down
On MuggersIn City Of Fear.'The story perfectlyillustratesthe role and status for
the media of privilegeddefinitions:the use of the term 'muggers' in the headline
is justified by the judge's statement in the main report: 'Mugging is becoming
more and more prevalentcertainlyin London.We are told that in Americapeople
are afraidto walk the streetslate at night becauseof mugging.'We mustalso take
note here of the judge's use of American'mugging' as a referencepoint against
which his sentencingis contextualised;but primarilythis exampleillustratesthe
'anchorage' of news-storiesin the authoritativepronouncementsof privileged
definersoutsidethe media.
In October 1972,we find an exampleof how the mediautilisesa 'base' in such
definitionsfor its own definitionalwork on such an issue. The Daily Mirror on
6 October 1972accompanieda report of Judge Hines's sentencingthree teenage
youthsto three years' imprisonmentfor 'mugging' with an editorialwhichpicked
up his statement that 'The course I feel I am bound to take may not be the best
for you young men individually,but it is one I must take in the public interest.'
The editorial adds its ow11 campaigning'voice' - its 'public idiom' - to that of
thejudge: 'Judge Hines is right. There are times when deterrentsentenceswhich
normallywould seem harsh and unfair,MUST be imposed ... if muggingis not
to get out of hand as it has in America, punishmentmust be sharp and certain.'
Here we can see the press in a more active role - justifying (but simultaneously
using as its justification}judicial statementsabout 'mugging' as a public issue.
The circle has becometighter,the topic more closed,the relationsbetweenmedia
and primary definersmore mutuallyreinforcing.(Indeedfor the Mirrorthere is
110 debate left: 'Judge Hines is right.')
A week later (13 October 1972),the Sun, in an editorialentitled 'Tamingthe
Muggers', moved anotherstep towardsclosure by aligning 'the people' with the
dominantdefinitionof the judiciary. In this example,the Sun does not bring its
78 POLICINGTHECRISIS

'public idiom' to bear - rather,it takes the public 110ice;

it becomesthe people's
'ventriloquist':

WHATARE the British people most co11cerned about today? Wages?Prices?

Immigration?Pornography?People are talking about all these things. But the
Sun believesthere is another issue which has everyonedeeply worried and
angry: VIOLENCEIN OUR STREETS ... Nothing could be more utterly
againstour way of life, based on a commonsense regard for law and order....
If punitivejail sentenceshelp to stop the violence- and nothingelse has done-
then they will not only prove to be the only way.They will, regrettably,be the
RIGHTway.And thejudges will have the backi11g of the public.

If wedisregardfor a momentdifferencesbetweenindividualpapers and treat all

the newspapersas contributingto a sequencein whichcriticaldefinitionalworkon
the controversialtopicof 'mugging' is carriedout, then we can see, in abbreviated
fonn, how the relationsbetweenprimarydefinersand the mediaserve,at one and
the sametime,to define 'mugging'as a public issue,as a matterof public concern,
and to effectan ideologicalclosureof the topic.Oncein play theprimarydefinition
commandsthe field;there is now in existencean issue of public concern,whose
dimensionshavebeen clearly delineated,which now servesas a continuingpoint
of referencefor subsequentnews reporting,action and campaigns.For example,
it now becomes possible for the police, who are somewhatcircumspectabout
appearingto involvethemselvesin controversialmatterswhichare not yet settled,
to demandwiderpowers to act on an issue of crime controlwhich has now been
unambiguouslyinstalledas an urgentpublicmatter.Thus:
Policemay seek morepowers on 'mugging'.
Police superintendents,alarmedby the increasein violentcrime, particularly
amongyoung people.may ask the HomeOfficefor strongerpowerslo combat
'mugging'. (The 11mes,S October 1972.)
A few months later it is the judiciary which recruits the public concernabout
'mugging'(or takes the public voice) as a defence for their deterrentsentencing
policies:
Muggerjailed for 3 years. 'And I was lenient', says the judge. The judge
added, 'everybodyin this countrythinks that offencesof this kind - mugging
offences- are on the increaseand the public havegot to be protected.This is a
frightfulcase' (DailyMail, 29 March 1973.)

Inthislastexample'publicopinion'hasbeenimportedbacki11to thejudicialdiscourse
as a way of underpinningand makinglegitimatea judicial statementaboutcrime.
Whereasbeforethe mediagroundedits storiesin evidenceprovidedby the courts,
nowthe courtsuse the public('everybodythinks') to groundtheirstatements.This
is an exceedinglylimitedcircle of mutualreciprocitiesand re-enforcements.But
even this twist of the amplificationspiral should not blind us 10 the starling-point
 THE SOCIAi. PRODUCTIONCF NEWS 79

of the process:the pointwhere it beganand from which it is continuallyrenewed-

the role of the primaryand privilegeddefiners,who,in classifyingout the worldof
crime for mediaand public,establishthe principalcategoriesacrosswhichthe news
mediaand newsmenrun their secondarythemesand variations.
A week previouslyanotherjudge had added the final twist to the 'spiral', and
effectively 'closed the circle'. Sentencing two youths whose counsel had made
referencelo the heavysentenceshandeddown in 1heHandsworthcase the previous
day, the judge commentedthat 'The press had now made it known that sentences
for street auacks involvingrobbery "would no longer be light"_...., Here we see
the reciprocitybetwee11the differentparts of the control culture in an extremely
clear and explicit form. We have here exactly the reverseside of the process we
noted earlier in which the media legitimatedits coverage in evidence provided
by the courts. Now the media themselves have become the 'legitimator' of the
controlprocess.We are now al the very heart of the inter-relationshipsbetweenthe

TABI.E
3.2
The press coverageof 'muggi11g'
(August /972 to August 1973)

Month/Year Gual'dian Daily Mirror (I) and (2) Other dailies Monthly
(I) (2) combined totals
August 1972 5 I 6 3 9
September 1972 2 5 7 5 12
October 1972 7 18 25 19 44
November 1972 5 5 10 13 23
December 1972 0 2 2 4 6
January 1973 4 5 9 4 13
February 1973 0 I I 7 8
March 1973 7 9 16 37 53'
April 1973 4 4 8 13 21
May 1973 2 0 2 4 6
June 1973 0 5 5 0 5
July 1973 0 0 0 0 0
August 1973 I I 2 0 2
Total 37 56 93 l09 202
• Includesthirty-fourstorieson theHandsworth case.
NOTES:(I) As in Table3.1, the Guardia11and the Daily Mirmr werereadexhaustively,
whilethe figuresfor 'other dailies'wererecons1ruc1edfrompresscuuingssuppliedby
N.C.C.L.andthe 8.8.C.
(2)All itemsmentioning'mugging'werecoun1ed.Mostreferredto particularcrimesbut
a substantialnumberwereofa moregeneralkind:reponsof HomeOffice/police activity;
features;editorials,etc.Consistently,
acrosspapersand months,thislatterkindor report
providedabouta quarteror moreof all items.
80 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

control culture and the 'signification culture'. The mutual articulation of these two
'relatively independent' agencies is by this stage so overdeterminedthat it cannot
work in any way other than to createan effective ideological and control closure
around the issue. In this moment, the media - albeit unwittingly, and through their
own 'autonomous' routes - have become effectively an apparatus of the control
process itself - an 'ideological state-apparatus' .41
Part II
 4
Balancing Accounts:
Cashing in on Handsworth

EVBNT:THE HANDSWORTH
'MUGGING'
On the eveningof 5 November1972,Mr Robert Keenanwas walkinghome from
a pub in theVillaRoadareaof Handsworth,Birmingham,whenhe metthree boys,
Paul Storey,James Duignanand MustafaFuat.They stoppedhim and asked for a
cigarette. Then they knocked him to the ground and dragged him to a nearby piece
of wasteground,where they robbed him of 30p, some keys and five cigarettes.
After this they left him, but returned about two hours later, found he was still
there, and attacked him again; on this occasionJames and Mustafakicked him,
whilePaul attackedhim with a brick.Again they left the scene,but came back to
attack him once more.
Some time later, Mustafa Fuat and James Duignanphoned for an ambulance
and told the policethat they had foundan injuredman.In the followinglwo days
lhey were interviewedon severaloccasions,and on 8 November,followingwhat
James,Mustafaand two girl witnessestold the police,all three boyswerearrested
and charged.lLseems from the statementof one of the girls that at least one other
personsaweither one of the attackson the unconsciousbodyof Mr Keenan.There
were about two hours betweenthe tirst and secondattacks.
On 19 March 1973, the three boys appeared in the court in Birmingham
beforeMr JusticeCroom-Johnsonand werechargedas follows:Paul Storeywith
attemptedmurderand robbery;James Duignanand MustafaFuat with wounding
with intenl to cause grievousbodily harm and robbery.The three boys pleaded
guilty to all charges.The prosecutionpresentedthe facts as outlinedabove.The
defence counsel did nol substantiallychallenge them, but pleaded mitigating
circumstances:in Paul's case that he camefroma brokenhome,withsomehistory
of violence in the family which might lead to the 'conclusionthat this sort of
backgroundcan affect the human mind so as to lead to otherwisecompletely
unexplainablebehaviour'. In James's and Mustafa's defence,it was argued that
Paul had been the instigatorof, and main participantin, the offence.
The judge said that it was a 'serious and horriblecase', To Paul Storeyhe said,
'Storey,you were clearly the ringleader.Youclearly took the most activepart in
the attack on Mr Keenan.Youwent back for the purposeof assaultinghim. You
kickedhim, you hit him over the head with a brick, and on a third occasion,you
84 POLICINGTHECRISIS

went back and kicked him three or four times in the face as he lay insensibleon
the ground.Youare nothingmore or less than a wild animal.'He then went on to
pass sentenceon Paul, saying: 'It is quite impossiblefor me to do other than to
orderyou to be detainedin such a placeand in such conditionsas the Secretaryof
State may direct. I fix the periodat twenty years.'The detentionorder was made
under the Childrenand YoungPerson's Act of 1933,section 53(2). Under the
sameAct, James and Mustafaweregiven sentencesof ten years' detentioneach.
On 21 March,the three boys were recalled before the judge; he had omitted,
he said, to pass separatesentenceson the robberycharges.He said he had reread
the medicalreportson Mr Keenan,about the extent of his injuriesand how they
had beencaused(thoughhe had not, it seemed,rereadthe welfareand psychialric
reportson the boys).He went on: 'Robbery involvesthe use of violenceand the
sentencesmust reflectthe degreeof violence... the effectscan only be described
as sickening.The public must be protectedfrom you.' He then passed sentences
of twentyyears' detentionfor Paul, and ten yearseach for James and Mustafa,to
run concurrentlywith those givenpreviously.
The previousminor misdemeanoursof the accused, such as they were, were
not referredto by thejudge. Paul Storeyhad been fined£10 for a 'disorderlyact'
the previousMay (he took a car and drove it aroundHandsworthuntil it ran out
of petrol), and at school he had been at the receivingend of a minor stabbing.
JamesDuignanhad spentsometime in an approvedschoolfor minor,non-violent
offences.MustafaFuat had no record.
On 14 May Lord Justice James consideredan applicationfor leave to appeal
for a reductionin the length of the sentences,madeon behalfof all three boys.He
refusedthe appealon the groundsthat the boys would be eligiblefor parole,and
that it was unlikelythat they wouldserve anythinglike their full sentences.
On 28 June, in the Courtof Appeal,LordChiefJusticeWidgery(in a judgement
analysedmore fully later)upheldLordJusticeJames's decisionand refusedleave
to appeal.
This is the bare outlineof the Handsworthcase which markedthe culmination
of the muggingpanicin its first phase:one reasonfor our concentralionon it here.
Additionally,though, the 'Handsworthcase' promptedintensivepress coverage.
We havetreatedthis as a case studyin whichthe analysisof the mediamade in the
previouschaptercan be exemplified.Althoughthe extentof coveragewas unprec-
edented, this does not undermineour representationof it as typical of previous
coverage.The same set of core news valuesshapes the constructionof the initial
front-page leads; the assumptions and formulationsof the editorials closely
resembleearlier positionstaken by papers.1 The feature articles,too, mobilising
possible explanationsof 'mugging', had similar precursors;2 while the debate
between 'experts' and 'lay' opinionservedto sharpenrather than alter the shape
of argumentsabout crime and punishmentwhich had for some time occupied
space in letter columns.
The Handsworthcase, then, crystallisesthe operationof the media, so that in
one momentwe can observethe shape of a whole news process.It also allowsus
to see how the differentforms of the process(news,editorials,features)handled
the elementsin the case, and how these formsof newsproductionrelatedto each
 DALANCINGACCOUNTS:CASHING IN ON HANDSWORTH 85

other. Finally,we are concernedwith the dependenceof the fonns on meanings,

referencesand interestsrootedoutside the specificsphereof mediaoperation.As
we have seen, news values define as newsworthythat which is abnormal,thus
mobilisinga sense of what constitutesnonnality.In the Handsworthcase a whole
range of such assumptions- about the routineoperationof the legal system, the
basis of sentencingpolicy,the extent to whichyoung peoplecan be held respon-
sible for their actions,their immediatemotives,more long-termconsiderationof
socialcauses- were operative.All these provideda structuredframeworkwithin
whichthe media workedout its variations.
This frameworkof beliefsand ideas abouthow the socialordernormallyworks
constitutesa sort of folk ideologyabout crime and punishmentin society.The
handlingof the Handsworthstoryin the presswasan 'ideological'process,notonly
becausecertain social interestswere realised in its treatment,but becauseit had
meaningonly by leaveof ideologicalconstructswhichgeneratedit as a meaningful
and 'newsworthy'set of items.In the analysiswhichfollows,we are lessconcerned
with the immediatecontent of the news coverage,and more concernedwith the
way the Handsworthstory was constructedby these folk ideologies,and, recip-
rocally,with the way these ideologiesarticulatedand tested themselvesthrough
the constructionof the story as a news item.We are concerned,not with the news
content of the press, so much as with the 'ideologiesof crime and punishment':
with an ideologicalnot a contentanalysis.It must be added, however,that ideol-
ogies are not simply sets of ideas and beliefs about the world hanging loose in
people'sheads.Theyare madeactiveand realisedin concretepracticesand appara-
tuses - for example,the practicesand apparatusesof news construction.These
ideologiesare present only when they are realised,objectivated,materialisedin
concreteinstances,actionsor forms,throughconcretepractices.

PRIMARYNEWS
JAILEDFOR 20 YEARS- SHOCKSENTENCEON A MUGGERAGED 16
(DailyMirro1;20 March 1973)
20 YEARS FOR MUGGERS- Boy 16 weeps after sentence(Daily Express,
20Man:h 1973)
20YEARS FORTHE MUGGERSAGED 16(Sun,20Man:h 1973)
20YEARS FOR BOY,16, WHO WENT MUGGINGFOR FUN (Daily Mail,
20 Man:h 1973)
16YEAROLDBOYGETS20YEARSFORMUGGING(Gual'rlian,20 March
1973)
20 YEARS FOR 16 YEAR OLD MUGGER- five cigarettes and 30p from
victim(Daily Telegraph,20 March 1973)
MUGGERAGED 16GIVEN20YEARS DETENTIONANDCOMPANIONS
to YEARS(The 1imes, 20 March 1973)
16-YEAR-OLDBOY GETS 20 YEARS IN 'MUGGING' CASE (Moming
Stai;20 March 1973)
86

Headlinesare frequentlyan accurate,if simple,guide to the themesimplicitin a

story which the newspapersconsider to representits most 'newsworthy'angle.
The 'news value' of a story is frequentlyaugmentedby counterposing,in the
headline. two apparently contrasting or oppositional themes or aspects. It is
relativelyrare for all the nationalpapersto select the same angleor anglesaround
whichto pivota story.ll is thereforestriking,in this instance,that everynewspaper
chooses to signify the Handsworthstory by means of the same contrastingor
juxtaposedthemes:the youJhof the offendersversusthe length of the sentences.
Some papersexpandedthe story's news value by the additionof the newsworthy
label 'mugging' or 'mugger'. The juxtapositionof the eldest offender's age, as
contrastedwith the unusuallength of the sentence,testifiesto the relianceby the
press on the court-roomas the principalsourcefor its front-pagestory.The story,
in other words,was first signifiedthroughthe news exploitationor its judicial or
penal aspect.Withinthis unanimity,there are importantdifferencesor emphasis:
notably,betweenthose whoput the age of Paul Storeyfirst (Guardian,The Tunes,
MorningStar) and those who put the sentence first (Daily Express,Daily Mail,
DailyMirror,Sun, DailyTelegraph).The Guardian,DailyMail, andMorningStar
did not directly label the offendersas 'muggers'; the MorningStar uses inverted
commasaroundmugging;the Telegraph'semphasisis 30p; and the Mail stresses
the motiveor 'fun'. Some or these are indicativeof real differencesof emphasis
whichbecomeapparentin the subsequentcoverage(e.g. the Star challengingthe
muggingdefinition),as we hope to demonstrate.
The formal functionof a headline is to draw the readers' attention;to do this
it must dramatisethe event or issue, and hence the oft-satirisedtendencyto use
reinforcingwords like 'shock', 'sensation', 'scandal', 'drama'. But what it must
also do is to indicatewhy this item is importantand problematic.Here,the use of
the mugging label and the juxtapositionof the 16-year-old/20years themes are
enoughfor us to recogniseand situatethis eventas part of the 'mugging' pattern-
a climax to the earlier exemplarysentencesof late 1972,which at the same time
poses a series or complexchoices about the treatmentof young offenders.The
Handsworthcase does not appear as a story; it appears as a set or questions,
touchingon a problematicarea- questionsabout penalpolicy.We shouldadd that
the tenn 'mugging' was not used in court,so far as we know,so that its appearance
in the headlineshere demonstratesagain the 'creative' role of the media, which
we saw in Chapter 3, and the way in which the constantsearch for augmenting
newsvalues- in this case the use of the 'mugging' label-ensures that the 'debate'
which followswill be heavily'inferentiallystructured'from the outset.
To pursue this group of 'open questions' behind the sentence,the newspapers
soughtthe reactionsof the immediateactors- the offenders'relativesand friends,
and then those of social advocates- those seen as having the right or duty to
expressan opinionor pronouncejudgement on the sentence.Most papers, then,
quicklymovedbeyondthe report of the court hearing,which was presentedwith
considerablesimilarity:opening with the judge's comments, a presentationof
the prosecutioncase, and extracts from the pleas in mitigation.Here there were
only two significant variations,both or which proved important indicators of
subsequentcoverage.The Daily Mail and the Sun omitted the pleas offered in
mitigationand thereby prefiguredtheir heavy emphasis on the sufferingof the
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS;CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 87

victim; and the Morning Star prepared its own oppositionto the sentences by
omittingthejudge's comments.
As we can see, in the Handsworthcase the explorationof the 'issues behindthe
event' was not added to a commonobjectivesummaryof the court proceedings;
it was rather,built into the very way the story was first presentedas a news item-
and not only in the headlinesand the text. Most of the newspapers- The 'lime,,
Telegraphand the Morni11gStar being the exceptions- carried photographsof
some kind. Fourof the remainingfive had insets of Paul Storey,two of thejudge,
two of MustafaFuat, and one of Paul Storey's mother.No paper had more than
two at this stage. Perhaps because of the limited stock of family photographs,
someof them were of the offendersas very youngchildrenand others wereindis-
tinct and blurred.Their over all effect,especiallyif juxtaposedwith the bewigged
judge, is to reflect in highly personalisedterms the themes - youth/innocence
versusadulthood/thelaw- alreadysignifiedin the headlines.This individuali1ing
of the abstract issues was furtheraccomplishedby the reproductionof the boys'
mothers' comments.The Express,Mail and Sun quote all three; the Telegraph,
Guardianand Star none; The 'limesjust Paul Storey's mother,as does the Mirmr.
There is perhaps here - in the extent to which oppositionto the sentenceswas
represented as located immediatelyin the boys' families rather than through
detachedconsiderationof the issue - a real distinctionbetweena populistand a
more abstractapproach.The Tuneshere,exceptionally,unbendsitself a little.
These, then, were the actors given credence because of their personal and
intimate involvementin the event. But the event was a1sopresented as having
wider implications,as marking a new development in the on-going judicial
processof sentencingaroundwhicha publicdebate had alreadybeenestablished.
The terrain of this debate was occupiedby interest groups and pressuregroups,
elected representativesand academicexperts on crime and penal policy.Locked
in combathere were the penalreformers- concernedwith the implicationsof the
sentencesfor these and other offenders- and the law-enforcers,willing to greet
with enthusiasma sentencethey believedto be both deterrentand justly retrib-
utive. Only the Sun and the MorningStar did not use these forces in opposition
as a moregeneralisedrepresentationof the implicitoppositionbetweenthejudge
and the boys' mothers:an indicationof their unequivocalhandlingof the issue.
The Mail, Telegraph,Mirrorand Guardianused quotes from such institutionsas
PROP(the prisoners'rightsorganisation),the NationalCouncilfor CivilLiberties
and the HowardLeague for Penal Reform,which all condemnedthe sentence,in
contrast to those who supportedit, the Police Federationand variousToryM.P.s.
The Expressand The Timespreferredto describe the controversialnature of the
sentencesin their own words,as 'withoutprecedent'.
There is, then, a patterncommonto most of the newspapers:a 16-year-old/20-
year mugging headline, a photographor two, an account of court proceedings,
some statements from the affected, more general comments from institution-
alised spokesmen.Before consideringtwo papers in detail, we wish to note two
additionsto some of the stories which warrantcomment.The first is the use by
The Timesand the Guardianof a series of politico-juridicalstatementsabout the
need for heavysentencesagainst 'muggers'. Bothquote speechesof the previous
eighteen months made by Lord Colville,Minister of State for 1heHome Office,
88 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

the Home Secretary,RobertCarr, and Lord Hailsham,the Lord Chancellor.The

effect of these quotationsis to suggestthat these sentenceswere, if not directly
approvedby the government,at least in line with their general thinkingon the
subject.It movesthe sentencefrom a judicial to a politicallevel,and in so doing
acknowledges- in a way which breachesthe conventionalrepresentationof the
judiciary as an independentarm of the state - the relationshipbetween them.
It is an ambiguousinsertion,not only because it raises the question of whether
the governmentmight or should have intervenedin sentencingpolicy, but also
becauseit beginsto situate this sentenceas part of the largermuggingcampaign
and that, in turn,as part of the highlypoliticisedlaw-and-orderissue.
In the event, the Guardiandid nol pursue the line of enquiry,and The 7imes
settled the ambiguityby using the second addition we mentioned.It followed
these politicalstatementsby recallingthe 129per cent rise in muggingsclaimed
by ScotlandYard,thus implicitlyjustifying the sentencesas being no more than
a legitimatereactionto an unprecedentedcrime wave.A similar 'statistical' tactic
was used by the Telegraph.These additionsaffecteda particularclosure of the
topic: whateverthe long-termissues might be, the hard evidencesupportedthe
necessityfor drastic action; and legitimateda 'political' interest in the 'judicial'
handlingof the case. These,then, were two distinctiveand significantvariations
on otherwisecommonthemes.We nowwishto demonstratehowtwo newspapers,
differentin readership,lay-out,style and overt political allegiances,can adopt
very differentroutes through the issues behind the Handsworthevent, and yet
never breach the agreed boundariesof news exploration.These papers are the
Daily Telegraphand the Daily Mirror.
The Telegraphsharedwith the rest of the press a commonsenseas to what was
primarily newsworthyabout the Handsworthcase - 20 years/16-year-old.This
commongroundwas, however,significantlyinflectedby the 'Five cigarettesand
30p' strapline,which underscoresthe senselessnessand irralionalityof the crime
(significantly,the 'lack of motivation'was the main reason subsequentlycited
by the Court of Appeal when confirmingthe sentences).Technically,the story
was writtenin a classic 'objective' style. In keeping with this, a formal balance
was maintainedwithin the story, which reports the criticismof the sentenceby
penalreformers.Butthis balanceis framedby the 'legalistic'natureof the over-all
reporl. This is strongly instancedby the Telegraph'suse of a statement by Mr
Colin Woods,AssistantCommissioner(Crime), ScotlandYard,that 45 per cent
more peoplewere hurt in robberiesin Londonthan in previousyears. His decla-
ration that 'We are not going to lei the thugs win', and shockat the callousnessof
the muggers,tended to swing the Telegraphreport firmly into the judicial camp,
through the strategic use of a primary definer.So does the subsequentcapsule
biographyof the judge and his earlier remarks about the insecurebackgrounds
of young offenders.The formalbalanceand objectivestyle of the reportwas thus
outweighedby the paper's alignmentwith the 'judicial' perspective.Its 'balance'
was legalislicand institutional,rather than 'humane' and personalised.The first
day's reportcontainednoquotesfromparents,no referenceto parentalbackground
or to neighbourhood(thoughsome of these are treated in the featurestory on 21
March 1973).The Telegraphcase was, therefore.an unusuallyconsistentone in
its adoptionof a judicial frameof referenceas a 'resolution'.
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 89
The Minvr presenteda contrast to this: as we might expect,the event is here
personalised,dramatised,and the differing views quoted were cast in publicly
availablemoral 'common-sense'terms, as befittedthe Mir,vr's popular-demotic
style. The story containedmany or the same elementsas the Telegraph: but its
presentationalarrangementwas very different. The age/sentencejuxtaposition
was stretchedin the headlineto a contrastbetweenmainand supportingheadlines,
the first taking the most dramatic angle (20 years) the second the youth's age.
This may,however,be simply a matter or the Mirror not having availablespace
for long headlines in the tabloid formal, rather than a differenceof stress. The
'mugging' rererencewas general ('mugging' not 'a mugging') and unequivocal
(no invertedcommas).The rorces 'pro' and 'con' the sentencewere stated with
equal balance.Both were seen, however,as appealingto public moralityas final
arbiter:the refonners' appealagainstan outdatedseverityin the courts;the Police
Federationspokesmanciting 'society's' exhaustedpatience.There was thus no
swiftjudicial conclusionavailablehere.And, as ifto signifythat the case 'opened
out into' a public debate not yet resolved,the Mirror,in its supplementarypage
two story, litemlly displayed the two sides or the argument in perfect balance.
Beneath a four-columnheadline, 'The Case of the Teenage Muggers', lay two
stories,two columnslong each, in straightjuxtaposition:

20 YEARSIS A LONG GANGSSEEMTO REGARD

TIME FORA YOUNG MUGGINGASA
BOY(Storey's mother) SPORT(PoliceFederation)

This was a particularlystrict exercise in 'news balance'. No crime statisticsor

data belong here. The opposition hinged on two controversialimages of the
criminal- 'youngboy'/gangs.Which,it asked,is the correctwayto perceivethese
criminals?To fill out this juxtaposition,the left-handcolumn consistedalmost
entirelyor personalcommentsby Storey'smother- 'a good boy', 'bad company',
'very shocked', 'the environment':statements which personalisedthe accused,
groundingthe abstract stereotypeor the criminal in the figure of a real person
and a real environment.The right-handcolumnadds, to the PoliceFederation,the
ubiquitousAssistantCommissionerWoods,with his observationon the violent
and pointlessnature or these crimes,and his commenton 'The mugger[as] ... a
reflectionof the presentviolentsociety.'
As between the Telegraphand the Mirror,there were significantsimilarities
and differencesto be noted.The Telegraphstory already &JTived at a provisional
closure, via the use of the judicial perspective.The Mirror left the issues more
polarised,more open and unresolved.Both papers, however,picked up the same
newsworthythemes;both provideda certain balanceor views;both quoted;both
weavedtheir inflectionsaroundbasicallythe same elementsof the story.
In constructingthis item as a news story,then, all the papers went for the most
troublingand problematicaspect.The storywas thematisedaroundthesetroubling
concerns, and the formal exploitationor this thematic shaped the handling in
different papers. The story gained in news value as a result of being sharply
polarised between its two key aspects - age of offenders/lengthor sentence.
Orchestratedas a quasi-argumentbetween these two 'sides', the news treatment
90 l'OLICINOTHECRISIS

then took the form of contrastingthem and elaboratingon them. Most papers
did this throughquotationof sourcesrepresentedas fallingon one or other side
of the 'debate', Almost all treatmentswork in the directionof balancingoff the
two viewpoints.The very formal way balancewas represented{oftenliterallyin
the typographyand lay-out) signifiedthat the matter was controversial,open to
more than one interpretation,with some strong argumentson either side, on the
basis of which the reader could make up his or her mind. Strict balancewas not
always present: one or other side was sometimesignored (Sun, Morning Star).
In others, the story was so structuredas to leave one side in commandof the
fieJd (Telegraph,The Times). Nevertheless,the principal form of the primary-
news treatmentof Handsworthwas to cast what first appearedas a 'report' on a
factualevent into the form of a questionor issue. Exceptin one or two cases, the
'closure' effectedat that stage was, at best, partial. Of course, formalbalance is
not the whole story.Arguments,formallybalanced,can neverthelessbe inflected
so as to favourone side or the other.This may arise from the particular'person-
ality' of the paper, or from how such subjects are 'normally' angled (see the
previouschapter).Or a closure can be effectedby the statementof an editorial
judgement on it - usually by taking it over into the opinion part of the paper:
its editorial columns.Alternatively,the answer which lhe formaljuxtaposition
seems to requirecan be relocatedby recastingthe question- going behind it to
another level of exploration.This movementconsists of replacingthe original
termsof 'the question' by a searchfor more backgroundexplanationsand causes,
suggestingthat the immediatecausesimplicitin the primary-newstreatmenthave
not exhaustedits possibilities.Both developmentsof a primary-newsstory mark
a shift from foregroundnews to some other level.This shift is both formal and
ideological.The formalshifts- from news to editorials,or from news to features
- both depend on elaboratingsome of the themes already present in first-order
news presentation.But they inflect these themes in oppositedirections:the first
(editorials)towardsa judgement,the second (features)towards'deeper explana-
tions' or 'background'.The separationis thereforenot a technicalmatterof good
journalisticpractice,but arises fromtwo differentways of effectingan ideological
closure(simpleand complex).If primary-newsstoriesare presentedin 'the form
of a question', editorialsand featuresprovidetwo, differentkindsof 'answers'.

THEEDITORIALS
Primary-newsstoriesprovidethe foundationformosteditorials;indeedthedecision
to producean editorialat all is some indicationof the significanceaccordedsuch
stories by a newspaper.Editorials,also, are related to featurearticles in that both
are ways of developingfurther elementsof primarynews: they are two different
kinds of 'answers', and often, as we shall see, contradictoryways of handling
the same event.Thus one focus of attentionhere will be the relationshipbetween
editorialsand other news forms.The other focus relates to the fact that it was in
some editorial columns particularlythat the panic about muggingwas fostered
and the campaignagainst muggersvociferouslywaged.We are, therefore,inter-
ested in the rangeof explanatoryargumentsdeployedaboutcrimeand sentencing,
and the implicit theories of human nature and society underpinningthese. It is
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 91

here, then, that we gel a first glimpse or the kinds of explanationsand ideol-
ogies that constilutethe core of Chapler 6. Since much or our evidencein that
chapter comes from letters- the 'personal viewpoints'of correspondents- it is
not surprising lhal ii is in the editorial columns - the 'personal viewpoints'of
newspapers- that we begin lo encounler,perhaps more clearly than anywhere
else in the newscoverageof the event,theseexplanatoryparadigms.Finally,since
these editorialsalso produced a judgeme11ton the event, we are also interested
in these; i.e. in the forms or 'resolution' adopted.As it happened,there was a
striking unanimityin the judgementsa1Tivedat. With rew exceptions,editorials
on Handsworthsupportedthe sentences.Our concem here, then, is the fact or this
unanimity- the closure around the traditionalviewpoint- and the consequent
absenceor failureof the 'liberal' nerve.
Only three of the eight daily nationalnewspapersfailed to calTyan editorial:
the Daily Mirro,;the Sun and the Guardian.We suspect that but for an industrial
dispute the Daily Mirror would have carried an editorial and that it would have
argued- given its particularmix of populismand progressivism- for both strong
action to stamp out mugginga11dprogressivereforms to alleviate social depri-
vation. (Althoughii falls outside our sample, this is preciselythe line followed
by the SundayMirroreditorial.)The reason the Sun railed to ca1Tyone is related
to the way it strictly delimitedthe story's themes from the outset, collapsedthe
distinctionsbetweendifferentkindsof newscoverage.,and thus made an editorial
superfluous.The editorialjudgemenl was already built into the news treatment.
(This 'one-dimensional'treatment was exceptionaland explains why we have
chosento look at the case of the Sun separatelylater.)
The case of the Guardianis undoubtedlythe most interesting,and revealing.
Its primary-newsstory was relativelyopen and its use or quotationsfrom both
social-workagenciesand politiciansopened up various possibilitiesof editorial
development.Furthennore,the Guardianhabituallygives favourableand sympa-
thetic coverageto penal-refonngroups and, of all the papers, most consistently
gives a liberal voice to a series of neglectedsocial issues.Yet, in this instance,it
was speechless.The reason, we suggest, is related to the fact that the Guardian
had hoisteditself on the same headlinepivotsas everybodyelse: an indicationor
its failureto resist the lure of the muggingpanic and its tenns. Unable,given this
starting-point,to challenge the validity of the mugging campaign,and unable,
given that there is a 'problem of crime' and that the sentences were, in theory,
flexible,to offer a realisticalternative,it had nothingto say and fell into silence.
This failure or the liberal nerve, this ambiguity,is sometimesa characteristicof
the Guardianwhen issues present themselvesas a choice betweenhard alterna-
tives, but is also symptomaticof the deep contradictionsinherent in the liberal
position itself. It is, perhaps, in relation to crime more than in any other single
area that the liberal voice is most constrained;that conventionaldefinitionsare
hardest to resist; that alternativedefinitionsare hardestto come by. In Chapter 6
we shall attemptto say why we think this is the case. Nevertheless,this general
lack of a liberaleditorialvoice, at the high point of the muggingpanic, ought to
be stronglyemphasised.
Of the fivepaperswhichca1Tiedan editorial,only the MorningStaropposedthe
sentences.Its uncompromisingradicalismis in stark contrastwith the Guardian's
92 POLICINGTHBCRISIS

liberal evasiveness. Reversing the conventional tenns, it called the sentences

'savage' and the boys 'victims'. It drew out the sentences' political implica-
tions - to appease those who 'campaign for the punitive society' - as well as
denouncing the sentences on the more normal pragmatic grounds of the unproven
effectiveness of deterrent sentences and the 'criminalising' effect of prison. As
for what should be done, it suggested that 'the sentences should be slashed and
the boys given remedial treatment'. Despite the failure to challenge the use of the
mugging label - a possibility in view of the use of inverted commas around the
term in the headline - the argument is certainly the most consistent in the press,
and is carried through all stages of its coverage.
The remaining four papers supported the sentences: most circumspect and
'balanced' was The Times;most aloof and legalistic was the Telegraph;while the
Mail and the Express were most whole-heartedly in support of the judge and in
condemnation of the 'savagery' of the crime. The Times,perhaps because of its
relatively restricted primary coverage and lack of secondary or feature coverage,
had a lengthy and detailed editorial, headed '20 years for attempted murder'.
Here it takes up, unlike any other paper, both sides of the headline ju,ctaposition
(20 years/16-year-old) and weighs up the two sides. It criticises a twenty-year
sentence on a boy of 16 from a disturbed home background, but notes that the
crime was a 'savage one'. It concludes: 'It is always hard to be sure how much an
exemplary sentence really does act as a deterrent but it would be very strange if ii
had no deterrent effect at all. The public are justifiably alarmed at the increase in
violent crime and look to the law for what protection it can provide.'
In sum, this was a very tortuous e,cercise in balance, and undoubtedly the
one best e,cemplifying the dilemma facing 'liberals' when a choice is necessary
between hard alternatives; although The Timesdoes finally choose, it is an uneasy,
conscience-wracked choice. The note on which The Times ends - the appeal to
the autonomous abstraction of 'the law' - is one which informs the whole of
the Telegraph'seditorial 'scales of justice'. By making this particular case
merely an example of the difficulties faced by properly constiluted authority -
the judiciary - in finding appropriate sentences in a period of growing violent
crime, the Telegraphcould admit the severity of the sentences, justify them in
the context of rising crime, and ignore the peculiarities of the case. This was a
general 'view from the top'. Untroubled by particular details, which must inform
primary-news treatment, it had shifted the argument, and hence the issue, to a
manageable level.
If the TeJeg,-aphwas an example of one way of resolving the 'dilemma' of The
Tunes'balancing act, the Expressand the Mail offered a very different route. For
them it was precisely the detailed characteristics of this crime as typical of the
'mugging trend' which pointed to the necessity for the sentences. Thus the Daily
Mail, under the headline 'Terrible deterrent', employed a short, stabbing style,
reflecting, typographically,the viciousness of the attack and the notion of mugging
as 'in vogue'. It also picked up the primary-news headline emphasis 'for fun':

They went in with boots and bricks .... Theirvictiman Irish labourer may suffer
permanent behaviour changes .... Theirhaul- five cigarettes etc .... Theirages 15
to 16.... Yesterday the savagery of the crime was matched by justice at its most
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS;CASHINOIN ON HANDSWORTH 93

harsh.... Only as a deterrentcan societycontemplatesuch terriblepunishment.

Mugging, the trendy term for a crime as old as sin itself, is in vogue with
young !hugs.The law should make it knownby eve1ypropagandameansat its
disposal,that deterrentsentencesare in voguetoo.

The Express followedsubstantiallythe same lines: the meagrenessof the haul

comparedwith the viciousnessof the attack; the historicalcontinuityof mugging
(in strong contrast with its 'novel' representationin news): 'Today's footpadsare
no differentfrom their predecessors.'There was slightly more emphasison the
offenders' personalities- 'callous', 'casual', 'without motive', 'for fun', 'blood
lust' - and the court's duty was seen, unlikethe Mail's stress on deterrenceand an
'eye for an eye', as being to 'reflect lhe people's will'.
Underlyingboth editorials, not elaborately but certainly implicitly,we can
see the essence of the conservativevision of crime. Environmentalfactors as
determinantsof behaviour- the essence of the liberalview of crime, as we shall
see- haveno placehere; instead,crime is seen as trans-historical,eternal,always
essentially the same. ('A crime as old as sin itself.... Today's footpadsare no
different fl"Omtheir predecessors.')Its source, in other words, lies within - in
human nature, which is faced perenniallywith the same stark choice - between
'good' and 'evil'. This essentialistview of human nature, with its accent on the
freedomto chooseand on the forcesof good and evil, has obviousroots in various
religiousideologies:the Mail's referenceto 'sin' indicatesthis. Yetthere are also
strong secular theoriesof instincts- which have uneasilyand somewhatcontra-
dictorily found their way into this traditionalistviewpoint.Thus the notion of
'blood lust' as an explanationof muggingin the Expresssuggestssomebodynot
only totally,but pathologically'free' - somebodyat the mercy of uncontrollable
instinctsor, in Freudianterms, somebodyat the mercy of a completelyuntutored
id. Paradoxically,then, this 'freedom to choose' is often really predicatedon an
unstatedtheoryof psychologicaldeterminism.
Both these papersare characterisedby a sharpdisjunctionbetweenthe rhetoric
of the editorialsand that of their featurestories,wherethe latter,beingcommitted
primarilyto explorationnotjudgement,tried to get insidesomeof the ambiguities
before, if at all, attemptingany kind of 'resolution'. In our samplethis meant,in
every case, rehearsing,howeverfitfully,variants of deterministexplanationsof
crime. Only in editorials,it seems, can complexitiesand ambiguitiesbe ironed
out in favourof openadvocacy;and in all the papers,despitethe differences,such
advocacywasthere:the appealto the lawas ultimateprotectorof all 'our' interests.
Whether it is representedas a way of balancingthe interests of the individual
and society (The Trmes),a difficult institutionalprocess of essentiallyjudicial
decision(Telegraph).or as the last bastionof civilisedand decent peopleagainst
the (recun-ent)forces of evil (Mail and Express). it is in the law we must trust.
The contradictionsof everydaysocialexperienceweresuppressedby shiftingthe
debateto the more abstractlevelof the law.
Therewere,however,twodissentingvoicesfromthis avoidanceof issueson the
ground and the open advocacyof 1hesentencesto which it leads. Both occurred
in papers which for differentreasonsdid not carry editorials,and both were in
the form of regular,idiosyncratic,provocative'personal viewpoinlS'.These were
94 POLICINOTHECRISIS

those of Jon Akassin the Sun and KeithWaterhousein the Daily Mirror.Because
they occupied a special position outside the formal news structure, they were
expectedand able to dissentfrom its formulationof issues,though,in the case of
the Sunparticularly,theyclearlydemonstratedthe contradictorytensionsbetween
differentaspects of news coverage.Thus Akass, in the paper which most clearly
identified with the victim and ignored all protesting voices, was able, under
the headline 'Pulling the legal boot in won't solve the problem of muggers'. to
describethe sentencesas 'a punishmentalmost as barbarousas the crime itself',
talk of the need to 'transformsocietyin such a way that kids like Paul Storey no
longerexist' and even quote China as an example of such a transformation.His
fina1appealhowever- rather undercuttingthe transformationargument- was an
appealto the expertsto deliversomeanswers:'otherwisewhatare all thosesociol-
ogistsfor'. Althoughtheremust be somedoubtsaboutAkass'ssincerityin viewof
his intermittentlynippant tone, this was an inherentlyradical approach.Equally
radical, and more consistent, was Keith Waterhouse'scolumn in the Mirror -
'Order in Court'. His argumentwas pivotedon the misrepresentationof the image
of 'law and order' - 'Public order is not simply a state of suspendedanimation
where nothing is going on and nobody gets mugged.' Waterhouseargued that
the sentencehad no relevanceto our right 'to get on with our businessfree from
hindrance', and that it made no attemptto deal with the socialconditionswhich
breed violence.Finally,he forestalleda majorline of counter-argumentby saying
it was in the interest of any victim - especially the next one - that the larger
questionsof socialpolicy be tackled.
The existenceof these pieces should not be underestimated.In challengingthe
definitionsof muggingand law and order and in insistingon the need for radical
social change, they sought to transformthe very terms of the debate, and thus it
must be said, the news valuesof the papersfor which they write.Yetit would be
equally unwiseto overestimatethem. Neitherwould get away with such dissent
as editorial leader-writers.They were able to do it only because they had been
incorporatedwithin the newspaperas a form of institutionaliseddissent, which
could, in the handsof other licenseddissenters,equallygo to the other 'extreme'
(cf. John Gordonin the Sunday Express).The presenceof Akass and Waterhouse
demonstratesthat a viewabout law and crime in a popularnewspapercan be both
radicaland accessible;but their over-alleffect, whencomparedwith the massive
coveragedominatedby conventionalnews values, is scarcely more than token.
The sheer weightof the institutionalnews valuesundoubtedlydominatesover the
idiosyncraticopinion,howeverradical and well-argued.
Fromtheseeditorialswe can also gleanthe outlineof a commonresponse(with
the exceptionsof the Momilig Star and the two dissentingpersonal viewpoints):

(I) this crime was an especiallybad one of its kind; and

(2) it was symptomaticof an increase in violent crime which must be dealt
with in sentencingpolicy;or
(3) this crime was part of an eternalstrugglebetweengood and evil;
(4) of paramountconsiderationwas the protectionof the public;and
(5) in such a situationit was the law's responsibilityto act firmly.
 BALANCINGACCOUl'ITS;CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 95
It needs stronglyemphasisingthat these argumentscould only be supportedon
three conditions:one was the unqualifiedacceptanceof certain propositions,i.e.
that violent crime was spiralling;that there was a strain of crime identifiableas
mugging;and that the protectionof the public was more importantthan reform
of the criminal.The second was that the issue was taken out of any particular
socialcontextso that societybecamean abstraction.This involvedexcludingthe
opinionsand perceptionsof all thosegroups and individualswithoutwhommost
of the primary and feature articles could not have been written.And the third
was that the law was perceivedin a particularway: autonomous,functioningin
the intereslSof all, responsiveto public opinion.It should be clear from this that
editorial parameterswere ,rot those of news coverage:society-wideinterests-
the 'public' - replaceda series of particularinterestsas the focus. But since the
'society'involvedwasan abstraction,composedof noparticulargroupsor interests,
the relationshipbetween particular groups, and between particular groups and
particularsocial institutions,couldnot be explored.Thus we got editorialson 'law
and society' and features on 'police and criminals'. Concrete social experience
was dissolvedby the editorialdiscourseinto an abstraction- 'society' - so that
the morallytotalisingviewpointaimed for in editorialswas both generalisedand
mystifying.

THESUN
The primary-newsand feature arlicles in the Sun merit separate consideration
because they took virtually no account of the formal and ideologicalvariations
apparent in the other papers.A characteristicheadline on 20 March, '20 Years
For The MuggerAged 16', introduceda story by RichardSaxty which in some
of its most salient features was altogetheruntypicalof nationalpress coverage.
There was, for example,a brevity,firmnessand certitudein the paper'sown early
statementof the significanceof the sentence- 'a surprisecrackdownon mugging
violence'- and the socialcategorisationof the mainoffenderas 'former skinhead
PaulStorey'. Similarly,the detailsof the crime weredescribedin languagewhich
other paperstendedto reservefor editorialrhetoric- the boys 'put the boot in' and
'learned yesterdaythe new price the courts put on violencefor kicks'.
In the contextof such a tight and exclusiveencodingof the story,the reaction
of the 'shocked' motherswas representedas the human face of the drama rather
than as any sourceof opposition.The Su11,alone of the papers,felt no obligation
to quote anypenalreforminggroupsor any institutionalisedBirminghamopinion.
Conversely,it did not quote the sentences'supportersnor situatethe crime as part
of a patternother than 'violence-for-kicks'.
The major news angle for the Su11was that of the victim. At the end of the
primary-newsstory was a short piece with its own heading - 'What it means
to be the victim of muggers', which prefiguredthe massivefront-pagelead on
21 March, the only feature article to be a front-pagelead. Most of the story's
space was in fact coveredby the headlineand accompanyinghead and shoulders
photographof Mr Keenan.The main caption read 'I'm Only Half a Man', with
a smaller supplementaryline - •"My Life Is In Ruins" says Tragic Victim of
96 POUCINOTHE CRISIS

Boy Muggers'. The main body of the story was familiar: Keenan's (approving)
opinions about the sentence and his (stupid) auackers, his hospitalisation, loss of
job and psychological instability resulting from the crime. Peculiar to the Sun,
however, was the subordination of all other aspects of the story to the focus on
the victim, which in the distress it described and pity it sought to evoke has to
be read as tacit approval for the sentence. Debate and conflict are both ignored
through empathy with the victim as citizen: the story of how such a criminal act
may reduce a normal, hardworking, law-abiding man to a fearful, impecunious
and unemployable wreck. Precisely because it does not raise its position to that
of an abstract proposition, precisely because the extent of the victim's suffering
is regarded as sufficient in itself to justify such a retribu1ivesentence, the Sun
could avoid the need to take account of any contrary opinion. Any ambiguities
such dissenting opinion might have highlighted had been forestalled in advance
through this exclusive perspective.
The reasons for the superfluousness of an editorial should by now be apparent.
These were further enhanced by the refusal - comparable only to the dismissal
of the problem in the Telegraph- to examine the area of Handsworth in any
depth. Even less was the relationship of biography and background acknowl-
edged as a focus of concern. Thus what was in most other papers a central
problematic requiring some kind of resolution was 'solved' in the Sun by the
way in which it was formulated - a series of labels which proscribed further
analysis.

Handsworth, the sprawling Birmingham slum where the three muggers grew
up is a violent playground.... Paul Storey, son of a mixed marriage, tried drugs,
then theft - and finally violence in a bid to find excitement in his squalid
environment. Paul's mother, 40-year-old Mrs. Ethel Saunders, said 'What
chance have young people got in a lousy area like this?'

Violence, race, drugs, theft, youth - a series of random labels. In such a context
the strategy suggested by Tory M.P. Charles Simeons that muggers should be
herded into a compound and ridiculed, quoted by the Sun, does not seem to be at
all out of place.
Formally, the Sun did cover the main elements common to other feature
articles - victim, mugger, area - but its particular treatment of each rendered
exploration and analysis superfluous. The Su11 's particularly linear news treatment
(sentence-erime-victim) made it unique in both its ideological interpretation and
the journalistic forms it adopted. The Sun had implicitly abolished the traditional
distinctions between 'news fact', 'feature exploration' and editorial opinion in
favour of an exclusive shaping of the event through its own arbitrary and trans-
parent definition.
The implications of this ideological straitjacket for the construction of news
cannot be too heavily emphasised. It involves the abandonment - in this case
and other arenas of social life - of any nominal commitment to different kinds of
analysis and explanation by precluding the possibility of argument and debate.
Marcuse, whose work in general we find only fitfully useful, has, on the question
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS;CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 97

of 'one-dimensional'language,olTereda usefulsummaryof its main features- he

could wcll havebeen talkingabout the Sun:

As a habit of thought outside the scientific and technical language, such

reasoningshapesthe expressionof a specificsocialand politicalbehaviourism.
In this behaviouraluniverse,words and concepts tend to coincide, or rather
the concepttends to be absorbedby the word.The formerhas no contentother
than that designatedby the word in the publicizedand standardizedusage,and
the word is expectedto have no other responsethan the publicizedand stand-
ardizedbehaviour(reaction).The word becomesclicht, and as clicht, governs
the speech or the writing; the communicationplus precludesgenuine devel-
opmentof meaning.... The noun governs the sentencein an authoritarianand
totalitarianfashion, and the sentencebecomesa declarationto be accepted-
it repels demonstration,qualification,negation of its codified and declared
meaning.... This languagewhich constantlyimposes images militatesagainst
the developmentand expressionof concepts.In its immediacyand directness,
it impedesconceptualthinking;thus, it impedesthinking.3

FBATURESIN THBNATIONALPRBSS
Even the most cursory examination of the continued press coverage of the
Handsworthcase on 21 March revealsa significantshift in emphasis.Whereas
both the primary-newsstories and editorials pivoted around the controversy
over the sentence,thematisedin terms of 'mugging'/youth/deterrentsentencing,
the specific problem of the sentence was widened on the next day to explore,
as the Guardiansub-headedone of its pieces, 'the backgroundproblem'. This
movement from foreground (event, issue, dilemma, problem) to background
(cause, motivation,explanation)took the form of a developmentfrom primary
news to featurearticles.A secondaryset of feature news values came into play:
conceptuallydistinct from primary-newsvalues,yet dependenton cues provided
in the initialnewsthematisalion.Most importantly,this stage in the news process
drew on a wider ideologicalfield. The problem was extended from that of the
rightnessof the immediatestrategyadoptedto control a givenoutbreakof crime,
to considerationsabout how such a 'wave' comesabout in the first place.
The movementfrom 'hard' or primary news to features operated at several
different levels, which we have representedin tabular form (see Table 4.1). At
the level of the professionalsub-cultureof journalists - their workingsense of
what features are about - it involveda recognitionthat 'there is more to this
story than meetsthe eye', that the discrete newsevent had a 'background'.In the
Handsworthcase the 'background' took the form of a series of questions:What
kinds of youths perpetratedthis crime? What sort of social backgrounddid they
come from'1What other problemswent along with this kind of crime?
For the examinationof these kindsof questionsthereare establishedjoumalistic
conventions.Journalistssent out into the field are primed to look for 'elements'
in the background:people, places, experiences,which lay down the parameters
of the backgroundproblem. These are individuallyexplored using grass-roots

The dimensions of feature news values: a model
Stage Journalistic common sense
(I) 'Hard' news Dramatic/sensational/novel
story elements (i.e. length of
sentence and type of crime)
(2) Move to Assessment of events as
feature having a background not
covered by hard news story
(i.e. crime and criminal have
a social background)
(3) Kind of Selecting those background
feature elements cum explanations
considered relevanl (i.e. not
politico-judicial links nor
drugs and violence, but
Handsworth, its inhabitants
and experts)
(4) Elements of Seeking out the actors and
features locations carrying the
relevant experiences and
quasi-explanations (i.e. the
victim; the mugger; the
police; the street or area)
(5) Reintegration Possible solutions to defined
of feature problems (e.g. praise of
into paper's voluntary work/police; calls
dominant for crash youth programme/
discourse research)
TABLE4.I
Feature dynamics
'Hard' news dynamics stress
immediate 'facts' and their
implications (i.e. for general penal
policy)
Commissioning reporter(s) to
dig around for 'reactions' and
interpretations by accredited sources on a 'map' of society
(i.e. contacting those immediately
involved and/or lobbyists and experts)
Picking up cues provided by
sources as to typicality of events or
as symptomatic of underlying issues
(e.g. Ethel Saunders and 'lousy
area'; Handsworth M.P. and 'war
against crime')
Placing the actors and locations
in relationship to each other;
'setting it up' typographically, use
of photographs and reporters' 'feel
pieces' (e.g. Daily Express two-page
spread)
Surface coherence: pulling elements
together into one focal point (e.g.
Guardian's use of community
worker's comment on sentence being
as insensitive as the crime itself)
Ideological framework
The sense of what is
'newsworthy' derives from, and
reinforces, an ideologically-
charged conception of society
Explanation/contextualisation:
placing the events and the actors
Identification of social issues:
channelling public concern (i.e.
Handsworth as a 'problem area')
Subsumption of themes
under images (i.e. housing,
employment, race, police under
'violence', 'the ghetto', 'youth',
'the family')
Making the event and its
implications 'manageable' (i.e.
not destructive of, or demanding
changes in, basic structure of
society)
 OALANCINOACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 99

opinion,local experts(councillors,M.P.s,social workers)and even, on occasion,

'academic' reports or enquiries; then, crucially, weighed against each other,
producingin some features typographicalformats which explicitlybalance one
set of elementsagainstanother.
Thesetwolevels-what we havecalled'journalisticcommonsense' and 'feature
dynamics' - are inherentlyideological,for what they seek to do is to contex-
tualise the event, place it in the social world. In their selection of background
elements they identify further issues or social problems which may be either
merely noted or pursued in some detail. These themes are thus brought into an
implicitor explicitrelationshipwith the original 'problem' of crime.These kinds
of peoplecommitthat kind of crime in a certain kind of area: a patternidentified
and combatedby those chargedwith responsibilityfor control, who may include
political figures, social workers,or the police. In the selection of elements,the
credibilityaccordedto particularaccountsof the situation,and the weighingor
balancingof considerationsagainsteach other,the featurearticlesmust negotiate
with availableanalyses,explanationsor imagesof the 'backgroundproblem'. It
is at the 'moment' of features in the journalistic discourse that the connection
between media processes and more widely distributed lay ideologiesof crime
becomesmost visible;and it is to the mobilisationof these 'lay ideologies'that
wewish to draw most attention.
The movementto this wider set of problematicsdid not, however,involvea
wholesaleabandonmentof the originalissueof the sentence.In somepapers,most
notablythe Star ('Anger flaresat savagesentenceon muggers')and the Guardian,
there were furtherprotestsfrom liberalpressuregroups.Equallyexplicitwas the
DailyMail's incorporationinto its featureof an interview,on the effectivenessof
deterrentsentencing,with prominentcriminologistTerenceMorris. More infer-
entially,the Express portrait of the liberal reputationof Judge Croom-Johnson
impliedthat the sentencedemonstratedthe exhaustedpatienceof even the most
tolerant membersof the judiciary.Most powerfullyof all, the 'foreground' was
inserted into the 'background' through interviewswith the victim, which were
carriedby all the nationalnewspapers.At the levelof 'journalisticcommonsense',
the universalityof this focus on the victim had much to do with his availability
for interview,and the special privilegeto be given to the views of the person on
whose behalf the sentence was passed. An interviewand photographcould be
incorporatedat the level of feature dynamics into a dramatic confrontationof
muggerversus victim. But these alone are not sufficientto explain what is after
all an unusualfocus: victimsof crimesare not normallyasked to commenton the
sentencesof those who have committedcrimes against them.Althoughboth the
Star and the Guardian("'I am sorry about sentences"says victim of mugging
attack') representedKeenanas expressingsome empalhywith the three boys, he
was more often used as an implicitjustificationof the sentence,either through
his own opinion('Sympathy'?They didn't feel any for me' - Daily Express),or
through,as we haveseen in the Sun, a re-emphasisof the extent of his injuries('I
can hardlyclimb the stairs now' - Daily Mail). We are not seekinghere to play
down the extent of the real and permanentinjury done to Robert Keenanor to
deny his right to an opinionon the sentence.We are ratherattemptingto demon-
strate how his suffering and opinions were ideologicallyappropriatedin these
100

feature articles to become an implicit justification of the sentence. The features,

then,not only weighedelementswithinthe backgroundproblembut also weighed
them as a whole against the foreground.Thus the implicitdeterminismwe shall
identifyas characteristicof manyof the pieces on Paul Storeyand Handsworth-
suggesting that here the criminal was almost not responsible for his actions - was
partly undercutby this refocus on the victim, drawing us back to the actions -
from the focus on their possible causes - and thus, implicitly, to a concern with
the defence of innocent victims.
Most clearly in the Mail and the Expretathe victimwas counterpointedby the
criminal,who was labelled in these two papers respectivelyas 'gang boss' and
'mugger'. In those simple labels we can see the auempt to 'place' Storey- to
typify him. In one, he is the gang boss, with connotationsboth of the professional
criminalworldand its Mafia-typeleadersand of the establishedimagesof deviant
youth groupings:the leaders and the led, the hard core and the periphery,the
depravedand the deprived.Lesscrude perhaps,but no less powerfulthan the Sun's
more lurid characterisationof him. In the other, more simply,he is the 'mugger'
- an image, by now fully developed,of undisciplined,violentyouth. However,
the searchfor typificationsor 'criminalcareers' in the biographiesof Storeywas
blocked by the denial by friends, relativesand social workersthat he exhibited
recognisably'pathological'tendencies.In the Mail the supplementaryheadlinelo
'Gang Boss' read 'Violent?He wasn't a bad lad- he really wasn't' - a comment
from a local cafe owner.In the absenceof specificsigns of personalitydisorder,
there was a moregeneralsketchof his 'career': separatedparents;a briefperiodof
casualwork;involvementin pettycrime;on the streetsmuchof the time.The stress
on school,familyand employmentis apparentin the shorterportraitsof the other
two boys, thoughin the case of MustafaFuat, with a relativelystable familyand
no criminalrecord,only the imminentdemolitionof his home is any evidenceof
whattheseindicessoughtlo measure:socialdisorganisation.Implicitin them is the
searchfor points wherethese boyshad 'gone off the rails'. Equallyimplicitis the
counterpointof these:the patternswhichkeepthe rest of us 'on the rightroad'; the
rightinfluencesand achievementsat home,schooland work.To fail in all or anyof
these,runs the implicitexplanationof devianceoperatinghere,is to be 'at risk'.
The Express portrait wasalmost identical,though with a more deterministic
headline- 'The boy who was sentencedbefore he was born', supplementedby
an imageof youth at risk- 'too muchtime on his hands'. His familybackground,
schoolrecordand inabilityto find a job were againreviewedwithemphasison the
all-too-brieftime when, with a regularjob, money in his pocketand a girlfriend,
he looked capable of leading a 'normal life'. In both the Mail and the Express
there was no explicitattemptto explain the boys' involvementin a violentcrime
in terms,for example,of geneticdefects, 'bad company', or other consistentand
explicitcausal explanations.Rather what we have is a portraitof failureat all the
points of social integrationwhich 'normally' apply.The inferenceis that we are
all potentiallyat risk, but most of us, througha good environmentand a positive
attitude, are able to pursue the appropriategoals of regular work, established
familylife and legitimateenjoyment.
Yet in both articles there is a furtherand more ambiguousway in which these
youths were differentiatedfrom the rest of society: through the index of race.
 BALANCING
ACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH IOI

Both papers introducedearly on Storey's 'West Indian' rather:in both, his racial
resenlmentwas reporled.The Mail pursued the race theme with some determi-
nation,reproducingan allegedlylocaldefinitionof thestreetwhereJamesDuignan
livedas 'Mini UnitedNations' and pursuingthe Cypriotconnectionsor the Fuat
familyin a sentencewhich,in its searchfor localcolour,underlinedthe otherness
or an alien culturalbackground- 'The wallsare hung with Orientalmats.'
These specificallyracial connotations,with their implicationsfor the portraits
or Handsworthin the same features,and for the futuretrajectoryof the 'mugging'
panic, were absent from the Daily Telegraph'sbiographicalportrait.There was
also less emphasis on lhe family than in the Express and Mail, though school
attendanceand unemploymentwere reviewedin much the same tenns. Overall
there was a much strongertypification:'The recent lire of Paul Storey is typical
of manycases in the files or social workersin the Handsworthdistrict.'Unless it
be takenthat all such 'cases' are potentiallyviolentcriminals,there is little in this
'placing' or Storey to account for the criminal act: the typificationis strong yet
unspecified.Ratherthe Telegraphfollowsthroughwith approvalEthel Saunder's
commentson the social environment- 'Mrs Saunders is not alone in blaming
the problemsof Handsworthfor the difficultiesfaced by young peoplethere.'An
AssistantChief Constableand a local councilloremphasisedthe poor quality of
the environment.
For the Telegraphthe particularcourse of Storey's biographywas subsumed
under the general problem or a poor environment.And it is the problemof the
enviro,1ment,specificallythe area of Handsworth,which was the third universal
element of the features. It was apparently triggered off by the comments or
Paul's motherabout the 'lousy area'. But this is not sufficientexplanationof the
presenceof this theme,since she said other things,about Paul beingon drugs, for
example,which were not pursued in the features.The rationale of 'journalistic
commonsense' is insufficientto accountfor the stresson Handsworth.The focus
on Handswor1his more fully explainedby its connectionwith a long-standing,
ideologicalstructure: that of the 'criminal patch' or slum, and the ghetto/crime
connection elaborated in so many stories about American muggings. It has
assumedthe status of a 'social fact', that some areas produce more crime and
criminals than others. This background theme was picked up very early on,
frequentlyin the primary-newsstory - and not only through the interventionor
the liberal lobby, with their environmentalistexplanationsor 'mugging'. In the
Express,for example,where no such pressuregroups appeared,we had a highly
charged descriptionof the venue of the crime. The victim 'met the boys in a
tumble-downimmigrantarea or Handsworthwhere they live'. The reverberations
of such an image in a paper so long committedto 'immigrationcontrol' need no
emphasisfrom us.
It was thus hardly surprisingto find the immigranttheme introducedearly on
in the Express's portrait of Handsworth headed 'It is not a safe place to walk
alonetrhe ghetto/Handsworth/Poorhousingand nojobs.' Crime,raceand poverty
are the essentialcharacteristics- with the firsl two predominatingover the last -
as the Expressjoined in the old game of trying to sort out what's wrong with
the neglectedarea; whereasthe Telegraphfound local experts who agreed with
Ethel Saunders'scondemnationof the area, those used in the Expressconsidered
102 POUCINOTliECRISIS

it 'unfair'. The Chairman of the City's Community Relations Committee was at

pains to stress that the crime could have happened anywhere, and that one crime
should not condemn a whole neighbourhood, He unwittingly colluded in a redefi-
nition of the problem in primarily racial terms: not all Handswor1hyouth was the
problem, but black youth, unemployed, angry, aggressive. with an 'anti-social'
sub-culture. There was a circle of associations here in which crime and race
defined the gheuo and were defined by it; yet nowhere was there any indication of
the ghetto's origins. Though Councillor Sheila Wright was allowed to reintroduce
the problem of housing, it was a coloured community worker, recounting the
resentment of black youth, who was allowed the last 'expert' word. In the face of
this active reshaping of the problem from slum area to black youth in the ghetto,
the concluding optimism of the Express piece was perfunctory - a throwaway
humanism, marginal to the argument:

There are too many places like Paul Storey's grotty little street around
Handsworth- ironically once the 'in place' to live in Britain's second city. But
happily there are an awful lot of people trying to make Handsworth a better
place to live in.

The placing of Handsworth on the social map was not conducted at the level of
the structures which made it what it was.The nature of the housing market, for
example, and the deprived position of immigrants within it, received no explicit
attention; rather, what was at work was a description of associations- race,
crime, housing, unemployment - out of which, in some unspecified way, there
emerged the problem of 'anti-social, black youth'. The heavy racial emphasis in
the biography of Paul Storey made more sense set in such a context: he became
an index of the problem behind crime - that of race. Although there was a kind of
determinism at work, the surface manifestations of social pathology were located,
by implication, in the presence of outsidersin this '90 per cent immigrant area',
which was at the root of the problem.
The Daily Mail followed similar leads to the Express, although it played its own
variations. Its first description of Handsworth in its primary-news report picked
up the familiar themes of race and crime:

All the sentenced youths are either coloured or immigrants and live in one
of Birmingham's major problem areas. Police and social workers have been
battling for five years to solve community problems in Handsworth, where
juvenile crime steadily worsens and there are continuous complaints about the
relationship between the police and the predominantly coloured public.

As in the Express it was Handsworth which provided an overarching theme,

again caught in an organic metaphor - 'where violence breeds', and there was
a loose and ambiguous suggestion of communal responsibility for such areas -
'Handsworth ... "a blot on any country that claims to be civilized" ... and the home
of Paul Storey.'
To do the Mail credit it did introduce some detail on the exact nature of the
area's housing problem. It described Handsworth as 'a problem area - scruffy
 BALANCING
ACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH I03
and neglectedand two miles from the cily centre.... A sprawl of Victorian-built
houses occupy most of the area. Propertyvalues are low. Private landlordsare
common.They find no shortage of tenants especially among the immigrants.'
For depth, however,the Mail lumed to a fairly straightrenderingof the opinions
of lhree 'experts': a (radical) Labour councillor,the AssistantChief Constable
(Crime) and the local M.P. (Tory).The first was quoted at some length,empha-
sising how 'deplorablehousingconditions,high unemploymentand pressureon
local schools' broughtabout high rates of delinquencyand childrenin care. The
featurereproducedher adversecommentson the Council's 'herding together' of
poorerfamiliesinlo such areas.The reportersaddedthe statisticthat 25 percent of
Handsworth'sinhabitantswere under IS, and said that the EducationDepartment
did not deny that their resources were stretched,However,the opennessof the
Mail feature broke down with the next expert - the local M.P., who presented
himselfas standingat the forefrontof the 'war againstcrime' in Handsworth.It is
this whichturnedout to be the 'blot on any countrywhichclaimsto be civilized',
producingthe 'atmosphere... where some people are afraid to walk alone'. The
phrasing,the crime statisticsused, were exactly the same as in the Express; and
so was the reversalin logic which was employed- an argumentbeginningwith
environmentalfactorsended with the fear of crime;and, like the Express,the race
themefollowedon almostimmediatelyand was baldlyintroduced:'It is estimated
thal 70% ofHandsworth'spopulationare colouredand the area posesBinningham
with its biggestghetto problem.'The final image was one of the historicaldecay
of the area: 'Handsworthonce housedwealthy industrialistslivingin well-swept
tree-linedstreets.The streetsare now litteredand the childrenplay on demolition
sites.'It is strikingthat both the Expressand theMail shouldhaveendedwith such
similarevocationsof urbandecay.It is an imageof the city in decline:powerfully
descripliveyet without explanatorydimensions.There was no attempt to offer
an accountof how the decay came about, but insteada tighteningof the circle of
associations:housing,race, crime.
The Guardia11might reasonablyhave been expectedto have a more complex
approach.It is after all the paper to which the poverlylobby and 'caring profes-
sions' look for support,It too pickedup the area themeearly but in a more specific
and pointedway than the Express or Mail:
TheVillaRoadareais one wherethepolicedo notenjoya goodrelationshipwith
the largelyimmigrantcommunityand where teenageunemploymentis high ...
last month 31 voluntary workersin the area signed a letter to Birmingham's
Chief Constableallegingthat there was police harassmentof the West Indian
populationand claiming thal police methods were unhelpful in dealing with
Handsworth'sgrowingproblemof violence.

Teenageunemploymentandcrime werecommonthemes;theradicalinsertionwas
that of immigrant/policetension.The analysisremained,however,at the level of
symptoms:early on in the fealure,headlined'Depressedand depressing',a whole
list of such symptomswas given: 'Handsworthis both depressedand depressing
andthe Sohowardwheremostof the troublehappenshas a reputalionfor violence,
poor housing, unemploymentand racial resentment.'This comprehensivelist of
104
indicesof 'depression•remaineddescriplive:no causalconnectionswereprovided.
Perhapssurprisinglythe Guardiandid not pull on establishedsocial-workorien-
tated analysisof 'multipledeprivation'.Ratherthere was an emphasis- uniquein
the nationalpress - on telling how Handswor1hmust have been experiencedby
those who live there: 'From the point of view of the locals it is a district where
the police harass, the City Council does not care and there are "more rats than
human beings" as a coffee bar owner puts it.' Subsequently,the environment
problem was appropriatedin a manner very similar to that in the Expressand
the Mail. The question posed was of how crime was somehowan outcomeof a
situationwhere 'The terracehousesare in disrepairand the garden fencesbroken
down'. It is into this problematicthat Paul Storey'sbiographywas inserted- 'The
slreet where Paul Storey lived for nine years is littered with broken bricks and
milk bottles.'This looselyframed thematisationof the environmentwas carried,
togetherwith the more specific 'social problem' of which Paul Storey was part;
and with a dose of 'unstable family background' for good measure: 'There is
chronicunemploymentin the area for black youngsters,and Paul's father,whom
he neverknew,is WestIndian.'
The Guardianwas rehearsinga wider range of potentialexplanationsthan any
other paper: multiplesymptomsof social pathology;the specificsocial problem
of unemployedblack youth; an unstable familybackground- yet none of these
were followedthroughconsistently.Instead we revert back to the 'environment'
problem, with the introductionof Mr Corbyn Barrow and council leader Stan
Yapp,whostressedthat Handsworth'sproblemswerenot uniqueand that properly
fundedurban renewalwould (in some unexplainedway) eradicatethe problems.
Even the police recognisedthe role of 'poor socialconditions'and resentedbeing
blamedfor 'factors outsidetheir control'. The conclusion,in the formof a remark
by a localcommunilyworker,pushesus backto the originalissueof the sentence:
'It's not that we don't want muggingstopped,but this sentenceis as insensitivea
weaponas the brick Paul Storeyused.'The Guardianwas in certainspecificways
distinguishablefrom other papers, in its approach to Handsworth,by a liberal
perspective.There was no attemptto labelthe area in termsof race, or to suppress
the real problem of police-immigrantrelationships,and there was a genuine
attemptto empathisewith local inhabitant.s.Yet in the end the Guardianallowed
itself to be trappedby the simplisticenvironment/behaviour model whichdid not
provideconnectionsbetween the two elements.Handsworthremainednot only
unsolvedbut was impossibleof solutiongiven the terms in which the Guardian
had approachedit. Unable to break with those terms - a measureof its inability
to rupturedominantideologicalformulalions- the Guardianwas left in distress
and depression.
We can see, then, thal in the feature pieces on the boys' biographiesand the
areaof Handsworth,therewere severallooselyformulatedquasi-explanationsand
highlystructuredimagesof crimecausation.The movefromnewsto featureshad,
acrossall the papers,involvedexplorationof the 'backgroundproblem'and there
had been a remarkablesimilarity in their selection of the main focal points of
auention- 'victim', 'mugger', 'area'. We have beenconcernedhere to showhow
limitedthe perspectiveof all the paperswas.Yetit wouldbe misleadingto assume
that there was no roomat all for editorialinterventionor that it was impossibleto
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS:CASHING IN ON HANDSWORTH 105

orchestratethe range of explanationsand imagesin differentways- especiallyat

the momentof weighingelementsagainsteach other.
There was, indeed, the option taken up by The 1lmes of not doing a feature
at all. That this newspaperdoes not include feature articles at all in its journal-
istic repertoiremay be sufficientexplanation- thoughthis is more than a formaJ
questionand indicates,if nothingelse, a supremeconfidencein the ability of its
newscoverageto thematiseand contextualisedramaticor problematicissues.
If The 1lmes eschewedany kind of exploration,that pursued by the Morning
Siar remains unique.It pivotedaroundoppositionto the sentencesexpressedby
various pressure groups, with the specific addition of an adverse comparison,
made by a BirminghamCampaignagainstRacial Discrimination(CARD)repre-
sentative,of thesesentenceswith the more lenienttreatmentaccordedto two white
youths who had permanentlydisfigureda Pakistaniman.There were no biogra-
phies of the youths;only one phrase- expressing'sorrow' - from the victim;and
Handsworthwas brieflycharacterisedas 'one of Birmingham'sbiggestproblem
areas', though the protest leuer about police tactics mentionedin the Guardian
was treated more fully.It seems likely that lack of resourcesrestrictedthe Star's
ability to explore the issue: it had to rely on the secondary material available
throughits own circuit of contacts.How far the Star might have brokenwith the
formal and ideologicalconstraintsof feature news apparentin the other papers
must thus remaina matterof conjecture.
Outside of The 1lmes and the Morning Star, a common pattern of feature
treatmentemerged.Essentialbackgroundelements- universallythose of victim,
mugger and area - were selected, individuallyexplored, and set against each
other. It is the specificjournalistic feature form which providesthe mechanism
of balance; the final weighing is not arrived at by a process of argument or
analysis but is built into the feature form as it is initiallyconstructed.Thus one
strategy used by more than one newspaperwas to juxtapose (either within the
same featurearticle or in the same paper in a 'feature spread') a numberof ways
of interpretingthe connectionbetween crime and environment,biography and
background.This way of balancingoff a numberof differentreadingsis a sort of
fea/ure by montageeffect and was most obvious in the case of the Daily Express
and the Daily Mail. In the Express the 'balance' was set out on the double-page
- on the left Handsworthand the mugger,on the right the suffering victim, the
liberaljudge unusuallyincensed,and a highlyflatteringportraitof the localpolice
(pre-emptingmore critical versions of police policy towards immigrantgroups
such as thoseappearingin the Star and the Guardian).Althoughthe wholefeature
had a severelydeterministicheadline- 'Caught for Life in a ViolentTrap' - we
have seen how the Handsworth/muggerside of the equationhad been so under-
mined by particularimages of the race-crime connectionthat the overalleffect
was to cut away the grounds of the argument it otherwise contained. Balance
here was representedtypographicallybut the ideologicalweightwas tilted to one
side.
The Mail similarlycounterpointedvictimand muggingunderneaththe portrait
of Handsworthheaded 'Where ViolenceBreeds'. The heavy emphasis on race
and crime in that article again underminedthe formal commitmentto 'balance',
while the interviewwith expertcriminologistTerenceMorris relocatedthe 'real'
106 POLlCINGTHECRISIS

problem as that of policy and treatment rather than crime causation - suggesting,
moreover, that it remained insoluble.
In the case of the Telegraph the 'montage' effect was less immediately visible,
yet still the same process of weighing victim against mugger, environment against
law and order, was at work. The Telegraphhad its own particular resolution
which denied the dimensions of the problem, mainly through its use of a police
spokesman: 'The police were not complacent about mugging but did not think it
was an overall problem.' Hence the Telegraph was only formally at the level of
feature exploration, since it systematically rejected the formulations on which
such exploration was based elsewhere: Handsworth was not a breeding ground for
crime; Storey was only a species of well-known delinquent; the victim's suffering
and the exceptionally brutal nature of the attack were sufficient explanations of
the issue. The feature followed closely the lines of explanation laid down in the
primary-news story and editorial.
The feature by montage conveyed an impression of comprehensiveness
(covering all points of view) as well as of balance: 'hard-line' councillors or
policemen against 'soft-centred' community workers; local residents against
figures of authority; or (as in the Birmingham Evening Mail's version) mothers
of the accused against anxious mothers in the street. Formally, the issue was left
unresolved: evidence was not ignored, but these elements were simply left contra-
dicting each other. It would have been possible for this variety and contradicto-
riness to be tolerated by the paper (reserving its own judgement for the editorial);
in practice, the montage was so selected and shaped that a 'resolution' on one side
or other of the ideological paradigm did appear to emerge of its own accord.
An alternative feature strategy was to try to distil the essence or the problematic
core of the problem by finding all the general themes condensed into a local
instance. This was thefeature by microcosm effect. Here the general issue of crime/
poverty/violence was perceived and portrayed through the particular story - for
example, of Handsworth. This was most evident in the local papers (as we shall
see). In the nationals, it was principally at work in the Guardian. That paper physi-
cally - and thus ideologically - separated out the elements of its feature explo-
ration. The interview with the victim and extended protests from pressure groups
provided the material of the front-page, follow-up story, but consideration of Paul
Storey's biography and the social environment of Handsworth were reserved for
the 'background problem' on the features page. This separation -while something
of a break with otherwise dominant feature news values - also represented a kind
of equivocation. For by going 'behind' the immediate issue of liberal penolo-
gists versus law-and-order adherents, the Guardian also displaced the problem
so that there appeared no relationship between the sentences and policies towards
deprivation. The Guardian, unable to confront the 'moral panic' to which it had
itself contributed through conventional news coverage, sought the safer ground of
social policy. Hence the Guardian provided Jess of an effort to balance competing
interests around the case than to balance competing interests within the area: not
victim versus mugger but local residents versus those in authority. The sharpness
of these conflicts of interest were noted, yet there was no attempt to choose
between them any more than the paper could produce an editorial coming down
on one side or the other of the controversy over the sentence. This 'equivocation'
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 107
is a centralelement in the repertoireor modernliberalism,whichhas been effec-
tivelydissectedby RolandBarthesin his designationor it as 'Neither-Norism':

By this I meanthis mythologicalfigurewhichconsistsin stalingtwo opposites

and balancingthe one by the other so as to reject them both (I wantneitherthis
nor that).It is on the wholea bourgeoisfigure,for it relatesto a modernformor
liberaJism.We find again here the figureor the scales:realityis first reducedto
analogues;then ii is weighed;finally,equalityhavingbeen ascertained,it is got
rid or. Here also there is magicalbehaviour:both partiesare dismissedbecause
it is embamssing to choosebetweenthem;one Deesfroman intolerablerealily,
reducingit to two oppositeswhich balance each other only inasmuchas they
are purely formal, relievedor all their specific weight ... a final equilibrium
immobilizesvalues,life, destiny,etc.: one no longerneeds to choose, but only
to endorse.4

THB BIRMINGHAMPAPBRS
We have separated out the Birminghamprovincial papers ror analysis on the
grounds that their par1icularlocal interests affectedtheir news treatmentor the
case. In tenns or concretejournaJisticpractices they were 'nearer the ground'
than the nationalpapers,and had more immediateaccess both to those immedi-
ately involvedand to local experts or opinionleaders.They also producedmore
storiesand coverage.Ideologically,there was an emphasison the local originsor
victim and criminals,and some considerationor the implicationsfor the city or
Birminghamas a whole.This had particularimplicationsfor the range or expla-
nations and images mobilisedin the feature treatment;and while we shall note
some characteristicsor the primary-newstreatmentevident in the three papers -
the BirminghamPost, Eve11ingMail and Sunday Mercury (all owned by one
combine)- it is on the local feature-newstreatmentthat we wish to concentrate.
The BirminghamPost - a daily newspaperor conservativeviews and format -
carriedsix pieceson the Handsworthcase, as follows:

Mother blames 'lousy area' for son's crime

Judge sentencesboy aged 16 to 20 years (20 March 1973)
Boys may appealagainstsentences
The Grove.Birmingham19 [feature](21 March 1973)
30p assaultboys will appealon sentences
Detained[editorial](22March 1973)
Like the DailyMail, the Postdid not leadwith the Handsworthstory,and its front-
page story outlined the family's reactions to the sentence while the back page
had the court report.More strikingly,the Post restrictedits use or the 'mugging'
label to a police statistic in the back-pagestory,and - in invertedcommas- in
the editorial. It never appeared in a headline.While the characterisationor the
offendersas '30p assault boys' carried its own connotationsor motivelesscrime,
the avoidanceor the label was a significantvariationfrom most news treatment.
!08 POLICINGTHECRISIS

This persistentabsence of the 'mugging' label was so consistentthat we would

suspect it was the result of a specificeditorial decision,the rationalefor which
remainsclosed to us. For the rest, however,the Post may be distinguishedfrom
the nationalsonly by its much earlierintroductionof featureconcerns.Interviews
with Ethel Saundersand Robert Keenanappeared alongsidethe court report to
formthe focusof the newstreatmentof20 March,at the expense,it wouldappear,
of 'institutionalised'debate, which was representedonly by two local figures:
Rex Amblerand HaroldGurden,M.P.for Selly Oak. The initialfront~pagestory
was'rounded•off'by an extractfromthe Colvillespeechand the ' 129%'mugging
statistic.The two stories of21 and 22 Marchconcernedthemselvesmainlywith
the details of appeal procedure,one or two further reactions (notably from the
Birmingham-basedsecretaryof the BritishAssociationof SocialWorkers),and,
on 22 March especially,the intricate workingsof the parole system as applied
lo detentionsentences.This last insertionwas linkedto the editorialof the same
day. Headed 'Detained', it sought to eradicate a 'misunderstanding'over the
'mugging case' caused by the nature of a detentionsentence.The Post therefore
sought to ex.plainthe processes of review and parole which enabled release of
Storeywhen 'the authoritiesinto whosecare his violencehas led him are satisfied
that his obviouspsychoticproblemshave been rectified'.The fixingof a twenty-
year period was thereforemore symbolicthan real: a show of retribution.That
this may have been necessaryand effectivewas suggestedby reference to the
allegedlysuccessfulcampaignof deterrentsentencingadoptedby the Recorderof
Birminghamwhich 'stampedout' telephone-boxvandalism.The Postthus tried to
have it two ways- on the one hand, twentyyears did not mean what it says, and
on the other hand, it was a necessarydeterrent.
This legalistic argument hinged on the consignment of Storey to the
all-embracingcategory of 'psychotic' (though the argument was inconsistent
since psychotics are presumablyby definition incapable of the rational calcu-
lation necessaryon the criminal's part if deterrenceis to be successful).But this
solutionto the biography/environment problemwas not one adoptedby the news
and featuretreatment.The frontpageof the two storieson 22 March,for example,
heavilyemphasisedthe criminalsas membersof city families.Parentswere inter-
viewedand brief familyhistoriesgiven: dates of arrivalin the city, composition
of the family.The boys' biographiesoutlined those indices of failure we noted
in the nationalpress: poor education,lack of employment,bad environment.At
one and the same time the boys were 'normalised'into recognisablecity families,
though their general circumstanceswere ponrayed as 'abnormal'. This tension
was neverresolvedand it is not surprisingto find that in its most explicitfeature
piece the Post should concentratewholly on the environmentbackgroundand
omit biographicalconsiderationsaltogether.
The Post's Handsworth feature attempted to encapsulate the environment
problem,not in the areaas a wholebut in one street.Henceits heading'The Grove,
Birmingham 19' underneatha photographwhich, in its presentationof debris,
neglectin the background,and the fenced-offsceneof the crimein the foreground,
provided a powerful image of a social vacuum. It was a new slum image: not
overcrowded,claustrophobic,old industrialback-to-backs,but decadent,run-to-
seed ex-suburbia.It is on these superficialaspects of the environmentthat the
 BALANCINOACCOUNTS:CASHING IN ON HANDSWORTH l09

text concentrated.Some representativelocal inhabitants- Mrs Worrall,motherof

elevenchildren('whose familyis by no meansthe biggestof the Grovefamilies'),
afraid to go out at night; Mrs Hill ('when I came here 19 years ago, this was
a respectableneighbourhood'),living through the experienceof decay - were
called upon to give eye-witnessaccounts.But it is at the level of appearancethat
the environmentproblemwas represented:

Surely no street in Birminghamis less aptly named. Even on a sunny spring

day its ambience is dispiriting;at night it is full of noisome menace ... the
street is the natural- indeed,the only playgroundof the manychildren,a large
proportionof them coloured,who live in the Grove.

There is somethingdeceptivehere about the way certain key connections,which

producea sort of 'explanation'of the Handsworthevent, are ambiguouslyfused
togetherin a visual image.Here we are back with the 'dirt= deviance'versionof
the environmentalisttheme,and it is to this aspect of the sentenceon Storey that
the sociologistsshould direct their attention - 'then perhaps what happenedto
him could lead to an improvementin the kind of backgroundwhich fosteredhis
crime'. What the Post did not, could not, recognisewas the arbitraryfonnulation
of its own question - its ignoring of the structuraland cultural determinations
whichoccupythat space betweenenvironmentand crime.
The Evening Mail is more populistin fonnat than the Postand was at the time
marginally less conservative;though subsequently,under changed editorship,
it has become more stridentlyright wing and has earned itself a bad reputation
amongst liberal circles for its massive over-reportingof black immigrantsas
problems- especiallyof 'mugging' in its more recent phase. Its coverageof the
Handsworthevent reachedsaturationpoint:

20years DetentionFor City Boy 16(19 March 1973)

MothersFight for Boy Muggers
Outsiders[editorial]
'Iwenty year sentence:what the MPs think
Society 'At Limit of Leniency'
Call for enquiryinto truancy
BehindThe Violence(20 March 1973)
Muggingjudge says it again: 20 years
Mugging:Friendsrally to appear for youths
The night Handsworthwas mindingits own business
Meanwhileback in the 1uvenileCourt
One Paul Storeyis too many [personalviewpoint](21 March 1973)
City MuggingVictimto Claim (22 March 1973)
'NightmareWeek' by Mrs Storey(23 March 1973)

The Mail picked up the 'mugging' label earlier than the Post, though not in the
story appearingthe same day as the sentence. In that headline 'city boy' is an
indicationof the Mail's identificationof a local theme which structuresits news
treatment from the beginning.Initial thematisationand backgroundexploration
Ito POLICINGTHECRISIS

were not at all sharply separated.The Mail moved very early into feature-news
coverage.The lead story of 20 March - 'Mothers fight for boy muggers'- took
the formof a 'featureby montage'. Butof the threemainelementsin the nationals
(victim,muggers,area) the Mail used only the victim.
Instead of the muggers, we had their mothers; instead of the area, we had
the 'terror'; and under the heading 'the reaction' the on-going controversywas
presented.The 'balance' was heavily weightedin favourof the sentence,as the
main sub-headingsindicate:

'My son has done wrong- but 20 years is too much'

'They nearly finishedme'
'We're not so afraid now' - mothers
'Severityneededto combatcrime' - police

The issue was here thematisedin local forms: the debate took place not across
the societybut withinthe city.The mothers'protests werehere opposedby 01her
local molhers,who saw 1hemselvesas potentialvictims;so the opposedinterests
existed,not betweenthe peopleof Handsworlhand those outside,but withinthe
population itself. The local grounding was pursued in the various inside-page
stories- someof the most activeparticipantsin the petitionwereStorey's friends;
the debate about the sentences was conductedbetween local M.P.s,councillors
and local socialworkers.
If the case was a problem/01· the city, it was also a problemof the city. Not
unexpectedly,the explorationof this theme led to an examinationof Handsworth,
but that was situatedin a particularcontext:not povertyin the city, nor even the
ghetto in the city, but youth in the city. The case was inserted,withouttoo much
friction,into the Mail's on-going 'file' on violentyouth. On 20 March the Mail
expandeda pre-plannedseries on a local experimentin youth work (the Double
Zero club) into a full-pagefeaturecalled 'Behind The Violence'.To the vicar's
account of his youth-clubexperimentwereadded two pieces - one by a local
magistrateon the problemsof dealingwith violentyoungoffenders,theothersome
commentson the effectsof long-termimprisonmentby an eminentpsychiatrist.It
is thus not surprisingto find 'violent youth' providingthe themeand headingfor
the Mail editorialof the same day: 'Outsiders'. Herethe areaof Handsworth- and
thus the whole complexcrime/environment,biography/backgroundproblematic
- was subsumedunder the youth theme.The need for deterrentsentencinghaving
been acknowledgedby the long-establishedreferenceto the 'Americanpattern
of urban violence', there was an explicit appeal for remedies to be applied to
'root causes', specificallyto 'the explosivesituation in socially deprivedareas'
like Handsworth.Hence the conclusionwas double-edged:'Toughsentencesfor
savagecrimes may be a necessaryshort-tennexpedient.But the communitymust
look deeper if long-tennsolutionsare to be found.'
On the followingday this heavy themalisalionof the case was continued,and
it is into this perspectivethat the portraitof Handsworthwas inserted.'The night
Handsworthwas minding its own business' appeared alongside letters on the
sentence,and above a piece whosetitle revealsits topic ('Meanwhileback in the
JuvenileCourt'), and all under the generalheading 'Spotlighton violenceand its
 BALANCINGACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH Jf 1

causes as the 20-yearsentencedebatecontinues'. While the Mail had not denied

the relevanceof the 'environment',this was particularisedso as to fit with the
violent-youththeme.The focuswas very much on the childrenof Handsworlh:

In the Grove,Villa Road,home of the sixteenyear old, there is paper scauered

on broken paving stones, grey soil sproutingwizened grey plants, crumbling
fences, and gaps in the brickwork where the mortar has lost heart. Many
children too. Healthy beautifulchildren with dirty knees, yes, but with young
expressionsand soft, ungrainedcomplexions.Ebullient,as they offer to show
'where he livedwithhis mum'. In a flat in the Grove'sonly detachedhouse.Are
these youngstersat risk becauseall aroundthem gardenswilt, paper drifts and
paint flakesfromVictorianartisan'sdwellings?Is a way of life decidedbehind
a front door or on the streets?How many Handsworthkids make good but not
news by gaininguniversityplaces,then degrees?

The sametechniqueof speculative,subjectiveexploration-the mostextremeform

of 'feature by microcosm'- was appliedto the homesof the other two offenders.
The articleended with an admissionthat no progresshad been made in the study
of 'detritusand dereliction'- 'We find ourselvesbackat the beginning:whatgoes
on behind those front doors?' There had been no examinationof the structural
constraintsoperatingon Handsworth,not even the cursory kind we found in the
nationals;no attempt either to fit the boys' backgrounds- covered through the
mothersin the earlier 'feature-by-montage'piece - into their socialenvironment.
The backgroundissue here took the fonn - implicitand by no meansfullyformed
- of a cultural problematic:how a 'way of life' was formed,and whetherit was
'the family'or 'the streets' which were the detennininginfluence.
A measure of the integratedapproachof the Mail is that this cultural theme
providedthe pivot for Brian Priestley'spersonal viewpointof 21 March- 'One
Paul Storey is too many.' While Priestley was accorded the same licence as
Waterhousein the Mirl'orand Akass in the Sun, he did not contradict,but took
to its logical conclusion,the definitionof the backgroundproblem which had
been built into the news treatment.The problemsfaced by Paul Storey,Priestley
argued,were similarto those facedby youths in other inner-cityareas- Hockley,
Balsall Heath,Aston.They had 'typical' histories:trouble at home, poor school
achievement,distrustfulof adults,searching for excitement,perhapsas an extra
burden they were coloured.On this (by now familiar)talk of the fracturingof
socialties, Priestley'sportraitdepended.He was clear about the responsibilityfor
this situation:the CommunityRelationsCommittee,youth organisations,the City
Council,all were variouslyfailingin their duty.The resultswere disastrous:

At the moment too many youngstersare deprivedof decent homes, playing

space, youth facilities,fresh air, opportunitiesfor lawfuladventure,chancesof
escapingfromthe areasin whichthey live,the sort of adultleaderswhothey feel
understandtheir problem;and the prospectof a happy future. It must be time
that these young folk were seen as the crash priorityof our youth programme.
Even one Paul Storeyis too many.
112 POUCINOTHECRISIS

The resort 10 crime here was thus portrayedas an option in the field of leisure.
Althoughtherewassomeminimalacknowledgement ofstructuralfactors-housing,
for example.curiouslyon a par with 'fresh air' - the 'missing link' to retie these
young people to society was primarilythat of leisure provision.Only nominally
was youth situated in particular areas of the city. Employment,education and
income,the lackof whichhelpedto define thoseareas,were not of real relevance.
What Priestleydid was to fill the gap between physicalenvironmentand social
behaviour,so troublingto the Handsworthfeature writer, with the mediationof
leisure. Larger questions about social inequalitywere thus circumvented,and,
equally importantly,a real pragmatism- a crash youth programme- could be
advocated.Analysisand solutionhad been localised,not only in geographicalbut
in politicaltermsalso.The solutionwas withinthe city's grasp,if only the council
had recognisedthe need.
A whole complexof redefinitionshad been at work in the Mail's handlingof
the issue: from 'muggers' to 'violent city youth', from 'problemarea' to 'way of
life', from 'law and order' to 'leisure', from 'juvenilecourts' to 'youth courses'.
The complexitiesof explainingone crime, a pattern of crime, a criminal area;
the possibly crucial roles of family,school, work-place;the over-all factors of
housing,poverty,race: all these- and more- had beensubsumedunder the image
of 'culwrally-deprivedyouth prone to violence because of the vacuum in their
leisure time'. This reformulationof the 'backgroundproblem' may have more
validitythan some we haveexamined,but it remains,in its omissionof structural
factors,patentlyinadequateas an analysis.Its power is that of an image- that of
'bored' youth who became 'at risk' throughdoing nothing.
The Birmingham-basedSu11dayMercury is a difficult paper to characterise.
In appearanceand perspective,it is more like a local weekly than the Post and
the Mail: deliberately, proudly, old-fashioned in views and news treatment,
it eschewssex and sensationalismin favour of the moral and the mundane.Its
feature treatmentof the Handsworthcase appeared at first glance idiosyncratic
in the extreme. It did not focus at all on the victim, the criminal or the area,
but presentedtwo case studies of how it was possible not merelyto survive but
to succeed from the beginningsof a slum background.The feature took up the
whole editorial page. 1\vo interviewswith prominentBinningham men, one a
self-madebusinessman,the other an ex-CabinetMinister,coveredthe middleand
right-handparts of the page; the editorialcolumnwas on the left and the weekly
Christiancolumnappeared,as always,at the bottomleft of the page.The Mercury
had chosenthe Ihemeof muggingfor its Sundaysermon.Both intervieweeswere
pictured:the businessmanin a small facialinset, the politician,in a largerpicture,
standingin the street in Lozellswherehe went to school.
It can scarcely be said that the Mercury spelt out its argument.The drift of
the argument,from the controversyover a twenty-yearprison sentence to the
presentdecayof familylife in societyas a whole,was not a,ticu/ated in any clear
or systematic fashion.The editorial, for example, discussed youthful crime in
terms of changingfamilylife, but made no specificreferenceto 'mugging'. The
interviewscontainedimplicit images of society and explanationsof 'deviance',
but made hardly any direct referenceto the Storey case. The over-alleffect was
actually quite subtle. By avoidingany attempt to explain specificcrimes, it was
 BALANCING ACCOUNTS: CASHING IN ON HANDSWORTH ( 13

much easier to pull on unfocusedcommon-senseconcerns and assumptions,to

weave them into an implicit image or society and (apparently)to offer a ge11er-
alised explanationor recenteventsin terms or the breakdownof familylife.
The selection of 'experts' in relation to this theme was quite crucial. For the
Mercury,no doubt, the fact of previousexhaustivenewspapertreatmentof the
subjectled to the searchfor a more originalapproach.But here, as elsewhere,this
technicalexplanationor theMercury'sfeaturetreatmentis or limitedanddistorting
value.It wouldin anyeventhavebeenquiteout ofline withtheMercury'sprovincial
common-sense'world-view'to haveconsultedthosesociologists,criminologists,
communityworkers and voluntary agencies which even the most conservative
of the daily national newspapersused in some form as referencepoints. Thus
it is entirely appropriatethat the 'e,cpertise'sought by the Mercurywas not that
of intellectualanalysisor professionalconcern but one of lived experience.The
biographieschosen were not simple accountsor rampantindividualism,celebra-
tions of exceptional men. What the Mercury required was not morality tales
of competitivesuccess but images of an integratedsociety,and, within that, or
the stable social lifo and culture of the slum - thus the emphasison the family,
especiallyon the motherfigure.Each man talkedabout his own mother,enabling
the editoria1to pinpointthe mother as the key integrativemechanismwhich had
now brokendown. Hencethe headings.The interviewwith the businessmanwas
headed 'My widowedmother ruled five or us'; that with the politician, 'Miss
Hayman, the Lozells shepherd' - a reforenceto the polilician's primary-school
teacher,who,accordingto his description,acted as a supplementaryand commu-
nally availablemother-figure.It is Mr Howell who raised the descriptionor his
experienceto the level of explanation:'"Environment",asserts Mr Howell,"is
very very important.Ir it is bad or poor or overcrowdedthen this may not matterif
the other thingsare there- the socialanchors- the familylire and followshipthat
we had."• This becamethe theme of the accompanyingeditorial,which inserted
the new problemof violent,juvenilecrime into an ultra-traditionalistframework.
What was required was not new thinking but the reassertionof old values.The
analysisof urban deprivationhad becomea panegyricfor traditionalmotherhood
and the old culture.The point was simply made:
Motherit seemsis no longerthe formidableforceshe used to be.The economic
and social pressuresof modern life have diminishedher dominantrole in the
family.Instead or running the home full-timeas mentors,cooks, conressors,
comforters,cleaners and arbitrators,about half a million in the Midlandsare
now breadwinners;part career-womenand only part-timemothers.Just how
high a price society is paying for mother's wage packet nobody yet knows.
Some sociologists,magistratesand others think it may be a frighteningone.
Who can tell how much idleness, fecklessness,vandalism and educational
subnormalityis due to the simple fact that many schoolchildrendo not know
what it is to go home to mother,to tea on the table and a sympatheticear for the
chatter or the day'?... Rootless,underdevelopedand insecurechildrenbecome
inadequate,deprivedteenagerswhose social and emotionalneeds are fulfilled
in gangs of other inadequates.The streets replace the anchorageof home.
Violencebecomesa formof self-expressionand vandalisma way of filling the
114 POLICINGTHECRISIS

vacuumleft by mum. Evidenceis mountingthat traditionalfamily life, often

deridedas too restrictive,too cloying,too limitingto freedomand too old hat in
an age whenyouthis emancipated,is still a pricelessasset.To be a meremother
runninga homeand familyis Loplayas vital a role in our societyas there is. It is
worth more than pin-money,more than keepingup with the Jonesesand much
more than can be expressedin materialterms.If the problemsof rootlessurban
youth are to be tackledwith any determination,perhapswe shouldstart with a
Government-sponsored campaignto put mother back where she belongs- in
the home.

This was a powerfulappeal. It did not draw on the self-perpetuatingimages of

the media whichmay have ultimatelyprovokedcynicismin the audience.It drew
much more directly on the ideologyof traditionalcommonsense, known to all
'normal' people as the right and proper way of life, exemplifiedin the lives of
these two men, enshrined in the Christian platitudesof the Mercury's resident
common-sensepreacher.
Thereis a strongcase forconsideringtheMercury'streatmentof theHandsworth
event as more ideologicallycoherentthan that of any other paper.There wereno
gaps in the Mercuryof the kind we found in the Daily Mail and Daily Express
between relatively wide-ranging features and narrow-mindededitorials. The
Mercurydid not feel it necessaryeven to go through the motionsof handling
a debate about Paul Storey's character and education, the correctness of the
sentence,or the problemsof Handsworthas an area. In one sense, its advantages
weretemporal.It did not have to followclosely on previousnews treatmentsor
take accountof the definitionsand reactionsof experts.As a weekly(i.e. Sunday
only) provincialpaper, it was the paper least tied by the establishedemphases
of news treatment,least constrainedby how the topic had already been defined.
It was free to establishits own stressesand themes,and to draw the story (now
severaldays old as a news story) into its own ideologicalorbit. This gave it the
opportunityfor a more consistent and coherent thematic treatment.It was cast
in a form - the biographyas a moral tale for our times - quite independently
constructed(independent,that is, of the detailsand contingenciesof the particular
news valuessurroundingthe Handsworthevent),quite distinclivelyconceived.
This, then, was a distinctivetype of feature- one more characteristicof the
popularSundaypaper than of the daily; the featureas moraltale, or 'sermon'. Its
'feature' aspect sprang almost entirely from the freedomthe paper had to 'stand
back' from the event itself, and handle the 'deeper questions', 'larger themes'
which it raised. It did not consider closely questions of social problems in a
'sociological'way; nor did it go for graphicfirst-handreporting;nor, even,did it
constructan explanationout of the medleyof expert opinionsand voices.It bent
the subjectbacktowardsone of its great,persistent,overarchingmoralthemes:the
sanctityof familylife, its cohesion,its supportiveframework,its contributionto
the maintenanceof traditionalways of life. With a certain,technical,journalistic
flair,the Mercurythenchose to 'feature' this great conservativesocialthemein an
interestingly'personalised'way,throughthe exemplarylivesof localworthymen.
But there can be no mistakingthe continuity of ideologicalthemes which this
noveltyof treatmentand story somewhatconceals.A hundreddifferentstories,
 DALANCINOACCOUNTS:CASHING IN ON HANOSWORTH ) )5

casl in a hundred dillerenl ways, lead Mercury readers, every week, down the
narrowpath back to the great, conserving,central veritiesof life. In its capacity
to combinenoveltyof treatmentand angle, or personalisationwith an instinctual
traditionalism,in its ready feel for the grooves of consensual,common-sense
wisdomsand unchangingpatlerns,the Mercuryshares a greatdeal with that other
sectionof the conservativepress, the nationalSunday'populars'. It inhabitsmuch
the same moral-sociallandscape,in which the heady, restless world of change.,
movement,disturbance- the modern spirit - is contrasted,unfavourably,with
the 'old truths', the old patterns,the old concerns,the old and tried ways of doing
things.It is a deep affirmationof the socialorder,underscoredby a rootedpopular
traditionalism.The contrastsacross which its parlicularweeklyfeaturesare cast
are simple, abstract and broad: rootlessness,insecurity,emolionaldeprivalion,
vandalism, educational subnonnality and 'other inadequacies' are all woven
togetheras the anomicprice of change- againstthat, the steady,solid,rootedness
of 'home to mother... tea on the table and a sympatheticear for the chatter of the
day'.
The imagehere evoked,then,relatednot to theproblem,but the solution.II was
positiveratherthan negative,yet containedwithinit an explicitmodelof historical
decay, not of the city, but of mother-centredfamily life. The Sunday Mercuiy's
responseto the problemof a newage was to insistthat the clock be turnedback.

CONCLUSION:EXPLANATIONS
ANDIMAGBSIN THE MBDIA
The great majorityof the featureson the Handsworthcase selectedvictim,mugger
and area as their principalfeaturethemes.The pressfoundirresisliblyproblematic
the connectionsbetweena horrificcrime, the dramalicresponsein the court, and
the newslumconditionswhichprovidedthevenueof thecrimeand thebackground
of the criminal. It was this link which requiredexploralionand hence provided
the pivot for the move into featuretrealment.Aboveall, the move to exploration
encounteredthe problem of the relationshipbetween physicalenvironmentand
social conduct.The condensedexplanationsof this relationshippresentedin the
headlines were various: the organic stress of the Daily Mail ('Where violence
breeds') or the severeyet imprecisedetenninismof the Daily Express('Caught for
Life in a ViolentTrap'). The boys' biographieswere sometimesworkedinto the
background(as in the Guardian),but wel'emore often separatedout (DailyMail,
Daily Express,BirminghamPost). The links betweenbiographyand background
were representedin different ways - here by the common reproductionof lhe
race theme, there by the identificationof other Handsworthchildrenas potential
criminals.
Whilesome of these techniqueseffectedspuriouskindsof connectionbetween
environmentand crime, there is evident a searchfor a more satisfactorysolution.
One strategy,especiallyevidentin the 'featuresby microcosm',wasthe attemptto
makea direct connectionbetween'decay' and 'criminalconduct'. Two processes
are necessaryhere. One is to reduce the definitionof the environmentfrom one
embracingthe hiddenmechanismsof housing,povertyand race to one involving
simply the surface appearanceof dirt and dereliction.The second is to suppress
the possiblemediationsbetweenenvironmentand crime.The sociallies of family,
 TABLE4.2
Press coverage of the Handsworth case

Front-page lead Inside stories EditoriaJs Features Second sentence

(20Man:h 1973) (20Man:h 1973) (20Man:h 1973) (21 Man:h 1973) (22Man:h 1973)
Daily Express Boy 16 weeps after Let us protect the Caught For Life In Battle over
sentence innocent a Violent Trap-The jailed boy.
20 YEARS FOR Ghetto-:-1:f1cmugger ~tal issues
MUGGER :-The victim - -:1be rmed says
Jwige - The pobce lawyer
Daily Mail Storm over boy muggers 20 years for boy A terrible deterrent Where violence Boy muggers:
16 who went breeds - same again
mugging for fun Handsworth -The Jwige forgot
- Where sons gang boss-1be robbery
went wrong, by victim-An expert's charges
mothers view
TheSun 20YEARSFORTHE Whatitmeansto None("Puttingthe TMONLYHALF Another20
MUGGER AGED 16 be a victim of the legal boot in won't A MAN years for 'Mug'
Twofriendsgivt:n 10 muggen ~~I:~::;:~ Mylifci!in_ru!ns' boy
years - Boys with a debt J. Akass, 21 March saystrag:tcvtcbmof
to pay 1973) boy muggers
DailyMirror IAILEDFOR20YEARS THECASEOF Industrial dispute Youngmuggcr
Shock sentence on THE TEENAGE ("Order in Court' gets another 20
mugger aged 16 MUGGER - K. Waterhouse, years
Storey's mother 22 March 1973)
vsPolice
Federation
MorningStar 16 year old boy gets 20 Savage Anger flares at
years in mugging case savage sentence on
(21 Man:h1973)
mu~ers
Guardian 16 years old boy gets 20 'I am sorry about Another20
years for 'mugging' sentences,' says years for boy in
victim of mugging mugging case
attack
Depressed &
Depressing
Daily 20YEARSFOR Scales of Justice 30p muggers so
Telegraph 16-YEAR-OLD stupid says victim
MUGGER
Five cigarettes and 30p
from victim
The Tunes Judge sentences three Mother says boy 20 years for
Birmingham boys for is 'very shocked' attempted murder
'serious and horrible'
offences against man
going home
MUGGER AGED 16
GIVEN 20 YEARS
DETENTION AND
COMPANIONS 10
YEARS
118 POLICINGTHECRISIS

school and job, are displacedinlo the biographicalpieces, and their functionas
structural/culturalinstitutionswithin the area can thus be ignored. It becomes
possible, then, to short-circuitthe environment/crimerelationship.Rather than
trace the complexlinks betweenthe deterioratedphysicalenvironment,patterns
of cuhuralorganisationand individualacts of crime,the inferenceis !hata derelict
and neglectedhouseor streetinfectsthe inhabitantswith a kindof moralpollution.
The liuer in the streetsbecomesthe sign of incipientcriminality.
While this strategy was found most openly in the provincialconservatismof
the BirminghamPost and EveningMail, cosmopolitanliberalism,as represented
in the Guardian, fared no better in its attempt to crack the crime/environment
problem. The list of pathologicalsymptoms on which that paper's portrait of
Handsworthwas based remainedessentiallydescriptive.Out of the list of crime,
prostitution,poor housing, poverty and inter-racialstrife, which were causes
and which erfects? If the environmentdeterminescrime, what detennines the
environment?These are difficult questions:but lhat is not the main reason for
evadingthem.There is hardlyany way of tacklingthoseproblemswithoutcalling
into questionsome fundamentalstructuralcharacteristicsof society:the unequal
distributionof housing;the low levelsof pay in particularindustries;the natureof
welfarebenefits;the lack of educationalresources;racial discrimination.It was
the directlypoliticalnatm-eof thesedeterminantswhichnecessitatedthe appropri-
ation of environmentaldeterminismin such crude and unresolvableterms.It was
into this vacuumthat there emergedthe most powerfulmechanismsfor resolving
these problemsideologically- public images.
A 'public image' is a cluster of impressions,themes and quasi-explanations,
gathered or fused together.These are sometimes the outcome of the features
process itself; where hard, difficult,social, cultural or economicanalysisbreaks
down or is cut short,the resolutionis achievedby orchestratingthe whole feature
so as to producea kind of compositedescription-cum-explanation - in the formof
a 'public image'. But the processis somewhatcircular,for these 'public images'
are frequenllyalreadyin existence,derivedfromother featureson other occasions
dealing with other social problems.And in this case the presenceof such 'public
images' in public and journalistic discourse feeds into and informs the feature
lreatmentofa particularstory.Sincesuch 'public images',atone andthesametime,
are graphicallycompelling,but also stop short of serious,searchinganalysis,they
tend to appearin place of analysis- or analysisseems to collapseinto the image.
Thus at the point where further analysis threatens to go beyond the boundaries
of a dominantideologicalfield, the 'image' is evoked to foreclosethe problem.
The over-arching'public image' which dominated the national papers feature
treatmentof the Handsworthcase was that of the ghetto or new slum. It was this
imagewhichwas insertedat the momentwhenthecrime/environmentrelationship
was most pressing, ideologically.The 'transparent' associationbetween crime,
race, povertyand housing was condensedinto the image of the 'ghetto' but not
in any causal formulation.Any further demand for explanationwas forestalled
by this essentiallycirculardefinition- these we1i! the characteristicswhichmade
up the ghetto.The initial 'problem' - the crime - was thus inserted into a more
general 'social problem'wherethe apparentrichnessof descriptionand evocation
 DALANCIN<l
ACCOUNTS:CASHINGIN ON HANDSWORTH 119

sto<Xl.
in place of analyticconnections.The connectionswhich were made- with
lhe death of cities, the problemof immigration,the crisis of lawand order- were
fundamentallydescriptiveconnections.Throughthe 'public image of lhe ghetto'
we were pushed back up the scale where generalisedanalogy replacedconcrete
analysisand where the image of the United States as precursorof all our night-
mares came back into play.It was a powerfuland compellingform of rhetol'ical
closure.
The ghetto/newslumimagewasdominantin the nationalpressfeaturetreatment:
more explicitlyin the Daily Mail and the Daily Express;less so in the Guardian
and Daily Telegraph.It was also implicit in the approach of the Birmingham
Post, but the other two local papers,the EveningMail and the Su11dayMercury,
provided their own unique imagistic resolutions. Less public than provincial
perhaps,certainlyfeeling,in the nationalcontext,dated. But the imagesof youth
and thefamily mobilisedby thosepapersfulfilledthe same ideologicalrole as the
ghetto in the nationa1s,and in their particularsettingsthey had a similarevocative
power.
Bothinvolvedspecificredefinitionsof the environment.Jn theMail's evocation
of youth we were taken out of Handsworthinto a wholering of such areas in lhe
city.Whatdrewthemtogetherwas not housing,raceor povertybut the presencein
them of a particulargroup:young people withoutadequaterecreationalfacilities.
Thus redefined,the problembecameopen to formsof pragmaticresolution.Since
it was a problem of the young rather than a whole population;since it was one
of recreationnot of work; since it was one internalto the city and not present in
the society as a whole; since, in short, the problem had been localised,it was
amenableto localsolutions.HencePriestley'sstirringcall to the city council for
a 'crash youth programme'.This image- of deprived,restless youth lookingfor
excitement- drew on a whole post-wardefinitionof the 'youth problem': from
the Teddy-Boysto the muggersthe same imageshavebeen evoked.
Social dislocationof a rather different kind informedthe Sunday Mercu,-y's
feature. Here the mediation absent in the national press between physical
environmentand socialconductwas providedby a cultural formation;that of the
family.Poor housingand povertyneednot haveled to crime if a properhomewith
'mother in her rightful place' was provided.The novelty of the environmental
situationwas denied: there had always been areas like this. What was missing
was the culturalsourceof respectand disciplinewhich- alone it would appear-
could guaranteeour adherenceto the rules of proper social behaviour.That the
imageof familylife evokedis historicallydubious,and the examplesgivenhardly
typical,shouldnot blind us to the pull such an evocationis likelyto haveon those
who inhabit the world of the Sunday Mercury:the appeal to everydaydecency,
acceptedmorality,establishedways of living.Crime is the price we must pay for
havingforsakenthese values.If the 'ghetto' is an imageof urban decaythen this
appeal to lhe family is an image of moral decline. Differentin so many ways,
both imagessharea sense of socialloss. It is on the relationshipbetweenimages,
explanations,ideologies,and precisely such a sense of loss, that Chapter 6 is
focused.
 5
Orchestrating Public Opinion

'DEARSIR': LI!TTERSTOTHEEDITOR
'Letters to the editor' have not been much studied as a journalistic form,1 nor
their functionmuch examined.In the Letters' column, readers' opinionsappear
in the press in their least mediatedpublic form. The selection is ultimately in
the hands of the editor, but the spectrumof letters submittedis not (apart, that
is, from occasional'plants'). This does not mean that a Letters' columnoffers a
representativeslice of public opinion;nor that it is free of the shapingprocesses
of news construction(defined earlier). Letter columns in different papers have
different flavours - compare the prestige spot in The 1lmes with the Daily
Mirror's 'Old Codger's; and these flavours,though reflecting somethingabout
the paper's regularreaders, must also to some degree be the result of a positive
edilorialselectionby the newspaperitself, in keepingwith its own 'social image'
of itself.There is a good deal of mutualreinforcementhere: because papers are
knownto carry a certain kind of letter from a certaintype of correspondent,such
peoplewrite morefrequently;or others,hopingto get space,constructtheir leuers
in termstheyknowwill be acceptable.This is a structureddialogue.That structure
is not simply a matterof style, length or mode of address.Committednational-
isers write differentlyto the Daily Express,which would be hostile, than to the
Guardianwhich might be tolerant.The differencein the kinds of letters printed
will also havesomethingto do withthe paper's positionin the hierarchyof cultural
power. 'Conversation'in The Times or Daily Telegraphis conducted 'between
equals'. The paper of this type can 'take for granteda known set of subjectsand
interests,based for the most part on a roughlycommonlevelof education': they
can 'assume a kind of community- in this society,inevitablyeither a socialclass
or an educationalgroup'.2 The position of The Times depends on its power to
influencethe elite from within; its readership,thoughsmall, is select, powerful,
knowledgeableand influential.It and its correspondentsspeak within the same
conversationaJuniverse.In the letters it prints, therefore,it is makingpublic one
currentof opinionwithinthe decision-makingclass to anothersectionof the same
class. When the popular press, by contrast, addresses its readers as 'you', they
mean 'everyonewho is no1us: we who are writingthe paper for "you" out there'.
Readershere are not of the same 'community': they are essentiallyconsumers,
'a marketor a potentialmarket'.3The basis of the power of the popularpress is
 ORCHllSTRATING
PUBLICOPINION 121
that, though their readers lie outside the nexus of decision-making,the populars
can 'representtheir opinionsand feelings' to those who are al the centre. They
articulateon their readers' behalf; they speak ro power. Their letters, therefore,
must principallybe of the 'ordinary-folks'variety;they must show their capacity
to pull readers, normally invisible,into the public conversation.These are two
different kinds of 'cultural power'; and the differenceis reflected in the letters
they print and the kinds of people who write them.
The papers'choiceof lettersovertime will also reflectthe operationof a certain
kind of 'balance' (balancewithinthe spectrumof lettersthey receive,of course).
If a newspapereditorial takes a strong line, it may feel obliged to print some
letters which are critical. If an issue is controversial,it will print some letterson
either side of the debate.This 'balance' is notional.It is not a statisticalbalance
betweenall the letters received,and certainly not a true index of the balanceof
opinionin the countryor amongstthe readership.But the fact that 'balance' is a
criterion remains important.It indicatesone of the main functionswhich letter
columns serve: to stimulatecontroversy,provokepublic response,lead to lively
debate.Lettersare also there,in part, to sustainthe claim that the mindof the press
is not closed, and that its pages are open to viewsit does not necessarilyapprove.
Lettersare thereforealso part of the democraticimageof the press- they support
its claims to be a 'fourth estate'.
Letterswill also be chosenfor the statusof the letter-writer.Veryspecialpeople
will tend to havetheir lettersprinted:so will veryun-specialpeople- 'grass-roots'
voices'. Paperswill differ accordingto whichend of that spectrumthey are orien-
tated towards.Most lettercolumnsare, in part,a 'soundingboard' for the opinions
of the 'man in the street', but most will aim for some balancebetweenthese sorts
of letters, and letters from 'intluentials' - the 'balance' is struck by editors for
editorialeffect,ratherthan for strict numericalequality.
Leuer columns, then, do permit certain viewpointson controversialissues to
surface in the public domain; in this sense they do help to widen the represen-
tation of views expressedon topics, and perhaps to indicate viewpointswhich
do not normally get publicly expressed.But they are in no sense an accurate
representationof 'public opinion', and that is because they are not an unstruc-
tured exchange but a highly structuredone. Their principal function is to help
the press organise and orchestratethe debate about public questions.They are
thereforea central link in the shaping of public opinion- a shapingprocess the
more powerful because it appears to be in the reader's keeping and done with
his or her consent and participation.We stress the organised form, the formal
nature, of the medium in which this lakes place. People do not write letters to
the press like they write to friends.A 'letter to the editor' marksan entry into the
public arena: letters are public communications,coloured by 'public motives'.
Their intentionis not simplyto tell the editorwhat they think,but to shape policy,
influenceopinion,swing the course of events,defend interests,advancecauses.
They occupya mid-waypositionbetweenthe 'official statement'and the private
communication;they are public communications.Whoeverwrites a letter to the
editor meansto cash, publicly,a position,a status or an experience.
122

There were letters to the editor on the Handsworth case in both the national
and local press. Those in the national press in a fortnight sample period were
distributed as follows:

MorningStar I (2April 1973)

Guardian 8 (22, 26, 28, 3 I March 1973)
The Times 3 (24, 30 March 1973; 2April 1973)
Daily Telegraph 7 (22, 23, 28 March 1973)
Daily Mirror 3 (24 March 1973)
Daily Mail 4 (23 March 1973)
Total 26

(There were some letters that dealt with 'matters arising' from the case; they did
not comment on the case itself. Such uncommitted letters wereexcluded from the
analysis and the totals given above.4)
Most of the letters were about the sentence passed rather than about the
'mugging' itself. In this respect - as often - letters, like features, 'take off from'
the points of newsworthiness first identified in the news treatment. News defines
'what the issues are', for letters as for other parts of lhe paper. News is the primary
structure.
First, the letters which criticised the long sentences passed on the three
Handsworth boys - these fall within what we shall term a 'liberal' perspective
on crime. These may be divided into two groups: those which argued principally
about the sentence itself - framed, that is, within a 'penological' perspective
(i.e. concerned with the debate about which methods most effectively accom-
plish the reduction of crime): and those which, beginning there, adopted a wider
frame of reference. The 'penological' perspective took the definition of crime for
granted, and argued about strategies of containment and control. The letters were
about either reform and rehabilitation (of the guilty) or deterrence (of others).
Few thought a judge might be tempted by retribution: only one referred to it as
a possible excuse for what was really 'savage overkill'. Four correspondents, at
least, did not stray at all outside this tight frame. The arguments deployed (critical
of the sentence) were 'liberal' ones: shorter prison sentences give greater hope
of rehabilitation, they argued; longer sentences do not really deter.5 Sometimes
statistical studies from other countries were quoted. Sometimes 'rehabilitation'
carried a psycho-therapeutic overtone: the criminal is 'sick' - sentences must be
'curative'. These 'liberal' letters seemed aware that they were arguing a rather
unpopular case, in a climate set by those with opposing positions. So they often
situated themselves within the dominant position first - declaring their creden-
tials, so to speak - before launching a counter-argument. A strong tradition-
alist argument was that 'liberals' forget the victim. So one writer argued that,
in the long term, it is the 'tough' not the 'soft-on-crime' lobby which shows no
compassion for the victim. Traditionalists often call criminals 'uncivilised'. The
liberal correspondents tried to tum the tables: two called the sentences uncivi-
lised; one referred to 'blood lust', another called them 'savage'. Another asked
whether Judge Jeffreys had 'also been resurrected'.
 ORCHllSTRATINO
PUBLICOPINION 123

Someof the 'liberal' lettersmovedbeyondthe immediarequeslionof theefficacy

of sentencingmeasures.Three picked up the topic of 'inner-cityareas' and their
problems.The mosthard-hittingof these identified'bad areas' with racediscrimi-
nation, suggestingthat the senlenceis the end-productof this trend. This letter
referredto the 'Oval 4'; Pakistaniyouthskilledin an affraywiththe SpecialPatrol
Group (S.P.G.);S.P.G.activities in black areas; Enoch Powell; fire bombingin
Brixton;a racist filmby the MondayClub.This leuer had to work hard to takethe
topic that far, withinthe discourseof the letters' column.The crime was not to be
excused,it argued- but the sentencewas unfairand dealt with 'symptoms'rather
than 'the causes'of crime.No otherlettergot thisfar.Butanothersaid thesentences
wouldantagoniseyouth in inner-cityareas, the majorityof whom were poor and
black; they would 'divide and destroyour society'. Birminghamwas not an area
where robbery with violence was increasing- a telling argument,subsequently
supportedby the officialstatistics,but not picked up by other correspondentsor
editorials.This letter also referred to a 'civilized, tolerantand just society'. The
notionof 'civilization'seemedto be a criticalcriterionin the discussionof crime
and punishment;both the liberaland traditionalistpositionsattemptingto recruit
it for their own advantage.Traditionalistsregardedthe crimes, liberals regarded
harsh sentences,as failingto meet the test or 'civilized'conduct.
The requirementsfelt by critics or the sentenceto 'pay their dues' and insert
their opinionswithin a more acceptedmode of conceivingcrime and punishment
are strikingly illustratedby another letter, headed 'Deprived Communitiescan
help themselves',whichalso takes up the inner urban theme:

I wouldnot denyoffenders'responsibilityfor their acts,exceptfor the mentally

ill; but all of us are also subjectto outsidepressuresand somehavebeenalmost
totallydeprivedof the beneficentinfluencesandopportunitieswhichhavemade
us what we are. Self-mademen, from the PrimeMinisterdownwards,may say,
'I overcamemy surroundings- why can't everyoneelse?' But others have not
his abilityand in Birminghamslumsthe opportunitiesfor employmentlet alone
advancementare strictlylimited.

The responseof the criminal to his situation,the letter continued,was 'natural';

a healthy young dog locked up in a dingy room, with enough to eat but nothing
to do, would become unruly.The writer called for urban aid projects to 'help
deprived communitiesto help themselves'. This letter seemed to be trying to
tra11slatesophisticated theories of crime into simple, comprehensibleterms
understandableby a readerwith a traditionalistoutlook.It tried to win consentto
a liberalargumentby capturingpositionswithin the traditionalistperspective.It
was not only a complex,condensedpieceof reasoning,but it wasreasoningwhich
encompasseda wide selectionof the 'lay ideologies'or crime,whichstructureall
publicdebateson this issue.
There were founeen letters whichsupportedthe sentence.The strongesttheme
here was the need to protect the public from crime. The need to 'protect' was
sometimescoupled with the need to imposediscipline:'If parents won't conlrol
these thugs,the State must.'Reformof the criminal- a liberalpoint- occurredfar
124 POLICJNOTH6CRISJS

less often, thoughone letter mentioned'guidance' and 'help', and anotherdoing

'somethingconstructivewith the boy'. The deterrentvalueof long sentenceswas
mentionedonly fourtimes; 'just deserts'only twice;four writersurgedus to think
of the victim.The contextualisationof crime, which occurredless frequentlyin
these letters than in the 'liberal' ones, also moved in a differentdirection.One
letter,whichdid go outsidethe limitedframe, invokedthe government's'election
pledge on law and order'; another referred to the crisis in the nation's morals,
the decline of the family,the abolitionof capital punishment,the prevalenceof
abortionsand the recent case of a Hell's Angels' 'gang bang', where the group
had been cleared of rape. Whereas 'liberal' letterscontextualisedby referringto
'social environment','traditionalists'contextualisedby generalisingthe themeof
moralpollutionand the declineof disciplineand order.Societywas at the heart of
the 'liberal' case againstthe sentence;the questionof moralitywas at the centre
of the traditionalistcase.
Anotherfeatureof sometraditionalistletterswasa toyingwithbrutalistsolutions
to crime.One writersaid that if an animalhad madethe attackson a personwhich
Paul Storeymadeon Mr Keenan,'it wouldhavebeenshot or destroyedinstantly'.
But, having arrivedat this brink of retribution,the writer relented:Storey being
'somethingmore than an animal' (though,clearly, not 'something'fully human)
will have to be dealt with differently.But a second letter did step across the
threshold.This was the letter that suggestedthat offendersshouldbe put in cages
to withstandthe gaze of the outragedpublic: 'human nature ... after 2000 years
remainsunchangedbasically'.
Traditionalistletters were often buttressed by appeals to ordinarypersonal
experience.One writer, mother of two teenage boys, used this similarityto the
motherof the offendersnot to sympathisebut to strengthenthe demandfor tough
sentences: 'If I were to have to face that sort of thing from my own children,I
would, of course be broken hearted but I would own that they deservedevery
single day.' A second suggestedthat 'If do-gooders were to have a loved one
murderedor badly hurt in a mugging,they would not be so quick to stand up
for these thugs.' Here the appeal to 'personal experience' was aimed at under-
cutting soft-hearted,do-goadingliberalism:first-handexperienceof crime, they
suggested,would providethe cold touch of realism which was missingfrom the
abstract,distanced 'intellectualising'of the liberal position.These referencesto
'personalexperience',to 'ordinarypeople' and to 'common-senserealism'consti-
tuted a widely diffusedargumentin all the letters on the sentence,and on both
sides of the argument,though,in general,they overwhelminglywere recruitedin
supportof retributiveattitudesto crime.
This contrastbetween'concreteexperience'(supportingrealism- i.e.tradition-
alist social attitudes)and 'abstract reformism'(based on attitudes which are too
'soft on crime') was a consistentdeep-structurein letters on this kind of topic to
the press: its roots in popularideologyare discussedmore fully below.
The 'traditionalist'case was carriedas much in the writer's tone and style as in
the contentof what he or she was arguing.Mr CharlesSimeons,M.P.,the corre-
spondentwith the suggestionabout 'cages', perhapsbest - becausemost exten-
sively(he had two letters)- typifiedthis tone of bluff,breezy,confidentcommon
sense:the 'plain man' thinkingaloud,and speakinghis mind. 'Unchanginghuman
 ORCHESTRATING
PUBLICOPINION 125
nature'wasconfidentlyassertedin a dependentclause.Moralstatementsweremade
with blankelingassertion: 'Bullies have always been cowardswho fear personal
inconvenience.'On his proposalto put muggersin cages,he added:'Far frombeing
sadistic, I visualise no customersor one at most.' This plain-speaking,frankly
brutaliststyle was typicalof letterswhich,becausetheir argumentsseemedto rest
on thefelt legitimacyof popular,long-standing'folk wisdoms' (often forgotten,
of course),carried, in their whole tone and approach,the implication:'everyone
knows'. The same breezycolloquialismwas to be found in anotherletter, which
complainedof 'wails from the bleedinghearts'; adding 'If bashing the motorist
is effective,so is bashing the hooligan.'On the whole, the 'liberal' tone simply
could not afford to be so confident,assuminginstantsupportfor incontrovertible
truths. 'Liberal' letters had to argue their way by a much longer, less assertive,
more 'rational' route to their less popularconclusions.So far as crime,retribution,
toughnessand authoritywereconcerned,traditionalistsproceededwiththe certain
convictionthat Truth was already in their pockets. It is importantto add that,
thoughthis 'populisttraditionalism'was most evident in the popularpress - the
Mail and the Mirrorin our case - there were at least three lettersin the Telegraph
whichcouldbe placedclose to thiscategory.II was by no meansthe prerogativeof
the popularpress,nor was it simplya functionof the requirementof brevity.It was
a social 'voice', not attributableto technicalconstraints.
The distributionof argumentswithinthese lettersto the daily nationalpresscan
now be summarisedas follows:

Guardian Liberal6 Traditionalist2 (of which4 are penologically

orientated)
TheTimes Liberal I (penological)
Daily Telegmph Traditionalist5 Liberal2
DailyMirror Traditionalist3
Daily Mail Traditionalist4
MorningStar Radical 16

The distributionof the argumentsemployedthus fits squarelywith whatwe might

think of as the newspapers'respective'position' in the spectrumof attitudes on
social and moral questions.The Guardiancontainednot only the most 'liberal'
letters, but also those which contextualisedcrime in social-problemterms: the
Telegraphwas the most 'traditionalist'.The positionof the Mail was the expected
one - in the traditionalistcamp.The positionof the Mirrorwas the most classic-
left-liberalin politics,but often solidly conservativeon social, moral and penal
questions:the ventriloquistof working-classcorporatism.

LOCALCHANNELS
In the BirminghamPost and Evening Mail there were, in a seven-day period,
twenty-eightletters in all, twelve categorisedas liberal, shc:teentmditionalist.7
The differencesbetweenthose in both papers were slight enough to enable us to
considerthem together.(Again,we excludeperipheral,uncommiltedlettersfrom
thetotals.8)
126 POLICINGTH~CRISIS

The Handsworthcase clearly had a differentresonanceand greatersaliencefor

Birminghamthan for other parts of the country; the more so since a city area -
Handsworth- itself figuredas a protagonistin the debate.The spreadof opinions
was thus more sharply polarised as between 'liberal' opinion and professional
'healers', and those drawing on traditionalistcommon-sensearguments.Here,
the split referred to earlier appears more starkly.It was felt that liberals took an
abstractand theoreticalattitude,treatingdaily experienceas an instance,merely,
of a more general case; traditionalistswereorientatedsolidly to common-sense
experience, rooted in the discrete specific everyday life in the 'real' world -
fightingfire with fire.
A strongthemeamongstthe criticsof the sentence,as in the nationalpress,was
the penologicalone: harsh sentencesdid not reform offenders.Some added that
they did not deter potentialcriminalseither. Four of these letlers were focused
on the specificquestionof sentencing- includingone which based oppositionto
deterrentsentencingon personalexpertexperience:it is by a prisonpsychologist.
Even where the focus is on sentencing,we can see how there is a movement
towardstheoriesof explanationof crime in the 'liberal' letters.For example,the
prisonpsychologist'slettercontaineda theoryof crimeembeddedin his argument.
Criminalsmay be 'immature,irresponsibletypes of peoplewho do not plan their
lives' but act 'in a spontaneousway'. Anotherwriter,deployingan 'environmen-
talist' ratherthan a 'psychologicalimpulse' model of crime,referredto the 'ways
in which society itself has contributedto producingviolent and deviant minor-
ities'. The remedyproposed(the liberalalternativeto deterrence/retribution) was
an extensionof the 'caring' social services: 'more effectivepreventiveservices
both socialand educational'.
The author referred to above - a representativeof the Associationof Social
Workers- also attempteda startling reversal of the traditionalistconcern with
the victim, with the argument that: 'In a very real sense, Paul Storey himself
emergesas a "victim".'There wereconsistentreferencesin this group of 'liberal'
letters to social influences: 'the fault of his surroundings'; 'bored or ... had a
bad upbringing'.There was also a quite startling attempt to use the 'personal-
reference'argumentagainst,rather than for, the sentence- the followingis from
an ex-prisoner:'I havedone a fair bit of bird. I knowthat the longerthe sentence,
the worse the person gets ... if you get mixed with rubbishyou can turn out like
"rubbish".'This was not, however,the sort of 'personalexperience'likelyto carry
muchweightwith the 'tough-sentencing'lobby.In one or two lettersthe 'environ-
mentalist'case was very fully deployed: 'There seems little doubt that there are
groupsin our societywhocan be describedas relativelyunder-privileged,whether
one uses social,emotional,economicor educationalmeasures.'These 'have their
origins somewherein history'. Social scientists 'would be able to give us some
fairly sound guessesas to how these factorsaffect individualbehaviour'.Slums,
povertyand unemploymentremain, while Concordeis producedwith the result
that 'small wonderthat some have little difficultyin applyinga Marxist model
to the situationand explainingit in tenns of opposingclass interests'. This was,
perhaps,the fullestand mostelaboratedstatementof the sociologicalperspective
on crime to be encounteredin the letters; and the fact that it is cast in rather
general tenns, and stops short within a 'social environment'explanation,does
 ORCHESTRATINO
PUDLICOPINION 127
not diminish its emergent radicalism. It was, incidentally, written by a probation
officer. Three dimensions of welfare state care were represented in this batch of
'liberal' anti-sentence letters: prison psychologist, social worker and probation
officer. But there were no letters of this kind from the 'hard' side of social control:
no policemen, no prison warders, no borstal governors.
The majority of letters in the local press were in fact from the 'traditionalist'
camp; and not surprisingly the most powerful theme there was the challenge and
reply to the position of liberal environmentalists: frequently supported by refer-
ences to 'personal experience' and common-sense realism. 'Why do do-gooders
always blame the environment? I and thousands of others were brought up in
slums, but I cannot recall any case of mugging during my youth.' 'I was one of
eight children brought up between the wars in poverty in a small two bedroom
terrace house. We were kept clean, honest and God-fearing.... It made us all good
citizens and proud to accept only what we worked for.' 'I am proud of my old girls
who have made good despite sordid childhood homes, and whom I still meet'
(this last from a teacher). Respectability, the struggle to do good and lift oneself
by one's moral bootstraps despite everything, could hardly be more eloquently -
because so experientially- expressed.
In these leuers, the model of crime based on environmental factors was solidly
opposed by the appeal to moral discipline.Morality overcomesenvironmental
disadvantage. For youth said to be roaming the streets, with 'nothing else better
to do', one correspondent recommended, 'Guides, Scouts, Boys' Brigade,
youth clubs and various other things attached to school and churches.' A former
Teddy-Boy, born and raised in Handsworth, had found 'a lack of things to do
during the evenings' but 'we certainly didn't go around beating people up'. Most
of the arguments against the environmentalists stemmed from this reassertion of
the individual's capacity to triumph over adversity. Some uncommitted writers
countered the negative image of the environment given by the critics, not by
an appeal to self-discipline but by an appeal to a positive image: in many roads
'several communities live perfectly happily together' and, 'if Handsworlh is such
an awful place, why is the competition for houses so intense?'
Many of the letters in the traditionalist camp called on personal or personal-
expert experience to support their rejection of the environmentalist proposition.
1\vo of these were connected with the 'hard' wing of social control: a prison
officer's wife and the 'grandson of a magistrates' chairman and the son of a
practising solicitor'. More commonly, those appealing to personal situation and
everyday experience were signed - 'A working class mother of three teenagers',
'the father of a son who was attacked near Camp Hill a few years back'. These
'generic' correspondents, especially if they hinted at a personal experience of
crime, tended to take up strongly the disciplinethemeconsidered above: not self-
discipline, but the need for social and moral discipline, given the breakdown of
law and order. The correspondent who alleged that 'Older people are afraid to
walk the streets and our children are unable to go out alone to play in the streets
or park' blamed the softness of the courts and thought the police were doing 'a
wonderful job'. Others took a similar line: 'Already people in this area say they
would rather risk crossing the busy main road than use the underpasses.' Others
in this group referred directly to the inslitutions responsible for the growth of
128

indiscipline:'With the lesseningof a finn and stable family life for children the
proportionof hostileyoungpeoplein our societywill increase'; 'The lackof home
and school disciplineis appalling.'Another asserted, 'Only stiff deterrentswill
make life tolerable.'Yetanother,whichidentifiedthe rise in crime with the end of
NationalServiceand the 'abolitionof capital punishment',called for 'a national
disciplinaryservice, based on a civilian type anny, where the strict teachingof
disciplineshould be a major priority'. The numberof such letters,togetherwith
the similaritiesin tone,contentand attitudewouldcertainlysupportour viewthat
he1'f! was the heart of the traditionalistcase on crime. We would include in this
characterisationof the traditionalistheartland,both those leuers which opposed
'do-goading' by an appeal to self-discipline,and those which, pivotingon the
fears of ordinaryfolk, tracedcrime to moralcausesand the collapseof an orderly
way of life.The traditionalistcase was pre-eminentlya moralistargument.
All the letters, for or against the sentence, came from Binningham or the
Birminghamarea,exceptone froma socialworkers'representative.ABirmingham
expatriatewrotefromFloridato warnhis homecity of an American-stylemugging
threat.There was a batch of letters from 'schoolboys', all roughlyPaul Storey's
age, intended, no doubt, to represent the views of normal, decent, respectable
teenagers;theycameoutfourto threecriticalof thesentence.Again,as weindicated
in the previoussection,those critical of the judge wrote letters on averageover
twice as long as the traditionalists-having to argueharderto establisha reasoned
case. But the general effect was one of scrupulousbalance: the greater number
of traditionalistletters being 'balanced' by the fact that critics' letters were often
printed first. One letter, fully within the traditionalistperspective.added a theme
which may have underlainothers taking a similar position,but which was rarely
openlyexpressed.It simplysaid: 'surely the Englishin their homelandare entitled
to protectionagainst such thugs as this boy'. 'In their homeland' is a specially
nice touch, in view of the fact that, for good or ill, England was Paul Storey's
'homeland' too.

PRIVATE-PUBLIC
CHANNELS:THBABUSIVBS
The next group of letters takes us to the boundarybetween'private' and 'public'
discourse,and pennits us a brief,selectiveglimpseinto the 'underworld'of public
opinion.These were the abusiveletters sent at the time of the Handsworthaffair.
They were, of course, 'private' in the sense that they were personallyaddressed,
not transmittedin a public medium.Thus they may be thoughtto fall outsidethe
networkof public communications.On the other hand, they expressed 'public'
rather than privatesentiments;they were from people who are not known to the
recipient- indeed, most of them were deliberatelyanonymous.They were not
intendedto fonn the basis of an exchangeor a relationship- for example,they
clearlydid not anticipatea reply.Thereis good evidencefor sayingthat they were
'private'only becausetheycontainedattitudestoo violentor languagetoo abusive
for publictaste. It is this factessentially- their extremism- whichswitchedthem
intothe privatechannel.'The workof cranks', 'the lunaticfringe'are twocommon
dismissiveresponsesto such letters.Our aim is to demonstratetwo things: first,
the abusiveletters containedsome attitudeswhich were not expressedin 'letters
 ORCHESTRATING
PUBLICOPINION 129

to the editor'; second,and more important,many attitudes in the 'abusives' were

transfom,ationsof altitudeswidelyheld but expressedin more restrainedways in
the public correspondence.
Indeed,the transfonnationreferredto was often only fonnal.Abusivelettersare
wriuen 'personto person'ratherthan 'citium to fellow-cilium',A differenttone is
to be expectedin the movefrompublicto privatediscourse- and thisindeedis what
we find.The moredifficultquestionis the extentto whichprivateand publicletters,
thoughdifferentin fonn, languageand tone, neverthelessrepresentdifferentpoints
along the same spectrumof public opinionas was foundin 'letters to the editor':
expressionsin whichthe same 'lay ideologies'wereoperative.A significantnumber
of the 'abusives'did go far beyondthe limits that the 'citizen in the publicforum'
acceptedfor himself.Andthismightleadus to thinkthatthetwochannelswerequite
distinct.Abusiveletterswould then indicatethe existenceof systemsof meaning
quiteseparatefromthoseavailableto the societyof 'reasonable'readersand writers
whom the media address.The public media,however,do not in any sense reflect
the full scale of socialdiscourse.The socialcommunicationthroughwhichpublic
opinionis formedconsistsof everything,fromconversationsbetweenneighbours,
discussionat street-comersor in the pub,rumour,gossip,speculation,'insidedope',
debatebetweenmembersof the familyat home,expressionsof opinionsand views
in privatemeetings,and so on, all the way up to the more formallevels,with which
the massmediaintersect.The organisingof 'public opinion'lakesplaceat all these
levelsof socialinterchange.The ideathat the massmedia,becauseof their massive
coverage,theirlinkingof differentpublics,theirunilateralpowerin thecommunica-
tionssituation,thereforewhollyabsorband obliterateall other,more infonnaland
face-to-facelevelsof social discourse,is not tenable.Wemust thereforeexamine
these 'private'lettersas excludedor displacedportionsof the social 'talk pnxess',
in whichordinarypeoplefigure.
The questionthenarises:from whatsourcedo these more 'extreme'attitudesto
crime arise?They are not simplyirrational.As we hope to show,a certainration-
ality or 'logic' is clearlyalso present in these letlers.Most abusiveleuers assume
that there is a wider public there which - had it read the letters- would no doubt
agreewith whatis beingsaid,evenifit wouldnot 'go so far'. Abusive-letterwriters
assume the invisiblepresence of this 'public', not only in the empirical sense
('many people do agree with me') but also in a more nonnativesense ('people
should agree with me; after all, it's obvious that since P and Q then X and Y
follow'). In other words,despitetheir privatefonn, they remain-paradoxically -
embedded in and draw upon a social and 'public' discourse about crime. The
'lunatic fringe' and the 'crank' are, in this sense, not to be dismissedas eccentric
as some may be temptedto do. In any case, the line which sometimesseparates
privateand publicobsessivenessis not as clearcut as is suggested,andcan be hard
to draw when one is workingfrom the evidenceof the written text alone.When
events or issues touch a public nerve on the raw, powerfullyobsessivefeelings
and ideas can be 'domesticated'enough to find expressionin the public domain;
and, even when not preparedto go fully 'public', they may form the real basis of
actionsand influencewhat people feel and think.
Thirty lettersof an abusivekind werereceivedby Paul Storey'smotherand two
of a sympathetickind.The proportionscan be explainedby referenceto widespread
130 POLICINOTHECRISIS

valuesin society,of whichthecommentsin thepressgiveus someindication.While

there was disagreementover the sentencesgiven to the boys, there was universal
condemnationof their crime.The featuresof the crime reportedin the presscorre-
spondedto a modelof crimewideJydetestedand feared.The boyswerepicturedas
archetypalviolentcriminals:merciless,coldbloodedin pursuitof gain,yet prepared
to heapseeminglygratuitousviolenceon a loneandeventuallydefencelessinnocent
man.This pictureprovidedthe premisefor manyof the letters.
Ten of the thirtyfell in the categoryof 'the reasonablecitizenwritingprivately'
to the boy's mother(whohad been featuredin the presscoverageof the crime).We
examinethese first. We havecalled them 'retributivist'- they all clearly demand
that the law mustexactretributionfromthe criminalfor his actions.This category
of writercertainlyoverlapswith one categoryof press letters:

How dare you say your son isn't bad? He has stolen cars and is a layabout.
What about the man whose whole life has been ruined by his wickedness?He
deservesto be lockedaway fromdecent people,and you are probablypartly to
blame.Go back to Jamaica.
This kind of letter was characteristic in its speech-forms.The 'bad' identity
of Paul Storey was fixed in a simple, graphic, stereotypicalway. 'Layabout'
was probably derived from press reports that he had been unemployed:the
unemployed= layabout= scrounger= bad equationis a commonone in conserv-
ative social ideology.The cry, 'what about the victim?', now extremelyactive,
directsattentionbackto the gravityof the offence.The moralisingchain of words
pulls togetherthe theme of 'moral degeneracywell punished': bad-wickedness-
deserves-blame.The only moderationis in the idea that the motheris only 'partly'
to blame. The final sentence picks up the 'homeland' idea quoted al the end
of the previoussection; but here the nation is finnly identifiedwith the 'moral
community', from which both Storeyand his motherare rituallyexpelled.(This
is of course wholly symbolic:Storey was not born in Jamaica,and his motheris
white.)The conceptionof moralindignationand retributivejustice informingthis
letter is crystalclear from its wholemoralstructure.II soundsextremebecauseof
its clarity,condensation,its abruptnessand lack of qualifications.But, in content,
it stands finnly withbian acceptedpublic ideologyof crimeand punishment.
This type of letter-writeris likely to believethat extra measures(in additionlo
the sentence)shouldinjustice be takenagainstthe offender.Corporalpunishment
or an extendedsentencewas often recommended.But all such recommendations
stoppedshort of thoroughlyextremeor repulsiveviolence.They did not advocate
the death penalty nor did they go far beyond what the judiciary itself might be
thoughtcapableof recommending,or indeedin some cases had recommendedin
the comparativelyrecent past.The writersthus remainedwithinthe circle of what
we mightcall 'acceptableextremism'.
One writer,a widow,evidentlyfrom Birmingham,incorporatedsuch an appeal
for disciplineand vengeancein an accountof her own experienceal the handsof
a mugger,'a Boy 16yearsold':

He kickedme to the groundinto the ground,[sic] and would havekilled me if

he had not got my bag. I wonderif ii was your son who did this lo me, and you
 ORCHl:STRATING
PUBLICOPINION 131
have lhe damncheek lo say 20 years [is] too much.What wouldyou do if your
son was the one who was left to die. I bel you would soon cry for vengeance.
Youdon't knowwhat it is like to be beatenup and robbedin the city whileyour
childrenare waitingfor you to come home.This city is gettingthat you cannot
go out after dark.Youare afraid to visit your friendsin case you will neverget
back home. If I had my way the cat of nine tails should be broughtback and
whip everyoneof them and then lock them up. You should get 20 years with
him and your worryis over....Youask the C.I.D.in SteeleHouseLane [sic] the
state I was in, a Woman.

Here a whole, clearly terrifying personal experience of violent assault was

mobilisedbehind the indictmentof the mother of the offender (there was also
a passing reference to a daughter who had had a serious accident),and found
its correlativein the judgement that 'he should get 100 years and lashed across
the backside also'. Again, all the elements of the picture of a crisis of 'crime
in the streets' were present here. The same was true of another example: 'We
are afraid to go out in the evening in London.We have our clubs to go to and
are afraid to go out.... If we didn't have our police, what would it be like? The
swines,they are better off inside.'Both letters,as well as expressionsof genuine
anxiety (the secondis signed 'Pensionerfrom BethnalGreen'), pulled on a very
vivid public definitionof mugging:streets infested with violent hoodlums,the
police a bulwarkagainst the breakdownof law-abidingsociety.Again, though
somewhatextremein their language,they shared,with many 'letters to the editor'
and press editorials,a pictureof societyas crime-ridden,followedby an appealto
'bring back the birch'. Correlatively,eighteenlettersof the total sampledisplayed
a strongconcernfor the victim'ssuffering,a feelinglegitimisedby the same tight
moralstructure.
Other letters, on the marginsof respectability,invokedcapitalpunishmentas
a suitable methodof dealing with the offenderin this case. One of these gave an
extremelyclear insightinto the mechanicsof a retributivedefinitionof crime:

The victimwho countsthe cost

Mr. Keenanthanksto your son is nowunableto followhis occupation- andyou
ask for mercy.What mercydid your son showMr. Keenan- NONE.Therefore
your son must pay the penalty.
We can see here how the ideas of 'cost' and 'payment' were used to organise
the definitionof crime and punishment,which was interpretedthrougha notion
of 'equal exchange': no mercy to victim, therejol'eno mercy to the offender;
violenceto one, violenceto the other.The writeradded- in a tone reminiscentof
the judiciary during the 'mugging' panic: 'Society will not stand for muggings.'
This particularletter was set out in a self-consciousand symmetricalway, with
capital letters, headingsand deliberatespacingof the lines; two colours of lype
were used.A newspaperphotographof Paul Sloreyhad been affixedto the paper.
This obsessivecare in 'making an appropriateimpacl' was a featureof the more
extremekind of leuer. It concluded:
HE SHOULDHAVEBEEN... HANGED!
132 POLICINOTH6CRISIS

Some letters seem lo belong more appropriatelyto a categoryof subterranean

rather than near-publicviewpoints.These were exclusivelyconcernedwith the
racial aspect of the case. A writer from Liverpoolbegan: 'So you are shauered,
pity about you.' The two boys, Storey and Fuat, were describedas 'niggers'. The
writer went on: 'by her name the woman who has 12 kids is an alien too, an
R.C., she should be in SouthernIreJandand you and the nigs and pakis back in
the Jungle.'This kind of open racismallowedthe writer to constructan interpre-
tation whichexcludedall other issues.The stereotypedassociationshere became
indiscriminate:almostany 'alien' attribute- 'niggers', 'R.C.', 'SouthernIreland',
'Pakis' - will serve. These labels were then linked to a politicalanalysiswhich
was also by no means unramiliar:'The 3 of them have no rights in this country,
just livingoff theWelfareState. Oh for EnochPowellto clear the lot of you, back
10your own land.You know where you are well off.' In this part of the letter,
the violent racial-alien epithets have been transmutedinto a more 'acceptable'
form, since the assertionof the rights of the 'native born' could be presentedas
a national not a racist concern, once the out-group had been defined as alien,
with their 'own land'. It is not surprisingthat, in this scenario,the alien should
be associatedwith the archetypaldeviant - the lazy layaboutbeing kept by the
WelfareState. The idea that 'nigs' and the 'Pakis' live off the WelfareState is
one of the commonestideas now in the lexiconof racism.Anotherof these racist
lettersbore a signaturewith a vagueaddress,the only one of its kind. Noneof the
three advocated,withinour terms,an exceptionallybrutalpunishment.We should
note that twelve writers in all brought in the question of race, though it was a
themediscernedless commonlyin the 'reasonable' letters.
Theseletters,with theirraciststructure,bringus to theedgeof the moreextreme
group of abusiveletters, which we call 'super-retributivist'or 'revengist', either
becauseof the levelof abuse theycontainedor becauseof the exceptionallybrutal
punishmentstheyrecommended.They sharedwith the 'racist' lettersthe tendency
to abuse the mother; and this involvedthe mobilisationof subterraneanracial-
sexualthemes- accusationsof sexual promiscuity,over-largefamilies,miscege-
nation,and so on.
There were two fully 'extreme' lellers which set all these themes in, again, a
purely racialist context. Eight letters of this general 'revengist' type advocated
forms of executionto get rid of the offender,includingtwo who wished to see
Paul Storey lynched.There were two recommendationsthat he be castratedand
one that his mother be sterilised for her 'crime' in giving birth to him. Other
methods of punishmentincluded:daily corporal punishmentand 'smashing in'
Paul Storey's face.Anothercorrespondent,presumablyrecallingthe treatmentof
Mr Keenan,suggestedthat every week the offender be struck in the face with
a brick. One writer suggestedthat Paul Storey's body be finally thrown in the
Thames.By contrast 'retributivists'mentionedlife sentencesor a judicial equiv-
alent more often.
The 'revengists' presented their subjects in abusively stereotypical tenns:
'thug', 'vermin', 'animal', 'scum', 'bastard', etc. Theselabelsinviteus to envisage
the offendersas 'beyond the pale', i.e. so wicked that 'normal' punishmentsare
rendered irrelevantand even dangerous.The violence of the language used to
 ORCHESTRATING
PUDLICOPINION 133

describecriminaland crime served to legitimatethe correspondents'crossingor

the boundaryfrom tough but legalretributionto sadisticvengeance.
In these letters particularwicked acts appearedas but a token of their perpe-
trators' basically evil 11ature.Like vermin, they were natumlly, not humanly,
dangerous.Thus they must be dealt with by absolutemeasures.For some writers
the only human touch they retained was that they could be held responsiblefor
what they did. For instance,two or the writershoped that Paul Storeymight 'rot
in hell'. This notionhelpedto bringhim back into the realmof humanity,but only
in a limitedand inauthenticsense.A more grim moralityinfonnedthe hopeof six
writersthat Paul Storey would die during his prison sentence.It was hoped that
Nature will come to the aid of 'justice'. One writer's opinionthat the offender's
mother be sterilised for giving birth to him becomes intelligiblein the context
of an ideologythat considershim in some literal way an abnormal 'monster' -
'vermin'. Another writer folt that the boy's mother should be destroyed for
'spawning' him.
Here we must notice how crime has been transformedinto a theory of evil
human nature - made tangible in the images of the abnonnal and monstrous.
Condensedin, and adding powerfulweight to, these images are themes of race
and degradedsexuality- and their outcomesare to be found in the demandsfor
brutalisedand sadistic punishments.This unpleasanttriad - race, sexualityand
sadism- have, as the work of the FrankfurtSchooland others have shown us,9
formed the deep-structureor the 'authoritarianpersonality'. More importantly,
this deep-structurea1so underpins the more displaced (and therefore publicly
acceptable)themesand imagesor other letters we have seen. The transmutation
fromthis triadicbasis to its 'more acceptable'expressionin the call for discipline,
the tendencyto scapegoat,the drive for remoralisationand the rigidity of stere-
otyping is as alarmingas the unmodifiedexpressionsin the letters we havejust
considered.We can see some of these elementsof abnonnality,sexualityand the
rigid commitmentto stern measuresin this next extract:

So you are goingto appealagainstthe sentenceyou shameless...; his conductis

a tributeto the bringingup you gave him. I hope he nevercomesout alive:it's
men like Mr JusticeCroomJohnstone[sic] we need in this country,God bless
him.Wecan do withoutyour half cast bastardwith his evil eyes and murderer's
forehead.I am a goodjudge of character,he was born to kill. If I was in prisonI
wouldconsiderit a greatinsultto livecheekbyjowl withthe likesof him.I hope
theywill bringbackthe hanging[sic].In Americaa mob wouldsurroundthejail
and lynchhim. Don't worryabout your bastard,but the victim,poor man.

This letter contains what we might think of as every theme in the lexicon of
revenge,as well as representinga 'structure or thought' very close indeed to the
'authoritarian'one, identifiedby Reich, Adorno and others. It also recapitulates
themessoundedin a more fragmentedform in olher letters of the same kind.The
style is fundamentallya demoticone.just emergingfrom speech.It projectsacute
hostilityagainstPaulStorey'smother.It allributeshis conductto her faultyrearing
of him. It unashamedly- and deferenlially- identitieswith the authorityfigure
134 POLICINGTHECRISIS

or the judge, and in a specially 'traditionalist' manner ('God bless him'). In the
next sentence it links race ('half caste'), sexuality ('bastard'), with the criminal
('murderer') - and it defines them all in abnormal, monstrous and non-human
terms. In so doing it also places itself squarely within the tradition ofLombrosean
biological positivism- that is, it takes these monstrosities as fonns of 'un-natural'
(not human) perversion, fixed in the biological-criminal type once and for all; and
it claims to be able to detect and read this type in terms of its genetic and physical
characteristics ('evil eyes ... and murderer's forehead'). Finally, it calls, first, for
the extreme legal sanction - hanging - then pas:;es beyond this to fantasy mob
violence, the lynching, Both are predicated on a reference to 'the victim, poor
man', with its lypically sentimental cadence.
A number of themes in the 'revengist' letters connect with ones expressed in
a more moderate form in both the public and the 'retributive' abusive letters. For
example, several letters rejected the environmentalist or 'sociological' explanation
of the crime: 'Your son got what he deserved .... You cannot blame the area, it must
be the way he was brought up.' Or: 'Your classic response of blaming his area for
his degeneracy is a lot of crap. Your son should die and his soul rot in hell.' Motives
werenot frequently discussed, though one 'retributive' letter which brought in the
motive of 'fun' also gave a clearly voluntaristic account of the crime: 'they knew
what they were doing'. A 'revengist' letter echoed the same theme: 'he knew
what he was doing'. But fundamentally, molives remained irrelevant because to
the writers it was transparent that 'evil is evil'. There was a striking absence of
any argued defence of the sentence, in anything like the clear and explicit terms
we found in the 'letters to the editor'. The deterrent value of severe punishment,
which appeared again and again in the public correspondence, hardly surface in
the private letters - there wereonly three brief references.
Finally, we must note the recurrence in these letters of certain fundamental
'root-concepts' or images. They are fundamental because they stand for basic,
bed-rock sentiments and certainties about the world in which their authors live.
They are not solely restricted lo the private leti.ers - but appear more forcibly
here in the context of the more immediate, less publicly structured, form of
address. We shall consider these more fully later, but we point briefly here to
the centrality in all of them, of thefamily. This theme constantly recurs in terms
of its centrality in the bringing up of the child - the 'normal' family produces
'normal' children; therefore it must have taken an abnormal family lo produce the
'monster'. This connects with the other themes - race and sexuality- which we
noted earlier: a half-caste boy, whose mother is living with a man who is not the
boy's father provide the raw material for those who 'understand' how 'monsters'
are 'spawned'.
A personal letter is a written form of communication which is predicated either
on intimacy or recognition. Either it attempts 10 recreate an immediate stream
of 'speech' from writer to reader; or it anticipates a response. Its force springs
from its personal tone, its informality of tone and address. It is always signed,
often with friendship or affection. It opens or continues a relationship, through
the exchange of the written word. Personal abusiveletters are shocking precisely
because they open this avenue of direct address and reciprocity - but only to
abuse and exploit it; they insinuate, along channels exposed to receive a greeting,
 ORCHl:STRATING
PUBLICOPINION 135

instead,a venomousabuse.Most of them are anonymous.They invokea formor

reciprocity,whichtheir anonymitythen reruses.The sourceof the abuse remains
unseen,unidentified,mysterious,unlocatable.They thereforecarry with them an
overtoneof menace.It is their 'refosal or sociality', as muchas the.irextremityof
languageand reeling,whichconstitutesthe measureor their 'abuse'.

PUBLIC OPINION AND IDEOLOGY

Looking at a local crime in its local selling, and reading both the local and the
private correspondence,gives us some insight into the maze or communicative
channels which support the formationor public opinio11.Many of these lie, in
the first instance,outsidethe formalchannelsof the public mediaaltogether.Yet
these 'infonnal' channelsof public opinionshouldnot be neglected.In a locality
as dense, socially, and as complex, ethnically and politically,as Handsworth,
such 'informal' channels are thick on the ground. The interplay of knowledge,
rumours,folkloreand opinionsconstitutesa critical, and primary,level at which
opinionbeginsto shape up about an eventas dramaticas the 'mugging' of a local
resident,long beforethe mediaappropriateit. In the days immediatelyfollowing
the Handsworth'mugging', the localitywas full of rumour,'infonnal news' and
views. Only a small proportionof this found its way into the local press, in the
fonn e.itherof 'letters to the editor', or of local witnessesand localexpertscalled
on by the media to express a view.Already such opinions are framed by inter•
pretation, shaped by common•senseviews and received wisdom about crime.
Opinion, however,cannot remain long at this informal or disorganisedlevel.
The very actions of the control culture, and of the media, in mappingthe event
into society.wideperspectivesand contextsserve to raise the thresholdof public
opinion.Localcommunicationchannelsare swiftlyand selectivelyintegratedinto
more publicchannels.
The crystallisingof 'public opinion' is thus raised to a more formaland public
level by the networksof the mass media. It is true that, in societies like ours,
individualsofien live highly segmentedlives, embeddedin local traditionsand
networks.But it is also true that, preciselyin such societies,the networkswhich
connectare pivotal.Eventsand issuesonly becomepublic in the full sense when
the means exist wherebythe relatively'separate worlds' of professionaland lay
opinion,of controllerand controlled,are brought into relation with one another,
and appear, for a time at least, to occupy the same space. It is communication
and communicationnetworksthat create that complex creature we call 'public
opinion'. In monitoringthe passage of the Handsworthcase throughthe media,
we are at the same lime watchingthe processby whichpublic opinionis formed;
and specifically,the process by which crime ascends into the public arena and
assumesthe form of a 'public issue'.
'Public opinion' about crime does not simply form up at random.It exhibitsa
shape and structure.It followsa sequence.It is a social process, not a mystery.
Even at the lowestthresholdof visibility- in talk, in rumour,in the exchangeof
quick viewsand common-sensejudgements- crime talk is not sociallyinnocent;
already it is infonned and penetratedby the lay opinionsand ideologiesabout
crime as a public topic. The more such an issue passes into the public domain,
136
via the media,the more it is structuredby the dominantideologiesabout crime.
It is these which form the infrastructureof any public debate.The more a crime
issues on to the public stage, the more highly structuredit becomes,the more
constrainedby the availableframeworksof understandingand interpretation,the
more sociallyvalidatedfeelings,emotionsand attitudesare mobilisedaround it.
Thus the more public - the more of a public issue - a topic becomes,the mOl'e
we can detect the presenceof larger networksof meaningand feelingabout it;
the more we can discernthe presenceof a highlystructured,thoughby no means
complete.or coherent,or internallyconsistent,set of ideologiesabout crime.It is
these whichconcernus in the followingchapter.
In Chapter3 ('The Social Productionof News') we lookedat one of the major
sources of knowledgeand interpretationabout crime in our society: that critical
intersectionbetweenthe courts and the media. Withoutfalling into a conspira-
torial reading of this link, we suggested how and why the intimateconnection
between the sources of crime news (the courts and the control culture) and the
means of public dissemination(the media) served powerfullyto structure and
mouldpublic knowledgeabout crime,and at the same time to inflectthat under-
standingwith 'dominantinterpretations'.This is a powerful,indeeda determining
source in the analysisof how public opinion is formed;and in what followswe
shouldnot forgethow powerfullythe so-called 'conversation'by meansof which
publicopinionis supposedto arise is structuredby its institutionalsources- how
much,that is, 'public opinion' is something'structuredin dominance'.In Chapter
4 ('BalancingAccounts')we looked,via the particularinstanceof the Handsworth
case, at what then happenswhen a particularlydramatic piece of crime news is
appropriatedand processed by the mass media (in this instance,by the press).
Here we observedseveral stages in a process which serves to further construct
and elaboratea crime topic.In particularwe examined,not only the differencesin
ideologicalinflectionbetweenone paper and another,but the differentstructures
of interpretationaccretingaroundthe topicat thedifferentpointsin the process:its
primary-newsconstruction;its passageinto the domainof explorationand expla-
nation - the domainof 'second-order'news or featuretreatment;its passageinto
the domain of judgement- the arena of the editorialstatement.In this chapter,
we followedthat process through further, in the particularcase of Handsworth,
to the leuers. But 'letters' providea sort of tip-overpoint in our examination.For
here - in both 'letters to the editor' and in the privateabusives- we encounter,
at last, public opinionbeginning10come back the oppositeway,up the channels
of privateand local 'news' into the domainof public opinion.Withoutforgetting
for a momenthow subject this apparently'spontaneous'swell of public opinion
about the Handsworthcrime from belowwas to the shapingpowerof those insti-
tutionalforces discussedearlier, it is of crucial importanceto note the charactel"
a11dformsof the 'respo11se fron1the lay public' which crime 11ewsawakens.For
it is the awakeningof lay public attitudes,and their crystallis.ingin forms which
underpinand support the viewpointsalready in circulation,which help to close
the consensualcircle, providingthe lynch-pinof legitimation.
Now, exactly what is involvedin this apparentlyspontaneousrende<.vous of
dominant interprelationspassing down and 'public opinion' passing up? The
nature of this 'circle' is somethingwe examine in the followingchapter. But it
 ORCHESTRATING
PUBLICOPINION 137
is not quite the spontaneous,miraculousprocess it at first appears to be. For a
moment,let us consideronly theforms in whichthisseeminglyspontaneouspublic
opinionis arising.At first,expressionsof 'lay attitudes'to crimeappearaltogether
differentin form from those which are being transmittedand constructedhigher
up in lhe chainof communication.As againstsplash headlines,full-pagefeatures,
lengthyquotes,expert examinations,we have here, brief, personal 'letters to the
editor'; as opposedto weightywhispersand conversationin high places,we have
the furtivelyscribbled,shame-facedlydelivered,abusivemissive.But, if we look
again,belowthe varietyof surfaceforms,to the moregenerativelevel,we discover
the presence of ideologicalstructures, which might hitherto have escaped our
attention.At each stage - in the courts, in the news, in the editorialjudgements,
in the letters, in the abusives- despite their many and significantdifferences,a
familiar lexiconappears to be at work, informingthe discourse.The same, very
limitedrepertoireof premises,frameworks,and interpretationsappearto be drawn
upon wheneverthe topic of crime and punishmenthas to be deployed.The differ-
ences must not be expunged.The police speak one way about street crime - the
languageof crime controland containment;the courts cast it a differentway- in
the languageand idiomof judicial reasoningand motive.The opinionsexpressed
by differentexpertsare stronglyinflectedby their respectiveprofessionalworlds
and outlooks;eventhere,the 'social-work'perspectiveof the professionsof social
care differs from the 'pathological'perspectiveof the criminologist,that of the
local communityworkerfrom the local councillor.When we pass into the media,
differencesare, again, significant:the Daily Telegraphand the Guardiando not
pass by the same route when seekingto explaincrime; featuresexist, one might
almostsay,to take up angleswhich newsdid not exhaust.Again,whenwe look at
letters,differences,both betweenlay and professionalletter-writers,or between
public and privateletters, are apparent.Jn any account which attemptsto 'map'
the public ideologiesof crime, these differentiationsmust be taken into account.
We insist that, so far as we can tell, there is no such thing as a single, coherent,
unified,consistentEnglish 'public ideologyof crime' (in the singular)which we
havebeen ableto discover,On the other hand,we also insistthat the verydifferent
forms and explanationsabout crime, whose differencesseem overwhelmingat
the phenomenallevels of their appearance,seem to be generatedby a far more
limitedset of ideologicalparadigms.By 'paradigms'here, we mean the themes,
premises,assumptions,the 'questions presuminganswers', the matrix of ideas,
through which the varietyof public 'opinions' about crime take coherent form.
It is to this structuredfield of ideologicalpremisesthat we now turn. What are
the deep-structureparadigmsabout crime in our society?What are the English
ideologiesof crime?
 6
Explanations and Ideologies
of Crime

In lookingat the 'Englishideologiesof crime' we wanttoconsidermorefullycertain

pointstouchedon earlierandgive themmore sustainedaltentionthan waspossible
while dealingwith the specificelementsof the publicreactionto the Handsworth
case.The first of these is the 'cluster' ofrecUJTent
themesand imagesin the letters
about the Handsworthcase - a clusterorganised,we suggested,aroundquestions
of the family,disciplineand mora1ityin reJationto crime. Second, since these
occurredwithin what we tenned the 'traditionalist'view of crime (in opposition
to the 'liberal' perspective),we wishto look at someof the roots of this 'tradition-
alist' world-view.Most importantly,since the division betweenthe 'traditional'
and 'liberal' viewsbothorganisedandformed the limitsof the publicdiscussionof
crimeat each of the levelsof discoursewhichweconsidered(in the variousaspects
of the press,and in the publicand privateletters),we wishto givesomeattentionto
the 'explanationsand ideologies'underpinningtheseperspectives.Specifically,we
intendto attemptto answera numberof questions.What are the conditionsunder
whichthese themesand imagesof the traditionalistpositionare reproducedacross
the variouscircuitsof publicopinion?How,in a complex,dividedand structured
society,does the traditionalistperspectivecome lo exert such a powerfulappealon
bothsidesof the linesorstructuration?Why,in a societywhichsince the late 1960s
has been increasinglypolarisedeconomicallyand politicallyalong class lines,
shouldthe samesocialand moralperspectiveon crime address,and be carriedwith
such apparentunanimity,by differentclasses?Why should traditionalismbe the
dominantform of an apparentcross-classconsensuson crime?Finally,how does
the traditionalistperspectivecome to hold the dominanceover the liberalposition
whichwe haveseen ii did in the debateabout the Handsworthsentences?
The first part of this chapter,then, is an attemptlo identifywhat the organising
elementsof this traditionalistconsensusare, and how they come to be mobilised
around the question of crime. In the final part of the chapter,we shall return to
the relation betweenthe traditionalistand the liberal perspectiveson crime, and
consider the apparent failure of the liberal position to 'generalise' itself across
society.

IMAGESOP SOCJETY
Webeginbyattemptingto unpacksomeof thecore imageswhichseemto us to form
centralelementsin the 'traditionalist'ideologyof crime.Gouldneroncearguedthat
 EXPLANATIONS
ANO IDOOI.0011:SOFCRIME 139

all socialtheoriescontain 'domainassumptions'aboutsocietyembeddedin them.

We would argue that all social ideologiescontain powerful imagesof society at
their heart.Theseimagesmay be diffuse,quite untheorisedin anyelaboratesense;
but theyserveto condenseandorderthe viewof societyin whichthe ideologiesare
active,and theyconstituteboth its unquestionedsubstratumof truth- whatcarries
conviction- and the sourceof its collectiveemotionalforce and appeal.Together,
these images produce and sustain an un-codified but immensely powerful,
conservativesense of Englishness,of an English 'way of life', of an 'English'
viewpointwhich - it also, by its very density of reference,asserts - everyone
shares to some extent. We do not make any claim to offer here an exhaustive
inventoryof this traditionalEnglish ideology,only to have identifiedsome of
the major images around which this traditionalistdefinitionof 'Englishness' is
constructedand organised.Our aim here is to open a discussionwhich we regard
as of considerableimportance,and to touch on two related but distinct aspects.
First, can we begin to identifythe social content which is being carried in these
images,around which a traditionalistview of crime is organised?Second, can
we begin to make sense of its power to generaliseitself across social and class
divisions- its claims to 'universality'?The traditionalistideologyis not the only
active ideology in society by any means; but it is a dominant ideologicalfield.
And this dominance,and its claims to general representativeness,are connected.
It is dominant because it appears to be able to catch up quite contradictorylife
and class experienceswithinits masterframework.Ideologiesare easierto under-
stand whenthey seem, withintheir own logic, to reflector adequatelycorrespond
to the experiences,positionsand interests of those who hold them. But though
ideologiesdo includethis practicalrelation,they cannot be whollyexplainedin
this way; indeed,when we speak of the practicalsocial role of ideologies,we are
speakingof the powerof ideologiesto translateinto convincingideologicalterms
the outlooks of classes and groups who are not, even in a collectivesense, its
'authors'. So we are also concernedhere with what it is in the socialand material
conditionof subordinateclasses which allows the dominant traditionalistideol-
ogies to gain somereal purchase,and to carry conviction,to win support.How is
thistraditionalistideological'unity' constructedout of disparateandcontradictory
class formations?How does this versionof 'the Englishway of life' providethe
basis of ideologicalconsensus?
We tum, first,to the notionof respectability- at once, so differentfor different
social classes, and yet so 'universal' a social value. It is an extremelycomplex
social idea. It touches the fundamentalnotion of self-respect:men who do not
respect themselvescannot expect respect from others. But respectabilityalso
touchesthe more 'protestant'valuesof our culture;it is connectedwith thrift,self•
discipline,livingthe decent life, and thus with observanceof what is commonly
held to be upright,decentconduct.It is stronglyconnectedwith ideas of self-help
and self-reliance,and of 'conformity' lo establishedsocial standards- standards
set and embodiedby 'significantothers'.
The 'others' are always those who rank and stand above us in the social
hierarchy:people we 'look up to', and in turn respect.The idea of respectability
means that we have taken care not to fall into the abyss, not to lose out in the
competitivestruggle for existence. In the middle classes, the idea of 'respect-
ability' carries with it the powerfulovertonesof competitivesuccess; its token
140 POI.ICINGTH6CRISIS

is the abilily Lo 'keep up appearances',to securea standardof life whichenables

you to afford those things which befit - and embody- your social station in life.
But in the workingclasses, it is connectedwith three.differentideas:with work,
with poverty,and with crime in the broad sense. It is woi*,above all, which is
the guaranteeof respectability;for work is the means- the only means - to the
respectable life. The idea of the 'respectable working classes' is irretrievably
associatedwith regular,and often skilled, employment.It is labour which has
disciplinedthe workingclass into respectability.Loss of respectabilityis therefore
associatedwithlossof occupationandwithpoverty.Pove,ty is thetrapwhichmarks
the slide away from respectabilityback into the 'lower depths'. The distinction
betweenthe 'respectable' and the 'rough' workingclass, though in no sense an
accurate sociologicalor historical one, remains an extremely importantmoral
distinction.If povertyis one route downwardsout of the respectablelife, crime
or moralmisconductis another,broaderand more certainroute. Respectabilityis
the collectiveinternalisation,by the lower orders, of an image of the 'ideal life'
heldout for them by those whostand higherin the schemeof things;it disciplines
society from end to end, rank by rank. Respectabilityis thereforeone of the key
valueswhichdovetailsand insertsone socialclass into the socialimageof another
class. It is part of what Gramscicalled the 'cement' of society.
Wo1* is not only the guarantee of working-classrespectability,it is also
a powerful image in its own right. We know how much our social and indeed
personal identitiesare caught up with our work, and how men (especiallymen,
giventhe sexualdivisionof labour)whoare withoutwork,feel not only materially
abandonedbut spirituallyde-centred.1 We know in fact that this is the product
of an extremelylong and arduous process of historicalacculturation:all that is
involvedin the erection,alongsidethe birth of capitalism,of the ProtestantEthic,
andall that was involvedin the insertionof the labouringindustrialmassesintothe
rigorousdisciplinesof factory labour.2 Work has graduallycome to be regarded
moreas 'instrumental'than as 'sacred', as manuallabourundercapitalismis disci-
plinedby the wagecontract;leisure,or ratherall that is associatedwith non-work
and with the privatesphere, has come to rank even higherthan once it did in the
hierarchyof socialgoods, as familyand home have been progressivelydistanced
from work.Yet, for men above all, the workadayworld of work, and the formal
and informalvaluesassociatedwith it, seem in many ways coterminouswith the
definitionof 'reality' itseJf.And this, thoughendowedwith extremelypowerful
ideologicalcontentreflectsa materialfact: withoutwork,the materialbasis of our
lives would vanishovernight.What mattershere, with respectto crime, however,
is not so much the centralityof work, and our feelingsabout ii, as what we might
call the calculus of work. The calculus of work implies the belief that, though
work may have few intrinsicrewardsand is unlikelyto lead to wealth,prosperity
and riches for the vast majority,it providesone of the stable negotiatedbases of
our economicexistence:a 'fair day's wagefor a fair day's work'. It also entailsthe
belief that the valuedthings- leisure,pleasure,security,free activity,play - are a
rewardfor the diligentapplicationto long-termproductivegoals through work}
The formercome after, and as the result of, or recompensefor, the latter.
Of course, some professionalcrime could, technically,be seen as 'work' of a
kind, and there are certainlytestimoniesby professionalcriminalswhich would
 EXPLANATIONS
AND IDEOLOGIESOF CRIME 141

supportsuch an interpretation.But few peoplewouldsee it that way.The sharpest

distinctionis made between the professionalor organisedlife of crime, and the
petty pilfering and 'borrowing' from one's place of work, which is regardedas
a customary way of setting a fundamentallyexploitativeeconomic relation to
right, and is thus not understoodas 'crime' in the ordinary sense at all. Crime,
in the proper sense, when involvingrobberyor racketsfor gain, is set off against
work in the public mind, preciselybecause ii is an attempt IDacquire by speed,
stealth, fraudulentor shorthandmethods what the great majorityof law-abiding
citizens can only come by through arduous toil, routine, expenditureof time,
and the postponementof pleasure. It is through this contrast that some of the
most powerfulmoral feelingscome lo be transferredagainstdeviantswho thrive
and prosper,but do not work. One of the most familiarways in which the moral
calculusof work is recruitedinto attitudesto socialproblemsis in the way people
talk about 'scroungers', 'layabouts', those who 'don't do a stroke' or 'live off the
Welfare'. The characterisationsare often applied indiscriminately,and without
much evidence,to various 'out-groups': the poor, the unemployed,the irrespon-
sible and feckless- but also youth, studentsand black people.These are seen as
getting somethingwithout 'putting anything into it'. The image implies instant
moral condemnation.At the same time it is importantIDrememberthat again, a
real, objective,materialreality is distortedlyexpressedin these negativeimages
of the 'scrounger'and the layabout.For the vast majorityof workingpeople,there
is absolutelyno other route to a minimaldegree of securityand materialcomfort
apart from the lifelongcommitmentto 'hard graft'. It must be rememberedthat
this feelingthat 'everyoneshouldearn what he gets by workingfor it' also infonns
working-classfeelings about the very wealthy,or those who live on unearned
incomes, or accumulate large pieces of property,or about the unequal distri-
bution of wealth.There is evidence that what is sometimescalled a 'pragmatic
acceptance'of the presentunequaldistributionof wealthis matchedby an equally
strongfeelingthat there is somethingintrinsicallywrongand exploitativeaboutit.
So sentimentsstemmingfromthe prevailing'work calculus'havetheirprogressive
aspect too,4 thoughthey are often used to underpinroot conservativeattitudesto
all who transgressit.
Another social image with special importancefor public ideologiesof crime
has to do with the need for social discipline - and with Englandas a disciplined
society.Once again, there are differentversionsof this very general social idea
across the differentclass cultures;the idea is interpretedand applied differently
withindifferentculturalsystems of meaning,while retainingsufficientcommon
elementsto appear to carry a more universalvalidity.The idea of a 'disciplined
society' is enshrinedin popularmythology- the whole nation 'at prayer' having
beenlong ago supplantedby the whole nation in an orderlyqueue. It is especially
strong at those high points of popular history, like 'the War', where a country
of free individuals'pulled itself together' to defeat the enemy.The 'discipline'
of Englishsociety is not the rigorouslyorganisedtyrannyof the bureaucraticor
regimentedstate, but that 'self-discipline',flexibleyet tenacious,whichholdsthe
nation togetherfrom the inside when it is under stress. In the English ideology,
'discipline' is always linked and qualified by an opposing tendency which
tempers its authoritarianharshness:in the upper classes, the idea of discipline
142 POLICINGTHECRISIS

and anarchism(as caricatured,for example. in the roles played by John Cleese

in the televisioncomedyseries, Monty Python's Flyi,rgCircus).Lowerdown the
social scale, disciplineis often qualified by the image of a sort of peuy-bour-
geois 'anarchy' (as, for example,in post-warEaling comediesor Dad's Anny).
However,the capacityof popularmythologyto counteror qualify the respect for
'social discipline' in these ways does not mean that it is not a strong sentiment
- only that it is held, like so many other lraditionalsocial values, in a peculiarly
Britishway,and with a very specialEnglishsense of irony.
Nevertheless,the appeal to 'discipline' draws on very different roots in the
different class cultures. In the middle-classcontext, it means or includes self-
reliance,self-making,self-control,the self-sacrificefor long-tenn goals and the
competitivestrugglewhichalone yieldsrewardsfor the individualand his family.
More generally,it means the disciplinedgiving of deference to autho/'ity,the
expectationof obediencefromthoseover whomauthorityis exercised,the respon-
sible dischargeof that authority,and so on. Disciplinemeanssomethingdifferent
amongst many working-classpeople, where it has more to do with the practice
of thrif't- makingdo - in the face of adversity,the self-sacrificesnecessaryto
maintainthe collectivenatureof sociallife and organisedeffortsagainstthe odds.
Transgressionof the idea of disciplinethereforemeans differentthings in these
differentclass contexts.
The traditionalidea of socialdisciplineis closelylinked,on the one hand,with
notions about hierarchy and authority. Society is hierarchical,in the dominant
view, by nature. Competitivesuccess may promote individualsup through this
hierarchy,but docs not destroy the notion of a hierarchicalorder itself. But the
hierarchy,in turn, depends upon the giving and taking of authority.And the
exerciseof authority,both on the part of those who exerciseii, and of those who
give obedienceto it, requiresdiscipline.This lrinity - the hierarchicalnature of
society,the importanceof authorityand the acclimatisationof the people to both
throughself-discipline- forms a central complexof attitudes.In this version of
the dominantsocialimage,indisciplineis seen as a threat both to the hierarchical
conceptionof the socialorderand to the exerciseof 'due authority'and deference;
it is thus the beginnings,the seed-bed,of social anarchy.(The failure to adhere
to traditionallysanctionedworking-classcodes of conduct and solidarity,on the
otherhand,threatens,not thesocialorderitself,butratherthe localorder-of class,
neighbourhood,family,group- generatedfrombelowby 'subcultural'definitions
of rightconduct.)Hence,in traditionalusage,'youth' may be condemnedas much
for its lack of respectas for its technicaldelinquency;for whereasthe latter is an
infringementof the rules, the former unpicks the cement provided by authority
and deferencewhich binds rebelliousyouth to the social order.We must stress,
here, that contraryto the much-popularisedidea that large tracts of the working
classes are deferentialto authorityin all its concrete social detail, the ascription
to a hierarchicalsocial order entailed in the dominantidea of social disciplineis
quite abstract,contrary lo real experienceand thereforeriven with contradictory
feelings among working-classpeople.One study of traditionalismand conserv-
atism in Englishpoliticalculturesreachesthe not-unexpectedconclusionthat:
On the one hand there is consensus across all classes and party groups on
dominant values, elites and institutionsat the symbolic level ... on the other
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOf CRIME 143

hand ... disaffectionand dissensus is particularlymarked in lhe subordinate

classes who ... have confused and ambivalentaltitudes towards lhe dominant
social,economicand politicalorder.'

(Thedisciplineof working-classorganisation,struggleand defencehas, of course,

quite differentroolS.It is pitched against this traditionalistdefinitionof 'social
discipline'.)
The other side of 'social discipline' is perhaps more relevantto traditionalist
publicsentimentsaboutcrime.This is the fact that in Englishculturethe prefell'Cd
forms of discipline are all internalised:they are forms of self-discipline,self-
control.They depend on all those institutionsand processeswhich establishthe
internalself-regulatingmechanismsof control: guilt, conscience,obedienceand
super-ego.The exercise of self-disciplinewithin this perspectivehas as much
to do with emotional control (and thus with sexual repression, the taboo on
pleasure,the regulationof the feelings)as it does with social control (the taking
over of the 'morale' of society,the preparationfor work and the productivelife,
the postponementof gratificationsin the service of thrift and accumulation).It
followsthat the three social image clusters we have so far discussed- respect-
ability, work and discipline- are inextricablyconnectedwith the fourth image:
that of thefamily.
In the traditionalistlexicon,the sphereof thefamily is of course where moral-
socialcompulsionsand inner controlsare generated,as well as the sphere where
the primary socialisationof the young is first tellingly and intimatelycarried
through.The first aspecthas to do with the repressionand regulationof sexuality-
the seat of pleasure- in the familynexus;and thus with authority.The secondhas
to do with the power which the family has, through its intimate exchangesof
loveand anger,punishmentand reward,and the structureof patriarchy,to prepare
childrenfor a competitiveexistence,work and the sexualdivisionof labour.The
family, too, is a complexsocial image;differentforms, functionsand habits may
be found in the differentsocial classes.Thus the structuresof sexualidentityand
repressionwithinthe working-classfamily,thoughin some respectsreproducing
the dominant structuresof sex roles in the organisationof the family,are also
profoundlyshaped by the material experiencesof the class - the construction
of practicesand a definitionof 'masculinity' and masculinework and values in
the world of productionwhich are transposedinto the sexualorganisationof the
family.Similarly,the apparentlycross-classconceptionof the family as 'refuge'
carries a particularweight and intensitywhen the world from which the family
forms a 'refuge' is the daily experienceof class exploitationin productionand
work.But the 'sense of family' is a strong valuebecauseit is an absolutelypivotal
social institution.Few would deny its central role in the constructionof social
identities,and in transmitting,at an extremelydeeplevel,the basic ideologicalgrid
of society.Familyideologyis undoubtedlyalso changing;and we havelearnedto
thinkof the family,also, in more positive,less punitiveterms.But, when we come
'right downto it', thedominantimageof the family-perhaps acrossclasses- still
has more to do with the duty of instillinga basic understandingof fundamental
'do's and don'ts' than it does of providinga mutually sustainingand releasing
framework.Love is what we hope and pray will emerge from the family,but
disciplining,punishing,rewardingand controllingis what we seem actuallyto do
144 POLICINOTH6CRISIS

in it a great deal of the time. Reich,6 with somejustification,called it a 'factory

for crealing submissivepeople'. And, as we have increasinglycome to see, the
fundamentalimages of authority,power and discipline,along with the primary
originsof what GilesPlayfair calls 'the punitiveobsession',1 are e,c.perienced and
internalisedfirst within its tiny kingdom.The alignmentof the sexual and the
social - a fundamentaltask of the family - is just the homologyof structures
which creates inside us those repertoiresof self-disciplineand self-controlfor
which,later,the widerworldis to be so thankful.It is little wonder,then,that fears
and panicsabout the breakdownof socialdiscipline- of whichcrime is one of the
most powerfulindices- centre on the indisciplineof 'youth', 'the young', and on
those institutionswhose task it is to help them internalisesocial discipline- the
school,but aboveall, the family.
The next image is rather different,but equally significantin relationto crime.
It is the image of the city. The cily is above all the concreteembodimentof the
achievementsof industrialcivilisation,both in terms of its embodimentof wealth
and as the concentrationof the sources of wealth, but also in its history - the
conquestof the threatsof the city in the nineteenthcentury:the threatsof disease,
insanitariness,crime,and politicalunrest.8 The 'state of the city' is, in a sense,the
'tide-mark' of civilisation;it embodiesour levelof civilisationand the degree to
which we are successfulin maintainingthat level of achievement.However,this
imagedoes not connectwith working-classexperienceat this generallevel- it is
not the idea or idealof the city whichthe working-classgraspsand comprehends.
The working-classexperienceof the city is more segmented- it is carried in
specificand concrete local ties and connections.At its broadest,it is an identi-
ficationwith a particularcity and its own distinctivecharacteristics('Sheffield
born, Sheffieldbred, strong in the arm and weak in the head'). It is embedded
in panicular fonns of industrial development,particular local achievements,
both of work and leisure. Even more, however,this connectionwith the city is
carried in the patterns and organisationsof specific localitieswithin the city -
the social and economicpatterns of the particularworking-classneighbourhood,
with its specific traditions, membershipand definite limits. It is where people
live, talk, play, shop and sometimeswork - it is their 'bit' of the city, to which
peopleare concreteJyand directlyattached.Working-classexperienceis crucially
parochialin this sense. The effectiverelation of crime and the city is thus not
felt by the working class at the level of a wave of shoplifting,bank raids and
a rash of suburbanburglaries.It occurs only with the invasionof the sense of
their 'space' and its seeminglyeternal patternsby 'public' formsof crime. In the
period we are concernedwith, however,the registrationof crime on these areas
is profoundlyeffectivebecause crime coincides with other experiencesof the
dislocation,declineand underminingof those localpatternsof materialand social
organisation- the destabilisationof its own complex internalsystem of social
ordering.We shall return to this questionsubsequentlywhendealing with 'social
anxiety'.
Nevertheless, these concrete local ties provide the material from which
the workingclass can be connected with the city. The productiveand political
achievementsof that class haveoften been mobilisedwithinthe city in the formof
'civic pride' - for example,in the qualityof 'craftmanship'in particularindustries
 EXPLANATIONS
AND IDEOLOGIES
OF CRIME 145
(ship-building,cloth-making,steel production,and so on), in the development
of 'municipalsocialism' and the constructionof publicly providedfacilitiesand
services (whose lasting monument in the northern towns are the architectural
wondersof town halls).Similarly,those local loyaltieshavealso been mobilised
in local cross-classalliances through leisure provision- most obviouslyin the
organisationof footballclubs by the local bourgeoisiefor working-classcrowds.
In this sense there have been provisional and contingent alliances across the
classesabout the city as a focusingsource of local identity.
Overarchingthese social images and holdingthem togetheris the only image
of the totality which sometimesseems to have achievedanythinglike universal
currency: that of England. There are as many 'ideas of England' as there are
classesand regionalcultures,but it is appropriatehere to speak of two dominant
facets.The first is internal:it relatesto all thosethingswhich,it is felt,the English
'do well', those intrinsicnationalqualitieswhichhavebefore,and will again, 'see
us through'.Orwellhas touchedon manyof them: theyare corenationalstrengths
and virtues- and by 'core' we mean that they are felt to be whatmost peopleare
reallylike underneath.The obvioussigns that the Englishcan be quite otherwise,
the recognitionof faults, limitationsand weaknessesdoes not touch this core:
'underneath it all' the English are fundamentallydecent; 'basically', they are a
tolerant and moderate people; 'ultimately', most people will 'see sense', face
realities,plumpfor the practical,common-senseline- each valueis predicatedon
this referenceto what is ultimatelytrue of the culture, behind all surfaceappear-
ances to the contrary.It is an imageof the cultureand the nationwhichis true only
'in the last resort'. The Englishcan be stupid,pig-headed,blimpish,refuseto face
reality, stubbornlyindividualistic,but 'in the last resort' people compromise,or
'rally round', or organisethemselvesif they haveto. Thesequalitiesare reluctant
to show themselvesat first: it is only 'finally' that they emerge.That is why they
are most apparentduring a crisis, at the height of war, facing defeat, or at some
other, similar 'finest hour'. In normal times, Orwell observed, 'the ruling class
will rob, mismanage.sabotage.lead us into the muck'. Yet 'the nation is bound
togetherby an invisiblechain', and 'in anycalculationabout it one has got to take
into account its emotionalunity,the tendencyof nearly all its inhabitantsto feel
alike and act togetherin momentsof supremecrisis'.9 It is an extremelypowerful
cluster of patrioticsentiments,and it feeds into, and off, a sense of, and a real
devotionto, all the diverse aspects of locality,neighbourhoodand region which
preciselygive to Ibis rather nebulous 'national' image its rich and diverse actual
content and purchase.
The secondaspect of 'England', however,is external.It is forgedin relationto
the superiorityof the Englishover all other nationson the face of the globe.This
is basicallyan imperialimage- its myths and ideologicalpowerare rooted in the
policiesand populistjustificationsof the high noon of British imperialism;into
it has fed centuriesof colonisation,conquestand global domination.It is present
in the Englishman'sdivine right to conquer 'barbaric' peoples,a right which is
then redefined,not as an aggressiveeconomicimperialism,but as a 'civilising
burden'. The Empire,backedby military,navaland economicsupremacy,helped
to form the belief that the English possessedspecial qualitiesas a people which
protectedthem frommilitarydefeat,and kept lhccountryindependentand secure.
146 POLICINOTHECRISIS

The experience of Empire has its own long and complex effects on the English
working class. Primary among these is the creation of a material and ideological
superiority of that class over 'native' labour forces through the establishment of
imperial dominance - making the English working class what Marx and Engels
termed 'a bourgeois proletariat'. This superiority is complexly interwoven with
the experience of competition between the metropolitan working class and the
'cheap labour' of the peripheral economies (for example, in the cotton and textile
industries). This experience of competition was of course intensified by the partial
internalisationof the periphery's 'cheap labour' during the post-war expansion of
English capitalism and its dependence on immigrant labour. The assumption of
superiority over all other peoples is often a quiet, unspoken one. but it is largely
unquestioning; and though it is especially strong with respect to former 'natives'
- colonised or enslaved peoples, especially if they are black - it includes 'wops',
'froggies', 'paddies', 'eye-ties' and 'yanks', as well, who, of course, are good
at a lot of things, but can be shown to lack just that combination of qualities
which make the English what they are. Inside the 'idea of England', then, lies a
commitment to what Britain has shown herself to be capable of, historically, as
well as a more common-or-garden commitment just lo the 'English way of doing
things'. Feelings about the flag, the Royal Family and the Empire belong here,
though - as we have noted before - this is neither an unswerving commitment to
these institutions themselves in their present form, nor to the abstract principles
which the institutions embody - for example, the 'rule of law'; it is more a vague
image of the rightness, 'fair play' and reasonableness of the British way - for
example, of the British 'system of justice' (including the near-total faith in the
honesty and uncorruptibility of the only unarmed police left in the developed
civilised world),
The final image we must deal with here is that of the law. We have left it till
the last because the law is the most profoundly ambiguous of these connecting
images, and because (contradictorily) it is the law which is summoned in defence
of these images 'in the last instance'. The law appears as the only institutionally
powerful defence of the other aspects of Englishness. They are pre-eminently
self-regulatory; they are dependent on the mutually self-respecting practices of
'reasonable men'. But when men become 'unreasonable', when the stability of
that free ordering is unhinged, the law is the only barrier between 'freedom' (in
its particular English fonn) and 'anarchy'; it is the only recourse for 'reasonable
men'. The relation of the working class to the law is an extremely complex one,
involving particular forms of connection and disconnection. It is captured in the
paradox of the coexistence of two images of the police - the appeal of the image
of the 'bobby on the beat' and the strong sense that 'all coppers are bastards'. To
understand this contradictory relation, we must look at how the law articulates
with a sense of a working-class 'code of behaviour'. This fundamental code of
respectable and acceptable behaviour by and for the members of a 'community'
has a content which does not exactly parallel that of the law. It makes different
types of distinction - for example, the formal definition of theft is given a different
shape in this code: distinctions are made about the nature of theft according to its
victim. Theft from work and 'fiddles' have an acceptability which they would not
 147
be accordedby the law- theyareseenas an integralpartof redressingtheeconomic
balance.On the other hand,'internal' theft withintheconstitutivecircle or friends,
relativesand neighboursfonns a fundamentalbreachof the code; it fracturesthe
concrete relations of mutual support. Similarly,some forms of violence have
been deemedeither normal(after Saturday-nightdrinking)or 'private' (domestic
violence)and are not seen as the properbusinessof the law;whileothers- 'unpro•
voked'or 'unnecessary'violence(especiallywhereperpetratedby 'outsiders') are
seen as infractionsof the socialspaceof the community.Similarly,somemembers
of the locale are proper victims (becauseof their concrete relations- husband/
wife, or because of their ability to respond - young men), whereasviolence to
others (e.g. old ladies)appears 'senseless' becauseit falls outsidethe organising
matrixof the code.
The law,then,has a specificand verycomplexrelationto this code. It has a role
to play and can be summonedagainst infractionsof the code; but interferencein
practicesvindicatedby the code is the action of 'interferingbusy-bodies'.Thus
the law appears as both a necessarysupport to the code (where this cannot be
maintainedby internal control) and as unnecessaryand external irrationality.19
Nevertheless,when this code and its material conditionsare undermined- and
can no longer be maintained internally - the law has a regulativeappeal. Its
connectionwith the code becomesmore significantthan its disconnection.The
law, then, can be used as a mobiliserwhen it becomesthe only institutionaland
powerfulforce whichcan maintainthe conditionsof that 'way of life'; it appears
to secure those other more personalisedsocial habitsand images- thus it can be
summonedto protectthoseconditions.
It is on the levelof the law,and its negative,crime,thattheconservativeideology
can mostpowerfullytap the ambiguitiesof the experienceof the subordinateclass.
The proclamationof the opennessof the law to all, irrespectiveof their station,
is a promiseto defend the interestsof all the membersof the society againstthe
criminal,no matterhow large or small the mattermay be. Life and property- to
whomsoeverthey belong- will be protected.This equalityof protectionconnects
with the experienceof the working class, for it is they who bear the brunt of
most property crimes. Certain kinds of crime are a real, objectiveproblem for
workingpeopletrying to lead a normaland respectablelife. If street crime rises,
it will be primarilyin their streets.They have a real stake in defendingwhat little
propertyand securitythey havemanagedto store up againstthe threat of poverty
and unemployment.Crime threatens the limited range of cultural goods which
makelife worthlivingat all witha measureof self-respect.The demandthat crime
must be controlled- that people be free to walk about unmolested,that since the
propertyof the wealthyand powerfulis constantlyand sophisticatedlyprotected
there is no reason in the 'just society' why the property of the poor should be
exposedto theft and vandalism- is not from this point of view an irrationalone.
This 'traditionalist'attitude to crime has its real, objectivebasis in the material
situationand culturalpositionof the subordinateclasses:

Membersof the workingclass also havea considerablestake in the notion(and

the achievement)of socialjustice; they want a fair return for their labour,and
148 POLICINGTHECRISIS

are antagonistic to those who obtain easy money parasitically upon the work of
others. Bourgeois ideology plays upon this genuine fear, arguing that all will be
rewarded according to their utility and merit, and that those who cheat at these
rules will be punished. In this way, ideology aspires to acceptance as a universal
interest, although in reality it conceals the rampant particular interests of the
ruling classes as displayed in both their legal and illegal aspecls. 11

Of course, if crime really could be controlled, and all could be free to go about
their business, the 'freedom' which this impartial law would provide for working
people would be the freedom to go on being poor, and exploited. The law does
not have to be 'bent' in order to facilitate the reproduction of class reJations
(though it may be bent on occasions). It achieves this through its normal, routine
operation as an 'impartial' structure of the state. But this long-term view of the
role of the state as a 'class state' is hard to reconcile with the short-term view
that the poor should not have what little they possess snatched from them. The
ideology of the law exploits and functions within this very gap - producing,
on the one hand, a misrecognition in the working class of its contradictions of
interest, and, on the other hand, serving to split and divide sections of the class
against each other.
Images of society need not be less powerful because they are imprecise,
ambiguous or elusive. We claim no comprehensiveness for the sketch towards a
traditionalist 'English ideology' which we offered above; but we would argue the
need for such a 'map' when considering how the popular imagination 'thinks' the
problem of crime. Of course, we have approached it from what might seem an
unusual angle: we have tried to depict some of the image clusters which stand as
collective representations of order against which images of crime and the criminal
are counterposed.
Each of the themes we have touched on within this traditionalist version of
the 'English ideology' organisescrime within it. Each one connects with and
identifies crime - and inserts it into a discourse about normality, rightness
and their inverse. Crime both touches the material conditions in which life is
lived, and is appropriated in the ideological representations of that life. Given
the depth and breadth of these connections, crime appears to be inserted within
the very centre of this conception of 'Englishness' - it has a crucial dividing and
defining role to play in that ideology. This complex centrality of crime gives
'crime as a public issue' a powerful mobilising force - support can be rallied to
a campaign against it, not by presenting it as an abstract issue, but as a tangible
force which threatens the complexly balanced stabilities which represent the
'English way of life'. Crime is summoned- through this ideology- as the 'evil'
which is the reverse of the 'normality' of 'Englishness', and an 'evil' which if
left unchecked can rot away the stable order of nonnality. The reaction to crime,
then, is deep-rooted, both materially and ideologically. This combination is an
extremely powerful one, and, for the dominant classes, an extremely fruitful
one. Crime allows all 'good men and true' to stand up and be counted - at least
metaphorically - in the defence of normality, stability and 'our way of life'. It
allows the construction of a false unity out of the very different social conditions
under which this 'way of life' is lived, and under which crime is experienced.
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOOll:SOf CRIME 149
ROOTSOPTHB TRADITIONALIST
WORLDVJBW:COMMONSENSB
We turn now to a theme only lightly touchedon so far. This is the strengthof the
appeal to 'commonsense' and personalexperiencewe noticedin the letters.It is
a theme whichperformsa double role,and consequentlywe considerit separately
here.Toavoidconfusion,we shouldindicatejust whatwe considerthe 'doubleness'
of this experientialcommonsense to consist of. First, it is a specificpart of the
traditional'English ideology', as we shall describebelow;but it is also thefol'm
in which that ideologyis carried.That 'way of life' is experiencedand expressed
as being 'natural': 'that's the way things are'; 'it's just commonsense'.
There are powerfulhistoricalreasons why this appeal lo the practicaland the
concrete plays such a role in the 'English ideology'. Almost all the commen-
tators on • • agreed that it is
centrally of mind is one

inheritanceof a developedagrariancapitalismbeforethe emergenceof industrial

capitalism,and the polilicalalliancesbetweenindustrialcapital and landowning
political representativesproduced a ruling-class ideology which is peculiarly
'empirical'. Andersondefinedthis 'fusion' as follows:

The hegemony of the dominant bloc in England is not articulated in any

systematicmajor ideology,but is rather diffusedin a miasmaof commonplace
prejudices and taboos. The two great chemical elements of this blanketing
Englishfog are 'traditionalism'and 'empiricism':in it visibility- of any social
or historicalreality- is alwayszero.Traditionalismwas the naturalideological
idiomof the landedclass as soon as its pure monopolyof politicalpower was
challenged.... Empiricism... faithfullytranscribesthe fragmented,incomplete
characterof the English bourgeoisie'shistoricalexperience.... Traditionalism
and empiricismhenceforwardfuse as a single legitimatingsystem: tradition-
alismsanctionsthe presentby derivingit fromthe past,empiricismshacklesthe
future by rivetingit to the present.

MarxlocatestheempiricismofEnglishthoughtina connectedbutslightlydifferent
wayfromAnderson'ssomewhatdismissiveobservationon thelackof development
of the Englishbourgeoisie.Instead,he sees it as occurringas a functionof their
practicalachievements.Marx castigates Bentham- the perfecter of utilitarian
philosophy- for 'genius in the way of bourgeoisstupidity'.However,he goes on
to add that 'in his avid and simple way ... [Bentham]assumesthe modern petty
bourgeois,aboveall the modernEnglishpetty bourgeois,to be the normal man'.
Marx's point here is that utilitarianism,even its dismal Benthamiteform,was, in
England,alreadynormalised,naturalisedand universalisedas a habit of thought-
notbecauseit wasa profoundtheoreticalsystem,butbecauseit reflectedits massive
existence in daily practice; it reflected as 'natural' the daily experienceof life
under an accomplishedcapitalistsystem of relations.Marx pointsto how certain
seminalideas and ways of thinkinghavebecomeso sedimentedin socialpractice
as to define the whole texture and ethos of English ideas - they have become
'taken for granted'becausethey are so massivelypresentin our experience.Marx
150 POLICINOTHECRISIS

captures this peculiar combinationof English material developmentand intel•

lectual backwardnessin a comparisonwith its opposite- Germany'stheoretical
sophisticationand economic backwardness:'If an Englishmantransfonns men
into hats,the Germantransformshats into ideas.'13English'commonsense', then,
in one sensereflectsthe real, practicalestablishmentof a 'natural' orderof society
- bourgeoissociety.Wecan tracetheeffectivenessof this referenceto theconcrete,
the 'natural' order of things, by going back to some of the elements we found
when we first encounteredthe public expressionof lay opinionabout 'mugging'
- in the 'letters to the editor' columnsin the nationaland provincialpress, and in
the abusiveleuers. One of the most forceful argumentsdeployedin letters was
the privilegedappealwhich ordinaryfolk made to everydaypersonalexperience,
the reference to concreteinstances.Although these rhetorical appeals were to
be found in both what we called the 'liberal' and the 'traditionalist'letter-writer,
it was far more widespreadand carried far greater convictionwhen mobilised
under the banner of a traditionalistworld view. Now the reference to personal
experienceand concrete instancesmay seem al first sight to require no further
explanation.Afterall, those whoreallyhaveexperienceof a socialproblemat first
handhavesomethingoriginalto say- somethingof an ins.ider'sviewpoint- about
social issues. In the public discourseotherwisedominatedby the expert and the
sociologist,'personal experience'is often the only claim to be heard which the
'man or womanin the street' can make.The tendencyto generalisemust be made
sensitive- the English believe- to these, inevitablymore particularisedpoints
of view, since otherwise it would blur importantaspects of the question in its
sweepingglance.Editorsof letter columnsespeciallyvalue this kind of personal
testimony,groundedin known experienceand referringto concreteevidence.In
fact, few of the letters we looked at are really concretein this sense. They do not
go into the actual detail of the experiencewhich they are drawingon - say, of
being robbedor 'mugged'. They refer to personalexperience- but principallyto
giveextraweightto their opinions.So the experientialreferenceis often indirect-
'He mightchangehis viewsif he or a close relativesufferedone of these allacks.'
Or it is obliquely invoked,through personal characterisation:Signed 'Working
class motherof three teenagers'.
Experience,here, meanssomethingspecific- primaryexperience,unmediated
by theory, reflection,speculation,argument,etc. It is thought superior to other
kindsof argumentationbecauseit is rootedin reality:experienceis 'real' - specu-
lation and theory are 'airy-fairy'. Often the reference to experienceis used in
exactlythis way - 'cut the talkingand listen to someonewho reallyknows'. Ann
Dummeu, talking about this English impatiencewith theory, and reverencefor
'sense experience', has observed that the English rememberSir Isaac Newton
not for the discoveryof calculusbut 'for having an apple fall on his head while
snoozingin the warmthof latesummerin an orchard'.1~Thisironicexampleserves
to remind us that the primacyof experienceand of common-sensethought is a
glue which solidifiesEnglish culture from its most exalted to its most everyday
and mundane level. English philosophy,epistemologyand psychologyare all,
also, powerfullyempiricistin their typicalmodes.The privilegeof commonsense
is therefore not something reserved to those who stand outside of intellectual
culture, and who may,for that reason,be temptedto pit brute experienceagainst
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOF CRIM~ 151

intellectualreasoning.Empiricismis a cultural force both inside and outside of

English intellectualculture; hence the legitimacyof the reference to empirical
experiencewhichattacheslo it.
The appealto commonsense also draws some of its power from Englishanti-
intellectualism.Allhough this is in no way an exclusive English value. there
is some evidence to suggest that it is particularlystrong in English culture. It
is a value which exalts 'common sense' over the intellectuals,the 'theorisers'.
Theorisersregardlife as a 'talkingshop' - they neverdo anything.They are people
who 'really don't know' what goes on in real life, who are bemused by their
own abstractions,who argue in ways which are irrelevantto the life of the great
mass, and, what is more, propose, from these theoreticalheights, explanations
and policies which do not Lakemajorityexperienceinto account.We also found
this suspicionof 'intellectuals'in manyof our lettersto the press,and it is a stable
element in the moralisingrhetoricof the popularpress. It has, of course, its own
rationalcore. It representsthe responseof a subordinatedsocialclass to the estab-
lished hierarchicalclass system and the social distributionof 'valid' knowledge
thataccompaniedthat hierarchy(especiallyas markedout educationallyby certifi-
cates,examinationpasses,diplomas,degrees,and so on). Its 'anti-intellectualism'
is a class responseto that unequal distributionof knowledge:a response from
a class which emphasisespractical knowledge,first-handexperienceof doing
things, because it is the response of a working class. This working-class'anti-
intellectualism'is a classic instanceof Poulantzas'spropositionthat subordinated
classes 'often ... liveeventheir revoltagainstthe dominationof the systemwithin
theframe of referenceof the domillantlegitimacy'(ouremphasis).is It is a defining
characteristicof that form of consciousnesswhichLeninonce called 'trade union
consciousness',and whichother writershavedefinedas 'labourist'.16
But 'common sense' has other more positive roots in English society and
culture. In the Usesof LiteracyRichard Haggartdiscussedat length the sources
of what he called the 'us/them' structurein working-classlife and culture:

'They' are 'the people at the top', 'the higher ups', the people who give you
your dole,call you up, tell you to go to war,fineyou, madeyou split the family
in the thirtiesto avoida reductionin the MeansTest allowance.'get yer in the
end', 'aren't really to be trusted', 'talk posh', 'are twisters really', 'never tell
you owt', 'clapyerin clink', 'will doy'down if theycan', 'summonsyer', 'are
all in a click together', 'treaty' like muck'.11
'Us', by contrast,means the group, those who belong, who stand together,who
have to 'muck in' and take the good times with the bad, the neighbourhood,the
community.In the final instance,it is the senseof a commonpositionandcommon
experiencewhich makes 'Us' a class - thoughit is class in the corporatesense,a
defensivecommunitywhich is caught by this contrast,not the class which takes
power or transformsthe whole of society in its image: what Marx called 'class-
in-itself'.
This kind of corporate class consciousnesshas both positive and negative
features.From it stems both the debunking,'putting a fingerto the nose' attitude
towards authority a11dthe deferential attitude. From it arises both the strong
152 POLICINGTHECRISIS

solidarities of working-class culture, and the toleration it sometimes shows towards

its own containment: both its massive collective strengths and its willingness to
'live and let live', to 'take things as they come'. Haggart has also closely linked
this 'us/them' structure with what he calls 'The "Real" World of People - the
world of "the personal and the concrete".'

Holding fast to a world so sharply divided into 'Us' and 'Them' is, from one
aspect, part of a more important general characteristic of the outlook of most
working class people. To come to terms with the world of 'Them' involves in
the end, all kinds of political and social questions, and leads eventually beyond
politics and social philosophy to metaphysics. The question of how we face
'Them' (whoever 'They' are) is, at last, the question of how we stand in relation
to anything not visibly and intimately a part of our local universe. The working
class splitting of the world into 'Us' and 'Them' is on this side a symptom
of their difficulty in meeting abstract or general questions.... They have had
little or no training in the handling of ideas or in analysis. Those who show a
talent for such activities have increasingly ... been taken out of their class. More
important than either of these reasons is the fact that most people, of whatever
social class, are simply not, at any time, going to be interested in general ideas;
and in the working classes this majority ... will stick to the tradition of their
group; and that is a personal and local tradition.11

The 'common sense' which is formed in this historical space has its own, peculiar,
dense structure. Haggart notes the manner in which it is groundedin the concrete
relations, environments, networks and spaces of the working-class family and
neighbourhood (and, though he pays it less attention than it deserves, of work).
This culture does yield 'views and opinions' on general matters and on the world,
'but these views usually prove to be a bundle of largely unexamined and orally-
transmitted tags, enshrining generalizations, prejudices and half-t.ruths, and
elevated by epigrammatic phrasing into the status of maxims'. 19
However, 'common sense' is not peculiarly English per se, though the
English variant is no doubt particularly distinct and powerful. Other writers
have concerned themselves with it as a recurrentway in which subordinate
social classes are connected with the dominant ideology of a society. In another
context, Gramsci remarked that common sense is always 'a chaotic aggregate
of disparate conceptions ... fragmentary ... in confonnity with the social
and cultural position of those masses whose philosophy it is.' 10 It has strong
links, Gramsci noted, with what Haggart also calls 'primary religion' - again
we should note the strongly ethical note in some of the letters discussed. It
connects with fate and with a certain root patriotism (again, very different from
middle-class jingoism). In a fundamental way (again quite distinct from any
abstract notion of our national heritage), common sense represents a 'traditional
popular conception of the world' ,21 a conception formed in the closest relation
to practical, everyday life.
Although the structure of common sense is therefore often directly in touch
with the practical struggle of everyday life of the popular masses, it is also shot
 EXPI.ANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOF CRIME 153

through with elementsand beliefs derived from earlier or other more developed
ideologieswhich havesedimentedinto it. As Nowell-Smithobserves:

The keyto commonsense is that the ideas it embodiesare not so muchincorrect

as uncorrectedand taken for granted ... Commonsense consists of all those
ideas which can be tagged onto existing knowledgewithoutchallengingit. It
offersno criterionfor determininghow things are in capitalistsociety,but only
a criterion of how things fit with the ways of looking at the world that the
presentphase of class societyhas inheritedfrom the precedingone.n

The world boundedby 'common sense' is the world of the subordinateclasses;

it is central to that subordinateculture whichGramsci,and others followinghim,
call 'corporate'.23 For the subordinateclasses, ruling ideas tend to be equated
with the whole st •
people 'think' the
of one class over armer.
Subordinateclass cultures maintain their autonomy,by struggle and by estab-
lishingtheir own defensiveculture. But ruling ideas tend to form the outer limit
and horizonof thoughtin a society.This is neversimplya matterof mental subor-
dination alone. Ruling ideas are embodied in the dominant institutionalorder:
subordinateclassesare boundedby these dominantrelations.Hence, in action as
well as in thought,they are constantlydisciplinedby them.
Parkin has argued that what he calls 'subordinate value systems' reflect the
ways of life and material conditionsof existence of subordinateclasses;14 but
since these are experiencedand thought within the frameworkof the dominant
classes,they represent,not coherentalternativesto, but negotiationsof, the latter.
Negotiations,he argues,producea culturewhichis bothdifferentandsubonlinate:
a 'corporate', as contrastedwith a 'hegemonic',culture.A corporatecultureoften
arises,then, as a series of negotiations,qualifications,limitedsituationalvariants
within or the result of partial strugglesagainst the more 'hegemonic'sweep of
the dominantculture.What the subordinateculture 'owes' to the hegemonicorder
is not a positiveand gratefulidentification,but rather a reluctantconfirmationof
its hegemony- what has come to be called 'pragmaticacceptance'.2s 'Pragmatic
acceptance'often is the outcomeof the class strugglein ideas - a strugglewhich
herehas takenthe fonn of a 'negotiatedtruce'. The differencebetween'corporate'
and 'hegemonic' cultures often emerges most clearly in the contrast between
general ideas (whichthe hegemonicculturedefines)and more contextualisedor
situatedjudgements(whichwill continueto reflecttheiroppositionalmaterialand
socialbase in the life of the subordinateclasses).Thus it seems perfectly'logical'
for some workersto agree that 'the nation is paying itself too much' (general)
but be only too willingto go on strike for higher wages (situated);or for parents
to demand that children should be better disciplined,but complain when their
own childrenare beaten.The accommodatedsettlementsof a subordinateculture
are necessarilycontradictory.'People often maintainunreconciledcontradictions
in their viewpoint,contradictionsexpressedin differentcontexts.... It is in this
linkage between opinion about national policy and immediai.eexperiencethat
154 POLICINGTHECRISIS

manyof the most obviouscontradictionsarise.'26 The importantpoint is not only

that common-sensethoughtis contradictory,but that it is fragmentaryand incon-
sistentpreciselybecausewhatis 'common' about it is that it is not subjectto tests
of internalcoherenceand logical consistency,What is importantis the disjunc-
tures in scale. position and power which these inconsistenciesreflect. 'Logical
inconsistencies'are often the productof just the degree or differencein contex-
tualisationwhichenablesdistinct class culturesand subculturesto coexist 'struc-
tured in dominance'.So the right to 'make exceptionsand qualifications'to the
structureof dominantideas really helps to keep dominantideas intact.Dominant
ideas are more i11clu1ive in range: they encompassa wider slice of reality; they
explain and reference things which take place on a larger plane. outside of
'immediale experience'. The ideas which arise from 'immediate experience',
which are situationallyor contextuallybound, then appear as mere exceptions,
brackets,qualifications,within this larger structureof thought.In this way the
dominantand subordinatepositionof the differentclassesis refractedthroughthe
relationbetweendominantand subordinatestructuresof ideas.
The importantpoint is that the contextualisedjudgements,the 'exceptions'to
the generalrule,do not often spawncounter-ideologiescapableof challengingthe
over-all hegemonyof 'ruling ideas', thus leading on to allernativestrategiesof
strugglewhich take the transformationof societyas a whole as their object.The
contentof materialsocialexperiencewhichinformssubordinatevaluesyslemsis,
in fact,verydifferentfromthat whichis expressedin 'ruling ideas'. But this struc-
tured differenceis concealedand harmonisedunder the tutelageof the dominant
framework.It is through this unequal complementaritythat the hegemonyof
dominantideas over subordinateones is sustained.This complementarityis the
basis for cross-classalliances, where subordinateattitudes are mobilised and
made active in support of interestsand attitudes which reflect a quile different,
antagonisticclass reality.
Ann Dummettgivesa trivialexamplewhicheffectivelymakesthe point.For the
middleclasses,she argues, 'tea' in the afternoon'means ... a leisuredand unnec-
essary refreshmentbetween lunch and dinner.You take it around four o'clock;
the bread and butter will be cut thin, and you will not, except at a children's
tea party, eat it in the dining room or kitchen.' But tea 'to the majority of the
populationis the mealof the evening,eatenabout five-thirtywhenfathergets back
from work and has had time to wash and change his clothes'. Here, 'something
acceptedboth here and abroadas ... characteristicallyEnglishmeans,in fact,quite
different things to different groups of people in England'.17 Nevertheless,it is
the first (minority)not the second (majority)meaningof 'tea' which is thought
'characteristicallyEnglish'; the first not the second whichhas a privilegedplace
in Englishpopular mythology.A practicerestrictedto the English upper-middle
classes has come to representsomethinguniversalfor the Englishas a whole: a
class customhas become 'hegemonic'.The rulingclasseshavelearned'to give its
ideas the form of universality,and representthem as the only rational,universally
validones'.211Wecan now see how,becauseof their pervasivenessand hegemonic
quality, this structure of 'ruling ideas' comes to be equated simply with 'how
things are', and thus with commonsense itself- the one structureof ideas which
everybodyshares. This universalisingof 'common sense' masks the important
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOOIESOF CRIME 155
differencesbetweenclass experiences;but it also establishesa false coillcide11ce
of ideasbetweendifferentclasses.This coi11cidencethen becomesthe basis/or the
myth of a single, E11glishki11dof thought.

SOCIALANXIETY
The questionis not why or how unscrupulousmen work ... but why audiences
respond.29
We have been traversingthe terrainof traditionalideas and their histol"icalroots.
But now we must look at the way in whichspecifichistoricalforcesoperatedon
this traditionalground-baseto produce,in the 1960sand 1970s,a strong upsurge
of conservativemoralindignationaboutcrime.Engelsnotedthat 'in all ideological
domainstraditionformsa greatconservativeforce.But the transformationswhich
this materialundergoesspringsfrom class relations.'30
We havediscussedsomeof the central imagesprovidingsociety with a degree
of ideologicalunity around the traditionalpole. Crucially,those images cohere
in a vista of stability - of solid, bedrock and unchanginghabits and virtues,
presentinga senseof permanenceeven in 'bad times', a kind of base-linethat, no
matterwhat,remains'foreverEngland'. Here we are concernedto showhow a set
of specificsocial changescombinedto undercutsome of the crucial supportsto
this set of imagesof social order among sectionsof the populationwho have no
alternativeideologicalstructurewhichcould performa similarcoheringfunction.
This underminingproducesan effect in theseclass fractionswhichwe havecalled
'social anxiety' - a productof both the dissolutionof the materialsupportsof that
ideology,and the weakeningof the broad social commitmentto that ideology
itself. We would suggest that one consequenceof this 'state of flux' into which
sectionsof the populationare thrownin timesof dislocationis the emergenceof a
predispositionlo the use of 'scapegoats',into whichall the disturbingexperiences
are condensedand then symbolicallyrejected or 'cast out' .31 These scapegoats
haveattributedto themthe role of causingthe variouselementsof disorganisation
and dislocationwhichhave produced'social anxiety' in the first place. However,
these scapegoatsdo not just 'happen', they are produced from specific condi-
tions, by specificagencies,as scapegoats.First, however,we must pay attention
to the erosion of 'traditionalism'as a particularcross-classalliance, and to the
productionof socialanxiety.Thereseem to us to havebeentwodistinctbut related
reasonsfor this.
Jn the post-warperiodwe can identifytwo 'breaks' in the traditionalideologies,
each of whichproduceda senseof the lossof familiarlandmarksand thusprovided
the basis for growing 'social anxiety'. The first had to do with 'affluence'. The
basis of 'affluence'was the post-warboom in production.But it was experienced
as a particularkind of consumption- personaland domesticspending- and as a
particulartransformationof traditionalvaluesand standards.The associationof
'affluence' with an attitude of 'unbridled materialism', hedonismand pleasure
was seen as quickly leading on to 'permissiveness'- a state of the looseningof
moral discipline,restraintand control.The 'new values' were distinctlyat odds
•with the more traditionalProtestantEthic.And the groupsor classfractionswhich
156 POLICINO"llmCRISIS

most directly experienced the tension between the Protestant Ethic and the New
Hedonism were those - the non-commercial middle classes, above all, the lower-
middle classes - who had invested everything in the Protestant virtues of thrift,
respectability and moral discipline.32
The second development tending to awaken and heighten 'social anxiety' arises
in roughly the same period, but directly affected a rather different stratum. The
scale of social change in the period was wildly exaggerated. But the adaptation
of society to post-war conditions did indeed set in motion social changes which
gradually eroded some of the traditional patterns of life, and thus the supports,
of traditional working-class culture. Change of a kind was to be seen every-
where; and nowhere was it more concentrated in its effects than in the erosion
of the 'traditional' working-class neighbourhood and community itself, and its
'hard core' - the respectable working class. (By 'traditional' here, we mean, as
Hobsbawm and Steadman-Jones have argued, that pattern of working-class life
which established itself in the final decades of the nineteenth century - some
aspects of which Steadman-Jones has dealt with under the title 'the re-making
of the English working class'.») In a sense, the English working class was to
a certain degree 'remade' once again, in the post-war years. Urban redevel-
opment, changes in the local economies, in the structure of skills and occupations,
increased geographical and educational mobility, relative prosperity supported by
the post-war recovery boom, and a spectaculariscd 'religion of affluence', though
in one sense distinct processes, had a combined and decomposing effect, in the
long-term sense, on the respectable working-class community.34 The close inter-
connections between family and neighbourhood wereloosened, its ties placed
under pressure. Communal spaces and informal social controls, which had come
to be customary in the classic traditional neighbourhoods, were weakened and
exposed. The cultural and political response to these forces was considerably
confused - a confusion which, there is little need to say, is most inadequately
expressed in the familiar quasi-explanations of the period: 'embourgeoisement'
and 'apathy'; but also in modifications within the traditional working-class ideol-
ogies of 'labourism'. In part, as we have argued elsewhere,l5 there was a strong
tendency - the product of considerable ideological manipulation of reality - to
reduce this complex and uneven process of change to the famous 'generation
gap'. The distance- marked by the war- between the generations of the pre- and
post-war eras exaggerated the 'sense of change',
Middle-aged and older people clearly experienced these contradictory devel-
opments primarily as a 'sense of loss': the loss of a sense of family, of a sense
of respect, the erosion of traditional loyalties to street, family, work, locality. In
ways which are hard to locate precisely, that 'sense of loss' also had something
to do with the experience of the war and the decline and loss of Empire - both
of which had contributed, in their different ways, to the ideological 'unity' of the
nation. Many familiar patterns of recreation and life were being reconstructed
by the commercialisation of leisure and the temporary onset of a conspicuous
and privatised consumption: the transformation and decline of the English pub
is, in this respect, as significant a sign as the more publicised exaggerations of
teenage leisure and life. The 'springs of action' were unbent - but they did not
immediately take another shape; instead there was a sort of hiatus, a degree of
 EXPL./INATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOl' CRIME 157
pennanentunsettledness.Local integrationwas weakened- but not in favourof
any alternativesolidarities,outside the scope or the familycircle, itself nan-ower,
more nucleated.Povertyas a way of life was widelysaid and thoughtto be disap-
pearing- thoughpovertyitself refusedto disappear;indeed,not long after it was,
magically,rediscovered.
One could begin to pinpoint this seed-bed of social anxiety at several points.
One event which seems to bring all sorts of strands together,and to expose the
reservoir of unfocused post-war social discontent in a particularlysharp and
visibleform, is the NottingHill race riots of I958.Althoughovertlyabout 'race',
it is clear that these eventsalso servedas a focusof socialanxiety,touchingmany
sourcesby no meansall of which were,in any specificsense,raciaJ.:16 Put another
way,NottingHill was complicatedbecausethere was a needto condemnboth the
violenceof white youth,and yet point to the bad habits of immigrantswhichhad
caused the tension.There was, to use Stan Cohen's terminology,uncertaintyas
to whetherthe 'folk devils' were white working-classyouthfl'eddyBoys or black
immigrants.In time the racial issue was to be made clearer,but for the moment
it was blurred.
No such generalambiguitiessurroundedthe 'mods' and 'rockers'. Cohennotes
many sources of disquiet which came to be focused on groups of teenagers in
conflictat seasideresorts:
TheModsand Rockerssymbolizedsomethingfar moreimportantthanwhatthey
actually did. They touched the delicate and ambivalentnervesthrough which
post-warsocialchangein Britainwas experienced.No one wanteddepressions
or austerity,but messagesabout 'never having it so good' were ambivalentin
that some people were having it too good and too quickly.... Resentmentand
jealousy were easily directedat the young, if only because of their increased
spendingpowerand sexualfreedom.When this was combinedwith a too-open
flouting of the work and leisure ethics, with violenceand vandalism,and the
(as yet) uncertainthreatsassociatedwith drug-taking,somethingmore than the
image of a peaceful Bank Holidayat the sea was being shattered.One might
suggest that ambiguityand strain was greatest at the beginningof the sixties.
The lines had not yet been clearly drawn and indeed,the reactionwas part of
this drawingof the line.31
A genuine sense of cultural dislocation,then, came to focus not on structural
causes but on symbolicexpressionsof social disorganisation,e.g. the string of
working-classyouth subcultures.That these were themselves often 'magical
solutions' to the same cultural or structural problems - attempts to resolve,
without transcending,inherentcontradictionsof the class - was not the least of
the ironies.38
What were in fact related but distinct developmentswere collapsedinto three
compositeand overlappingimagesof unsettledness:youth,affluenceand permis-
siveness.It was possible to perceivethese challengesto the normal pauerns in
terms of a limited numberof oppositions:undisciplinedyouth versus maturity;
conspicuous consumption versus modest prosperity; permissiveness versus
responsibility,decency and respectability.The residual resistanceto these new
158 POUCINGTHECRISIS

ways thus first began to find articulationas a movementof moral reform and
regeneration- whetherrootedin the desire for a return to the concretecertainties
of the traditionalworking-classrespectability,or in the formof a campaignfor the
restorationof middle-classpuritanism.
As these contradictorythrusts continuedto afflictand challengethe dominant
morality,and the axes of traditional working-classlife continued to tilt at an
alarming angle. so the general sense of dislocationincreased.For those moral
crusadersused to formulatingtheir discontentin organisedways, there were the
possibilitiesof joining movements- to clean up television,cleansethe streets of
prostitutes,or eliminate pornography.But for those whose traditionalforms of
local articulationhad never assumedthese more public, campaigningpostures,
there was left only what one writerdescribedas a naggingbitterness:

Most old people I met expressed resentmentof the forces in society which
have robbed them of the crushing certainty that all their neighboursshared
the same poverty and the same philosophy,and wereas unifonnly helpless
and resourcelessas themselves.... But now they feel they were deceived.... The
valuesand habits that grew out of their povertyhave been abolishedwith the
poverty itself. While they were still striving for social justice and economic
improvement,they took no account of any accompanyingchange that would
take place in their value-structure:they simplytransposedthemselvesin imagi-
nationinto the houseof the rich, and it was assumedthat they wouldtake with
them their neighbourlinessand lackof ceremony,their pride in their work,their
dialectandcommonsense.... Insteadof imposingtheir own will uponchanging
conditionsthey allowedthemselvesto be manipulatedby them, not preserving
anythingof their past, but surrenderingit like the victims of a great natural
disaster,who flee before the elementsand abandonall that they havepainstak-
ingly accumulated.Perhaps,if they had understoodwhat was happening,they
would havepreservedsomethingof the old culture,but insteadthey raise their
voicesin wild threateningquerulousnessagainstthe young,or the immigrants
or any other fragment of a phenomenon that is only partially and fitfully
availableto them.39

Seabrook is at pains to emphasisethat this hostility to outsiders is not simple

prejudice;it is groundedin the socialrealityand materialexperienceof those who
havesuch fears:
The immigrantsact as a perverselegitimationof inexpressiblefearand anguish.
What is taking place is only secondarilyan expressionof prejudice.It is first
and foremost a therapeutic psychodrama,in which the emotional release
of its protagoniststakes precedenceover what is actually being said.... It is
an expression of their pain and powerlessnessconfrontedby the decay and
dereliction,not onlyof the familiarenvironment,but of their own lives,too- an
expressionfor which our society providesno outlet. Certainlyit is something
morecomplexanddeep-rootedthan whatthe metropolitanliberalevasivelyand
easilydismissesas prejudice.40
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIES01' CRIME 159
This 'expressionof pain and powerlessness'is a root cause as well as an early
symptomof social anxiety.
In the vocabularyof socialanxietyblacksandAsianswereready-madesymbols
for, and symptomsof, a successionof dislocations:in housing,neighbourhood,
family,sex, recreation,law and order.To communitiesbeset by a 'sense of loss',
their race and colour may well have matteredless than their simply otherne:rs-
their alienness.We say this in part because in this periodsocial anxietydoes not
seem always to need to go outside its social and ethnic boundariesto discover
the demonson which to feed. In some parts of the country,the languageof race
and the languageused about lravellersare interchangeable.~• And, even closer to
home,so far as the respectablepoor are concerned,are alwaysthe verypoor- the
rough,the marginals,the lumpen-poor,the downwardlymobile,the disorganised
outcastsand misfits.The lumpen-poor,beingtoo close for therespectableworking
class to take much comfort from their suffering,have always been availableas
a negative reference point. Here, again, powered by pain and powerlessness,
negativereferencepoints becomethe source of an escalatingsense of panic and
socialanxiety:
Those who emerge from the collapsed and dwindling matrix of traditional
working class life often believe that their projection upwards is a great
personal achievement.They tend to acquire the social attitudes of the groups
they aspire to ... in a rather extravagantand extreme form. In their anxiety to
identify themselveswith the successfulthey often show great lack of charity
and compassionwith the poor and the weak. Those who are successfuloften
seem pregnantwith a sense of blame and indignation,which they lodge vocif-
erously with a wide range of social deviants - the workshy,the young, the
immigrants,the immoral.... People whoare successfulbelievethat successis a
reflectionof some moral superiority.They rate enterpriseand initiativeas the
most worthwhileof all human characteristics,and what they rather vaguely
call fecklessnessor spinelessnessas the most contemptible.But because their
own success stems from virtue, its opposite must be true, that failure stems
from vice. People at the bottom of the scale are felt to be a vaguelymenacing
influence, not in any obvious revolutionaryway, but they do undermine the
beliefs which legitimatethose who are in positionsof superiority.This is why
the referencesto criminals,shirkers,drunks, are so venomous.The suspicion
lingers that perhaps the ascription of total responsibilityto the failures is no
morejustified than the arrogationof it by the successful....It is not solicitude
about social justice and order which prompts people to invoke the gallows
and the birch and all the other agencies of punishmentand repression. It is
the knowledgethat any attenuating concessionsmade to the failure and the
wrong-doer would imply a consequent diminution of their own responsi-
bility for their achievements.And this is a surrender they are not preparedto
contemplate..f.l
The Folk Devil - on to whom all our most intense feelings about things going
wrong, and all our fears about what might undermineour fragile securitiesare
160 POUCINOTHECRISIS

projected - is, as Jeremy Seabrook suggested above, a sort of alter ego for Virtue.
In one sense, the Folk Devil comes up at us unexpectedly, out of the darkness, out
of nowhere.In anothersense, he is all too familiar;we know him already,before
he appears.He is the reverseimage,the alternativeto all we know:the 11egqtion.
He is the fear of failure that is secreted at the heart of success, the danger that
lurks inside security, the protligate figure by whom Virtue is constantly tempted,
the tiny,seductivevoiceinsideinvitingus to feedon sweetsand honeycakeswhen
we knowwe mustrestrictourselvesto iron rations.When thingsthreatento disin-
tegrate,the Folk Devilnot only becomesthe bearer of all our socialanxieties,but
we turn againsthim the full wrath of our indignation.
The 'mugger' was such a Folk Devil; his form and shape accuratelyreflected
the contentof the fearsand anxietiesof thosewhofirst imagined,and then actually
discoveredhim: young, black, bred in, or arising from the 'breakdownof social
order' in the city; threateningthe traditionalpeace or the streets, lhe security or
movementor the ordinaryrespectablecitizen; motivatedby nakedgain, a reward
he wouldcome by, if possible,withouta day's honesttoil; his crime, the outcome
or a thousandoccasionswhenadultsand parentshad failed 10correct,civiliseand
tulor his wilderimpulses;impelledby an even more frighteningneed for 'gratu-
itous violence', an inevitableresult or the weakeningof moralfibrein familyand
society,and the generalcollapse or respectfor disciplineand authority.In short,
the very token or 'permissiveness',embodyingin his every action and person,
feelingsand valuesthat were lhe oppositeor thosedecenciesand restraintswhich
make England what she is. He was a sorl or personificationof all the positive
social images- only in rt1verse:black on white. It would be hard to constructa
more appropriateFolk Devil.
The moment of his appearanceis one or those moments in English culture
when the suppressed,distortedor unexpressedresponsesto thirty years or unset-
tling socialchange,whichfailedlo findpoliticalexpression,neverthelesssurfaced
and took tangibleshape and fonn in a particularlycompellingsymbolicway.The
tangibililyor lhe 'mugger'- likeTeddyBoy,rockerand skinheadbeforehim - his
palpableshape.was a promptcatalyst:it precipitatedanxieties,worries,concerns,
discontents,which had previouslyfound no constant or clarifying articulation,
promotedno sustainedor organisedsocialmovement.Whenthe impulseto artic-
ulate, to grasp and organise 'needs' in a positive collectivepractice of struggle
is thwarted,ii does not just disappear.It turns back on itself, and provides the
seed-bedof 'social movements'whichare collectivelypowerfuleven as they are
deeply irrational:irrational,to the point at least where any due measure is lost
betweenactual threat perccived, the symbolicdanger imagined,and the scale or
punishmentand control which is 'required'. These streamsor social anxietyand
eddiesor moralindignationswirledand bubbled,in the 1960sand 1970s,at some
levelrightbeneaththe surfaceebb and flowor electoralpoliticsand parliamentary
gamesmanship.Seabrookremarked:
Most people I met who said they were socialistsoffered a ritual and mecha-
nistic account of their convictions,which could not compete with the drama
or the Right, which talks or the guts or the nation having been sapped by the
WelfareState, and or a coddledand feather-beddedgenerationor shirkersand
 EXPLANATIONS
AND IDOOLOOlliS01' CRIME 161

scroungersand loafers- wordswith an emotivepowerwhichthe lexiconof the

left has lost. The ascendancyof the Right is no less real for its relativefailures
to be collected in voting patterns:these have become institutionalised.Most
people are not aware that there is any connectionbetweentheir social beliefs
and their votinghabits.41
And that is preciselythe gap, the openinginto the mouthof Hell, from which the
muggerwassummoned.
However,this combining of the defence of the traditionalworld view with
its appropriatescapegoatsdoes not take place by magic.The necessaryconnec-
tions have to be made, publiclyforgedand articulated- the 'sense of bitterness'
describedby Seabrookhas to be workedon to come to identify its scapegoats.
Ideologicalwork is necessaryto maintainthe articulationof the subordinateclass
experiencewith the dominantideology- 'universal' ideas do not becomeso or
remain so without these connectionsconstantly being made and remade. The
devilsdo, indeed,have lo be summoned.
In the period with which we are concernedthis leads us to a secondsource of
the traditionalistview - to an altogetherdifferentand more powerfulvoice than
that of the workingclass. It is a voice which takes both the dominantideology
and subordinateanxieties and moulds them together in a distinctivetone: that
of moral indignationand public outrage. We have in mind here the 'appeal to
commonsense', to the 'experienceof the majority' (often, nowadays,called the
'silent majority',just to enforcethe point that it is not sufficientlyheeded in the
counselsof the expertsand decision-makers),voicedby certain middle-classand,
especially,lower-middle-classor 'petty-bourgeois'social groups.Their presence
has increasinglybeen felt in public debates about moral and social problems;
they have led the campaignagainst 'permissiveness',and are especiallyactive
in writing letters to the local press and airing viewson 'phone-in' programmes.
(We may think of this voice, collectively,as the ideal audience for the radio
programme,Any Queations,or as the ideal correspondentsof Any A11awera.)
Common sense - good stout common sense - is a powerful bastion for those
groups which have mademany sacrificesin exchangefor a subalternposition 'in
the sun', and who have seen this progressivelyeroded on three fronts: by what
they think of as the 'rising materialism'of the workingclasses (too affluentfor
their own good); by the shiftless,work-shylayaboutswho 'have never done an
honestday's work in their lives'- the 'lumpenbourgeoisie'as well as the Jumpe11-
proletariat; and by the high-spendingstyle of consumption and progressive
culture of the wealthier,more cosmopolitan,progressiveupper-middleclasses.
These petty-bourgeoisgroups have been somewhat left behind in the pace of
advancingsocial change; they have remained relativelystatic in jobs, position,
attachments,places of residence, attitudes.They are still finnly in touch with
the fixed points of referencein the moral universe:family,school,church,town,
communitylife.Thesepeoplehaveneverhad the upper-classrewardsof wealthor
the working-classrewardsof solidarityto compensatethem for the sacrificesthey
havemadeto competeand succeed.All the rewardstheyhaveeverhad are 'moral'
ones.They have maintainedthe traditionalstandardsof moraland socialconduct;
they have identified- over-identified- with 'right thinking' in every sphere of
162 POLICINGTHECRISIS

life; and they havecome to regard themselvesas the backboneof the nation,the
guardiansof its traditionalwisdoms.Whereasworkingpeople have had to make
a life for themselvesin the negotiatedspaces of a dominantculture, this second
petty-bourgeoisgroupprojectsitselfas the embodimentand last defenceof public
morality- as a socialideal.Allhoughoften similarto other middlinggroups in the
society,the old middleclasses and the old petty bourgeoisie- the 'locals' - find
themselvesopposed to the 'cosmopolitans', who have moved most and fastest
in tenns of jobs and attitudes in the last two decades, who feel themselves'in
touch' with less localised networks of influence, who therefore take 'larger',
more progressiveviews on social questions- the real inheritorsof that degree
of post-war'aftluence' which Britainhas enjoyed.As the tide of permissiveness
and moral 'filth' has accumulated,and the middleand upperclasseshavelowered
the barriersof moral vigilanceand started to 'swing' a little with the permissive
trends,this lower-middle-class voicehas becomemorestrident,more entrenched,
moreoutraged,more wrackedwith socialand moralenvy,and more vigorousand
organisedin givingpublic expressionto its moral beliefs.This is the spear-head
of the moralbacklash,the watchdogsof public morality,the articulatorsof moral
indignation,the moral entrepreneurs,the crusaders.One of its principalcharac--
teristicsis its tendencyto speak,not on its own behalfor in its own interest,but to
identify its sectionalmoralitywith the whole nation- to give voice on behalf of
everybody.If subordinateclass interestshavecome, increasingly,to be projected
as a universalcry of moralshame, it is aboveall this petty-bourgeoisvoicewhich
has endowedit with its universalappeal.The point,once again,is not that the two
sourcesof traditionalism- workingclass and petty bourgeois- are the same, but
that, through the active mediationof the moral entrepreneurs,the two sources
have been weldedtogether into a single commoncause. This is the mechanism
which is activatedwhereverthe moral guardiansassert that what they believe is
also what the 'silent majority' believes.
The split within the middle class between its 'local' and 'cosmopolitan'
fractions has produced two opposed 'climates of thought' about central social
issuessince the war.The split is to be foundin the debateabout 'permissiveness'
and moral pollution, sexual behaviour,marriage, the family,pornographyand
censorship,drug-taking,dress, mores and manners,etc. The same polarisationis
evidentalso in the areaof socialwelfare,crime,penalpolicy,the policeand public
order.In promotingsome more liberalattitudesto crime and punishment,as well
as in showingitself more tolerant towardsdeviant moral and sexual behaviour,
'progressive'opinion- as the traditionalistssee it - has directlycontributedto
the speed at which moral values have been degraded,to the erosion of society's
standardsof publicconduct.The 'progressives'havepreparedthe groundfor the
moral and political crisis which we are all now experiencing.It is easy to see
why the lumpenshouldwant to polluterespectablemorality.But how havegood,
stalwart middle-classpeople been so bemused and misled? One explanationis
that they have been misled by a conspiracyof intellectuals- the liberal estab-
lishment,united in a conspiracyagainstthe old and tried ways of life, feedingon
its vulnerableheart.This was the tmiso11desclercs whichdrovethe Nixonadmin-
istrationintojustifyingto themselvesthe excessesof Watergate.But another,even
more convenientexplanationis that the 'progressives'havesimply lost their way
 EXPLANATIONS
AND IDEOLOCllESOF CRIME 163
- because they have been consislenllyout of touch with what the great, silenl
majoritythink and feel (they feel, of course. conservatively).Thus liberals have
been betrayedinto talkingand acling against common sense. In this scheme of
things,the silenl majority,commonsenseand conservativemoralattitudesare one
and the same, or mutuallyinterchangeable.So the referenceto 'common sense'
as a final moral appeal also conlracts quite complexaffiliationswith this larger
debate. In this convergence,common sense is irrevocablyharnessed10a tradi-
tionalistperspectiveon society,moralityand the preservationof socialorder.The
appealto commonsense thus fonns the basis for the constructionof traditionalist
coalitionsand alliances devoted to stoking up and giving public expressionto
moral indignationand rage.
What has beenvital to this 'revivalist'movemenlin traditionalistideologyis its
abilityto use that thematicstructureof 'Englishness'which wediscussedearlier,
to connecl with and draw out the otherwiseunarticulatedanxietiesand sense of
uneaseof thosesectionsof the workingclass who havefelt 'the earth moveunder
their feet'. And it is the potencyof those themesand images(work,discipline,the
family,and so on), rather lhan any detailed specificationof their content,which
has madethose connectionspossible.
By comparison,the 'liberalism' which has been the ethos of the cosmopolitan
middleclass has failed to touch those deep roots of experience.Identifyingitself
with 'progressive' developmentsof whatever nature, it has to all intents and
purposes presenteditself as the prime-moverand guardianof 'pennissiveness',
with all its attendantaffrontsto the lraditionalvaluesand standards.Similarly,its
liberalpositionon crime and social problemshas been too distant,too academic
to makeconnectionswith everydayexperience.It has arguedits case in statistics,
abstract analysis and in the 'quality' Sunday newspapers- and failed to offer
anythingcomparableto the direct impact or pragmaticimmediacyof the tradi-
tionalistworldview.
It is of critical importancenot to confuse these two sources of traditionalism
in Englishculture in the debate about crime, not to treat their appearanceinside
common public forms as a 'natural' process. It is important to distinguishthe
'rational core' of working-classtraditionalismfrom that of its petty-bourgeois
form. 1\vo different class realities are expressed inside this apparently single
stream of thought. We must remember the roots which both have in the real,
concretesocialand materialexperienceof their subordination.

EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIES
What we havetried to do so far in this chapter is to reconstructthe deep-structure
or social matrix of the 'traditionalist' views on crime which proved so instru-
mental in the public reaction to 'mugging' and which provides the support for
conservativepopularcampaignson crime in general.Moralpanicscome into play
when this deep-slructureof anxiety and traditionalismconnects with the public
definitionof crime by the media,and is mobilised.Now we can at lasl go back to
thequestionswe posedat the beginningconcerning'explanationsand ideologies',
How is crime commonlyexplained?What 'vocabulariesof motive', what social
ideas already arrangedin crediblechainsof explanationare drawn on, across the
164 POLICINGTHECRISIS

class and power spectrum, to provide an account of why 'mugging' suddenly

occurred out of the blue? What general lay ideologies about crime infonn these
explanations?
First, we have to make clear what we mean by an 'explanation'. We are not
here discussing fully coherent and adequately theorised explanations of crime,
such as we might find in the different schools and tendencies which make up
criminological theory. We shall see. at the end, that the more fragmentary, more
incoherent and contradictory kinds of explanations which have explanatory
power at the level of judicial reasoning, news and feature presentations in the
media, public expert and 'lay' opinion, and so on, do indeed relate to the more
elaborate 'criminological theories' which have gained currency at different times
in Britain, and other developed capitalist societies. But we have started, in fact,
at the opposite end. When the journalist, or the judge, or the members of the
ordinary public have to respond to, or explain, troubling events, like 'mugging',
they tend to draw, often in a piecemeal and unretlexive manner, on the social
images, the 'ideas of society', the sources of moral anxiety, the scattered meanings
which frame their everyday experience in order to construct, out of them, social
accounts which carry credibility. These accounts are not constructed afresh out of
each individual's head. They draw on the publicly objectivated 'vocabularies of
motives' already available in the public language - the available field of practical
ideologies. To find an explanation for a troubling event, especially an event which
threatens to undennine the very fabric of society, is of course the beginnings of
a sort of 'control'. If we can only understand the causes of these events, then we
are half-way to bringing them under our control. To give shocking and random
events 'meaning' is to draw them once again into the framework of the rational
order of 'things understood' - things we can work on, do something about, handle,
manage.
The explanations we construct are not in the normal sense 'logical'. They are
not internally consistent and coherent. They do not obey a strict logical protocol.
In part this is because (as we shall see in a moment) we do not construct such
'explanations' out of nothing. We work with the elements of explanation which
are already available, which lie to hand, which seem to have some relevance to
the problem at hand. These bits and pieces are really the fragments of other, often
earlier, more coherent and consistent theoretical elaborations which have lost
their internal consistency over time, fragmented, become sedimented in ordinary
'common sense'. Gramsci calls them traces: 'the historical process ... has left an
infinity of traces gathered together without the advantage of an inventory' .44 So
when we use these fragments of other ideological systems to construct expla-
nations, we are operating rather like Levi-Strauss's primitive myth-maker, the
bricoleu,;who assembles the oddments and fragments of his culture, combined
in ever new ways, to construct meanings and to reduce the world to orderly shape
and meaningful categories: the bricks and mortar for a 'house of theory'. 45 It is
perfectly clear, for example, that, though Britain is by now a thoroughly secularised
society, in one sense, there is hardly a developed argument or an important social
or moral attitude we are likely to encounter about, say, marriage or sexuality,
which does not, in either a positive or negative way, draw on or refer to religious
- indeed often specifically Christian - modes of thought. Christianity continues
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOOll:SOF CRIME 165
to provide 'traces' whichenablesecular men to 'think' their secularworld.Thus,
as Marx once observed,'The traditionor all the dead generationsweighs like a
nightmareon the brain of the living.'~6
When the ordinary lay public constructs explanations,it imagines that it is
doing so free from ideologicaland societalconstraint,far away from theorising
and scientificdiscourse;but in fact,all explanationsare constructed,not by being
produced out of the internal fabric of the mind, but by being cast within the
existing fields of explanation,the socially maintained'vocabulariesof motive',
objectivatedover time. It is from these larger 'systems of thought' that, in fact,
their credibilityas well as their coherencederives.
We can simply indicate here the three main levels at which explanationsof
crime arise: in thejudiciary,in the media,and amongstthe 'ordinary lay public'.
Judgesdo oftenelaborateon the socialand moral 'meaning'of the crimestheyare
judgingor thecriminalstheyare sentencing.But,on the whole,theydo not provide
very elaborated 'explanations'. Retribution,condemnation,deterrence are the
primarytasks of the judge, not providingconvincingexplanationsof crime.This
does not meanthat the act of explainingis not involvedinjudicial homilies- only
that theyare extremelycondensed,and tendto be drawnfroma verylimitedstock.
A long disquisitionon the psychologicalor societalcauses for a crime would be
consideredunusual,and is normallybracketedout of considerationby the alter•
native 'logic' which the judiciary operates:the 'logic' of judicial reasoningand
legal precedent,of plausibility,not motivation.Crime for gain,judges perfectly
well understand.It is a pieceof wickedness,of course,but does not requiremuch
further speculation.Crime by insanityrequires much greater argumentand skill
for defence lawyers to establish,and judges are notoriouslyreluctant to accept
such pleas.When in the Handsworthcase the motivationsof the 'muggers'could
not be made easily to fit either of these ready·to•wearexplanatorymodels,Lord
Chief JusticeWidgeryexperiencedsome considerablelogical unease:

His lordship also obtained some assistance from the observationsof Lord
Justice James, the single judge who refused the applications(for appeal) in
the first instance.He had pointedout that in Storey's case the court was quite
ignorant of what his motivationwas and that the only date when it could be
said with any confidencethat he should have fully maturedand rid himselfof
whateverpersonalitydefect that caused the activitywas when he would reach
his early thirtiesand 'this particulartendencyhas burntout' .47

PaulStoreywouldhavehad an easier passagefrom the Lord Chief Justicehad his

actionsbeen more palpablyand convenientlyexplicablewithinone or anotherof
the already establishedexplanationsof crime. (We note, at the same time, that a
'theory' of crime resultingfroma psychologicaldefectand the notionof criminals
at the mercyof uncontrollableimpulses(whichthen in maturity'bum themselves
out') are both implicit in the judge's remarks; a whole psychologistictheory
of crime is, in fact, embeddedand condensed within the Lord Chief Justice's
remarks.)
Perhaps the most elaboratedattempts to developexplanationsof crime occur
in the press, especiallyin feature articles.That, we suggested,was because it is
166

the essentialfunclionor featurearticlesto probe into the backgroundsand causes

of events, and to explore explanatorymodels.As we saw earlier, there seem to
be a varietyof explanatorymodels of crime in play in the press, though in fact
the range - lookedat in terms of their 'logics' rather 1hanin terms of the specific
argumentsthey deploy - is much more limited.Even 'environmental'explana-
tions, which figure strongly where the Handsworth'mugging' was concerned,
reallyoperate withina very tight set of constraints.
The range of explanatoryparadigms,then, is very limited,and these limited
basic structuresof thinking about crime form the frameworkwithin which the
variety of specific explanationshave to be constructed.These basic paradigms
operateby providinganswersto a commo11 set of sharedquestionsor problems-
it is these which pose the 'criminal question' for these paradigms.We have
seen earlier how the debate around the Handsworthsentenceswas more or less
polarisedaroundthe 'liberal' and 'traditionalist'positions- in the variousfonns
of presstreatment,injudicialcomments,and in both the publicand privateletters.
The reason why these two positions (and their complex concrete variants) are
able to take the role of positionswithin a 'debate'is that they are fundamentally
organisedby, and addressthemselvesto, the same set of questions.
Central to this set of questions is the 'nature' attributedto the criminal - his
motivationor state of mind, which polarisesthe liberal and traditionalpositions
aroundthe degreeof choice involvedin action,or - in more legalistictenns - the
degree of responsibilitythe criminalhas. This connectswith deeperassumptions
about the conceptionof 'human nature' which is attributedto the criminal, and
thus withconceptionsof the relationbetweenthe criminaland society.Only from
thesefundamentalpositionsabout the natureof crime,the individualand society
(i.e. the underpinningsof 'causal' explanationsof crime) is the final question
answerable- what the society's responseto crime should be: the objectivesof
penal policyand punishment.
We do not find elaborate and extensiveresponses to these questions within
the various 'bits' of lay explanationswhich we saw earlier, but neverthelessvery
similarpositionsare implicitin the attributionof motive,'nature', causation,and
so on to the criminal in everydayspeech. But they are not derivedfrom crimi-
nologicaltheorisingor judicial reasoning- they are preciselythe attemptat lay
explanationwhichmust 'make sense' of crime- connectit with their experience-
in common-senseterms: that is, with whatever'bits' of culturalknowledgeare at
hand and seen to connect.
In this final section, we shall try to develop a typologyof these explanations
which will showhow the answersto the differentquestionscohere,but,also, how
what appear to be the two polar positions in the lexicon of crime - the liberal
and traditionalist- are themselves interconnected:how they form a 'unity in
difference'of the availableideologiesof crime. In very simplifiedtenns, we can
identifytwo basic 'lay ideologies'of crime, two basic explanatoryframeworks.
The conservativeexplanationof crime lays fundamentalstress on the primi-
tivenessofcrime,andthestateof mindleadingup to it. It is predicatedon theeternal
strugglebetween Good and Evil. Human nature is fundamentallynasty, brutish
and vile. But the seed of Good is planted in us all. It requires,of course, eternal
vigilanceon the part both of societyand of conscience.All of us are involvedin
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOF CRIME 167

this perpetualspiritualwarfareagainst the 'evil that is in us'. Most of us manage

to subdue the Devil. For the explicitly religious version, the submissionto the
authorityof God and the morallaw; for the secularisedversion,the submissionto
social authorityand hierarchy,are the armour-platesof consciencewhichhelp us
to surmountEvil and do Good.The criminal,however,has chosennot lo fightthe
good fight. He has embracedEvil. This puts him outsidethe humancommunity,
makeshim something'less than human', somethingpre-human,uncivilised.That
is his choice;but the wagesof choosingEvil are heavy.The criminalrepresentsa
threat to us all, both to our physicalsafety,our moralduty and our socialcode.We
mustbe protectedagainsthim.And a clear warningmust be deliveredlo all others
who for the sake of gain, impulseor base motiveare temptedto followhim in this
path to unrighteousness.There is a sort of calculus- both divineand utilitarian-
by which the greaterthe crime, the more severethe punishment.
The liberaltheoryof crime is different.Here,the criminalis seen as backward,
or bored, or confused,or ignorant,or poor, or under-socialised:'Forgive them,
for they know not what they do.' If the conservativeview of crime is pure Old
Testament,the liberal view is the New Testamentin the form of a social gospel.
The individualagentis a weakvessel,with the powerof forceslargerthan himself.
Only the mechanismsof socialisationand good fortune keep the majorityof us
on the straightand narrow.When these 'socialising'mechanismsbreak down,all
of us are vulnerableto the revivalof anti-socialinstinctsand impulses.Crime is
at root a 'social problem'. It arises, not from some fundamentalpremisesof the
whole moral universe,and not from some major structuralfault of the social or
moral system, but from particularfailures,particularlapses in a structurewhich
remains,in largemeasure,sound. Social problemsrequiresolutions.If the social
or psychologicalprocessescan be remediedand improved,the possibilityof such
behaviourreoccurringcan be minimised.Meanwhile,of course (here the liberal
version makes its vital concessionto the greater fundamentalcoherence of the
conservativeparadigm), public safety must be preserved, the guilty punished
(for few are totally withoutresponsibility)as weJIas rehabilitated,the innocent
protected.
Theseare caricatures,no more.They are not intendedas exhaustivesketchesof
the content of public consciousnessabout crime; and, even as sketches,they are
patentlyadequate.We offer them simply to indicateone of the most fundamental
principlesof structurationin the body of common attitudes widely diffused in
our societyon the theme of crime and punishment.They providea line of articu-
lation which distinguishesbetween the idea that crime is an evil thing, part of
the dark forces of nature and human nature, beyondour rationalcontrol,against
whichmen and society in their deep revulsionmust be protected- a fundamental
breachin 'the order of the moral universe'- and the idea that crime derivesfrom
the weaknessand fallibilityof human arrangements,whether of our society or
our personalities,part of the structureof human frailty,which, in punishing,we
must also rescue, buttress,protectand graduallystrengthenby refonn. It is hard
to give these root-imagesany more precise legal, ideologicalor indeedhistorical
content.Yet, betweenthem, they commandand constructthe skeletalsyntax,the
elementary forms, of the collective mental discourse of a great many English
peopleabout crime and its control.
168

A great host of diverse ideas are gathered under the shadows of these two struc-
tures of thought and feeling - and the 'order' they exhibit is by no means a coherent
one in terms of the way these ideas fit together. For example, the 'traditional'
or conservative structure exhibits many of the features of a system of religious
thought, though it is only ambiguously related to religious themes and ideas, and
by now draws explicitly on religious beliefs very obliquely, if at all. The 'order
of the moral universe', to which this view of crime is attached, often assumes a
hierarchical shape; it carries a deep commitment to the idea of social hierarchy
and order. But when we ask what lies at the summit of that 'order' and guarantees
it in its defence against evil and disorder, we are hard put to decide whether it
is some notion of God, or 'good', whether these are the ideological correlatives
of Custom, Tradition or of Society itself as an abstract entity. Similarly, when
we speak of the 'frailty of human arrangements' - a central idea in the liberal
structure- we must be aware that there are an enormous variety of ways in which
this 'frailty' reveals itself: the sick and the mad are 'weak' - but so are the 'poor'.
And the idea that these groups of the frail and vulnerable have found themselves
'at risk' in the struggle for human existence may entail three contrary notions:
first, that the weakness is inside us, it is a vulnerability of the mind, of the spirit,
of character; second, that it is the resull of social arrangements which must be
amended; third that it results from social forces outside us, which shape us 'what
e're we will'. There are psychologistic, reformist and deterministic variantsin the
liberal ideology about crime.
These two broad structures of common-sense ideas are best thought of as
'workings up' of our pre-theoretical knowledge about crime. They embody the
'sum total of what everybody knows about' crime; an 'assemblage of maxims,
morals, proverbial nuggets of wisdom, values and beliefs, myths and so forth,
the theoretical integration of which requires considerable intellectual fortitude
in itself' .~1 These are the categories which most of us who have no professional
knowledge of, or responsibility for, crime and its control, employ in order to
'think' the reality of crime which confronts us every day. These are the practical
ideologieswhich supply 'the institutionally appropriate rules of conduct' for the
majority.49 This is the level at which ideologies become real, enter experience,
shape behaviour, alter conduct, structure our perception of the world - the level
of ideas as a 'material force' .50 'What is taken for granted as knowledge in society
comes to be coextensive with the knowable. or at any rate provides the framework
within which anything not yet known will come to be known in the future.'51 'Thal
atmosphere of unsystematised and unfixed inner and outer speech which endows
our every instance of behaviour and action and our every "conscious" state with
meaning.'' 1
Behind and informing these practical ideologies, though in no simple one-to-
one correspondence. lie the more articulated, 'worked-up', elaborated and
theorised ideologies of crime which have shaped the operation of the juridical
apparatuses of the state and the work of its intellectual exponents over time.
Once again we can do no more than crudely sketch in some of the main positions
which have emerged at this more theoretical level. The purpose of attempting this
complicated - and largely unwritten - 'social history' of the theories of crime and
punishment in summary form at all is twofold. First, because when wetry to give
 EXPu\NATIONSAND IDOOLOOIES
OF CRIME 169
the contentof our two fundamentalcommon-sensestructuresany greaterrichness
of detail,then we are obligedto acknowledgethat this detail,and the logicswhich
inform them, have been imperfectlyand haphazardlyborrowedfrom the larger
'universes' of social discoursesabout crime: the theoriesof crime have left their
'trace', though not their 'inventory', as Gramsci remarked,on the structure of
common-senseideas aboutcrime. But the secondreasonis that these theoriesdid
not elaboratethemselvesout of thin air; they are not only mental constructions.
They arose because of the particular needs, the historicalposition, of the great
social classes and class alliances which have had the control and containment
(and thus the definition)of crime at their command- at differentpoints through
the developmentof the British (and related)social formation.Or, rather - since
this way of putting it suggests,erroneously,that each emergentclass carries its
conceptionof law and crime 'like a number plate on its back'' 3 - they are the
greatconstructionsof crimeand the law whichhaveemergedthroughthe struggle
betweenthe dominantand subordinateclassesat particularmomentsand stagesin
the developmentof capitalistsocial formationsand their civil,juridical, political
and ideologicalstructures:'Each mode of productionproducesits specificlegal
relations,politicalforms,etc."'4 Laws,Marxstated,help to 'perpetuatea particular
mode of production', though the influence they exert 'on the preservationof
existingconditionsof distributionand the effect they therebyexerton production
has to be examinedseparately'. The ways of conceivingcrime, society and the
law,elaboratedin these differenttheoreticalperspectives,and materialisedin the
practicesand apparatusesof the legaland criminaljustice systems,remainactive
in structuringcommon sense and 'weigh on the brain of living'. Thus, uncon-
sciously,oftenincoherently,in thinkingthequestionof crimewithinthe framework
of common-senseideas,the great majorityof us have no other mentalequipment
or apparatus,no other social categoriesof thought,apart from those which have
been constructedfor us in other momentsof time, in other spaces in the social
formation.Each of the phasesin the developmentof our socialformationhas thus
transmitteda numberof seminal ideas about crime to our generation;and these
'sleeping forms' are made active again whenevercommon-sensethinkingabout
crime uncoils itself. The ideas and social imagesof crime which have thus been
embodiedin legaland politicalpracticeshistoricallyprovidethe presenthorizons
of thoughtinside our consciousness;we continueto 'think' crime in them - they
continueto think crime thl'oughus. In conclusionwe want to identifyone or two
of these seminalideas which still seem to carry force in our common-senseideas
of crime and the law.
Early ideas of law wereclosely bound up with the notionof their divine origin
and guarantee.Although law regulatedthe intercourseof men, includingtheir
secular life, it had come from God or the gods; and in so far as its dispensation
and interpretationwas exercised by priestly caste or by ruler and king, these
preservedthe divine,god-givenelementin the law- as wellas the anti-god,rebel-
lious element againstthe givenorder - entailedin the notionof 'crime'. Ancient
law had another source - custom. The customs and folk-waysof the group or
communityconstitutedsomethingas 'sacred' as the word of the gods;and indeed,
since custom powerfully regulated such a large proportion of man's secular
relations- especiallythe crucial relationsof kinship and property- the 'breach
170 POLICINGTHECRISIS

of custom' (i.e. 1hegoing against the customaryways of the people)entailed the

most powerfulof sanclions.Althoughfar away from us now in time, there can be
little doubt that someof these ideas - carriedforwardand embedded,in modified
form,in more modernsystemsof law and ideas of crime - providethe base-line
for many of the ill-definedbut powerfulsentimentswhich go to make up what
we have called the 'tradilionalist'atlitude:the belief that crime is a breach,both
againstthe divinemoral law and againstthe community;lhe associationof crime
with Evil; the link between'the law' and the traditionalcustomary'ways' of the
people; the concept of punishmentas a sanction against deviation; above all,
the associationof the law and right conduct with hierarchy,authority and with
the weight and precedent- the 'sacredness' - of the past. It would be hard to
comprehendsomeof our more primitivefeelingsabout the lawand crime without
understandingtheir roots in ancientideas and formsof the law.
Maine conceivedthe shift from ancient to modern ideas of the law in terms
of two, connectedmovements:the shift 'from Status to Contract': and the shift,
'Starting,as fromone terminusof history,froma conditionof societyin whichall
the relationsof personsare summedup in the relationsof the Family ... towards
a phase of social order in which all these relationsarise from the free agreement
of Individuals.'55 The latter conception of law, which Maine called 'contract
societies', was the product of The Enlightenment;or, to put it another way, it
was part of that immenserevolutionin structuresand outlookswhich signalled
the emergenceof bourgeoissociety. Classical conceptionsof the law and the
'classical' definition of crime stem from this early 'liberal' fonn of bourgeois
society.To this the great exponentsof 'possessiveindividualism'and the great
'socialcontract'theorists(Hobbes,Locke,Montesquieu,Rousseau),as wellas the
great codifiersof the criminal law (Beccaria)made their contribution.The 'free
individual'was enshrinedat the heart and centre of this idea of the law - as well
as of its opposite,crime;the 'possessiveindividual'was drivennot by 'sin' but by
interestand egoism;law,the slate and 'society' were the self-imposedconstraints
which free and sovereignindividualstook upon themselves- in the form of a
'contract' in society.This conceptionwas givena classic fonn by Beccaria:
Laws are the conditions under which men, naturally independent, united
themselves in society. Weary of living in a continual stale of war ... they
sacrificedone part of it, to enjoy the rest in peace and security.But ... it was
also necessaryto defend it from the usurpationof each individualwho would
alwaysendeavournot only to take away from the mass his own portion,but to
encroachon that of others.Somemotives,therefore.that strikethe senses,were
necessaryto preventthe despotismof each individualfrom plungingsociety
into its fonner chaos.Such motivesare the punishmentsestablishedagainstthe
transgressorsof the law.Sli

Althoughthe classicalconceptionsof law and crime were often cast in 'natural'

terms- naturalrights, naturallaw - the particularinterestsand historicaldestiny
of the emergent bourgeoisie,linked with the protection of property,the ration-
ality of the marketand the 'rational' basis of state power,of Leviathan,were all
clearly 'universalised'within it. Without the traces of these ideologiesand the
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOF CRIME 171
practiceswhich realised them, we literally could not now think certain modern
legal concepts. The doctrine of 'individual responsibility', which is a corner
stone of judicial practice,beginshere; so does the conceptof the inviolabilityof
'contracts freely entered into', and of the 'contract of free individualswith one
anotherin society', the sacred foundationand guaranteeof aJIother contracts;so
does the equationof the 'person' in law with privateproperty;so does the root-
belief that the law defendsand protectsthat which,in turn, protectsand defends
us- and thus that crime is a sign thategoismhas escapedthe discipliningbondsof
social life, and 'gone on the rampage'. Since the 'free individual'was sovereign,
men could chooseconduct conduciveto, or destructiveof, 'society' - hence the
doctrineof responsibilityforcrime.But becausemenwerealso 'rational', theyhad
givenup somethingto secureeverything.Man's rationalitywas identifiedwith the
socialconsensusof free individuals-equal beforethe law; it was also 'in practice
always pitted against the passions of an unthinkingself-interest'.51 This highly
specificimage of rationalitywas made the basis for a theory of 'universalman':
as in its counterpart,politicaleconomy,bourgeoisman becamethe paradigmfor
'natural' man, for man as such.
The conceptionsof freedom,of contract,of responsibilityand of 'the rational'
generatedin the liberal or classical revolutionconstitutethe core of some of our
most profound 'modern' ideas about law and crime. But the actual processes
of the legal system, in their day-to-daymanifestations,though based on these
presuppositions,have been extensivelymodifiedby a subsequentchange in the
structureof legal ideas:the impactof positivismand the beginningsof the 'deter-
ministicpositions', which have so profoundlyshaped modern notions of crime,
and which were enshrinedat the heart of the criminal system in what has been
calledthe 'neo-classicalrevision'.The nee-classicalrevisionwas the product,not
of competitivemarketbourgeoissociety,but of industrialcapitalismas an increas-
ingly organisedcorporate social system. Into the classical conceptionsor free
contractthere graduallypenetratedthe sense of all those powerfulforces which
modifiedand constrainedthe free play of free wills. Bentham,whoserationality
so ofien drove him beyond the limits which the rationalityof market individu-
alism assumed in his own time, had, as early as 1778,called for a systematic
study of crime and periodicalstatisticalreturnson criminals;they would,he said,
constitute'a kindof politicalbarometer'.'1 Andas industrialcapitalismremadethe
worldin its image,it becameprogressivelyclear that not the contractedindividual
but the contractedclasses, and the social conditions they lived and worked in,
were the shapinghistoricalagencies.In this new framework,the 'workingclasses'
and the 'dangerousand criminalclasses' assumeda new and menacingidentity:
what Chevalier has called the metamorphosisof 'the criminal theme into the
socialtheme' hadcommenced."The impactof Marxand Durkheimon legalideas
was a consequenceof this attempt to think crime in terms of its social origins.
In the nee-classicaltradition, though the doctrine of 'individual responsibility'
remainedundiminishedat its centre,men's actionsgraduallycame to seem more
and more shaped by forces which were not under his control, in societieswhich
in their size and complexitydwarfed man's reason and will. The great English
investigationsinto the social conditions of the industrialand criminal classes,
from Mayhewto Booth,and the great amassingof 'moral statistics', using crime
172 POUCJNGTHECRISIS

as a 'barometer' of social disorganisation- to which the French investigators,

Durkheim'sforerunners,madesuch a contribution- beganto reshapepopularas
well as legalconceptionsof crime.The era of biological,psychologicalpositivism
and of sociologicaldeterminism- alongside the era of developed industrial
capitalism- had commenced;besidethe law there arose the 'science of crime' -
criminology,the studyof the conditionsandetiologyof the criminalimpulse,with
its root in earlier 'moral statistics'.
We must note that the movementswhich shape this second transformationof
legal thought and practice - like the first transformation- do not occur within
the legal apparatus,but modify it through their impact on it from outside.As
Pearsonhas noted,60 some elementsof this newstrain of thoughtabout crime are
visible in the work of many of the nineteenth-century'moral investigators'of
city life; but its codificationand systematisationtook place within criminology
and in its relationsto (and borrowingsfrom) other 'humansciences'- sociology,
psychologyand psychiatry.We cannot here leave our main theme to follow the
shifts and developmentsin the theorisingof the aetiologyof crime,61 but merely
focus on the emergenceof psychologisticand environmentalistdetenninism as
two of the crucial tendenciesalong which legal practicealigneditself.
There is no direct and simple transferenceof these ideas into legal practice
from criminology,though as Cohen has argued,62 the deeply pragmatic nature
of English criminology has promoted persistent and close connections with
policy-making,especiallyin the humanitarianreformof correctionalinstitutions.
However,the actual modificationof the law to take account of this 'positivist
revolution'dependedon the expansionand organisedinterventionof professional
and semi-professionalagencies.The two crucial apparatuseswith respect to the
criminallaw are the 'psychiatricprofessions'and the developmentof social-work
agencies within the state. These institutions have been the 'practical bearers'
of these ideologiesin the modificationof the law. They have been the agencies
which have not only modifiedthe ideas of criminalresponsibilityin the law, but
providedpracticalalternativesfor the dispositionof the criminal- therapeuticand
treatment-basedalternativesto 'correctional' penal policy. If classical law was
formulatedwithin the /aistet-fail'estate of early capitalism,these reformulations
have takenshape withinthe organisationof an interventionistWelfareState.
We cannot trace the complexdevelopmentof these two main strands in the
modificationof the criminallaw in this contextany further.61 We can only note its
broad parameters.First, both are organisedby an individualistdeterminism- the
boundariesof their theoreticalhorizonsare largely limited to the psychological
interactionof the individualand the family,though social work is theoretically
more ambiguousthan clinical psychiatryin this sense. Indeed, the (historically
derived)individual-centredcase-workorientationof social work was one of the
predisposingfactors leading to its being professionallysubmergedunder what
has been called the 'psychiatricdeluge' - with psychiatryas social work's main
'theoreticalorganiser'.Both,then,occupythe same 'theoreticalspace' (individu-
alism) thoughwith ratherdifferentoriginsand outcomes.
Second,both have historicallymodifiedthe criminallaw - but as 'exemptions'
fromits centralprinciples,ratherthan transformingthoseprinciples.They operate
on the basis of demonstratingthat individualcases do not meet the criteria of
 EXPLANATIONS
ANDIDEOLOGIESOF CRIME 173

'individual responsibility'because of exempti11g factors - the individualshave

in some sense a 'diminishedresponsibility'. In the psychiatricinstance,this is
demonstrated'clinically': the individualis in need of 'treatment'. The principles
of exemptionin social work are looser - they includepredisposinginadequacies
of varioussorts; and the possibilityis held out to the court that the individualwill
respond to rehabiliLative personal contact - supervision.The only exceptionto
this essentiallymargi11alstatus of the liberal revisionsto classical positionson
crime within the legal apparatushas been restrictedto the sphereof operationof
the juvenile court, where children have been acceptedas incapableof 'criminal
responsibility'as a socialcategory.61 This is the oneelementof the legalapparatus
withinwhichsocial-workprincipleshaveactuallycometo dominateclassicallegal
principles.(Currentdemandsfor the reorganisationof the court and the removal
or modificationof the 1969Childrenand YoungPerso11 's Act are aimed in part at
removingthe 'welfarist'dominancein this sector.)
Third,we must notethe reflectionof this marginalpositionofliberalismwithin
the law in the failure of the 'liberal imagination'fundamentallyto touch and
reorganisepopularconceptionsof crime and law.The psychiatricframeconnects
only in the broadestsense- in addingsomematerialsand illustrationsfor the more
fundamentalcommon-sensedesignationof the incomprehensibleas 'he must be
made' - while the social-workdevelopmenthas, more often, beenseen as 'soft' -
excusingthe criminal for his actions.Fuel has been added to this conceptionin
the recent highly publicised 'misjudgements'and 'errors' of social workers in
relation to cases of 'child-battering'and the 'sexuality' of their young charges.
These instanceshave providedpowerfulwnmunitionto the traditionalistassault
on the 'soft liberalism'of the welfareagencies.
The connectionsof this liberal 'reforming' ideologyto the workingclass are
extremely complex. At the most fundamenlallevel, it has been the organised
struggle of the working class which has played a crucial role in forcing the
expansionof the state in a welfare-orientateddirection.However,the social-policy
orientationof the LabourParty(Fabianreformism)has been massivelyshapedby
the new petty bourgeoisie.65 The social-democraticdemandsfor equality,welfare
and the 'caring society' have taken a form which is strongly structuredby the
conceptionsof these 'disinterested'liberalprofessionsand semi-professions.
Thus, at one level, there are powerful material connections between this
reformist ideology and the social-democraticreformism of much of English
working-classpolitics - it touches crucial demands for material improvement,
security in the face of the vagaries of capitalism, and the greater equality of
provisionof materialand culturalresources,etc. But there are crucialambiguities
in the waythe classexperiencesits ownapparentachievement.Suspicionsof 'state
snoopers'. distrustof the activitiesof middle-class'do-gooders', 'bleedingheart'
liberals who are over-interestedin 'good causes', a WelfareState which spends
their money on immigrantsand 'scroungers', and which has at the same time
failed to fulfil its promisesto the diligentand hard working- all these recapitulate
both the divisionof 'mental' and 'manual' labourwhich we notedearlier,and the
internal segmentingof the workingclass itself: the 'respectablesand the rough'
and the 'racial' fractioning.This contradictoryworking-classattitudeto 'welfare
reformism'in the legal-criminalarea reflectsa fundamentallycontradictoryreality
174 POLICINOTHECRISIS

- one whichdiffersfrom the promisesheld out by the WelfareStale as the means

of achievingthe ideal of the 'just society'.
In addition,the liberal-reformingideology- thoughit connectsmostconcretely
with thesematerialquestions- is least sure-footedon the terrainof crime.We saw
earlierhoweach of the central themesof the traditionalistworldviewtouchedand
drew into its ambit the questionof crime. The liberalideologymanagesno such
concreteaddressto the working-classexperienceof crime - it remainsdistanced
and abstracted.Even within the Labour Party, the otherwisesolid alliance with
the liberal ideology has always been profoundly ambiguous on the topic of
crime - involvingboth 'liberalising' legislation,e.g. on the juvenile court, but
also profoundlyrepressivemeasures,e.g. the implementationof the Mountbatten
reporton secureaccommodationfor long-termprisoners.66 The relativeweakness
of the liberal position on crime, in all the different terrains we have examined
(withinthe legal apparatus,in relationto popularconsciousness,and at the level
of organisedpolitics),constitutesa crucialfeatureof that position- its fundamen-
tally defensivenature.In relationto crime, liberalreformismremainsessentially
on the defensive- reasonablystrong in good times, and capable for a time of
selling the pace of reform, but capablealso of being rapidlyeroded when times
are not so good, and placed under pressureby the more conventionalstructureof
beliefs about crime. One of the most notable featuresof the 'mugging' episode,
for example,is the fact that, under the pressureof a mountingpublic scare about
muggings,this liberal-humanitarian-refonnist perspectivemore or less tempo-
rarily disappearsfrom, for example,editorialsin the newspapers,and appearsin
subordinatedand defensivepositionselsewhere.In terms of the common-sense
imagination,liberalviewson crimerepresenta fragileandcompensatorystructure
of ideas. Under conditionsof stress they do not possessenough of a social base
or real ideologicalpurchaseto determinethe nature of public reactionsto crime,
once the traditionalcategoriesof thought have been mobilisedby way of social
anxietyand moralentrepreneurship.
In this chapterwe havetried lo pull together,in an inevitablyspeculativeway,a
numberof themesand problems.By trying to trace the reactionto crime from its
source in the media (whereit is subject to complexstructuring)right throughto
its variedexpressionin 'public opinion', we have been trying to underminetwo,
apparentlyopposed,but actuallycomplementary,false propositionswhich impair
much of radical thoughton the questionof crime. The first is that the tradition-
alism of the public temperon crime is the productof a conspiracyon the part of
the ruling classesand their allies in the media.The secondis that there really is a
singlethingcalled 'Englishculture'or 'Englishthought',and that it is overwhelm-
ingly conservativein its essence.Neither,we argue, adequatelyaccountsfor the
contradictorycharacter of 'English ideologies'. It is of the utmost importance,
then, to try to penetrate beneath these convenient 'unities' to their underlying
antagonisms.This led us to exploresome of the processesby which ideas have
been hegemo,iisedby the ruling classes in capitalistsociety.Such a critique will
not, of itself, rupture the structuresof hegemony,but it forms one of the first
requirements,a necessarycondition,of that break.Beyondthat rupturelie alterna-
tiveswhichare as yet only partiallyand fitrullyglimpsed-which are presentonly
whenthe dominatedclassesalign themselveswith their historicalmovement,and
 EXPLANATIONS
AND IDEOLOOIESOF CRIM6 175
developstrategiesof action and modesof thoughtwhich havebrokenthe internal
structureswhich maintaintheir subordination.In that alternativespace also lies
the tenninationof the existingprocessesof 'criminalisation':an alternativeview
of crime and the law as the product of antagonisticsocial forces, and of their
incidenceand operationas one of the principalmeansby whichclass domination
is secured.The lawremainsone of the centralcoerciveinstitutionsof the capitalist
state; and it is coupled in the most fundamentalway with the structureof crime,
with the waycrime is perceived,and in the waycrime forcesthosewho are subor-
dinate in societyto shelter beneatha hegemonicorder:

But when men become separated or feel themselvesseparated from tradi-

tional institutions,there arises,along with the spectreof the lost individual,the
spectreof lost authority.Fearsand anxietiesrun over the intellectuallandscape,
like masterlessdogs. Inevitablyin such circumstancesmen's minds turn to the
problemof authority.67
It is with the posingof this problem- the 'problemof authority'- thatour analysis
can no longerremainat the level of analysingideologiesof crime.We have tried
in this chapter to pose and answer questionsabout how complexideologiesof
crime providethe basis, in certain moments,for cross-classalliances in support
of 'authority'. But authority itself is not discoverablehere - the conditionsand
fonns of its exercise,the conditionsunder which support for authorityneeds to
be mobilisedactively,cannot be formed in ideologiesof crime.The 'problem of
authority' directs us to a different level of analysis, a differentterrain of social
organisation:as Gramsciput it:
A 'crisis of authority'is spoken of: this is preciselythe crisis of hegemony,or
generalcrisis of the State.611
Part III
 7
Crime, Law and the State

At the simplest level, what the term 'mugging' refers to is a crime; hence the
reaction to 'mugging' can be understood as a normal exercise of judicial power.
This is the common-sense view of the 'mugging' phenomenon, and we must
acknowledge, once again, the force which it commands. As an explanation,
however - as we have tried to show - the conventional crime/crime-control
penpective is wholly inadequate. The immediate, common-sense reference
which 'mugging' ca1Tiesis once again in wide usage: a pattern of street crimes
against innocent victims perpetrated, sometimes with unexpected violence, for
gain. But the moment we ask: where did the term come from, and how did it
enter into its common-sense usage, and what meanings and associations does it
mobilise, its immediacy and transparency cloud over. There is more here than
meets the eye. The police became. somewhere between 1971 and I 972, alerted to
its growing menace; and the popular sensitivity to it remains high, especially in
certain urban areas (see Chapter 10). But as soon as we ask what groups are most
involved, against whom are the police mobilising in this period, we find ourselves,
again, in deeper water than we expected. Hypothetically, relations between black
youth and the police in the ghetto areas could have reached their present low
ebb because blacks have become progressively engaged in 'muggings'. It is a
deduction which lacks plausibility. The long deterioration in relations between
the police and blacks began in the late 1960s not the early I 970s; it pre-dated the
'mugging' panic. The evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on
Police/Immigrant Relations refers to a range of issues contributing to the serious
and mutual erosion of trust between the two groups;• 'mugging' is not prominent
among them. The many cases reported in Derek Humphry's book Police Power
and Black Peoplepre-date the 'mugging' panic.2 If a simple sequence of any kind
can be deduced here. then it is deteriorating relations between police and blacks,
followed by a rise in 'mugging'. This is not yet a causal sequence; the chain
of circumstances lacks all its proper mediations. But the hypothetical sequence
posed above is actually a more plausible one than the common-sense one, now -
we believe - widely accepted. The 'mugging' panic emerges, not from nowhere,
but out of a field of extreme tension, hostility and suspicion sustained by the
relations between the police and the black communities. Crime, alone, does not
explain its genesis.
Once it did appear, the scare about 'mugging' in the 1972-3 period clearly
touched a nerve of public anxiety. Again, this looks, on the face of it, as if street
crime rose, the public grew alarmed, and that alarm triggered off an official
and judicial response; that is the common view. It carries greater credibility if
180 POLICINGTHECRISIS

'mugging' is the first panic of its kind to appear, and if the genesis of public
anxietywas basedclearly in the 'hard evidence'of the rising rate of street crime.
That is not the case.We haveindicated,and will e,caminein greaterdetail shortly,
the successionof 'moralpanics' focusedon thedevianceandanti-social~haviour
of youth whichspiral throughthe whole post-warperiod.In this cycle 'mugging'
is a relative latecomer.Indeed, it arises in the middle of a general moral panic
about the 'rising rate of crime'; far from triggeringinto existencewhat does not
previouslyexist, it clearlyfocuses what is already widespreadand free-floating.
Thefit, here, between a predispositionto discover 'crime' as the cause behind
everygeneralsocialill, and the specificproductionof the 'mugger' Folk Devil,is,
indeed,almost too neat and convenientto be true. But then we must ask, why is
society alreadypredisposedto panic about crime? How does this predisposition
relateto the waysocietyreactswhena tangiblecause forconcernis discoveredand
produced- in the 'hard' and compellingfiguresof the 'mugging'headlines?These
questionslead us outside and beyond the common-senseframework.They raise
questions which cannot be resolved within a conventionalcrime/crime-control
perspective.They subvert, the naive, common-sensewisdom about 'mugging'.
Clearas the case seems,it is inadequate.In each instancewe seem to approximate
closerto the truth ifwe reverseor invertthe common-senseaccount.Accordingly,
we were forced in our examinationto look at the 'mugging' phenomenonagain,
not only on a much broaderhistoricalcanvas,but, as it were. in reverse:through
the eye of its paradoxes.If a label precedesa crime, and the judicial arm of the
state is increasinglylocked in a strugglewith a sectionof the communitywhich
then producesits criminals,and the societyshowsa clear predispositionto panic
about this aspect of 'rising crime' beforeit discoversa particularinstanceof the
crime to panicabout,then it is necessaryto tum, first, not to the crime but to what
seems most problematic:the reactionto crime. Thus we pose the problem now
in its most paradoxicalform: could it be possible- historicallyplausible- that a
societalreactionto crime could precedethe appearanceof a patternof crimes?
This question does not - let us emphasise- entail a simple inversion.The
requirementto begin an explanationof 'mugging' somewhereother than with
the question of who first committed what, when, does not entail an argument
that no such crime ever existed. It is not our view that the police or some other
agency of the state has simply conjured 'mugging' and street crime up out of
thin air. Undoubtedly,between 1971 and 1973,and indeed since, people on the
streets or in open spaces have been robbed, pickpocketedor otherwiserelieved
of their property,often accompaniedwith rough physical treatment;a number
of victims have been assaulted in the course of robbery,and some have been
badly and seriouslyinjured. 'Mugging' was not produced,'full blown' from the
headof the controlculture;it is not simplya ruling-classconspiracy.Moreover,it
has -when accompaniedby violence- sometimesresultedin seriousphysicaland
emotionalconsequencesfor its victims,manyof whom are old or unableto cope
with the shockof the encounter,and few of whomhave very much of the world's
wealthat their command.This is not a prettysocialdevelopmentto contemplate,
and it is not part of our argumentthat it shouldbe 'excused'. Indeed,we are not in
the businessof individual,moraljudgementat all. But, to counterany misunder-
standing,let it be clear that.just as we do not believethat 'mugging' was invented
 CRIME,LAWANDTHESTATE 181

by the state, so we do not believethat streetcrime is a romanticdeviantadventure.

Thereis a politicalpositionwhichsuggeststhat a11ythi,ig whichdisruptsthe social
order or even tenor of bourgeoislife is a good thing. It is a tenableposition,but
it is not ours.Apart from anythingelse, no existingsocial order that we knowof
has ever beenchangedby lhe exploitsof individualsrippingoff other individuals
of their own, much-subordinated,class. Our argumentis simply not conducted
within this individualframe of reference, or within the given, common-sense
calculusof individualblame or praise.To blame the actionsof individualswithin
a given historicalstructure,withouttaking that structureitself into account,is an
easy and familiarway of exercisingthe moralconsciencewithoutbearingany of
its costs. It is the last refugeof liberalism.
We insist, however,that it is still far from proven that: (i) there were more
such crimes in the 1972-3 period than at any previoustime; or (ii) that any rate
of increasecorrespondspreciselyto the officialfiguresproducedin the criminal
statistics. Let us, without forcing the argumenttoo far at this moment, merely
suggest an alternativescenario, which must be taken in conjunction with the
earlier critique we levelledat the nature, presentationand 'use' of the criminal
statistics(see Chapter I), A crime like 'mugging'- which,as we suggested,bears
many similaritiesto traditionaland long-standingforms of street crime (and is,
indeed, presently being applied to what are clearly pickpocketingoffences)3 -
could easily become the focus of official and public attention, not because its
numbersrise but becausea quite distinctnew socialgroupappearsto be involved.
For example,supposethe vast majority of street crimes in working-classurban
districts suddenly began to be perpetratedby white, upper-middle-classpublic
schoolboys;or supposethe majorityof streetcrimeswere suddenlyto be accom-
panied by a sign bearing the slogan, 'For a liberatedUlster and a United Irish
Republic'. The examples are hypothetical and far-fetched. But they help to
reinforcethe point that a simple rise i11numbersof crimes committedis by no
meansthe only reason why public auentionmightsuddenlyfocus on a 'dramatic
new strain of crime'. This could also happen because of a significantchange in
the social compositionof the offenders,or if the crime becameinvestedwilh an
overt politicalpurpose and meaning.Here, again, the common-senseview does
not stand up for long to scepticalinspection.
We have refused,therefore,to orientateourselvesin the acceptedand conven-
tional accountsof the 'mugging' panic. No doubt someonewill shorllywrite the
book telling us exactly how many 'muggings' were perpetrated,who were the
victims and whom the aggressors.Our accountattempts,not to shore up a shaky
set of startingpropositions,but to interrogatethe matterfrom its mostproblematic
side. Why does society react to 'mugging' as it does, when it does? To what,
exactly,is this a reaction?This starting-pointderives from an initial hypothesis
to whichall the evidencepoints,once the grip of commonsense over it has been
broken: this is that there appears to be a vigorous reactionto 'mugging'as a
socio-crimi11al phenomenonbefore there are any actual 'muggings'to react to.
Let us fill out what 1hisalteredstarting-pointentails,the shift in terrainwhichthe
new vantage-pointbrings about.Why is Britainin a moral tail-spinabout 'crime'
in the early 1970s?Why is the 'control culture' so sensitised and mobilised
againsta potential 'mugging' threat, and why does this prior sensitisationoccur
182 POLICINGTHE CRISJS

against such a distinctivesocial and ethnic group in the communily?Why does

the very idea of 'mugging' trigger off such profoundsocial fears and anxieties
in the general public and the press? In short, what is the repressedsocial and
historicalcontentof 'mugging' and the responseto it? Whatdoes this te11us about
the nature of social control, the ideologiesof crime, the role of the state and its
apparatuses,the historicaland politicalconjuncturein which this cycle appears?
These questionspoint to aspects and levelsof the society far removedfrom the
'normal' terrain of 'normal' crime and its 'normal' prevention.Perhapsthe most
immediatelytroublingfeature is the clear discrepancybetweenthe scale of the
'threat' - evenon the basisof the officialestimates- and the scaleof the measures
taken to prevent and contain it. That discrepancyalone points us towards new
dimensionsof explanation.
This shift is sometimescharacterisedas a move in the argumentfrom a tradi•
tional criminologicalto a transactionalview of crime: 'mugging' considerednow
as the consequence,largely,of the labellingof deviance,and the outcomeof trans•
actionalencountersbetween 'muggers' and law•enforcementagencies.No doubt
such transactionalprocesses were indeed at work on the ground; and they may
have had some of the amplifyingconsequencesto which transactionalexplana•
tions of deviancehaveso acutelypointed.Anti•MuggingSquads,formedspecifi•
cally to look out for and preventcriminalexploits on the London underground,
may well,throughspecialisationand concentrationof resourcesas wellas through
anticipatorypolicing,have producedmore instances- and thus a 'higher' crime
rate - than if the statisticshad reflectedsimply the routine instancesof reported
'theft', 'robbery' or 'pickpocketing'by victims. If the TransportPolice believed
that pickpocketingand snatching were increasingon the London underground,
and stood around in plain clothes waitingto pick the snatchersup, they no doubt
did find~me- and the number~ay haveincludedyouthswholookedsusp!cious,

short, the initiation

volumeof crime. Anothereffect of increasingthe intensityof crime control and
surveillanceis often to clear the area of potentialoffenders- peoplewhoselooks,
bearing, demeanourcould be construed as law•breaking.In this sense - quite
apart from the deterrenteffect of the fear of apprehensionand sentencing- crime
preventionand control do sometimes work. But another, alternative,effect of
increasedpolicecontrol,if the political'definitionsof the situation'aresufficiently
pointedthat way,is that youths who see themselvesas lockedin a sort of running
battle with the forces of 'law and order' - and not necessarilybecause they are
alreadyconfirmedcriminals- may take to snatchingbecausesnatchingbecomes,
so to speak, the definedsite of a continuingstrugglewith 'the law' and the social
systemit protects.There are signs, in the periodafter 1973,that 'mugging' does,
indeed,acquire a quasi•politicalmeaningof this sort, in the contextof continuing
conflictbetween young blacks and the police.Another way of putting it is that
the hidden social content of this crime may have been brought, progressively,
to the fore as a result of 'transactions'betweenthe police and the criminals,and
this content may then be positivelyappropriatedby some criminals.There are
signsof this evolutiontaking place,both in the way first•handaccountsby young,
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 183
black 'muggers' cha11gebetween 1972-3 and 1975, and in the way 'mugging'
is discussedby social workersand communityactivistsin the areas where it has
becomea topic of burningconcern.In these differentways,somethingimportant
is to be gained by examiningthe transactionsbetween 'muggers' and the police,
as the definitionsof the situationby each of the other alter.(The SpaghettiHouse
'affair' in 1975, in which three black men kidnappedand held hostagea number
of people at an Italian restaurantin London, identifyingthemselvesat one point
as politicalactivistsratherthan as simplecriminals,thoughit was not an incident
whichinvolveda 'mugging', is one of the clearestand most publicisedinstances
of the shiftingdefinitionsand emergent'social' contentof blackcrime duringthis
period.)
On the whole, though, we have chosen to replace a conventionalcrime inter-
pretationof 'mugging', not by a 'transactional'analysisof crime, but by a more
historicaland structuralview.There are, we argue,clear historicaland structural
forcesat work in this period,shaping,so to speak,fromthe outside,the immediate
transactionson the ground between 'muggers', potentialmuggers,their victims
and their apprehenders.In manycomparablestudies,these largerand widerforces
are merelynoted and cited; their direct and indirectbearingon the phenomenon
analysedis, however,left vagueand abstract - part of 'the background'.In our
case, we believethat these so-called 'backgroundissues' are, indeed,exactlythe
criticalforceswhichproduce 'mugging' in the specificform in which it appears,
and push it along the path it took from 1972-3 through to the present. It is to
this shapingcontext,therefore,that we turn: attemptingto makeprecise,without
simplificationor reduction,the other contradictoryconnectionsbetweenspecific
eventsof a criminal-and-controlkind,and the historicalconjuncturein whichthey
appear.Of course, the transactionalviewcontainsimportantand criticalinsights,
and we have profited from them. They remind us that there is no such thing as
crime,here,and crime prevention,there;only a re/atio11 betweenthe two - crime-
and-control.Theyremindas that devianceis a socialandhistorical,not a 'natural',
phenomenon;that for acts to be 'deviant' they must be recognised,labelled and
respondedto as 'crimes'; there must be a society whose nonns, rules and laws
are transgressed,control institutionswhose task it is to enforce the norms and
punishthe infractor.But the transactionalperspectivetendsto viewthis processof
labellingand reactionlargelyat lhe levelof the microtransactionsout of whichthe
relationsbetweenthe law and the law-breakerare constructed.Withoutwishing
to deny that 'social order' is, indeed,constructedand sustained,time and again,
in these myriadinteractions,we feel the need of a vantage-pointwhich is able to
considerthe longer-term,largerrole whichthe legal institutionsplay,throughthe
control of crime, in the maintenanceof the stabilityand cohesionof the whole
social formationfrom which,undercertain conditions,acts definedas infractions
of the law develop.We are also anxious not to tell the story as if the initial acts
of law-breakingand crime have no rationaleor authenticity.For this wouldbe to
return, by a strangelycircuitousroute, to the strictlyfunctionalistviewthat, after
all, societyis an integrated,fullyconsensual'whole' and that infractions,discrep-
ancies and antagonismswithin it are the result of the actionsof those who know
not what they do, or - to reversethe case - that their actions are the imaginary
constructsof the controllers,so that deviancybecomessimplya nightmareof the
184

state. Again, to put the mauer in the form of a paradox:it is importantto reject
the common-senseview that, when all is said and done, muggersmugged, the
policepickedthem up, and the courtsput themaway,and that is that. But it is also
importantto insist that some muggersdid mug, that 'mugging' was a real social
and historicalevent arising out of its own kind of struggle, that it has its own
rationaleand historical'logic' whichwe need to unravel.
All this pointsto a need for a moredifferentiated,historicallylocatedanalysis.
We mustbeginto drawdistinctions,howeverprovisionally,betweencrimeswhich
are 'deviant' with respectto their means,but consonantwith the over-allstructure
and 'norms'of thesociety,andcrimeswhichseemtoexpress- howeverfitfullyand
incompletely- an elementof socialprotestor oppositionto the existingorder.We
need to distinguish,again provisionally,betweenthoseoccasionswherethe scale
of criminalactivityand the scaleof measurestakento containcrimestand in some
roughbalanceto one another- wherecrimecontrolis best understoodas a part of
the 'normalisedrepression'of the state,and its defenceof property,the individual
and publicorder;and thoseoccasionswhenthere is a radicaldiscrepancybetween
the nature of the 'threat' and the scale of 'containment', or when the incidence
of certain kinds of crime does appear, suddenly,to increase or assume a new
pattern, or where the pace of legal repressionand control rapidly increases.For
these latter momentshavetended,both in the past and in the present,to coincide
with momentsof a wider historical significancethan is contained by the play
of nonnalised repressionover the structure of normal crime. Such momentsof
'more than usual alarm' followedby the exerciseof 'more than nonnal control'
havesignalled,time and again in the past, periodsof profoundsocialupheaval,of
economiccrisis and historicalrupture.

'NORMAL'CRIMBANDSOCIALCRIME
The complex relationshipsbetween crime, political movementsand economic
transformationhave not yet had the attention they seem to deserve from social
historians,though the recent work of Hobsbawm,Rud6,Thompsonand others
has given it a fresh and welcome impetus.The connectionsare not, of course,
simple; no simple evolutionarytraces can be drawn across historicaltime, as if
the links weresimple and linear. The connectionbetween popular protest and
the maintenanceof public order is relativelyeasy to see in the eighteenthand
nineteenthcenturies,whetherone is lookingat food riots, rural protest,machine--
breakingand the actions of the city 'mobs', or at politicalassembliesdeclared
illegal, the reform movements,the great Chartist agitation, the birth of trade
unions or working-classpolitical struggle. But here, the social and political
content is relativelyclear and undisputablein retrospect,even if difficultto sort
out at the time.Whenthe reformmovementsof the 1860swereforbiddenthe right
of free speech in Hyde Park on the grounds that the 'Royal Parks are intended
for the recreationand enjoymentof the people', few can havebeen in doubt that
the enforcementwas political rather than simply 'public order' in character.In
a support meeting after the TrafalgarSquare fracas in February 1886- Black
Monday- John Burns is reputed to have addressedhis audienceas 'Friends and
fellow-workersand detectives'. Paradoxically,in this period it is the actions of
 CRIME,LAWANDTHESTATE 185
the socialists,radicalsand the urban casual poor which defendedthe thoroughly
'bourgeois'libertyof free assembly.YetEngelsdid not think muchof the political
philosophyof the crowd- 'poor devilsof the East End' a 'sufficientadmixtureof
roughs' who,havingcompletedtheir work,returnedto the East End singing 'Rule
Britannia'!4 Burnswas 'done' for 'sedition of somesort' (he was acquitted);many
of thosewhoventedtheirangeron the propertysurroundingTrafalgarSquarewere
chargedwithcriminaldamage- one thing leadingon to another....Throughoutthe
period, the clearly political containmentof popular protest was effected under
the ambiguouscover of 'public order' and its sanctions.5 The connectionis more
difficult to establish where popular protest assumes a mainly 'criminal' rather
than politicalform.6 It is evenmore difficultwhere what is definedas 'crime' has
a clear social or economiccontent, which howeverremains implicit,7 or where
professionalcrime is tightlyinterwovenwith social unrestor appearsas its literal
or figurativeforerunner.1
Historianshave also begun to identify a distinction between 'ordinary' and
'social crime'. Hobsbawmspeaks of 'types of criminal activity which could be
classifiedas "social" in the sensethat they expresseda conscious,almostpolitical
challenge to the prevailingsocial and political order and its values', and asks
whether'such socialcriminalitycould be clearly distinguishedfrom other fonns
of delinquency(all of whichcan of course be definedas "social" in a widersocio-
logicalsense)'.9 The differencesare important,but extremelydifficultto sustain
in any definitiveway.Thompsonhas remarkedof eighteenth-centurycrime that,
'thoughthere is a real differencein emphasisat each pole' between'normal'crime
and 'social' crime, the evidencedoes not sustain 'a tidy notion of a distinction
betweentwo kinds of crime'.10 Normaland socialcrime are not fixedstatusesor
'natural' categoriesto whichclasses of people can be permanentlyascribed.The
assignationto one or anothercategory,and indeed the very use of the 'criminal'
tag, is oftenpart of a broaderstrategyof repressionand control,only someaspects
of which belong to the exerciseof crime preventionand control in any normal
sense. To take the eighteenth-centurydefinitionof 'crime' for granted is to take
the eighteenth-centurydefinitionof property-rightand class for granted. If we
are examiningprocessesrather than categories,the routes which individualstake
into and out of crime are enormouslyvariable.Even more,that which,at a certain
historicalperiod,leadscertainclassesof peopleto takeup whatis currentlydefined
as 'crime' as part of a collectivestrategy in the face of the conditionsin which
they find themselvesis a matter requiringthe most delicate historicaljudgement
and reconstruction.Most importantof all, the study of 'criminal subcultures'as
distinct entities commits the easy but serious historicalerror of separatingout
sociologicalcategoriesfrom a wider and more inclusivehistory of the fractions
and strata composinga class as a whole, in the more fundamentalsense of the
term.In such a perspective,it is preciselythe wholerepertoireof struggle- stral-
egies,positionsand solutions- whichmust informthe analysis,and whichthrows
a revealinglight back on to those sectionsof the class taking or drivenalong the
specific path of 'criminalisation'.The concept of a criminal subculturecan be
a fruitful or a sterile starting-pointfor an investigation,dependingon whether
'crime' is treatedas a given,self-evidentahistoricaland unproblematiccategory,
or whetherit serves as the provisionalcategory through which to constructthe
186 POLICINOTHE CRISIS

more complexaccountsand 'real relations' of an adequateclass history.This is,

indeed,true. not only for the study of criminalsubcultures,but for the study of
class culturesand 'subcultures'tout court.They must be relatedto the widerclass
problematicof whichthey are a historicallydifferentiatedpart.11
The point is easy to illustrate from the social history of nineteenth-century
London.The criminal'fraternities'of East Londonwereclearlyparts of the wider
class ecologies,class cultures and class formationsof the Londonof the period.
To reserve them for a special category would be simply to lose any grip on a
central aspect of the historyof the urban workingclass and the urban poor of the
period.In the historicalsense, 'crime' was a well-articulatedpart of the working-
class cultural repe11oireof the period: how some membersof the labouringand
casual poor 'lived' the contradictoryexperienceand exploitativerelationships
which characteriseclass relations as a whole - to which other class members
found a variety of alternative personal and collective 'solutions'. Of course,
distinctcriminalnetworksexisted,with their distinct activities,territories,under-
worlds, professionalspecialitiesand 'trades'. At their margins, and sometimes
right withinthem, some men, womenand childrenengagedin what can only be
describedas authentic,often quite self-consciouslypursued, 'criminal careers'.
Nevertheless,it would be an odd accountwhich did not recognisethat the activ-
ities of the labouringpoor - especiallythe great body of destitute familiesand
casual male, female and child labour which composeda sizeablechunk of the
city's population- in securingthe basicelementsof physicaland materialsurvival
often embraced 'skills' which the authoritiesand investigatorswould certainly,
and did indeed,describeas 'criminal' or illegal.The contributionof the children
of the EastEnd poor to the meagrefamilyincomeincludeda numberof activities-
tasks,errands,messagejobbing,streetperforming,begging,buyingof stale bread,
collectingscraps and rotten fruit, and so on. For the children of those families
which had arrivedat the terminalpoint on the povertyline, it must have been a
very thin, often imperceptible,margin indeed betweengettingwhat they had to,
legally,and scroungingwhere and howeverthey could; and the margin, for all
practicalpurposes,was not between'legality' and 'illegality'so muchas between
survivaland sheer destitution.12 Describingthe normal ways in which the rural
poor had often to survive in the previouscentury,Thompsonhas observedthat
'if this is a "criminalsub-culture"then the whole of plebianEnglandfalls within
the category'.•l Similarly,if all the things which the East End poor had to do to
survive were 'criminal', then indeed that convergencebetween the 'labouring'
and the 'dangerous' classes which so transfixedthe middle classes in the early
part of the century,or betweenthe 'respectables'and the contaminatinginfluence
of the 'casual residuum' which returned to haunt the official mind in the 1880s
and 1890s,had a real material basis.14 It would be a poverty-strickenaccount,
indeed, which hived off 'crime' from that dialectic of work-poverty-unemploy-
ment-crimewhich is the definingmatrixof working-classLondonthroughmuch
of the century. Even when the intersectionswere not immediate,the fear that
they mightcome to pass powerfullytransfixedthe mindsof the governingclasses
throughout(cf. Stedman-Jones'saccount of the grande peur accompanyingthe
demonstrationsof the London unemployedfollowing'Black Monday'15). Some
peopleundoubtedlygraduatedout of the twilightzonebetweencrimeand poverty,
 CRIME,LAWANDTHE STATE 187
survivaland destitution,into full-Limecriminalcareers;and the peopleof the East
End no doubt themselvesregistered,in the complex of feelings and attitudes
whichenabledthem to 'make sense' of their situationand conduct,the difference:
'regular' professionalthieves, who set out for their 'work' each night as others
set out for theirs in the early morning, are said sometimes to have referred to
themselvesas 'honest' thieves,to mark their distinctionfrom the 'casual' crime of
the casual poor. But this whole story of crime, workand poverty- a majortheme
of the life of the London labouringclasses throughoutthe nineteenthcentury-
could hardlybe reconstructedat all unless,alongsidethe internaldifferentiations
of the variousstrata of the class,the complexunityof the positionof the class as a
wholeis continuallyarticulatedalonga differentiatedcontinuumof responsesand
solutions- what we havecalled elsewherethe 'working-classrepertoire'.16
This first argument about the relation between crime and its social context
connectsclosely with a second: the obvious but frequentlyneglectedpoint that
'crime' is differentlyde.fined (in both official and lay ideologies)at different
periods; and this reflects, not only changingattitudes amongst differentsectors
of the populationsto crime, as well as real historicalchangesin the social organi-
sationof criminalactivity,17 but also the shiftingapplicationof the categoryitself,
by the governingclasses, to differentgroups and activities, in the course of -
and sometimesfor the purposeof preparingthe groundfor -the exerciseof legal
restraint and politicalcontrol.As well as the changingstructuresof crime, and
popular attitudes to crime, we must also take account of the role which crimi-
nalisatWn- the attachmentof the criminallabel,to the activitiesof groupswhich
the authoritiesdeem it necessaryto control- plays in legitimisingthe exerciseof
judicia~c?ntrol.As~ arguedearlier!t~re • •
r"
touchedan ambiguousnerve amongst the middleclasses; but about the sight of
'the West End ... for a couple of hours in the hands of the mob', The Times was
in no doubt. Crime issues are clear-cut;politicalconflictsare double-edged.But
a governingclass which can assure the people that a politicaldemonstrationwill
end in a mob riot againstlife and propertyhas a gooddeal going for it - including
popular support for 'tough measures'. Hence the 'criminalisation'of political
and economicconflicts is a central aspect of the exerciseof social control.It is
often accompaniedby heavy ideological 'work', required to shift labels about
until they stick, extendingand widening their reference,or trying to win over
one labelled section against another. (A short history of ideologicalrepression
could be reconstructedaroundthe transformationseffectedbetweenthe following
couplets: deserving/undeserving,labouring/dangerous,'true working'/residual,
respectable/rough,moderate/extremist.)
In his study of the introduction,over a centuryearlier, of the infamousBlack
Act, Thompsonhas written:
What is at issue is not whether there were any such gangs {therewere) but
the universalitywith which the authorities applied the term to any associ-
ation of people which fell outside the law ... For the category 'criminal' can
be a dehumanisingone ... and the categoriesthen prepare us exactly for the
188 POLICINOTHECRISIS

conclusions.... The behaviouror the 'Blacks' was a 'real danger to peaceable

men' and therefore 'the provisionsof the Black Act had justificationat this
time'. 'Somethingneededto be done'.18

The use of labellingand criminalisationas part and parcelof the processof legiti-
matingsocialcontrolis clearly not confinedto the past. In the politicaldomainit
has time and againtakenthe formof a fear of, or discoveryof, conspiracies,either
from within or without,e.g. the typical 'Red Scare'. But there are many other
recentexampleswherelegalcontrolshavebeensustainedpreciselyby an inspired
convergenceof criminal and ideologicallabels.19 Of course, not all the conver-
gences are convergencesof labels. Some mark real, historical developments.
There are many unambiguoushistoricalexamples of 'political groups self-con•
sciouslyadoptingtraditionallycriminalstrategiesand styles',20 from the Bonnot
Gangand otherconspiratorialfraternitieson the fringesof the anarcho•syndicalist
movementearlierin the century,to theAngryBrigade,Baader-Meinhofand other
more contemporaryformsof the 'political gang'. And if these are taken as repre•
senting instancesof the convergencefrom politicalinto criminalactivities,there
are, equally,manysignificantrecentexampleswhich movethe other way - from
the criminal to the political: the autobiographyof MalcolmX,21 and the politici-
sationof blackcriminalsin the recentAmericanprisonmovements,22 are only two
of the mostobviousinstances.
To put the mattermore simply,in a class society,based on the needsof capital
and the protectionof privateproperty,the poor and propertylessare always in
some sense on 'the wrong side of the law', whetheractually they transgress it
or not: 'the criminal sanctionis the last defenceof privateproperty'.23 All crime
control(whetheragainstcrimesundertakenfor conscious'social' motivesor not)
is an aspect of that larger and wider exercise of 'social authority'; and in class
societies that will inevitablymean the social authorityexerted by the powerful
and the propertied over the powerless and the propertyless,We can see this
clearly,again, in the eighteenthcentury,where the law was far more openly and
explicitlyan instrumentof class dominationand authority.Thompson'sargument
in Whigsand Huntersseems to be that the disguisedand blackfacedpoachersof
deer and game in the royal parks and chases, and the Whig 'hunters' who took
them on (supportedby one of the most sweepingand draconianmeasuresever
devisedwithinthe Englishcriminalcode - the BlackAct, backedby the Walpole
junta in power,and surroundedby whispersof Jacobiteconspiraciesand strange
gatheringsin the night), were engaged in the long, deep and protractedstruggle,
in progressthroughoutthe century,betweencustomaryrights and traditions,and
the encroachingbourgeoisnotionsof propertyand Iaw.2<1 The crimes of the forest
were only one episode in the longerstory of the 'remaking' of English life and
societyin its bourgeoisform- a processwhichoften dependedrathermore on the
selectiveuse of terrorand force than on more 'civilisinginfluences'.25
From anotheraspect, it appearsas if it is notjust a matterof 'crime' enlarging
but equallyof a property-consciousoligarchyredefining,throughits legislative
power, activities,use-rightsin common or woods, perquisitesin industry,as
thefts or offences. For as offences appear to multiply so also do statutes....
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 189
And the ideologyof the ruling oligarchy,which places a supremevalue upon
property,finds its visible and material embodimentabove all in the ideology
and practiceof the law.M

The fact that the law did not always act in simple and perfect consonancewith
this larger purpose,and that judicial terror was frequentlytemperedwith mercy,
does not underminethe argumentthat, in their longer historicaltrajectory,the
changingconceptsand practicesof the law and the changingconceptsand struc-
turesof bourgeoispropertyweremoving,duringthe eighteenthcentury,in 'rough
harmony';and that the law becameone of the privilegedinstruments,not simply
in enforcingthe confonnityof the populaceto the new structures,but in securing
for propertyits ideologicalsway- its properauthority:'The courts dealt in terror,
pain and death, but also in moral ideals,controlof arbilrarypower,mercy for the
weak. In doing so they made it possibleto disguisemuch of the class interestof
the law.The secondstrengthof an ideologyis its generality.'27 Hence, when the
emergencyconcerningthe 'Blacks' arose:

What made the 'emergency'was the repeatedpublic humiliationof the author-

ities; the simultaneousauacks upon royal and private property;the sense of
a confederatedmovementwhich was enlargingits social demands,especially
under 'King John'; the symptomsof somethingclose to class warfare,with the
loyalistgentry in the disturbedareas objects of attack and pitifullyisolated in
their attemptsto enforceorder.28

Theconnectionsare made,on a widercanvas,in DouglasHay's essayon 'Property,

Authorityand the CriminalLaw', already quoted from, which argues that in the
eighteenthcentury, 'terror alone could never have accomplishedthese ends. It
was the raw materialof authority,but class interest and the structureof the law
itselfshapedit into a muchmoreeffectiveinstrumentof power.'29 'Throughoutthe
period,' Hay concludes,'the importanceof the law as an instrumentof authority
and a breederof valuesremainedparamount.'l0 'A rulingclass organizesits power
in the state. The sanction of the state is force, but ii is force that is legitimized,
howeverimperfectly,and therefore the state deals also in ideologies.'l1 Jn this
period, then, the law played a crucial role, not simply in the maintenanceof a
certain kind of public order in the service of a certain type of ruling oligarchy-
the political representativesof an agrarian capitalism- but also as one of the
principalpublic 'educators'to a certainidea of property:hangingsome,as it were,
for the larger purposeof tutoringthe rest. And part of that tutorshipto authority
rested, precisely,in the law's majesty,its arbitrariness,its panoplyand ritual -
ceremonieswhich embodiedthe very notion of 'authority' itself, and which, as
Thompsonnotes,32 'were at the heart of the popularculture also' - were indeed
publiclysituated at its heart, through the court rituals, visitationsof the magis-
trates, the public executions,the ballads and broadsheets,with their exemplary
moral force. (When we say that in English popularideologythere is a powerful
respect, if not for 'the law' then for 'The Law', it is well to remember how it
got there, who put it there and for what purpose.)If, in the eighteenthcentury,
propertybecamethe measureof all things,the law was one of the most effective
190 POLICINGTHECRISIS

of measuringrods.Hay remindsus, too, of the natureof this conceptof 'properly'

around which the law embroideredits complicatedskein of respect and forced
obligation:a concept defined, as well as anywhere,by Blackstone,one of the
foremostjurists of his time: 'there is nothingwhichso generallystrikesthe imagi-
nation, and engages the affectionsof mankind,as the right of property;or that
sole and despoticdominionwhichone manclaimsand exercisesoverthe external
things of the world, in total exclusionof any other individualin the universe'.3~
This was no simple matter of the legal consolidationof class rule. Linebaugh,
writingof the same period,has noted:

It is by looking at crime from the point of view of capital in the Eighteenth

Century that we can best appreciateits importancein 'the perennialstruggle
between capital and labour'.... Eighteenth Century crime was an integral
aspect of the organisationand creation of a 'free' mobile labour force, of the
formationof a home market, and of the transformationof the wage: 1hatis,
crime was both the result and a part of the main !asksof 18thCenturycapitalist
development.34

Yet,as Thompsonhas argued:'At pettyand quartersessionsthe JP's sentencedfor

poaching,for assaulls,for wood-theft... and for the theft of chickens.At assizes
thejudges sentencedcoiners,rioters,sheep-stealers,andservantgirls whohad run
off with their mistress'ssilk and silver spoons. Researchhas not yet confirmed
that they were sentencingdifferentkinds of people from differentsub-cultures.'l~
The class characterof the law, the class administrationof justice, the artic-
ulation of both with the objective requirementsof capital, the distributionof
propertyand what Gramscicalled the 'education'of the subordinateand proper-
tyless classes through the law are complex matters.Their developmentscannot
be traced in a linear evolution,predicatedon the assumptionof some necessary
'functionalfit' or naturalcorrespondencebetweenthe differentlevelsof a social
formation.The eighteenth-centurycomplex, in which the law played so open
a role, is profoundlymodified in lhe succeedingcenturies.This does not mean
the law steadily improved;indeed during the Jacobin scare and in the upsurge
followingthe end of the NapoleonicWar, it became, if anything,more coercive
and draconian.Further,its developmentcannot be told simply in terms of crime
and the law, since preciselyone of the things which changes is the position of
the law, the juridical apparatusesand the state in lhe constitutionof the modes
of hegemonycharacteristicof laisser,-faireand then later of monopolyindustrial
capitalism,as comparedwithits role in asocial formationin whichagrariancapital
dominates.No simple 'law of evolutionarysuccession' is to be observedhere.36
The law does become- graduallyand of course unevenly- less arbitrary,more
'impartial', morerationalin its conduct,more 'autonomous'.The sanguinarypenal
code is modernised:the identificationbetween the rural gentry and the magis-
tracy becomesprogressivelyless direct;the regularand professionalpolice force
replacesthe army, the yeomanryand amateur law enforcement.It remains true
that,at everycriticalpoliticalturningpoint in the nineteenthcentury- the struggle
against the unreformedparliament,the formationof the unions,the disturbances
of the 1820s,the Chartistagitation,the great popularreformdemonstrationsof the
 191
1860s,the unemploymentagitationsof the I 880s, the unrest accompanyingthe
newunionismat the end of the century,the high tide of militancyjust beforeand
after the FirstWorldWar- the 'law-enforcementagencies',and then the lawitself,
wason hand,in a crucialrole: the last fortressand fortificationof the existingstate
of things, whateverthey happened to be at the time. But not only was the law
forced, above all by the growing working-classpresence,to perfonn this task
more circumspectlyand 'impartially', legilimatingitself, not in the prerogatives
of a propertiedclass but in the universalappeal to 'public order' and the general
interest;it was constantly,forced back to a more impartialposition,It is open to
questionwhetherthe lawcontinuedto play quite the direct educativerole which it
did a centurybefore.3' The positioncan only properlybe assessedwhenset within
the frameworkof the transformationof the modes of capilal, as the regime of
industrialcapitalgraduallywins out over landedcapital,transformingeverything
in its wake, includingthat to which the role and positionof the law must most
directly be referred:the nature and position of the capitalist state itself, as the
organisingcentreof a newset of ruling-classalliances.In this longtransformation,
we must not neglectthe contradictoryeffect of the progressive'autonomisation'
of thejudicial apparatusthroughthe more rigorousapplicationof the 'rule of law'
and the 'separationof powers'. For if this continuedto obscurethe class natureof
the law and its exercise,it at the same time secureda real and significantmeasure
of justice for the poor and the powerless,and distancedeverydaylegal practice
from the immediate influence of the executive.The working-classmovement
must count the extensionof the rule of law, the freedomof speechand assembly,
the right to strike and to organise in the work-place,as its own victories- not
simply as 'bourgeoisconcessions'magnanimouslygranted. Such advanceswere
of course won only as a consequenceof more or less continuousstruggleat key
points and moments- it is this ruptured history which is now retrospectively
smoothedout into the consolingmyth of the civilising advanceof the law and
its contributionto the 'conquest of violence'. In the long tenn, in the routine
premisingof the civil law on the inviolabilityof contract,and of the criminallaw
in the defence of privateproperty,and in its repressive,'public-order'work on
behalf of social stabilityand order in the face of social movementsand political
dissent,the law continuedto do the state some service.The articulationsbetween
the law,a bourgeoissocialformationand the advanceof industrialcapitalbecome
more complex,different in character as compared with the eighteenthcentury.
Yet it would be impossibleto sustain the argument that all couplingceases, or
that the connection is wholly dissolved.As John Griffith has recently argued:
'The politicalneutralityof thejudiciary is a myth, one of thosefictionsour rulers
delight in, because it confuses and obscures.... Our political system thrives on
obfuscations.... The judiciary does not of course call its prejudicespolitical or
moral, or social. It calls them the public interest.'~ We shall come in a moment
to consider some of these contradictorydevelopments- they belong not to the
internalhistoryof the lawso muchas to the 'regional'historyof the capitaliststate
and to the changingmodes of hegemony.But, historically,as in the present,the
case ought to have been sufficientlystronglyestablishedby now that crime and
crime preventionare not discreteand autonomousareas;and thus that it cannot be
only 'social' crime whichrequireshistoricalexplanation.
192 POUCINOTHECRISIS

PROM'CONTROLCULTURE'TO THESTATE
At one level, of course, 'The Law' - the legal system, the police, the courts
and the prison system - is manifestly part and parcel or the judicial organi-
sation of the modern capitalist state. But this is so largely in a descriptiveor
purely institutionalsense. Most criminological theories - including much of
'radical criminology'- have no concept or theory of the state. In conventional
theories,the exerciseof state power throughthe operationof the law is acknowl-
edged only formally,and its mode of operationis treated as unproblematic.This
is quite unsatisfactory,even if we remain within the perspectiveof the legal
system.And once we widen the perspectiveto includethe relationsbetweenthe
juridical and other levels and apparatusesof the state, we are clearly in need of
a more developedframeworkthan is providedby the well-wornand oft-repeated
common-sensewisdomsof liberaldemocratictheory,cast as they are withinthat
most English of ideologies- British constitutionalism.Lord Denning himself
has acknowledgedthat:

In theorythejudiciaryis a neutralforcebetweenGovernmentand the governed.

The judge interpretsand applies the laws without favourto either.... British
judges have neverpracticedsuch detachment.... In the criminallaw the judges
regard themselvesas at least as much concemed as the executive with the
prosecutionof law and order.39
In the earlier stages of this study, we examined concretely the relationship
betweenthe differentapparatusesof control in relationto 'mugging': the police,
the judiciary, the media. Lemert has used the term 'societal control culture' to
refer to the concertedactionsof such agenciesin relationto particularcrimes.The
'societal control culture' is, in Lemert's terms, 'the laws, procedures,programs
and organizationswhich, in the name of a collectivity,help, rehabilitate,punish
or otherwisemanipulatedeviants'." This definitionhas provideda useful start-
ing-point in the generation of more radical theories of crime and deviance. It
highlighted the relationship between different control agencies as of critical
importancein the designationand control of crime. The term 'culture' in this
contextalso serves to remindus that, at one importantleveJ,these agencieswere
linked, not only by their control function,but by their shared 'definitionsof the
world', their commonideologicalperspectives.Aboveall, as comparedwith more
strictly 'transactional'theories, where deviance and crime appeared to depend
on the ebb and flow betweendifferent'definitionsof the situation', more or less
equallyrankedon the scale of power,Lemert'semphasisservesto remindus that,
if labellingis an importantaspect of the identificationand control of deviance,
then the questionof whohas the powerto label whom- whatBeckercame subse-
quently to call the 'hierarchy of credibility'41 - is of even greater importance.
Thus the notion of a 'societal control culture', institutionallybased, ideologi-
cally supported,with some stabilityand continuityover time, and reflectingthe
massivelyskeweddistributionof power betweenlaw-makersand law-breakers,
was of considerabletheoreticalsignificancein neutralisingthe incipienttendency
of 'transactional'theories to operate in a historical and material void, denuded
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 193

of the conceptof power (and thus of the complementaryconceptsof opposition,

struggle,conflict,resistanceand antagonism}.
The 'control-culture'approach,however,appearstoo impreciseforour purposes.
It identifiescentresof power and their importancefor the social-controlprocess;
but it does not locate them historically, and thus it cannot designatethe signif-
icant momentsof shift and change. It does not differentiateadequatelybetwee11
differenttypes of state or politicalregime. ll does not specify the kind of social
fonnation which requiresand establishesa particularkind of legal order. It does
not examine the repressivefunctionsof the state apparatusesin relationto their
consensualfunctions.Thus many differenttypes of society - 'plural' societies,
wheresomeare morepluralthanothers,or 'mass societies',wherepoweris alleged
to be distributedbetweenthe elites, or a 'democraticsociety' with countervailing
powers- are all made compatiblewith the concept of a 'social-controlculture'.
It is not a historicallyspecificconcept.In short, ii is not premisedon a theoryof
the state:even less on a theoryof the state of a particularphaseof capitalistdevel-
opment- e.g. class democraciesin the era of 'late capitalism'. For these reasons,
we haveabandonedit for all but generaldescriptivepurposes.
Instead, we return 'The Law' to the classic terrain of the theory of the state.
Generalquestionsof law and crime, of socialcontroland consent,of legalityand
illegality,of confonnity,legitimationand opposition,belong,and must ultimately
be posed unambiguouslyin relationto, the questionof the capitaliststate and the
class struggle.We havesuggestedthat the law, in both its civil and criminalroles,
and in bothits routineand 'exceptional'modes,is centrallyconnected,in bourgeois
social fonnations,with the problemof fundamentalmodes of hegemony.In our
case, the form of state in questionis its post lai:rsei-faireor WelfareState form:
installedin and through a specifictype of politicalregime- the fully developed
parliamentarydemocracy;at a specific historicalconjuncture- what we shall
come to identifymore fully as a 'crisis in hegemony'.In this part of the study,we
attemptto situate 'mugging' systematicallyat this level of analysis:in relationto
the state, the politico-juridicalapparatuses,the political instance,the modes of
consent,legitimation,coercionand domination- the elementswhichcontributeto
the maintenanceor disintegrationof a specificmode of hegemony.
In fillingout this connectionbetweenthe state and crime,we havetried to work
with and to contributeto the developmentof a specificallyMarxisttheoryof the
state, and of the relationshipbetween law, crime and the state. Unfortunately,
there is no fully elaboratedtheory of this kind to be found in Marx and Engels.
The elementsof such a theoryare of coursepresentbut they require- in the light
of contemporarydevelopments- to be workedout, not drawn upon and used at
will.As is often the case in those areas whereMarxismis not yet fullydeveloped,
the simpleformulaeare often too simple,too reductivefor our purposes.The idea,
for example,that, broadlyspeaking,legal nonns and rules in a bourgeoissociety
will reflect and supportbourgeoiseconomicrelations,or that, in class societies,
the law will be an instrumentof class domination,may providethe first, basicstep
in such a theory,but it remainstoo general,too abstract,too reductive,too sketchy
and epochalin form to be of muchservice.It is a usefulbut not an adequatepoint
of departure.It is necessary,therefore,at the risk of a necessarydetour into some
194 POLICINGTHI, CMISIS

generaltheoreticalquestions,to state more fullyand explicitlythe conceptof law,

crime and the state on which we draw in the subsequentanalysis.
In locatingthe originsof his materialisttheoryin a critiqueof idealistformsof
thought,Marxremarkedthat his enquiryhad ledhim to theconclusion'that neither
legalrelationsnor politicalformscould be comprehendedwhetherby themselves
or on the basis of so-called general developmentof the human mind, but ...
originatein the materialconditionsof life',u whosetotalityHegeland the French
and Englishtheoristscalled 'civil society'; the anatomyof civil society,'however,
has to be sought in politicaleconomy'.The crucial level of determinationon this
complexof socialrelations- civil societyand the state (whatGramscicalled 'the
two great floors of the superstructure')- was the mode of the productionand
reproductionof material life. This general propositionhad 10 be made histori-
cally specific:'each modeof productionproducesits own specificlegal relations,
political forms, etc.'" Law, then, like other superstructuralforms, served to
'perpetuatea particularmode of production'.Yet, Marx insisted, 'the influence
exercisedby laws on the preservationof existingconditionsof distribution,and
the effect they therebyexert on productionhas to be examinedseparately.44 'But
the reallydifficultpoint,'he repeatsin the Introductionto the Grundrisse,'is how
relationsof productiondevelopunevenlyas legalrelations.Thuse.g. therelationof
Romanprivatelaw ... to modernproduction'(ouremphasis),.,It seemsclear here
that Marx is arguingboth for a long-termor 'epochal' determinationof the level
of a modeof productionover legal relations,and at the same time, for no simple,
transparentor immediatecorrespondence,for their 'relative autonomy', as the
phrasegoes. Engelsseems to be echoingMarx's matureconceptof 'unevenness',
in at least one of its dimensions,when, in discussingthe relationshipbetween
economicdevelopmentand the law, he notes that in Englanda bourgeoiscontent
is given to 'old feudal laws'; while a 'classic law code of bourgeoissociety'
like the Code Civil could serve, in France, as a successful,but in Prussia as an
ill-adapted,legal form for capitalistdevelopment.In anothercontext,it is Engels
who notesthat 'once the slate has becomean independentpowervis-a-vissociety,
it produces forthwitha further ideology.It is indeed among professionalpoliti-
cians, theoristsof publiclawandjurists of privatelaw that the connectionwith the
economicfacts gels lost for fair. Since in each particularcase the economicfacts
must assume the form of juristic motives in order to receive legal sanction....'46
Hel'ethe crucial problemof a Marxistanalysis is posed: how to understandthe
natureof the 'unevencorrespondence'betweenlegaJrelationsand other levelsof
a social formation;how to comprehendthat the state can serve 'the supremacy
of this or that class in the last resort ... the developmentof the productiveforces
and relationsof exchange', while at the same time assumingthe appearanceof
an independentpower,'apparentlystandingabovesociety' moderatingits contra-
dictoryanlagonisms.47
In the GermanIdeologyMarx and Engels stress that those who rule, 'besides
having to constitute their power in the form of the State. have to give their
will ... a universalexpressionas the willof the State,as law'.41 The state is therefore
not independentof the class struggle;but it is, or comes to be, the structurewhich
enables a ruling-classalliance to 'give its ideas the form of universality,and
representthem as the only rational,universallyvalid ones'."Lenin also insisted
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 195

that the state is 'the product and manifestationof the irreconcilabilityof class
antagonisms';'it creates"order",'he continued,'which legalizesand perpetuates
this oppressionby moderatingthe collisions between classes'. Here, the same
apparentparadox is repeated:the state is the product of class antagonisms,and
perpetuatesa class order - by appearing to moderatethe class struggle.50 Thus
the moderatingand conciliatingrole of the state, 'above the classes', is it.selfone
of the fonns in which the essentialclass nature of the state appearsat a certain
momentin the historicaldevelopmentof the productivelife of capitalistsocieties.
Its 'detennination in the last instance' - to put it paradoxically- is exercised,
at a certain moment, most effectively,indeed 011ly,in and through its 'relative
autonomy'.(Althusserinsists,quite correctly,that we mustgrasp these 'two ends
of the chain' at once.) In the necessaryattempt to undermine any simple and
immediate'correspondence'betweenthe modeof production,the formof the state
and the characterof the law, and in stressingthe necessarily'uneven' character
of the relationsbetweenthe differentlevelsof a social formation,the necessityto
'think' the precisenatureof its unevencorrespondencescan, however,sometimes
be altogetherlost. It is importantto observethat evenPoulantzas,whomost force-
fully elaboratesthe non-correspondencebetween the different levelsof a social
formation(the 'relativeautonomy'of the economic,the political,the ideological),
has, of necessity,to return to the classical premisethat the dominanceof 'private
capitalisminvolvesa non•interventioniststate and monopolycapitalisminvolves
an interventioniststate' .' 1 Poulantzas'selaborationof 'relativeautonomy'has too
frequentlybeen quoted at the expenseof any recognitionof the premisingof his
analysison what he himselfcalls these 'tendentialcombinations'.
Buthowdoes theclass strugglereappearthroughthe state,as the conciliationof
the class struggle?The argumentturns on Marx's usageof the tenn, 'appearance'
and its cognates.llMarxalwaysuses 'appearances'in the strongsense.The notion
of 'appearance'as used in Marx is not the same as the common•sensemeaningof
the tenn 'false appearances',if by that we understandsomethingwhich is simply
an opticalillusion,a fantasyin men's imagination.The tenn 'appearance'in Marx
impliesa theoryof darstellungor representation- a theorythat a social fonnation
is a complexunity,composedof differentlevelsand practices,wherethere is no
necessaryidentity or correspondencebetween the effects a relationproduces at
its differentlevels.Thus 'appearances'in this sense,are false, not becausethey do
not exist, but becausethey inviteus to mistakesurfaceeffectsfor real relations.As
Gramsciputs it: 'The terms"apparent"and "appearance"meanpreciselythis and
nothingelse.... They are the assertionof the perishablenature of all ideological
systems,side by side with the assertionthat all systemshavean historicalvalidity
and are necessary.''lThusthe unequalexchangeof capital with labour power in
the sphere of capitalist productionappearsas - is transformedinto - the 'equal
exchange' of commoditiesat their 'value' in the sphere of exchange.Thus the
unequalextractionof surplusvaluein productionappearsas 'a fair day's wagefor
a fairday's work' at 1helevelof the wageconlract.So,also,the 'reproductive'work
whichthe capitaliststate perfonnson behalfof capital,assumesthe appearanceof
the class neutralityof the stale- standingabovethe class struggleand moderating
it - at the politico•juridicallevel: 'In order that these antagonisms... might not
consumethemselvesand society in sterile struggle,a powerapparentlystanding
196 POLICJNOTH6CRISIS

above society becomesnecessaryfor the purposeor moderatingthe conflictand

keepingit withinthe boundsof "order".'54
We can see this theory of 'representation'at work in Capital, in for example,
the discussionof the 'wage-form'. Both in everydaylife, in bourgeoiscommon
sense and in political economy,the wage is 'experienced'and theorisedas the
form of 'equal exchange' betweenthe capitalistand the labourer,regulatedonly
by the 'hidden hand' of the labour market. Marx argues that this form of 'equal
exchange'is in fact founded'in the depths', on relationsof production,by which
surpluslabouris extractedby the capitalistin the formof surplusvalue- relations
which are neitherfree nor equal.These relationsare, however,apparently'lived'
as marketrelationsof equality.The wage relation, in the sphere of exchange,is
a relation 'standing in' for anotherrelation which,at the same time, it obscures.
It is clear of course that this does not mean that the wage relation is a figment
of the imagination,an imaginary construct. The wage relation is a tangible
and necessaryrelation for capital. Wages do exist. Indeed, they are absolutely
necessaryto capitalist 'relationsof production'since 1heyare the form in which
capital advancespart of itself- 'variable'capital- in orderthat labourpowercan
reproduceitself through subsistencein the family,the sphere of 'reproduction'.
Wagesare also the meansby whichthe wage-earnersare attractedfromone labour
marketto another,and thus distributedto the variousbranchesof production.Thus
wages are a part of productivecapital, the necessarypart whichcapital advances
for the reproductionof labour power. However,lhey assume under capitalist
conditionsa 'fonn' whichappearsto belongto the sphereof circulationalone,and
thus as the labourer's 'just reward' for a 'fair day's work'. The appearancewhich
capitalassumesin this sphere(i.e. money)concealsor obscuresfrom the labourer
the fact that what he is paid is only a part of what he alreadyproduces- and that
this paymentfavoursthe capitalist because it enablesthe labourerto reproduce
that labourpower whichhe will need for the cycle of productionto continue:
Within the limits of what is strictly necessary,the individualconsumptionof
the working class is therefore the reconversionof the means of subsistence
given by capital in exchangefor labour power,into fresh labour-powerat the
disposalof capitalfor exploitation.It is the productionand reproductionof that
meansof productionso indispensableto the capitalist:the labourerhimself....
The maintenanceand reproductionof the workingclass is, and must ever be, a
necessaryconditionto the reproductionof capital."
Earlier, Marx notes that 'The conversionof a sum of money into means of
productionand labour-power... takes place in the market, within the sphere of
circulation.'However,he adds: 'the simple fundamentalform of the process of
accumulationis obscuredby the incidentof the circulationwhich brings it about,
and by the splittingup of surplus value',56 The transactionof capital, he argues,
'is veiled by the commodity-formof the product and the money-formof the
commodity'.In this connection,he says, 'The bourgeoiseconomist'has a 'narrow
mind' which is 'unable to separate the form of appearancefrom the thing that
appears'. The 'forms' which 'capital assumeswhile in the sphereof circulation',
 CRIME.LAWANDTHES'rATE 197
as well as 'the concrete conditionsof its reproduction',are 'hidden under these
forms•.s7
Capital must thereforeconstantlypass throughthe web of circulationand the
formswhicheffect its transformationat that level,in orderto completeits circuit,
'flowing on with incessantrenewal'. So the sphere of circulationis necessaryto
the circuit of capital, even though at the same time it is precisely its exchange
fomis which 'hide the play of its innermechanism'.Clearly,the formsof exchange
cannotadequatelyexpressor grasp the relationsof productionbetweencapitalist
and labourer as a whole, for they appear in exchangeas one 'moment' only of
the realisationof value. It is about this sphere of exchange,however,that Marx
observes:'this sphere.,. withinwhoseboundariesthe sale and purchaseof labour
powergoes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innaterightsof man.There alonerule
Freedom,Equality,Property and Bentham:~•In short, it is from this one-sided
appearancewhich capital assumes in circulationthat there arise all the concepts
anddiscourseswhichorganisethe domainsof the superstructures-political,legal
and ideological.
We must try to think the problemof the capitalist state on the analogyof the
thingsMarxhas beensayingaboutthe wageformin Capital.The State.apparently
independentof any particularclass interest, composedof the politico-juridical
apparatuses,embodyingthe 'general interest', 'universal'rights and obligations,
is preciselythe fonn (and after a certainstage in the developmentof the capitalist
mode of production,the only fonn) in which particular class interests can be
securedas a 'generalinterest',
In The EighteenthBrumaireand his other historicalwritings,Marx analysed
in concrete detail this 'relative independence'of the sphere of politics and the
juridical system from the mode of production.The crisis of December 18S1in
France,and the failureof any one class or class allianceto seize powerin the state,
leadingto the 'Bonapartist'stalemate,reflected,Marx argued,the backwardness
of the French mode of productionat the time; the latter's 'under-development'
set the limits withinwhichthe 'Bonapartist'politicalresolutionwas effected.But
it did not determinethe specific class content of each moment of the political
crisis, which,Marxshowed,assumeda successionof differentfonns of regime-
social republic,democraticrepublic,parliamentaryrepublic- each representing
an attemptedequilibriumbetweendifferentclass forces, before falling back 'on
the despotismof a singleindividual'_YJThesedifferentformsof regime- in which
the relations of class forces and the struggles between them appeared - were
generatedat the level of politics:each stage in the resolutionproducing,in tum,
a differentfonn of the state. Each, in its own way- Marxadded- 'methodically'
developedthe Frenchstate as an independentpower.The less each attemptedclass
allianceprovedable to rule on its own, the more it requireda strong state to rule
on its behalf; yet none could finally commandthis state and rule from its base.
The class which finallycame nearest to securingits intereststhroughthe rule of
Napoleonand his 'ideas' was, in the event,a sectionof a backwardand declining
class - the conservativesectionsof the smallholdingpeasantry.This class could
not rule on its own or commandthe state in its own name. Henceit attemptedto
'rule through' Napoleon.In facl Napoleonfor a time succeededin ruling through
198 POLICINOTHECRISIS

it. This class fractiondid, Marx observes,'prosper in a hot house fashion' under
Napoleon; but in the long term it undoubtedlyretarded rather than advanced
the developmentof the productiveforces and capitalistrelationsin France. The
Eighteenth Brumalre, the most dazzling analysis of the political instance in
Marx's maturehistoricalwork, thus offersan exceptionallylucid insightinto the
complexitiesof the 'uneven correspondence'betweenthe formsof the state and
other leveJsof the social fonnation.The politicalcrisis which finallyassumedits
Bonapartist'resolution' was precipitatedby the contradictorydevelopmentof the
Frenchmode of production.The complexof classes and class fractions'in play'
in the crisis correspondedto the underdevelopedstage of that development:the
fact that industrialcapital was not yet in dominancein the Frencheconomy,and
severaldifferentmodes of productionwere still in an unevencombination.The
level of developmentof the French mode of productionthus set certain critical
limits to the formsof the politicalresolutionwhich were possibleat that moment
in Frenchhistory.The peculiarnatureof 'Bonapartism'Marx clearly understood
as a stalemateresolutionwhichwas also a postponement:'France thereforeseems
to haveescapedthe despotismof a class only to fall back beneaththe despotismof
an individuaJ,'liOThis 'resolution' does not advance- it retards the furtherdevel-
opmentof the productiveforces.The essay is thereforea brilliantexpositionof the
way the politicaldomainis both 'connectedwith' and at the same time 'relatively
independent'of the economicmovementsof society.It is an object lesson in the
attemptto 'think' the relative-autonomy/determination-in-the-last-instance of the
politico-juridicallevelor a social formation.

THE LEOALAND POLITICALORDBROF THE STATE

It is thelegalandpoliticalaspectsof thecapitaliststate whichprincipallyconcernus
here.Althoughthe moderncapitaliststate is constitutedprincipallyat the political
level, it has many other functions- includingdirectly economicones - which
cannot be examinedhere. The observationswhich follow should not therefore
be taken as standing,even in bare outline. as a general accountof the modes of
operationof the modem state. It is to the role of the state in the establishmentof
hegemony- as this is achievedin the political,juridical and ideologicaldomains,
and withincivil society and its association- that our attentionhere must neces-
sarily be limited.
Gramsci, whose work has considerablyenlarged our conceptionof the state
and its functions,speaks of the capitaliststate as 'the instrumentfor conforming
civil society to the economicstructure'. That is to say, the state plays a critical
role in shapingsocial and political life in such a way as to favourthe continued
expansionof productionand the reproductionof capitalistsocial relations.This
may be considereda 'general function of the state in so far as, since the devel-
opmentof relativelycomplexsocialformations,somedevelopedformof territorial
andjuridical authorityhas been necessaryto organizeand consolidatethe basic
productiverelations',61 But the mannerand scale on whichthe state performsthis
role under capitalismis historicallyspecificand distinct from any other type of
socialformationhithertoknown.Capitalismis the first modeof productionto be
based on the historicappearanceand dominanceof 'free labour'; that is, labour
 CRIME.LAWANDTHilSTATE 199
which is not bound by traditional,juridical or politicalties of force, obligation,
caste or cuslom; which is denuded of its own means of production(as labour
under domesticproductionwas not); and which enters into a productiverelation
with capital in its 'free' form, organised only by the contract and the labour
market,the buyingand sellingof labourpower.Similarly,the exchangeof money
for commoditiesin a society of generalisedcommodityexchange,where again
only the market relation rules, and each individualappears as 'mutually indif-
ferent' to the other's interest,representsa quite specifichistoricalphase of social
development.The first aspect belongsto the expandingsphereof privatecapitalist
production,the secondto the extendingterrainof what was called 'civil society'.
Althoughthe economiclevelis, in this formof society,massivelydetermining,the
socialrelationswhichcharacterisesuch societiesof privatecapitaland the markel
cannot be sustained,recreatedand reproducedwithin the sphere of production
alone.The conditionsfor capitalistproductionand the reproductionof its social
relations must be articulated through all the levels of the social formalion-
economic,political, ideological.Thus, for example, a society based on private
capitaland 'free labour' in the economicsphererequiresthejuridical relationsof
privateproperty and the contract. Hence it requiresa legal code in which these
relationsare institutionalised;a legal ideologyin which these economicmotives
can assumethe formof 'juridicalmotives';a juridicalapparatuswhichcan givethe
economicrelationa legalexpressionand sanction.So far as capitalistproduction
is concerned,what matters is the exchangeof capital against labour power and
the extractionof the surplus. But this labour power has to be physicallyrepro-
duced. New generationsof workersmust take the place of old or dead ones; the
workermust return refreshedsufficientlyeach day to labourproductivelyagain.
The site of this side of the physicaland cultural reproductionof labourpower -
on which economicproductiondepends- is not within production,but (through
the instrument of the 'living wage') actually performed within the sphere of
consumptionof the familyand thus in part throughthe sexualdivisionof labour.
Labour power has also to be reproducedat the level of knowledgeand skills,
whichthe advancingtechnicaldivisionof labourin capitalistproductionrequires.
Increasingly,this 'task' is performed, not within production, but through the
distinctsphereof the educationsystem- over which,progressively,as a separate
apparatus,the capitaliststate increasinglytakes command.Labour must also be
tutoredto 'the rules of morality,civic and professionalconscience,whichactually
means rules of respect for the socio-technicaldivisionof labour and ultimately
the rules of the orderestablishedby class domination'.61 This 'task' of ideological
conformityis, increasingly,the work of the cultural apparatuses- over which,
again, the state comes to exert an increasingorganisationalsway.Hence,even in
a socialformationover-determinedby the laws of motionof capitalistproduction,
the conditionsfor that production- or what has come to be called social repro-
duction - are often sustained in the apparently 'unproductive'spheres of civil
societyand the state;and in so far as the classes,fundamentallyconstitutedin the
productiverelation, also contend over this process of 'social reproduction',the
class struggle is presenl in all the domains of civil society and the state. It is in
this sense that Marxcalled the state 'the officialresum~ofsociety', 63 the 'table of
contentsof man's practicalconflicts'. It 'expressessub specie reipublicae(from
200 POLICINGTHECRISIS

the polilical standpoint)all the social conflicts, needs and interests'.64 Gramsci
paraphrasedthis by calling the state essentially'organisationaland connective'.
For Gramsci,the type of 'order' whichthe state imposedand expressedwas of
a very specifickind: an orderof cohesion.Of course,cohesioncan be achievedin
more than one form.One side of cohesionclearly dependson force and coercion.
In a systembased on capitalistreproduction,labourhas, if necessary,to be disci-
plined to labour; in bourgeois society, the propertylesshave to be disciplined
to the respect for private property; in a society of 'free individuals', men and
womenhave to be disciplinedto respectand obey the overarchingframeworkof
the nation-stateitself.Coercionis one necessaryfaceor aspectof 'the orderof the
state'. The law and the legalinstitutionsare the clearestinstitutionalexpressionof
this 'reserve army' of enforcedsocialdiscipline.But societyclearly works better
when men learn to disciplinethemselves;or where disciplineappears to be the
result of the spontaneousconsentof each to a commonand necessarysocialand
politicalorder:or where,at least,the reserveexerciseof coercionis put into effect
with everyone'sconsent.
In this respect,Gramsciargued,the state had another,and crucialaspector role
besidesthe legalor coerciveone: the role of leadership,of direction,of education
and tutelage- the sphere,not of 'domination'by force, but of the 'productionof
consent'. 'In reality,the State must be conceivedofas an "educator",in as much
as it tends precisely to create a new type or level of civilization.... It operates
accordingto a plan, urges, incites, solicits,and "punishes".'The legal system -
the site, apparently,of coercion- also had a positiveand educativerole to play in
this respect:

for once the conditionsare created in which a certain way of life is 'possible',
then 'criminal action or omission' must have a punitivesanction,with moral
implications.... The Law is the repressive and negative aspect of the entire
positive,civilizingactivityundertakenby lhe Slate ... praiseworthyand merito-
rious activityis rewarded,just as criminalactionsare punished(and punished
in originalways, bringingin 'public opinion'as a formof sanction)."'
In Gramsci,this managementof consent was not conceivedsimply as a trick or
a ruse. For capitalistproductionto expand,it was necessaryfor the wholeterrain
of social, moral and cultural activity to be brought, where possible, within its
sway,developedand reshaped to its needs.That is what Gramsci meant by the
state 'creating a new type or levelof civilization'.The law, he added, 'will be its
instrumentfor this purpose'.66
Gramsciclearlyrecognisedthat the capitaliststate involvedthe exerciseof both
typesof power- coercion(domination)andconsent(direction).Eventhe coercive
side of the state workedbest when perceivedas legitimatelycoercing- i.e. with
the consent of the majority.The state enforces its authority through both types
of domination;indeed, the two types are present within each apparatus of the
state.67 Nevertheless,Gramsci argued, the capitalist slate functionedbest when
it operated 'normally' throughleadershipand consent,with coercionheld, so to
speak,as the 'armour of consent', for then the state was free to undertakeits more
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 201
educative, 'ethical' and cultural roles, drawing the whole edifice of social life
progressivelyinto conformitywith the productivesphere.The liberal-democratic
slate,he argued- with its elaboratestructureof representation,its organisationof
social intereststhroughParliamentand the fonnationof parties,its representation
of economicinterestsin trade unionsand employers'federations,its space for the
articulationof publicopinion,its organisationalsway overthe multitudeof private
associationsin civil life - achievedits ideal form, its fullestcrystallisation,when
rootedin popularconsent.These were the essentialpreconditionsfor the exercise
of what Gramscicalled 'hegemony'. Hegemonywas no automaticcondition;its
very absencefrom Italian politicallife was what focusedGramsci's attentionon
it. But it was the conditionto which liberal-bourgeoissociety 'aspired'. And its
achievement- this universalisationof class interests- hadprogressivelyto pass
throughthe mediationof the state. Gramscispoke of 'the decisivepassagefrom
the structureto the sphereof the complexsuperstructures'.Only whena dominant
class fractioncould extend its authority in productionthrough to the spheresof
civil society and the state could it be said to exercise 'hegemony'.Through the
state, a particularcombinationof class fractions- an 'historical bloc' - was able
to 'propagate itself throughoutsociety - bringing about not only a unison of
economicand politicalaims, but also intellectualand moral unity,posing all the
questionsaroundwhichthe strugglerages, not on a corporatebut on a "universal"
plane,and thuscreatingthe hegemonyof a fundamentalsocialgroupover a series
of subordinategroups.'61
Gramsci conceived the fundamental level of determination over a social
formationto be constituted'in the last instance'at the levelof productiverelations;
hencehe speaksof the fundamentalclassesof capitalistproductionas 'the funda-
mentalsocialgroups'. But he recognisedthat there is no such simpleand homog-
enous formationas a, or the, ruling class; and he recognisedthat underdifferent
historical conditions the objective interests of such a 'fundamental class' in
productioncould only be realisedthroughthe politicaland ideologicalleadership
of a particularjl'Clctionof that class,or an allianceof class fractions.The state was
thus, for him, of crucial importancein the veryfonnation of such rulingalliances,
includingthe weldingof the interestsof subalterngroups under the authorityof
a particularalliance,thus forming the basis of a 'bloc' which could extend and
expandits socialauthorityoverthe wholeensemble.The state was also the terrain
in whichsubordinatesocialclassescould be 'won' to supportthe authorityof the
ruling alliance.If hegemonywas to be secured withoutdestroyingthe cohesion
of the social formation,and without the continualexerciseof naked force, then
certain'costs' mighthaveto be extractedfromthedominantclassto secureconsent
to its socialand politicalbase.Only the state could,when necessary,imposethese
politicalcosts on narrowerruling-<:lassinterests.Undoubtedly,Gramscibelieved
that the liberal form of the capitalist state was well adapted to this complex
exercise in hegemony.In and through political representation,parties, the play
of public opinion,there was room for the formalrepresentationof the needs and
interestsof subordinatesocial groups within the complex of the state; by these
means their loyalty and consentcould be 'cemented' to the hegemonicfraction.
Similarly,the 'rule of law' establishedthat equalityof all citizens,givingthe law
202

an autonomous position, while enabling it to perform certain critical tasks, within

the legally establishedframework of hegemonicclasspower.The samewas true
at the economic level:

Undoubtedly the fact of hegemonypresupposesthat account be taken of the

interestsand tendenciesof the groups over which hegemonyis exercised,and
that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed ... the leading groups
should make sacrifices of a corporate-economic kind. But there is also no
doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential;
for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic, must neces-
sarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the
decisive nucleus of economic activity.69

More and more, the formation of such 'unequal equilibria' has been the peculiar
'task' of the state.
The state is therefore the key instrument which enlarged the narrow rule of a
particular class into a 'universal' class leadership and authority over the whole
social formation. Its 'task' is to secure this broadening and generalising of class
power, while ensuring also the stability and cohesion of the social ensemble. The
relative independence of the state (the 'relative autonomy' of the political from
the economic) is, in capitalist societies, the necessary condition for this 'task' of
cohesion and unity. For this reason, the view oft he capitalist state as 'the executive
committee of the ruling class' is not a particularly helpful one. It pinpoints the
essential class nature of the state but it obscures what is specific Lothe state under
capitalism - the basis of its independence. The temptation is to 'read' the political
level of the state as always and directly expressive, either of the 'needs' of the
productive forces or of the narrow class interests of one ruling class fraction.
This obscures the fact that a fundamental class can exercise power through the
mediation, at the political level, of a ruling or 'governing' class fraction different
from itself. It renders unintelligible the fact that the English industrial bourgeoisie
'ruled' for a substantial part of the nineteenth century, through a Parliament
dominated by the landed aristocracy; or that the English working class was, for a
long period, represented politically through the radical wing of the Liberal Party.
Only a proper understanding of the basis of the form of 'independence' which
the state assumes under capitalism enables us to reconcile Perry Anderson's obser-
vation that the English industrial capitalist class never becomes the 'governing'
class,10 with Marx and Engel's insistence that England in the nineteenth century
was the most bourgeois nation on earth.71 This otherwise perplexing fact has
something to do with Marx's insistence that the bourgeoisie was the only 'ruling
class' incapable of ruling on its own. This point is often clearly put in Marx and
Engels's writings on Britain and France.72 Engels thought it almost 'a law of
historical development that the bourgeoisie can in no European country get hold
of political power ... in the same exclusive way in which the feudal aristocracy kept
hold of it during the Middle Ages' .n And the reason for this lay in the tendency
of the various capitals increasingly to enter into competition with one another,
and for these internal conflicts to represent themselves through internal struggles
between different fractions of the bourgeoisie. Hence capital itself - social
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTAT6 203

capital - comes lo require a strong, interventioniststate, capable of functioning

as the 'ideal total capitalist', 'serving the interestsof the protection,consolidation
and expansionof the capitalist mode of productionas a whole,over and against
lhe conflictinginterestsof ... lhe "many capitals" '"' The state, Engels said, is a
'capitalistmachine... the idealpersonificationof the total nationalcapital',75
In Gramsci'ssense,then, the state is not so muchan entity,or evena particular
complex of institutions,so much as it is a particular site or level of the social
formation:with its specificformsand 'tasks', irreplaceableby anyother structure,
even if, in the last analysis, it is superstructural.The slate is the organiser.In its
economicfunctionit helps 10organiseon behalfof capital- more and more so as
capitalismmovesfrom its /aisse,-faireto its state-monopolyform.It secures the
conditionsfor the reproductionof capital and maintainsthe society as a site for
profitableinvestment.But ii also organisesthroughits juridical function- the 'set
of rules whichorganizescapitalistexchangesand providesthe real frameworkof
cohesionin whichcommercialencounterscan take place'.16 It organisesideologi-
cally,throughthe cuhuralsphereand the educationsystem- once again,progres-
sively expanded and complexifiedas the productive needs it serves develop;
throughthe meansand media of communicationand the orchestrationof public
opinion.Increasingly,it organisesthe civil and social life of society- especially
of the familyand the poor,throughthe 'mediated'structuresof the WelfareState.
Aboveall, it organisesthroughpolitics,the systemof politicalpartiesand political
representation:through 'the maintenanceof order in political class conflict',17
This organisationof hegemonicdominationat the level of politicsand the law is,
indeed,what,aboveall, is specificto the functionsof the capitaliststate.Through
the politicaland juridical sides of its activity,the state secures a certain kind of
politicalorder, enforcesa certain type of legal order, maintainsa certain kind of
socialorder,in the serviceof capital.
One effect of erectinga complexof state apparatusesin this way is to render
the economic aspect of class relations invisible.The classes are represented,
politically,as if composedonly of 'individualcitizens'. The relationof citizens
to the state is definedin the law (legal subjects)and throughthe politicalinstitu-
tions (politicalsubjects).The state representsitself as the repositoryof all these
individualwills- it is the 'general will', while standingaboveand apart from the
sordid strugglebetween particularinterests.It reconstitutesclass subjects as its
own subjects:itself as 'the nation'. The political-juridicaldomainestablishesthe
central points of referencefor other public ideologies.The ideologicalconcepts
of this spherepredominateover others: the languageof liberties,'equality,rights,
duties,the rule of law, the legal state, the nation,individuals/persons,the general
will, in short all the catchwordsunder which bourgeoisclass exploitationentered
and ruled in history' becomes paramount.78 Poulantzaseven argues that under
capitalism other ideologicalspheres - philosophy,religion, moral discourse -
borrowtheir key notionsfrom the political-juridicaldomain.
The 'autonomy' of the liberal capitalist state thus gives a univel'salform to
the dominationby a successionof ruling-classalliances.That 'universalisation'
of the state to the 'general interest' is underpinnedby its base in popular repre-
sentationand popularconsent.The capitaliststate is the first, historically,to root
itselfin a universalsuffrage.Gradually,througha prolongedpoliticalstruggle,the
204 POLICINGTHECRISIS

emergentworkingclasses won a positionin 'political society', and were by the

early twentiethcenturyincorporatedfonnally into it. This gradual,uneven,often
bitterly resisteddrawingof all the politicalclasses withinthe formal framework
of the state, at one and the same time, widenedits representativebase (and thus
its legitimacy),and forced it to appear increasingly 'autonomous' of any one
particularclass interest.A fundamentalrecompositionof the formof thecapitalist
state followed.Hereat\er,the state could only providethe 'theatre' for the organi-
sation of hegemony,by working throughconsent.Its work as an 'organiser of
consent'thus becomesmorecritical- as well as moredelicate,more problematic.
Only by winningconsentcan the state exact both obligationand obedience.
The law, also, is progressively'autonomised'as part of this general recompo-
silion; but it remainsan integralpart of the equationof consentand compliance.
The law is the site of the more coercive aspect of the capitalist state: but this
exercisein coercionremainslegitimatebecausethe law,too,has its base ultimately
in popular representationand the 'will of the people through Parliament'which
legislates.The strict and impartialobservationof the 'rule of law' and theclassical
doctrine(long ago enunciatedby Montesquieu)of the 'separationof powers' are
the fonnal expressionsof this pact of civil associationin the state, and thus also
the soil in which the impartialityof the law is rooted. Hunt has remarkedthat,
because the 'separation of powers' tends to conceal the class character of the
judicial apparatus,its critics havebeenwronglytemptedto exaggeratethe coinci-
dence,at all times,betweenthe state, the needsof capital,the rulingclass and the
law.We have suggestedthe reasonswhy this simple inversionis not acceptable;
it does not explain enough, or adequately.For example, it cannot explain how
and why the law can and does sometimesinterveneagainst the overt interests
of a particular ruling-classfraction. In the face of this, the expressiveview is
drivenback to a conspiracytheory.Similarly,it cannotexplain what the material
basis is for the belief - to which working people often subscribe (and which
cannot be dismissedas 'false consciousness')- that the law affords them some
protectionof life, limb and propertytoo. ln fact, the arbitrary,openlyclass nature
of the law,remarkedon earlier in relationto the eighteenthcentury,reflectedthe
limited basis of the consent and participationwhich sustainedthe coalitionsof
the emergentagrarian capitalist state - 'Old Corruption'; and demonstratedits
imperfectlydeveloped'bourgeois' character.The wider the politicalfoundations
of the stale, the strongerthe presenceof the great 'unenfranchised'classes in it,
the more - slowly and unevenly,to be sure - the law, in its routineoperations,is
driven towardsa formal separationfrom the direct play of the class interestsof
the governingfraction of the ruling class. This 'recomposition'of the juridical
instancewithinthe capitaliststate occursthroughthe mostcomplexdialectic.The
lawis propelled,by the developmentof the politicalclassstruggle,to appearmore
independent:this providesa degreeof judicial 'space' which the workingclasses
sometimesappropriatefor their own defence and protection;but it also gives the
law a measureof freedom,as it were, to 'police' - and thus to regulate- capital
itself.This task of superintendenceand reconstruction'from above' is a function
which, at certain moments,the dominantclass fractionsrequire but which they
cannot carry through in their own name, and which they don't always like. The
'autonomisation'of the law does not therefore mean that it ceases to perform
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 205
certain criticaljudicial tasks on behalf of the developmentof the capitalistmode
of production.In some ways, it now possessesgreaterfreedomand legitimacyto
do so. It does, however,mean that these tasks have to be performedin different
ways, through profoundly modified legal structures and legal ideologies. It
suggests,in short, how this 'perfecting' of thejuridical apparatusesof the liberal
capitaliststate was a processdrivenforwardsby the attemptto find a solution,at a
higherlevel,to contradictionswhichcould not otherwisebe overcome:a solution
which- like the 'rule of law' itself - remainscontradictory.
The consequenceof this dialecticalmovementfor the positionof the juridical
apparatusin the state must be borne in mind throughoutwhat follows- above
all, for its contradictoryresult.A 'Law' which is 'above' party and class can and
must, from time to time, impose its legal authorityon sectionsof capital itself.
It must enforceits universallegal norms and sanctionsagainst 'illegal' capitalist
transactions.Thus 'decisions by the court do not always please the holders of
state power.'79 It must extend its sway to all 'legal subjects' - giving everyone
a substantive interest in the preservationof legal order. The substantial gains
which workingpeople have made from the enforcementof the 'rule of law' and
other legally sanctionedrights must not be overlookedin a hasty but one-sided
unmasking(cf. Thompson'seloquent,but itself somewhatone-sided,defence).'°
On the other side, we should not neglectwhat it performs- not necessarilyin a
concealed,but often in a perfectlyopen and 'legitimate' way - in the long-term
service of capital.The inscriptionwithin its legal forms of the key relationsof
capital- privateproperty,the contract- is no well-keptsecret. If the law demar-
cates illegal formsof appropriation,it makesthe legal formspublic and visible-
the norm - and sanctionsthem positively,It protects life and limb. But it also
preservespublic order; and, under this rubric, it frequentlysecures, in moments
of open class confrontation,just that stability and cohesion without which the
steady reproductionof capital and the unfolding of capitalist relations would
be a far more hazardousand unpredictableaffair.It preservessocietyagainst its
enemies,withinand without.It raises existingsocialrelations- for examplethose
stemmingfrom the socialand sexualdivisionof labour- to the levelof universal
norms.By operatingstrictlywithinjudicial logic,juridical normsof evidenceand
proof, it constantlybrackets out those aspects of class relations which destroy
its equilibriumand impartialityin practice.It equalises,in the formaleye of the
law,things whichcannotbe equal. In the famouswordsof AnatoleFrance: 'in its
majesticimpartialityit forbidsthe rich and poor alike to sleep under the bridges
of Paris'. It addresses'class subjects' as individualpersons;in Althusser'sphrase
it constantly'interpellatesthe subject'- the legalsubject.81 It eventreatscorporate
structuresas 'persons'. 'It is importantto stress,' Hunt remindsus, 'that the legal
rules do not create the social relations that make up capitalist society. But by
stating them as principlesand by enforcing them, the Law operatesnot only to
reinforcethese relationsbut to legitimisethem in their existingform.'82 The law
thus comesto representall that is most imparlial,independent,abovethe play of
party interest, within the state. It is the most formal representationof universal
consent.Its 'rule' comesto stand for the socialorder- for 'society' itself. Hence
a challengeto it is a token of socialdisintegration.In such conjunctures'law' and
'order' becomeidenticaland indivisible.
206 POLICINOTH6CRISIS

MODESOF HEGBMONY,
CRISISIN HEGEMONY
So far we have been speakingof certain general featuresof the capitalist state.
In earlier stages of capitalistdevelopmentthe state perfonns its work on behalf
of the capitalistsystem,not necessarilyby assuringjobs withinits bureaucracies
or within its political apparatuses for the sons of a rising bourgeoisie,but by
other means: first, by destroyingthose structures,relations,customs, traditions
which,derivingfromthe past, frompast modesoflife, stand in the way,fetterand
constraincapital's 'free development';second, it performs the work of actively
tutoring, forming, shaping, cultivating,soliciting and educating the emergent
classes to the new social relations- which enable capitalist accumulationand
productionto begin 'freely' to unroll.This is a crude but essentialstarting-point
for approachingthe more difficultissue of the differenttype:1of state, throughout
the historicaJdevelopmentof capitalism, which perfonn this 'work'; and the
differenttasks whicharise fromdifferentmomentsin the developmentof capital;
and thus of the differentmodesof hegemonywhich it is possiblefor ruling-class
alliancesto establishand organisethroughthe mediationof the state.
Historically,a great variety of political regimes have been compatiblewith
the capitalist mode of production.This does not undercutGramsci's argument
that certain mechanismsare crucial for the capitaliststate in any of its 'nonnal'
forms.The qualification,'nonnal', is important.Althoughthe precisenatureof the
relationshipbetweenfascismand capitalismin a degeneratephase is still a matter
of considerablecontroversy,it must now be acknowledgedthat capitalismis also
compatiblewith - and may requiredto be 'rescued' by - certainquite exceptional
fonns of the state (e.g. the fasciststate), in which many of its normaJmodes are
suspended.Gramscihadcauseto understandthe significanceof these 'exceptionaJ'
moments,sinceit waspreciselyonesuch state,the stateof Mussolini'sfascistItaly,
which imprisonedhim. However,while bearing this 'exceptional'possibilityin
mind,it is necessaryto retain the conceptof the 'normal' modesof the liberaland
post-liberalslate. And this has, centrally,to do with lhe fact that, howeverthis is
actuallyorganised,the capitaliststate tends towardsfoundingand establishingits
dominanceovercivil life and societythroughthe combinationof modesof consent
and modes of coercion- but with consentas its key, legitimatingsupport.How
this 'rule throughconsent' may actually underpinseveralvery differentkinds of
state,or howa particularfonn of the state may shift fromoneprincipalmodalityto
another,in momentsof crisis,maybe illustratedby looking,schematically,at three
key momentsin its historicaldevelopmentin Britain.
It is becomingincreasinglyclear that the idea of a 'pure' versionof the non-in-
terventionistlaissez-fairestate in Britainin the mid-nineteenthcenturyis a fiction.
In the heyday of the 'liberal' state - roughly,the period between the defeat of
Chartismat the end of the 1840sand the onset of the Great Depression- though
the state tended to a positionof 'non-intervention'in economicaffairsand in the
market, it remaineda significanteducativeand regulatoryforce throughout.As
Polanyi argues, for the economicliberals of the mid-century,laissez-fairewas
an end to be realised- if necessarythroughstate intervention- not a description
of an existingslate of things.13 Radicalutilitarians,followingBentham,certainly
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 207
believedin intervention,preciselyto securethe conditionsin whichuntrammelled
individualismcould flourish.This is of coursethe periodof the progressivestabi-
lisation of industrialcapital as the dominant mode of productionat home over
all other modes,including,gradually,that of landedcapital;and of the enormous
productiveexpansionof capital across the face of the globe- the creationfor the
first time of that 'global net' which Marx predicted and which Hobsbawm,in
the Age of Capitalhas recentlyso vividlyrecrealed.114The introductionof what
Marx calls 'machino-facture'on a large scale transforms the existing basis of
production,and in the same moment,transformsexisting modes of labour and
recomposesthe labour force internally.In this period, the role of the state is at
once 'minimal' and critical.It is throughthe state and Parliamentthat many of the
traditionaleconomicarrangementsstill fetteringthe growth of industrialcapital
are dismantled;the crucialpassageof therepealof the Corn Lawsis a keyexample
here- one of many.It positively'cultivates'the newworkingclassesto the regime
of steady, regular,regulated,unbroken wage labour - the assault by economic
liberalismin its mostaggressivephase on the 'paternalism'of the old Poor Laws,
and the drawingof eventhe poor and destitutedirectlyinto the net of 'productive
work' is anotherkey instance.Marx observeshow the criminallaw and the penal
systemare related to this discipliningof even the most recalcitrantsectorsof the
potentiallabour force to the habits of wage labour.85 At the same time, the state
begins to concern itself with - first through fact-finding,then through admin-
istrative intervention,regulation and inspection- the conditionsof labour (the
factory legislationof the period), and the co11sequences of industrialupheaval
(the urban reform of health, sanitationand the city). Many of these tasks are
'recuperative':without them capitalismcould become neither so self-regulating
nor so 'automatic'. Some of them - for example,factorylegislationon child and
femalelabour,and then the criticalrestrictionon workinghours- the state accom-
plishesagainst the immediateshort-terminterestsof industrialcapital.Here, the
slate has to accommodatethe growingstrength,powerand organisedpresenceof
the workingclass, and, apparentlyat capital's expense,initiatesthose legislative
measureswhich provide a stabilising'equilibrium' for the dominanceof capital
to continuewithoutmassiveworking-classrevolt.Wecan see in this instanceboth
the 'work' which the state does/or capital,against capital, and its contradictory
consequences.For the controlson the length of the workingday contravenedthe
crucial meansby which capital expandedits surplus:through the lengtheningof
the workingday. Once a barrier had been establishedto this method,capital is
drivento anothermode of 'self-expansion'- increasingthe productivityof labour
through the extensionof 'dead' labour (machines)in relationto 'living' labour:
that shift from the extractionof 'absolute' to the extractionof 'relative' surplus
value which inauguratesa whole new cycle of capitalist development.So the
'relativeautonomy'of the state has some contradictoryconsequencesfor the very
mode of productionwhich it superintends.
In this period it is politics which providesthe key mechanismof consent:and
it is through the politicalsystem that the dominanteconomicclass exercisesits
hegemony.We haveshownalreadyhow importantit is that this is executed,not in
its own name or person, but through the occupancy,in governmentand politics,
208 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

of fractionsof landedcapital.This displacementof power,from whatMarxcalled

the 'economicaJ!yruling class' to the 'politicallygoverningcaste', is critical for
an understandingof the shiftingalliancesof mid-<:entury politics.It is also critical
for an understandingof how the workingclasses came, throughoutthis period,
to be formallyrepresented,politically,as what Marx and Engelscalled a 'tail' or
appendageto the Whig-Radicalalliance- a fact which was to have the greatest
consequencesfor the 'political re-education'of the new industrialmasses.The
period is framed, at either end, by the two great struggles over the reform of
parliamentaryinstitutions.The industrialbourgeoisiefirst enfranchisesitseJfand
its 'tenants'; and then, throughthe century,is progressivelyforced to extend the
franchiseto the workingclasses.This process, too, is contradictory.On the one
hand, the refonns bring the workingclasses into fonnal politicalrepresentation,
thereby modifyingthe undilutedexercise of political power in the interests of
capital (thus each stage of enfranchisementis vigorouslyresisted);yet, on the
other hand,the enfranchisementof the masses(which,wemust remember,is not
completeduntil the beginningof the next century) creates that base of popular
consentwhichmakesthe structuresof economicand politicalpowerlegitimate.It
finallyfoundsthe regimeof capitalon the stablebasis of 'universalconsent'.This
could not have happened without the enormousexpansionof the whole sphere
of operationof the state- for only in and througha 'universal' state, capableof
representingitself as standingabovethe contendingstrugglesbetweenthe classes
and 'conciliatingthem', could the state providethe bridgebetweenthe extension
of formalpoliticalpowerat the base,and the exerciseof limitedclass domination
at its apex, In this contradictorydevelopment,then, the state itself is recomposed,
enlarged- but also utterlyaltered in its internalcompositionand in its spheresof
operation.This process is already visible in the period, but as yet no biggerthan
a cloud on the horizon.The refonns of education,whichgraduallywidenthe role
of the state in the distributionof skills and knowledge,complementaryto the
growingcomplexityof the industriallabour process, which is also taking place
in this period, is one aspect of its expansion.But many of those 'tasks' which,
later,are to becomethe privilegedarena of state power,are, crucially,still left to
the privateinitiativesof 'civil society' and its associations.The moralisingof the
poor, the traditionof paternalwelfare,the religion of domesticity,the nurturing
of the ethos of 'respectability'and self-help- those critical ideologicaltasks of
the mid-century- are the prerogative,not of the state itself, but of the religious
and privatecharities and institutions.Equally importantis the delicate balance,
already beginningto be established,betweencentral state and local government
initiatives.Without this complex of related but 'autonomous' institutionsand
decentred relations, the classical liberal state of the /aissei-faireperiod would
havebeen neitheras 'free' nor as 'residual' as, in fact, it appeared.
We cannot examine here in any depth the complexhistoryof the intervening
periodbetweenthe 'non-interventionist'state of the mid-Victorianperiod,and the
'interventionist'state installedin our day; but it constituleS,of course, a critical
periodof transition.What wehavealreadyidentifiedas the shift fromabsoluteto
relativesurplus value,and the changesrequiredfor capitalismto base itself in a
new mode of generatingits surplus and guaranteeingaccumulation,providesthe
internalstimulus to an extensiveand sweeping modificationof English society
 CRIME,LAWANDTIIE STATE 209
throughand through;externally,the decliningrate of profit for capital following
its first, tumultuous phase of expansion, and the rise of competing national
capitals,providea complementarystimulus.The first leads to that profoundshift
in capitalism'sproductiveprocessesat home,whichcreatesthe base for a modern
capitalism:the raising of the productivityof labour, the applicationof science
and technologyas a 'material force' directly to production,the modificationsin
the labourprocessitself and in the regimeof labourand its real subsumplion,the
massiverecompositionof the structuresof capital throughcentralisation,concen-
tration and vertical integration.The second leads into that period of intensified
rivalry betweennationalcapitals,the feveredexport of capital and the securing
of markets and raw materialsoverseaswhich produced,first, the 'high noon' of
Imperialism,and then the First WorldWar and the Depression.Both, together,
constitutean epochalshift in the natureof capitalism- and hencein the character,
position and mode of operation of the state: what Lenin named the transition
from laissez-faireto 'monopoly' capitalism. In that transition, the modes of
operationof the state changeon both its fronts. In the direct confrontationswith
organisedlabour, in the revolutionaryferment before and after the First World
War, the capitalist state serves a more openly coercive function- attemptingto
break labour directly,to dilute its skills, recomposeit from 'above', to destroy
its organiseddefences - perhaps than it had performedat any point earlier, at
least since the end of the Chartist threat. In this confrontationwith labour the
law is by no means absent or strictly neutral. This lasts through the period of
'retrenchment'and reaches a point of culminationin the imposeddefeat of the
General Strike, from which the labour movementtook twenty years to recover.
Yet,at the very same moment,througha differentsphereof the state, the exercise
of containing,ratherthan breaking,the workingclass is also in motion.The early
beginningsof a 'welfare state' and the raising of the 'social wage' are, like the
sinuousmovementsof LloydGeorge,its great architect,pointedat the very same
end - thoughoperatingthrougha differentmode - to which the coerciveregime
was directed:establishingthe terms on which the workingclasses were to be at
one and the same momentenfranchised(in the enlargedsense,sociallyas well as
politically)and contained.Once again, the expansionof the state is a key factor
in this process- an attemptto establisha hegemonyover the workingclass, by a
combinationof forceand consent,which immediatelyfails, thoughthe basis of its
long-termsuccessis laid.This whole periodis one transfixedfromend to end by
the questionof 'labour'. It is a transitionalphase when the capitaliststate is just
able to domi11ate the class struggle.althoughit cannot lead.
We have only to tum to the change in scale, position and character of the
post-war 'welfare' capitalist state to recognise the difference. The capitalist
state has been thoroughlyrecomposedin the interveningperiod, and by the very
processes which have also been responsible for transformingBritain into an
'unsuccessful'monopolycapitalist social fonnation from that of a 'successful'
laissez-fairecapitalistone. This can be easily registered,even if, for the momenl,
we confine ourselves to a descriptiveaccount of the enlarged spheres of state
intervention.First, in the post-1945period, the state has itself becomea major,
direct factor in the economicrelations of the society.It took over into 'public
ownership' ailing and under-capitalisedbut vital supportive industries, public
210 POLICINGTHECRISIS

utilities, and became a major employer of labour in the productiveas well as

in the 'unproductive'and service or welfaresectors. Seco11d,through the use of
neo-Keynesiantechniques,it directlyundertookwhat capital, left to itself,could
no longerundertake:a superintendingof the major movementsof the economy,
interveningdirectly to regulatethe level of demand, to influenceinvestment,to
protectemploymentlevels,and laterto managethe movementof wagesand prices
and to overseethe differentialimpositionof the 'costs' of recession;that is, the
state considerablyexpanded its over-allfunction of managingcrises and super-
intendingthe 'general conditions'of capitalistproductionand accumulation,and
of defendingthe rate of profit. Third,in order to contain working-classpressures
for greatersecurityor lire and employment,and to consolidateitselr on the basis
or popular consent, it assumed responsibility,through taxation and the 'social
wage', ror great stretchesorwelrare- redistributingpartsor the socialsurplusand
considerablyexpandingits administrativebureaucraciesat the same time. Fourth,
ii gave the impetusto a considerableexpansionor technicaland other kinds or
education(includingthe linked spheresor scientificresearchand development),
in keeping with the technologicalneeds or the economy,the growingdivisionof
labourand the requirementsfor more interchangeableskillsin the labourprocess.
Fifth,the state becamemore prominentin the ideologicalsphere:attemptingthe
integrationor the workerinto capitalistproductionand consumption,and or the
organisedworkingclass intothe managementof the economyas a 'social partner';
the managementof politicaland social consent; the disseminationor the ideals
of 'growth', technicalrationalisationand a pragmaticpolitics which 'get things
done'; the propagationor the image or a society or participationand or growing
'equal opportunitiesror all' - these and other ways or ideologicallyreinforcing
the legitimacyof the new 'mixed' capitalisteconomybecame,to a greaterextent
than before, the direct, rather than the indirect, responsibilityor the state. Its
involvementin the field or politicalcommunication,in the cultural sphere and
the media, is one or the many Featuresor this extensiveideologicalintervention.
Another form which this ideologicalinterventionof the state assumed was the
attemptto depoliticisepoliticsitself, and thus to dismantlewhereit could, and to
incorporatewhere it could not dismantle,working-classpolitics, labour institu-
tions and organisations.Sixth, it greatly promoted the integrationand centrali-
sation of capital in the key economicsectors, both through indirectinfluence,in
the administrativemechanismsof joint committeesand planningboards,as well
as through active measuresto promote rationalisation.Seventh, it sponsored a
majorshift in the exerciseof state power from the politicaland parliamentaryto
the administrativeand bureaucraticspheres of government.Eighth, through its
participationin the complexof internationalinstitutionsand bodies,it attempted
to harmonisethe global effectsof internationalcapitalistcompetitionas a whole,
shoring up the failing currencies of some, establishing free-marketzones or
specialisedproductionand trade amongstothers,in an attemptto keep the system
as a whole on an even economickeel - though these efforts at the level of the
capitalist nation-stateshave been persistentlyunderminedby renewed compe-
tition betweenthem,even more by the growthof the great multinationalformsof
capital,so to speak, withinor besidethe state- the states withinthe state.
 CRIME.LAWANDTHESTATE 211
As the limits to the system have increasinglybecomeapparent- a sharpening
in competitionfor decliningworldmarkets,shifts in the termsof tradeagainstthe
metropolitancapitalistcountries from the primary-producingdevelopingworld,
a tendency of the rates of profit in the developedcountries to fall, deepening
cycles of boom and recession,periodic currency crises and a growing level of
inflation- so the visibilityof the state has increased.It has altogetherceased to
be - if ever it was - a 'night-watchman'. It has become increasinglyan inter-
ventionist force, managingcapital where capital could no longer successfully
manage itself, and therebydrawit1gthe economicclass struggle increasinglyon
to its own terrain.With this increasein its social and economicrole, has gone a
more overt and direct effor1by the state to managethe political class struggle.It
is throughthe state that the 'bargains', increasingly,are struckwhichare intended
to give the workingclasses a 'stake' in the system: it is here that the organised
labour movement has progressivelybeen incorporated into the management
of the economy as one of its major corporate supports; here, that the balance
betweenperiodicconcessionsand periodicrestraintshavebeen regulatedin such
a way as to favourthe long-tenn growth and stabilityof capital.To ensure these
conditionsfor capital in the productiveand economiclife of societies,the state
itself has also increasinglybeen concerned with the 'social equations' which
make it possible- with the spheres of social and cultural reproduction,as well
as with economic production itself. In Britain, where the attempt to bring off
this transition successfully has had to be mounted in extremely unfavourable
economicconditions,and in the face of a strong,thoughoften corporate,working
class with rising materialexpectations,tough traditionsof bargaining,resistance
and struggle, each crisis of the system has, progressively,taken the overt form
of a crisis in the managementof the state, a crisis of hegemony.Increasingly,the
state has appearedto absorb all the pressuresand tensionsof the economicand
political class struggle into itself, and then been torn apart, by its conspicuous
lack of success. And because the state has assumed a far greater, more auton-
omous and direct role of superintendingthe political and economic needs of a
capitalismin crisis, so progressivelythe forms of the class struggle have been
reorganised,appearingmore and more as a direct conflict between the classes
and the state. Progressively,the variouscrises take the form of a generalcrisis of
the state as a whole,and rapidly reverberateupwards from their initial starting-
points to the higher levelsof the legal and politicalorder itself.
In this new fonn of an 'interventionist'capitaliststate the securingof popular
consentis morethaneverits onlybasisof legitimacy.Thegovernmentsandpolitical
regimeswhicharise withinthis newtype of state result from,and are supposedto
be responsiveto, the formalprocessof consultationestablishedthroughpolitical
representation.It is this process which is supposed to make the state sensitive
to, and thereforerepresentativeof, the 'sovereignwill of the people'. True, that
'will' is expressedthrough the electoral system only at periodic intervals.The
complexitiesof governmentand administrationare increasinglydivorced from
that kind of disorganisedpressurewhichordinaryelectoratescan bringto bear on
the constitutedbureaucracies.But this centralisationof powerthroughthe state is
said to be countermandedby the play of publicopinionand the independenceof a
212 POLICINGTHECRISIS

free press.Bui, withoutdirectlyabsorbingthe agenciesof opinionformation,it is

clear that governments,directlythroughthe decisionsthey make and the policies
they put into effect, throughtheir monopolyof the sources of public knowledge
and expertise,and indirectlythrough the mass media, politicalcommunications
and other culturalsystems,havethe most powerfuleffect in shapingthe 'popular
consent' whichthey then consult.The sourceof administrativepowerhas moved
progressivelyfrom Parliamentto the executiveand the great, powerfulbaualions
organisedaround and increasinglywithin the orbit of the state itself. In the light
of these changes, simpler versionsof democraticliberal theory have had to be
emendedto take accountof the simple discrepanciesof power which manifestly
appear as between the great corporate institutionsof the modem economyand
state, and the ordinary elector. Nowadays'consent' is thereforesaid to depend
on the fact that the large but competing corporate entities will cancel out or
'countervail'each other's influence.Thereis a thirdand widermeaningnowgiven
to consent,whichmay be called 'sociological'.And it is this whichis now said to
providethe necessarybackstop to the exerciseof arbitrarypowerby the state.The
suggestionis not that powerhas been effectivelydispersedin moderndemocratic
mass societiesbut that the vast majority of people are united within a common
systemof values,goals and beliefs - the so-called 'central value system'; and it
is this consensuson values,ratherthan formalrepresentation,whichprovidesthe
cohesionwhichsuch complexmodernstates require.The dominantand powerful
interests are therefore 'democratic', not because they are directly governed in
any sense by the 'will of the people', but becausethey,too, must ultimatelyrefer
themselvesand be in some way boundby this 'consensus'.
Nowconsensusas theunseenregulatoror 'hiddenhand' of themoderncorporate
capitaliststate is of criticalimportance- thoughnot exactlyin the way in which it
appearsin the pluralisttheoristsof politicaldemocracy.It has playeda criticalrole
in the post-warhistory of the British state. It was the consensuswhich provided
the political underpinningfor that period of social unity and cohesion in the
1950s.And,as such 'commoncauses' as did providethe basis of this government
from centre ground have been progressivelyeroded, so the cry for consensus,
the search for consensus,the wheeling in of consensus as the ultimate test of
everypoliticalproblemand argument,has becomemore pronounced.Consensus
is thereforeimportantfor the modesof operationof the modernstate. We would
define it as the form in which the consentof society is won. But wonfor what?
Wonby whom?Althoughthere may be no simple 'ruling class' in a homogeneous
sense,the so-caJled'democratisationof power' in moderncapitalistsocietieshas
nowhereeffectivelyreplaced either the fundamentalfractionsof capital and its
representatives,at the economic level, nor the dominant successionof ruling-
class allianceswhich organise it at the political level.These coalitionsof class
fractions,organisedas a bloc togetherwith certain subalternclass interests,form
the continuing basis of capitalist political class power.And it is preciselysuch
groups which are able to use the enlargedsphere of the state to organise their
power.
Whena ruling-dassalliancehas achievedan indisputedauthorityand swayover
all these levelsof its organisation- when it mastersthe politicalstruggle,protects
and extendsthe needs of capital, leads authoritativelyin the civil and ideological
 CRIME, LAW ANDTHESTArn 213

spheres, and commandsthe restrainingforces of the coerciveapparatusesof the

state in its defence - when it achievesall this on the basis of consent, i.e. with
the supportof 'the consensus', we can speak of the establishmentof a period of
hegemonyor hegemonicdomination.Thus what the consensusreally means is
that a particularruling-classalliancehas managedto securethroughthe state such
a total socialauthority,such decisiveculturaland ideologicalleadership,over the
subordinateclasses that it shapes the whole direction of social life in its image,
and is able to raise the level of civilisationto that which the renewedimpetusof
capitalrequires;ii enclosesthe material,mentaland social universeof the subor-
dinatedclasses, for a time, within its horizon.It naturalisesitself, so that every-
thing appears 'naturally' lo favour its continuingdomination.Bui, because this
dominationhas been secured by consent - on the basis of a wide consensus,as
the sayinggoes - that dominationnot only seemsto be universal(whateverybody
wants) and legitimate(not won by coercive force), but its basis in exploitation
actuallydisappearsfrom view.Consensusis not the opposite- it is the comple--
mentaryface of domination.It is what makes the rule of the few disappearinto
the consent of the many. It actually consists or is foundedon the conjunctural
mastery of class struggle. But this mastery is displaced,through the mediating
fonn of 'the consensus',and reappearsas the disappearanceor pacificationof all
conflict;or, what in consensustheoryonce held pride of place under the title, 'the
end of ideology'. No wonder,when Harold Macmillanwon his third successive
electoralvictoryfor the Conservativesin 1959,on the basis of an extremelywide
convergencein the society,such that all the economicand sociologicaltrends
appeared 'naturally and spontaneously'to be favouringhis continuedmasteryof
the political scene, and through him, the dominationof that fraction of capital
whichhad gainedgroundsunder his politicaltutelage- no wonderhe announced
(no doubt hoping ii would become a self-fulfillingprophecy) that 'The class
struggleis over'. Perhapshe added,sotto voce, 'and we havewon it'.
Gramscispeaks in 'The State and Civil Society'of that point 'in their historical
lives' where 'social classesbecomedetachedfrom their traditionalparties' which
are 'no longerrecognizedby their class (or fractionof a class) as its expression'.
Such situationsof conflict,though having no doubt their momentof origin deep
withinthe economicstructureof the modeof productionitself,tend,at thepolitical
level, to 'reverberateout from the terrain of the parties ... throughoutthe State
organism'.The contentof such moments,Gramsciargued,is:
the crisis of the rulingclass' hegemony,which occurseither becausethe ruling
class has failed in some majorpoliticalundertakingfor which it has requested,
or forcibly exLracted,the consent of the broad masses.... Or because huge
masses ... have passed suddenly from a state of politicalpassivityto a certain
activity,and put forwarddemandswhich,taken together,albeit not organically
formulated,add up to a revolution.A 'crisis of authority' is spokenof: this is
preciselythe crisis of hegemony,or generalcrisis of the State.16

We wouldarguethat a crisisof hegemonyor 'general crisisof the state', precisely

as Gramscidefinedit, has indeedbeendevelopingin Britainsincethe spontaneous
and successful 'hegemony' of the immediatepost-war period: that, classically,
214 POLICINGTH£ CRISIS

it first assumedthe form of a 'crisis of authority'; that, exactly as described,it

first reverberatedoutwards from the terrain of the parties of 'representedand
representatives'.
A crisis of hegemonymarks a moment of profound rupture in the political
and economiclife of a society,an accumulationof contradictions.If in moments
of 'hegemony' everythingworks spontaneouslyso as to sustain and enforce a
particular form of class domination while rendering the basis of that social
authority invisiblethrough the mechanismsof the productionof consent, then
momentswhen the equilibriumof consent is disturbed,or where the contending
class forcesare so nearly balancedthat neithercan achievethat sway from which
a resolutionto the crisis can be promulgated,are momentswhen the whole basis
of political leadershipand cultural authority becomes exposedand contested.
When the temporarybalance of the relations of class forces is upset and new
forces emerge, old forces run through their repertoiresof domination. Such
momentssignal, not necessarilya revolutionaryconjuncturenor the collapse of
the state, but rather the comingof 'iron times'. It does not followeither that the
'nonnal' mechanismsof the state are abrogated. But class dominationwill be
exercised,in such moments,througha modificationin the modes of hegemony;
and one of the principalways in which this is registeredis in terms of a tilt in
the operationof the state away from consent towardsthe pole of coercion. It is
importantto note that this does not entail a suspensionof the 'nonnal' exercise
of state power- it is nol a move to what is sometimescalled a fully exceptional
form of the state. It is belier understoodas - to put it paradoxically- an 'excep-
tional moment' in the 'normal' form of the late capitalist state. What makes it
'exceptional' is the increasedreliance on coercive mechanismsand apparatuses
already availablewithin the normal reperloireof state power,and the powerful
orchestration,in supportof this tilt of the balance towardsthe coercivepole, of
an authoritarianconsensus.In such momentsthe 'reJativeautonomy'of the state
is no longerenough to secure the measuresnecessaryfor social cohesionor for
the larger economic tasks which a failing and weakenedcapital requires. The
formsof state interventionthus becomemoreovert and moredirect.Consequently
such momentsare also markedby a processof 'unmasking'.The masksof liberal
consentand popularconsensusslip to revealthe reservesof coercionand force on
which the cohesionof the state and its legalauthorityfinallydepends;but there is
also a strippingawayof the masksof neutralityand independencewhichnormally
are suspendedover the various branchesand apparatusesof the State - the Law,
for example.This tendsfurtherto polarisethe 'crisis of hegemony',since the state
is progressivelydrawn,now in its own name,down into the arenaof struggleand
direclion,and exhibitsmore plainlythan it does in its roulinemanifestationswhat
it is and what it must do to provide the 'cement' which holds a ruptured social
fonnationtogether.
In the two chaplets which follow,we try to locate the muggingphenomenon
squarely within this historicallydeveloping 'crisis of hegemony' in the British
state. The reactionto 'mugging', we shall argue,is and continuesto be one of the
formsin which this critical 'crisis of hegemony'makesitself manifest.
 8
The Law-and-Order Society: The
Exhaustion of 'Consent'

In this and the followingchapters,our aim is to establishpreciselyin what sense,

in what historicalcontext,the reactionto 'mugging' can be said to constitutean
aspect of a general 'crisis of hegemony'of the British state. Because 'mugging'
providesour privilegedpointof departure,our accountis pitchedat the levelwhere
hegemonyis won or lost: that is. in the civil, political,juridical and ideological
complexesof the socialformation- in 'the superstructures'.This inevitablyresults
in an accountof the Britishcrisis fromthe top downwards.Thus our analysisgives
greater auention to changingrelationsof force in the politicalclass struggle,to
shiftingideologicalconfigurations,the changingbalancewithinand betweenthe
state apparatuses,etc. than it does to fundamentaleconomicmovements.This is
a necessary,but one-sidedaccentuation.No adequateconjuncturalanalysisof the
post-warcrisis yet exists on whichwe could hang our more immediateconcerns.
An analysisof the British social formationat the level of the changingcompo-
sition and structureof capital,the recompositionof classes,the technicaldivision
of labour and the labour process has only recently been initiated.Our account
renects these absences by the very limits within which it moves. It does not
followthat hegemonyis unrelatedto fundamentalcontradictionsin the structure
of capitalistrelations.Quite the reverse.Hegemony,in Gramsci'ssense, involves
the 'passage' of a crisis from its materialbase in productivelife throughto 'the
complexspheresof the superstructures'.Neverthelesswhathegemonyultimately
secures is the long-term social conditions for the continuing reproductionof
capital. The superstructuresprovide that 'theatre' where the relations of class
forces, given their fundamentalform in the antagonisticrelations of capitalist
production,appear and work themselvesthroughlo a resolution.
In the analysis which follows,the principalmovementto which we relate the
'mugging' panic is the shift from a 'consensual'to a more 'coercive' management
of the class struggleby the capitaliststate. The analysistraces the formationof
a certain hegemonicequilibriumin the immediatepost-war period; its erosion
and break-up;then the attemptto secure 'consent' by a more coercive,non-hege-
monic use of 'legitimateforce'. This processis subject to a rough periodisation:
the constructionof consensus,as the conditionfor the post-warstabilisationof
capitalismin the circumstancesof the Cold War;the establishmentof a periodof
extensivehegemonyin the 1950s;the disintegrationof this 'miracle' of sponta-
neousconsent;thesterner,moretroubledandunsteadyattemptto put an essentially
216 POUCINO TH~ CRISIS

'Labourist' variantof consent together,drawingon the social-democraticreper-

toire,·its exhaustion,coupled with the rise of social and political conflict, the
deepeningof the economiccrisis and the resumptionof more manifestforms of
class struggle;the auemptto rely on a more 'exceptional'formof classdomination
in the 1970sthroughthe state. 'Mugging' and the reactionto it is structurally,as
well as chronologically,linked with this last movementin the rupture of ruling-
class hegemony.
The problem of the periodisationof a conjunctureis posed, but not resolved
theoreticallywithinthe fonn of analyticreconstructionchosen.In the a1Tangement
of themes, we hope the reader will be able to discern what are, in fact, the
overlappingof differentperiodisations,of structurallydifferentforcesdeveloping
at different tempos and rhythms of, in fact, different 'histories'. The depth of
the crisis, in this sense, is to be seen - only fitfully establishedhere - in the
accumulationof contradictionsand breaks,rather than in their net sequentialor
chronologicalidentity.The political,juridical and ideologicalformsin which the
crisis is appropriatedprovidethe dominantmomentsbut not the determinatelevel
of the analysis.They provideus with our key focus- on the slate and the organi-
sation of class power through the state. In recent years, this central question in
Marxist theory has attracted increasedattention,followingits too long neglect.
We subscribeto its centrality.But - against what might seem to be the logic of
our own analysis- we must bewareof making 'the state' a convenientcatch-all.
Poulantzas,for example,whosewritingshavegreatlystimulatedand informedour
work, sometimesappearsto go to the other extremeand virtuallyabsorb every-
thing which is not part of the 'economicanatomy' of capitalisminto the terrain
of the state. This blurs and obscureskey distinctionswhich need to be retained.
Manyof the momentsto which our narrativerefers are of coursepreciselypoints
in the shifting modalityof class power as representedin and mobilisedthrough
the state.We hopeour analysispenetratesat least far enoughto suggestthe under-
lying movementsbehindthese surfaceformsto whose 'absence' they point.

THECHANGINGSHAPEOF 'PANICS'
In the truncatedaccount of the 'crisis of hegemony'which followswe shall be
concernedwith differentmomentsin the 'relationsof forces', but also with their
ideologicalsignification.The twostrandshavebeencombinedin the analysis,This
ideologicaldimensionof a crisis is crucial,as we havearguedearlier.In formally
democraticclass societies,the exerciseof powerand the securingof domination
ultimatelydepends,as we have argued,on the equationof popularconsent.This
is consent,not simply to the interestsand purposesbut also to the interpretations
and representationsof socialrealitygeneratedby those whocontrolthe mental,as
well as the material,meansof socialreproduction.A conspiratorialinterpretation
is not intendedhere.As Althusserhas argued:

the ruling class does not maintain with the ruling ideology,which is its own
ideology,an external and lucid relation of pure utility and cunning. When,
during the eighteenthcentury,the 'rising class', the bourgeoisie,developeda
humanistideologyof equality,freedomand reason,it gave its owndemandsthe
 THE EXHAUSTION
Of 'CONSl;NT' 217
formofuniversalily,since it hopedtherebyto enrolat its side,by theireducation
to this very end, the very men it wouldliberateonly for their exploitation.•

Thus, 'the bourgeoisielives in the ideologyof freedom,the relation between it

and its conditionof existence:that is, its real relation(the law of a liberalcapitalist
economy)but investedin an imaginaryrelation (all men are free, includingthe
free labourer)'.Popularconsent,the basis of this fonn of the state, is all the more
pivotalin those liberaldemocracieswhere the workingclasses have won formal
politicalrepresentation.The classstruggle,in suchsocieties,does,therefore,define
what the state can and cannotdo to securethe nationalinterest.The capitaliststate
cannotremainsecurelyfoundedon the legitimacyof popularrepresentation,and
take severeand unusualmeasuresto contain a threat to its foundationwhich the
vast majorityof the populationdoes not believeexists. It must thereforecontin-
ually shape and slructurethat 'consent' to which,in turn, it refers itself.
The mass mediaare not the only,but they areamongthe mostpowerful,forces
in the shapingof publicconsciousnessabouttopicaland controversialissues.The
significationof eventsin the mediathus providesone key terrainwhere 'consent'
is won or lost. Again, as we have argued earlier, the media are formally and
institutionallyindependentof direct state interferenceor interventionin Britain.
The significationof events, in ways which reproducethe interpretationsof them
favouredby thosein power,thereforetakes place- as in other branchesof the state
and its general spheresof operation- throughthe formal 'separationof powers';
in the communicationsfield, it is mediatedby the protocolsof balance,objectivity
and impartiality.This meansboth that the state cannot directlycommand,even if
it wished,preciselyhow public consciousnesswill be attuned on any particular
matter,andthatotherpointsof viewdo, of necessity,gainaccessandhavesomeright
to be heard.Althoughthis is a processwhichis heavilystructuredand constrained
(cf. our earlier analysis in Chapter 3), its result is to make the 'reproductionof
the dominant ideologies' a problematicand contradictoryprocess, and thus to
recreate the arena of significationas a field of ideologicalstruggle.In analysing
the way the post-warcrisis came to be signified,then, we shall not expectto find
a set of monolithicinterpretations,systematicallygeneratedby the rulingclasses
for the explicitpurposeof foolingthe public.The ideologicalinstancecannot be
conceivedin this way.There is, in any event,evidenceenough to suggestthat in
this period the ruling classes themselvessubstantiallybelievedthe definitionof
an emergentsocialcrisis which they were propagating.Nevertheless,as we have
alreadyshown,there are mechanismsat work whichtend to ensurethe favourable
and extensivereproductionof the interpretationsof the crisis subscribedto by the
ruling-classalliance,evenwhen the mediathen place their own constructionsand
inflexionsover these in the course of public signification.There is of course no
simpleconsensus,even here, as to the nature,causes and extent of the crisis. But
the over-alltendencyis for the way the crisis has been ideologicallyconstructed
by the dominantideologiesto win consentin the media,and thus to constitutethe
substantivebasis in 'reality' to which public opinion continuallyrefers. In this
way, by 'consenting' to the view of the crisis which has won credibilityin the
echelonsof power,popularconsciousnessis also won to supportto the measures
of controland containmentwhich this versionof socialrealityentails,
218 POLICINOTHECRISIS

Statementsby key spokesmen- what we havecalled 'primary definers'- and

their representationthroughthe media thereforeform a central part of our recon•
struction.But in order to understandhow these played a part in the shifts in the
nature of hegemonywithinthe state and the politicalapparatusover the relevant
period, a number of intermediaryconceptsneed to be introduced.The problem
concernsthe relation to our ana1ysis- which is pitched at the level of the state
apparatusesand the maintenanceof forms of hegemonicdomination- of the
phenomenondescribed earlier as the moral panic, The concepts of 'state' and
'hegemony'appear,at first sight, to belong to differentconceptualterritoryfrom
that of the 'moral panic'.And part of our intentionis certainlyto situatethe 'moral
panic' as one of the forms of appearanceof a more deep-seatedhistoricalcrisis,
and therebylo give ii greaterhistoricaland theoreticalspecificity.This relocation
of theconcepton a differentanddeeperlevelof analysisdoes not,however,leadus
to abandonit altogetheras useless.Rather,it helps us to identifythe 'moral panic'
as one of the principalsurfacemanifestationsof the crisis, and in part to explain
howand why the crisiscame to be experiencedin that formof consciousness,and
what the displacementof a conjuncturalcrisis into the popular form of a 'moral
panic' accomplishes,in termsof the way the crisis is managedand contained.We
have thereforeretainedthe notionof the 'moral panic' as a necessarypart of our
analysis:attemptingto redefineit as one of the key ideologicalformsin whicha
historicalcrisis is 'experiencedand foughtout' .2 Oneof the effectsof retainingthe
notionof 'moral panic' is the penetrationit providesinto the otherwiseextremely
obscure means by which the working classes are drawn in to processes which
are occurring in large measure 'behind their backs', and led to experienceand
respondto contradictorydevelopmentsin ways whichmakethe operationof state
power legitimate,credible and consensual.To put it crudely, the 'moral panic'
appears to us to be one of the principal forms of ideologicalconsciousnessby
means of which a 'silent majority' is won over to the support of increasingly
coercivemeasureson the part of the state, and lendsits legitimacyto a 'more than
usual' exerciseof control.
There is a tendency,in the early years of our period, for there to develop a
succession of 'moral panics' around certain key topics of controversialpublic
concern. In this early period, the panics tend to be centred on social and moral
rather than political issues (youth, permissiveness,crime). Their typical form is
that of a dramaticevent which focuses and triggers a local responseand public
disquiet. Often as a result of local organisingand moral entrepreneurship,the
wider powersof the controlcultureare both alerted(the mediaplay a crucial role
here) and mobilised(the police, the courts). The issue is then seen as 'sympto-
matic' of wider, more troubling but less concrete themes. It escalates up the
hierarchy of responsibilityand control, perhaps provokingan official enquiry
or statement,which temporarilyappeasesthe moral campaignersand dissipates
the sense of panic. In what we think of as the middleperiod, in the later 1960s,
these panicsfollowfasteron the heels of one anotherthan earlier;and an increas-
ingly amplifiedgeneral 'threat to society' is imputedto them (drugs,hippies,the
underground,pornography,long-hairedstudents,layabouts,vandalism,football
hooliganism).In manyinstancesthe sequenceis so speededup that it bypassesthe
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSllNT' 219
momentof local impact;there was no upsurgeof grass-rootspressurerequiredto
bring the drugs squadcrunchingin on cannabissmokers.Both the mediaand the
'control culture' seem more alerted to their occurrence- the media quicklypick
up the symptomaticeventand the police and courts react quicklywithoutconsid-
erable moral pressurefrom below.This speeded-upsequencetends to suggesta
heightenedsensitivityto troublingsocial themes.
There is indeed in the later stages a 'mappingtogether' of moral panicsinto a
generalpanic aboutsocialorder;and such a spiral has tended,not only in Britain,
to culminatein what we call a 'law-and-order'campaign,of the kind which the
Heath ShadowCabinet constructedon the eve of the 1970 election, and which
poweredNixonandAgnewinto theWhite Housein 1968.This coalescenceinto a
concertedcampaignmarksa significantshift in the panicprocess,for the tendency
to panic is now lodgedat the heart of the state's politicalcomplexitself,and from
that vantage-point,all dissensualbreaks in the society can be more effectively
designated as a 'general threat to law and order itself', and thus as subverting
the general interest (which the state represents and protects).Panics now tend
to operate from top to bottom. Post-1970,the law-and-ordercampaignersseem
to haveeffectivelysensitisedthe social-controlapparatusesand the media to the
possibilityof a general threat to the stabilityof the state. Minor formsof dissent
seemto providethe basis of 'scapegoat' events for a jumpy and alerted control
culture; and this progressivelypushes the state apparatusesinto a more or less
permanent 'control' posture. Schematically,the changing sequence in moral
panicscan be representedas follows:
( I) Discretemoralpanics (early 1960s,e.g. 'mods' and 'rockers')
Dramaticevent ➔ public disquiet,moral entrepreneurs(sensitisation)➔ con-
trol cultureaction
(2) 'Crusading•- mappingtogetherdiscretemoralpanicstoproducea 'speed-
ed-up'sequence(late 1960s,e.g. pornographyand drugs)
Sensitisation(moral entrepreneurship)➔ dramatic event ➔ control culture
action
(3) Post-'law-and-order'campaign: an altered aequence (post-1970 e.g.
mugging)
Sensitisation➔ controlcultureorganisationand action (invisible)➔ dramatic
event ➔ controlculture intensifiedaction (visible)

But what are the signifyingmechanisms- in the mediaand the sourceson which
they depend - which sustain these shifts in the sequence?What 'signification
spirals' sustainthe generationof the moral panic?

Significatio11
spirals
The significationspiral is a way of signifying events which also intrinsically
escalatestheir threat. The notion of a significationspiral is similar to that of an
'amplificationspiral' as developedby certainsociologistsof deviance.3 An 'ampli-
ficationspiral' suggeststhat reactionhas the effect, under certain conditions,not
220 POLICINGTHECRISIS

of lesseningbut of increasingdeviance.The significationspiral is a self-ampli-

fying sequencewithi11the arf!aof sig1Jijication: the activityor event with which
the significationdeals is escalated- made to seem more threatening- withinthe
courseof the significationitself.
A significationspiral seems always to contain at least some of the following
elements:

(I) the identificationof a specificissue of concern;

(2) the identificationof a subversiveminority;
(3) 'convergence',or the linking,by labelling,of this specific issue to other
problems;
(4) the notion of 'thresholds' which, once crossed, can lead to an escalating
threat;
(5) the prophesyof more troublingtimes to come if no action is taken (often,
in our case. by way of referencesto the UnitedStates,the paradigmexam-
ple); and
(6) the call for 'firm steps'.

There are two key notions - 'convergence' and 'thresholds' - which are the
escalatingmechanismsof the spiral.
Convergence:In our usage 'convergence'occurs when two or more activities
are linked in the process or significationso as to implicitlyor explicitly draw
parallelsbetweenthem. Thus the image of 'student hooliganism'links 'student'
protest to the separate problem of 'hooliganism'- whose stereotypicalcharac-
teristics are already part or socially available knowledge.This indicates the
manner in which new problemscan apparentlybe meaningfullydescribed and
explainedby setting them in the contextor an old problemwith which the public
is alreadyfamiliar.In usingthe imageryof hooliganism,this significationequates
two distinct activitieson the basis of their imputedcommondenominator- both
involve'mindless violence' or 'vandalism'.Another,connected,form or conver-
genceis listinga wholeseries of socialproblemsand speakingof them as 'part of
a deeper,underlyingproblem'- the 'tip of an iceberg',especiallywhensuch a link
is also forgedon the basisof impliedcommondenominators.In bothcases the net
effect is amplificatio11,
not in the real eventsbeing described,but in their 'threat-
potential'for society.Do such convergencesonly occur in the eye of the signifying
beholder?Are they entirelyfictional?In fact, of course,significantconvergences
do and have indeedtaken place in some areas of what might be describedby the
dominantcultureas 'politicaldeviance'.Horowitzand Liebowitzhavepointedout
that the distinctionbetweenpoliticalmarginalityand social devianceis 'increas-
ingly obsolete' in the United Slates of the late 1960s.4 Similarly,Hall has argued
that in respect or certain areas of British protest politics in the late 1960s and
1970s:'the crisp distinctionbetweensociallyand politicallydeviantbehaviouris
increasinglydifficultto sustain'.5
Convergences,for example,takeplace whenpoliticalgroupsadoptdeviantlife-
styles or when deviantsbecomepoliticised.They occur when people,thoughtof
in passiveand individualtenns, take collectiveaction(for example,claimants),or
 THEEXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 221

when supportersof single-issuecampaignsenter into a wider agitationor make

commoncause. There can be real convergences(betweenworkersand students
in May 1968)as well as ideologicalor imaginaryones. However,signification
spiralsdo not dependon a necessarycorrespondencewi1hreal historicaldevelop-
ments.They may representsuch real conneclionsaccurately,or they may mystify
by exaggeratingthe nature or degree of the convergence,or they may produce
altogether spurious identities. For example, in the 1970s some homosexuals
involvedin the Gay Liberationmovementsdid belong lo the radical or marxist
left.A significationwhich,however,assumedthat all homosexualrefonnerswere
'marxist revolutionaries'would be one which inflecteda real convergencein an
ideologicaldirection- an exaggerationwhose credibilitywould neverthelessno
doubtdependon its kernelof truth.Suchan inflectionwouldalso be a misrepresen-
tation- misrepresentingboththe manyreformerswho werewithoutovertpolitical
commitment,and the critiquewhicheventhosewho weremarxistsregularlymade
of traditional'left' attitudestowards sexual issues. Such an inflectionwould be
'ideological'exactly because it signifieda complexphenomenonin terms of its
problematicpart only,It wouldalso entail 'escalation',since it exaggeratesout of
all proportionthe one element most troublingand threateningto the established
politicalorder.The earlierexample of 'student hooliganism'works in much the
same way, this time connectingand identifyingtwo almost wholly discrepant
phenomena.But this example also shifts the politicalterms of the issue - that
posedby the emergentstudent movement- by resignifyingit in terms of a more
familiar and traditional,non-political(hooliganism)problem; that is, by trans-
latinga politicalissue into a criminalone (the link with violenceand vandalism)-
thereby makingeasier a legal or control, rather than a political,response from
the authorities.This transpositionof frameworksnot only depoliticisesan issue
by criminalisingit, but it also singlesout from a complexof differentstrandsthe
most worryingelement - the violent one. The resignificationprocess thus also
simplifiescomplexissues- for example,by 'makingplain' throughelision what
would otherwisehave to be substantiatedby hard argument(e.g. that all student
protestis mindlesslyviolent).Thus the movement's'essentialhooliganism'comes
to pass for substantiatedtruth. Such significationsalso carry, embeddedwithin
them,concealedpremisesand understandings(for example,those referringto the
exceedinglycomplexrelationbetweenpoliticsand violence).Finally,by signifying
a political issue through its most extreme and violent form, significationhelps
to producea 'control' response- and makesthat responselegitimate.The public
might be reluctantto see the strong arm of the law arbitrarilyexercisedagainst
legitimatepoliticalprotesters.But who will standbetweenthe law and a 'bunchof
hooligans'?Imaginaryconvergencesthereforeservean ideologicalfunction- and
that ideologicalfunctionhas real consequences,especiallyin terms of provoking
and legitimatinga coercivereactionby both the publicand the state.

Thresholds: In the public significationof troubling events, there seem to be

certain thresholdswhich mark out symbolicallythe limits of societal tolerance.
The higher an event can be placed in the hierarchyof thresholds,the greater is
its threat to the social order, and the tougherand more automaticis the coercive
response.Permissiveness,for example, is a low threshold.Events which break
222 POLICINOTH6CRISIS

this thresholdcontravenetraditionalmoral norms(e.g. tabooson premaritalsex).

They thereforemobilisemoralsanctionsand social disapproval- but not neces•
sarily legal control. But the struggles which take place, and the moral crusades
which are mountedto defend the shifting boundaryof 'permissiveness',can be
resolvedif someaspectof a 'permissive'act also infringesthe law,if it breaksthe
legalthreshold.The lawclarifiesthe blurredarea of moraldisapproval,and marks
out the legally impermissiblefrom the morallydisapprovedof. New legislation,
of either a progressiveor restrictivecharacter,is thus a sensitivebarometerof the
rise and fall of traditionalmoral sentiment,e.g. the shifts aroundthe questionof
abortion.6 The transgressionof the legal threshold raises the potential threat of
any action; impermissibleacts contravenethe moral consensus,but illegal acts
are a challenge to the legal order and the social legitimacywhich it enshrines.
However,acts whichpose a challengeto the fundamentalbasis of the socialorder
itself, or its essential structures,almost always involve,or at least are signified
as leading inexorablyacross, the violence threshold.This is the highest of the
limits of societaltolerance,since violentacts can be seen as constitutinga threat
to the future existenceof the whole state itself (which holds the monopolyof
legitimateviolence).Certain acts are of course violenceby any definition:armed
terrorism,assassination,insurrection.Muchmoreproblematicare the wholerange
of politicalacts which do not necessarilyespouse or lead to violence,but which
are thoughtof as 'violent' becauseof the fundamentalnatureof thechallengethey
make Lothe state. Such acts are almostalwayssignifiedin termsof theirpotential
for social violence (violent here being almost a synonymn for 'extremism'),
Robert Moss has recently argued that 'The conquest of violence is the signal
achievementof moderndemocraticsocieties.'7 By 'conquestof violence'here he
must mean not its disappearancebut its confinementto the state, which exerts a
monopolyof legitimate'violence'. Thereforeevery threat whichcan be signified
as 'violent' mustbe an indexof widespreadsocialanarchyand disorder- perhaps
the visibletip of a plannedconspiracy.Any formof protestthus signifiedimmedi•
ately becomesa law--and•order issue:

When the state is not seen to be fulfillingthis basic function,in the face of a
seriousand sustainedupsurgeof violence- eithercriminalor political- we can
be sure of one thing:that sooneror later,ordinarycitizenswill take the law into
their own handsor will be disposedto supporta new formof governmentbetter
equippedto deal with the threat.1
Wemayrepresentsomeofthethresholdsemployedin significationspiralsdiagram•
matically,as in Figure8.1.The use of convergencesand thresholdstogetherin the
ideologicalsignificationof societalconflicthas the intrinsicfunctionof escalation.
One kind of threat or challengeto societyseems larger,more menacing,if it can
be mappedtogetherwith other,apparentlysimilar,phenomena- especiallyif, by
connectingone relativelyharmlessactivitywith a more threateningone, the scale
of the danger implicitis made to appearmore widespreadand diffused.Similarly,
the threat to societycan be escalatedif a challengeoccurringat the 'permissive'
boundarycan be resignified,or presentedas leadinginevitablyto a challengeat a
'higher' threshold.By treatingan eventor group of actorsnot only in terms of its/
 THBEXHAUSTION
Of 'CONSENT' 223

~+-- =:SIVENESS

Selcualclaviance; d~=!~i:..,, +- ~~TY

pornography;llbertarlan EXTREME
educalion VIOlENCE
threshold
Crirnll: 'Violent'
non-violenllhefl: demonstrallons
burglaryatc.

Tarroriam:
murder;
armed bank raids;
lreason/spying;
robb1rywilhvi011nce

FIGURB8.I

their intrinsiccharacteristics,aims and programmes,but by projectingthe 'anti-

social potential'across the thresholdsto what it may cause (or, less deterministi-
cally,lead to), it is possibleto treat the initialevent or group as 'the thin edge of
a larger wedge'. The 'permissiveness'of the counter-cultureappears far more
menacingwhen 'long hair' and 'free sex' are seen as the inevitableforerunnersof
drug-taking,or where every pot-smokeris signifiedas a potentialheroin addict,
or whereevery cannabisbuyer is an incipientdealer (i.e. involvedin illegalacts).
In turn, the threat to illegality is immeasurablyescalated, if drug-takinginevi-
tably makesevery user 'prone to violence'(eitherbecausedrugs lowerhis reason,
or provokehim to rob to sustain the habit). Similarly,peaceful demonstrations
become more threateningif always described as potential scenariosfor violent
confrontations.The importantpoint is that, as issues and groups are projected
acrossthe thresholds,it becomeseasier to mountlegitimatecampaignsof control
againstthem.Whenthis processbecomesa regularand routinepart of the way in
whichconflictis signifiedin society,it does indeedcreate its own momentumfor
measuresof 'more than usualcontrol'.
In what follows,we treat the emergenceof an 'exceptionalform' of the slate,
and the ideologicalsignificationof the crisis whichshadowsthis development,as
two aspectsof the same problematic.For the sake of conciseness,we havedrawn
the majorityof our referencesfrom two newspapers,the SundayExpressand the
Sunday 1imes - papers sufficientlydifferent (one 'popular', one 'serious'; one
conservative,one liberal)to caleh the rangeand sequenceof significationthrough
the period, and to pinpoint internal discrepanciesof emphasis; though we have
consultedthe press much more widelyin the generalreconstructionof the period
and frequentlyquote other sources.

POST-WAR
HEGEMONY:
CONSTRUCTING
CONSENSUS
Undoubtedlylhe fact of hegemonypresupposesthat account be taken of the
interestsand tendenciesof the groupsover whichhegemonyis to be exercised,
224 POLICINGTHECRISIS

and that a certaincompromiseequilibriumbe formed- in other words,that the

leadinggroupshouldmakesacrificesof an economic-corporatekind.But there
is also no doubt that such sacrificesand such a compromisecannot touch the
essential;for though hegemonyis ethical-political,it must also be economic,
must necessarilybe based on the decisive functionexercised by the leading
group in the decisivenucleusof economicactivity.(Gramsci)9

Socialismis no class movement.... It is not the rule of the workingclass; it is the

organizationof the community.(RamseyMacdonald)10
The class war is over.(HaroldMacmillan)11

The reconstructionof a ruling-classhegemonyin Britainin the aftermathof war

mustbe located,howeverbriefly,in the internationalstabilisationof the capitalist
world.Threefactorsare of criticalimportancehere.In economicterms,thestabili-
sationof capitalismona worldscale.againstthebackgroundcreatedbyworld-wide
depressionin the 1930sfollowedby total war,was accomplishedby modifications
in the internalstructureof capital,and by its furtherglobal expansion,leadingto
a periodof unparalleledproductivegrowth-perhaps the most sustainedperiodof
growtheverexperiencedin the historyof the system.In politicalterms,the period
also witnessedthe extensivestabilisation,in Europeespecially,of parliamentary
democracybasedon the augmentedrole of the state in economicaffairs- a devel-
opment which had also been thrown in doubt by the growth of fascism as an
extraordinarypoliticalresponseto the extraordinarycircumstancesof economic
depression.In ideologicalterms, we find the marshallingof the Westerndemoc-
raciesin the face of the challengefrom the Communistworld,and the generation
of refurbisheddoctrinesof 'free enterprise' as a counter to Soviet power in the
conditionsof Cold War.Britain, in her own special way and within the limits of
her own historicalposition,entered into this stabilisationby a 'peculiarroute', to
which the two governingparties- Labour in the period up to 1951,and then the
Conservatives,in a period of unrivalledhegemonicdomination- made signif-
icant, thoughdistinctcontributions.
The 1945-5I Labourgovernment- often conceivedas markingthe high water-
mark of social democracy,and laying the base for a peaceful, parliamentary
transitionto socialism- represented,in fact, the end of something,rather than
the beginning;everythingthat had maturedduring the extraordinaryconditions
of a popular war, was then, even in its heyday,beginningto pass away. Labour
constructedtheWelfareState,tooksomedecliningindustriesintopublicownership,
and managedthe transitionfrom a war economyto peace-timeproductionby the
exerciseof a fierceausterity.It tried to graftcertain humaneideasof socialreform
on to a systemof productionit did not reconstruct.It is possible,R. H. Tawney
onceremarked,to peel an onion layer by layer,but it is not possibleto skin a tiger
stripe by stripe.Employmentwas kept full. But the real redistributionof income
betweenclasses had taken place during, not after the war;12 the workingclasses
borethe bruntof a severeCrippsianwagefreezein 1948and a massivedevaluation
in 1949,triggeredby the KoreanWar inflation.These set the outer parametersof
the Labouristexperiment.Labour also committedBritainfirmlyto the American
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 225

side in the Cold War,which erected a sorl of 'Berlin Wall' around politicallife.
Anythingdriftingleft of centre seemedin imminentdanger or fallingoff the edge
of the world into the clutches of the Kremlin.Encounte,-and the Congress for
Cultural Freedom patrolled this perimeter of the 'free world'. All the political
solutionswere containedwithinits limits.ThroughoutWesternEurope,the Cold
War had the effect of drivingevery major politicaltendencyinto middleground,
where political life was stabilised around the key institutionsof parliamentary
democracyand the 'mixed economy'. Althoughin eleclOraltenns in Britainthe
Left was in power,ideologicallyand politicallythe 'Left' was already in retreat.
The sacrifice of 'free prescriptions'to the rearmamentprogrammemarked the
end of the road. In 1951,the loss of nerve floatedLabour- and with it the whole
social-democraticinlerlude- out on the tide.
Yet the foundations of the post-war consensus were laid in this critical
interlude.They were,in sum:the constructionof the WelfareState; the adaptation
of capitalism,and of the labourmovement,to the 'mixed-economy'solution;and
the commitmentto the 'free-enterprise'side of the Cold War.These established
the limits of a new sort of social contract, the principaleffect of which was to
contine the labourmovementwithinthe frameworkof capitaliststabilisation.On
the basis of securityof employmentand of welfare- banishingthe twin spectres
of the Depression- the labour movementwas committedto tinding a solution
to the class slrugglewithinthe frameworkor a mixed economyin which private
capital set the pace, and of the parliamentarystructuresof the capitalist state.
Contrary to some assessments,this trajectory of accommodationhad been a
featureof Labourismfrom its inception;13 but its open acknowledgementset in
train a profoundmoditicationof post-warsocialdemocracy.
Labourplantedthe seed; buttheToriesreapedthe harvest.Tothe constructionof
consensusthey madetheir owncontribution.They accepledthe WelfareState as a
'necessarysocialcost' - a modifyingprinciple- of the newcapitalism:capitalism
'with a humanface'.The sameappliedto theprincipleof fullemployment.By these
concessions,under the leadershipof a reformedparty underLordWoolton and the
'new men', Conservatismpaid its dues and moved into centre territory.Although
it returnedto powerin 1951with the promiseto burn the controlsand restorefree
enterprise.its success markedthe triumphof a new,rather than the refurbishing
of an old, 'Conservatism',I• The new Conservativesacknowledgedthat the state
should assume responsibilityfor the general managementof employmentand
demand.The nationalisationof a small public sector proved no embarrassment
to these 'new men', except when, in the case of steel and sugar, it threatened
productive industry itself; this they successfully turned back in its tracks. In
these ways they put themselves'on the side of the future', while at the same time
securingthe conditionsfor a return to an economyharnessedto the imperatives
of free-enterprisecapitalism.The concessionson welfare and full employment
securedjust the measureof popularlegitimacythe revivalof capitalismrequired.
From this centrist ground- propheticallylabelled 'Butskellism'- the expansion
of a popularconsumers'capitalismwas launched.
Analysts have sometimesbeen tempted to read Labour's contributionto the
laying of this foundation to capitalism's unparalleledexpansion as a sort of
plot. It was nothing of the kind. Welfare was indeed an inroad into unbridled
226 POLICINOTH6CRISIS

capitalismconducledat the open expenseof the workingclass; full employment

meant somethingto a class long used to the dole and the unemploymentqueue.
What matteredwas that these innovationswere madewithinthe logicof capitalist
development,not against it. And this permiltedsuch inroadsas they represented
to be redefinedin practice by the party of capital into its key and legitimating
supports. Capitalism has frequently developed by way of such unintended
consequences,driven forwardby the contradictions,often put on the agenda by
enlarged working-classstrength, which it must surmount. In absorbing these
contradictorystructuresBritishcapitalismwas forcedto recomposeitself,further
along that long path from laissez-faireto monopolyinitiatedin the latter years
of the nineteenthcentury;and in doing so, also to recomposethe capitaliststate
itself and the politicalstructuresof the workingclass.The Tu.yloristand 'Fordist'
revolution,openedup in the early yearsof the centuryand extended(on the back
of the depression)in the inter-warperiod, leading to the introductionon a very
widescaleof newproductivemethodswhichgreatlyextendedthe productivityand
intensificationof labour,came to its fulfilmentin the post-warera. The gradual
adoption of the Keynesianinstrumentsof economic regulationnot only made
possible the abandonmentof doctrinairelaisse1.1airein the interests of capital
itself, but providedthe lever with which a whole new institutionalframeworkfor
the moderndevelopmentof capitalismcould be refashioned.Both madepossible
thehigh-wage,mass-production,domestic-consumer-orientated moderneconomy,
under the governanceof an expandedand interventionist'state regulator'. And
these in tum providedthe basis for post-wareconomicexpansion.The harnessing
of Keynesianinstrumentsmade it possible,for a time, to counteractthe capitalist
tendencyto uncontrolledboom and recession.The abandonmentof an economy
of cheap labour and the market control of unemploymentmade possible a vast
expansion of the mass market for domestic-consumercommodities.The base
for this productiveboom was the post-war 'managerialist'corporateenterprises,
rooted in the exploitationof cheap energy and new technologies.15 This kind of
capitalistdevelopmentrequireda major refashioningof the capitalist state. The
expansionof an 'interventioniststate' was thus set in motionby, and related to,
far more fundamentaleconomicfunctionsfor capital than its nonnal association
with the formationof the WelfareState suggests.This was no longer the slate
of 'competitivecapitals'; it superintendeda fonn of capital requiring massive
co-ordinationand an institutionalframeworkof hannonisation- if necessary,at
the expenseof individualcapitalists.The sphereof this progressiveharmonisation
was often the enhancedstate - the state of what Marx called social capital as 'a
concrete force'.16 The co-ordinationof the market itself, of consumption,of a
strategyacross capitals- and of the incorporationand containmentof a working
class whose political strength had to be accommodatedbut whose wages, no
longer so easily controllablethrough unemploymentand wage cuts, had to be
disciplinedin anotherway - these becomekey strategicprocesseslodged in the
capitaliststate itself.
At the level of consumptionand exchange,the rise in money wages and the
surge in consumergoods served, in the 1950s,to mask those crucial changes in
the labourprocess,and the divisionof labourconsequenton them,throughwhich
the systemtried to become,onceagain,cost-effectivelyproductiveon a newscale.
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSl:NT' '221

It also tied the working class, through the mass market, hire purchase and the
well-limedbudget,to the ConservativeParty's successal the polls.The fortunes
of the systemand the fortunesof the ConservativePartynowbecameindissolubly
linked. In the course of this renewedproductivesurge every vestigeof Labour's
innovationswas reshaped and redefined into the support for a new 'people's
capitalism'and a vigorousTorypopulism,WitnessAnthonyEden: 'Our objective
is a nation-wideproperly-owningdemocracy.... Whereasthe socialistpurpose is
the distributionof ownershipin the hands of the State, ours is the distributionof
ownershipover the widestpracticablenumberof individuals.'17
This was the first leg in the post-warconstructionof consensus.The secondwas
its politicalrealisation- the 'politics of affluence'- over whichHaroldMacmillan
presidedwith suchconsummateadroitness.In 1955the Torieswentto the country
under the slogan, 'Invest in Success'. Macmillan's'Never had it so Good' slogan
wasfirst unveiledal a speechin Bradfordin 1957.It wassustained,with increasing
assuranceand muchpublic-relationsvigour,in therun-upto the key 1959election,
directlycapturingthe sheer,headyexperienceof an apparentlyunendingupward
curve in the nation's fortunes by its vulgar opportunism.'You've had it good.
Have it better. Vote Conservative.'They did. By now the Tories had identified
themselveswith every favourablesocial trend. 'In short,' concededMr Gaitskell,
'the changingcharacterof labour, full employment,new housing, the new way
of life based on the telly,the fridge, the car and the glossy magazines- all have
had their effect on our politicalstrength.' 'The Toriesidentifiedthemselveswith
the new working class better than we did', remarked another Labour Minister
(PatrickGordon-Walker).Mr Macmillan's resume!was pithier,and more to the
point. II had, he observed, 'gone off rather well'. Besides, it demonstratedthat
'the class war is obsolete'. Labourwas plungedinto the dark night of the soul: no
short-termelectoralswingbut the wholesociologyof post-warcapitalismseemed
set againstthem.
The third phase was constituted by the manufactureof the ideology - the
religion- of the 'affluentsociety'. Its successlay principallyin the wayeconomic
forcesbeyondanyone'scontrolappearedto be sustainingit. It also hadsome basis
in the immediatechangesin social life which the revivalof capitalismin its new
form brought in its train. The boom, the onset of more l'apidsocial mobilityand
the temporaryblurringof class distinctionshad the immediateeffect of dimin-
ishingthe sharpnessof class struggle.So did changesin housing,in the patternsof
working-classlife in the newestates,and the enlargingof opportunitiesfor some
throughthe expansionof stateeducation.Working-classlivingstandardsappeared
permanentlyunderpinnedfrom belowby welfare,and stimulatedaboveby rising
money wages. Once the great trade unions,under the leadershipof those whom
Addisonhas called,withjustice, 'moderatesocial patriots',18 lined themselvesup
behind 1hemixed-economysolution,certain structuralchangeswere temporarily
closed off; there seemed more to be won by pushing within the system than by
overturningit. Capital now appeared to sustain, rather than eat into, working-
class living standards.The new corporate enterprises, with their self-financed
expansionprogrammes,their new technologiesand their rising, public-spirited
managerialelites, were hard to equate with the system's earlierhard-facedentre-
preneurs.At a deeper level, new technologiesand modificationsin the labour
228 POLICINGTH6CRISIS

process had producednew structuresin the technicaldivisionof labour,gener-

ating new occupationalstrata and cultures within the workingclass. The rise of
the state and tertiarysectorsexpandedthe size of the intermediaryclasses,which,
though they too had nothing to sell but their labour, had their work differently
organisedfrom that typical of the pre-warskilled labourer.These social changes
unhingedmany traditionalpatternsof class relationsin the immediatesphere of
social life, reorganisingsome altitudesand aspirations,dismantlingsome of the
stableformsof working-classconsciousnessand solidarity,andsettingaside some
of the familiarlandmarksof traditionalpre-warsociety.Distinctionsbetweenthe
old, decliningindustrialregions of the 'north' and the new, bustling 'scientific'
industriesof the 'south' accentuatedthe impressionof the newunevenlyreplacing
the old. The media caught and transfi,ced,in graphic visual terms, the surface
flu,cof social change. and provided the immediatereflection of an unplanned
socialupheaval.But the key factorwas the effectof theseshifts,workingtogether,
partiallyto confinethe workingclass and the labour movementwithinthe limits
of the system: the containment of working-classpolitics within the logic of
capitalistdevelopment.This partialincorporationwas not at all incompatiblewith
a vigorous,instrumentalwage militancy- milking the system for what it was
worth: a form of the continuationof class struggle 'by other means' which was
obscured,for a time. by the more personalisedand privatisedways of 'making
it' within the system.The drift towards a centrist consensusin politics, with its
consequentfragmentationin the classicformsof class struggle,had the long-term
consequenceof shiftingthe localeof struggleawayfromthe institutionalisedfront
and towardsa more localised,more syndicalisttype of shop-floorpolitics.In the
centre,what united people- whetherin terms of real achievementsor unrealised
aspirations- appearedstrongerthan what dividedthem. On this basis a general
consensus appeared spontaneouslyto produce and then to reproduce itself to
infinity:a permanentConservativehegemony.
Gradually,an ideologicalreading of the post-warcondition was installed.In
the heady economicclimate of the times, unplannedsocial change came to be
designated,ideologically,as the tokens of the new, 'classless' consumer,post-
capitalistsociety.The unevennessof social change,experiencedin serialisedand
fragmentedways, was resolved in an ideologicalform: the myth of affluence.
As the pace of changegatheredspeed, so change itself becamea nationalpreoc-
cupation. Here the idea of the United States - now the leading capitalist nation
- providedthe comfortingpoint of reference;even Mr Crosland's vision of 'the
futureof socialism' resemblednothingso much as a cross betweenHarlowNew
Town and a mid-Westsuburbanenclave.Consensuswas constructed,ideologi-
cally, on top of this perplexingsweep of social transformation.The people had
to be convincedthat capitalismhad changedits nature, that the boom would last
forever.Since the milleniumhad patently not arrived for the majority,ideology
was required to close the gap between the real unequal distributionof wealth
and powerand the 'imaginaryrelation'of their futureequalisation.This inflexion
of the contradictoryreality into the illusionof permanentprogress-to-comewas
grafted on to somethingreal; but it also transformedthat rational core. Like all
social myths, 'affluence'containedits sub-stratumof truth - the transformations
in the structuresof capitalismand the recomposilionof the capitalist state and
 nm EXHAUSTIONor-'CONSENT' 229
its politics. But it consislentlyinflectedthis antagonisticreality in a consensual
direction.It extrapolatedthe present into a future by its favourableside only, a
'trend' without contradictionor historical break. Myth, Barthes reminds us, is
dehistoricised,depoliticised speech.19 It suppresses the historical nature and
antagonisticconlenlof what it signifies,the temporaryconditionsof its exislence,
the possibililiesof its historicaltranscendence.It convertsdiscontinuityintoconti-
nuity,Historyinto Nature.The operationof the myth of affluence- the 'religion
of affluence'- on the contradictoryreality of post-warcapitalist reconstruction
was accomplishedby just such a profoundideologicaldisplacement.Within its
terms monopolycapitalismwas representedas 'the post-capitalistera'. The incor-
porationof capitalistpropertybecame 'the managerialRevolution'.The Welfare
State was lranscribedas 'the abolitionof poverty'. The rise in money incomes
became the 'redistributionof wealth'. Political convergenceon middle ground
dictatedby the fundamentalrhythmsof capitalistproductionand circulationwas
invertedinto the 'end of ideology'. The loweringof politicalgoals was hymned
as the birth of 'politicalrealism' - the art of the possible.The ideologicalclosure
aimed for was complele.Above all, the transformationsit entailed appeared to
come, spontaneously,from nowhere,a naturallendencyof all good men and true
to come togetherconsensuallyto supportthe same goals and celebratethe same
values: getting and spending; getting ahead; private space in a do-it-yourself
world - a new form of democratised possessive individualism.But though
Harold Macmillanartfully impersonatedthis 'consensus-without-tears'- look,
no hands!- the wholeenterpriserequiredthe most skilful politicaland economic
management.The main economictrends whichunderpinnedthe affluentillusion
had to be sustained.So had thosesocialtrendsfavouringthe continuinghegemony
of the few still wieldingpower over the powerlessmajority:aboveall, the stabi-
lisation of the institutionalcommitmentof the massesto the system,bindingthe
peopleto the statusquoby consensualhoopsof steel. The first was the task of the
economic,and now the slate, managersof the conditionsfor the continuedreali-
sationof capital.The secondwas achievedthroughthe deep adaptationof Labour
into an alternativeparty of capitalism.The third was, principally,the object of
the ideologyof affluence.Over this last Macmillanand his entouragepresided-
nothingshort of the stage-managedproductionof popularconsent.
The closurewas of coursenevercompletedor secured.In part,its economicbase
wasstructurallyunsound.Britainparticipatedintheworld-widecapitalistboom,but
moreslowlyand hesitantlythan her majorrivals.The long imperialistinheritance,
coupledwith the ancientnatureof her industrialinfrastructureand the slowrate of
technologicalinnovation,set her at a strikingdisadvantage.In economictenns, she
was a third-ratepost-imperial,not a first-ratenewcapitalistpower.Inflationbegan
to rise. though, becauseof the relativestrengthof labour,wagesettlementswere
struckfor a time,at increasinglyhigh levels.Ultimately,of course.inflationate into
real wages: 'inflation is the economicenemy of conse11sus •.20 Cost inflationalso
beganto eat into profitmargins.Coupledwith the low rate and levelof investment,
Britain's competitiveposition declined, resulting in a diminishingshare of the
world marketfor manufacturedgoods. The heavy reliance on 'invisibleexports'
produceda dramaticgap in her rate of growthas comparedwith her competitors.
The ascendancyof the financialfractionof the ruling class producedthe regular
230 POLICINGTHECRISIS

exporl of capital overseasin the search for sho1t-tennprofits, and the defence
to the death of sterlingas a world currency.The failure of technicalinvestment
sloweddown the recompositionof capitaland produceda decliningrate of profit.
The Conservativeeconomicmanagersexhibiteda cerlain short-termwizardryin
tyingbudgetsto electoralchances.Butevery'go' had its 'stop', each 'stop' accom-
paniedby more damaginglyinflationarypackagesinducinga pervasives1ructural
stagnation.The state was increasinglydrawn to interveneto maintainthe national
economyas a site for profitableinvestment.
Consensus,moreover,was constructedacross highly paradoxicalphenomena.
The high point of 'affluence' in 1956coincidedwith such highly un-consensual
eventsas: the Suez adventure(with its stirring impacton the Labourmovement);
the HungarianRevolulion(with its dramatic effects on the CommunistParty);
the birth of the New Left; the Usesof Uteraey, Look Back in Anger and Elvis
Presley. The emergence of a section of the radical intelligentsia from the
conformislcramp of the ColdWar,the birth of extra-parliamentarypoliticsin the
anti-nuclearmovement,the emergenceof a flourishing,commerciallysponsored
youth culture - all were discrepantphenomenaof an 'affluent society' floated
out on the consensualtide. Here and elsewhere,it seemedclear that consensus,
affluence and consumerismhad produced, not the pacificationof worry and
anxiety - their dissolutionin the flux of money,goods and fashion - but their
reverse:a profound,disquietingsense of moralunease.Mr Macmillan'sdazzling
high-wireact was conductedon top of the highly un-Edwardianworld of super-
marketsand motorways.jukeboxesandjets,jeans and guitars,scootersand televi-
sions,demonstralionsin the streetsand the systematicabuse of the middleclasses
from the stage of the Royal Court. Although consumptionrepresenteda real
and effectiveeconomicmotive,the British remaineduneasy with the gospel of
unbridledmaterialism.One of the sternermembersof the Cabinethad warnedthe
ToryPartyConferencethat economicsuccessshould 'help to satisfyman's desire
to serve a cause outside himself'. But it was not at all obviousthat a 'people's
capitalism'was delivering,alongsidethe cornucopiaof goodies,a sense of moral
purpose.When TheEconomistenjoined'modernConservatives'to look up 'at the
TV aerialssproutingaboveworkingclass homes'and 'down on the housewivesin
tight slacks on the summerroad to Brighton'and tind in them 'a great poetry', it
had to admit that there was still the 'old-fashionedConservativewho looksout at
the comfortsmade achievableby rising incomesand the hire purchaserevolution
and who feels vagueJythat the workers... are gettingabovetheir station',21 In the
late 1950s and early 1960s,the two topics most calculated to catch the imagi-
nationof grass-rootsToriesat the PartyConferencewerecrime and immigration-
themes of disturbance,not of consensus and success. Significantsocial groups
in society feJtabandonedby the scrambleof some for the affluent,'progressive'
middleground,and threatenedby rising materialismbelow;amidstthe 'never had
it so good society', they yearned for a firmer moral purpose.They providedthe
backbonefor the entrepreneursof moralindignation.
This mechanismis crucial for our story.On the surface,everythingappearedto
be 'going well'. Displacedfrom its centrein publicmoraldiscourse,and unableto
tind a footholdin the pragmatic,incrementalpoliticsof consensus,a generalised
moralanxietyabout 'the state of things'tendedto findexpressionin themeswhich
 TH6 6,CHAUSTIONOF 'CONSllNT' 231

appearedat first marginalto society's main movements,This is the source of the

post•war'moral panic'. It first precipitatedwith respectto 'youth', whichcame to
provide,for a time, a metaphorfor socialchangeand an indexof social anxiety.22
Everytroublingfeatureof post•warsocialchangewas refractedin its highlyvisible
prism.In youth,socialchangewas not simplyprojected,but magnified.Inheritors
of the WelfareState, harbingersof the post•warworld, 'youth' was, at once, the
vanguardof the GoldenAge, and the vanguardparty of the new materialism,the
new hedonism.All of social change was inscribed,in microcosm,in its innocent
face.The publicresponsewas, predictably,ambivalent.That ambivalenceis regis--
tered in the 'moral panic' about the Teddy Boys in the mid•l950s,2J where the
public gave vent to ils collectivehorror at the spectacle of youth of the white
under•class,with its rising social ambitionsand its expressiveviolence,dressed
up in off•the•peg,lumpenisedversionsof an Edwardianstyle,jiving to what Paul
Johnsononce describedas 'jungle music', floating out of its proper habitat 'up
town', spilling over into the respectableenclaves,dance halls and cinemas,and
occasionallyrunningamokto the beat of RockAroundThe Clock.24 The link with
violence provided the frisson on which moral panics feeds. A few years later,
the remnantsof the Teds found their way into the streets of Notting Hill in the
first full•scalerace riots ever seen in Britain. The Timeseditorial ('Hooliganism
is Hooliganism')made the straighttranspositionfrom hooliganismand 'teenage
violence'into lawlessnessand anarchy.The growthof racism was neglected;but
the existenceof blacksas a 'problem' was tacitly acknowledged. 25
The affluentconsensuswas thus foundedon an unstablebase, Its career was,
in any event, destined to be short lived. It began to disintegrateshortly after
Macmillan'striumphat the pollsin 1959.In the middleof 1960a massivebalance•
of•paymentscrisisdeveloped-a crisiswhichunmaskedthe depthof Britain'sreal
economicdecline. It was followedby SelwynLloyd's gigantic 'stop' Budgetof
1961;a Cabinet purge;the Cuba crisis; the collapseof Britain's bid to enter the
E.E.C.;anda rise in the unemploymentrate to4 percent. On a broaderfront,critics
had begunto unearththe dark side of affluence,inscribedin a series of reportsand
studies- Galbraith,Titmuss,Albemarle,Buchanan,Pilkington,Milner•Holland,
Crowther,Robbins,Plowden- which added up to the 'rediscoveryof poverty'.
On the cultural front, the legitimacyof the Establishmentwas submergedin a
wave of cynicism and disbelief,especially in the 'satire' movements.In March
1960,George Wigg, basing himself on a story in Private Eye, raised the 'little
matter'of a scandal'involvinga memberof the front bench'. The ProfumoAffair
brought on stage the whole 'affluent' cast of performers:a West Indian, three
call girls, a propertyspeculator,an osteopathwith country•houseconnections,a
Secretaryof State and a Soviet naval attach6.When the ProfumoAffair reached
its sordid conclusion,the 'Macmillenium'had also closed. Typically,what had
begunin politicsandeconomicshad foundils consummationin a splurgeof moral
indignation.

CONSENSUS:THE SOCIAL-DBMOCRATICVARIANT
The peculiar character of Social Democracy is epitomised in the fact that
democratic-republicaninstitutionsare demandedas a means,not of doingaway
232 POLICINGTHECRISIS

with two extremes, capital and wage labour, but of weakening their antagonism
and transforming it into a harmony. (Marx}26

The period between 1961 and 1964 is transitional: not between Prime Ministers
but between two variants of the consensus management of the state. The self-
regulating, spontaneous cohesion of British social and political life, under-
pinned by the consumer boom, was destroyed during this transition. In its place.
Labour auempted - drawing on an alternative repertoire- to construct a 'social-
democratic' variant, based on an appeal, not to individualism, but to the 'national
interest', and to a prosperity which would have lo be struggled for, defended at
home and abroad, and for which belts - especially those of the working classes -
would have to be tightened. This dominates the period, up to the Heath victory
in 1970. There were, in fact, many overlaps between the two phases. Indicative
planning was introduced, not by Wilson but by Selwyn Lloyd. Growth, out of
which alone 'more' could be provided, and modernisation, without which labour
could not be productive, had already become national goals, before Mr Wilson
rephrased them into the new social-democratic litany. But these overlaps - by
which, silently, the new structures of capitalism and the modern corporate state
were matured - conceal the quality of the 'leap' which Labour initiated on its
return to power.
What Macmillan had never essayed, and only Labour was in a position to
initiate, was the full slide into corporatism. Labour had no alternative strategy for
managing the economic crisis. By committing itself to capitalist structures, it had
guaranteed the existing distribution of inequality. Since the present equilibrium
could not be further disturbed without destroying the goose which laid the golden
eggs, only an over-all leap in production - growth - could provide what the
working class demanded (more) while preserving the existing mechanisms of
surplus realisation and profitability. The secret was to expand productivity: to
make labour more productive - which, in conditions of low investment, meant
raising the rate of the exploitation of labour. The potential sharpening of conflicts
of interest between the classes could only be dampened down by subsuming
everyone into the 'higher' ideological unity of the national interest. Panitch has
called the theory of a 'redistribution' which did not touch the existing inequal-
ities of class power the 'doctrine of socialism in one class' .17 The subsumption of
class interests within the national interest he has defined as Labour's 'nation-class
synthesis'. He adds: 'the new social contract in this context is a contract not only
between unequals but one in which the guarantor of the contract - the state ... is
not and cannot be disinterested and neutral between the classes.' 21
The only way in which such goals could be politically realised was by drawing
all sides into an active partnership with the state: to make labour and capital equal
'interests', under the impartial chairmanship of the 'neutral' state; to commit each
side to national economic targets; to persuade each to regulate the share which it
took out of the common pool; and thus to establish a tripartite corporate bargain
at the centre of the nation's economic life, based on the harmonisation of interests
between capital, labour and the people - the latter appearing in the heavy disguise
of the state. This was to provide the basis for a common corporate strategy for
capital as a whole - social capital. Each party had its constituency; each its duties
 TH6 6XHAUSTIONOF 'CONS6NT' 233

- principallyof discipline.Capital defended business,and would be rewarded

with profits. Labour defended the working man, and would be rewardedwith
a higher standard of living. The state represented'the rest' - the nation - and
stabilisedthe contract,enforcingit on the community.This idea of a permanent
alliance - 'for the nationalgood' - between labour, capital and the state is the
pivotalidea,the practicalbasis,of the social-democraticexperimentin consensus-
building:the corporateconsensusof the 'big batallions'. Mr Callaghan's 'social
contract' is only another variantof the same strategy- adapted for seige condi-
tions. It depended,above all, on discipliningthe nation to consent- and on the
institutionalisationof the class struggle. Capital would constrain its free-enter-
prise mavericks,committingthem to national targets. The unions would disci-
pline their shop-floormilitants.Both antagonisticelementscould be 'won for the
centre'. The state would be responsiblefor establishingthe networkof institu-
tional frameworkswithin which 'the bargains' could be struck. In this form, the
state, whileappearingto subsumeinto itself the best interestsof everyone,in fact
firmlyassumedcommandover the long-termconditionsof capital- if necessary
at the expenseof short-runmarketconsiderationsof individualcapitalists.
This pacificationand harmonisationof the class struggle was accomplished
in part through the generationof its own distinctiveideology,It was announced
and indexed by the Wilsonianrhetoric of 'modernisation',of 'all sides pulling
together', with its clarion call to 'productive workers by hand and brain', and
its ringingdenunciationof 'backwoodsmen'on all sides - unregeneratefree-en-
terprisershere, militant shop stewardsand leftists there. Modernisationhad the
key ideologicaleffect of translatingBritain's economicdecline into its technical
aspectsalone.Growthsubsumedthe historicalinto the technological.Withinthis
form of political 'Newspeak',technico-pragmaticrationalitywas installedas the
only formof politicsleft.This ideologicalconvergencewasunderpinnedby oneof
the mostheroic attemptsin the post-warperiod- a decisiveshift- to put together
a new social bloc: an alliancebetweenthe modernisingindustrialmanagersand
the newtechnicalworkingclass.The 'New Britain' was to be 'forgedin the white
heat of the technologicalrevolution'. Immediately,in the run up to the election
and its aftermath,this ramshacklesocialconfigurationseemedpoisedfor success.
The new Labourist gospel was just efficaciousenough, just vague enough, to
forgea temporaryalliancebetweenmanagers,techniciansand the few fragmented
constituenciesfor social change created by the 'rediscoveryof poverty'. It had
no other logic or historicalbase. In fact, no side in the alliancecould redeem its
stake without disturbingthe bargain- thereby interferingwith its fundamental
basis: the generationand redistributionof the surplusin capital's favour.As soon
as economicpressuressharpened,the concoctionbeganto fall apart.Once tested,
it revealedits true internal logic: the attemptto conserveBritish capitalismand
managethe crisis by the constructionof a disciplinedform of consent,principally
under the managementof the corporatestate.
Once again this effort to constructa disciplinedconsensusappearedstrikingly
at odds with social movementsand the spirit of the times. 1964 was also the
year of the Beatles' rise to cultural pre-eminence;of massiverecord sales and
the 'beat' boom; of 'mod' styles, the flourishingartisan capitalismof the Kings
Road boutiques, and the whole phenomenonof 'swinging London'. For those
234 POLICINGTHECRISIS

committed to an older, Prostestant ethic, or responding to the call of Wilson's

'New Methodism', with its simple contrasts of Ancient and Modern, the narcissism
of the 'mcxis', lhe flaunted sexuality of the Rolling Stones, the transformations
of masculinity in fashion, and the generalised hedonism, registered as a deep
shock. Once again, the accumulating social anxieties were displaced from centre
to periphery, and assumed the form of righteous moral indignation. The staged
'mods-rockers' confrontations on the holiday beaches attracted massive public
attention, wild press over-reporting and a campaign of intense social reaction from
the moral entrepreneurs, the police and the courts.29 The drama was thematised in
terms of the continuing moral struggle between the guardians of society and the
affluence, boredom, indiscipline, hedonism, vandalism and 'mindless violence'
of 'youth'. It provided a sort of recapitulation, in a minor key, of the themes Mr
Wilson was orchestrating elsewhere.
Labour inherited the biggest deficit on the balance of payments in British
peace-time history. The response was a cringing return to the most ancient tune
in the book - the religion of sterling. 'The first essential', the Prime Minister
remarked, 'is a strong economy. This alone will enable us to maintain the value of
the pound.' But when the chips were down, that company of loyal souls in the City
sold sterling for all they were worth. Labour rallied to its defence; and the inter•
national financiers, who alone could ransom the government, named their price.
Wage freeze, cuts in public expenditure, the sabotage of the 'social package',
which alone had attached Labour's radical wing to the corporate strategy. The
government borrowed furiously, and persuaded the T.U.C. to accept a statutory
wages policy. The 1966 election was handsomely won. Then the incomes policy
became the centre plank of Labour's New Testament. The sharp edge of Labour
policy was turned against the unions - the anarchy of wage bargaining, and
restrictive practices. There was a further call for discipline. Then, in the middle of
this revivalist campaign, came the seamen's strike.
The seamen's strike threw the whole strategy into the balance. What was at
issue, the Prime Minister said, was nothing less than 'our national prices and
incomes policy'. Only a defeat of the strikers would convince foreign investors
of 'our determination to make the policy effective'. Mr Wilson then brought into
play the major paradigm of social control, which, with the help of the media,
was to dominate the ideological signification of industrial conflict from that
point forwards to the present. He raised the level of threat to national propor·
tions: the strike, he said, was against the national interest, because it was 'against
the state, against the community' - a fateful convergence. It was thus, figura•
lively, and could therefore be signified, literally, as a conspiracy:'this tightly
knit group of politically motivated men ... who are now detennined to exercise
back•stage pressures, forcing great hardship on the members of the unions and
their families, and endangering the security of the industry and the economic
welfare of the nation'. Time and again, in the succeeding decade, the class
struggle was to be reconstructed, ideologically, in these tenns: the conspiracy
against the nation, holding the innocent to ransom; the stark contrast between
the subversive clique and the innocent worker and his family - the seducers and
the seduced. How else, in a consensual world, in which the state had become,
for all practical purposes, the nation, could conflict be explained? The long
march of those twin ideological demons - extremists and moderates -to which
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSllNT' 235
the mass media have lent their assiduoussupport had its point of departure in
the post-warperiodjust here.
Immediately,the 'red scare' was a success: the seamensettled.But the credi-
bility of Labour as a refonning party of the workingclass evaporatedwith this
'victory'. Mr Wilson's 'historicalbloc' fell apart.Worse.the run on sterlingbegan
again.1\vo deflationarypackagesfollowed.Labournowstoodas the last, not very
convincing,governorof the economiccrisis, the bastion of the most backward
sectors of British capital. The magic of the social democraticconsensusbegan
silently to depart. Mr Wilson - looking more Churchillianwith every passing
hour - now presidedover what can only be describedas manageddissensus.

DESCBNTTO DISSENSUS
the crisisof the rulingclass' hegemony... occurseither becausethe rulingclass
has failed in some major political undertakingfor which it has requestedor
forciblyextractedthe consentof the broad masses... or because... huge masses
... have passed suddenlyrrom a state of politicalpassivityto a certain activity
and put forwarddemands which taken together,albeit not organicallyfonnu-
lated,add up to a revolution.A 'crisis of authority'is spokenof: this is precisely
the crisis of hegemony,or generalcrisis of the State.(Gramsci)30

1966providesa sort of early turning-pointin the passageGramscidescribesfrom

the 'moment of consent' through to the 'moment of force'. It is observable,as
much in the spheres of moral authorityand civil society as it is in the domain
of politics and the state. The more fluid and open atmosphereof the 1950sand
early 1960shad found their official apotheosis,if anywhere,in the liberalising
reforms identifiedwith Roy Jenkins's period in the Home Office, in the sphere
of censorship,divorce, abortion,licensing,Sunday Observance,etc. But by the
mid-l960s the calculatedinnocenceof 'swingingLondon' had been redescribed
as 'pornographicBritain' by the populistguardiansof public morality.The moral
backlashhadcommenced.The PoliceFederation,antagonisedby a lost payclaim,
the threatenedabolitionof capital punishmentand the killingof three policemen
by HarryRoberts,warnedthat the policewere 'losing the war againstcrime'. The
capital-punishmentdebate became, indeed,one of the pivotalpoints of popular
reaction.Morewidely,the Moorsmurderswereinterpretedas the inevitableresult
of the pornographicsociety.The argument,persuasivelyput by PamelaHansford-
Johnson in On Iniquity,31 was recapitulatedby the press and public spokesmen.
The ex-head of ScotlandYard,Sir RichardJackson, in an authoritativeseries in
the Sunday press, expressedhis disgust at 'the rapid growth of public slop and
sentimentabout criminals and of propagandaagainst the police, the courts and
all forms of establishedorder, and for the weird, mongrel,yapping pack ... of
misguided,soft-heartedliberals'.~zIn the same paper,Percy Howardchargedthe
'leaders of the PermissiveRevolution'with moral responsibilityfor the Moors
murders('Are Bradyand Hindleythe Only GuiltyOnes?').33 The media not only,
in general,beganto draw these tellingconnectionstogetheraroundthe threshold
of 'permissiveness',but they adopted the paradigmaticexplanationof which Sir
Richard had availed himself: the soft, misguided 'liberals' leading an innocent
public into decadence,the 'hard core' mopping up in their wake, as moral life
236 POUCINO·rHE CRISIS

sank into a den of iniquity.The conspiratorialfonn of this paradigmmatched,in

the moral sphere, the explanatoryfigure which the Prime Minister himself was
manipulatingin the political domain. The hunt for 'subversiveminorities' and
'liberal dupes' had begun.
The turningof the tide against liberalism,at the 'permissiveness'frontier,was
takingplace, simultaneously,on other fronts.Whereasin the 1950sthe American
example was the harbingerof all good things to come, in the 1960s,it was the
American 'crisis' - student movements,the anti-Vietnamcampaigns,the civil-
rights rebellionsand growingblack resistance,the blossomingof the hippie and
'flower-power'generation- which set the pace. Between 1966 and 1967,these
themesbegan to have their resonance'on nativeground' in Britaintoo. 1967 is
the year of the great English 'panic' about drug use,~ identifiedwith the whole
hippie scene: the new RegionalDrug Squads were formed in July of this year.
Like other panics, this one too was sponsoredby a dramaticincident- the trial
of Mick Jagger for possessionin June. No figure was more designed to fit the
stereotypeand trigger moral aJarm:overtlyif androgynouslysexual, flamboyant,
hedonistic- and guilty. Here, in the drug scene - as we suggestedearlier- the
moralentrepreneursdiscoveredthe criminaledge of permissiveness.Shortlyafter,
MarianneFaithfullwas apprehendedafter an overdose,and anotherRollingStone,
a firstoffender,was sentencedto nine monthsfor smokingIndianhemp.The press
describedthis as an 'exemplarymartyrdom'.As partof his liberalisingprogramme,
Mr Jenkinshad pushedthroughhis RaceRelationsAct in 1965.But the Smethwick
electionof I964 markedthe emergenceof overt racism into the officialelectoral
politicsof Britainfor the firsttime in the post-warperiod.And,as PaulFoot'sstudy
clearlydocuments,the racistrot had penetrateddeeplyinto the base of the Labour
movementitself." Mr Jenkins's liberalismwas, here also, rapidlyoutstrippedby
events.At the impendingpromiseof the arrivalof the first waveof KenyanAsian
passport-holders,the anti-immigrantlobby took to the field for the first time. Mr
Powell'sobservationthat, though'the comparisonwith the U.S. is not exact ... it is
startling';Sir CyrilOsborne'sfriendlywarningthat 'the Englishpeoplehavestarted
to commitracesuicide';Mr Sandy'sfearthat 'the breedingof millionsof haJf-caste
childrenwould ... producea generationof misfits'; Mr Cordle'samiableestimate
that 'In thirty years we would be a coffee-colourednation'. All are from deep in
the heart of Conservativeofficialterritory.:w;When the troublearoseat the London
School of Economicsover the appointmentof Dr Adams as Director,the press
instantlyattributedthe troubleto 'a handfulof studentagitators'?7 Whenthe British
protestsagainstAmericaninvolvementin Vietnambegan,Mr Hogg,remarkingon
the 'well-oiledmachineryof indignation',observedthat 'It has beenactivatedwhen
theCommunistshavepursuedthe matter.It has beensilentand ineffectivewhenever
they havenot.':111
The drifi acrossthe thresholdshad also commenced.

1968/(1848):
CATACLYSM-THENATIONDIVIDES
A spectreis hauntingEurope- the spectreof Communism.(Marx and Engels,
CommunistManifesto'/9
A spectreis hauntingEurope- the spectreof studentrevolt.(Dannyand Gabriel
Cohn-Bendit,ObsoleteCommunismt0
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 237
1968 is the year of a remarkable cataclysm: a parting of the waters. Like its
predecessor( 1848),it was an incompleteand unfinished'revolution'. Its seismic
impactreverberatedoutwardsfrom its principaJterrain in socialand politicallife;
its eddiesare not yet fully spent. It consistedaboveall of the attemptto instigate
'revolutionrromabove'- to transmitthe spark of rebellionfrom the 'little motor'
of student revollto the great, inert engine of the labouringmasses,envisagedas
Marcuse's 'cheerfulrobots' in their 'one-dimensional'sleep. It was an assault on
the culture and superstructureof late capitalismmounted by the system's own
vanguard- a 'lumpen bourgeoisie':a class fractionwithouta tangibleproductive
base.In so far as this fractionembodiedcertaincontradictionsand antagonismsof
the systemthey were thosewhichstemmedfrom the 'higher nervoussystem', the
overdeveloped'social brain' of late capitalism.ll was a revoltin, but also of, the
superstructures.It propelled,by an act of collectivewill, the breaksand ruptures
stemmingfrom the rapid expansionin the ideology,cultureand civil structuresof
the newcapitalism,rorwardsin the form of a 'crisis of authority'.
Once again the United States led. The hippie 'golden summer' had scattered
the seeds of disaffiliationfar and wide, alongsideacid rock, flowerpower,beads,
kaftans and bells, the L.S.D. 'high' and the Haight Ashbury 'down'. Slowly
the great exodus of America's 'brightest and best' from the cultural pathways
of Middle Americaand the liberal-corporateslate began, and parallelwith that
the organisedstudents' movements,with their libertarianorigin,and - now on a
separatisttrajectory- black rebellionin the cities. NormanMailer had long ago
foreseenjust such a conjuncture:'In such placesas GreenwichVillage,a menage-
a-troiswas completed- the bohemianandjuvenile delinquentcame face to face
with the Negroand the hipsterwas a fact in Americanlife.'41 It wasnot the United
Statesalonewhichfounditself 'quite brieflyin a revolutionarycondition'.•zFrom
Berlinto Naples,Paristo Tokyo,the university-the ideological'factory'- became
the centrepieceof an astonishingreversal and confrontation.An entirely novel
repertoireof confrontationtactics, theatrical and dramaturgicalin inspiration,
was generated.Temporarily,the politics of the street replacedthe politics of the
conventionand the ballot box. Streetand communitybecamethe sites for a series
of politico-culturalhappenings.In France and West Germanythe movementwas
more 'orthodox'- the solid presenceof the Communistmassparty in the one, and
the criticalstreamof Marxisttheories in the other,markingone dimensionof the
difference.Both began with the ideologicaldismantlingof corporate-liberalism
from the left: the 'critique of pure tolerance'. Followingthe massiveuprisingof
the Sorbonnestudents,a waveof strikesand workerdemonstrationsspreadacross
France. But though the 'May events' came closest, outside of Italy, to sparking
a working-classmovementinto life, they remainedessentiallya 'festival of the
oppressed'- the figurativelyoppressed,that is: the revolutionarydreamof partici-
pation, worker control and creativity holding a more central role than Leninist
conceptionsof the vanguardparty and slate power.This very hesitancy before
the citadel of the state was to be its undoing.The legitimacyof the Oaulliststate,
compoundedby the 'legitimacy' of the FrenchCommunistParty,conspired,in a
bizarrecoalition,to turn the flank of revolutioninto reforms.When, in response
to the growing signs of worker-studentcollaboration,the General incorporated
'participation' into his Referendumproposals,200,000 massed in protest in the
238 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

forecourtof the Garede Lyon.Then Pompidoureleasedthe C.R.S.: 'Crushthem',

he advised, 'without weakness.'The young - workersand students - bore the
brunt. A million respectable Frenchmen marched for Gaullism. Negotiations
and elections were resumed.The Gaullist state had survivedArmageddon.The
counter-revolutionhad begun. Not long after, Mailer's 'Armies of the Night'
retreated before the advancinggrey dawn of the Nixon-Agnewtriumph at the
polls - revenge of the 'silent majority'. The slogan under which this counter-
revolutionadvancedwas 'law-and-order'.
As in 1848,Britainmovedinto thiscataclysmmorecautiouslyand sedately.No
workersmarched,no factorieswere occupied,few heads were broken by police
batons.What in Paris divided the capital, in Britain tended only to polarise the
CommonRoom.Nevertheless,in her own 'peculiar' way,Britainexperiencedher
'1968'. The social and politicalpolarisationwhich characterisesthe next decade
beganfromthis point.As elsewhere,Britainwas profoundlyshockedby the 'great
refusal' of those very sons and daughterswhom the systemhad chosen.They had
underminedmorality and civil society; now they challengedthe foundationsof
the state.The resolutionof the state to resist, and the panicand fear of the 'silent
majority' at having their routinisedway of life threatenedand shattered,made a
fatefulrendezvous.Out of this convergencethe drift into reactionand authoritari-
anism was born. In Britain the greatest casualty was the disintegrationof liber-
alism. Outflankedon its student left, intellectualliberalismthrew in the sponge
withouta fight, and many of its outstandingstalwarts,eloquentabout academic
freedom in general only up to the point where some actual, particular freedom
was threatened,emigratedspeedily to the extreme right, and made themselves
over into the range-ridersof discipline.This reactionprovedto be all the sharper
since the threat arose, not from some guerrillagroup trained·in Outer Mongolia,
but fromthe childrenof affluenceitself,thosedestinedto inheritthe nee-capitalist
earth: the apprentice-managersof the world.
If the nearcataclysmof 1968shookthe citadelsof the state,civilsocietyproved
remarkably impenneable. Nightly, the images of helmeted and shielded riot-
controlpoliceadvancingon lines of studentswith headbandsand combatjackets,
looking down the muzzles of machine-gunsor scattering before the C.S. gas,
floodedon to the televisionscreens,and provideda spectaclefor sobercitizensat
home before the box. The scenes themselvesfrequentlycontained,on one side,
demonstratorsand police locked in combat, and on the other private citizens
threadingtheir way home throughthe debris, going about their privatebusiness,
not more than a canister's throw away. Much has indeed been written about the
apathy and privatisationwhich marked civil life under corporate capitalism in
this period - the massivedisjuncturebetween the 'private world' of the citizen
and the apparatusesand processes of the state. The buttressingof the 'little
world' of privatewants and needs, of family and home, appeared as a defence
against the encroachmentsof the abstractbureaucraciesof politics,the economy
and administration;but the two were, nevertheless,intimatelyco-ordinated,the
fullnessof the one compensatingfor the 'emptiness'of the other.'Apathy'and the
consolidationof the corporatecapitaliststate were bedfellows.Yeteach appeared
unrelated- the state's augmentedrole at the centre was experiencedonly as a set
of private, serialisedgrouses at the margins.The split was recapitulatedin the
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 239
rhetoricsof public ideology:workersby day went home only to be addressedby
politiciansand adver1isers,by night, as altogetherdifferentbeings- consumers.
Politicsitself becameprogressively'privatised'. In its indistinctway,the student
revoltwas mountedas a challengeto this hegemonyof the state over the privatised
sphere. Much of the violence and confrontation,like the participatoryslogans,
were directed against the invisiblewalls which renderedcitizens the unwitting
colluders with their own powerlessness.So was the communitarianstress, and
the summonsto reappropriatepower at the base. Finally,this trajectoryfailed to
intersectwith or penetratethe veil of the privatisedkingdom;this was the measure
of its objectivelack of centrality.But the noveltyof its content and forms, and
its targeting in on the 'revolution of everyday life', was not irrelevant,as the
orthodoxrevolutionariesassumed(the FrenchCommunistParty called the 1968
militants'pamperedadventurists').Situationismwas directlygermane- a simple
'negation' - to the new forms of state power,and lefi its profoundtrace in the
!'evolutionaryculture,thoughthere were preciousfew 'situationists'.
The inner trajectoryof the studentmovement'sattack was, however,a godsend
to the state itselrand to the media,for it gavejust enoughsubstanceto the massive,
overwhelmingefforts of the media and their licensedspokesmento resolve the
whole complex scenario into the simplifyingterms of 'violence'. Confronting
the first big GrosvenorSquareanti-Vietnamdemonstrationin April,the Observer
was cool enough to remark that 'these student demonstrationsare not serious
politicalmovementspursuingreal aims: they are more like a highbrowversion
of football hooliganism'.But when, after 'May', the press faced the even more
massiveOctoberdemonstration,theSundayExpresscouldobserve,withoutfear of
successfulcontradiction,that 'This is not primarilyan Anti-Vietnamwar demon-
stration. It is a cold and deliberateexercise in violence by evil men using the
young and gullibleto their own ends. It is a calculatedeffort by skilled lefi-wing
agitators to bring our police into disrepute and terrorise the community.'This
reductionof all fonns of dissent or protest to the search for agilationalcliques
bent on violence,coupled with the arithmeticof consensus,in which 'majorities'
were continuallyreckonedup against 'minorities', marks the whole ideological
significationof studentprotest in Britain.It was graduallyto becomea dominant
significationparadigm43 for the whole gamut of social conflicts and political
troubles. It also marks a shin in the significationspiral (discussedearlier) up
throughthe thresholdstowardstheir outer perimeter.By the time the secondanti-
Vietnamdemonstrationarrived, in October,the convictionthat this would be a
'violentconfrontationof the forcesof law and order ... and the forcesof anarchy'
provedso overwhelmingan 'inferentialstructure' in the collectiveminds of the
politicians,the policeand the media that (as the Leicesterstudy,Demonstrations
and Communicatio11 has shown)4"it determinedthe whole shape of the subse-
quent coverageand dominatedthe news values,eventhoughthe great proportion
of the marchpassedoff peacefully:'Todaythe heartof Londonwill be in a state of
seige ... And for what'?Because the demonstratorsfeel strongly about what is
happeninginVietnam'?Rubbish.'4' Whenthe violencethe pressitselfhadpredicted
failedto arise, the policewere congratulatedfor preventingit: 'Police Win Battle
of GrosvenorSquare'; 'The Day The Police WereWonderful'."'The face caught
on severalfrontpagescheeringon the troopswas that of the new HomeSecretary,
240 POLICINGTHECRISIS

who, in keeping with the time, had replaced the 'liberal' Mr Jenkins: someone
destinedfor higherthings- 'Honest Jim' Callaghan.
The appearanceof a renewed panic about race, in the very moment of this
intensepolarisationor the politicalscene andjust when the shift froma managed
to a more coercivevariantof consensusis occurring,cannotbe whollyfortuitous.
In 1967,Mr Powellhad remarked,aproposthe race issue,that 'we mustact and act
soon.We dare not look acrosstheAtlanticand say,as we sit with foldedhands,"It
Can't HappenHere".'41 Now,in 1968,as the floodgatesof socialdissentopened,
race - not for the last time - becomesa salient theme: one capable of carrying
intensebut subterraneanpublicemotionsforwardon a waveof reaction.
By comparison with the great abstract themes of the student movement-
'participatorydemocracy', 'community power' - the race theme was concrete
and immediate.Its referenceto 'everydaylife', as lived by the 'silent majorities'
of private citizens in the visibly declining parts of the post-imperialcity, was
direct.II touchedthe disappointedaspirationsand frustratedhopesof those in the
'respectable'and lower-middleclasses who had investedtheir last savingsin Mr
Macmillan's 'property-owningdemocracy',only to have the equally respectable
(but black) family moving in next door send property values plummeting.No
first immigrantgenerationhad sacrificedmore for the 'quiet life' than the early
black immigrantsto Britainin the 1950s.Yet, objectively,they were destinedto
signify the dark side of the 'affluent dream' - to embody the repressedcontent
of the affluent nightmare. Their imputed taste for big American cars - the
direct expressionof the over developmentof under developmentin their native
land - caricaturedthe affluent life. Their Saturday-nightparties were a constant
reminder of the sacrificesdemandedby the regime of work and the taboo on
pleasureenshrinedin the Protestantethic.Theirpresencein thejob queuerecalled
a centuryof unemploymentand summarydismissal- evidencethat a few years
of 'full employment'cannot liquidate a whole class experience of economic
insecurity.The black immigrantmovedinto the decliningareas of the city, where
Britain's 'forgottenEnglishmen'livedon the very tightestof margins;he entered
this 'tight little island' of white lower-middleand working-classrespectability-
and, by his every trace, his looks, clothes, pigmentation,culture, mores and
aspirations,announcedhis 'otherness'. His visible presence was a reminderof
the unremittingsqualorout of whichthat imperialnoonhad risen.The symbolism
of the race-immigranttheme was resonantin its subliminalforce, its capacityto
set in motionthe demonswhich haunt the collectivesubconsciousof a 'superior'
race; it triggeredoff images of sex, rape, primitivism,violence and excrement.
Out there,in the great suburbanworldof moneyand power,wherefew blackmen
or womenwalked,a suitablyhigh-mindedviewof 'racial integration'in the lower
depthscouldbe taken;whatthese whitemen and womenfearedaboveall was that
they would suddenly lose their position and power - that they would suddenly
become,in all sensesof the word,thepoor. What the whitepoor feared,however,
was that, after all this time, they might become black. (Every social stratum,
Fanon suggests,uses the stratum beneath it as material for dreams, fantasiesor
nightmares.)Whenpolarisationand revoltbeganto transmitshock-wavesthrough
the body politicoft he state, thosein powerfelt the statusquo on whichtheystood
shift; they felt the earth move.But what their most articulatespokesmenchose to
 THE EXHAUSTION
01' 'CONSENT' 241
say to their constituentswas not thal the 'earth' of consensuspoliticshad moved,
but thal the blacks weremovi1isin. Mr Powellstruck a rich vein whenhe offered
journalistshis storyof the little whiteold ladyof Wolverhampton(the one nobody
ever found), who had 'excreta pushed through her letter box' and endured the
racialistabuseof 'charming,wide-eyed,grinningpiccaninnies';or the sad tale of
the 'quite ordinaryworkingman', who suddenlyconfessed,'If I had lhe moneyto
go I wouldn'tstay in this country ... in 15or20 years the black man will havethe
whip hand over lhe white man.' Such storiesand phrasesintersecteddirectlywith
the anxietiesamongordinarymen and womenwhichcome noodingto the surface
when life suddenlyloses its bearings,and things threatento go careeringoff the
rails. An outcast group, a tendencyto closure in the conlrol culture, widespread
public anxiety: Mr Powell himself provided the 'dramatic event'. No wonder,
unlike Mr Heath, he poured such scorn on the three-day wonder of the 'I'm
Backing Britain' movement,which surfaced and faded. Poliliciansworth their
salt must know what issues will connect, which themes will mobilisea popular
groundswell,launch a crusade,bring out the troops.Mr Powellhad evidenceof
what he himselfhad earliercalled 'combustiblematerial'.•a
In fact, mosl blackswho knew the score at local level had long since given up
the promiseof 'integration', even as Mr Jenkins was making his most eloquent
defence of it. First-generationimmigrants silently abandoned 'integration' as
a practical aspiration,and turned to other things - like making a living and a
tolerablelife for themselves,among their own people in their own areas. But the
secondgenerationemergingfrom the difficultexperienceof an Englisheducation
into a declininglabourmarketwerein a quitedifferentmood.The betterequipped,
educated,skilled,languagedand acculturatedthey were,the sharpertheir percep-
tions of the realities of discriminationand institutionalisedracism, the more
militant their consciousness.West-Coastacid rock may have been blowingthe
mind of white youth; but down lhere in the ghetto the most popularrecord was
'Shout it Loud, I'm BlackAnd Proud'. BlackPowerhad arrived.The summersof
1967and 1968werecrucial in terms of the penetrationof the most advancedand
conscioussectorsof blackyouth by the ideas and conceptsof the Americanblack
revolution.For several months the media and race-relationsofficialsrefused to
believethat anythingso 'violent' and un-Britishas Black Powercould take root
amongst 'our West Indian friends'. lypically, they dubbed anyone who tried to
describe or influenceyoung blacks in the cities as 'racialist' and 'extremist'. A
well-organised,vigorousanti-immigrantlobby nowrapidlydevelopedwithinthe
ConservativeParty.In his speechat Walsallon 9 February 1968Mr Powellcalled
for a virtual end to the entry vouchersystem and a virtual embargoagainst the
KenyanAsians. The lobby immediatelywon ground. The Labour government,
respondingto the most immediale,pragmatic and self-interestedcalculations,
spiriteda BillthroughParliamentintroducingan entry vouchersystemfor Kenyan
Asians.This only whetted the appetite of the anti-immigrantlobby. In April, as
PresidentJohnsonannounceda bombing'pause' in Vietnamand his own decision
to retire- bothsignificantvictoriesfor theanti-warleft- a whiteassassinmurdered
Martin Luther King. A prolonged nightmareof looting and arson followed in
the United States - what Timedescribedas a 'black rampagethat subjectedthe
U.S. to the most widespreadspasm of racial disorder in ils violent history'. It
242 POLICINGTHECRISIS

had a sharp impact amongst black militantsin Britain. On 20 April on the eve
of the Race RelationsBill, Mr Powelldeliveredhis 'rivers of blood' speech in
Birmingham.'Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. We
mustbe mad, literallymad,as a nationto be pennittingthe annualinflowof some
50,000 dependants.... It is like watchinga nation busily engaged in heaping up
its own funeral pyre.' Discrimination,Mr Powell continued,was being experi•
enced, not by blacks,but by whites- 'those among whomthey havecome'. This
invocation- direct to the experienceof unsettlementin a settled life, to the fear
of change- is the great emergenttheme of Mr Powell'sspeech.It is whiteswho
have 'found their wivesunableto obtain hospitalbeds in childbirth,their children
unableto obtainschoolplaces,their homesand neighbourhoods,changedbeyond
recognition,their plansand prospectsfor the futuredefeated'.The Riverlyber, he
ended,was 'foaming with much blood....That tragicand intractablephenomenon
which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlanticis coming upon us
here by our own volition.... Indeedit has all but come.'49
Long term, 'Powellism' was symptomaticof deeper shifts in the body politic.
Mr Powell once wrote that Conservatismwas 'a settled view of the nature of
human society in general and our own society in particular'. But gradually,
through the 1960s,and then explosivelyin 1968, English society had become
distinctlyunsettled.The unrelievedpragmatismof Mr Wilson and Mr Heath in
this period was a living testimonyto the bankruptcyof consensuspolitics in a
period of renewedsocial conflict.The gap was filled from the right. Mr Powell
employedrace - as subsequentlyhe was to use Ireland, the Common Market,
defenceof the free market,and the Houseof Lords- as a vehiclethroughwhich
to articulatea definitionof 'Englishness',a recipe for holdingEnglandtogether.'°
On raceMr Powellwasoften accusedof skewing'the facts', of illogicality.This is
to miss the point and meaningof his politicalintervention.The themeswhich are
closestto his heart- a Burkeansenseof tradition,the 'genius' of a people,consti-
tutionalfetishism,a romanticnationalism-do not obeythe pragmaticimperatives
of a Wilsonianor Heathian'logic'. They are orderedby more subliminalnation-
alist sentimentsand passions.It was one of Mr Powell's gifts to be able to find a
populistrhetoricwhich,in the era of rampantpragmatism,bypassedthe pragmatic
motive, and spoke straight - in its own metaphoricalway - to fears, anxieties,
frustrations,to the nationalcollectiveunconscious,to its hopesand fears.It was a
torpedodeliveredstraightto the boiler-roomof consensuspoliticsitself.
The countrynow beganto lurch smartlyto the right, punctuatedby continuing
troubleon the universitycampuses,movingin close tandemwitheventselsewhere.
In the United States, for example, the movementsfrom the left opened the rifts
withinthe DemocraticParty-McCarthy on the radicalwing,Wallaceon the right,
students,blacks,Yippiesand Mayor Daley's troops in the park: 'already, weeks
in advance[of the DemocraticConvention]there is a smell of bloodshed'.'1 But
it was the Nixon-Agnewticket which gatheredup these threads into a law-and-
order platform which mobilised the silent majorities: an example not lost on
the ConservativeShadow Cabinet.The polls revealedsubstantialmajorities,in
Britain,on the right for all the majorsocial issues.The consensus,it was said, had
been undenninedby 'extremism'on both sides.
 THEEXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 243

The period is so punctuated by shocks and alarms that it seems gratuitous

to conclude wilh a reference to two issues, not yet mentioned, which emerge
strongly towards the end of 1968, and which not only compound the crisis then,
but come more and more to dominate the scene. In September, the strike at the
Ford plant at Halewood made 1968 the worst year for industrial stoppages in
the motor industry, and initiated a period of prolonged and bitter struggle in the
multinational giant. In October and November, the newly formed Northern Ireland
Civil Rights movement organised a series of 'moral-force' demonstrations against
the Protestant ascendancy and Orange discrimination in the province, and were
opposed by the Reverend Paisley and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. It is not the
first time in English history that the coming of 'iron times' has been heralded by
trouble in Ulster.

1969:THE 'CULTURALREVOLUTION'
ANDTHETURNINTOAtrrHORITARIANISM
If the Underground really intends to go underground and become an active
resistance movement, it must try to discover its real roots in the specific condi-
tions of the English social structure. It must expose the process of pacification
which holds the whole thing together.... But any attempt to explode this con ...
is itself put down as 'violence' and then crushed with all the real violence of due
legal and/or therapeutic process.... The only force at present capable of hitting
back are the kids who are trying to fight their way out of their parents' culture,
whether this is working or middle class.... If it is to stop playing this sort of
game, the underground must begin by dissolving the ideological split between
its political and cultural 'sectors' .52

The rupture which 1968 marks with the immediate past is sustained in 1969.
Polarisation moves more rapidly, and into new areas. Many of the same themes
which provided the fulcrum of official and popular reaction in the preceding
two or three years are resumed again in 1969, but now in what, from the point
of view of the state, must have looked like an advanced stage of social disinte-
gration. This advanced condition of the crisis is marked ideologically - as we
have come to expect - by extensive convergences between its different themes.
The themes of protest, conflict, permissiveness and crime begin to run together
into one great, undifferentiated 'threat'; nothing more nor less than the founda-
tions of the Social Order itself are at issue. Perhaps, after all, the students will
not precipitate a takeover in the factories by the working class in the classic
revolutionary scenario. But there are more ways than one of bringing a society
toppling down like a house of cards. Its moral fibre can be eaten away by the
cancer of permissiveness, or so Mrs Whitehouse persistently asserts. It can be
penetrated by organised crime, as the SundayExpressbelieves. It can be subverted
by 'ideological criminals' (i.e. student militants), as the American Attorney-
General, John Mitchell (subsequently to be swept out in the 'non-ideological'
Watergate tide) asserted. It can be 'held up to ransom' by industrial militancy,
as the crusaders for industrial-relations legislation are persuading the nation. It
can be 'soft-pedalled' to death, as Mr Quintin Hogg keeps warning his Sunday
244
readers. Above all, it can be oulraged and brutalised by violence and anarchy.
These two themes are really the upper thresholds of the crisis; they stake the
crisis out, not in this or that area, issue, problem or question, but as a progres-
sively deterioratinggeneral condition.Violenceis the outer limit. It marks the
point where civilised social organisationdescends into brute force. It is the end
of law. Anarchyis its result - the disintegrationof social order.Mr Powellput it
succinctlyin September:'Violenceand mob law are organizedand expandingfor
their own sake.Those who organizeand spreadthem are not seekingto persuade
authorityto act differently,to be more mercifulor more generous.Their object is
to repudiateauthorityand destroy it.'51
Let us turn once again to the black-raceissue. If the first responsein the black
communityto the onslaught, led by Mr Powell and the 'radical right' lobbies
within the ConservativeParty, was shock, fear and dismay,the second response
was a degree of politicisationand organisationin depth hithertounknownin the
post-warhistoryof black migration.This is the periodof the formationof militant
black groupsand groupings- the BritishBlack PantherParty,the BlackPeople's
Alliance,etc. - the organisationof anti-policeharassmentdemonstrations,and the
recruitmentof, especiallybut not exclusively,second-generationblacks into the
orbitof 'BlackPower',anda moremilitantblackculturalconsciousness.Desmond
Dekker's Ras Tafarianrecord, Israelite,with its kaballa-likemillenarianism,was
at the top of the black recordcharts al the time, and 'Reggae' beganto penetrate
into while society via the media and through its paradoxicaladoption amongst
young, white 'skinheads'. Dilip Hiro's estimateat this time that not only had the
ranksof the militantblackorganisationsenormouslyexpandedbut that there were
a dozen or more sympathisersfor every committedblack activist,has not been
seriouslychallenged.5• On the other side, the white thrust was also 'hardening'.
The formalcover-storiesand anecdoteswere abandoned,and Mr Powellled the
advanceinto the hard bargainingabout 'numbers' and its equallytoughcorollary:
repatriation.The initiative,here as elsewhere,passed,moreor less for good,from
the well-meaningliberalcentre to more extremepoints on the compass;and the
extremesexerteda retroactiveeffect on the centre.Paul Foot has remindedus that
only two months separatedMr Heath's condemnationof Mr Powell's speech as
'characterassassinationof one racialgroup', and Mr Heath'sespousalof the idea
that immigrantadmissionsshould be 'for a specificjob in a specificplace- for a
specifictime', with renewedannual pennits and no 'absolute right to bring their
relatives,howeverclose': the nefarious'patrial/non-patrial'distinctionwhichwas
to be enshrinedin the ToryCommonwealthImmigrationBill of 1971."
A sensitive British chord is undoubtedly touched, in 1969, by the vivid
coverage in the media of the United Slates and the connectionsthere between
black power and black crime. A random check in two newspapersthrows up
Henry Brandon's '24 hours of armed robberyand street crime in Washington';!t6
MilevaRoss's classic 'I Live with Crime in the Fun City';57Allen Brien's 'New
York Nightmare';58 and the Henry Fairlie Sunday Express reports.These pieces
not only fixed British minds on the complexchain connectingrace, politics and
crime, but they drew explicit lessons/or Britain,and they chewedover possible
scenariosof reaction- the law-and-orderplatform,the appealof the Wallacebid,
Nixon's proposalto transferjuvenile violentoffendersto adultcourts,etc.
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 245
Crime ii.Selfalso delivers one of its climactericsat home in 1969, with the
sensationaltrial and jailing of the infamous Kray twins, those archetypalEast
End villains whose combinationof professionalismand psychopathologykept
them weekafter weekin the headlines.More significantis the nagging,persistent
worrying-awayat the whole questionof crime, authorityand society which rises
andfalls likea feverchartthroughtheyear.In February,Mr Heath,anticipatingthe
reviewdeadlinedfor 1970,called for a seriousstudyof the effectsof the abolition
of capita]punishment.Beforethe month's end, he and QuintinHogg were locked
in a debatewith Mr Callaghanabout Labour's allegedfailureto handlethe 'drive
against crime'. Capital punishment,the murder rate, the rising arc of crimes of
violence,the trend towardssofter sentences- these now-archetypalconcernsof
the crime-newsdomaincontinuedto dominatepublic debate.The Sunday Times
wasfar-seeingenoughto predictthat the crime/capital-punishment debateof 1969
provideda sort of rehearsalfor 'a sharp debate on law and order' to come - in
1970.59 In OctoberMr Hogg was at the crime hustingsagain,accusingLabourof
the more sweepingcharge of helping to undermineall moralityand authority.60
By the end of the year - one Piccadillysquat and a Springbokstour later - Mr
Hogg's rhetorichad escalatedinto its now-familiarstark and simple oppositions:
the lawversusthe threatof anarchy.His tendencyto enlargeand expandthe nature
of any threat to 'order' by sliding quite differentthings togetherbeneatha single
rubric is already in evidencehere: 'When Unions,when Universityteachersand
others, when students, when demonstratorsof various kinds, when Labour and
LiberalM.P.sannouncetheir deJiberatedetestationof all forms of authoritysave
their own opinions,how can you expect the police and the courts to enforcethe
law.'61 Here, as appears to be the case wheneverseparate issues,categoriesand
problemsbegin to be blurred in a general and speciousideologicaJconvergence,
one can assume that the pressurestowardssternercontrolmeasures,more widely
and indiscriminatelyapplied, are also escalating.We can also assume that the
explicitthemesmentionedare beginning,ideologically,to providea sortof 'cover'
for other concerns.Naturally,recourse to the law as a last defence- in both the
practicaland abstractsense- cronesmore prominentlyto the fore as these forms
of amplificationextend. We can see this at work, in a moment,when we tum
to the other active fronts of permissivenessand protest. Meanwhilethe role of
the legal and violencethresholds,drawingincreasinglysharp lines of distinction
betweenthe permissibleand the impermissible,cuttinginto and throughthe rising
tide of social conflict,reducing it to polar oppositions,becomesmore insistent.
Sir Alec Douglas Home, writing early in the year in the Sunday Express about
Ulster,gave a good exampleof it: 'Civil violence in modem conditionssimply
opensthe wayto the looter,whosestock in trade is socialchaos.... In a democracy
like that of the United Kingdronand NorthernIreland, it is a government'splain
duty to sustain the constitutionand the law.' It is noticeable,in the same month,
on a quite differenttopic, and from a traditionallyfar more liberal source. An
editorial in the Sunday Times argued that once the 'encrusted totem' of trade-
union immunityfrom legal sanctionwas destroyed,then governmentalaction on
strikes could take place in a more 'rational atmosphere': 'only legal reform can
strengthenthe validityof collectiveagreements.... [and)protectthousandsof men
from being put out of work by the wildcal striker ... and strengthenthe hand
246 POUCINOTl!ECRISIS

of official union leadership."62 In a subsequent editorial the Sunday 1ime1, while

recognising lhat introducing the law into trade-union affairs was not the answer,
nevertheless greeted the proposals to that effect beginning to be sounded by the
prospective Tory front bench with the thought that the law was the necessary first
step to combat the recent strike figures which 'depict a type of anarchy' .63 The
language of crime, violence, chaos, anarchy - and The Law, apostrophised in that
way, is beginning to slide like a Dickensian fog into unexpected places.
The Wootton Report on drugs had been published at the end of 1968. It
proposed a firmer distinclion in sentencing between possession of and selling
marihuana, and a recategorisation of cannabis to a group different from that for
heroin and other dangerous drugs. Its proposals were modest, its lineage impec-
cable, its precedents (the American Report was, if anything, bolder) auspicious.
The popular press, however, labelled it as a 'Conspiracy of the Drugged' (Daily
Mirror), a 'Junkie's Charter' (Evening News). There was also a 'conspiracy'
on the other side - in Parliament - when the Report came to be debated. Mr
Callaghan attributed its follies to the polluting effect on the Committee of a
'soft-drugs lobby', and defended his decision to reject its main findings with the
remark that he was pleased to have contributed to 'a halt in the advancing tide of
so-called permissiveness' .64 His Shadow, Mr Hogg, could only tread willingly in
his master's footsteps. The ebb and flow of this debale left its mark on the rest
of the year. The opponents of permissiveness also won through in the rejection
of the Aris Council's report recommending the repeal of the Obscenity Law (as
if in accord with Mrs Whilehouse's warning that any politician promoting this
'Pornographer's Paradise' would be committing 'political suicide')li!Iand in the
new Drugs Bill introduced by Mr Callaghan, contrary in spirit and practice to the
Wootton Report.66
The apogee of 'official' permissiveness was reached when Roy Jenkins attempted
to redefine the word 'permissiveness' as 'civilisation' - 'the achievement of social
reform without disruption ... avoiding excessive social tensions' .67 Thereafter
permissiveness was assured of a universally adverse and hostile press. When,
at the end of August, the whole counter-culture assembled in the Isle of Wight
for the first British pop-festival, the media constructed an image of the event
which contained a run-down of just about every permissive demon that had ever
haunted the imagination of the morally indignant: '100,000 fans threatened to
riot'; 'security guards with dogs raced'; 'near pandemonium'; 'filled with hippies
and weirdies'; 'the whole scene was one of chaos'; 'hippies swimming in the
nude'; '73 people arrested for drugs'; a 'youth found critically injured at the fool
of the cliffs'; 'drugtaking'; 'scantily-clad youths'; and - not long after- 'a bizarre
happening where boys and girls dance wildly in the nude'; 'a good excuse for
a mass orgy'; and so on. This 'Woodstock nightmare' was counterposed by the
media to 'local residents' and 'sedate island folk' 61 - the 'silent majorities' of
1970, here no more than a hair's breadth, a naked body, away. Still, had not the
moral entrepreneurs consislently warned that a lenient sentence here, a corrupt
intellectual there, another 'soft' Report, and the inevitable consequences would be
nudity, drugs, orgies in the street, a 'diet of depravity'? Had not Mrs Whitehouse
eloquently reminded us of the striking parallels with 'the decadence of the Weimar
Republic which had paved the way for Hitler's Germany'?6'
 nm EXHAUSTIONor 'CONSENT' 247
The waveor studentunrest did not fade away in 1969.In January,the London
Schoolor Economicswas once againclosedfollowingthe 'affairof thegates' - an
incidentwhichended in disciplineand dismissalsof staff. It also provokedone or
the finest examplesor what we have elsewherecalled 'the numbersgame' - the
attempt to separate moderatesfrom extremists,to cast the fonner as innocent,
well-meaningdupes and the latter as 'a tiny clique or politicallymotivatedmen'.
Mr Short, the Labour Secretary for Education, for example, explained, in a
convincingstatisticaldisplayto the Houseof Commons,that the 'LSE has about
3,000 students.The disruptionswhich have taken place involveabout probably
300 of these.... The real perpetratorsare a tiny handful of people - fewer than
one-halfof 1 per cent ... are the thugsof the academicworld.'10 He added,for good,
memorablemeasure,the reflectionthat they were 'Brand X revolutionaries'.Acts
or 'hooliganism,vandalismand terrorism at Keele',11 the Cambridge 'Garden
House affair', the mass read-in of the Vice-Chancellor'sfiles at Warwick,72 and
the slow-motionnear-breakdownof Essex, wereall still to come.
Politically,in Britain,as elsewhere.the 1968-9 periodrepresentsa watershed:
the whole fulcrum of society turns, and 1hecountryenters, not a temporaryand
passingrupture.but a prolongedand continuousstate of semi-siege.Its meaning
and causes, 1hen,and its consequencessince, have been neither fully reckoned
with, nor liquidated.The political polarisation which it precipitatedfractured
society into two camps: authorityand its 'enemies'. This spectaclemesmerised
the right, the centre and the apolitical,preciselybecauseit refusedto assumethe
recognisedforms of classical class conflict and the politics associatedwith it.
But it also markedthe left; and its legaciesremain,activeand unexorcised,in the
spectrumof radical and revolutionarypoliticsto this day. At the time it involved,
in effect, two separatebut related developments:the transmissionor the spark or
student politics to a wider constituencyand field of contestation- the 'politics
of the street'; and the partial politicisationof the counter-culture,Althoughthe
first somewhatresembledsome wild anarcho-libertarianscenario,and the second
sometimesassumedthe fonn or 'the revoltof the bourgeoisie',in truththere was
no recipe for either in the classicalrevolutionarycook-books.One exampleor the
first is related to racial issues - the RhodesiaHouse demonstrationsin January
1969, and the tactically brilliant Stop The SeventiesTour (S.T.S.T.)rehearsal
during the Springboks' rugby tour from October onwards.The latter exhibited
all the concentratedforce or a single-issuecampaign,limited in scope, but wide
enoughto involveyoung liberalpeople.It provoked- such was the atmosphereof
the moment- a vigorousand on some occasionsa viciousresponse(at Swansea
the policeappearedto makeroomfor anti-demonstratorvigilantesto rough-house
the protesters;the HomeSecretaryhad subsequentlyto interveneto limitthe scope
of the rugby 'stewards'),n S.T.S.T.was a strangeenoughcoalitionor forces,to be
sure. The SouthAfricanpaper,Die Beeld, classicallydescribedit as a 'bunch of
left-wing,workshy,refugee long-hairs', neatly catchingall the clichts. But very
considerablenumbersor young people, sensitisedby the events of 1968, were
recruitedinto the politicsof the demonstrationby the clarity or its anti-apartheid
appeal.
The politicisationof the counter-culturewas morecomplicatedand uneven.The
undergroundpress,derivingmuch of its style from the American'outlaw press',
248 POLICINGTHECRISIS

its counterlife-stylefiredon the hippie trail and the 'summerof love', advanced
a radicalcritiqueof straightsociety,but maintainedan ambivalentstance,at first,
to the politicsof protest.Nevertheless,a profoundlyanti-authoritarian,libertarian
'politics' of a kind, transfusingpublic issueswith the languageand feelingof the
personal,was sustainedby the counter-culture,and disseminatedin the network
of 'alternative' institutions- the Arts Labs, Free University,Gandalf's Garden
network,with its streettheatresandcommunityactivists- transformingwhatPeter
Sedgwickcalled 'these commonrefusals and affirmations'into somethingmore
likeAbbie Hoffman's'InvisibleNation'. Somewherein this periodthe American
counter-cultureencounteredthe spectreof 'repressivetolerance'in its all too real
form of the State 'Iroopers,and lost its politicalvirginity.Some turned back into
communelife,whole-earthfoodsand the countryside:otherswenton to build 'the
Movement'. In September,when the ChicagoConspiracy'Irial opened,the full
spectrumof the enemiesof the state were on view.On one of thoselong evenings
in jail, Abbie Hoffmanexplainedto the Black Pantherleader,Bobby Seale, that
'Yippie is the politicalaspect of the Hippie movementand the hippie is the part
of the groupthat hasn't necessarilybecomepoliticalyet.'""By October,however,
Seale was appearingboundand gaggedbeforeJudge Hoffman.
The Britishroute was, as usual, more sedate.The drugs and life-stylebust and
police harassmentof the alternativepress were the principalforms in which the
counter-culturefirst engaged with the law. In March, Jim Morrisonwas arrested
for obscenity.In May, Jagger and Marianne Faithful)were pulled in again for
possession.In July, Brian Iones of the Rolling Stones drowned- an exemplary
death commemoratedin Hyde Park by a quarter of a million young people.
In October, the police raided Oz. One convenient instance of the escalating
conflict betweenstraight society and the disaffliliates- and one which reveals
how the partial politicisationof the counter-culturewas accomplished- was
the 144 PiccadillySquat by the London Street Communein September.It was
consciously planned as an 'improvisation' designed to bring together several
differenttributariesof the counter-culture:quasi-anarchists,political'hard men',
hippie drop-outs, working-classlayabouts,hard-corebohemiansand the Hell's
Angels.To the organisers'regret,the 'skinheads' finallylined up outsidewith the
policeand the newsmen:their entry to the squat wouldhavecompletedits 'logic'.
Borrowingan old formof working-classpolitics- squatting- they adaptedthis to
'post-capitalist'conditions(occupyinga fashionabletown residence)for the new
homeless- London'sdrop-outyouth community.This was a spectaclecalculated
to scandalise traditionalmoralists like Mrs Whitehouse,traditionalpoliticians
like Lord Hailsham,traditionalacademicslike John Sparrow- but also, tradi-
tional Marxistgroups like the InternationalSocialists,and 'traditional' squatters
like Jim Radford.The police broke up the communewith energy - allowingthe
'skinheads'a bit of 'aggro' first.
The backlashhad indeed begun.The silent majoritywere rallied by the more
active of the moral entrepreneursin campaignsto 'clean up' Britain (beginning,
symbolically,with the B.B.C.).Closer to the ground,the police were nowgoaded
and prodded into action, especiallyover drugs, the alternativepress, obscenity.
The counter-culturegradually acclimatiseditself to the continuouspresence of
'the Law'. The dream that 'straight society' might simply abandon the struggle,
 THEEXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 249
throwthe towel in, and turn on, provedto be a mirage:one whichhad survivedso
long only becausethe counter-culturedid not itself fully understandthe natureof
the society it aimed to subvert,or its vulnerability.The LondonStreetCommune
Manifesto,aimedat endingthis innocence,statedthat theyclaimed'the miserable
capitaliststreets'because'they are theonly possiblespacefromwhichthe reorgan-
isationof the Undergroundcould take place',7!'1Jn 1969the police began to close
down this infonnal street occupation.This broughtthe counter-cultureup against
'the Fuzz'; and, more than any other single force, the 'Fuzz' almost succeeded
in convertingthe Undergroundinto an activepoliticalresistancemovement.The
counter-culturehad namedstraightsociety,conventionalattitudesand life-styles,
possessiveindividualisthang-ups,as 'the enemy'. They failed to recognisethese
things as the armature of bourgeoissociety until its agencies of defence - the
police- convertedone kind of 'repression' into another.
There followedconsiderablerecruitmentof a sectionof the counter-cultureinto
the ranks of the revolutionaryleft groups and sects: InternationalSocialists,the
newly formedInternationalMarxistGroup,the anarchists,Solidarity,the various
Maoist fractions. As had already taken place in, for example, the Italian 'hot
autumn' of 1969,a small but active and influentialleft had arisen on the outer
flank of the CommunistParty.Widerpoliticalinfluences- fromthe anti-Vietnam
Warsolidaritycommittees,fromGuevaristand otherThirdWorlddevelopments-
played into this pre-revolutionarymilieu. From within, the variegationsappeared
infinite - from life-style politics, rock music and psychedelia,to Trotskyism,
libertarianism,and community politics of no known affiliation: a seemingly
bewilderinganddiversescenarioof intenseactivism,lackingcohesion,theoretical
clarityor tacticalperspective.From without,however,it presentedthe spectacleof
a hydra-headedconspiracyagainsta wholewayof life,its organisationallooseness,
spontaneous,free-wheelingcharacterpreciselyconstitutingits threat to a stable
and orderly civil life - the return of King Mob.A sector of that largelyinvisible
creature,the Englishintelligentsia,had becomeloosedfrom its propermoorings,
detached itself from its traditionalmode of cultural insertion,and hovered,in a
pre-revolutionaryferment,suspendedin its own milieu.The populistguardians
awaitedsomethingfurther:its precipitationas an overtlypoliticalforce.
This wasnot alwaysto occurwhereeitherits sponsorsor its opponentsexpected.
Oz and IT were solidly 'for' the sexual revolution- but this was undoubtedlya
revolutionenvisagedfrom the dominant male position, a fantasy of the never-
ending 'lay'. In the spring of 1968a womancalled Lil Biloccahad spearheaded
a militant campaign among the wives of Hull fishermen to improve trawler
safety,and Rose Bolandled a group of sewingmachinistsat the Ford Dagenham
factoryin a strike for the women's rightto work on machinesand at skilledtrades
hithertoreserved for men. But as a movementWomen'sLiberationundoubtedly
had its origins and was precipitatedwithin the same 'oppositional milieu' we
have been describing.The radical version of feminismit began to develop was
snatchedfromthe male-chauvinistheartsof its own 'revolutionary'men:post-war
feminismbegan as a 'revolutionwithin the revolution'.However,its impact was
profound.Internally,within the ranks, it made concrete the connectionbetween
the 'personal' and the 'political' which the counter-culturehad advancedoften
in abstract tenns only; it pinpointedthe specific mechanismswhich articulated
250 POLICINGTHECRISIS

abstract 'ideological oppression' with the specific fonns of a capilalist culture

foundedon the principleof patriarchy.Externally,throughits critique,it touched
issues as close to the nerve cells of civil society under capitalismas anythingin
the more outrageouscatalogueof alternative'happenings':sexuality,the family,
male domination.It emergedat the very momentwhencapitalistculture entered
one of its most dangerousmoments:a periodof repressivedege11eration.
The year 1969 representedthe last moment when the 'cultural revolution',
as distinct from other strands of politicalstruggle.might have crystallisedas an
autonomouspolitical force. The precipitationdid not occur. Had it coincided
with the forms of struggle to come, in the 1970s,its subsumptioninto a wider
trajectorymight have had revolutionaryconsequences.It did not. The historyof
radicalpoliticsin this periodis the historyof missedconjunctures.But why had it
crystallisedat all? Whatdid its threatenedprecipitationmean, in termsof capital-
ism's capacityto hold togetheras a viable way of life?
The counter-culturewas 'superstructural'in two senses.In socialcomposition,
the majorityof its bearers probablycame from middle-classbackgrounds,from
parents not engaged in skilled or unskilledproductivelabour in the traditional
sense; though some of its most active recruits were from strata which had only
recentlyexperiencedsocial mobility - productsof the 'educationalrevolution',
first-generationgrammar-schoolor new comprehensivechildren, art school or
college as well as universityboys and girls. Whatevertheir class origins, they
were potential recruits to the new organic intellige11tsia - those trained to fill
intermediaryor subalternpositions,but with criticaltasks to performin terms of
social reproduction,those whom the complexifyingsocial and technicaldivision
of labour in capitalismneeded both to recruit (actually)and win over (ideologi-
cally) if it was to survive.
But the counter-culturewas also, in its thrust, directedat the superstructures
of modern capitalism.In character,it was intrinsically'anti-bourgeois':aimed
at the overthrowof ProtestantMan, the ushering in of a new reign of Reason,
presidingover an AquarianAge of Pleasure.It demanded,aboveall, a revolution
i11 consciousness- because it was, in essence, a revolutionof consciousness.It
threateneda reversalin the superstructures,in ideology,wherebourgeoiscivil life
was cementedand reproduced;and though, in focal concernsand in its critique
and mode of struggle it tended, consistently,towardsa radical idealism,this is
bound to be the prevailingtendency when social contradictionsaccumulateat
the levelof the superstructures,when ideologicalstrugglefor the moment'takes
command'.It was a revolutionled by a key fractionof the dominantclass,against
the hegemonicculture to which, by any logic, that fractionought to have made
allegiance.It thus indexed a severe rupture within the hegemonicideology- a
rupturewhich,as JulietMitchellhas argued,is likelyto be led, in the first instance,
'from withinthe ideologicallydominantclass'.16 The superstructures,as Gramsci
has argued, have the function of ensuring the reproductionof a certain type of
civilisation,of producinga certain kind of 'man' and 'citizen', a certain 'ethic' in
correspondencewith the long-termneeds of the economicstructure,thoughwith
no degreeof functionalfit - indeed,with whatAlthusserhas called a 'sometimes
teeth-grittingharmony'. Especiallythrough its organisationin the state, its task
is to establish the always problematicand contradictoryconformity of social,
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 251
politicalandcivil societyto the needsand requirementsof the modeof production
itself.17 This is the sphere we have called social reproduction:the 'reproduction
of the social conditionsof production'.The 'cementing' of society,in this more
extendedsense, requiresits own modes and mechanisms.Any profoundrestruc-
turing of the inner organisationand compositionof capitalist relations- such
as characterisesthe long transitionfrom /aisse1,,Jaire to monopoly,or the more
intense section of this arc where British capitalismfound itself in the post-war
period - requires and precipitates a consequent 'recomposition' of the whole
socialand ideologicalintegumentof the social fonnation.
Why these ruptures occurred, at just this moment, in the superstructural
level of capitalist social formationshas never been properly charted - despite
the movement'soverwhelmingtendencyto self-analysis.'1968' has never been
thoroughlycomprehended;it has been largelybypassed.Certainly,the ideology
of thrift, respectability and security, through which the middle classes had
morally and ideologicallyassociatedthemselveswith the system and acclima-
tised themselvesto its needs,was constantlyeroded in this periodby the appeals
to consumptionand self-gratificationwhich underpinnedthe post-war affluent
boom.At a deeperlevel,the bourgeoischaracterand the bourgeoisfamily,with its
patternsof emotionalrestraintsand introjectedrepressions,its 'Protestantethic' of
work,rationaldedicationto and fulfilmentthroughone's vocation,its emphasison
self-disciplineand internalisedauthorityand its taboo on pleasure,which formed
the dense, ideologicalintegumentin civil society for the developingcapitalist
mode of production,became disarticulatedas capitalism moved into a more
advancedmonopolyform.A certain type of rationality,related in a complexway
with certain forms of sexualityand certain styles of authorityand discipline,had
beenas necessary,in the earlierphases of capitalism,to its capacityto reproduce
itself as the relationsof capitalistproductionthemselves.Indeed,these werealso
'socialrelations'of capital- outsidethe productivesphere,but vital to its continu-
ation.Thesetangledstrandsbeganto unwindin the post-warperiod.In the spheres
of work (productiveand unproductive),and aboveall in the expandingspheresof
the state in its welfare-capitalistform,capitalismcame progressivelyto assumea
bureaucraticand impersonalform, routinisingand regulatingmore and more of
the privateand the personalworldas Ihe capitaliststate assumedresponsibilityfor,
and directionover,domainswhich the Jaisse1,1aire state had left to civil society.
This apotheosisof 'possessiveindividualism'and 'bureaucraticman', under the
leadershipof an increasinglyinterventionistand corporatestate, made everyday
life appear,at one and the same time, regimentedand empty.At the more struc-
tural level, the complex nature of advancedcapitalist societiesposed problems
of the most radical kind in terms of ensuringthe consentand affiliationof all its
membersto its logic. This 'crisis of legitimation'we have encounteredbefore;
but, in thiscontext,it meantan enormousextensionin the ideologicalapparatuses
- whatEnzensbergerhas calledthe 'consciousness-making; industries'.Moreover,
these industrieshad a real materialbase in the productivetechnologiesand infra-
structuresof the new capitalism,as Enzensbergerand others have shown. Not
only were they tied to the new frontier of the 'third industrialrevolution'- that
based on electronics and cheap energy-sources- they were also co-ordinated
with the changing social organisationof the labour process, managementand
252 POLICINGTHECRISIS

the circulationsystemof capital itself. In the recompositionof capital,the media

and the educationapparatuses(now far more directlysuperintendedby the state)
werekey 'productive'supports- and were, consequently,massivelyexpanded.
The organisationof scienceand technique,its practicalapplicationto production,
with the consequentrecompositionof skills,of labourand the labourprocesswere
unthinkablewithout'a decisivedevelopmentin the forcesof mentalproduction',
in 'the mental universe'- in the meansand techniquesof mentaland ideological
reproduction,and in the size and characterof the 'new intelligentsia'.Sectionsof
that 'new intelligentsia'were. on the one hand, favoured,with respect to skilled
and semi-skilledproductiveworkers,but they werealso morecloselyand 'organi-
cally' co-ordinatedwiththe technicalprocessesof capitalistreproductionthanever
before.These 'brightestand best', formedin theexpandinghorizonsof knowledge
opened up in the tertiary sectorsof education,often faced the prospectsof what
has come to be recognisedas the phenomenonof intellectualprolelarianisation:
a new qualitativekind of deskilling.In general, 'The greater the developmentof
Capital,the higherthe rate of reproductionthat is necessaryto maintainit.'78 And,
'"Advanced capilalism"... is impossible... without a parallel expansionof the
social"brain" and nervesof communication.'19
The counter-culturewas the translation of this uneven developmentat the
ideologicaland superstructurallevels. It first appeared in, and then took as its
larget,the very institutionswhichhad formedit. It attackedand criticisedthe very
goals and valuesto which these institutionshad tried to attach them. Especially,
it focusedon the institutionswhichmanufacture'attachment',which try to inter-
naliseconsent,whichproduceand reproducethe dominantideology:
Women,Hippies,youth groups, studentsand school children all question the
institutionsthat have fanned them, and try to erect the.irobverse:a collective
communeto replacethe bourgeoisfamily; 'free communications'and counter-
media; anti-universities- all attack major ideologicalinstitutionsof society.
The assaultsare specified,localizedand relevant.They bringthe contradictions
out into the open.1111
The list could be infinitelyexpanded.The counter-culturedid not arise from
the experienceof repression,but rather from the 'repressive tolerance' of the
liberal-capitaliststate.It redefinedthis liberalism,this tolerance,thispluralism,this
consensus,as repressive.It renamed'consensus'as 'coercive'; it called 'freedom'
'domination';it redefinedits ownrelativeaffluenceas a kind of alienated,spiritual
poverty.Summonedto the intellectualvocation,studentschose to see themselves
as 'new kindsof workers'.They renamedthe 'institutionsof higherlearning'- the
liberal 'communityof scholars'- a bureaucratictechnicalmachine- the 'multi-
versity'. They called society's bluff, they broke open its cover-up.One of the
unintendedconsequenceswas that in challengingthe 'institutionsfor the propa-
gation of consensus' they unleashedits obverse side - 'the powers of coercive
state violencethat are alwaysthere as a backgroundsupport'.61 This pointof origin
within the crisis of the dominantculture may help to explain why the 'counter-
culture' could not stand on its own as a political formation.Its thrust could be
better definedas a 'systematicinversion',a symbolicup-turning,from within,of
 THE EXHAUSTION
Of 'CONSllNT' 253

the whole bourgeoisethic. Some of its sharpestengagementswere engendered,

not by taking 'another' path, but by pushing the contradictorytendenciesfrom
within bourgeoisculture to their extremes- by trying to subvert them from the
inside,througha negation.This mayalso accountfor why the 'culturalrevolution'
oscillatedso rapidlybetweenextremes:total 'opposition',and incorporation.The
undergroundalwaysseemedon thevergeofbeingcontainedor overtakenby its own
dialectic.Althoughit strainedafter a total critiqueof bourgeoislife, it preserved
the characterof a massivedisaffiliatio11. And since it projectedits 'alternatives'
from some of the most advancedpoints withinthat dominantculture, its projec--
tions frequentlyappearedas 'utopias', fragmentaryrehearsalsfor the future.
It wascontradictorydevelopmentswithincapitalismitself,then,whichprovided
the materialbasis for this qualitative'break' in the cultureand mentaluniverseof
capital society - a 'break' which expresseditself, partly, as a caesum between
the old dominant ethic and a new emergentone. Some aspects which the 'old
guard' definedas an assaulton traditionalvaluesweresimply signs of a profound
adaptationof the dominant culture to the new and contradictoryneeds of an
expandingcapital.Marcuse,for example,was certainlycorrectto define 'permis-
siveness'as, in origin,nothingbut the result of this necessarymodificationof the
dominantideology:a sign of its repressivetolerance,or what he called 'repressive
de-sublimation'.12 Only subsequentlydid 'permissiveness'provide the platform
for a more sustainedand subversivecritiqueand practice.This practicalcritique,
in taking seriouslywhat society had only half-intended,broke through some of
the categoriesand upturnedthem.The positivecontent of libemtion crystallised
within the negative limits of the permissible, 'liberated', 'do-your-own-thing'
philosophy.The artisan capitalismof the alternativesociety,which sustainedits
morefashionablemanifestations,did the fashionindustrysomeserviceby bearing
the costs of stylistic innovation- working,as it were, both sides of the street.A
glance al some of the new magazineswhich were the product of this era - like
Playboy or Playgirl - will suggest how easily free sex could be harnessed to
the services of the status quo. There are many indicationsthat capitalismitself
requiredsomerestructuringof the tight bondsof familylife- thoughthe backlash
in defence of the family, when the Women's Movementpushed their critique
to its limits, suggests that, like all the other liberatorytrends, this one was also
designedto stop short withinwell-definedlimits.Lookingback, we can see now
that the 'crisis of authority', as.wciatedin the early days of affluence with its
advancedparty 'youth', was the first symptomaticreactionby the old guard of a
dominantculture to a rupture in its ow11 tl'adltionalforms.Those who identified
capitalismwilh its earlier ethic resisted the onset of the new ethic in the name
of the defence of traditionalwisdomsand ways of life. They werethus obliged
to regard the advocatesof the 'cultural revolution'as constitutinga conspiracy
foisted on society from outside (mainly,as usual, from the United States).They
could not see that the bondsof a more austerebourgeoismoralregimewere being
partly dissolvedfrom inside, as a by-productof capitalism's own contradictory
'maturity'. The counter-cultureproduced no material political force, though it
infiltratedand inflected,permanently,everyother radicalmovementwith whichit
contractedan alliance.But what it did producewas a spectreof 'the enemy' in the
heads of its opponents.If its early phases scandalisedthe bourgeoisimagination,
254 POLICINGTHECRISIS

the second- includingits recruitmentinto the politicsof the street - appearedto

challenge its ideologicalunity and hegemony,and was gradually reconslructed
into a moralconspiracyagainstthe state: no longersimply gettingand spending,
clothesand records,fun and games- but drugs,crime,the withdrawalfrom work,
rampant sex, promiscuity,perversion, pornography,anarchy, libertinism and
violence,It becamea source of moral-politicalpollution,spreadingan infection
in its every form: the conspiracyto rebel. In a profoundsense, the dominant
culture- face to face with this spectacle- felt itself out of control.
The tremorsripplingthroughBritishsociety in 1969,whichcontributedto the
constructionof an authoritarianbacklash,were not all engenderedfrom within
the body politic itself. Indeed, the constant attention to internationaldevelop-
ments suggests that it was the convergenceof forces inside and outside society
tendingto disrupt ils equilibriumwhich hastenedon the reaction.The evolution
of the Nonhern Irelandcrisis is of critical importancehere. thoughit concernsus
primarilyin terms of its impact on the 'control culture' at home.The crisis itself
was the productof the long and disastroushistoryof repressionwhichhas charac-
terised Britain's historical relations with Ireland for four centuries or more. It
stemmedfrom the complexeconomicinterestswhich bind sectionsof the British
economyand its governingclasses to the backwardstructuresof economicand
social life Nonh and South of the border. More immediately,it stemmed from
the extremely backward nature of the political ascendancyin Ulster at whose
consolidationof powerBritainhad connived.This squalidepisodein recentUlster
history- its reactionaryheroes, its blackmailingthreats of U.D.I.,etc. - consti-
tuted some of twentieth-centuryConservatism's'finest hours'. The issue which
set the torch to Ulsterwas the systematicrepressionand economicdeprivationof
the Catholic minorityat the hands of the Protestantascendancy- a symptomatic
form, underpinnedby nationalismand religion,of the deeper exploitationof the
Ulster workingclass as a whole. Even the ReverendIan Paisley is said to have
acknowledgedthe basis of Catholicdisaffectionin his only privateconversation
with BernadetteDevlinin 1969,though,he added: 'I wouldratherbe Britishthan
just.'13 No wonderMarx had writtento Kugelman,exactlya centurybefore, that:

I have become convinced .., that it can never do anything decisive here in
Englanduntil it separatesits policy with regardto Irelandin the most definite
way from the policy of the rulingclasses.... And indeed this must be done, not
as a matter of sympathywith Ireland,but as a demand, made in the interests
of the British proletariat.If not, the Englishpeople will remain in the leading-
stringsof the ruling classes,becauseit mustjoin with them in a commonfront
againstIreland.14
The left's view of the Nonhern Ireland crisis was that it was simply one more
episode in the long history of British fascism in Ireland. The official view of
the crisis was that it was simply the creation of the irrational 'gunmen and
bombers' of the I.R.A. Both oversimplify.It was the Civil Rights movement
which triggered the crisis; and its leading grouping, People's Democracy,had
a critique and supporteda strategy in Ireland more advanced,and less confined
to the logic of the home-madebomb, than anything which has since emerged.
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSllNT' 255
The full involvement of the I.R.A. in the North was a slow and awkward affair.
Confronted by the Civil Rights challenge, Labour first backed Captain O'Neill
and 'moderate refonn' - aimed at improving the everyday lot of Catholics while
preserving the structure of capitalist interests under the hegemony of Protestant
power. It was this contradictory exercise in reformism which came to grief
under pressure from Protestant extremism. When the Civil Rights march was
ambushed by the men of Derry at Burntollet Bridge, it was the Royal Ulster
Constabulary, technically the law-and-order force, which went on the rampage
in the Bogside. This became a regular occurrence - supported, politically, by a
transfer of Stormont power to the hands of a tougher reformer, Mr Chichester-
Clarke. As the provocative ritual Orange marches of the autumn approached,
Labour's dilemma fully crystallised. It had determined that reform should
come through the 'constitutional instrument'. But Stormont was no ordinary
constitutional body - it was a symbol of the nexus of the power of the Orange
ascendancy. On the question of whether troops should go in, and who should
order them, Labour was in Stormont's hands, and Stormont was committed
to the maintenance of minority power by all necessary means. Once again,
Protestant provocation cut through these legal convolutions. In the August
rioting, the R.U.C., now openly behind the Protestant marchers, invaded the
Bogside, using C.S. gas on one occasion for the first time against U.K. citizens,
and, in Belfast, firing on Catholic counter-marchers from annoured vehicles. On
the other side of the barricades, 'Free Derry' was born, and the Catholic cause
fell, once more, into the keeping of those capable of physical defence - the
Provos. On 14 August British troops entered Derry. On 15 August they entered
Belfast. Their limited objective was stated as 'getting between' the rioting mobs.
It was one of Britain's many Irish euphemisms. In fact, Britain had entered her
very own backyard 'Vietnam'. One of the principal factors precipitating this had
been the contradictory nature and content of social democracy when it leads in
a colony from a declining political and economic base, and seeks to serve as a
'responsible government' of the state within the logic of capital. Across the water
from Ulster, the British television viewer, hardly recovered from the scenarios
of student confrontations, now accustomed himself to the nightly spectacle of
'our boys' face to face with a full-scale domestic urban insurrection. It was a
spectacle calculated to harden British hearts.

WORKING-CLASSRESISTANCE:'WELL GRUBBED,OLD MOLE!'

In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor prophets
of repression, we recognize our brave friend, Robin Goodfellow, the old
mole that can work in the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer- the Revolution.
(Marx)115

Everything 'comes together' in 1970; ii is a watershed, a breaking-point. Here

all the contradictions begin to intersect. It felt, at the time, as if Britain alone had
escaped the cataclysm which shook the other major Western capitalist societies
in 1968. But, in its customary diffused, dispersed, piecemeal way, Britain too
passed in and through the furnace of a deep crisis. The foundations moved. Then
256 POLICINOTHECRISIS

the forces of stability, the restoration,gathered momentum.The target against

which it mobilisedseemed,at first, principallycomposedof the student left and
the counter-culture.To this, in 1969,was added the degenerationof the Northern
Irelandconflictinto open urban warfare.These disparatestrandsthen converged,
in the collectiveconsciousness,into the shapeof Nemesis:a threatto lhecohesion,
stability,equilibriumof civil societyitself.In response,the balancein the control
culture began to swing, slowly at first, then sharply, towards a more openly
repressiveposition.Then what had been simmeringand festeringnot far below
the surface,eruptedinto its very centre.and transformedand redefinedthe whole
balanceof the relationsof force in society.What commandsthe transitionfrom
this tighteningof controlat the end of the 1960sinto the full repressive'closure'
of 1970,presidingover the birth-pangsof a Britishversionof the 'law-and-order'
society,and redefiningthe wholeshape of socialconflictand civil dissensusin its
wake,is the re-entryto the historicalstage of the class strugglein a visible,open
and escalatingform. A society careeringoff the rails through 'permissiveness',
'participation' and 'protest' into 'the alternativesociety' and 'anarchy' is one
thing. It is quite another moment when the workingclass once again takes the
offensivein a moodof activemilitancy.To say 'takes the offensive'mightsuggest
that, for a time, it was absent from the relationsof force, resistanceand consent
in the society.Nothingcould be further from the truth. But theform which the
class struggleassumedin the periodof Labourismwas differentfrom the form it
beginsto assume- to assume again - as we enter the 1970s.As the attemptby a
social-democraticgovernmentto managethe state throughan organisedversion
of consensus is finally exhaustedand bankruptedbetween 1964 and 1970,so,
gradually,the class strugglecomesmore and more into the open, assumesa more
manifestpresence.This developmentis electrifying.One of its consequencesis
to translatea strugglewhich is emergingat the levelof civil societyand its super-
structural institutions(principallythe form of the crisis during the period up to
and immediatelyafter our '1968'} directlyon to the terrainof capitaland labour,
and thus - in the era of organisedlate capitalism- on to the terrain of the state.
Like hanging,such a moment wonderfullyconcentratesthe mind of the ruling
class and its parties, whetherof the right or the left. In fact, its impact on these
two wings is diametricallyopposite.The emergenceof an open class struggle,
in a state temporarilyunder the commandof a governmentof social-democratic
character,underminesand destroyssuch a government'sraisond'2tre. The only
rationalefor entrustingthe managementof the corporatecapitaliststate to social
democracyis either (i) that in a tight squeeze it can better win the collaboration
of working-classorganisationsto the state, if necessary,at the expenseof their
own class; or (ii) that if there is going to be an economiccrisis, it is better that
such a crisis should be indelibly identified with yet another historic failure of
Labourism.When such a governmentmanifestlyfails to win this class collabo-
ration- as the Wilsongovernmentof 1966-70failed,or when it fails to stem the
tide of economiccrisis, its days are numbered.The impactof an escalatingclass
struggleon the other side - the real executorsof the capitalistclass in power- is
quite different.In a period of political crisis, this wing can be strong, resisting
in depth, recruitingthe populaceto its side in the activedefence of stabilityand
order. In economiccrisis, it can be decisive,even brutal in its measures,rallying
 THE EXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 257
'the nation' in a last-ditchefforl to 'save the sinkingship'. Either way its hand is
immeasurablystrengthened,its will hardened- as social democracy'shand and
nerveis weakenedand destroyed- by the prospector a comingclassstruggle.The
re-emergenceof working-classmilitancy,combinedwith what the right regards
as a slow erosion or civil society itself, and (in the case of Nonhern Ireland)
the prospect of armed insurrection in nearby provinces, tended to drive the
ruling 'bloc' into a much harder, more coercivestance. The return of the Heath
governmentto power,coupled with the resolutionwhich it appeared to offer to
namelessfears,threatsand anxietiesripplingthroughcivil societyitself,produced
a sort of climax- an ejaculationof control.In such a moment,in and around 1970,
with the Heathgovernmentmandatedto take on and stranglein its bed the resur-
gence of organisedworking-classmilitancy,the long 'crisis of authority' which
marks the 1960sfinallybecameabsorbedinto the 'crisis of the state' itself.Here,
the last vestige or a hegemonyof consent ends. The appeals to 'the nation', to
'lhe British people', to 'the nationalinterest', do not of course end. Indeed,they
multiply.But the more they are affirmed,the less they refer to anythinglike an
existing consensusof views which holds all ends of the society togetherunder
one, dominant,ruling set of purposes, the more they appear as ritual gestures,
invocations,whosemeaningand purposeis not to refer, but to invoke,create and
bring into being a consensus which has almost in fact entirelyevaporated.The
birthof Mr Heath'sgovernmentin the disguiseof 'the trade unionof the nation' is
a momentof profoundcrisis in the exerciseof hegemony.The dominantgrouphas
nearly exhaustedits function to unite and reconcileconflictinginterests within
the frameworkor its ideologicalcanopy; its repe,toil'eof responsesis close to
exhaustion;the mechanismsof consent have been decisivelyundermined.There
is preciouslittle left excepta vigorousimpositionof class interests,a struggleto
the death, the turn to repressionand control.It is what Gramscicalls the moment
of constraint:of police measures,of popularreactionand recourselo the law, of
rumoursof conspiraciesagainstthe state, of panic, of coups d'itat, or Caesarism
from on high. 1970is such a moment.The state, whichceasesto hold togetherby
spontaneousor (as underMr Wilson)by sponsoredconsent,mustbe consolidated
by the exerciseof a certain kind of force - Mr Heath as 'Bonapane'.
In 1970 we can pinpoint this 'drift' of the crisis of hegemonyup to the level
or the state itself. But it is crucial to note lhe whole trajectory,the whole arc
of the movement.Organisedcapitalism in its 'late' corporate form requires a
recompositionof the whole state apparatusand of relationsbelweenthe different
branches or the state, and between the state itself and civil society.This is the
beginningsof the state which 'enmeshes, controls, regulates,superintendsand
tutors civil society from its most comprehensivemanifestationsof life down to
its most insignificantstirrings, from its most general modes of being down to
the privateexistenceof individuals'.""But since this augmentedstate is not only
itself becomingdirectly a part of the productivesystem, bul the principalmeans
by which one ruling-classalliance or another can intervene from above in the
class struggle, the recompositionof the capitalist state is also, and inevitably,
lhe recomposition 'from above' of the working class. The fact, however,that
the ruling 'bloc' intervenes in the class struggle via the intermediationof the
state means that the state 'veils the class struggle'. This whole process is not
258 POLICINGTHECRISIS

to be equated with the shifting political fortunes of particular parties or their

rotation in parliamentarypower.We must look behindor throughthis oscillation
on the terrainof parliamentarypoliticsto discern what Marx called 'the peculiar
physiognomyof the period'. The recomposilionof the capitalist state and of
the class strugglein this period is played now throughLabourism,now through
Conservatism.This is not to make a simple equationbetweenthese two 'parties'
of capital, any more than Marx simply equated Orleanists with Legitimistsor
with social democrats.But, in his remarkable The EighteenthBrumaireessay,
he shows how, through the succession of parties, a particular form of state
power is methodicallyperfected.In their different ways in this period both the
major parliamentaryparties contribute,at differentpoints, to the reconstruction
of the 'late' capitalist state. This developmentis certainly neither smooth nor
without contradiction.This is especially so for the party of social democracy,
which cannot become one of the chief architectsof the state of capital without
generatingprofound antagonisms.In fact, in the British case the adaptationof
Conservatismto this task was almost, if not equally,as traumatic.
Paradoxically,then, both governmentspreside over the birth of certain key
strategiesof corporatemanagement.One keystrategyis the containmentof wages
and, occasionally,of priceswithinthe limitsof productivity-the 'incomes•policy'
strategy,whichin its manyvariantsabsorbedso muchof theparliamentaryenergies
of both sides, and helpedto exhausttheir repertoiresof control.When, at the end
of the decade,this exercisein guided consentcomes to grief, it is, first, a Labour
administration,then a Conservativeone, whichintroducesthe instrumentof legal
regulation,and 'perfects it': Mr Wilsonfitfully,withdrawingat the eleventhhour;
Mr Heath,gloryingand revellingin the final showdown.This processis going on
behind the back of the 'theatrical show' of parliamentarypolitics- and, indeed,
as Marx also argued, at its expense. Such a far•reachingreconstructionof state
power and its exercisehas deep complementarymovementsin civil society as
well (we havealready noted some)and in the juridical apparatus.The qualitative
shift in the mode of operationof the state - from consentto coercion- which is
the mainsectorof the arc whichconcernsus here, is thus a complexoutcome,not
simply of developmentsin the state but in the whole characterof the exerciseof
hegemonicdomination.
Whatformsthebaseof this arc, however,is the persistentandgrowingweakness
of the economicstructureof British capitalism.Despite the post•warrevivalof
worldtrade,Britain's sharein the worldexportsof manufacturedgoods is halved,
between 1954and 1970.Her levelof investmentand her rate of economicgrowth
are persistentlylow.The stable giants like the United Statesand France,the new
competitors-WestGermany,Japanand Italy-outdistance Britishperformanceon
every level.Between1960and 1972,investmentas a percentageof gross national
product is moving,on average, for Japan between 30--35per cent, for Britain
between16-18 percent. Between1955and 1968,Japan has an annualpercentage
growth rate of 9.7, West Germanyof 5.0, Britainof 2.8. In the 1960s,there is a
majorinfluxof foreigninvestment,whichsupportsthe conversionof somesectors
of capital into a more 'multinational'form, but it does not match the outflowof
direct and indirectinvestmentabroad.The historicalstructuraldecline of British
 259
capitalismis unquestionable.Everythingelse that happensin these years must be
judged againstthis backdrop.11
In this periodthe Westerncapitalistsystemas a wholesuffersa severecrisis in
'profitability', coupled with growing inflation.Increasedcapitalistcompetition,
the various mechanismsof rescue devised by the I.M.F. and other international
financialagencies,the spread of the multinationals,the formationof the E.E.C.,
all sternin part fromthis world-widesearchfor greatershares in the worldmarket
to offset the taperingoff of the post-warboom and the classic incipienttendency
of the rate of profit to fall. Britainis also late or behind in each of these counter-
vailingmeasures.She is therefore,in consequence,'at the forefrontof the crisis
of profitability'.18 We cannot enter here into the important argumentas to the
deeper slructuralroots of the crisis. Certainly,'wage militancy'is sustained,and
relativelysuccessfulfor a time, thoughin real terms it is progressivelyeroded by
inflation.This leads directly to the 'political solutions' we examine below.The
rate of profit is, of course,different,in a classicalsense, from the mass of profits
(the latter may be rising even if the former is falling).It is related,not to 'profit-
ability', but to the changingcompositionof capital itself,19 and to the increased
economicrole of the state sector.90 But rising wagemilitancymay affectthe share
out of profits,limitinghow much industryfeels able to put into investment,and
hencethe capacityof capital to offset a long-termdecline.
Whateverits deeper causes and consequences,there can be no doubt that the
growth of wages in the 1950s and 1960s is seen by capital as weakeningthe
already vulnerablecompetitivebase of the economy.91 This becomes the most
visible ideologicalsymbol of Britain as a 'stagnant society': the first manifes-
tation of 'crisis'. It is aroundthis pole that the discipliningof the workingclass
is organised:first, by 'capitalist planning'; then by 'incomes policy'; finally by
statutoryand legalcontrol.It is againstthis pivotthat the wholeoffensiveagainst
the organised working class is mounted. It is through this 'operator' that the
workingclass is progressivelycalled upon to bear the costs of the crisis. This is
the fulcrumaroundwhichthe politicsof the periodturns.
First,we mustsketchthe outlinesof this offensive,and the stagesthroughwhich
the repertoireof voluntaryconstraintsis graduallyexhausted.ProfessorBeer has
arguedthat thecorporatemanagementof the modemcapitalisteconomy'depends
on governmentsand producer groups being able to reach agreementsand then
on each group being able and willingto implementits part of the bargain',92 The
bargain between capital, labour and the state must be such as to safeguardthe
long-termsurvivaland profitabilityof capital, while generatingsuch growth as
will enable each element to rake off somethingfor its constituency.But funda-
mentally,labour's share must fall in line behindand be disciplinedby the overall
'productivity'of capital.93 The British state was finallyconvertedto this strategy
in the periodof severedeflationof 1956-7,one of the most formidableperiodsof
'stop' the economyhas experienced.The hurriedreflationlastedjust longenough
to secure the 1959election for the Tories.Then the balance-of-paymentsdeficit
loomedagain, prices and wages began again their upwardclimb, and 'stop-go'
was reintroduced.Selwyn Lloyd's conversionto 'indicativecapitalist planning'
dates from this period. He subsequentlyconfessedto ProfessorDorfman(in an
260 POLICINGTHE CRISIS

interview in 1969) that, as well as developing 'TUC support for a permanent

incomespolicyin the planningcouncil', there was an '"educational"valuefor the
TUC in being constantlyexposedto the "broader implications"of government's
actions'. Most importantly,he believedthe T.U.C.would find it more difficultto
play a conslantlyintransigentrole whileparticipatingin councildecision-making.
The great 'educative' offensive to incorporatethe working class via its most
corporaterepresentativeinstitution- the T.U.C.-had opened.94
The 'conversionto planning'did not begin auspiciously.It began,instead,with
the crisis and recessionof 1961.The pay pause was breachedbeforeit was ended
formally (most notably by the Electricity Council award), but when its finale
was announced, the National Economic DevelopmentCouncil (NEDDY)had
emerged,and the T.U.C.had agreed to join it. NEDDYwas no raging success.It
became- it has beensuggested- not the solulionto, but the victimand symptom
of 'pluralisticstagnation'.The secondphase - under HaroldWilson- was more
decisivelyinterventionist.It was also, characteristically,two-faced.The Labour
governmentdiscovereda balance-of-paymenlS deficit of £800 million,and took
the pivotaldecisionto defendsterlingwithoutdevaluation,at all costs.This made
the matterof bargainswiththe unionsat oncemorecompellingand moredifficult:
more stick (i.e. recession),less carrot('growth'). Labour,however,had one major
reserve strength - the factor which has made social democracythe 'natural'
party of capital throughmuch of the post-warperiod.This strengthwas its long-
standing alliance with the unions. 'Planning' was retained as an administrative
front (indeed,the first and last five-year-planwas publishedin this phase,though
few could now recall its compellingtargets). But more central was the political
constructionof a 'long-termvoluntaryincomespolicy' to whichthe unionswould
be a party.
The 'long-termvoluntaryincomespolicy' was the last comprehensiveattempt,
until the SocialContractof 1974,to exerciseand enforcerestraintover wagesand
the workingclass by consent. Everything,in this phase, is harnessedto winning
the unionsto full collaborationwith the state in discipliningthe workingclass. It
was a failure.ll was a strategybeset fromthe beginningby contradictions.Labour
was fully enmeshed in the theology of parliamentarianism.In identifyingthe
defenceof sterlingwith the defenceof the nation,it assimilateditself to the goal
of the most relrograde,but most powerful,wing of capital.This meant givingin
to the severeterms imposedby internalionalcreditors.Incomespolicy was thus,
for the government,a 'long stop' to enable the countryto emerge from the crisis
with productionaheadof wages,and a permanentsocialcontraclwith labourin its
pocket,therebysolvingthe crisis andsecuringits politicalbase in one longsweep.
The unions,thoughpoliticallycloselyalignedwiththisperspective,occupya struc-
turally differentposition:a more 'corporate' one, in Gramsci'ssense. No matter
how close they are enmeshedin the toils of the state, unless they can be seen to
be, in some degree,defendingthe corporateeconomicinterestsof their members,
they have no mison d'6trt1.The T.U.C.,then, had the immediateresumptionof
growth (and thus of jobs and wages) at lhe top of their list; that meant getting
investmentgoing back againat once.Temporarily,the two contradicloryperspec-
tivesappearedlo be yoked to the same objective- a vista of permanentexpansion
builton the backof the Labour-labouralliance.Such a deal was, indeed,formally
 THEEXHAUSTION
OF 'CONSENT' 261

signedand delivered- the Joi11tStatement011Productivity,Pricesand Incomes.95

This, too, was not to be. The sterling crisis loomed again in June 1965. Over
the heads of the T.U.C.,the governmentintroduceda compulsoryearly-warning
system on wages. In response,a disgruntledGeorgeWoodcockoffered that the
T.U.C. should itself once again attempt 'voluntarily' to 'vet' wages: 'the last
chance', he said, to show that the unionscould manage themselves,were master
in their own house, and thus 'offset the legislationwhichotherwisethreatened'.96
'Vetting', however,was in practicean empty exercise.The T.U.C.simply had no
power- for reasonswe examinebelow- to deliverit. Wageinflationled instead
directly to the gigantic balance-of-paymentscrisis of 1966,the seamen's strike,
and a deflationarypackageof immenseseverity.The T.U.C. now stood looking
directlyinto the chasm. It was squeezedon all sides like a lemon.With intensely
badgrace,coveredby the mostobsequiouscollapsebeforethe altarof'the national
interest', the T.U.C.acknowledgedthat 'the interestsof both trade unionismand
of the nation as a whole ... compelledthem to acquiesce in the Government's
proposal'.'11 They acceptedthe standstill 'with distaste ... in the belief that at this
time the needof the nationmust necessarilyoverridesectionaldemands'.911
There was worse in store: a standstillon wages;then - the differenceescaped
mostwage-earners- 'severerestraint'; a secondcrisis,coupledwith deva1uation;
furtherdeflationand a 'nil nonn' on wages.The statutoryfreeze brought wages
to a halt; unemploymentgrew.The zero norm lasted until 1968.When the freeze
was officiallylifted, it was to a 3½ per cent nonn only, breakableby leave of
only a few exceptions(of which low pay and productivitydeals were, signifi-
cantly,the main classes).Throughoutthis period, the Prime Minister noted that
'our ownpeople ... demonstratedgreat loyalty',99 However,in the arcticeconomic
climate,voluntaryismas a corporatestrategywitheredon the branch.First, it was
undenninedby the economiccrisis itself. Second,voluntaryismhad a price, and
the state found itself unableto pay up. UnderWoodcock'sleadership,the T.U.C.
expressedno principledoppositionto voluntaryabsorptioninto the state. But, it
requireda corporatereturn for collaboration.As Hugh Clegg put it: 'the unions
could only give the governmentthe industrialpeace and economiccooperationit
requiredon conditionthat the governmentallowedthe unionssufficienteconomic
concessionsto keep their membersfromgrowingtoo restive'.100The government
was in no positionto do so. But, third, there is some doubt whether,even had the
state been able to afford its 'price', the deal would have come off. For the fact
is that, throughoutthis period, the disciplineover the workingclass which the
governmentrequiredwas not in the keepingof the T.U.C.It was not theT.U.C.nor
the great union leadershipswhichdefendedand advancedworking-classinterests
in this period.The real dynamichad passedto anotherlevel- one over whichthe
unionsand the T.U.C.exertedrelativelylittle poweror innuence.What sustained
'wage militancy' was not 'the unions' but the infernal coalition between sheer
rank-and-filebloody-mindednessand shop-steward'irresponsibility'.It was this
dialectic - this hidden materialism- which undermined'voluntaryism'.When
the state failed to win over the T.U.C.to its offensive,it adopteda more surgical
probe for the canceroussourceitself. From the mid-1950sto the end of the 1960s
the Departmentof Employmentcalculatedthat 95 per cent of all recordedstrikes
were 'unofficial'.The 'unofficia1strike', as Lane and Robertsobserve,was raised
262 POLICINOTHfiCRISIS

during Labour'speriodof officeto the status ora crisis issue,closely linkedwith

'the view that British industrywas especiallyprone' to problemsof labourindis-
cipline - the 'British disease'. This interpretation'became firmly embeddedin
popularconsciousness'.101 The fact of utmost significancein the period was the
massiveshift of the locus of class conflict in industryfrom management/union
disputesto management/shop-floor disputes,and the tilt of the balancefrom the
union-managementnegotiatingtable to rank-and-filemilitancy,spearheadedby
shop-floor organisation,the growth of a 'factory consciousness'and the shop
stewards.
The immediatecause of this shift in the social organisationof working-class
militancyis not hard to find:

Withthe revivalof nationaland internationaltrade after 1945and the readiness

of the Stateto regulatethe economy,the tradeunionsbecamesplit into virtually
two parts.At the nationalleveltrade union leadersbecamean establishedpart
of the politicalprocess:governmenteconomicstrategiesrequiredthe cooper-
ation of the trade unions. Union leaders were thereforecoopted individually
as 'consultants'and collectivelyas participantsin the auxiliarymachineryof
government.At the local level workerswere findingthat their strength lay on
the shop floor. Union branches,district and shop stewardscommitteeswere
playing the market with all the vigour of nineteenth-centurybusinessmen.
Thus, wherethe leaderswere tryingto help governmentsintroducean ordered
capitalism,the rank and file were followingtraditionallaissez-fairepoliciesof
taking the marketfor all it was worth.102
The policyof 'co-option',pursuedwithsuch vigourandconsistencyunderLabour
thus had profoundif unintendedconsequences.Far from followingtheir leaders
into the arms of the state, or - as some variants of the 'affluent-workerthesis'
predicted- simply disappearingoff the face of the earlh into the middleclasses,
the rank-and-fileworkersin industryfoundanotherpoint of antagonismwith the
structureof capitalist managementand threw up around it a formidable,flexible
and militant defensive organisation.Local conditions could be exploited and
localadvantagestaken best in large-scalefactorywork,especiallyin engineering,
where, as a result of the complexdivisionsof labour,a stoppageof ten men in
one section could bring the whole assemblyline to a grinding halt. This vulner-
ability of large-scaleindustrywas increasedunder conditionsof full or near-full
employmentwith a shortage of skilled labour.It no doubt also owed something
- againunintended- to the very ideologyof 'affluence'so persistentlyand effec-
tively propagatedby the mediaand the politicalparties.
The officialstructureof collectivebargaininginvolvedregular,institutionalised
negotiationsat national level between 'the union or unions concerned and the
relevantfederationor associationof employers.The resultingnationalagreements
specify rates of pay, hours of work and other conditionsof employmentfor the
industry.In theory,this processof nationalnegotiationdeterminesall important
aspects of the employmentrelationship'. In reality, however,'it is the national
agreementswhichare of minorsignificance,settinga bare minimumstandardfor
wages and conditions;the workerrelies primarilyon shop floor organizationto
 THE EXHAUSTION
01' 'CONSENT' 263

win acceptableterms'.100 Centralto this processof negotiatingand implementing

the actual day-to-daydetails of nationalagreementswere the shop stewardsand
shop-floororganisation.The powerof this levelof organisationdependeddirectly
on the willingnessof the rank-and-fileworkerto back the stewardsby the sudden
and unannouncedstoppage - the faster, the less expected,the belier. Thus the
legitimacyof the stewardsderived,not from the union structure,of which in the
early stagesthey wereat best a residualand marginalpar1,in the fonnal sense,but
from the immediacy,lhe closeness,of the stewardto 'experiencesand grievances
at lhe point of production'.
As the 'unofficial'wildcatstrikecame to predominateover the officialstructure
of union-managementnegotiations as the paradigm form of industrial class
conflict,the patternof class conflictin certainkey industrialsectorscameto pivot
aroundtwo broad questions,both of them arising,so to speak,in the gap between
the 'formal' and 'infonnal' systemsof control.The first was stakedout along the
line of 'implementationand conditions' - how, and under what precise condi-
tions were national agreementsto be made operational in one or another part
of the factory at a specific moment?Behind this 'local negotiatingfrontier' lay
a larger question which the whole shift to shop-floorpower brought centrally
into play within the frameworkof the class struggle: the issue of the power of
the workersdirectly to define, hold at bay and if possibledisrupt or throw back
the exerciseof 'managerialpowerand prerogative'over the labourprocessitself.
In its most dynamic, but immediateand localised form, this was no more nor
less than the critical issue of controloverpl'oductionand the rate of exploitation
of labour.11MNational wage agreementsestablishedminimal criteria and levels.
They overarchedthe actual divisionof labour,in an attemptto orchestrateit. In
reality, each job or part of a job, divided as it was, differentlyin each factory,
between sections and component plants and ancillary shops, had a wage rate
negotiablefrom shop to shop, piece-workto piece-work;and the rate depended,
not on what had been writtenand signed at a nationallevel,but on the 'power to
intervene', which could be organisedon the floor. Of course certain sectors of
industrywere more vulnerableto the exploitationof this 'fonnal/informal'gap
than others.White-collarworkersin public serviceindustriesand manualworkers
in publicutilities,for example,could not developso strong a 'frontierof control',
and hence their wages lagged behind the leading sectors in manufacturingand
the engineeringindustry.The point at whichthe relativesuccessof the shop-floor
strategywas demonstrated- and the fact whichcame most to symboliseboth the
erosion of trade-uniondisciplineover its workers,and the drain on capital and
profits-was the phenomenonof 'wage drift'.
'Wage drift' is the difference between earnings (excludingovertime)in any
particularplant or shop and the wageratesarrivedat throughofficialwagenegoti-
ations and collectiveagreements.It represents,therefore, the degree to which
localisedworking-classpowerand organisationhas successfullyeroded the insti-
tutionalbargainsover wagesandconditionsstruckat nationallevel.The 'graph' of
wagedrift in this periodis telling.Afterabout 1958,real averageweeklyearnings
are not only consistentlyhigher, for manual workers,than the officiallyagreed
rates, but the gap between the two significantlywidens,in the workers' favour,
right up to the impositionof the freeze.This figurealone demonstrates,not only
264 POUCINGTHECRISIS

the failureor the wholeincomespolicystrategy,but its principalcause andsource:

'The more insistentlythe Labour governmentfocusedon incomespolicy as an
immediateremedialmeasure, lhe more that incomespolicy workedagainst the
T.U.C.'sabilityto deliveran effectiveincomespolicyin any context.'11lli
Thus, little by little - bemused,at first,by its own mythsof embourgcoisement
and apathy,then victim of its own illusionsof 'one nation' and the unremitting
ideologyof 'moderation'- step by step, did the ruling-classfractionscome face
to face with the stubborn bloody-mindedness,the 'hidden materialism', of the
Britishworkingclass.Heretherewas certainlyno over-allstrategy,nocounter-he-
gemonictrajectory,little strategicleadership,no philosophyfor foundinga 'new
order' or for exercisingproletarianpower.Shorn,rather,of leadership,denudedof
strategyand long-tennpoliticalperspective,with no organsof influenceto wield
in the market-placesof opinion, few organic intellectualalliances to shape its
materialpracticetheoretically,this classdisposedof no weaponsexceptthe tradi-
tional ones of resistancewith which to combatthe restructuringof capitalism:its
leadershipstrundlingin and out of smoke-filledconferenceswith the employers
at Number IO; the 'party of labour' itself almost sunk withouttrace beneaththe
weight of self-righteousplatitudinisingand Wilsoniandouble-talk;Marx.ismas
yet a distant toy of the new radical intelligentsia- a class, in short, thrownback
on those subterraneananarcho-syndicalistreserveimpulseswhich,in low times,
seemto servethe Britishworkingclass as its last backstopagainstthoseforcesthat
are ready to grind it out of existence.This is the workingclass which,burrowing
away throughthe 1960s,comes to the surfacefor air, in 1970,catches a glimpse
of Mr Heath and his band of hope, the far-offlook of 'prosperity' in their eyes,
anned with the full majestyof the law,and resolved,if necessary,to take him on.
It was the rise and fall in the tides of voluntaryism- the fever chart, so to
speak,of the 'Britishdisease'- whichoccupiedthe frontpagesof publicattention
in the 1960s.But, as the supports of a voluntaryincomestruce were, one after
another, knocked sideways, alternative,more subtle strategies of class disci-
pline came to providethe essenceof the social-democraticresponseto the crisis.
We may divide them, roughly,into two kinds. First, there were the strategiesof
containmentin the labour processitself: productivitydeals, measured-daywork
systems,tight controlsover rates and wagedeals, coupled with a tacticalassault,
in certain key sectors(the motor industry,for example)on the front-linepolitical
troops- the stewards.Second,there were strategiesof rationalisationand control
at the macroeconomiclevel: the promotionof mergers,takeoversand 'planned'
bankruptcies;the redeploymentand retrainingof labour; the open invitationto
foreigncapital- especiallyAmerican- to come in and installa toughermanagerial
and financingregime than most British managersyet had the stomach for; the
scuttle for foreigninvestmentand markets.
The key productivitydeal - the Esso Fawleyagreement- was signed in 1960;
but the years between 1967 and 1970 witnessed what has been described as a
'productivitydeals landslide'- rising, in mid-1968,to as manyas 200 per month.
The aim of the productivitydeal, in the contextof Britain'sdecliningproductive
and trade position, was, fundamentally,to reduce unit costs, either by making
labour more intensive(i.e. intensifyingthe rate of exploitation)or by co-opting
labour, via the unions, to collude with the peaceful replacement of men by
 1'HEEXHAUSTION
01' 'CONSr:NT' 265
machines(the decomposilionof labour).This was the principalinstrumentin the
recompositionof the working class and of the labour process from above. But
productivitydeals were also directed at the 'drift' of real-wagelevels above the
negotiatednationalnorms.Here the productivitydeal was intendedto bind wages
firmly behind, and in a fixed relation to, productivity:no increasein output, no
wagerise.This was the politicalcutting-edgeof the strategy.Oneof the keyforms
throughwhichthisdiscipliningwasexertedwasthe auemptto replacepiece-work
by fixedratesandwages(thuscuttingdownthe roomfor plant-by-plantbargaining
and culling into wage drift) - a move which in tum entailed the widespreaduse
of measured-daywork procedures.These involvedtight job evaluation,grading,
rating, timing- and then the impositionof a strict 'productionstandard' for each
part of the productiveprocess. It was a further developmentof those techniques
of 'scientific management'which had spearheadedthe restructuringof capital
and the labourprocessin the early years of the transitionto monopolycapitaJ.1llli
Its politicalcontent,however,was certainlynot missedat the time.That doyenof
industrialrelations,and arch Fabian militant,Alan Flanders,put it plainly: 'The
distinguishing,common feature of all the major productivityagreementsis that
they are attempts to strengthenmanagerialcontrols over pay and work through
joint regulation.'107
At the other end of the scale,decisivemoveswereundertakento reconstructthe
shape of British industryinto a more rationaland corporatistmould.Apostlesof
statist solutions,and technocraticwhiz-kids,like Mr WedgwoodBenn (no other)
at the Ministryof Technology,and CharlesVilliersat the IndustrialReorganisation
Corporation,presidedovera reallymassivewaveof inducedmergers,takeoversand
fade-outs,designed- in the steely philosophyof the I.R.C.- to 'create industrial
giants'. This strategyof state-supportedmonopolisationinvolvedpushingor invei-
gling competitivecapitalistfirmsinto a majorconcentrationof assets,promotinga
rationalisationandslimming-downof the majorproductiveunitsin eachsectorinto
their Fullyoligopolisticform.The purposeof this was to lowerproductioncosts,to
effecta shake-outand rationalisationin the deploymentof labour,to protectprofit
rates,and to stiffenand shape up the confidenceof the industrialelite for the fierce
competitiveclimateof internationalcompetitionin theera of the multinationalsand
'Europe'. Its consequencewas the deskillingof significantsectorsof the working
classand its partialrecomposition.In the first half of 1968the takeoverand merger
boomwas higher(£1,750million)than the totalof all bids and mergerseffectedin
1967- the year of the great mergertake-off.
It was not enough.Nothingwas enough.The nettle of class demand,after all,
simply had to be grasped directly. 'The price of securing an incomespolicy in
Britain', that most persuasiveorgan of modernenterpriseThe Economistclearly
foretold,as early as June 1963,'will be the willingnessto stand up to strikes.'11111
'Paradoxically,'that foremost economic commentator,Sam Brittan, optimisti-
cally predicted in the same year, 'one of the strongest argumentsfor a Labour
Governmentis that, beneath layers of velvet, it might be more preparedto face
a showdownin dealing with the unions.'This weaponof enforcedrestraint- the
last in the Labouristrepertoire- was infinitelydelayed;and one of the principal
delaying mechanismswas the appointmentof the Royal Commissionon Trade
Unionsand Employers'Associations- the DonovanCommission.Donovantook
266 POLICINOTHE CRISIS

three long years to report; but finally,in 1968,the Report came out. It clearly
and unequivocallylabelledthe unofficialstrike and the shop stewardsas the twin
demons of the British crisis. Yet, Donovanstayed his hand. Order, regulation,
discipline were his watchwords:the integralionof what he called the 'inflated
power of work-groupsand shop stewards'into what Cliff rightly described as a
'plant consensus',LOIiHe proposedto build the shop-stewards'role into the formal
managementstructure and thus weld shop floor and line power into a single
structure.lLwas a strategyof intensifiedincorporation.The unofficialstrike was
excludedfromthe protectionof the lawand exposedto the whimsof employersin
the courts; but, at the eleventhhour, no legal sanctionsas such againstunofficial
'temporarycombinations'of workerswereproposed.The finalepitaphon Donovan
was utteredby that stalwartLabour Minister for Employmentand rare coiner of
biblicalmottoes,Mr Ray Gunter: 'Too little,' he said, 'too voluntary,too late.'
Within seven months of Donovan, the Conservativeshad published their
manifesto on the reform of industrial relations, Fair Deal At Work, and the
governmenthad replied with its ill-fated package, the Wilson-Castle fiasco,
In Place of Strife. With this latter document social democracy,its rhetoric of
restraint,productiveeffort and moral fibre exhausted,hesitantlyreached for the
'final deterrent' of compulsion.In Place of Strife was a woolly and confusing
document with a small but extremelydangerous and damaging concept at its
core. Unfortunatelyfor its promotersand defenders,managementrecognisedthis
implicitcore at once, andjumped the gun in an effort to pushthe Cabinetover the
line into an explicitlyanti-uniondisciplinarystance.This ex.posedthe document's
inner logic and shatteredits social-democratichusk.The Wilson-Castlepackage
was abandonedin favourof a papervoluntaryismin whichneitherthegovernment,
theT.U.C.nor theelectorateplacedmuchfaith.Althoughtheelectoraldenouement
was postponedfor almostanotheryear,the 1964interregnumwas reallyat an end,
and with it - temporarily- the Labouristversionof a managedconsensus.
The confrontationwhich in fact markedits demise was classic. It involvedthe
aggressive,Americanstyle, Ford management,which pioneeredthe managerial
crusade against shop-floorpower through the decade, and the most disciplined
and militant of front-linetroops in this period - the Dagenhamand Halewood
shop stewards.Briefly,the Ford managementproposed,with the support of the
Joint NegotiatingCommitteeof Ford unions, a package deal modelled around
BarbaraCastle's White Papercombininglong-termwageincreasesand a scheme
to offset loss of earnings through lay-offs, plus enlarged holiday benefits -
providedthere was no 'unconstitutionalaction'. The Halewoodplant came out
on strike.Althoughthe Joint Committeereaffirmedtheir stand, the big unions -
the A.E.F.and the T.G.W.- declared the strike official.With the unions backing
the stewardsagainstthe package,and the productionline at a halt, all seemedset
for victory.Then, true to its In Place of Strife inspiration,the Ford management
took out an injunction against the unions. When the writs finally came to the
High Courl, Mr Justice Lane was heard to remark that 'I sigh and I sigh only
because the whole matter is not a simple matter of law. It is complicated by
what people will inevitablydo regardlessof what the law says is threat.... The
thing is coloured by a relationshipof managementand labour.'110 The 1imes,
however,which had urged matterson to a bloodyresolutionfrom the beginning,
 nmEXHAUSTION01' 'CONSENT' 267
advised lhe governmentthat 'This is the crunch.... If Governmentneeded to be
impressedabout lhe urgencyor makingunions honour agreementsand keeping
their membersundercontrol,then the time is now.'111But neitherthe government
nor the courts crunched it. By 20 March a race-savingcompromisehad been
struck, and the men returnedto work.
The Fordstrike.however,revealedthe stark choices:the state hadeither,clearly
and unambiguously,to intervene,if necessarywith the support and majesty or
somepart or the legalapparatusspecificallyredesignedfor the purpose,to enforce
the 'national will' against sectional class consciousnessand militant materi-
alism, or the defensivepower or the shop floor,especiallywhen supportedby an
official leadership,was unstoppable.The Ford strike formed a bridge between
the 'unofficial'strikescharacteristicor the 1960s,and the new waveor 'official'
strikes,which were to becomea featureor the post-1970Heath era. Above all, it
foreshadowedthe attemptby the state to recruit the law directlyin the serviceor
the managementor class struggle- a strategywhichprecipitatedone or the most
bitter periodsor class confrontationin recent memory.It marked 'the watershed
betweenthe 1960sand the 1970s'.112
Mr Heath,however,not Mr Wilsonwasdestinedto presideover the transition.
In the summer followingthe Ford settlement,the Prime Minister initiated his
'long retreat'. In June, the extraordinaryT.U.C.Congressat Croydonsupported
the T.U.C.'sProgrammefor Action against the government'sJn Place of Strife.
Mr Wilson reported 'positive progress' in his talks with the T.U.C, with only
one problem remaining:'the unconstitutionalstrike where perhapsa handfulof
wreckerscan wreck a vital sector or our export trade'. Then, at five minutes to
midnight,a 'solemn and binding' agreementreplaced the threat or compulsion.
The ditching or this final attempt at a showdownwith industrialmilitancywas
followedby a floodor wagedemands,especiallyin public-sectorindustrieswhich
had not so far been in the forefront or the wage struggle, flowing through the
breachthe more militantsectorshad opened up: the phenomenonwhich became
knownas 'the revoltor the lowerpaid' (teachers,civil servants,dustmen,hospital
ancillaryworkers)- a responseto rapid price inflation,rising unemploymentand
a period or zero growth,a rehearsal for the 'strike explosion'to followin 1970.
The sight hardenedthe heart or Mr Heath, preparinghimself in the wilderness,
with his colleagues,for a periodor open confrontationwith the workingclass.His
epitaph on In Place of Strife carried in it all the promiseor this sterner,tougher
struggleto come: 'The power,'he observed,'resideselsewhere.'
 9
The Law-and-Order Society:
Towards the 'Exceptional State'

1970:SELSDONMAN- BIRTHOFTHB 'LAW-AND-ORDER'SOCIETY

As soonas the dominantsocialgrouphas exhaustedits function,the ideological
bloc tendsto crumbleaway;then 'spontaneity'may be replacedby 'constraint'
in ever less disguised and indirect forms, culminating in outright police
measuresand coupsd'4tat. (Gramsci)1
The crisis is permanent.The Governmentis provisional.(Marx)2

On the 4 January 1970, the Su11day1imes noted: 'Amongthe incipientghettos

in Britain today,Handsworlh,Birminghamdisplaysthe classic symptoms:poor
housing.a strainededucationsystem,householdsstrugglingto makeends meet,and
few socialamenities.It also has the usualhustlers,prostitutesand ponces.Second
generationblacksare beginning10 showa resistanceto all authorily.'This prophetic
skelehwas based on Gus John's report to the RunnymedeTrust, subsequentlyto
fonn the basis of his book,BecauseThey'reBlack, writtenwith DerekHumphry.3
The articlewas headed- makinglhe by-nowrequiredlink - 'Musl HarlemCome
to Binningham?'Withina fortnight,Mr Powellhad taken it upon himselfto reply,
as it were,to the queslion.In a challengeto the ToryParty leadershipto bringthe
race questionout 'into the open ... withoutprevaricationor excuse', Mr Powell
warned that 'through its own past sins of omission', Britain was 'menaced by
a problemwhich at the present rate will by the end of the century be similar in
magnitudeto that of the United States'. Exceptas part of a vigorousrepatriation
campaign,Mr Powelladded,measuresof specialaid to high immigrantareas were
'positivelyharmfulin lheir net effect'. He referredto his prophecy,twentymonths
earlier, of racial bloodshedto come. He made no new prediclions.Instead, he
quoteda Leedssolicitor,an Under-Secretary at the HomeOfficeand 1heNewsleuer
of the ManchesterCommunityRelationsCouncil to show lhat other responsible
spokesmensharedhis viewthal 'racialviolencecouldflareup anywherein Britain'.•
A week or so earlier the Spring offensiveagainst the South AfricanSpringboks
tour opened.The LiberalM.P.,DavidSteel,who had helpedto organisea peaceful
demonstration,wassuddenlyconfrontedby 'a small,chanting,banner-wavingband
of about40 souls', who 'took up positionsoppositethe turnstiles... and proceeded
to hurl abuseof a fairlyvirulentkind at both intendingspectatorsand the four-deep
line of stationarypolicemen'.Whenhe askedone of the groupwho was in charge,
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXCEPTIONAL
STATE' 269
he receivedthe reply, 'Nobody in charge of us'. 'Irrationalprocesses,'Mr Steel
observed,'will produceiITTllional reaclions.'5
In this sharpeningclimate,lhe ToryShadowCabinetmet in secretconclaveal
Selsdon Park. There was no mistakingthe mood and spirit in which this prepa-
ration for power look place, nor the vigorous, pre-electioncrusading themes
whichemergedfromtheirdeliberations.The Su11day 1imescorrespondent,Ronald
Butt, entitledthe emergingplatfonn, 'A Soft Sell on Law and Order'.6 Here, the
American comparisons- this time with the Nixon-Agnew campaign - were
no longer indirect and implicit.The law-and-ordertheme 'enables the Party to
reassurethe silentmajorityof the publicthat it shares their concern'.The keynote
was widelydeployed.It referredto 'interferencewith the libertyof peoplegoing
about their ordinarybusinessby demonstratingminorities'.Threateningnoises-
soon to becomea scandalousand widespreadreal practice- were madeabout the
use of the conspiracycharge,a tougheningof the law of trespassand the power
of the magistracy.The demonstrationtheme was connected directly, by Butt,
with 'vandalismand the rise of organizedcrime'. Selsdon Man, however,had
another,equallyimportantface.This was the side turnedin the directionof indus-
trial and economicpolicy,whereabrasivemeasures,tied to the strict disciplineof
the marketmechanism,were proposedfor the shake-upand shake-outof British
industry- coupled,of course,with a promiseof tough actionto curb the powerof
the unions and to bring the unofficialstrike to a dead halt. Buoyedup on a wave
of popularand populistenthusiasms,the ShadowCabinetturnedto the electorate,
and took to the townsand cities of Britainin its pre-electionbarnstorm.
The impactof the law-and-ordertheme was immediate.True, as the Guardian
remarked,Mr Heath's 'law and order' was not quite PresidentNixon's- 'the right
of the citizensto walk their own streets, free of the fear of mugging,robberyor
rape'. True,the Selsdonversionwaspointedata nebulouspackageof popularfears
and stereotypes- what the Guardiancalled 'a gallimaufryof subjects- student
unrest,politicaldemonstrations,the PermissiveSociety,long hair, short hair and
perhaps in time medium-lengthhair as well'.7 True, 'to introduce conspiracy
charges for demonstrators,as some have suggested,would be a shamefulabuse
of the law....Toleranceis a two-waytraffic'But the law-and-orderthemesorches-
trated togetherin the dim, moral twilightof SelsdonPark, were not intendedfor
the comfortoft he Guardia1i 's undoubtedlyliberal,undoubtedlyminority,readers.
There was no silent majorityto be won there. The Sunday Express,on the other
hand, thought the theme powerfulenough to give it the front-pageheadline on
the Sunday followingthe Selsdon Park conclave: 'DEMO CLAMP-DOWNIF
TORIES GET BACK.'8 The crusade in the country was gaining momentum.
Lord Hailsham,whom SelsdonPark had releasedinto a renewedburst of moral
energy,linked the interruptionof high Court proceedingsby 'a group of young
hooligans', the beating to death of Michaelde Gruchy by 'a group of youths',
the rise in the proportionof offences in which firearmswere used, and the fact
that 'an increasingpart of the life of every policemanconsists of incidents of
abuse, insults and provocationnightlyhurled ... by street-comerhooligans'with
the law-and-ordertheme.This colourful scenario was entitled 'The Menace Of
The Wild Ones'. These fears, he reassured his audience, were not limited to
'imaginary women in floweredhats and prominentteeth'. Organisedcrime and
270 POLICINOTHECRISIS

violence,he suggesled, 'cannot be separated from privatedishonestyor public

demonstrationin defianceof law'. GeoffHammond,sentencedto life for 'queer-
bashing', Peter Hain,who endorsedthe diggingup of cricket pitches,'the Welsh
LanguageSocietyand all thosewho are willingto put their ownopinions... above
the law ... underminethe wholefabricof societyby challengingthe systemof law
itself on which all of us in the end depend.'9 The constructionof nightmareshad
commencedin earnest.Withina week,the futureLord Chancellormadea savage
auack on Labour for 'presidingcomplacently'over the biggestcrime waveof the
century.He invitedthe HomeSecretaryto declarethat 'he wouldnot paroledelib-
erate killers or assailantsof police,warders,innocentwitnessesand bystanders'.
'The permissiveand lawless sociely,'he added for good measure.effectingyet
anotherstartlingconvergence,'is a by•productor Socialism.''°'These questions
of lawand order,'Mr Heathtold his Panoramaaudience,'are or immenseconcern
to ... almost every man and woman in this country.'11 Or soon would be, with a
little help fromtheir friends.Lord Hailshamadded: 'The themeis the safetyor the
citizenas he livesin his ownhome withhis wireand children,as he goes aboutthe
streets,as he attendshis placesor amusement... as he triesto accumulateproperty
for his familyand his old age free from fraud, as he works,plays and votes.'12
In thisatmosphere,whichthe mostmeasuredcommentatorscouldonly describe
as one or mounting,often carefully organised,public hysteria, the students at
WarwickUniversityoccupiedthe administrationbuildingsand began to consult
the personal and political files which this 'community or scholars' had been
keepingon them; and a group of Cambridgestudentsnoisilyinterrupteda private
dinner being held to celebrate the success of the Greek colonels at the Garden
House Hotel. This renewal or student protest moved Mr Heath to contribute
another brick or two to the constructionor the populist crusade. He traversed
in his speech the whole terrain or authority (unions, universities,government)
versusdisorder(strikes,sit•ins)in a powerfulcouplingor the two great thematics
of SelsdonMan: 'Great factories,railways,airportsare broughtto a standstillby
strike action.... Great seats or learning ... are disrupted by rebelliousstudents.'
Both,however,descantedtowardsa political,indeed,an electoralconclusion:'We
[i.e. the Conservatives)are not going to becomea nation of pushovers.'13 It was a
threat he intendedto honour.
Earlierin the year Mr Powellhad re-emergedas anotheror the keysignifiersor
the crisis. In Aprilhe called the teachers,on strike for higherpay, 'Highwaymen'
who 'threatened the fabric or law and order'.•~A week before the election, at
Northfieldin Birmingham,he warnedor 'the invisibleenemy within' - students
'destroying'universitiesand 'terrorising'cities, 'bringing down' governments;or
the power of the 'modern form' of the mob - the demonstration- in making
governments 'tremble'; the success or 'disorder, deliberately fomented for its
own sake' in the near•destructionor civil governmentin Northern Ireland; and
the accumulationor 'combustible material' of 'another kind' (i.e. race) in this
country, 'not without deliberate intention in some quarters'. The government's
capitulalionto the anti•apartheid'scampaign againsl lhe South African cricket
lour was pinpointed: 'It may have been a happy chance that this particular
triumph or organiseddisorder and anarchist brain•washingcoincided with the
commencementor the GeneralElectioncampaign.For many people it lifted the
 TOWARDSTHE EXCEPTIONALSTATE'
0
271
veil; for the first time. theycaughta glimpseof the enemyand his power.'1$Earlier
that week, in Wolverhampton,he had implied that the immigrationfigures had
been so consistentlyunderestimatedthat 'one begins to wonder if the Foreign
Officewas the only departmentof state into which enemiesof this countrywere
infiltrated'.There is little need to reiteratehere how discordantthemesare being
plottedtogether,howthe motifsof organiseddisorderand an 'enemy within', with
its ambiguoushint of subversionand treason,are serving to raise the nemesisof
anarchyto the levelof the state itself. It is important,however,to observehow the
racequestionhad been thematisedat a higherlevelin Mr Powell'snew scenario.
The problem,he asserted at Northfield,had been deliberately 'miscalled race'.
Race was being used to mystifyand confuse the people.The real target was the
great liberal conspiracy,inside governmentand the media, which held ordinary
peopleto ransom,makingthem fearfulto speak the truth for fear of being called
'racialist', and 'literally made to say black is white'. It was race - but now as the
pivotof 'this processof brain-washingby repetitionof manifestabsurdities',race
as a secret weapon 'deprivingthem of their wits and convincingthem that what
theythoughtwas right is wrong': in short,race as part of the conspiracyof silence
and blackmailagainst the silent majority.The intense populism of this line of
attack fell on eager ears, especiallyin Mr Powell's stamping-groundin the West
Midlands.
It was 'the enemy and his power' - The Enemy, and his accomplice, the
'conspiracyof LiberalCauses'; the hard conspiratorialcentreand its soft, woolly-
headed, deluded periphery- around which Mr Powell's penetratingrhetoric in
these two speechescircled. It was useless to enquire preciselythe shape of this
'enemy'. The point preciselywas his proteanquality:everywhereand, seemingly,
nowhere.The nation's existence was threatened,the country 'under attack by
forces which aim at the actual destructionof our nation and society', as surely
as when ImperialGermanywas buildingdreadnoughts;but the nation continued,
mistakenly,to 'visualisehim in the shape of armoureddivisions,or squadronsof
aircraft'. They failed to see his commonpresence,now 'in his student manifes-
tation', nowin 'disorder,deliberatelyfomentedfor its ownsake as an instrumentof
power'in the provinceof Ulster,perhapsin the veryheartof governmentitself.16 In
dispersingthe 'enemy' to everycomer and aspectof nationallife, and simultane-
ouslyconcentratingandcrystallisinghis proteanappearancesin the singlespectre
of 'the conspiracywithin', Mr Powell, in his usual extraordinaryway, distilled
the essenceof that movementby which the generalisedpanic of a nation and the
organisedcrusade of the populists issue at one crucial momentof time, into the
ideologicalfigure of a 'law-and-ordercrusade'. It is quite critical, however,to
bear in mind that, thoughfew other speakersin the first half of 1970achievedso
all-inclusivea range and powerof referenceas Mr Powelldid on these occasions,
he was only bringingto a conclusiona processto which many,in and outsidethe
ConservativeShadowleadership,had contributed,articulatingwhat many rank-
and-tilemembersof the 'silent majorily' were thinking,feelingand calling for in
those terrifyingmonths. It would be altogethermistakento attributethe birth of
a 'law-and-order'society to Mr Powell. Its midwiveswere more numerousand
varied. Mr Powell simply saluted its appearancewith an astonishingdisplay of
rhetoricalfireworks,sealed its existencewith tire and brimstone.
272 POLICINGTHECRISIS

It was the weekendbefore the election;and Mr Wilson,whoseunflappability

on these occasions knows no bounds, still harboured the illusion that Labour
could win....
The June election in 1970marks the officialtip of the pendulum,the passage
of positions,the formal appearanceon the stage of the 'theatre of polities', of a
profoundshift in the relationsof force betweenthe contendingclasses, and thus
in the balancebetweenconsentand coercionin the state, whichhad beeninitiated
at a deeper level in the previousyears. This shift in the characterof 'hegemonic
domination',or, better, the deepeningin the crisis of hegemony,which assumes
a qualitativelynew shape after 1970,must not be missed,nor its specificfeatures
misreador oversimplified.
Labour had preserved the parliamentary illusion that, governing with the
consent of the trade-unionmovementin its pocket, it could carry off discipline
'by voluntaryconsent'wherethe Toriescould not.The Toriesknewbetter- partly
becausethis optionwas not open to them.Butthis importantdifferencein political
perspectiveand in the compositionof the social alliancesfavouredby each party
should not concealthe fact that, from about 1967onwards,the state-whichever
politicalcolourationit assumed, and in either a soft-sellor hard-selldisguise-
was, structurallyon a collisionpath with the labour movementand the working
class.
This brings us to what may seem a paradoxicalfeatureof the passage which
the lune election marks.Almost to the edge or the election itself, the pace of the
Toryreturnlo power,was set by the law-and-ordercampaign.In the days immedi-
ately before,however,the traditionalissuesof Britishelectoralpolitics-inflation,
prices, the economy,wages,etc. - come roaring back into prominence;and the
election itselfseems to be decided,after all, on more sensible,calm, rationaland
reasonablecriteria.It is not the first, and by no meansthe last time that a 'scare'
pre-electionmood suddenly gives way to more stable electoralissues and, once
the poll is over, the 'panic' seems to have been inconsequential.Was the whole
law-and-orderbuild-up,then, merely 'sound and fury, signifyingnothing'? It is
true, as HugoYoungin the Sunday 1imes noted, that though the Tory manifesto
offered 'a general deliverance'from all manneror threat, it also marked 'a clear
retreat from the trumpelingsout of SelsdonPark'.11 Such discrepanciesbetween
the reality or the danger posed, the generalityof the way it is perceivedand the
remediesproposedare a feature of moral panic, which, preciselyfeeds on such
gaps in credibility.However,it is true that no swift and sweeping'law-and-order'
measureswere taken by the returninggovernment.As righteousindignantslike
Mr Heath assumedthe mantle of First Minister,apostlesof fundamentalismlike
Mr Powell retired to the back benches,and moral rearmerslike Lord Ha.ilsham
donned wig and robe and approachedthe Woolsack,it was easy lo imaginethat
the whole hairy episode had been nothing more than a Spring divertissementto
keep the Partysupportersin good heart.
This may be deceptive.First, we must remembera 'peculiarity'or the English
route:the Englishtendencyto do softly softly,pragmaticallyand piece-mealwhat
other countries do in one fell, dramatic swoop;just as Britain rather sidled up
to her '1968', so she edged, bit by bit, towards a 'law-and-order'mood, now
advancing,nowretreating,movingin a crab-likeway,sidewaysintoArmageddon.
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXCEPTIONAL
STATll' 273

Second,the tempo of reactiondoes not slacken;it quickens- more significantly,

it changesdirectionand character.In this second periodthere beginsthe regular,
immediateescalationof everyconflictfulissue up the hierarchyof control to the
levelof the state machine- each issue is instantlyappropriatedby the apparatuses
of politics,government,thecourts,the policeor the law.What,beforeJanuary,was
a spiralling-upwardsmovement- localcrusadingpushingthe authoritiestowards
increasedrepression- becomes,after the mid-1970tip-over,an automaticand
immediatepincer movement:popular moral pressurefrom below and the thrust
of restraintand control from above happen togethe,:The state itself has become
mobilised- sensitisedto the emergenceof the 'enemy' in any of his manifold
disguises; the repressiveresponse is at the ready, quick to move in, moving
formally,through the law, the police, administrativeregulation,public censure,
and at a developingspeed.This is what we meanby the slow 'shift to control', the
movetowardsa kind of closurein the apparatusesof state controland repression.
The decisivemechanismsin the managementof hegemoniccontrol in the period
after June 1970are regularlyand routinelybased in the apparatusesof constraint.
This qualitativeshift in the balanceand relationsof force is a deep change,which
all the tokensigns of moderationand retreat,responsibilityand reasonablenessin
the councilsof governmentshould not, for a moment,obscure.
Aboveall (and besidesfacilitatingthe routinisationof repression),the law-and-
ordercampaignof 1970had the overwhelmingsingleconsequenceof legitimating
the recourseto the law, to constraintand statutorypower,as the main, indeedthe
only, effectivemeans left of defendinghegemonyin conditionsof severecrisis.
It toned up and groomedthe society for the extensiveexerciseof the repressive
side of state power. It made this routinisationof control normal, natural, and
thus right and inevitable.It legitimatedthe duty of the state itself, in the crucial
areas of conflict, to 'go campaigning'.The first target was Mr Powell's forces
of 'organised disorder and anarchist brainwashing'.In the ensuing months the
full force of the repressiveside of the state is openly and systematicallyturned
against this anarchist disorderly flank. But, less obviously,the licensingof the
state to campaignhad a 'pay-off' in areas whichat first sight seemeddistantfrom
the enemy of anarchistdisorder:namely,in the attempt,now gatheringsteam, to
discipline,restrain and coerce, to bring, also within the frameworkof law and
order,not only demonstrators,criminals,squattersand dope addicts,but the solid
ranks of the workingclass itself.This recalcitrantclass - or at least its disorderly
minorities- had also to be harnessedto 'order'. If whatconcernsus here is not a
simpleunmaskingof a temporary'conspiracyof the state' but its deeperand more
structuralmovements,then it is of criticalimportanceto understandjust precisely
what it is which connects,behind all the appearances,the openingof an official
law-and-ordercampaign in January 1970, and the publicationof the Industrial
RelationsBill in the closingweeks of December.
What had really united the ConservativePartyin the pre-electionperiodwas less
the rhetoricof disorder,but rather a more traditionallyphrasedemphasison 'the
needto stand firm', not to give in, to restoreauthorityto government.This theme
of nationalunity and authorityprovidedthe all-importantpositivefaceto the more
negativethemes of 'law and order'. Shorlly before the election, Mr Heath had
274 POUCINO'rHECRISIS

approachedthe electorate with the affirmationthat 'The ConservativeParty is

the party of one nation ... the next ConservativeGovernmentwill ... safeguard
the unity of the nation through honest governmentand sound policies.'The aim
was to reaffirmthe Nation as unifiedaround a common- and moderate- set of
goals, which the Heathgovernmentbest embodiedand expressed.All those who
stood ouLsidethis 'trade union of the nation' were stigmatisedas 'extremists'.
The minorityactivitiesof squauersand demonstratorsmostvividlyembodiedthis
tendency.But the growing 'extremism•of working-classmilitancy- strikingly
borne in upon the new governmentby a successionof new wage demandsfrom
dockers,miners, local authoritymanual workers,electricity-supplyworkersand
dustmen - was undoubtedlythe larger and more deep-seatedtrend. It directly
threatenedthe new Heath economicstrategy.II posed a direct challenge to the
authority of government;and - with the speclre of May 1968 not yet banished
from the collectiveCabinet mind - it awakenedfears of the possibilityof the
deadly 'sludent-worker'alliance. It was against this flank that, in the event, the
governmentturnedits 'law-and-order'campaign.Withinsix weeksof takingoffice,
the new Ministerfor Employment,Mr Carr, told the C.B.I, that the government
would support employers who faced strike action over wage demands. The
Chancellor,Mr Barber,told the T.U.C. in no uncertainterms that 'there has got
to be a steadyand progressivecoolingdown.From nowon employershavegot to
stand firm.'18 Then Mr Carr sketchedout the elementsof the IndustrialRelations
Bill, with soothingthoughtsthat, after all the trade unionswere responsibleinsti-
lutions, would not willinglyacl against the law of the land, that legal sanctions
were envisagedas being used only in rare cases, and that personalliabilitywould
only arise whereindividualsacted outsidetheir union's conlroland authority.
This applicationto the class struggleof the thin edge of the legal wedge was
overwhelminglysupportedby the media - for example {to take the two papers
we watched most closely) by both the Sunday Express and the Sunday Tmres:
the former in its hystericaland instinctiveway, the latter in its more sober and
rationalvoice.Both acceptedthe government'sparadigm'explanation'for indus-
trial unrest:while the SundayExpren hystericallysaw red militantsat the bottom
of every strike - in the docks, at Pilkingtons,at the pitheads - and the arrival
of the 'suitcase militant', the Sunday Times, followingthe publication of the
Industrial RelationsBill, quietly, but decisively,put its editorial weight behind
the legislation,and in a manner wholly in line with the conspiratorialversion
fast becomingreceivedpoliticaldoctrine: 'The identificationof militantsas both
prime moversof inflationand the prime targetsof the Bill has now been clearly
spelledout.'19
It is difficult, in the calculus of coercion,to measure preciselythe combined
effect of the 'law-and-order'lead fromon high, the sharpeningof the legalengine
against the workingclass from within the heart of the Cabinet itself, the steady
percolationof a conspiratorialreadingof Britain's 'troubles' lhroughthe media,
and the slow but sure escalationof control against potentiallydisorderlytargets
on the ground. There is no evidenceof a concertedcampaign;but the over-all
trajectoryis unmistakable.
In July, Mr Justice Melford Stevenson handed down jail terms of nine to
eighteenmonthson six, and borstalsentenceson two, of the Cambridgestudents
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXCEPTIONAL
STAl'E' 275
accused in the Garden House demonstrationin Cambridge against the Greek
colonels.This was the first post-electionoccasionin which the full force of the
law was seen in operationagainstpoliticaldemonstrations,one of the focal points
of the 'law-and-order'campaign.The indicationsit gave were not propitious.Of
the400 participating,sixty wereidentified(withthe help of the proctors),but only
a representative,exemplaryfifteenwere charged.The chargesagainstthem were
made,progressively,more serious in the period beforetrial. And thoughthe jury
only convictedthose against whom some specificunlawfulact could be proven,
the convictedfirst offenderswere, smartly and summarily,put away.20 Stephen
Sedley,one of the defencelawyers,wrote,after the failureof the appeal:

The police and the DPP have been encouragedby this trend to strike increas-
ingly hard through the court at those they believeto representa threat to law
and order-demonstrators,BlackPoweractivists,squatters,students.This trend
towardspoliticallymotivatedprosecutionshas showna distinct upswing. 1970
has seen the high point so far, but there is probablyworseto come.21
Sedley's reference to 'Black Power activists' and the law was no casual aside.
Black-powermilitancywas nodoubtadvancedin Britainby the steadypunctuation
of news from the UnitedStates.But the rising temperatureof race did not require
any transfusionsof energyfrom across the water,and it was no processof simple
imitationwhich broughtthe seriouserosion of black-white relationsthundering
back into the headlinesin the secondhalf of 1970.This deteriorationwas nothing
new, as we have seen; what was new was the fact that the general race-relations
crisis now assumed,almost withoutexception,the particularform of a confron-
tation between the black communityand the police. John Lambert's judicious
survey of this decliningsituation was publishedin 1970.22 It was followedby
Derek Humphry's careful but well-documentedand damning account, Police
Power and Black People,23 which clearly demonstratedthe sudden, sharp rise
to confrontationwhich came to a head in the summerof 1970,and extended,on
an ever-risingcurve into 1971 and 1972.The LiverpoolCommunityRelations
Council,establishedin June 1970,was almostimmediatelyoverwhelmedby black
complaintsof harassmentby the police. An hour-longprogrammeon this topic
by Radio Merseyside,which referred to the fact that 'in certain police stations,
particularlyin the city centre, brutality and drug planting and the harassingof
minoritygroups takes place regularly' passed withoutconsidereddefenceby the
local police.z.,i There were clashes between blacks and the police, in August, in
Leeds,in MaidaVale,and at the CaledonianRoadstation,among others.Notting
Hill became the scene of a running battle. The police made raid after raid on
the MangroveRestaurant,which - one constabletold the court - 'as far as I am
concerned'was the headquartersof 'the BlackPowerMovement'.(Askedin court
if he knew what black power was, he replied: 'I know roughlywhat black power
is - it is a movementplannedto be very militantin this country.'That seemedlo
be enough.)
In October,the BritishBlackPantherscalleda conferenceto complainof what
they believedto be a consciouscampaignto '"pick ofr' Black militants'and to
'intimidate, harass and imprison black people preparedto go out on the streets
276 POLICINOTHECRISIS

and demonstrate'.The charge was repudiatedby ScotlandYard;but, as Humphry

remarks,'the commendablehigh-mindednessof the Yard'sPressBureaudoes not
accordwith the realityof the situation'.2~ There was no let up of the pressure.
Equally ominousmoves were afoot in the areas of legislationand the courts.
The Tory concern with civil disturbancehad led the Shadow Cabinet to invite
Sir Peter Rawlinson, the Shadow Attorney-General,to frame new 'trespass'
legislation'to combatthe excessesof demonstrators'.Z6 Few lawyersenvied him
his task; but some at least - had they been able to foresee the outcome of his
failure - might have wished him better luck. For the failure to improveon the
law of trespass- clearly, in this case, intendedas a legal deterrentagainst such
exploitsas the activitiesof Peter Hain and his anti-SouthAfricandemonstrators,
and the rapid spread of the squattingcampaignto Southwarkand other parts of
south-eastLondon27- did not in the least deter the government'sresolve.Instead,
it strengthened- and widened it. The subsequentreactivationof the ancient law
of con1piracy,the principal fonn in which legal coercion came finally 10 be
impressedupon the protest movementsand industrialmilitancyin the following
two or three years, was the direct consequenceof the relativefailureof this first
stage in the moulding of an alternativelegal 'engine of government'. During
1970,it was the givingof a new lease of life to the ancient commonlaw charges
of 'unlawfuland riotousassembly'whichprovidedthe 'law-and-order'campaign
with its first politicalscapegoats- the Cambridgestudentsgoaled at the Garden
Housetrial.
Yet,if the 'GardenHouse'was,fromthis pointof view,the mostominoustrial of
the year,'law and order' also had another,less political,meaningin the courtroom,
as the followingreportdemonstrates:'A DETERRENTsentenceis not meantto fit
the offender,it is meantto fit the offence,'said Mr. JusticeAshworthin theAppeal
Court on Monday.'When metingout a deterrentsentenceii is idle 10 go into the
backgroundof each individual',echoedthe Lord Chief Justice,Lord Parker.With
thesewordstheirLordshipsconfinneduniformsentencesof threeyearson eighteen
Birminghamyouthswhohad beeninvolvedin gang fights.Therewas no regardfor
the fact that three of them had no previousconviction,that noneof them had been
found with an offensiveweaponand that the police had admittedthey had failed
10 round-upthe ringleaders.Most important,perhaps,one of the youths had been
receivingpsychiatrictreatmentfor a monthbeforethe fight.28
If everything in 1970 moves up to the threshold of 'law', some commen-
tators were already pointingforwardto the thresholdwhich was increasinglyto
dominatethe 1970s:the thresholdof violence.Asking'who is safe in this worldof
violence?',AngusMaudelisted examplesfrom right aroundthe worldto demon-
strate his thesis that we now inhabiteda 'new worldof violence':the throwingof
two C.S. canistersin the House of Commons;the 'culling loose' with a tommy
gun by Puerto Ricans in the U.S. Congress;the Garden House riot; Bernadette
Devlin in Ulster; the banningof the SouthAfricancricket tour; and 'the series of
airline outrages and kidnappingsof WesternAmbassadorsin South America'.29
Violence, he added, was a self-perpetuatingmindless disease, used 'only too
often' by 'weak minorities' to 'blackmail the majorities'. In 1970, in the name
of the majority- still unfortunatelytoo silent- the slate organiseditself to strike
back.
 TOWARDSTHI, 'ru<CEPTIONAL
STATE' 277
1971-2;THE MOBILISATIONOF THE LAW
The Heathgovernmentinitiateda 'new course' in the managementof the capitalist
crisis - one sharply marked out from the Wilsonian strategy of 'voluntary
restraint',and far moreattunedto the primitivesentimentsgerminatingin the Tory
Party than to the solid centre of the financialand industrialbourgeoisie.It was an
adventuristpath, aimed at a 'final solution'to the Britishcrisis. Essentiallyit had
three prongs.The first involvedsetting the face of British capitalismfirmly and
irrevocablyon the road to Europeanintegration,and consequentlytakinga certain
distancefromthe 'specialrelationship'with the UnitedStateswhichhad provided
the corner-stoneof Wilson'sforeigneconomicpolicy.loThe secondprongwas the
economicstrategyfor Britishcapitalismat home.HereMr Heathplanneda robust
and abrasivelineof attack.Labourhadtried,throughthe IndustrialReorganisation
Corporation,to carve more effective and competitiveeconomicgiants by way
of a policy of inspiredmergersand monopolies.From the Heath viewpoint,this
had only servedto protectthe weak and uncompetitivesectors.Marketforces,he
believed,must be set free to do their dirty work; if necessary,'lame ducks' must
sink inlObankruptcyand liquidationso that 'the great majority... whodo not need
a hand, who are quite capableof lookingafter their interestsand only demand Lo
be allowedto do so', could forge ahead and expandproductively(as Mr Davies,
the instrumentof this side of the Heath policy,so lucidlystated it in the Upper
Clyde Shipbuildersdebate).l1 It followedthat the whole intricatemechanismfor
'hannonising' capital,labour and the state, the centrepieceof economicstrategy
throughoutthe 1960s,should be abandoned,and if possibledismantled.Muchto
the astonishmentand chagrinof thosemanagersof the politicalinterestsof capital
- new and old - who had spent so much of their time in and out of Downing
Street during the 1960s,Mr Heath did not meet the T.U.C. and C.B.I, in open
bargaininguntil the middle of 1972,when the regressionto a revampedlaissei-
faire philosophyhad begun to go badly adrift. To the disbelief of The 1imes,
the C.B.I., the T.U.C, the NationalEconomicDevelopmentCouncil,prominent
figures like Fred Catherwood,Sir Frank Figgueres,many Whitehalleconomic
civil servants,the FinancialTimes,the Bank of England,and even membersof
Mr Heath's own Cabinet like ReginaldMaudling,the central institutionallinks,
pioneeredby the state for the managementof the economiclife of latecapitalism,
wereallowed,temporarily,themselvesto go 'into liquidation'.Instead,in a heady,
eleventh-hourscamper for growth - at whateverinflationarycost - Mr Heath
beganto lift the restrictions,promisingto dismantlethe wholeplanningapparatus.
But the strategy of voluntaryrestraint had been the principal means by which
(once the short interludeof post-warprosperitywas over) the pressureon wages
and profitsand the politicaldemandsof the workingclass had been disciplined.
What now would hold labour in line? This brings us to the third prong. Here,
the economicpressureof labour must be containedby allowingunemployment,
inflation,rising prices and an expanded money supply to rip through.But most
crucial of all labourwas to be disciplinedby the law - a tight frameworkof legal
constraints in the industrial-relationsfield, backed by the courts and fines; an
attack on picketing; if necessary,a few exemplaryarrests. In order to prepare
the ground for this lurch into the coerciveregulationof labour,there would have
to be a tough, brutal display of 'firm government':in the last resort one or two
278 POLICINGTHECRISIS

slrategicshow-downs.Twosectorsof organisedlabourstood in the front line: the

power workersand the Post Officeworkers.One or other wouldhaveto be made
an exampleof.
It wasa high-riskstrategy- the sort whichevokedfromthe morecautiousvoices
in the rulingclass like The 1imes, the paradoxicaljudgementthat Mr Heath was
destinedto be both 'the best and the worstConservativePrime Ministerwe have
ever had'.32 Later events- includingboth Mr Heath's subsequentconversionand
U-turn,and the return,under the Wilsonand Callaghangovernmentspost-1974to
'social contracting'- suggestthat it was also fundamentallyout of line with the
kind of state and governmentstrategieswhich a weak Britishcapitalismrequires.
Both its economicand politicalconsequenceswere soon revealedto be disastrous
for capital.To consolidatehis rather insubstantialsocial base, Heath was obliged
to give back huge tax reliefs. He failed to lower prices 'at a stroke' - indeed, in
these months inflation began to accelerate at fever pace. Price rises weakened
Britain's competitivepositionfurther,and bankruptciesproduceda startlingrise
in unemployment,beforethe longed-forproductivesurgeever appeared.The only
sector to gain from the new release of market forces was the speculativewing
of finance capital -producing vast, overnight,speculativecapital gains and an
incomparableproperty-marketbonanza:a pay-offwhich blackened'capitalism's
unacceptableface' without in any way touchingthe core of its economiccrisis.
The Heathgambledid not work.
On the politicalfront, however,1971opened more auspiciouslyfor Mr Heath.
The power workerswork to rule at the end of 1970had been laid low, not least
of all by the media, which had been 'more concernedto assail the viewerswith
emotionover dialysis machines,incubatorsand old ladiesdying of hypothermia
than to discoverthe factsof the situationor to demonstrate... that the union went
to considerabletrouble to see that hospitalswere affectedas little as possible'.33
The postmen submitted a claim for a 15 per cent increase in wages but they
wereisolated,could not bring the communicationservicesto a halt, and, after
holdingout for forty-fourdays, gave in. In the same momentFord workerslost
their struggleover 'parity' and had to accedeto a settlementconstructedwith the
help of Mr Jack Jones, Mr Scanlonand Henry Ford II. By the spring, the ground
had been cleared on the back of these defeats, for the centrepieceof the Heath
strategy:the IndustrialRelationsBill.
The direct attack on the working class and on organised labour which the
/11dustrialRelationsAct representedhad a profoundeffecton the sharpeningclass
policy of the ~ilson government
had
by a
out in opposition,and thus, objectively,tilted the fulcrumof officialtrade-union
politicsto the left. It now becameroutinemedia practiceto bring the whole trade
unionmovement(includingmoderateleaderships)into the orbit of the 'extremist'
and 'wreckers' stigma, including a reluctantT.U.C., obliged by the logic of its
situationto proposedemonstrationsagainst,and 'days of non-co-operation'with,
the proposed legislation.The February anti-IndustrialRelations Act demon-
stration was an immense,record-breakingaffair.That model of moderation,Sir
Fred Hayday,describedthe Marchdemonstratorsas 'anarchistsand professional
 TOWARDSTHll'llXCf.PTIONALSTATE' 279

rowdies... promotingthe downfallof law and order'. The government- Norman

Buchan, Labour M.P., was later lo complain - 'has made the class struggle
respectable',:wMr Heath pressedon.
The lndust,-ialRelationsAct required the official registrationof unions, with
finesfor non-completion;it underminedthe principleof theclosedshop;ii defined
a wide and ambiguousarea of 'unfair industrialpractices' - by which ii meant
'strikes' - and hedged about with conditions,delays and potentiallegal actions
the traditionalright of workerslo withdrawtheir labour.Aboveall it established
the IndustrialRelationsCourt, with Sir John Donaldsonin command,as the key
'engine' for the disciplinedreform of labour.
The mobilisationof legalinstrumentsagainstlabour,politicaldissentand alter-
native life-styles,all seemed to be aimed at the same general purpose:to bring
about byfiat what could no longer be won by consent - the disciplinedsociety.
In 1971the whole society is thus progressivelypreoccupiedwith - rivetedby-
the questionof the law.This is only in a limitednumberof cases the law in what
one mightcall its routineoperation.II involvedalso the framingof new laws;the
dredging up of ancient statutes and activatingthem in new settings; the appli-
cation of laws which, in more permissivetimes, had been liberallyinterpretedor
allowedto lapse; and the wideningof certain crucial legal tenns of reference.It
involveda tougheningin the actual practicaladministrationof the law - longer,
exemplarysentences;the use of bail and costs to discouragethose charged in
the developmentof their defence; an extension of the arm of the law through
administrativeprocedures,and a bias in favourof police and prosecutionin the
interpretationof the judges' rules.l5 It involveda widening and tougheningof
the whole 'anticipatory'use of the police- the activatingof the SpecialSquads,
increasedsurveillanceand information-gatheringby the Special Branch, dawn
raids, heavyquestioning,the use of 'verbals' which left doubts whenproducedin
court,restrictionson the freedomof assembly,strong policingof demonstrations,
the free use of warrants,the use of suspectedchargesto 'sweep' wholegroupsand
sectionsof the population,the collectionof literatureand privatedocumentson
flimsyexcuses.:1&This more-than-normal,more-than-routineuse of the repressive
legalinstrumentsof the state precipitateda changein its wholemodeof operation,
leadingoverallto somethingapproachingthe progressivecorruptionof the legal
apparatus in the interests of political necessity,and the steady erosion of civil
liberties,judicialequalityand the rule of law beforethe morecompellingforceof
raisond'itat. No doubt, as in the Watergateperiod in the United States (which,
despite its softer form, this period in Britain closely resembles), this steady
corruptionof the formal 'checks and balances' of the capitaliststate was under-
taken from the 'highest' of motives- the belief that conspiracymust be met by
conspiracy.Indeed, this was the organisingviewpointand the legal framework
withinwhichthis degenerationtook place: the idea of conspiracy.
Rudi Dutschke,the Germanstudentleaderconvalescingin Cambridgefrom an
attack on his life, was, in fact, a1Taignedand tried before a tribunal,not a court;
the tribunaloftensat in secretsession,fromwhichDutschkeand his counselwere
bothexcluded;hearingevidencefrom un-namedand unidentifiedpeoplewho had
clearly been spying on him. The visits to him from students and friends were
adjudgedto have 'far exceedednormalsocialactivities'- whateverthoseare. Not
280 POLICJNOTHECRISIS

only was Dutschkeexpelled,but, on the basis of this precedent(whicheven the

Attorney-Generalsaid had to be gone through 'whether one found it attractive
or not'), lhe immigrationappeals procedurewas scrapped in cases of political
militantsand thosesuspectedof urban terrorism- the beginningof that long slide
which was to end in 1974with the occasionalsuspensionof habeas corpus and
the Preventionof TerrorismAct.37
During the liberal interlude of the mid-1960s,the law concerning pornog-
raphy (the new Obscene Publications Act) had been allowed to lie ranow, and
the boundariesand limits of this murky area left very much open to practical
localenforcement:whatCox describesas 'a guerillawarbetweenlocalpoliceand
privatedo-gooderson the one side, and radical bookshopsand the liberalliterary
establishmenton the other'.JBBut as the strugglebetweenthe moralguardiansand
the counter-cultureescalatedinto full-scale warfare,the 'revolt against permis-
siveness'(as the Archbishopof Canterburynamed it) assumeda more organised
shape, and took the more tangibleform of an attack on a general state of 'moral
pollution'.In August,the publisherof the little Red Schoolbookwas convictedby
Lambeth magistrates.The ObscenePublicationsSquad raided the underground
press regularly during this period, leaning on them and their printers, seizing
letters, subscriptionfiles and anythingelse which looked incriminating.In the
middleof the year the sentencesagainstthe lnternatio11alTm1esfor the charge of
conspiringto corrupt the public morals were confirmedby the Court of Appeal.
In July, the editors of Oz were broughtinto court on the same charge in relation
to their schoolchildren'sissue, Oz 28. 'There has to be,' the Daily Telegraph
informedits readers,quoting a senior policeman,'constant police interest in all
these publicationsbecause of the volume of public complaintand the implica-
tions of these magazines.We suspectthat extremeleft-wingactivitiesare behind
the campaign.'39 Mr Maude had previouslydeliveredhimselfof the considered
view that 'extreme partisansof sexual freedom were dedicated to the complete
destructionof all standards,authorityand institutions'."°It stretchesthe imagi-
nation somewhatto conceiveof RichardNevilleand his co-editorsas unravelling
the whole skein of bourgeoissociety: and, in the Oz cause clllbre, the jury in
fact threwout the conspiracycharge,thoughwhilethe editors were remandedfor
medicalevidencebeforebeingsentencedon othercharges,'their hair was forcibly
cut by Wandsworthwarders'.41
Thus the law,in its differentbranches,came to be activelyrecruitedto complete
the informalpoliticalwork of censorshipand control. It was accompaniedby a
groundswellof populistand grass-rootsreaction.In 1971,behindthe legalengine
of a repressivestate machineworkingat full throttle,the moralguardiansappear,
once more, and the two begin to mesh - the beginningsof an organisedmoral
backlash, a law-and-ordercrusade. This convergenceis symbolised at many
differentpoints.Lord Hailsham,who had helpedto pioneersuch a crusadefrom
outside the legal apparatus,was now installedin its highest legal office, as Lord
Chancellor.At the symbolicpinnacleof thejuridical complexstood a figurewho
throughoutthe 1960shad stubbornlyinsisted,with a transparentand unswerving
senseof his ownmoralrectitude,that thesecomplexmatterscould be bestgrasped
by their reductionto a few simple moralhome truths. It was symbolisedat other
points:for example,in the Festivalof Lightmarchearly in 1971,jointly organised
 TOWARDSTH6 '6XC6PTIONALS'rAT6' 281
by the ChiefConstableof Lancashireand the Bishopof Blackburn,who appeared
at the head of 10,000men (no women)in what the Sunday Timesfillinglycalled
the 'Law and Holy Order March'.42 Many church and civic groups of a tradi-
tionalist inclinationrallied in the streets in this crusade of righteousness.When
MalcolmMuggeridgeaddresseda similargatheringthe followingyear in London,
he describedits purposeas making'the relativelyfew peoplewho are responsible
for this moral breakdownof our society' know 'they are pined against, not just
a few reactionaries,but all the people who have this light'.43 Muggeridge,arch
cynic of the 1950s,made a brilliant, if belated career out of castigatingthe evil
moralinfluenceof television011teJevision.Belterlate than never!
It was not only those with a practisedeye for the politicalresonanceof moral
issues, like Lord Hailsham and Mr Maude, who addressed themselvesto the
connection between moral order and 'law and order'. The National Viewers
and ListenersAssociation,Mrs Whitehouse's organisation,had been gradually
wideningits campaigningrange to take in the larger questionsof pornography
and sex education.In the Association'shousejournal, Viewersand Usteners,Mrs
Whitehousespeculatedthat 'obscenity in the paperbacksand magazinesand on
the motionpicturescreen' was 'a basic and contribulingfactorto violence';" the
Autumn issue of Viewersand Listenersargued that 'The "PermissiveSociety",
with its much vaunted "freedom", is now seen for what ii is - a bitter and
deslructivething.The arts are degraded,law is held in contemptand sport fouled
by outbreaksof vandalismand violence.The nationalpurse takes the strain of
a health service overburdenedwith increasingabortion, drug addiction,mental
disturbance,alcoholismand an epidemicof venerealdisease.'~~The increasingly
overtly politicalnature of this moral backlashis evidencedby the targets about
which Mrs Whitehousepublicly protested:they now includedall those groups
which 'might wantto destroysociety',..,,Jerry Rubinand the Hippies,~ 1 Bernadette
Devlinand TariqAli.411
We have commentedearlieron the particularrole which sectionsof the entre-
preneurial middle class and the 'traditionalist' petty bourgeoisieplayed in the
1960sin the articulationof grass-rootsmoraloutrage.In the I970s, moralprotest
ceases to be a minorityand fringe affair, and wins really massivepublicity in
all quarters of the press and television.Anyone who reads Mrs Whitehouse's
autobiography,Who Does She Think She Js?Wmust be struck, not only by the
good lady's indefatigableenergy and commitment,but by the enormousnumber
of public occasionson which she was called upon to advocateher views in the
1970-1period,the publicityshe attractedas wellas the prominentfiguresshe won
to her cause. Her autobiographyis dedicatedto The Association'sfirst Chairman,
the MidlandsM.P.,SamesDance, whose viewswere on the far right even of the
Heath ConservativeParty. The first conventionof the Associationin 1966 had
been addressedby William Deedes, ConservativeM.P.,later to be in charge of
informationin the Heathgovernmentand presentlyeditorof the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Muggeridgehad been, throughout,a constantand close adviser('Destroy the
Denmarkmyth, Mary', he advisedher when,in March 1970,Granadatelevision
invitedher to go to the DanishSex Fair).50 When,in April 1971,she invitedLord
Longfordto accompanyher to the privateshowingof Dr MartinCole's Gl'owing
Up sex-educationfilm, she was in the throes of helpingLongfordpreparefor his
282 POUCINOTI!6CRISIS

Houseof Lordsinterventionon pornography.s 1 The LongfordCommittee,with its

roll-callof 'the good', and its weighty,if slightlyeccentricestablishmentnavour,

was brought into being immediatelyfollowingin May. Lord Longfordhimself
has drawn attentionto this moment,in 1971,when the issues around which his
Committeecentred precipitatedinto a high-level'cause for concern'.52 It was on
the occasion of 'fynan's Oh, Calcutta! that Ronald Butt, of the Sunday Times,
remindedhis readers of 'the majority who wish to lead decent lives ... and who
are at this momentbeing forced at every turn to cower before assumptionsthey
reject'.~3 It was also in this periodthat the ObscenePublicationsSquadcame into
its own, beginningwith the raid, in 1970,on the Open Space Theatre Club and
the seizureofWarhol's Flesh. The prosecutionsof the Uttle Red Schoolbook, IT
and Or.followed.TonySmythe quite appropriatelydescribedthis intensification
of legaland policepressureas 'ultimately... political'. It was, in short,a 'summer
of repression'.' 4
The 1971periodthus allows us to see, in miniature,the dialecticalmovement
by whichthe 'law-and-order'panic becomesfully institutionalisedas an 'excep-
tional' form of the state. For conveniencesake, we can condensethis movement
into three closely connected phases: first, the overwhelmingtendency of the
state to move in the direction of the law (the sheer comprehensivenessof the
supportinglegislativeactivityin this period, all of it culminatingin a tightening
of legal sanctions, is staggering);second, the mobilisation,and the extended,
routineemploymentof the law-enforcementagenciesin the exerciseof 'infonnal'
control;the third and culminatingpoint is the tendencyof all issues to converge,
ideologically,at the 'violence' threshold.We cite here only some instances of
each, as a way of capturingthe characterof the whole trajectory.
All three aspects, for example,can be seen at work in Northern Ireland.The
assumptionof an exclusivelymilitary definitionof the Ulster crisis led to the
Emergency Powe,-s Act (August 1971) which reintroducedindefinite impris-
onment withouttrial (internment).This placed the anny in a quasi-judicialrole,
and precipitatedthe widespreadswoopson suspectsand theopeningof the camps.
It is preciselyin such circumstancesthat the thin line separatingthe legal from
the arbitraryexercise of 'infonnal' repressionis blurred; and, within a month,
the ComptonCommissionhad to be set up to investigateallegationsof torture,
including'hooding', continuousquestioning,sleep deprivation,'white noise' and
other 'disorientationtechniques'perfectedin colonialwarsfartherafield.Although
Mr Heath assured Brian Faulkner that 'the charges are substantially without
foundation',55 the ComptonReport- calling tortUreby a more euphemisticname
- substantiallysupportedthe charge,as, muchlater (in 1976,withthe minimumof
help from Her Majesty'sGovernment)did the InternationalCommitteeof Jurists.
As LewisChesterof the Sunday 1imes (whichplayeda commendablycourageous
role here, underheavyofficialpressure)remarkedafter Compton:'it nowappears
that the allegations... were substantiallywith foundation.In some respectsthey
may have been understated.'56
The tendencyto 'criminalise'every threat to a disciplinedsocial order, and to
'legalise'(i.e.raiseto the legalthreshold)everymeansof containment,is witnessed
in legislativefields as widely separate as the new Misuse of Drugs Act or the
new Criminal Damage Act- both newdeparturesand remarkablycomprehensive
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEPTIONAL
STATE' 283

in scope. The first related punishment for illegal possession to the alleged
hannfulnessof 1hedrug, and raisedthe sentencefor 'illegal possessionwith intent
to supply' to as high as fourteenyears for traffickingin cannabis.'Mother's little
helper', however- the highlyaddictivebarbiturateswhichregulatethe depressive
conditionof women- was missingfrom the list of controlleddrugs. The Drugs
Act cloaked in the sanctity of the law the much-contestedtheory of 'escalation
in drug use' - today's pot-smoker,tomorrow'sheroin addict: a thesis which the
government'sown advisers rejected in their official survey - two weeks or so
too late lo preventthe RoyalAssent.The CriminalDamageAct 'modernisesand
simplifiesthe law of Englandand Walesas to offencesof damageto propertyand
rationalizesthe penalties'.~7 It subordinatedthe means of damage used and the
nature of the propertydamagedto the simple idea of one basic offence:damage
to another's property without lawful excuse - maximum penalty ten years.
'Aggravateddamage' carried the recommendationof 'life'. The squat, the picket
and the demonstrationall potentiallyfell withinits shadow.
The newImmigrationAct, passedin I971, representsa slightlydifferentcombi-
nation of the same elements.The Act must be set in the context of the steady
advance of the anti-immigrationlobby within the right of the Conservative
Party,and the rapidly rising tempo of the undeclaredwarfarein the ghetto areas
betweenblacksand the police.As the raids on blackclubs and socialcentresand
the 'search on suspicion' of any black person on the streets, alone, late at night,
became a routine aspect of life in the 'colony' areas, it became the rule of the
streets, that in all such encountersthe police leaned heavily;gradually,it also
becamethe rule that blacks shovedback. The newAct endowedthese routinised
fonns of infonnal pressurewith the cover of the law.Loweringthe boom against
'Commonwealthimmigrants',as a whole,theAct in factexceptedwhitesfromthe
'Old Commonweallh',therebymakinglawfulwhat had so far been merelya part
of the systemof practicaldispensationon the streets. Male labourwas pennitted
entry in strictly controllednumbers,provided they were auached to a contract,
stayedput for a periodand renewedtheirpennits.The lawbore particularlyheavily
againstwomen,children,dependantsand families,manyof whomwerebrokenup
amidst angry scenesat the ports of entry.Some tried to get in under the net. The
battleagainstillegalentry and the sweepof immigrantcommunitiesfor suspected
illegalswasjoined. The originalbill had proposedthat immigrantworkersshould
register with the police. Parliamentaryoppositiondeleted the offendingclause.
But, as Bunyanhas shown,58 this was a formal and pyrrhic victory.For without
reference to Parliament,the NationalImmigrationIntelligenceUnit was estab-
lished (alongsidethe NationalDrugs IntelligenceUnit, both specialisedsectors
in a much-expandedinformationco-ordinating,surveillanceand record-keeping
section set up by the Home Officeand ScotlandYard).When asked, the Home
OfficeMinister of State called this expansionof the surveillancesystempart of
the 'operationalactivitiesof the police ... not nonnally subject to Parliamentary
control'.59
The mostcontradictorydevelopmentof all - andthe factorwhichservedmostto
lend plausiblesupportto the constructionof nightmaredramatisationswithinthe
repressivestate apparatuses- was the convergencearoundthe themeof violence.
BrigadierKitson's Low lnte11sityOperations,which helped to convertthe anny
284 POLICINGTHECRISIS

to a rully implemented 'counter-insurgency' role.,was published in 1971,6/J In the

context of the Norlhern Ireland situation, this study had practical consequences
far removed from the level of a philosophic review of military strategies at which
it was ostensibly pitched. Kitson's book - which pennitted a rare and privileged
glimpse into that reticent object, the 'mind' of the Anny in a period of escalating
domestic political conflict -distinguished between civil disturbance, insurgency,
guerrilla warfare. subversion, terrorism, civil disobedience, communist revolu-
tionary warfare and insurrection. The army, Brigadier Kitson argued, with consid-
erable clarity and force, really ought to face up to the fact that in conditions of
nuclear stalemate., its principal objects would increasingly be 'subversion ... all
measures short of the use of armed force taken by one section of the people of
a country to overthrow those governing the country at the time, or to force them
to do things which they do not want to do', and 'insurgency ... the use of armed
force by a section of the people against a government for the purposes mentioned
above' .61 The kniuing of these two together was an ominous deveJopment,
especially when 'subversion' (defined so widely as to net virtually any form of
political action other than standing or voting for Parliament) was understood as
a lowly rung on the same escalator leading inexorably to armed insurgency and
terrorism. But this logic was rapidly gaining ground - not only in the strategic
manuals, and not only in the context of Ulster. The influential Institute for the
Study of Conflict was created in 1970.61 Under its umbrella, experts in world-wide
counter-subversion, like its Director, Brian Crozier, counter-insurgency doyens
like Major-General Clutterbuck and Brigadier W. F. K. Thompson, ex-Foreign
Office diplomats, intelligence officers and high-ranking army personnel like Sir
Robert Thompson (former Security Chief for Malaya), senior industrialists and
academics, were all associated together in 'scholarly' analyses of 'subversion
and revolutionary violence from Santiago to Saigon' .63 They were also influential
and effective in developing 'a network of contacts in Whitehall, the police force,
intelligence services and the armed forces' 64 through which they propagated their
gospel of world-wide subversion.
Ulster was one context which lent credibility to this vision. Although the
break-up of Stormont and the decline into direct rule did not occur until 1972,
1971 was the year in which the Ulster crisis assumed its terminal form - an
urban guerrilla war between the British Army and the Provos. In the wake of the
Compton Report, the Sunday77.mesInsight Team's book suggested that the most
sensitive issue raised by the British involvement in Ulster was indeed the conduct
of the army.MRichard Clullerbuck, by no means the most reactionary of the new
counter-insurgency Establishment, described the book as 'anti-army', 'broadly
sympathetic to the IRA'. The iron curtain was beginning to cut down through
British thought as well, whenever and wherever the question of political violence
was raised. The second context was what Clutterbuck called 'Urban Guerrillas
Across The World', and Ian Greig, another specialist, called more simply, 'The
Politics of Bloodshed'. As the tempo of the colonial revolution and post-colonial
class politics quickened in the developing world, it assumed, more and more,
the form of the armed struggle or 'people's war'. Cuba, Algeria, followed by the
Vietnam War, the birth of liberation movements in the Congo, then in Portuguese
and Southern Africa, all belonged to this category; and they produced, in the
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXCEPTIONALSTATE' 285

writingsof Ho Chi Minh,GeneralGiap,AmilcarCabral,Che Guevaraand others,

a powerfulliteratureon the waging of a popular political warfare.The wave of
armedliberationmovementsin the next - aboveall, LatinAmerican- phase (the
Tupamarosin Uruguay,Marighela'smovementsin Brazil, the armed strugglein
Venezuela,etc.) werenot that of/oco in the countryside,but of vanguarduprisings
in the cities.If lhe formerwereintrinsicallyindigenous,the latterweremoretrans-
lateableto the conditionsof the urbandevelopedworld.The adoptionof guenilla
tactics in or near the metropolitancentres and the use of terrorist attacks on its
vulnerablecities hastenedthe processof 'bringingpoliticalviolenceback home'.
Ulsterand the QuebecLiberationFront wereexamplesof the first;the kidnapping
of businessmenand diplomats,and the hijackingsand terroristattacksby 'Black
September'and the PalestineLiberationFront (P.L.O.)were tangible examples
of the second.Four P.L.O.hijacksin successionin 1970,ending in the captureof
one of their outstandingmilitants,Leila Khaled, were followedby the Dawson
Field hijack, forcing her release. British diplomats were kidnappedin Canada
and Uruguay.This urban guerrilla imagery undoubtedlyfed both the makingof
extensive preparationsagainst the potential emergenceof such movementsat
home by the army,the police and the intelligenceforces,and the exacerbationof
popularfears and spectres.A classicspiral was enteredhere - the 'militarisation'
of the control response providingexactly the proof, for the urban terrorist, of
the authoritarianface behind the liberal mask: the growth of sympathyfor such
movementsand symbolic identificationswith them tending further 'to sanction
violencein supportof the statusquo; the use of public violenceto maintainpublic
order;the use of privateviolenceto maintainpopularconceptionsof socialorder
when governmentscannotor will not' .66
There followed its actual, living apotheosisat home, on native ground. The
elementsleadingto the emergenceof the 'AngryBrigade'in Britainat this precise
point are too complexto unravelhere.They must include:the recognition,on the
part of the libertarianleft, of a real connectionbetweenthe 'alienatinglife condi-
tions' of life in theWestand the real structuresof corporatecapitalistexploitation;
the belief that the anti-imperialstruggle, now going so well, in the hinterlands,
could be strategicallyand tacticallylinked with domesticconflict; lhe symbolic
identificationwith the romanticimageof the 'urban guerrilla', made moreintense
by the routines of privatiseddomestic apathy against which it was contrasted.
There were some theatres of struggle - the VietnamWar and the role of the
Africanliberationmovementsin strengtheningBlackPowerin the UnitedStates
were two examples- where such connectionscould indeed be forged: 'bringing
the war back home'. There were others where the real and the metaphoricalare
difficultto disentangle;wherea single-mindeddeterminationto drive the logic of
strugglethrough to its most extremeconclusion- a 'vanguardism'producedby
isolationfrom any kind of mass struggle- and fruslrationat the snail's pace of
reform,culminatedin the formationof the urban terroristgang: the Weathennen
in the United States, the Baader-Meinhofgroup in West Gennany,the Japanese
Red Army group and the Angry Brigade were common manifestationsof this
temptationto vanguardism.
Carr, in his account of the Angry Brigade, argues that it was the group's
involvementin '"normal" criminality'which provedits undoing.67 And certainly
286 POLICINOTH"CRISIS

it was a trail of dud chequesand stolen bank-cardswhich led the police to Jake
Prescott, and thus to Ian Purdie, who appeared in court in Novembercharged
with the bombingof Mr Carr's and Mr John Davies's houses.More significantly,
the trail led through the networksof the alternativesociety - the communes,
collectives,pads and 'scenes' where the libertarianstruggleagainstthe Industrial
RelationsBill,andmovementslikeWomen'sLiband Claimants'Unionintersected.
Accordingto Carr, InspectorHabershonconfessed: 'I had to get amongst these
peoplebecauseresponsibilityfor the bombingclearly lay in that area.' The police,
however,were 'shockedby the conditionsthey saw.... They could not understand
how peoplecould live that way by choice ... it added to and confirmedthe preju-
dices alreadyexistingamong the police againstthe so-calledalternativesociety.'
The Communiqueswhich prefacedor followedeach 'Angry Brigade' explosion
attempted lo link the bombings with a key class issue: Ireland, the Industrial
RelationsAct, the closureof Rolls-Royce,the Post Officeworkers' 'sell-out' and
the Fordstrike.Butthe 'abstract' natureof the critiquewhichinformedthe strategy
was unmistakeable.Shortlyafter explosionsat Biba's Boutiqueand the houseof
the Chainnan of Ford, the Bomb Squad wasformed and Inspector Habershon
took to readingGuy Debord'sHegelianand situationistextravaganza,The Society
of the Spectacle.When the axe fell, Purdie and Stuart Christie were acquitted:
Prescoll,found guilty of addressingAngry Brigadeenvelopes,was given fifteen
years by Mr Justice MelfordStevenson.In the followingMay,anotherfour were
sentencedby majorityverdictto ten years.
On any reckoning the 'Angry Brigade' episode was a tragic affair. It arose
from a deep conviction of the manifest human injustices of the system; and
since, in the libertariancast of thought, the oppressionof the state is always
direct and unmediated,it could only be met by direct and unmediatedmeans.
The recourse to the bomb was therefore one possible resolution of the liber-
tarian script inscribed in the cataclysm of '1968'. But the drift towards total
resistancein a less than totally revolutionaryconjuncturewas ultimatelya token
of isolation and weakness, not strength; and the failure of the spark to ignite
other militants,or to connect with any wider mass agitation,indicatedthe flaw
in the abstractnature of the tacticalline. Nevertheless,the episodehad profound
unintendedconsequences.Unwittingly,it cemented in public consciousnessthe
inextricablelink, the consequentialchain, betweenthe politicsof the alternative
society and the violentthreat to the Slate.It made the possibleappear inevitable.
It gave the forces of law and order precisely the pretext they needed to come
down on the libertariannetworklike a ton of bricks. It strengthenedthe will of
ordinary people, for whom explosions in the night were a vivid self-fulfilling
prophecy,to supportthe law-and-orderforces to 'do what they had to do', come
whatmay.The 'AngryBrigade' thus unwillinglyprovideda criticalturning-point
in the drift into a 'law-and-order'society. It provided such proof as seemed to
be needed that a violent conspiracyagainst the stale did exist, and was located
in or near the mass disaffiliationof youth. It gave a content to the empty fears of
extremism,investingthem with the imageryof explosionsand arms caches and
detonators.It raised reactionto a new pitch.
The second half of 1971 was indeed a 'prelude' - but to a struggleof a quite
differentorder, moving in step with a different logic; and though the principal
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEPTIONALSTA'.ffi' 287
and dramatic form in which this prelude announceditself - the adoptionin the
working-classstruggle in 1he Upper Clyde shipyards in Clydebank (and then
elsewhere - Plesseys, Fisher-Bendix, Norton Villiers, Fakenham,etc.) of the
tactic of the sit-in, first pioneeredin the late 1960sby the studentleft- may have
suggestedall manner of convergencesbetween working-classand middle-class
politics, the fact is that, between 1971 and 1972, the direction of the struggle
passeddecisivelyto differenthandsand a differenttheatreof struggle.
The governmentannouncedthe closure of the U.C.S.shipyards,a giant which
its predecessorin officehad rationalisedinto existence,in June. In July,following
several very large Scottish demonstrationsagainst growing unemployment,the
shop stewardsoccupiedthe yardsto preventclosureand protectjobs. The lactic,a
defensiveratherthan an offensiveone, was verysolidly led and organised,mainly
through a communistleadership,and captured the imaginationof the growing
numbersof workersdrawn,throughoppositionto the l11dustrial RelationsAct, into
a quickeningmovementagainst the Heath government.Then the miners moved
into the front line with a major wage claim, and the make-or-breakshowdown
betweenthe Heath 'course' and the organisedworkingclass commenced.

1972:THE MOMENTOF THE 'MUGGER'

Mugging is becoming more and more prevalent, certainly in London. As
a result, decent citizens are afraid to use the Undergroundlate at night, and
indeed are afraid to use the underpassesfor fear of mugging.We are told that
in Americapeopleare even afraidto walk in the streets late at night for fear of
mugging.This is an offence for which deterrent sentencesshould be passed.
(JudgeAlexanderKarmel,Q.C.)611

1972is by anyreckoningan extraordinaryyear: a year of sustainedand openclass

conflict of a kind unparalleledsince the end of the war; and elsewhereof shocks
and seizures, violenceand confrontation.It is the year in which the society falls
into deeply polarisedsections,and consensusis put into a semi-pennanentcold
storage. 'It was a year which began and ended in violence,'The 7lmesreviewof
the year notes, disconsolately.69 It opened with Bloody Sunday,in which, in the
final momentsof a civil rights march in the Bogside,the First BattalionParachute
Regimentlost its head and, in what amountedto a temporary'anny riot', shot
wildlyand indiscriminatelyinto a Catholiccrowd,killing thirteen.It ended with
the nightlynews of Vietnam,pulverisedfromthe skies by 'the heaviestassault by
Americanbombingthat the war- or indeedany modernwar- had ever seen'. It
wasalso, The 7lmesnoted,'the year of the internationalterrorist', whenterrorism,
'no longerconfinedto withinthe bordersof colonialoccupation... struck the soft
and open textureof westernsocieties'. It was also the year when 'labour was ...
preparedto resort 10strong anned methodsto ensure its demands'and unions 'to
ca1Tyoppositionto the IndustrialRelationsAct to the point of deliberatedefiance
of the court createdby the Act to administerthe law'.10 It was, indeed,the year in
whichtheworkingclass,virtuallywithoutpoliticalleadershipof anystrategickind,
at the high point of sheertrade-unionresistance,took on, defeatedand overturned
the whole Heathconrrontationstrategy,leavingit in ruins, and precipitatingthat
288 POUCINOTIIECRISIS

sharpabout-turnwhichled, throughthe three phasesof an incomespolicybacked

by law, and the dark night of the Emergency,to the political destructionof the
Heath governmentin the second confrontationwith the miners in 1974. More
strikedays werelost in this year than in any since 1919,and this includedthe first
nationalminers'strike since the GeneralStrikeof 1926.
The introductionof the coercivepowerof the law directlyinto the management
of labourand the economyin the fonn of the newAct was not temperedby stem
Labourparliamentaryopposition,nor modifiedby responsibleT.U.C.representa-
tions,nor sof'tenedby liberalamendments,nor cooledout by the liberalpress- the
latter,in the early stagesof the strategy,positivelyeggedMr Heathforward.It was
taken on, heacl-first,by organisedlabour;stoppeddead in its tracksand strangled
in the last ditch, by sheer bloody-mindedworking-classopposition.It began in
the docks.The containerfirm,Heaton'sTransport,refusedaccessto the Liverpool
docks by workersprotectingjobs againstthe inroadsof containerrationalisation,
took up the clear invitationof the new IndustrialRelationsCourt to invokethe
powerof the lawto breakthe workersanddriverationalisationthrough.Thedockers
disobeyedthe Court's order to permitaccess. On 29 Marchthe Court imposeda
£5000 fine for contempton the union, and on 20 April, a furtherfine of £50,000.
The unionrefusedto pay up. The containerblackingsspreadto the Londondocks.
In a seriesof remarkablelegalreversals,theCourtof Appealset asidethe Industrial
Court'sjudgementand the fines,only to havetheir ownjudgementin tum reversed
by the Houseof Lordsin Julyand the finesrestored.Meanwhile,a committalorder
was madeagainstthree dockersleadingthe Londonfight.Again,the law wobbled
beforeits clearpoliticalduty: the OfficialSolicitor,a mythicalfigureof the English
legal system,rarely seen beforethis occasionand almostneversince, rescuedthe
men when the Court of Appealonce more set a Court'sjudgementaside. But the
presidentof the IndustrialCourt, Sir John Donaldson,was not to be so lightly
turnedaside,and, on 21 July, amidstscenesof massiveprotest,fivedockerswere
committedto jail on chargesof contempt.The working-classsupportfor the five
men was overwhelming,bringingthe publicationof nationalnewspapersto a halt
for six days,andleading,no doubt,to anotherreversal:the reimpositionof the fines
on the T.G.W.U.- and the releaseof the five men.1\vo days later,amidst scenes
of considerablebitternessbetweenthe men and their union leaders,the attemptat
a compromisesolutionin the docks- the Jones-Aldington'modernisation'plan -
was rejectedand the nationaldock strike began.
The law had failed to bite. It had dependedon the arbitrarymight and majesty
of the Court, coupled with divisionsamongst the workingclass, for its success,
and the first had lost its aura in the course of being recruiteddirectlyto the class
struggle,and the secondwas surmountedby an astonishingdisplayof solidarity.
When,subsequently,the Court againgambledon the 'silent majority', and forced
the railwaymento obey a fourteen-daystatutorycooling-offperiodand to submit
their claim to a ballot, the railwaymenvoted by more than five to one in favour
of industrialaction. Later still, when the Court, taking up the case of the good
Mr Goad (a recalcitranttrade-unionmemberwho had been refusedadmissionto
branch meetings),imposed fines and a threat of sequestrationon the A.U.E.W.,
the latter simplyrefusedto pay up.
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXCEPTIONAL
STATE' 289
This wasessentiallya defe11sive strugglelo holdthe coercivepowerof the law al
bayand to protectbasictrade•unionrightsof organisation.The engagementdirectly
wilh politicalclass power had already,by July, taken place. The miners made a
massivewage claim for increasesof between£5 and £9, which the government
refused.It hoped no doubt lhal a moderatesectionof the union leadershipwould
help them to make 'reason prevail' - also, no doubt, to isolate the miners, like
they had the postmen,and to keep so many ancillaryservicesgoing to make the
strike action ineffective.Again, lhe Heath governmentmiscalculated.Although
the 'moderate' mining areas were reluctant to undertake industrialaction, the
more militant seclions of the coalfields, strongly supported by miners' wives
and reinforcedby the solidaritytraditionalin these communities,moveddirectly
ahead.What is more,on this occasion,the union leadershipwas, for once, solidly
behind the claim, arguinga strong case for the miners having been made to fall
behind in living standardsas a result of a long period of wage reasonableness;
there was a strongand activeleadershipin the localitiesand communities- strike
action was effectivelyco-ordinated.Further,the miners took the attackoutwards,
winningsolidarityin other sectors.The keystrugglewas to preventthe movement
of suppliesto and from the depots,and thus to enforcethe strike at sourcepoint;
the keytacticwas the winningof supportamongstother relatedsectorsof workers,
and, aboveall, the mountingof effectivepicketing.With supportfroma varietyof
sources, includingstudents,the miners developedthe tactic of the flying picket,
whichmaximisedthe pressureandmadethemosteffectivedeploymentof available
forcesat such key pointsas the ports, powerstationsand depots.But this brought
thestrikeintothe lineof fireof thatotherside of 'the law' - the police- in a struggle
with pickets to keep the movementof coal suppliesgoing. This open confron•
tationcame to a head at the Saltleycoke depot in Binningham,where the miners,
supportedby hundredsof reinforcementsfrom miles away,were able to establish
a massivepresenceand halt the lorries and close the gates. As the police forces
beganto build up, the Binninghamstewardscalledthe engineeringworkersout in
support:thousandsof workersdownedtools,bringingthe Binninghamfactoriesto
a halt in anotheroverwhelmingdisplayof class solidarity;a largesectionmarched
out to swell the ranks of the pickets.The police backed off, and rapidly,in their
wake,so did the government.The miners were speedilydeclareda 'special case'
and the WilberforceInquiry was produced,like the OfficialSolicitor,to help the
governmentput as bold a faceon defeatas was possiblein the situation.It was an
outstandingdemonstration,as well as fonnidablecatalyst.It gavea transfusionof
class confidenceto the forces now arrayedagainst the government.It turnedMr
Heathback in his tracks,and set him on his alternativeroad to statutoryincomes
control.It precipitatedthe swing to the left inside lhe Labour Party.It no doubt,
also, silently steeled the Prime Minister's resolveto bring the miners to heel on
some futureoccasion- a vendettahe neverforgot,was drawnback Lo,like a moth
to the flame,in 1974,and by whichhe was politicallydestroyed.
One resultof the miners'resistancewas the inclusionwithinthe industrial•rela•
lions law of fresh legislationto outlawthe use of flying pickets- a responseto a
defeatof legalconstraintby the elaborationof furtherlegalconstraintswhichwas
to terminate,in 1973,in subsequentarrestsand conspiracycharges.Anotherresult
290 POLICINGTHECRISIS

was to turn Mr Heath, with extremereluctanceand distaste, back into the well-
troddenpathwayshe had so scornrullydisdained:the reconstructionof corporate
bargaining.The doors of No. IO DowningStreet were grudginglyprised open
to admit various representativesof the T.U.C. and the C.B.I, in a new round of
'full and frank discussions'. Mr Heath offered a £2 flat-rateceiling; the T.U.C.
in their spirit of newly discoveredmilitancydeclined it. Once again, his instinct
for regulation unimpaired, Mr Heath turned to the statutory freeze on wages
and prices. Phase I of this imposedeconomicblizzardopened appropriatelyin
November.It was succeeded,in 1973,by Phase 2 (a £1 limit plus 4 per cent),
whichstimulateda waveof strike resistance,largelyled, however,by the low paid
and publicservicesectors(civilservants,hospitalworkers,gas workers,teachers),
not in a strategicpositionto win.With the line held,Mr Heathmovedthe notchto
Phase 3, and, once more backedby the majestyof the law and the engine of the
conspiracycharge, tried to preparethe ground for any further majorencounters.
Twenty-fourbuildingworkersin Shrewsbury,where the flying-pickettactic had
been employedagain to good effect, were sent for trial. Then the minersentered
their secondmassiveclaim.
Behindthe barricadesand the 'no-go' signs in NorthernIreland,the Provoscameto
establishfor a time an unchallengedleadershipover the Catholicminority;and the
dailyand nightlyencountersbetweenthe Catholicsand the army,whichhad begun
as street-brawlingand stone-throwingand mutualtauntingand reprisals,gradually
declined into regular armed confrontations.This rapid decline pointed to some
inevitablytragicresolutionand theCivil RightsAssociationmarchin Londonderry
on 301anuaryprovidedthe occasion.Whenthe parasbeganto shootrubberbullets
into the crowd,marcherswere still arrivingin preparationfor the meetingat Free
Den-yCorner.Then the troopsreplacedrubberbulletsby liverounds,the stragglers
scatteredfor cover,andwhentheconfusioncleared,therewereno lessthanthirteen
Catholicsdead on the street. 'Bloody Sunday' not only providedthe pretextfor a
massiveescalationinto violencebut it steeledthe heartof theCatholicsin the areas
and rivetedthem to their Provoprotectors.The strugglenow assumedits full and
simplifiedformof a nationalist-Catholic- Republicanstruggleagainstan imper-
alisloccupyingforce.Whathad an evengreaterimpacton the publicmoodat home
was the plantingof a bomb, in reprisalfor 'Bloody Sunday', outside the officers
mess at the paratroopH.Q. at Aldershot- which killed six peopleand missedby
minutes BrigadierFrank Kitson,architectof the theory of 'low intensityopera-
tions'. The war in Irelandhad finally'come home'. The Provobombingcampaign
now beganin earnest.'Systematically,streetby street,businesshouseby business
house, they continuedto take the commercialarea of the city to pieces."We are
fillingin the gaps", they wouldsay.They becamevery good at it.'71 Stormontwas
suspendedandWestminsterassumeddirectresponsibilityfor the province,demol-
ishing the last mediatingbarrier between the British governmentand the direct
prosecutionof a war againstthe terroristsand bombers.In response.the Protestant
paramilitarygroups,long in preparation,emergedinto the light of day, and threw
up their owndefensivebarricades.The BritishArmyand the newSecretaryof State
for Northern Ireland,Mr Whitelaw,had no alternativeleft but to try to destroy
the Provos,and with them the Catholicresistance,by whateverdirect meansthey
 TOWARDS
THI! 'EXCEPTIONALSTArn' 291
possessedin order to forestalla ProtestantU.D.I. There was a brief cease-fire,
endingwitha waveof renewedbombingswhich,on one day in Belfast,accounted
for elevendead and 130injured.It was a war to the end.
The media were also heavily involved in the forlorn Whitelaw strategy to
isolatethe 'gunmen' from the bulk of the 'civilianpopulation'.It was a spectacle
calculatedto chill the heart of British viewers,and to awakenthe accompanying
fear that the te1TOrism, slowly perceivedas stalking one country afier another,
was surely,if slowly,already on its way to the heart of the major British cities.
The steadily repeated view that the whole terror-ladenand explosion-wracked
situationwas 'senseless', the productof that collectiveinsanityand irrationalism
called 'Ireland', did more than perhapsany other factorto signifythe Ulstercrisis
as beyond comprehension,without reason and rationale, a mindless madness.
When, at the end of the year, Mr Lynch's governmentin the south introduceda
controversialAnti-TerroristBill - the forerunnerfor a successionof anti-terrorist
emergencylaws to follow in one WesternEuropean country after another - a
timely explosionin Dublin (hardly traceableto the door of the I.R.A., since its
effectwas sureto boomerangagainsttheir position),killingtwo and injuringmany
more, sweptaway oppositionin the D4il and ensuredits passageinto law. It was
Dublin'sfirst bombin the presentemergency.It servedto confirmthe Britishview
that some factor or factors unknownand un-nameablehad unleasheda monster
amongsttheblamelesscitizensof peacefulandlaw-abidingcountries.This combi-
nation- of righteousinnocence,frustration,fear at the randomnessof the danger
and the scale of its prosecution- helpedconsiderablyto sharpenthe tenterhooks
on which the Britishpublic, by now,had becomethoroughlyimpaled.

Politicalkidnappingsand hijackingswere in no sense the creationof 1972(one

estimate is that there were over 200 aircraft highjacksbetween 1967and 1971,
only ten of which,however,were politicalin the direct sense of bringingpolitical
pressure to bear on governments).72 But the year was marked by several partic-
ularly dramatic, spine-chillingexamples. In March a Turkish guerrilla group
kidnappedthree NATOtechnicians,two of whom were British,and, in the course
of the ambush, the hostages were killed. In May, however,there was a major
escalationin this type of terrorist activity.Three membersof the Japanese Red
ArmyGroup,actingon behalfof the Palestinianguerrillas,shotdowntwenty-four
passengersin the airport loungeat Israel's Lyddaairport.The slaughterwas seen
as suicidal, indiscriminateand 'almost incomprehensibleto Western minds',73
thoughthere is little doubtit was a revengeattackfor the deathof threePalestinian
hijackerswho had taken 100passengershostageaboard a Belgianairliner at the
same airport three weeks earlier,and who were shot when Israeli troops stonned
the plane.Indeed,the positionand plight of the Palestinians(which,howeverone
is revulsedby the use of indiscriminateterror as a political weapon,is certainly
not 'incomprehensible')provided the main source for the growth of interna-
tional terrorism,to whichall the major internationalairlines,and airportsand the
advancedcountriesin general were especiallyvulnerable.In this period, it was
the 'Black September' Group, emerging alongside the Baader-Meinhofgroup,
the JapaneseRed Army fractionand others in what was swiftlyseen as an inter-
nationalconspiracy,linkingPalestine,Ulster and other centres of urban warfare,
292 POLICIN<iTHECRISIS

which captured the headlines in British papers.This renewedconcern wi1hthe

melropolitanvulnerabilityto terrorismreacheda peakwith the invasionby 'Black
September'of the Olympic village, the seizure of nine Israeli hostagesand the
shooting of two others. Here, once again, the ambush went badly wrong, and,
in the shoot-out,five of the eight terroristsand all the hostageswere killed.The
worldpress and televisionservices,posed for the saturationcoverageof interna-
tional friendshipand harmonythroughsport, pickedup insteadthe reverberations
of death and mayhememergingswiftlyand withoutwarningout of a clear blue
Bavariansky.A few weeks later,the three capturedterroristswere releasedwhen
a WestGermanaircraftwas successfullyhijackedover Zagreb.At this point every
one of the two millionpassengersa monthwho flow throughLondonairportfelt,
as he stepped out on to the gangway,that he might be walkingstraight into the
weather-eyeof an internationalholocaust.

Some measure of the distance travelled,on questionsof race and immigration

betweenthe mid-1960sand the mid-1970smaybe derivedfromthe fact that when,
in October 1966, Mr Duncan Sandys raised with the Labour Home Secretary,
Roy Jenkins, the danger of a new influx of Asian immigrantsfrom Kenya, and
was asked to refrain from making his anxieties public, he acquiesced.'For the
moment,'Mr Powellcommentedin 1967, 'there is a feelingof stabilization,and
the subjecthas disappearedbelowthe surfaceof public consciousness.'74 But, he
promised: 'there will be subsequentphases, when the problem will resume its
place in public concernand in a more intractableform.':,sMr Powellreturnedto
the questionin October:'Hundredsof thousandsof people in Kenya,who never
dreamt they belongedto this country,started to belong to it like you and me.' '16
The question- posed by the Daily Mirror in a front-pagelead as a choice: 'On
Immigration- A free-for-all?Or governmentcontrol?171 - now reappeared,but
more often in more dramaticform,the spectreofan 'uncontrolledflood'. or what
the SundayTunescalled 'a deluge'.78 The 1968CommonwealthImmigrantsBill
followedalmost immediately,imposingstrictercontrolson entry and on the right
of dependantsto join their relatives.The Bill becamean Act with indecenthaste.
The period betweenthe 1968and the 1971Jmmigratio11Act.r marks a low-water
mark in race relationsin Britain;and thoughthe main focus in this periodfell on
the threat posed by those immigrantsalready here and the possibilityof repat-
riating them, the danger of a possiblefresh influx from abroad of Asians from
East Africa who held British passportsonly added fuel to the fire. One of the
main ways of taking the wind out of the Powellitesails was to ensurethat stricter
controlover numberswasexercised;and, in the wakeof the newAct, the treatment
of new immigrants,especiallyAsians, by immigrationsofficersat ports of entry
became noticeablymore abrasive.19 But earlier prophecieswere realised with a
vengeancewhen,on 4 August 1972,PresidentAmin announcedthat there was no
longerroomin Ugandafor 40,000BritishAsians.Withinweeks,UgandanAsians,
carryingBritishpassportsbut littleelse of their formerpossessions,beganturning
up in large numbers,and a crash programmeof accommodationand job-finding
had to be put into effect by the government.Considerableconfusionsurrounded
the actual status of the new stateless Asians, many of whom had been caught
betweenthe way the Ugandanand Britishgovernmentsinterpretedthe validityof
 TOWARDSTH6 '6XC6PTIONALSTAT6' 293

their citizenship.In this period, as the 'shuttlecocking'of individualimmigrants

to and from their nativeplaceof origin grew into a steadystream,bereftfamilies
were separated,or taken to a sort of limboexistencein one of the hastilyerected
transit camps. By Augustall the race signals were clearly set at 'panic stations';
what Dilip Hiro has called the 'maritime metaphors'- of floods, deluges,tidal
waves,etc. - abounded.The press, by nowable to persuadeitself that it had done
the Britishpeoplesomeinjusticeby deliberatelygivingracerelationsa lowprofile,
thus putting itself out of touch with 'ordinary' grass-rootsfeeling on the issue,
lifted its liberal veil and indulged in a bout of healthy realistic plain speaking:
Britainwas being floodedout.
The really tough 'hassling' of the immigrantcommunities- the police 'fishing
expeditions' for illegal immigrants,the inspectionof passportsand documents,
the routine 'moving on' of groups of black youths, the heavy surveillanceof
ghetto areas, the raids on black social centres - dates from this period, as does
the return of a Conservativegovernment,with a well-organisedanti-blacklobby
and a vociferousanti-immigrantfeeling growing amongst its parly stalwarts,
honouringits election pledges to the right. The 1971Act was described by Mr
Jenkinsas 'a highlyobjectionableBill ... misconceivedin principleand damaging
in practice'; but, on his return to officein 1974,Labourdid not repeal it, and the
panic surroundingthe unexpectedbreach in the control on numbersand enlry
precipitatedby the Amin expulsionescalated.80 Wilhoutpressingthe conjuncture
loo far or too hard, it is worth notingthat the beginningof the panicabout a new
'deluge' of UgandanAsians and the panic about 'mugging' occurredin the same
month:August 1972.

In 1972,the catchword 'crisis' no longer seems a mere journalistic hyperbole.

Clearly,Britainis enteringa majorsocial,economicand politicalcrisis.The crisis
is differentlyperceived,differentlyexplained, dependingon the point of view
applied.Bui it is no longermerelya witch's mask lo scarechildrenwith. Howthe
crisis was signifiedhas been linked with our narrativethroughout.But the true
flavourof 1972,from the viewpointwhich principallyconcernsus here, cannot
be adequatelycommunicatedwithout lookingbriefly at this aspect. The year is
absolutelydominatedfrom end to end by two simple abstract terms, linked in
a single ideologicalcouplet, and over-archingevery single issue, controversy,
conflictor problem.The entire year can be summedup, as it were,betweenthese
two terms: 'violence' and 'the law'. We have noted before how, in signifying
'trouble', the press or the defining spokesmenin politics, government,public
or moral life constantlymapped the themes of social dissent or issues of public
concern into wider and wider convergingmetaphors.By 1970, 'the enemy' has
become a single, compositefigure,and his presence,hoveringnuminouslyover
everything,spells out the possibilityof large-scalesocial disorder.Its signifierat
the openingof the 1970sis 'anarchy'. But 'anarchy' - the generalthreat of social
chaos - is still somethingless than (though there is a clear line which connects
it with) what follows: the tangible appearanceof the forces of anarchy in the
shape of violence.Violenceis the axis around which the public significationof
the crisis turns in 1972.It is, as we have argued,the final,the ultimatethreshold.
For, in violence,anarchyappearsat last in ils true colours- a conspiracyagainst
294 POLICINOTHECRISIS

the state itself:a conspiracyactuallyor potentiallyforwardedby the use oranned

force. Violencethus threatens,not this or that aspect of the social order, but the
very foundationof social order itself. Violenceis thus the crest of the wave -
that to which everythingwhich had happenedin Britain since the mid-1960sto
undermineand erode the 'way of life' naturallyand inevitablytended:the end of
the road, the partingof the ways. It was also, ideologically,the ultimateconver-
gence. For once a society becomesobsessedby 'violence' - a categorywhich is
notoriouslydifficultto define, but which has the ideologicalvalue of appearing
quite simple,straightforwardand clear-cut(what 'we' are all, ultimately,against-
all the manyvarietiesof dissentand conflictcan be reducedto it), it thusbecomes
the lowestcommondenominator,which convertsall threats into 'the threat'. In
1972,the crisis is recurringlysignifiedin terms of its violence;and, it should be
noted, this is a violenceof a certain kind: anarchic violence.It is mob violence,
violencewithoutsense or reason,violencefor which no rationale(eventhose we
abhor)can be conceived:lunatic violence,irrationalviolence,violencefor kicks
- pointlessand incomprehensible.
In February,the SundayExpresscolumnist,AnneEdwards,wrotethe following
about BloodySunday: 'this sort of loudmouthed,lunatichooliganismis festering
all overthecountry'.Lunatichooliganismis linkedwithits 'ugly sister'- 'pointless
violence'. 'Perhaps we should have realised sooner that mob violence, which
excuses itself by claiming a cause has an ugly sister. And that is the pointless
damage inflictedby peoplewith no other purpose in mind than to bash, beat up,
break,scar and smashjust for the kicks of doing it.'81 The writer is here 'linking
up' throughthe nexusof violence:the firingof an embassyin a country'scapital;
the advocacyof violenceby a miners' M.P.;the threateningof schoolboysby two
youths with a knife;and the tearingup of photographsof a widow'shusbandin a
poor district of London by thugs. The eventsdescribedare not nice, civilisedor
humane.Nor are they in any veryconcretewaypolitical.Englishmenare, anyway,
mostreluctantto acceptthat politicalviolenceis everjustified,thoughthey are the
inheritorsof a state whichhas madeits wealthand securedits positionin the world
by many means,includingconquest,forcedlabourand, sometimes,violence.The
article does not, however,turn on so sophisticatedan argument.The fact is that
the things being used here as a peg to hang a thesis on are not 'connected'in any
tangibleor concrete way at all, except rhetorically,ideologically.They may be
part of the same nightmare:they are only in the most metaphoricalmannerpart
of the same historicalphenomenon.It is not the similarityof the events,but the
similarityof the underlyingsense of panic in the mind of the beholder which
providesthe real connection.What there is, in fact,in commonhere is afelt sense
of crisis.And this, by a seriesof slides,elisions,descantsand metaphoricaltwists,
is projectedthrough'BloodySunday'- an eventheadlinedby the Su11day Express
reporteras 'When thugs hide behind a cause'.82 It is not necessaryto be a sympa-
thiserwiththe militarypoliciesof the I.R.A.or to fellow-travelwithindiscriminate
terroras a politicalweaponto supportthe viewthat,whateverelse happened,a day
or an hour beforeor after 'Bloody Sunday', the event itselfbeing discussedwas a
massiveblunderby undisciplinedBritishtroops;and its consequences,politically
and militarily,from a Britishpoint of view,were an unmitigateddisaster- largely
becauseit so transparentlyconfirmedin Catholiceyes what otherwisewas rather
 TOWARDSTHB 'BXCEPTIONAL
STATE' 295

more difficultto proveconclusively:that a militarydefinitionof the Ulstercrisis

nowexistedon bothsides of the no-gobarricades,and whena militarylogic takes
commandin a 'colonial' situation,frustratedand action-hungryparatrooperswill
trigger political issues by acting within an exclusivelymilitary - i.e. violent -
frame of reference.Such an argumentwas indeed solidly advanced,on the back
of substantialevidence,by a rival paper to the Express - the Sunday 1imes. It is
even plain to see in the officialreport on 'Bloody Sunday' by the Chief Justice,
Mr Widgery- which,far from being 'soft on the Provos', was widelyregardedas
a whitewashjob for the Army.
We turn, then, to the paper which has, after all, boldly crusaded on a whole
range of liberaland civil rights issues, not excludingthe tricky area of race and
Mr Powell, and which (unlike its erstwhile 'liberal' rival, the Observer) has run
somereal and financialrisks to defend its independentposition.Here is a Sunday
1imes editorialof the same period:

MarthaCrawford,SerajuddinHusseinandJohn Law weremurderedthousands

of miles aparl. In death they acquired a terrible unity.They wereall victims,
of the utmost innocence,in contests of which they had no part. One was a
bystander,one was a hostage,one was a journalist.None was armed,none was
defended, none was involvedin the political struggles for which their lives
were casually taken. One was a housewife,one was a technician,one was an
editor.Each pursuedas modestand harmlessa life as any carpenter'sson. Now
they are casualties,three among scores, of the barbarismwhich distinguishes
thisage.8l

This subtle passage,too, practicesa kind of simplification.The real and terrible,

co11crete,politicalconflicts,of which these untimelyand tragic deaths are one of
the many outcomes,are dissolvedin the abstractnesswith which they are raised
to the levelof sheer violence.The 'terrible unity' is a falsely imposedunity.The
only factorthese very particulardeaths can share here is that they result from the
use of violence.To this 'violence' is counterposedanotherabstraction- the utter
innocenceof the victims. What the near-anonymityof the passage principally
does is lo underscorethe sheer meaninglessness of all conflicts which end this
way.Everythinghere is liftedto the abstractlevelof 'Everyman'confinned in the
needlessnessof death: but it is accomplishedat the expenseof all historicaland
politicalcontextualisation.Yet, somewherebehind these deaths, are those other,
countless, nameless Palestinian dead, whom the Sunday 1imes cannot name,
even for symbolic purposes, because, until a very little while ago, history had
altogetherforgottenthem. It is not altogetherfar-fetchedto see that when insti-
tutional or political violence is systematicallyperpetratedagainst an exploited
people like the Palestinians,it will provokeviolencein return.Fanon has written
eloquentlyand with truth on this point. In the deep collusion- not individual,of
course, but collective - which the British have made with this historical burial
of the Palestinianquestion, there are unfortunately,no 'uninvolved innocents'
left. But the Sunday 1imes finnly dispenses with this Fanonistlogic. It finds the
argument'baselessin everyparticular'.These 'are the devicesby whichall blame
is shifted, and valiant martyrdomis claimed, for acts of bottomlesscowardice.
296 POLICINGTHECRISIS

The imperfectionsof "the syslem", that vademecumof modern extremists,

excuses any attack, howeverbrutal, on any citizen, howeveruninvolved.'These
are impeccable, humanitarian, liberal principles. They do not frighten and
terroriseus, as the SundayExpressrhetoricdoes, into seeingand believingwhat
is simply not there. But, in their own rational way, they too perpetrate a sort
of 'untruth'. Politics is a harder task-master than is dreamt of in the Sunday
7imes editorialrooms.The 'imperfectionsof the system' look slightlyless like a
vademecumfor extremismfrom the west bank of the Jordan.Only in the abstract
worldof classicalliberalismcan the worldbe so easilysplit as this into the public
self, whichhas rights and duties,and the private,unpoliticalself, which is wholly
'uninvolved'. The 'politics' of violence comes up out of nowhere and hits us
betweenthe eyes, not in spite of the fact that we are 'uninvolved', but because
the links of exploitationwhich connect us, collectively,through the imperialist
chain to another far-off,forgouen and abandonedsection of humanityhas been
allowedto pass for so long, behindeverybody'sback. This is a difficulttruth. Its
outcomesare not at all pretty to behold,or contemplate.
The binary opposite of violence is not peace, love, nor restitution:it is the
law. 'This is not just a trial of strength for the Government.It is a test of the
whole fabric of our society.The overwhelmingmajorityof British people want
peace and justice. Only the law, fairly and legally administered,can in the end
guaranteethis.'" 'The law may need amending.It may produce results which
its creatorsdid not intend.Its social effects mightbe hannful. It mighteven be a
thoroughlybad law. But it is still the law; and althougha medievalstate may be
deemed inoperativefor want of modernsocial consent,a law which has existed
for only four monthscan hardlybe similarlydismissed.... So even bad laws must
be observed.'a. 1 On and on, through the year, the processiongoes. 'But good or

bad, it is the law for the momentand the bedrockof a democraticsociety is that
it tolerateslaws it does not like until it can changethem constitutionally
.... There
has to be a final legal sanction or lhe rule of force is substitutedfor the rule of
law.'16 'There should be no doubt as to the issue that now confrontsthe country.
It had nothing and has nothing to do with the docks or with the redundancyof
dockers.It has nothingevento do with the differencebetweenToryand Socialist
policies.It is a simple questionas to whetherthis countryis to live by law or by
lhe brute force of anarchy.'17 And what is the threat to contain which the1estark,
simpleappealsto 'the law' are made?Politicalmurder?The shootingof hostages?
The kidnapping of innocents? The indiscriminatebombing of civilians? The
unobtrusiveletter-bombin the morning's mail? Hordes of bolshevikhooligans
in the streets?All four of the editorialsand articlesquoted are, in fact, mounted
in defence of the Heath government'sIndustrialRelationsAct, one of the most
direct and undisguisedpieces of legal class legislationby a ruling politicalclass
allianceagainst the organisedstrengthand unity of the workingclass enacted in
this century.
It has been argued that, by invokingthe law in such an extensiveand open a
mannerin the resolutionof the crisis, Mr Heathdestroyedthe necessaryfictionof
the independenceof the judiciary. Barnett has argued that juridical impartiality,
enshrined in all developedforms of the capitalist state, provides a framework
of legal equality and autonomy which helps to mask the continuingsocial and
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEPTIONALsr,;rn· 297

economicinequalitiesstemmingfrom productiverelations.88 But once the state is

obligedto intervenemoredirectly,such interventions- especiallywhen theytake
the exceptionalform of positivelyrecruitingthe law in the open defenceof class
interests- 'risk makingthe "invisible"inequalityof the real relationshipbetween
workersand capitalistsmanifestlyapparent.The imperativenecessityfor contem-
porarycapitalismto achievea new degreeof state interventionin the economy...
thus containsa dangerfor the bourgeoisie:it risksexposingthe centralideological
mystificationof the system, on which the consent of the masses to the reign of
capitalrests.'0
This goes some way to ex.plainingwhy the introductionof the law into the
classically 'neutral' sphere of economicand industrialrelations in 1972served
not to pacify but to trigger and detonate a massiveclass response.In general,
thoughwe find the orthodoxyof theAmerican'new left' in the 1960s- that liberal
capitalismis simply a facadefor fascistrepression- an erroneoussimplification,
it is true that the more visible and active presencewhichthe legal forcesand the
courts assumedin politicaland social life in the 1970sdid have somethingof the
effect of stripping off certain layers of mystificationfrom the classic beneficent
modelof the state and state powerwhichhad previouslyprevailed.The case could
be extendedlo the sphereof state interventionin general.We havesuggestedthat
one of the deep structuralshifts under way throughoutthe whole of our period,
which is masked by the more immediate, phenomenal forms of the 'crisis',
is indeed the massive reconstructionof the position, role and characterof the
capitaliststate in general.This involvedthe progressiveinterventionof the state
into spheres- the economicmechanismsof capital itself on one hand, the whole
sphere of ideologicalrelationsand of social reproductionon the other - hitherto
formallyregardedas belongingto the independentspheresof 'civil society'.Thus
the extension of the law and the courts at the level of political managementof
conflictand the class struggleis matched,at anotherlevel,by the extensionof the
state into the over-allgeneralshipof the economyand the conditionsfor capital's
expansion;and, at still another level, into the new spheres of welfare and the
domesticreproductionof labour-power.It is indeeddifficultto tell, as yet, whether
the preciseform which this reconstructionof the capitaliststate has assumedin
the British case is a feature of developmentsin the advancedcapitalist mode
of productionas such, which Britain shares with all other developedcapitalist
countries,or specificto the more 'national' features- such as Britainattempting
to carry this reconstructionthrough on an extremelyweak economicbase and
in face of the most mature industrialworkingclass in the history of capitalism.
But the effects of this shift can cert.a.inlynot be denied; and the fact that it has
happened,with of course importantnationaldifferences,both wherecapitalismis
weak(Britain)and whereso far it has beenstrong(the UnitedStates)suggeststhat
what we are witnessingis no epiphenomena!movement.It stems fromcontradic-
tions at the base of the world capitalistsystem itself in a periodof contradictory
and unevendevelopment,not simply from the political'relationsof force' in one
countryor another.
However,we ignore the more conjuncturalaspectsat our peril. If this recom-
positionof the state, includingthe altered role of its juridical arm, is indeedone
of the underlyingcausesof the instabilitieswe havebeenanalysing,then we must
298 POUCINOTH6CRISIS

also recognisethat, in Britain, it has assumedsignificantlydifferentfonn.r.The

'managed consensus' of Labour's earlier and current phase, with its absolutely
central ideologicalmechanismof 'the nationalinterest', and its complementary
ideologicalstrategiesof dividingthe world into 'moderates'and 'extremists'was
also a consequenceof the extension of the 'interventioniststate', though in a
differentform fromthat whichit assumedunderMr Heath.The difference.then,is
not that the extraordinaryHeath interluderepresentedinterventionism,in contrast
with other periodsin our review,but, crucially,that it markedthe conclusionof a
critical internalshift i11 the natu/'eof the balanceor equilibriumon whichcontem-
pora1ycapitaliststate power isfou11ded.And, thoughthe basicstropheof change
mayderivefroma deeperlevelof the structure,this difference- betweena masked
and a more openform of repressiveregime- arises mostacutelyat the levelof the
politicalclass struggleitself.The growthof politicaldissent,fromthe mid-I960s
onwards,then the resumptionof a more militantfonn of working-classpolitical
struggle at the turn of the decade, coupled with the pervasiveweaknessof the
Britisheconomicbase, have made it impossible,for a time, 10 managethe crisis,
politically,withoutan escalationin the use and forms of repressivestate power.
And it is the bringingof this criticalshift in the natureof the hegemoniccrisis to
its culminationwhich is the 'service' that Mr Heath performedfor capitalism-
thoughin the event he got little credit for it. Two further points should be noted.
Although we have since returned to a fairer and more regulated, 'contractual',
form of interventionism,the opening to the repressiveuse of the legal part of
the state has not disappeared.Consensusremainsan enforcednot a spontaneous
construction;and, in its routine manifestationsin the mid-1970s,it assumes an
apparentlypermanentface of repressiveforce which its previousvariantslacked.
The second point, not sufficientlyacknowledged,is the mobilising power of
the recruitmentof 'the law' in winning over the silent majority to a definition
of the crisis which regularlyand routinely underpinsa more authoritarianform
of the state. The interpositionof the law directly into class relations may have
destroyedsomethingof its effectiveneutral 'cover'. But it also had the opposite
effect: of makingit more legitimatefor 'public opinion' to be activelyrecruited
in an open and explicitfashionin favourof 'the strongstate'. Anyonewho doubts
that may tune in to any 'grass-roots' phone-inradio programmeat random,and
catch the ebb and flow of authoritarianpopulismin defenceof social discipli11e,
or they may listen carefullyto the cadencesof Mr Heath's successor.Mr Heath
risked a great deal in his last ditch scramble for the finishingline in 1972.But
the ideologicaleffectof this 'extraordinary'period has outlivedhim and is by no
meansyet exhausted.
1972is the pointwhenthe 'mugging'panicfirst makesits fullappearance;and thus
wherethe widerhistoricalnarrativeintersectswith our morelimitedconcerns.The
date has no other specialsignificance.In terms of the disintegrationof the 'Heath
course', the rising confidenceand militancyof working-classstruggle, 1972 is
merelya mid-point.From the historicalviewpoint,the 'moment of mugging' is
only one momentin this longerhistory.
Its position and timing, however,is not adventitious.We are not of course
attemptingto force this convergenceinto too tight or neat a fit. We have aimed
 TOWARDSTHE 'IDCCEPTIONAL
STATE' 299

to expose the accumulation at one point of rupture of a number of different

contradictions. If the 'mugging' reaction grows out of the drift of the state, under
the crisis of hegemony, into an exceptional posture, it is not, in a simple sense,
the direct pl'oductof that evolution. The reaction to mugging has its own 'inner
history', within the juridical and ideological spheres: crime control, the police
and courts, public opinion and the media. If it relates to the 'crisis in hegemony',
it can only be via the shifting balance and internal relations between different
state apparatuses in relation 10 the management of crisis. The internal histories
of these apparatuses, in relation to a general history of the capitalist state in
this period, remains to be constructed. In its absence, we must not push plausi-
bility further than it will go. A sharp judicial reaction to 'street crime' could
have occurred at other moments in the post-war period. After all, the 'rising
crime rate equation' has been at the top of the agenda of concerns for nearly
two decades. Sections of public opinion could be heard calling for a return to
capital or corporal punishment, to tougher sentencing and harsher prison regimes
throughout most of the period. Race has been the plaything of Party politics
at least since the Smethwick election of 1964. The reorganisation of the police
force, which bears so effectively and efficiently against both the black colonies
and political dissent, was set in motion as early as 1963- and for 'organisation'
reasons which, at first sight, appear far removed from more manifest threats. A
crisis of authority, pivoting around youth, the family and moral conduct, belongs,
first, with the 1950s not the 1970s. The seeds of the 'mugging panic' were thus
a long time germinating. Yet, undoubtedly, that panic makes a great deal more
sense - once set in the context of the 1970s - than at an earlier period. As our
earlier discussions showed, it depended on at least five essential conditions: a
state of anticipatory mobilisation and 'preparedness' in the control apparatuses;
a sensitising of official circles and of the public through the mass media; a
'perceived danger' to social stability - such as when the crime rate is read as
indexing a general break-down in social authority and control; the identification
of a vulnerable 'target group' (e.g. black youth) involved in dramatic incidents
('muggings') which trigger public alarm; the setting in motion of the mecha-
nisms by which conspiratorial demons and criminal folk devils are projected on
to the public stage, These conditions are all met in full at the moment when the
'mugging panic' precipitates.
That these conditions were not operating exclusively with respect to black
crime is certainly part of our case, for ii is this which suggests the connection
between the reaction in the state to particularmanifestations of political conflict
and social discontent, and the general crisis in hegemony. We believe, then, that
the nature of the reaction to 'mugging' can only be understood in terms of the
way society - more especially, the ruling-class alliances, the state apparatuses and
the media- responded to a deepening economic, political and social crisis. Since
the phenomenon we are seeking to situate flows most directly from the juridical-
political complex, we have traced this crisis pre-eminently at the level of the state.
Thus a crisis, which deserves a fuller and more fundamental analysis in terms of
the capitalist mode of production in conditions of a synchronised global recession,
is here presented, mainly - and in full knowledge of the limitations - at the level,
or in the form of the slow construction of a soft 'law-and-order' society.
300 POLICINGTHECRISIS

AFTERMATH;
LIVINGWITHTHECRISIS
The period between 1972 and 1976 must be dealt with more summarily. It would
be an error to present a roundly concluded story, since the developments precipi-
tated in the 1972-4 period have by no means reached their culmination. We
identify, here, four principal aspects: the political crisis; the economic crisis; the
'theatre' of ideological struggle; and the direct interpellation of the race issue
into the crisis of British civil and polilical life. All four themes must be under-
stood as unrolling within an organic conjuncture whose parameters are overde-
tennined by two factors: the rapid deterioration of Britain's economic position;
and the maintenance of a political form of 'that exceptional state' which gradually
emerged between 1968 and 1972 and which now appears, for 'the duration' at
least, to be permanently installed.
The Heath return to corporate bargaining after 1972 was undertaken in the face
of a massive political defeat. It was undertaken with ill grace; and there is every
sign that in Mr Heath's mind the final showdown had been simply postponed.
Moreover, as the recession, following the world-wide 'crisis boom' of 1972-3,
began to bite in earnest, the unemployment figures rose, inflation graduated
to rip-roaring Weimar Republic proportions, and the whole balance of world
capitalism was thrown sideways by the lurch in Arab oil prices; there was little
left in the kiuy with which to 'bargain'. Phase 1, therefore, imposed a six-month
total freeze on wages; Phase 2 a limit of £1 plus 4 per cenl. Phase 3, initiated
in the autumn of 1973, with its 'relativities clauses' designed to allow the more
militant sectors to 'catch up', was met by the revived strength and unity of the
miners' claim: £35 for surface workers, £40 for underground workers, £45 for
workers at the coal face. The showdown had arrived. In response, Mr Heath
unleashed an ideological onslaught. He pinpointed the unpatriotic action of the
minen in timing their claim to coincide with the Arab oil embargo. They were
'holding the nation up to ransom'. The media at once seized on this lead - after
all, attacks on those who act against the 'national interest' no longer appeared to
contravene the protocol on balanced and impartial news coverage. Between 1972
and the present, as the 'national interest' has become unequivocally identified
with whatever policies the state is currently pursuing, the reality of the state has
crune to provide the raisond'lrre for the media; once any group threatening this
delicately poised strategy has been symbolically cast out of the body politic -
through the mechanisms of the moderates/extremist paradigm - the media have
felt it quite legitimate to intervene, openly and vigorously, on the side of the
'centre'. The phenrunenon of the 'Red Scare' is, of course, well documented in
British history, and its success has depended before now on a skilful orchestration
of politicians and the press. But the virulence of its reappearance in this period is
worth noting. In this period the press begins again its deep exploration to unearth
the 'politically motivated men' in the miners' union; later (1974) it was to conspire
in an organised hounding of the 'red menace' in the person of Mr McGahey, the
Scottish miners' leader; later (1976) it was to project Mr Wedgwood-Benn as the
'Lenin' of the Labour Party; throughout the early period of the 'social contract',
it was, again and again, openly to intervene to swing elections within the key
unions from the 'extremist' to the 'moderate' pole; later it was mesmerised by
the spectre of 'Marxism'. All, good, objective, impartial stuff. On occasion, the
 TOWARDS
THE '!.XCEPTIONALSTAT!.' 301
press opened its feature columns to the sniffers-out of communist subversion:
the Institute for the Study of Connict, the National Association for Freedom, the
Aims of Industry Group, the Free Enterprise League, the 'Let's Work Together
Campaign'. Later, ii required no extreme prod to give front-page treatment to
every and any spokesman who could discern the presence of another 'totalitarian
Marxist' inside the Labour Party.
Mr Heath then turned to his 'final solution' - one dictated entirely by the
political motive of breaking the working class at its most united point. Its
damaging economic consequences precipitated Britain's economic decline into
'slumpflation'. The miners had to be defeated, fuel saved; more important, the
'nation' had to be mobilised against the miners by projecling the crisis right into
the heart of every British family. The economy was put on a three-day working
'emergency', and the country plunged into semi-darkness. In a wild swipe the
'costs' of the miners' actions were thus generalised for the working class and the
country as a whole, in the hope that this would open up internal splits in the ranks:
bringing Labour and T.U.C. pressure to bear on the N.U.M., and the pressure of
women, having to make do on short-time wages, to bear against their striking
men. The splits failed to materialise. When the N.U.M. was finally pressured to a
ballot, the vote in favour of a strike was 81 per cent. The 'crisis scare', success-
fully generated, failed to break that class solidarity which had been tempered in
the open two-year season of class warfare with Heath Toryism. To the accompa-
niment of this fully mobilised 'Red Scare', 'Reds Under the Bed' campaign, Mr
Heath called and lost the February election. The February 1974 election 'was
more clearly a class confrontation than any previous election since the Second
World War' .90 It was also the most resounding victory, not for Labour (returned
in a weak minority position, once Mr Heath could be persuaded to call in the
removal men), but for the organised working class. It had brought the government
to the ground.
The state of the political class struggle can be briefly summarised, in the
two years following, by looking at three strands: first, the level of militancy
sustained through the rest of 1974 in the wake of the miners' victory; second, the
return to the social democratic management of the deepening capitalist crisis,
principally through another variant of the mechanism of the 'social contract'
(long mistitled, in a fonn which inconveniently called to mind its cosmetic
aspects - a 'social compact'); third, the articulation of a fully fledged capitalist
recession, with extremely high rates of inflation, a toppling currency, cuts in
the social wage and in public spending, a savaging of living standards, and a
sacrifice of the working class to capital, all managed by a Labour government
with its centrist stoical face (Mr Callaghan) turned to the wall of its international
creditors, and its belligerent face (Mr Healey) turned against his own ranks.
The 'social contract' is the latest form in which British social democracy has
attempted lo preside over and ride out the contradictory effects of a declining
capitalism. Like its predecessors, the 'social contract' is the Labourist version of
that corporate bargain, organised within the capitalist state, and struck between
the formal leadership of the labour movement (a Labour government in office),
the formal representatives of the working class (the T.U.C.) and - a silent and
sceplical partner, in this phase - the representatives of capital itself. Once more,
302 POLICINGTHECRISIS

in this form, the crisis of capitalism is drawn directly on to the territory of

the state. In the concessions, made in the 'contract's' early days, to 'bringing
about a fundamental shift in the distribution of wealth', and in its recognition
that the whole of the 'social wage' was now the area to be bargained over, the
'social contract' marked the relative strength and cohesiveness of working-class
demands, and gave the unions some formal veto over government policies. That
strength has, of course, been systematically whiuled away in the subsequent
conditions of severe cuts in welfare and public expenditure, cuts which the
working class have supported with ill grace, to some degree resisted, but - once
again bemused and confused by the spectacle of being led into poverty and
unemployment by ils own side - failed to push to its limits. This unstable social
base to the present social contract has had contradictory consequences: formal
commitments 'to the left' - just far enough to secure the 'consent' of left trade
unionists like Scanlon of the A.E.U.W. and Jones of the T.G.W.U., and to ensure
some credibility to the press portrayal oft he Labour Party as a party of 'irrespon•
sible leftists'; just centrist enough to persuade the working class to be pushed
and bullied, practically, by the Labour pragmatists into tolerating a dramatic rise
in the rate of unemployment and a dynamic, staged lowering of working.class
living standards. In this way, Labour has 'captured' for its management of the
crisis, for capitalism, that measure of working.class and union support required
to represent itself as the only 'credible party of government'; while the very
presence of the unions so close to the centre of its unsteady equilibrium is quite
enough to enable the government to be represented as 'in the pocket of the trade
union barons', thereby legitimating the strike of capital investment at home and
frightening the currency dealers abroad. (Some of the most virulent examples
come from emigr6e socialists like Paul Johnson.) 91 A more unstable political
'resolution' can hardly be imagined.
The 'governor' of this stalemate position is, of course, the deep economic trough
into which Britain has finally fallen. By 1975, the first synchronised world•wide
recession of capitalism was in full swing - one manifesting the unusual form of
productive slump coupled with soaring inflation. How far into recession world
capitalism will fall is, still, an open guess. But its consequences for Britain are no
longer in doubt. The 'weak reeds' in the capitalist partnership- Britain and Italy
especially - have been pennanently damaged. The whole Keynesian apparatus
for the control of recession is in tatters, with not even a minimum consensus
amongst economists as to whether the money supply has anything or nothing
to contribute to lowering the rate of inflation. At the same time, the attempt is
in progress to transfer the costs on to the backs of the working class. This is
no longer the description of an economy suffering endemic weaknesses. It is an
economy being steadily battered down into poverty, managed by a government
which is silently praying that il can eITectthe transfer of the crisis to the working
class without arousing mass political resistance, and thus create that mirage of
British social democratic governments - 'favourable investment conditions'. If
it cuts too fast, the unions will be forced to bolt the 'social contract', and destroy
social democracy's fragile social and political base; if it does not cut fast and
hard, the international bankers will simply cut their credit short. If it raises taxes,
the middle classes - now in a state of irritable, Thatcher•like arousal - will either
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXClli'TIONALSTATE' 303

emigrateen masse or begin,Chilean-style,to raule their pressure-cookerlids; if

it does not tax, the last remnantsof the welfarestate - and with them any hope
of buying working-classcompliance- will disappear.Britain in the 1970sis a
country for whosecrisis there are no viable capitalistsolutions left, and where,
as yet, there is no politicalbase for an allernativesocialiststrategy.It is a nation
lockedin a deadlystalemate:a state of unstoppablecapitalistdecline.
This has had the deadliest and most profound ideological consequences.
Although,under the guardianshipof social democracy,Britainbackedoff a little
from the 'law-and-order'state whoseconstructionwas well under way between
1972-4, the exceptionalform which the capitalist state assumed in that period
has not been dismantled.The mobilisationof the state apparatusesaround the
corrective and coercive poles has been coupled with a dramatic deterioration
in the ideologicalclimate generally,favouringa much tougher regimeof social
discipline:the latter being the form in whichconsentis won to this 'exceptional'
state of affairs.Such an ideologicalthrust is difficultto delineateprecisely,but it
is not difficultto identifyits principalthematicsand mechanisms.
Between 1972 and 1974, the 'crisis' came finally to be appropriated- by
governmentsin office, the repressive apparatusesof the state, the media and
some articulatesectors of public opinion - as an interlockingset of planned or
organisedconspiracies.British society became little short of fixatedby the idea
of a conspiracyagainst 'the British way of life'. The collective psychological
displacementswhich this fixationrequires are almost too transparentto require
analysis.To put it simply, 'the conspiracy'is the necessaryand requiredform in
which dissent, oppositionor conflict has to be explainedin a society which is,
in fact, mesmerisedby consensus.If society is definedas an entity in which all
fundamentalor structuralclass conflictshave beenreconciled,and governmentis
defined as the instrumentof class reconciliation,and the state assumes the role
of the organiserof conciliationand consent,and the class nature of the capitalist
mode of productionis presented as one which can, with goodwill,be 'harmo-
nised' into a unity, then, clearly,conflict must arise because an evil minorityof
subversiveand politically motivatedmen enter into a conspiracyto destroy by
force what they cannot dismantle in any other way. How else can 'the crisis'
be explained?Of course, this slow maturing of the spectre of conspiracy- like
most dominant ideologicalparadigms- has material consequences.Its propa-
gation makes legitimatethe officialrepressionof everythingwhich threatensor
is contrary to the logic of the state. Its premise,then, is the identificationof the
wholesocietywith the state - the state has becomethe bureaucraticembodiment,
the powerfulorganisingcentre and expressionof the disorganisedconsensusof
the popularwill. So, whateverthe state does is legitimate(evenif it is not 'right');
and whoeverthreatensthe consensusthreatensthe state.This is a fatefulcollapse.
On the back of this equation,the exceptionalstate prospers.
In the period between 1974and the present, this conspiratorialworld view -
once the prerogativeof the East-WestDigest,Aims of Industry,the Economic
League and other denizensof the far right only - has become receiveddoctrine.
It surgesinto the correspondencecolumns of The 'limes,is weightilyconsidered
in The Economist,mulled over in Senior Common rooms, and debated in the
Houseof Lords. Industrialnews is systematicallyreportedin such terms as 'Slim
304 POLICINGTHECRISIS

hope for the left in Leyland union poll' .92 Any induslrialconflict is subject to
being blackened- as the Chryslerdispute was by Mr Wilson- as the result or
'politico-industrialaction'.93 Peers like Lord Chalfontare given the freedomof
the air to propagateagainstcommunist'maggotsand termites'dedicatedto smash
democracy:a thesis supportedby the propositionthat in Britain all of Lenin's
preconditionsfor revolutionhave alreadybeen fulfilled!94 PolytechnicDirectors,
like Dr Miller at North London, facing protests from students he dubs 'malig-
nants', confesses. 'I sit in my office and itch for the ability 10 say, "Hang the
Ringleaders".'11:1The Daily Telegraph,now openly an organ of the far right, runs
colour-supplementfeaturestracingcommunism's'creeping,insidious,cancer-Iilre
growth', the 'treachery,deceit and violence of a small minorityand ... foreign-
directed subterfuge'. The BirminghamEvening Mail regards this feature as so
authoritativethat it reprintsit in full.96 Public opinionis constantlyand unremit-
tingly tutoredin social authoritarianposturesby the methodof sponsored'moral
panics': the skilfullyelevatedpanicsurroundingcomprehensiveeducation,falling
standardsand 'Reds' in the classroomsis one of the most effectiveand dramatic
examples- an instanceof how, through an apparently 'non-political'issue, the
terrain of social consciousnessis preparedfor exactly that politicaldenouement
requiredby the 'iron times' intowhichwe are drifting.Meanwhile,theArchbishop
of Canterbury,in a statementwidelyinterpretedas 'religious',not political(union
militantsare always 'political', not 'industrial'), casts a spiritualgloss over the
nationaldrift into 'insecurityand anxiety' vergingon disillusionmentand fear.97
Not surprisingly,it was - literally- under the bannerof the conspiracycharge,
an ancientand disreputablestatute,retrievedand dustedoff for the occasion,that
the law was brought into the service of the restorationof 'law and order'. In
1971, some Sierra Leone students who occupied their Embassy were charged
and convictedof conspiracy,appealed,and were denied by the Lord Chancellor,
Lord Hailsham, in the infamous Karama decision (July 1973).This decision,
whichlaid downa formidableprecedentin a contestedareaof connict, and repre-
sented an actual piece of law-makingby the court rather than by Parliament,was
unmistakablyin keeping with a political rather than a legal chain of reasoning.
As John Griffithobserved: 'The power of the state, of the police, or organized
society can now be harnessedto suppressionof minoritygroups whose protests
had formerly been chargeableonly in the civil courts."111It perfectly embodied
the Lord Chancellor's view that 'the war in Bangladesh,Cyprus, the Middle
East, Black September,Black Power,the Angry Brigade,the Kennedymurders,
Northern Ireland,bombs in Whitehalland the Old Bailey,the WelshLanguage
Society,the massacrein the Sudan, the muggingin the tube,gas strikes,hospital
strikes,go-slows,sit-ins, the Icelandiccod war' were all 'standing or seekingto
stand on differentparts of the same slippery slope'.99 The conspiratorialworld
view can hardly be more comprehensivelyslated. 'In that sense,' Professor
Griffithremarked,'Karama was a politicaldecision made by a politicaljudge.'
Manyothers were thrust throughthe breach thus opened.The editors of IT were
charged with 'conspiracy to outrage public decency', the editors of Oi with
'conspiracyto corrupt public morals'. Mr Bennion and his Freedom Under the
Law Ltd entereda privatecitizen's prosecutionagainstPeter Hain for 'conspiracy
to hinder and disrupt' the SouthAfrican rugby team tour. The judge agreed that
 TOWARDS
THE 'EXCEPTIONAL
STATE' 305

Hain had illegally interferedwith the public's right in 'a matter of substantial,
public concern - somethingof importanceto citizens who ore interestedin the
maintenanceof law and order'. The Aldershotbombersand the Angry Brigade
both had 'conspiracy'added to their charges.So did the WelshLanguageSociety
protestorswho did not, in fact, trespass on B.B.C. property;so did the building
workerswho had so successfullyadoptedthe 'flying-picket'tactic in the disputes
of 1972-3.When their defence lawyerpointedout that a conspiracywas hard to
prove amongthe Shrewsburypicketswho had neverpreviouslymet,Justice Mais
remindedhim that 'for conspiracy,they neverhaveto meetand they neverhaveto
know each other'.100 For 'conspiringto intimidatelump workers', DennisWarren
receivedthree years- 'a punishmenttwelvetimes heavierthan the maximumfor
direct intimidationprovidedby the statute'.101
As Robertson has shown, the conspiracy charge was perfectly adapted to
genera/isi11g the mode of repressivecontrol; enormouslywide, its terms highly
ambiguous,designedto net wholegroups of people whetherdirectly involvedin
complicityor not,convenientfor the policein imputingguilt wherehardevidence
is scarce, aimed both at breaking the chains of solidarity and support, and of
deterringothers, directableagainst whole ways of life - or struggle. Robertson
describes its full-floweringin the 'cartwheel' conspiracy,the 'friendship-cell'
conspiracyand the 'roll-up' conspiracy,which even Lord Diplock commented
was 'the device of charginga defendantwith agreeingto do what he did instead
of charging him with doing so'. Professor Sayre called conspiracya 'doctrine
so vague in its outlines and uncertain in its fundamentalnature ... a veritable
quicksand of shifting opinion and ill-considered thought'. Lord Hailsham,
defendingthe Karamajudgement,however,admitted,'I personallyprefera bit of
commonlaw which is furry at the edges.' 102The 'furry' law of conspiracywas to
play a key role in the industrialconflictsof 1973and 1974.In that period it was
fashionedinto an 'engine of state policy'. Its history became - as C. H. Rolph
remarked- 'the historyof the class struggleand the regulationof wages'.103
One might have expectedliberal pragmatists,like the police chief Sir Robert
Mark,who knowsthe checkeredhistoryof the relationshipbetweenthe policeand
politicaldissent,IIMto have backedoff some distancefrom this overt recruitment
of the law.But he continuedto advancehis charge- againstconsiderableevidence
- that acquittalswere too high and that criminalswere escapingthrough 'corrupt
lawyers'practices',1cr;andhis criticismsof trial byjury (withsomesignsof success
in, for example,the Report of the James Commiuee).106 He accused the magis-
tratesof 'effectivelyencouragingburglaryand crime' and of failingto discourage
'hooliganismand violencein the punishmentshanded out',107 and of 'being too
lenientwith violentdemonstrators'.1081nan appealto the press to be more critical
of violent protest, he said: 'It is arguable, too, that the police, discouragedby
apparentmagisterialtoleranceof unlawfulviolenceby demonstratorsand weary
of harassmentby complainants,journalists and political movementsalike, have
themselvesbeen inclinedto show excessivetolerance.'When asked about police
problemsin the sphereof publicorder,he definedthe main problemas 'inconven-
ience' - coupled with an unscrupulousand violentminority.109A periodof rising
politicaldissent is clearly a difficultone for the police to handle - and thus one
in which the police can only defend themselvesagainst the charge of colluding
306 POUCINO TH~ CRISIS

with repression by the most scrupulous drawing of lines. Instead, in this period,
the police and Home Office clearly came to approve, if not to revel in, the steady
blun-ing of distinctions. Emergency legislation like the anti-terrorist legislation
drew the police into that ambiguous territory between suspicion and proof. The
Lennon affair revealed the murky terrain between overground policing and the
activities of the Special Branch. A number of well-publicised occasions revealed
the steady drift towards the arming of the British police force.110 The striking
erosion of civil liberties involved, when remarked upon by bodies like the National
Council of Civil Liberties, only won the rebuke, from Tory backwoods M.P.s
like Mr Biggs-Davison, that the N.C.C.L. should be renamed 'National Council
for Criminal Licence'. When the Daily Telegmphasserted that 'the Britain we
chiefly treasure and the world admires has grown out or an instinct for freedom,
tolerance, justice and legitimacy of rule', it was simply moving about the most
powerful ideological counters at its command. The practical defence of practical
'freedoms' and 'tolerances' was obviously not i1sconcern.
We have already rererred to the appearance, at the high point of class polari-
sation, of lhe conspiracy of the 'Red Scare'. This is not, of course, a recent
phenomenon. To take this century alone, Lloyd-George had conjured it inlo
existence in the 1919-21period; it appeared in the form or the Zinoviev letter
during the Labour Minority government; at the time of the General Strike; in the
Laski affair; it was ubiquitous for a time in the depths of the Cold War; it received
overt confirmation in the revelations of Communist penetration of the electrical
trade unions; Mr Wilson had resurrected it in the seamen's strike. In the 1974-6
period, it had a virtual field-day. Mr Heath delivered ii, in the very person of
Mr Arthur Scargill, to an eager television audience in the warm-up to the 1974
election. Since then, it has surged around such prominent figures as Mr Benn
and Mr Scanlon; ii has shadowed every key election within any union executive
of size; it has become part of the common currency in which media political
reporters and commentators trade. Any matter affecting the degree or militancy
of a strike, or a union election or vote which might tip the balance of forces to the
left, and thus endanger the 'social contract', has been recast in terms of 'reds in
the executive', 'trotskyists under the bed', or 'moderates/extremists'. The tighter
the rope along which the British economy is driven, the finer the balance between
compliance with and overthrow of the 'social contract', the greater the power
the conspiratorial metaphor has exerted over political discourse. Events as appar-
ently unrelated as progressive education at the William lyndale primary school,
indiscipline in the classroom or agitation at education cuts are instantly reduced
to the conspiratorial calculus. Any opposition to anything which does not assume
the becalmed rorm of the well-posed parliamentary question is amenable to
being reconstituted as the work of a handful of subversives behind the arras. The
Labour Party is entirely discussed in terms of subversion by 'left-wing Marxists'
in the constituencies; smear stories, like those floated by Mr Ian Sproat M.P.
about fellow-travelling Labour Ministers are extensively examined in the press.
The B.B.C. helped to sponsor a whole 'Gulag Archipelago' panic on its own,
promoting Solzhenitsyn's uninformed views about the West as the basis for a
serious debate about the erosion of British liberties.
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEPJ'IONAl,STATE' 307
This collectiveparanoiaof the conspiratorialenemies of the state is only the
most overt side of the ideologicalpolarisationinto which the countryhas fallen.
Other themes ride high withinits matrix of propositions.One is the charge that,
despite all appearances,the country has fallen victim to the stealthyadvanceof
socialistcollectivism.This theme- with its auractivecounterposingof the 'little
man', the privatecitizen,against the anonymous,corporatetentaclesof the state
- has won many converts.While it captures somethingof the authenticreality
of an interventionistslate under the conditionsof monopolycapitalism,what is
obscurelythematisedwithinthis populistsleight of hand is the slowly maturing
assault on the WelfareState and any tendencytowardssocial equality.Long the
target of covert ideologicalauack from the right, this is now,of course,also the
space where social democracy,in conditions of economic recession, is itself
obligedto makedeepsurgicalincisions.Underthe guise of monetaristorthodoxy,
the attemptto dismantletheWelfareState has nowreceivedthe cloakof economic
respectability.(Just exactly what monopolycapital will do withoutan enormous
state edificeto ensurethe social and politicalconditionsof its survivalremainsto
be seen.)A relatedtheme is the chargethat the governmentand indeedthe whole
societyis now 'run by the trade unions' - a developmentof the theme,launched
in Mr Heath'sera, of the unions 'holdingthe nationup to ransom', whichhas now
also entered public orthodoxy,and which is peculiarlypointedin a periodwhere
the survivalof Labourdependsexactly on the degree to which the unions are in
its pocket.
A more powerfulideologicalthrust is to be found in the co-ordinatedswing
towards tougher social discipline, behind which a general turn to the right
in civil and social life is being pioneered. For the first time since the New
Conservativesswallowed 'Butskellism', there is an open, frontal attack on the
whole idea of equality,a shamelessadvocacyof elitism, and a complete refur-
bishing of the competitiveethic. Sir Keith Joseph has not hesitated to give this
its full philosophicaljustification, 'For self-interestis a prime motivein human
behaviour... any social arrangementsfor our epoch must contain,harmoniseand
harnessindividualand corporateegoismsif they are to succeed.... Surely we can
accept... thatthe leasteducatedclassesin thepopulationshouldbe lessopento new
ideas,more fixatedon past experience... 1 Anyway,conservatism,likeselfishness,
is inherentin the human condition.'111 The economicrecessionhas providedthe
cover for a return to those 'aggressive' Tory themes - 'patriotism, the family,
the breakdownof law,and the permissivesociety'. 112His New Statesmanarticle,
with its defenceof the small businessentrepreneur('He exercisesimagination....
He takes risks ... he is sensitiveto demand,which often means to people') or his
earlier Birminghamspeech in defence of the traditionalfamily of modest size,
moderatehabits,thrift and self-reliance,and its noxiousassault on 'mothers, the
under twentiesin many cases, single parents,from classes4 and 5', 'least fitted
to bring children into the world' who are now producing 'a third of all births',
articulate a virulent and unapologeticpropaganda for what is euphemistically
called 'social market values' which few politicianswould have risked uttering
in public ten years ago. These themes, in which the dismantlingof the Welfare
State is strongly advanced, are cross-laced by the usual negatives- 'teenage
308 POUCIN01llECRISIS

pregnancies ... drunkenness,sexual offences, and crimes of sadism' - all of

whichcan be laid al the door of the welfarephilosophy,supportedby 'bully boys
of the left', cheered on by some universitystaffs, 'cuckoos in our democratic
nest'. 113 The undisguisedeffort here is to 'reverse the vast bulk of the accumu-
lating detritus of socialism'. The sustained assault on 'welfare scroungersand
layabouts'whichhas developedin the wakeof this lineof auack is quiteconsistent
with it - a moral backlashagainst the vast massesof the unemployedreputedto
be living on social security on the Costa Brava. It is evident,also, in the wide-
ranging counter-offensiveagainst moral pollution led by Mrs Whitehouseand
others('Let us take inspirationfrom that remarkablewoman', Sir Keithadvised),
cresting in the anti-abortioncampaigns,to which Labour has itselr partly capitu-
lated.Anotherarena in whichthe authoritarianmood is now much in evidenceis,
as we already noted, that or public education.The backlashagainst progressive
educationis in foll swing,with the William'fyndaleschool chosenas the site or
Custer'slaststand('Fascinating!Morepowerto you.I believewecan turn thetide',
MrRhodesBoysonwroteto oneor theWilliam'fyndaleaffair'smaininstigators).11'
Mr Boyson- Mrs Thatcher's second in commandat Education- is, or course,
one or the most articulaterange-riderson this front, advancingthe case fur elite
educationand the vouchersystem, stimulatingthe panic surroundingclassroom
violence, vandalism,lrllancyand falling academic and literacy standards.The
whole WelrareSlate, he says, is destroying 'personal liberty,individualrespon-
sibility and moral growth' and 'sapping the collectivemoral fibre or our people
as a nation'. These scares are attributedto 'little gauleiters'who show 'ignorant,
frustrated,aimless young people' how to channel 'their frustrationinto violent
actionto furtherrevolutionaryaims'(MrsWalkerortheWilliam'fyndaleschool).115
These themes are skilrully orchestrated,at a high level, by the educationBlack
Papers, manipulatorsor 'parent power' like Mr St John Stevas.Tory councils,
meanwhile,are makingstirringlast stands(as at Tameside)to haltcomprehensivi-
sationand derend the privateand elite educationsectorsto the limit.
What lends this steady drirt into an active authoritarian 'social gospel' its
politicalmuscleis the emergence,for the first time since the war, or an organised
and articulatefractionof the radicalrightwithinthe leadershipof the Conservative
Parryitself.With the electionor Mrs Thatcherand her entourage,this fractionno
longer belongsto the Tory fringesand back-benches.It has been installedat its
intellectualand politicalcentre. Its principalalibi has been the doctrine or tight
money,cuts in publicexpenditureand a return to the disciplineor the rree market,
which is the main anti-inflationplank advancedby the monetaristdoctrinaires
who haveclusteredinto the Thatchercamp:

The more governmentshave intervenedto removeeconomicdecisionsout or

the market and into the political arena, the more they have set group against
group, class against class and sectional interest against public interest. The
politicizationor so wide an area or the country's economicactivities has set
up strains whichare threateningits socialcohesion.In short, what the country
is now confrontedwith is not a crisis or the market economybut a crisis or
governmentinterferencewith the marketeconomy.116
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEPTIONALSTATE' 309

This goes hand in hand with the defence of the small businessman,lower-
middle--class respectability,self-relianceand self-disciplineconstantlypropagated
by Mrs Thatcher,Sir KeithJoseph, Mr Maude and the others at the helm of the
Tory leadership,Its ideologuesare vociferouselsewhere- in Mr Worsthorne's
column in the Sunday Telegraph,117 in Mr Cosgrave'sSpectator- now virtually
a Thatcher house--journal - in The Economist.It has its more populist ventrilo-
quists in the Clean-UpTelevision,Anti-Abortion,Festival of Light campaigns,
National Association of RatepayersAction Groups, the National Association
for Freedom,NationalFederationof the Self-Employed,the NationalUnion of
Small Shopkeepers,Voice of the IndependentCentre lobbies, who give to the
newauthoritarianismof the rightconsiderablepopulardepth of penetrationin the
arousedmiddleclassesand petty-OOurgeois sectors.
It is one of the paradoxesof the extraordinaryHeathinterregnumthat, in toying
and playing, but only up to a point, with extremistalternatives,Mr Heath - an
'extremist'of themoderatesort,andprobablyultimatelya manof the Conservative
middle-groundratherthan the far right - nevertheJesshelpedto let extremismout
of the bag. He appearsto have hoped to ride these dangerousforces through to
a defeat of the workingclass, but then to stop short (in the interestsof the more
centrist Conservativeforces,who were also part of his coalition)of a full eJabo-
ration of a moral-politicalprogrammeof the petty-bourgeoisright. The spectacle
of a head-on collision with the workingclass - a collision he seemeddoomed
to lose - frightenedaway his centrist support in the Party and his industrialist
support in business. But the consequenceof his defeat, and the disintegration
of the bizarreclass alliancewhich he yoked togetherin 1970,was to release the
genuinelyextremeright into an independentlife of its own.He and his supporters
are nowpilloriedas unwillingcontributorsto the drift into 'creepingcollectivism'.
The Thatcher-Joseph-Maudeleadership,in its breakawayto the right, has pulled
those floating themes of extremismand conspiracyinto an alternativepolitical
programme.It says somethingfor the abilityof Britishcapitalto recogniseits own,
long-term,best intereststhat it settled,after 1974,once more for a management
of the crisis by its 'natural governors'- a social-democraticParty. But it says
somethingfor the transformedideologicaland politicalclimateof the exceptional
state that those half-fanned spectres which once hoveredon the edge of British
politicsproperhave now been fullypoliticisedand installedin the vanguard,as a
viable basis for hegemony,by the 'other' party of capital, the Conservatives.As
the span of Labour's fragilebase is eroded, this is the historical 'bloc' poised to
inheritthe next phase of the crisis. It is a conjuncturemany wouldpreferto miss.
Thosewhorecallthethematicsof the 'Englishideology'analysedat somelength
earlier will not have missedthe reappearanceof what are essentiallythese great
petty-bourgeoisideologicalthemes on the politicalstage. There is no doubt that,
as recessionsharpensthe competitiveinstincts,so the petty-bourgeoiscivil ethic
exerts a strongerappeal to the public at large. In the absence of a well•founded
and sustained thrust to democratiseeducation,some working-classparents will
certainlybe attractedby the promisesof 'parent power' and the 'vouchersystem',
if by these means they can ensure that rapidly narrowingeducation opportu-
nities will be channelledto their own children.The old petty bourgeoisie- the
310 POLICINGTHECRISIS

small shopkeeper, clerical and black-<:oatedworker, the small salarial and the
small businessman - has certainly been squeezed by the growing power of the
corporate enterprises, the slate and the multinationals. The middle classes have
laken a sharp drop in living standards, and may have to bear more before the crisis
ends. Of course, these do not constitute a viable ruling-class fraction on which
sustained political power from the right could be based. They might provide the
vociferous subalterns in such a class alliance - its political cutting-edge; but it is
difficult to see with what fractions of capital they could be combined as a way of
'settling the crisis' under the management of the radical right. But a reorganised
capitalist interest, determined to drive through a radical economic solution to the
crisis at the expense or the working class, operating - as has happened before in
European history in this century - behind a rampant petty-bourgeois ideology, the
ideology or 'a petty-bourgeoisie in revolt', 118could provide the basis for a fonni-
dable 1emporarydlnouemellt.This regressionor capitalism to a petty-bourgeois
ideology in conditions or political slalemate and economic stagnation is one or
the features which makes the equilibrium on which the post-1970 capitalist state
is poised an 'exceptional' momenl.

INSIDETHE YELWW SUBMARINE

When we first embarked on this study the use or the word 'crisis' to describe the
present 'condition of Britain' had not yet acquired anything like its current status.
It is now - almost too conveniently - in fashion. When we started our work on
the historical context or 'mugging', we round it extremely difficult to enforce
this reading or the general situation in relation to our more delimited concerns.
Economic recession, in this sense at least, has wonderfully concentrated the
mind. It is now de rigueurto refer to 'the British crisis', often without specifying
in what respects such a 'crisis' exists. It is necessary for us, then, to detine how
we understand the 'crisis' whose development we have been delineating. First,
it is a crisis or and for British capitalism: the crisis, specifically, or an advanced
industrial capitalist nation, seeking to stabilise itself in rapidly changing global
and national conditions on an extremely weak, post-imperial economic base. It
has become, progressively, also an aspect or the general economic recession or
the capitalist system on a world scale. The reason for this global weakness or
capitalism is beyond our scope. But we must note, historically, that post-war
capitalism in general survived only at the cost or a major reconstruction or
capital and labour and the labour process upon which the extraction and reali-
sation or the surplus depends: that profound recomposition entailed in the shirt to
'late' capitalism. All the capitalist economies or the world undertook this internal
'reconstruction' differently in the period immediately before and immediately
after the Second World War; the comparative history or this period or capitalist
reconstruction has yet to be written. Britain attempted such a deep transfor-
mation, too - on the basis, we suggest, or an extremely weak and vulnerable
industrial and economic base; and this attempt to raise a backward industrial
capitalist economy to the condition or an advanced productive one created, for
a time, the hot-house economic climate and conditions popularly known and
mistakenly experienced as 'affiuence'. Its success was extremely limited and
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEPTIONALSTATE' 311
short-lived.Britain- in these late-capitalistterms- remainsunevenlydeveloped,
permanentlystuck in 'the transition'. The effects of this slalemateposition,this
uncompletedtransition,have been experiencedat every level of society in the
period since. This main, underlyingcondition is one to which we continually
point, in our analysis,but which we cannot,given the scope of our work and our
competence,fill out further or develop,or give its proper weight and dimension.
Its centrality to the whole conjuncture must not, however,on that account be
neglected.
Second,then, it is a crisis of the 'relationsof social forces' engenderedby this
deep ruptureat the economiclevel- a crisis in the politicalclass struggleand in
the politicalapparatuses.Here, the matter is, again, extremelycomplicated,and
we mustsettle for a simplification- at the point wherethe politicalstruggleissues
into the 'theatre of polities', it has been experiencedas a crisis of 'Party', i.e. of
both the ruling-classand the working-classparties. Politically,the key question
has been what peculiarallianceof class forces,organisedon the terrainof politics
and the state in terms of a specific'equilibrium'of forcesand interests,is capable
of providinghegemonicpoliticalleadershipinto and through 'the transition'.The
questionof 'Party' is crucialhere, in Gramsci'ssense:not at the levelof the parlia-
mentarygame,butat the morefundamentallevelof the organisedpoliticalinterests
and trajectoriesof fundamentalclass forces.We have not been able precisely to
delineatethe successionof historicalclass allianceswhichhavemadetheir bid for
powerin this period,nor on the basis of what kindsof concessionssuch alliances
have been constructed.Once again, this history of Parties and blocs (which is
somethingvery differentfrom a historyof the Conservativeor the Labour Party
as such, or of the interplayof parties in Parliament)remains to be written.We
cannotundertakeit here.We can only note that therehas indeedbeena succession
of such historicallyconstructedclass 'blocs' since 1945;we need only think of
the particularpopularalliancewhichcoalescedin the Labourlandslideof 1945;of
that whichunderpinnedMacmillan'ssuccessfulperiodof 'hegemonicrule' in the
1950s:of the quite distinctivealternativeclass alliancesbehindwhichMr Wilson
attemptedto return to powerin 1964- 'workersby handand brain' (includingthe
revolutionariesin white coats and modem-mindedmanagersof capital); and of
the peculiaralliance which supportedMr Heath's return to power in 1970.But,
without question, the most importantfeature of this level of the crisis, for our
purposes,is the role of 'labourism'- specificallythat of the LabourParty,but also
the labouristcast of the organisedinstitutionsof the workingclass. Labourism
has emergedas an alternativeparty of capital,and thus an alternativemanagerof
the capitalistcrisis. At the most fundamentalpoliticallevel - and shaping every
feature of the politicalculture before it - the crisis of British capitalismfor the
workingclass has thus been, also, a crisis of the organisedworkingclass and the
labour movement.This has had the most profoundeffect, not simply in terms of
the massivestruggle to incorporatethe workingclasses into the capitalist state,
and thus as junior partnersin the managementof crisis, but also in terms of the
consequentdivisionswithinthe class, the growthof sectionalclassconsciousness,
of economism,syndicalismand reformistopportunism.It has been of profound
importancethat the majorstrategiesfor dealing with the crisis and containingits
political effects have been drawn in large measurejl'om the social-democratic
312 POUCINOTIIECRISIS

repertoire,not from that of the traditional party of the ruling class. The disloca-
tions which this has produced in the development of the crisis, as well as the
resistances to it and thus to the possible forms of its dissolution, have hardly
begun to be caJculated.
Third, then, it has been a crisis of the state. The entry into 'late capitalism'
demands a thorough reconstruction of the capitalist state, an enlargement of
its sphere, its apparatuses, its relation to civil society. The state has come to
perform new funclions at several critical levels of society. It now has a decisive
economic role, not indirectly but directly. It secures the conditions for the
continued expansion of capital. It therefore assumes a major role in the economic
management of capital. Therefore conflicts between the fundamental class forces,
which hitherto formed up principally on the terrain or economic life and struggle,
only gradually, at points of extreme conflict 'escalating' up to the level or the
state, are now immediately precipitated on the terrain or the state itself, where
all the critical political bargains are struck. Needless to say this 'corporate' style
of crisis management, in which the state plays an active and principal role on
behalf of 'capital as a whole', and to which, increasingly, independent capitals are
subscribed, represents a majorshift in the whole economic and political order. Its
ideological consequences - for example, the role which the state must now play
in the mobilisation of consent behind these particular crisis--managementstrat-
egies, and thus in the general construction or consent and legitimacy - are also
profound.
Fourth, it is a crisis in political legitimacy, in social authority, in hegemony, and
in the forms of class struggle and resistance. This crucially touches the questions
or consent and of coercion. The construction of consent and the winning of
legitimacy are, of course, the normal and natural mechanisms or the liberal and
post-liberal capitalist state; and its institutions are peculiarly well adapted to the
construction or consent by these means. But consent also has to do with the degree
and manner of the 'social authority' which the particular alliance of class forces
which is in power can effect or wield over all the subordinate groups. In short, it
has to do with the concrete character of that fonn of social hegemony which it is
possible at any moment for the ruling classes to install and sustain. Here we come
closer to our immediate concerns so far as 'mugging' is concerned. The degree of
success in the exercise of hegemony - leadership based on consent, rather than
on an excess of force - has to do, in part, precisely with success in the overall
management of society; and this is more and more difficult as the economic
conditions become more perilous. But it also has to do with the development of
coherent and organised oppositional forces, of whatever kind, and the degree to
which these are won over, neutralised, incorporated, defeated or contained: that
is to say, it has to do with the containment of the class struggle. Here, the matter
of periodisation becomes imperative. It seems to us that, however uncertain and
short-lived werethe conditions which made it possible, a period or successful
'hegemony' was indeed brought about in the mid-1950s (we have tried, earlier, to
say on what conditions and at what cost). But this period of consensus begins to
come apart, at least in its natural and 'spontaneous' fonn, by the end of the 1950s.
The state is then obliged to draw heavily on what we have described as the 'social-
democratic' variant of consensus-based hegemony. We must not allow ourselves
 TOWARDSTHE 'EXCEP'rlONALSTATE' 313

to be confused by 1his. ILmatters profoundly that, in however 'reformist' a way,

the capitalist crisis in the 1960scan only be managed at the 'expense' of recruiting
the party of Labour to the seat of management.

Undoubtedly the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of

interests and the tendencies of groups over which hegemony is to be exercised,
and that a certain compromise equilibrium be fanned - in other words that the
leading group should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate kind. But there
is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the
essential. 119

It is, in any event, difficult to know whether this period can in any proper sense
be characterised as one of consensus, of hegemony. It is more akin to what we
have characterised as 'managed dissensus' - that undisputed social authority
which constitutes 'hegemony' in its proper sense is no longer in place. Consent
is won, grudgingly, at the expense only of successive ruptures and breakdowns,
stops and starts, with the ideological mechanisms working at full throttle to
conjure up out of the air a 'national interest' - on which consensus might once
again come to rest - which cannot any longer be naturally or spontaneously
won. This is no longer a period of ruling-class hegemony: it is the opening
of a serious 'crisis in hegemony'. And here, of course, not only do the social
contradictions begin to multiply in areas far beyond that of the economic and
productive relations, but here, also, the varying forms of resistance, class
struggle and dissent begin to reappear. There is certainly no over-all coherence
Lo these fonns of resistance - indeed, in their early manifestations, they
resolutely refuse to assume an explicitly political form at all. The British crisis
is, perhaps, peculiar precisely in tenns of the massive displacement of political
class struggle into forms of social, moral and ideological protest and dissent,
as well as in terms of the revival, after 1970, of a peculiarly intense kind of
'economism' - a defensive working-class syndicalism. Nevertheless, in its
varying and protean forms, official society - the state, the political leadership,
the opinion leaders, the media, the guardians of order- glimpse, fitfully at first,
then (1968 onwards) more and more clearly, the shape of the enemy. Crises
must have their causes; causes cannot be structural, public or rational, since
they arise in the best, the most civilised, most peaceful and tolerant society
on earth - then they must be secret, subversive, irrational, a plot. Plots must
be smoked out. Stronger measures need to be taken - more than 'normal'
opposition requires more than usual control. This is an extremely important
moment: the point where, the repertoire of 'hegemony through consent' having
been exhausted, the drift towards the routine use of the more repressive features
of the state comes more and more prominently into play. Here the pendulum
within the exercise of hegemony tilts, decisively, from that where consent over-
rides coercion, to that condition in which coercion becomes, as it were, the
natural and routine form in which consent is secured. This shift in the intemal
balance of hegemony - consent to coercion - is a response, within the state, to
increasing polarisation of class forces (real and imagined). It is exactly how a
'crisis in hegemony' expresses itself.
314 POLICINGtHE CRISJS
0

Controlcomesto be implemented,progressively,in slowstages.It is differently

imposedon thedifferent'trouble areas' whichthe crisisprecipitates.Interestingly
and significantly,it occursat two levels- both aboveand below.Henceit assumes
the form of a coercivemanagementof conflict and struggle,which - paradoxi-
cally- also, has popular'consent', has won legitimacy.We mustnot for a moment
abandon the specific fonn in which the British slate slides into an 'exceptional'
posture.The simple slogansof 'fascism' are more than uselesshere- they cover
up, conveniently,everythingwhichit is most importantto keep in view.A society
wherethe state is abrogatedthroughthe seizureof state power,by, say,an armed
coup,in whichthe repressiveforcesopenlytakecommandand imposebyfiat and
the rule of the gun, official terror and torture, and a repressiveregime installed
(Chileand Brazilareexamples),is quitedifferentfroma societyin whicheachstep
towardsa moreauthoritarianpostureis accompaniedby a powerfulgroundswellof
popularlegitimacy,and wherethe civil powerand all the formsof the post-liberal
state remain solidly intact and in command.Again we have few theoreticaland
analytic tools, or comparaliveevidence,with which to characterisemore deeply
the slow developmentof such a state of legitimatecoercion.In their absence,we
have settled for a more simple,descriptiveterm: we havecalled it 'the birth of a
law-and-ordersociety'. It is clear,as we look acrossthe waterto the UnitedStates
or to the erection of 'emergencylaws' in one WesternEuropeancountry after
another,that,despiteits peculiarlyBritishfeatures,this is no idiosyncraticBritish
development.The carrying of the law down directly into the politicalarena has
not, of course,gone uncontested- the intenseworking-classresistanceleadingto
the defeatof the IndustrialRelationsAct and the politicaldestructionof the Heath
governmentmarks, in this context,a developmentof profoundsignificance;but,
in manydepartmentsof social life, it has occurredsteadily,if apparentlyhaphaz-
ardly.The whole tenor of social and politicallife has been transformedby it. A
distinctivelynew ideologicalclimate has been precipitated.
Again, we have tried to trace this movement- the 'social history of social
reaction' - through from ils earliest manifestations.Schematically,it begins
with the unresolvedambiguitiesand contradictionsof affluence,of the post-war
'settlement'. It is experienced,first, as a diffusesocial unease,as an unnaturally
acceleratedpace of socialchange,as an unhingingof stablepatterns,moralpoints
of reference. It manifests itself, first, as an unlocatedsurge of social anxiety.
This fastenson differentphenomena:on the hedonisticculture of youth, on the
disappearanceof the traditional insignia of class, on the dangers of unbridled
materialism,on change itself. Later, it appearsto focus on more tangibletargets:
specifically,on the anti-socialnatureof youth movements,on the threat to British
life by the black immigrant,and on the 'rising fever chart' of crime. Later still
- as the major social upheavalsof the counter-cultureand the political student
movementsbecomemore organisedas social forces - it surges, in the form of a
more focused 'social anxiety', aroundthese points of disturbance.It nameswhat
is wrong in general terms: it is the permissivenessof social life. Finally,as the
crisis deepens, and the forms of conflict and dissent assume a more explicitly
politicaland a more clearlydelineatedclass form,social anxietyalso precipitates
in its more politicalform.It is directedagainstthe organisedpowerof the working
class;againstpoliticalextremism;againsttrade-unionblackmail;againstthe threat
 TOWARDSTHE 'm<em>TIONALSTATE' 315

of anarchy,riot and terrorism.It becomesthe reactionarypole in the ideological

class struggle. Here, the anxietiesof the lay public and the perceivedthreats to
the state coincide and converge.The state comes to providejust that 'sense of
direction' which the lay public feels society has lost. The anxietiesof the many
are orchestratedwith the need for controlof the few.The interestof 'all' finds its
filling armatureonly by submiuingitself to the guardianshipof those who lead.
The state can now, publicly and legitimately,campaign against the 'extremes'
on behalf and in defence of the majority- the 'moderates'. The 'law-and-order'
societyhas slippedinto place.
Let us guard,onceagain,againsta conspiratorialreadingof thisprocess.Society
is massivelymore polarised,in everypan and feature,in the 1970sthan it was in
the 1950s.Conflicts,repressedand displacedat an earlier point in time, emerge
into lhe open,and dividethe nation.The 'crisis' is not a crisis, alone,in the heads
of ruling-classconspirators;it is the form assumedby the class struggle in this
period.What are imponant,however,are the distortionsand inflectionswhichare
endemicto the waysin whichthiscrisis,and the forcesof resistanceand opposition
rangedagainstit, are ideologicallyperceivedand signpostedby thosein power,and
how those misrecognitionsare communicatedto, and come to form the basis for,
misconceptionsof the crisis in popular consciousness.Ideologyis an inflection
or misrepresentationof real relations,a displacementof the class struggle, not
myths conjuredup out of fairy stories.The 'ideology of the crisis', which leads
to and supportsand finallyfinds its fulfilmentin a 'law-and-order'society,refers
to a real crisis, not to a phoney one. It is how that real crisis is perceivedand
controlledwhich contains lhe seeds of politicaland ideologicaldistortion.It is,
then, finally,a crisis in and of ideology.The 'consensus' ideologiesof the 1950s
are clearlyinadequatefor a periodof sharpeningconflictand economicdecline;in
general,these ideologies,constructedaroundthe key post-capitalistthemes,give
way to more embattledideologiesorganisedaround the issues of nationalunity
and 'nationalinterest'. Not only is there,then, a break in the dominantideological
frameworks,but an enormous variety of oppositional and counter-ideologies
develop,presentingchallengesor varying force, coherenceand effectivenessto
the taken-for-grantedorthodoxies.Such momentsor ideologicalruptureand trans-
formationare neversmooth;the ideological'work' required,showsthrough;so do
the breaksanddislocations.Aboveall, there is the questionof how the progressive
polarisationor societyand the 'crisis' or capitalismcome lo be signifiedand inter-
preted, within the frameworkor these competingideologicalconstructions.It is
or the utmost importanceto analyse, precisely,the mechanismsthrough which
the tilt in the crisis or hegemony,from consentto coercion,is publiclysignified:
how it wins legitimacyby appearingto be groundedand connected,not simply in
myths, fears and speculations,but in the experiencedreality or ordinarypeople.
The actual ideologicalpassageinto a 'law-and-order'societyentailsa processor
a quite specifickind. Crucially,in the early years or our period,it is sustainedby
what we call a displacementeffect:the connectionbetweenthe crisisand the way
it is appropriatedin the socialexperienceor the majority- socialanxiety- passes
througha series or false 'resolutions', primarilytaking the shape of a succession
of moralpanics.It is as if each surgeor socialanxietyfindsa temporaryrespitein
the projectionof fears on to and into certain compellinglyanxiety-ladenthemes:
316 POUCINOTHECRISIS

in lhe discoveryordemons,the idenlificationof folk devils,the mountingof moral

campaigns,the expiationof prosecutionand control- in the moral-paniccycle.
None of these projected'workings.through'of social anxiety succeedsfor long.
The 'trouble' about youth is not appeased by the Teddy Boys, and 'mods' and
'rockers' sent down in court;it surfacesagain,nowabouthooliganism,vandalism,
long hair,drugs,promiscuoussex and so on. The fearsaboutrace are not expiated
by a successionof panics about blacks, or catharsisedby Powelliterhetoric or
calmedby tougherand toughermeasuresof controlon the entryof immigrants.Up
it goes again, now about 'the ghetto', or about black schools,or about the black
unemployed,or about blackcrime.The same could be said for a wholenumberof
'moral panics'about similarareas of socialconcernthroughoutthe 1960s-by no
means excludingthat perennialand continuingpublic panic, about crime itself.
The firstphenomenalformwhichthe 'experienceof socialcrisis' assumesin public
consciousness,then, is the moml panic.
The secondstage is whereparticularmoralpanicsconvergeand overlap:where
the enemy becomes both many-facetedand 'one'; where the sale of drugs, the
spread of pornography,the growthof the women'smovementand the critiqueof
the family are experiencedand signifiedas the thin edges of that larger wedge:
the threat to the stale, the breakdownof social life itself,the comingof chaos,the
onsetof anarchy.Nowthe demonsproliferate- but,moremenacingly,theybelong
to the same subversivefamily.They are 'brothers under the skin'; they are 'part
and parcel of the same thing'. This looks,on the surface,like a more concreteset
of fears, becausehere social anxietycan cite a specificenemy,name names.But,
in fact, this namingof names is deceptive.For the enemy is lurkingeverywhere.
He (or, increasingly,she) is 'behind everything'.This is the point wherethe crisis
appearsin its most abstractform: as a 'general conspiracy'.It is 'the crisis' - but
in the disguiseof Armageddon.
This is where the cycle of moral panics issues directly into a law-and-order
society.For if the threat to society'from below' is at the same time the subversion
of the state from within, then only a generalexerciseof authorityand discipline,
only a very wide-rangingbrief to the state to 'set things to right' - if necessaryat
the temporaryexpenseof certain of those libertieswhich,in more relaxedtimes,
we all enjoyed-is likelyto succeed.In this form,a societyfamousfor its tenacious
grasp on certain well-earnedrights of personallibertyand freedom,enshrinedin
the liberalstate, screws itself up to the distastefultask of going througha period
of 'iron times'. The sound of people nerving themselvesto the distastefulbut
necessaryexerciseof 'more than usuallaw' to ensure,in a momentof crisis, 'more
than usual order', is to be heard throughoutthe land. Mrs Thatcher puts it one
way; Sir Keith Joseph puts it another;the Archbishopof Canterburybrings the
authorityof the Churchto bear on it in still anotherway;there is a populistand a
social-democraticvariantof it as well. In these disparatevoices we can hear the
closureoccurring- the interlockingmechanismsclosing,the doorsclangingshut.
The societyis batteningitself down for 'the long haul' througha crisis. There is
light at the end of the tunnel- but not much;and it is far off. Meanwhile,the state
has wonthe right, and indeedinheritedthe duty,to moveswiftly,to stampfastand
hard, to listen in, discreetlysurvey,saturateand swamp,charge or hold without
 317

charge, act on suspicion, hustle and shoulder, to keep society on the straight and
narrow. Liberalism, that last back-stop against arbitrary power, is in retreat. It
is suspended. The times are exceptional. The crisis is real. We are inside the
'law-and-order' slate. That is the social, the ideological content of social reaction
in the l 970s. It is also the moment of mugging.
Part IV
 10
The Politics of 'Mugging'
This is a book about 'mugging'; but it is not a book about why or how muggers,
as individuals,mug, Although using such first-handaccounts as exist, it does
not attempt to reconstruct,from the inside, the motives or the experience of
'mugging'.There is, undoubtedly,such a book to be written;but thereare manyin
a better positionto do so than us. We havedeJiberatelyavoidedthat kind of recon-
structedaccountbecausewe wanted to show 'mugging' as a social phenomenon
in a differentlight. Our aim has been to examine 'mugging' from the perspective
of the society in which it occurs.Even in this final chapter,where we come face
to face with what 'mugging' means,our aim is not to providedefinitiveanswers,
in terms of the individualbiographiesof 'muggers' and their victims,but to trace
out the terrainon whichan answerto the questionmay be sought,and to identify
lhe elementswhich such an explanationmust include.
This requiresus to examinethe positionof the socialgroup with which,in the
interveningperiod between 1972-3 and the present, 'mugging' has come to be
ambiguouslyidentified:black youth. Of course, by no meansall those convicted
of crimes labelled'muggings'are black.The officialstatisticsfor the more recent
period, quoted earlier, reveal significantrises in crimes labelled 'muggings' in
areas of some cities where there is no substantialblack settlement;and the press
continuesto report 'muggings' by white youths as well as black.Yet few people
woulddeny that, for all practicalpurposes,the tenns 'mugging' and 'black crime'
are now virtuallysynonymous.In the first 'mugging' panic, as we have shown,
though'mugging' was continuallyshadowedby the themeof race and crime,this
link was rarelymade explicit.This is no longerthe case.The two are indissolubly
linked:each tenn referencesthe otherin boththe officialand publicconsciousness.
Both are identifiedwith certain areas of dense black settlement,especiallyin the
London area. Mr Powell,whose views on these matters have also becomemore
explicit, has remarkedthat 'Mugging is a criminal phenomenonassociatedwith
the changingcompositionof the populationof some of Britain'slargercities.' He
told the PoliceFederationseminarat EmmanuelCollege,Cambridge,that 'he was
fascinatedto noticethe policehad startednot merelyto say it, but to criticizethose
who refusedto allowso manifesta fact to be stated.... To use a crude but effective
word, it is racial.'1 We shall see in a momentthe conditionswhichhaveproduced
this identification.
Even so, it is by no meansclear exactlywhat this equationbetween'mugging'
and 'black crime' means. Perhaps more black youths are indeed involvedin the
sorts of street crime commonlyand casually labelled 'muggings'. There is some
evidence that this is the case, especially in the official crime statistics. It may
322 POLICINGTHECRISIS

also be that any kind of petty crime which involves black youths is invested
with the fearsome 'mugging' label. There is some evidence for that, too, in the
way snatchings,pickpocketingand pilferingin the street all seem to attract the
'mugging' label. It may be that 'mugging' is now understoodto be, typically,a
'black' crime, even when occasionallywhite youths actuallycommit it. There is
someevidencefor that, as well.Thus eventhe growthin the scale of 'mugging' in
someurbanareasis notquite thesimple 'fact' thatit appears.Atleasttwoprocesses
seem to be involvedhere.First, in someurbanareas,blackyouthsare- to a degree
which it is impossible,fromthe statistics,to measureprecisely- involvedin petty
crime, includingthose whichare labelled 'mugging'. But second, 'mugging' has
come to be unambiguouslyassignedas a blackcrime, locatedin and arisingfrom
the conditionsof life in the black urban areas. Let us look at this second devel-
opmentfirst.

RETURNOF THE REPRBSSBD

As we haveshown,'mugging', importedinto Britainas a labelfor certainkindsof
crime in the 1971-2 period,was alreadyconnotativelyrich in its racial reference.
But, in the early period, this aspect was handleddiscreetly,euphemistically.The
mixedethnic identityof the three boys sent down in the Handsworthcase helped
to raise this submergedtheme to visibility.But, we have argued,even here it is
partiallyover-riddenor subsumedby a 'public image', whichat one and the same
time evokedand deflectedthe racial element.This was the image of the 'ghetto
area', discussedin the conclusionto Chapter4. In this phase, 'mugging' and race
play an elaborategame of hide and seek.
In the immediate aftennath of the 1972-3 'mugging' epidemic, the term
virtually disappearsfrom the headlines.From the autumn of 1974, however,it
begins to make. once more, a fitful and sporadic reappearance.It is once again
used in a very impreciseway - a catch-alllabel for mindlesshooliganismrather
than anythingconcretelyrecognisableas 'muggings' in their more classic form.
Thus it is linked, for example, with the problem of attacks on bus and under-
groundcrews.Some headlinesand storiesin the period- all taken fromthe Daily
Telegraph - illustratethe range:

Tube Bus HooligansGet ToughMove(21 October 1974).

Police Squad Crack Downon Tube Muggers(21 October 1974).
'Get Toughwith Thugs' Says TransportChief (5 November1974).
Crack DownOn ViolenceSays BlwynJones (16 November1974).
TelevisionWatchOn Tube Hooligans(15 December1974),
BusViolenceTalksPlan By Jenkins(31 January 1975).
MuggersFind Easy Prey On Tube,Say Police ( 11February 1975).
The race theme emergeshere very unevenly.Some stories refer to soccer hooli-
ganism- a 'white' ratherthan a blackcrime. In at least one case the assaultedbus
conductor was black, his assailants white. The specificationof certain venues,
however,reactivatesearlierand subsequentassociations:Brixton,Clapham.
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUOOINO' 323

In the same periodwhenblackcrimeappearsto havea low profile,the confron-

tationsbetweenthe police and black youth in the black urban areas are assuming
a more open, politicised,fonn. One of the most reported of the many similar
incidentstaking placearoundthis time was the BrockwellPark incident.Here the
adult blackcommunityactivelyintervenedin a contestationbetweenblack youth
and the police,transformingthe incidentinto a community-wideissue.Briefly,a
fireworkdisplayat BrockwellPark, half a mile from the centre of Brixton,ended
in a scuffle,during which a white youth was stabbed.The police arrived at the
scene, felt themselvessun"Ounded and outnumberedby a 'hostile' black crowd;
shoving,jostling and a punch-upensued, in which the police constablesseemed
to lose their cool, becameirate, got involvedin scuffles with selectedblacks in
the crowd - some of whom emergedfrom the melee badly beaten. By the time
police reinforcementsarrived,one or two black youths had been picked out and
charged;the news of these a1TCSts precipitateda prolongedand intense pitched
battlebetweenthe policeand the blackcrowd in frontof the park. Severalyouths
were charged with serious assault offences;the police went for an Old Bailey
trial - and, in March 1974,got heavy sentences.Three things distinguishedthis
incident from the otherwisenow-routinerehearsal of 'daily life in the ghetto'.
First, the polarisationnow appeared as between the police and the whole or a
black community - including adults. Second, the substantial, organised and
politicalform or the communityresistancewhichaccompaniedthe sentencesand
appeal- a responsewhich includedsupportdemonstrationsand a strike of black
schoolchildren.2 Third, the incidenthad the effect or pinpointingthe source of
trouble and disaffectionspecificallyin the black urban localities.It locatedand
situatedblack crime, geographicallyand ethnically,as peculiarto black youth in
the inner-city'ghettoes'. This incidentprefigureda massiveand dramatic news
break,at the beginningor 1975,exclusivelyorientatedaroundthe 'black crime in
South London' problem.Thus the three themes,subtly interlwinedin the earlier
treatmentof 'mugging' (cf.: our analysis in Chapter 4) were now fused into a
single theme: crime, race and the ghetto. Accordingly,from this point onwards,
the explanatory paradigmsshift, bringing out more explicitly than before the
social, economicand structuralpreconditionsof the black crime problem- and
thus contributingthe final link in the chain which fused crime and racism with
the crisis.
The BrockwellPark incidentmustnot be seen in isolation.Asearlyas December
1973,the WhitePaper on police-immigrantrelationshad warnedof the necessity,
in thecomingmonths,to separate'the great majorityof hard-working,law-abiding
citizens' from the 'small minority of young coloured people', discontented
with the lack of job opportunitiesand 'apparently anxious to imitate behaviour
amongstthe black communityin the United States'.l The 'hard-working'phrase
was no casual reference.The evidenceaccumulatedin this period,not only of the
substantialsize of black youth unemploymentin these areas, but of a growing
disaffectionfrom 'work' and even a positive'refusal to work', especiallyamong
second-generationblacks: what Race Today has articulated and developed as
the 'revolt or the wageless'.This was also the periodin which those immigrants
still at work became fully involvedin militant industrialaction. The prolonged
324 POLICINGTH6CRISIS

strike at Imperial Typewriters,sustained with considerablemilitancyby Asian

women workers,lasted fourteen weeks in mid-1974,and its effects rippled into
the followingyear.~
In January 1975,the 'mugging' panicrecommences.A wholenewphase of the
cyclebegins.DerekHumphryprefacedhis piece on blackcrime in SouthLondon
with the hope that the facts he retold would not be used to feed prejudice.5 But
this was a forlornhope.The basicproblemsbehindthe crime figures,as Humphry
saw them- 'poverty,poor housing,lack of jobs and brokenfamilies'- were less
dramaticor quotablethan the fact that streetcrime in Lambeth'had tripledin five
years and 1974was the worst on record' or that 'or203 muggings'in Lewisham
in 1974,'172 were committedby black youths'. Althoughcarefullyphrased,the
article did invite selectivequotationby choosing the highly contentiousissue of
'crime' as its main point of entry and in its failure to pinpoint the institution-
alised natureof the racismwhich lay behind 'the basic problems'.In any event,ii
provokedhostilityamongstblacksthemselves,partlybecauseof how it was taken
up. For when the LondonEveningNews openedthe first of its four-day'spreads'
on the issue, the languageand lone were far less guarded,and the qualifications
less carefully drawn. The first, on 12 January, was lurid enough: 'The Violent
Truth of Life in London'. It openedwith a familiarenoughcomparison:'You are
more likelyto be muggedin Lambeththan in NewYork.'A list of recent incidents
followed, with a truncated version of the Sunday Times statistics. In fact the
EveningNews featuresdid not wholly live up to their headlines.AlthoughJohn
Blake's piece, on 12 January,centred on 'frightenedlocal residents', it quoted a
numberof localofficialswho were anxiousnot to 'frightenpeople'; and both this,
and other accompanyingpieces, gave far greater emphasisthan most featuresin
the previousphase of the cycle to 'environmental'causes: 'no play, no holidays,
no presents,youngstersget off to a bad start'; 'the growingsense of isolationfelt
by blacks'; 'trappedbetweenan educationsystemthat seemsunableto understand
their problemsand a white societythat seems to thrust humiliatingidentiesupon
them'. This changed pattern was not universal.When, in the same period, the
Bim1inghamEveningMail returnedto the theme- includingtwo front-pageleads
betweenDecember1974and January 1975- its generaliseduse of the 'mugging'
label was indistinguishablefrom the 1972-3 pattern: 'bullies, muggers,vandals
and exhibitionistshave made the subwaystheir own'.
But, elsewhere,there had been a notable shift in the pattern of signification.
The hithertoambiguousscenario of black crime had been clarifiedand focused.
Its racial delineation is now unmistakable: victims are middle-aged whites;
auackers are black; venues are specified parts of South London. Penal policy
questionswhichdominatedthe earlierdebateare largelyabsent;a social-problem
perspectivehas been almost universallyadopted.
This shift in emphasisand explanationmustbe tracedbackto its sources.What
had triggeredoff the Humphryarticle was a special report (never fully released
to the public) on street crime in South London,prepared by ScotlandYardand
passed to the Home Secretary.Both the panic at the soaring figures for black
crime and the social-problem,environmentalistexplanationsof crime appear in
this report, and in the subsequentofficialcommentsmade about it. The figures
which Humphryand others quoted from the report revealed:first (an important
 TH6 POI.ITICSOF 'MUClOING' 325
but hithertounacknowledgedfact about the crime statistics),that the police now
recordedthe race of victimsand assailantsin such cases for 'operationalreasons';
second, a number of scary comparativestatistics. These suggested that street
crime was almost as high in other South Londonboroughsas it was in Lambeth
and Lewisham;that '80% of the attackersare black and 85% of the victims are
white'; that 'theft from the person'offenceshad alreadypassedthe 1972peakand
a significantmajorityof these were committedby blacks. But the report is also
said to havearguedthat 'it is not a policingproblem;soaringstreetcrime is caused
by widespreadalienationof West Indian youth from white society'.6 And when
CommanderMarshall,then headof the MetropolitanPoliceCommunityRelations
Department,commentedon the figures, he went out of his way to cite urban
stresses, high unemployment,the generationgap, problems of cultural identity
and the influenceof 'blackextremistvoices'as contributoryfactors.Humphrysaid
his interviewsconfirmedthis line of argument:'Nowadaysthey reasonthat there
aren't manyjobs availableand the blacks won't get them anyway' (a quote from
a Peckhamyouth worker,Norris Richards).What is noticeableabout this is that
two, distinct and apparentlycontradictoryperspectivesare being simultaneously
adopted:a police-crime-controlperspective,and a social-problemperspective.If
the rest of the press fastenedfirst on the electrifyingfigures,few failed to remark
that 'For the first time the police have put the population,housing,school and
employmentstatisticsalongsidetheir crime data.'
The use of this double perspective- as comparedwith the differentemphases
of the 1972-3 period - requires further examination.Polarisationand hostility
betweenthe black community- especiallyyouth - and the police in the ghetto
areas hadcontinuedto grow.But the tempoand characterof the black response to
casualpoliceharassmentwaschanging.The responsehadbecomesharper,quicker,
tougher- aboveall, more organised,collectiveandpoliticised. This politicisation
of ethnicconsciousnesshad also becomemore localised in the blackareas. Since
the early 1970s,the police have been, effectively,responsiblefor controllingand
containingthis widespreaddisaffectionamongstthe blackpopulation,attempting
to confineit to the blackareas. However,in the periodafter 1974,this situationof
incipientblack revoltwas compoundedby a new set of factors.For the growing
economicrecessionmeant that the black work-force- because of its structural
positionin the labour force, and especiallyyoung black school-leavers,seeking
employmentfor the first time - was coming to constitutean ethnically distinct
class fraction - the one most exposed to the winds of unemployment.This was
coupled with signs of a growing industrial militancy amongst black workers.
What is more,the recessionentailedcuts in publicexpenditureand in the Welfare
State - once again, most calculatedto bear directlyon exactlythose inner urban
areas which were also areas of high black concentration.Thus a sector of the
population,already mobilisedin terms of black consciousness,was now also the
sector mostexposedto the acceleratingpace of the economicrecession.What we
are witnessinghere, in short, is nothing less than the synchronisationof the race
and the class aspects of the crisis. Policing the blacks threatenedto mesh with
the problem of policing the poor and policing the unemployed: all three were
concentratedin preciselythe same urban areas - a fact whichof course provided
that element of geographicalhomogeneitywhich facilitatesthe germinationof a
326 POLICINGTHECRISIS

militantconsciousness.The on-goingproblemof policingthe blackshad become,

for all practicalpurposes,synonymouswith the wider problemof policing the
crisis.(This conclusion,unforlunalely,was fully borne out by the police attacks
on the unemployed,during the Right to Woi*March on 19 March 1976.)Face
to face with this fundamentalchange in the characterof the policingexercise,it
is little wonder that the police and the Home Office were anxious that the full
social and economicdimensionsof the race problemshould be made plain to -
and the potential costs of social unrest borne by - that level in the state most
responsiblefor the over-allsituation:the governmentand the politicians.Hence
the steps to shift the problemup the hierarchyof responsibility,and to widen its
frameof reference- to include.for example,questionsof urbanaid and remedial
social work,as well as questionsof crime and publicorder.It is to this synchroni-
sationof the diffe1-ent aspectsof the crisis,that the referenceto social indicators
alongsidethe crime indicatorspoints.Contraryto whatCommanderMarshalland
otherssuggested,it was becausethe blacksand blackareas threatenedto become
a policingproblemof a much wider kind that the alienatingsocial conditionsof
blackssuddenlybecamea 'police' concern.
That also helps to explainthe nature of the officialresponse.As the economic
recessiondeepens, there is evidence of a double strategy,to match the double
perspectiveswe saw emerging.Strategiesare designedto 'cool the situationout':
expanded urban aid programmes,more direct assistancefor 'grass-roots' black
welfareschemes,the ill-fatedCommunityDevelopmentProjectsphase,even the
most recent targetingof the 'inner rings' for extraordinaryeconomicsupport by
both Mr Shore, the Ministerof the Environment,and Mr Whitelaw,his opposite
number in the ShadowCabinet; as well as steps to maintain a tough, abrasive
and intense control through intensifiedstreet policing specificallyin the urban
'trouble-spots'.This combinedstrategy- focusedpovertyfundingplus vigorous
policingof public order - defines the precise nature of the period of intensified
'socialconcern' whichthe returnof the Labourgovernmentinitiated.Its character
was 'overdetermined'from anotherdirection.Labourwas probablymore sympa-
thetic to the renewed lobbyingby communityrelations,white liberal and race-
relationsinstitutions,which were activein pointingup the deterioratingsituation
in the ghetto areas. But there is strong evidence.preciselyin this period, that, as
grass-rootsand community-basedresistancein the blackcommunitiesdeveloped,
so this was paralleledby a loss of credibility,confidenceand legitimacyin the
professionalrace-relationsagencies, and a passing of the initiative,finally, to
more activist,black organisationsand to more politicisedblack strategies.The
growthof a black press, with strong roots in the blackcommunitiesand of black
militantsupportgroups in this period is a crucial - and impressive- part of the
picture.But this meant that some counter-measureswould also have to be taken,
higherup the hierarchy,to strengthenthe legitimacyof these crucial 'community-
relations'mediatingagenciesbetweenthe state and the blackcommunity,lest the
initiativepassentirelyinto more militanthands.The maintenanceof the urbanaid
programme,despitethe loweringeconomicclimate.and the reconstructionof the
race-relations'establishment'throughthe new EqualOpportunitiesCommission,
are products of this same cooling and containing strategy. Throughout this
period, then - initiatedby events in 1974- the couplingof 'social-control'and
 THEPOLITICSor 'MUOGING' 327
'social-problem' perspectivesappears to be flowing from highly contradictory
forces within the urban race problem, as it is intensifiedand pressured by the
crisis. However,as the crisis has lengthenedand deepened,eventhis last exercise
in 'disciplinedcontainment'has slipped ilSofficialbounds,and society has been
obliged to take the full measure of the unplannedcoincidenceof the race-<:lass
problemin the frameworkof a crisis whichis slippingbeyondcontrol.As is trueof
everyother momentof the long 'crisis in hegemony'whichwe havebeen tracing,
mce has come to providethe objectivecorrelativeof crisis - the arena in which
complex fears, tensionsand anxieties,generatedby the impact of the totalityof
the crisis as a wholeon the wholesociety,can be mostconvenientlyand explicitly
projectedand, as the euphemisticphraseruns, 'workedthrough'.
Characteristically,that 'workingout' began in a Britishcourtroom.Sentencing
fiveWestIndianyouthsto fiveyears'jail or detention,in May 1975,JudgeGwynn
Morris, in remarks not exaggeratedlydescribedas 'a declarationof war against
young blacks', observed,with referenceto Brixtonand Clapham:

Withinmemorytheseareas were peaceful,safe and agreeableto live in. But the

immigrantresettlementwhichhas occurredover the past 25 yearshas radically
transformedthat environment.Those concernedwith the maintenanceof law
and order are confrontedwith immensedifficulties.This case has highlighted
and underlinedthe perils which confront honest, innocentand hardworking,
unaccompaniedwomenwho are in the street after nightfall.I noticethat not a
singleWestIndianwomanwas auacked.7
In the storm which followed this wide and comprehensiveattack on the whole
blackurbanpopulation,the Judgetried to suggestthat 'I was makingno attackon
the great majorityof immigranlSwho havesettledin this countryand haveproved
themselvesto be law-abidingcitizens of whom there can be no criticism.'It is
difficult,to say the least,to squarethis gloss with the contentof the speech itself.
At any rate, whateverthe intentionsbehindthe remarks,they markedthe opening
of whatcan only be describedas a full-scale'black panic', sustainedwithoutebb
or relief throughthe rest of that year and, at an increasingpitch, through 1976.
In October 1975,the NationalFrontorganiseda marchthroughthe East End; it
was specificallydirectedagainstblack muggings- no qualifications,no inverted
commas, no hesitation. It was confronted by a counter-march,organised by
blacks. The two were kept separate only by dint of vigilant police marshalling.
The race issue had entered the streets. Overt fascist organisations, pivoting
on the blacks as before the war they had focused on the Jews, had, of course,
been fishing in and around the race issue from the early 1950s.The Mosleyites
were active in the Notting Hill race riots of 1958.Anti-immigrantorganisa-
tions, putting out racist propagandain plain envelopes,had been tilling the soil
of prejudice throughout the 1960s. In 1966, the National Front was officially
formed- an amalgamationof five, extreme right groups (the League of Empire
Loyalists, the Greater British Movement,the British NationalParty, the Racial
PreservationSociety and the English National Party). Under the leadershipof
John 'fyndall and Martin Webster,it has become the most active agency propa-
gating an open racial fascismat grass-rootslevel.It has been recruitingsteadily
328 POLICINGTHECRISIS

in working-classand lower-middle-classareas, and in schools. The sale of its

publications - Spearhead and British National News - has been growing. It
fieldedits firstcandidate,Mr Fountaine.in theActonby-electionin 1968,and lost
its deposit.Since then, however,it has made significantelectoralgains. It fought
the three succeeding general elections, each time with more candidates, each
lime advancingits share of the poll. It or ils sympathiserswon a numberof local
council seats. Its interventionsin the May 1976local elections (where it fielded
176candidatesin thirty-fourwards and collected 49,767 votes) were strikingly
successful.In twenty-onewards it topped the Liberal vote. In Leicester,it took
23.2 per cent of the vote; in Haringey, 13.1; in Islinglon, 9.4. A sympathiser,
Mr Read, was elected to the local council in Blackburn.Its support is growing
in areas as diverseas London,the West Midlands,Leicestershire,Yorkshireand
Lancashire.8 Dropping the older themes associated with pre-war fascism, the
Front has adopted an explicitly racist, anti-immigrantpolicy, favouring total
repatriationand hard-linepolicies on law and order, combiningthese wilh some
classical petty-bourgeoisthemes from the national-socialistrepertoire - anti-
bankers,anti-big businessand the unions.for the oppressed'small man' - which
are most calculated to nourish unorganised white working-class resentment
during a periodof economicrecession.It has of course welcomedthe publicity,
and the contestationinvolvedin street confrontationswith black groups and the
anti-fascist left organisations.Its small but potent appearance on the political
stage (by no means confined to its extra-parliamentaryfringes) has been one
of the most powerful forces polarising popular sentiments in an openly racist
direction. The Front has been in or near each spasm of racism which has sent
tremors through the body politic since the beginning of 1976.And 1976 has
been a year when no sophisticatedarguments are required to show the inner
connections between the general crisis and the fever chart of racism. It is a
situationwhich tempts one to the most extremefonn of economicreductionism,
for every movement in the political and economic indicators of the crisis has
been instantlyaccompaniedby a lurch in the race index.
It is difficultto communicate,adequatelybut briefly,the sequenceand severity
of the race issues which have passed, like seismic tremors, through society in
1976,or the scale, character and intensityof the media coverage,nationaland
local,to whichthey have beensubmitted.In Marcha newsurveywas undertaken
by the CommunityRelations Branch of 1heMetropolitanPolice and submitted
as a memorandumto the Commons Select Committee on Race Relations.
Concentratingon Brixtonalone, it revealedthat victims' observationsabout the
ethnic identity of their assailants tallied with those revealed by the details or
police arrests:both indicatedthat robberiesin the area committedby blacks was
'of the order or 80 per cent•.9 Mr Powelldeliveredto the PoliceFederation'crime
seminar' in Cambridgethe speech quoted earlier, in which he roundly declared
muggingto be the consequence'of a dividedsociety and associatedwith social
disintegration.... Although there are aspects or mugging which are continuous,
permanentand old fashioned,'Mr Powellconceded- qualifyingonly so far as to
confirmthe general thrust of his remarks- 'this word is describinga parlicularly
new thing. The new thing ... is connected with the change in the composition
or the populationor certain or our great cities.'18 At the same seminar,Mr John
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 329

Alderson,Chier Conslableor Devonand Cornwall,and formerCommandantof

the BramshillPolice College,proposedthat street crime mightbe combatedwith
the help of 'patrols by speciallytrainedvolunteerswho could be drawn from the
ranks of the unemployed'.In April and early May came the news that a number
or expelled MalawiAsians holding British passpons were seeking settlementin
Britain.As had been the case with the UgandanAsians earlier,this news sparked
a panic responseor considerabledepth, systematicallyarticulatedby sectionsof
the nationalpress. Since 1973 the immigrationregulationsconcerningthe entry
or Asian dependentshad been administeredwith peculiarstringencyat both the
Asianand Britishends of the immigrationchain;the numbersawaitingentry have
grown, the complaints about the lengthy investigationspreceding permission
and the often humiliatingproceduresat the pons or entry have swelled (e.g.
1722 letters or complaint from M.P.sto Ministers about delays in 1974).11 But
the spectre or a new 'flood' or displacedAsians set in motion a new wave or
reaction.This was triggered by a now-classicscapegoatstory - the case or the
Sulemanand Sacraniefamilies,temporarilyhousedby CrawleySocialServicesin
a four-starhotel: a tale which,by rusing the Asian 'floods scare' with the 'panic'
about welfarescroungers,providedthe perrectalibi for an 'open season' of racist
hysteria.The Su,i broke the story: 'Scandal or £600-a-weekImmigrants- Giant
Bill for Two FamiliesWho Live In a 4 Star Hotel'. Others rollowed('We Want
More Money Say £600-a-weekAsians': Daily Mail, 5 May 1976; 'Migrants
Here Just For WelrareHandouts':Daily Telegraph,5 May 1976).'Another4,000
Are On The Way', the Sun promised.It could be as many as 145,000,the Daily
Expresswarnedlater in the month. 'The Arnoldsare selling their terracedcottage
to get away from IndianNeighbours.The Barringtonstolerate the Singhs in the
nextdoorsemi,' the Mail embroidered,'but they wish they weren't there.'12 In
this sustainedpress onslaught,with its interfusionof anti-raceand anti-welfare
themes,two aspectsof the crisis were once again identified.
Into this cauldronMr Powelllobbed anotherexplosive.In a remarkablecoup,
Mr Powellgot hold or and revealeda privateForeign Officerepon preparedby
Mr Donald Hawley,an AssistantUnder-Secretarywith special responsibilityfor
immigrationmatters,which argued that the immigrationregulationswere being
brokenand underminedin Asia and too looselyapplied in Britain,leadingto the
threat or a 'rising tide or immigrants'rrom the Asian sub-continent.This report
was, in ract, the productor an internal conflict within the government.Mr Alex
Lyon, Labour Minister of State at the Home Office,also with special responsi-
bility for immigration,had long been exercisedby the growingqueue or Asian
dependentsand had set out to 'try to get somejustice for blacksin this country'.13
He was sacked from the governmentfor his pains. He argued strongly against
the factualbasis of the Hawleydocument,and the Repon was in fact sharplyand
acutely dissected in the Sunday 7imes.14 But in the Commonsdebate following
the Powellleak, Mr Bottomley,a rormer LabourVice-Chairmanor the Commons
SelectCommittee,declared'there is a lot of truth in this report'; 15 and mostof the
press reportedthis sensationalleak under such headingsas 'The TruthWill Out'
(Telegraph).'Immigrants- How Britain Is Deceived', 'How BritainIs Fooled',
'When the ConningHadTo Stop', 'The VastQueue or PeoplePlanningto Surge
Into Britain', 'The Great Fian~e Racket'(all five from the Daily Mai{).16
330 POLICINCJ
THECRISIS

In this period,at lasl,the wholemediacoverageof racecamein fortrenchantand

bittercriticismfromblackjournalistsand somemediaanalysts.17 In the Commons
debateon the Hawleyleak, Roy Jenkinsdeploredthe Powellprognosticationthat
racial violencein British cities would reach Belfastproportions.But the former
LabourWhip, Mr Mellish,commentedthat enoughwas enough:'our own people
will take action all of us will regret'.18 On the same day the Telegraphreported
that, in areas like Brent,Lewishamand Brixton,or Bradfordand Liverpool,black
unemploymentwas 'at least twice the national average' and in some parts of
London'immigrantunemploymentis as high as 50 per cent'.
In the editorialof 14May with whichthe Binningham E11e11ing Mail concluded
its week•longfeature-wideseries on 'Handsworth- The AngrySuburb' the view
wasexpressedthat 'angry unemployedblackyouth ... are the victimsof recession,
not the causesof it'. The paper invitedits readerslo blame.,instead,those respon-
sible for the drying up of jobs in the West Midlands- 'pig-headed politicians,
bad management,Marxist trade unionists,lazy workersand all of us who have
been too greedy in our demands'. 'Birmingham,'it assured them, 'has always
been a multi-racialcity.' In the wake of the Powell coup, however,Bill Jarvis,
LabourCouncillorand Chairmanof the WestMidlandsCountyCouncil,issueda
call for a suspensionof all immigrationto the West Midlandsarea. And, indeed,
the race theme had been al breakingpoint in this area for some weeks preceding
the Powell revelations.At the beginningof May, a Mr Robert Relf had placed
a 'For Sale to An English Family' sign outside his Leamingtonhome, had been
ajudgedto contravenethe RaceRelationsAct and, havingrefusedthe court order
to removethe sign, was jailed for contempt.He went on hunger slrike. Mr Relf
was instantlyadoptedby the NationalFront as an emblemof the self-made,self-
reliant 'Briton' willing to stand up for race and country - a 'Des Warrenof the
Right', the Front called him; and the scenes of Relf's variouscourt appearances
providedthe stage for a series of bitter confrontationsbetweenthe Front and the
anti-fascistand blackgroups,ending in a pitchedbattle in front of WinsonGreen
prison.Relf wasreleased,on thejudge's discretion,on 21 June,withoutrescinding
on his sign, and to NationalFront acclamation.19 British bull-dogindividualism
had triumphedagain. Only later did the SundayTimesreveal the depth and self-
consciousnature of Mr Relrs racism. 'So, you bloatedblack pig,' he wrote to an
East Africaninvalidreceivingsocial-securitybenefitshe thoughttoo high, 'Well,
you odious venerealriddenblack scum, if I had my way I woulddo the state and
the other hard-workingEnglishmena favour by putting a rope around your fat
slimy neck.'20
On 4 June, an 18-year-oldPunjabi,GurdipSingh Chaggar,was murderedby a
gang of white youthsin Southall.This was the culminationof a waveof assaults
by white youths on Asian youths, gradually escalating in the early part of the
year, and reachingsome sort of crescendoin the middleof the 'Malawi-Asians/
four-star-hotelimmigrantspanic'. The Asiancommunity,hithertostereotypedas
the quieter and less militant of the two 'black' communities,erupted in a wave
of communityprotest, as uncompromisingin attitude, and, if anything, better
organisedthan similar movementsof protest staged by their so-called 'wilder'
West Indian brothers.This criticalturning-pointin the politicalrole of the Asian
community- whose consequenceshave yet to be fully fell in the race struggle
 TH6 POUTICSOF 'MUOOING' 331

in Britain - and the whole sequenceof savage auacks leading up LoChaggar's

murder,which was its precursor,was subjectto little or no seriousanalysisin the
popularpress.The 'Asiansiege' of the Southallpolice H.Q., and the 'rampageof
vengeance'were, of course, widely front-paged(Sun, Daily Mirror). On August
BankHoliday,the traditionalthree-dayCaribbeanCarnivalin NouingHill ended
in a predictablyfierce,openand uncontainableriot betweenblacksand the police,
in which stones and bottles were thrown,the Notting Hill station was besieged,
ninety-fivepolicemeninjured and over seventy-fivepeople arrested.The long,
unendingand unendurableconditionsof life in the NottingHill/LadbrokeGrove
ghetto, which had been in a state of more or less pennanent siege for nearly a
decade,culminatedin its all-too-predictableconfrontation:NottingHill's second
raceriot in twodecadesof 'communityrelations'.In October,Mr Powellproposed
that the governmentshould offer each immigrantfamilya 'head-start' bountyof
£1000 in return for repatriationto the homeland.The proposalwas presentedas
a sort of disguised'aid to developingcountries'.As if to instanceexactly how,at
each turning-pointin post-warrace relationsin Britain,extremiststatementshave
successfullyestablisheda new, acceptablebaselinefor public debate - each one
closer to the adoptionof an official policy of racial discrimination- the media
began to wonderaloud whetherthere might not just be some enterprisingblack
familieswillingandanxiousto acceptsuch an offer!Thencametheannouncement:
'Massiverise in muggingsshownin Yardreports', mostly attributableto 'second
generationimmigrantWestIndianteenagerswithoutjobs or prospects';11 followed
by Judge Gwyn Morris becoming,yet again, the centre of controversywhen he
took the unusualstep of postponingthe sentencingof six WestIndianyouths(aged
16/17)for robbing middle-agedand elderly white women in South London, in
order to considerthe 'immensesocialproblem'such 'gangs' created- in the light
of the 'hundredsof letters' rrom 'petrified' women in the area that he claimedto
havereceived.22 The result of his weekenddeliberations- apart fromone deferred
sentence- weresentencesrangingfrom Borstalto sevenyearsfor the 17-year-old
'leader'; and the suggestionthat 'perhaps ... someform or other of vigilantecorps
... would becomenecessary'P
As in the earlierperiod, this new rising cycle of concern about black crime is
sustainedand punctuatedby a sequenceof quantitativeindicators.Between 1969
and 1973,ScotlandYardreported,'mugging'in Lambethhad increasedby 147per
cent, theftsfromthe personby 143per cent.Overwhelmingly, these involvedblack
offendersagainst white victims.We will not repeat here the generalcriticismof
the crime statisticsabout 'mugging'givenearlier.Figurescomputedas these were,
and releasedin this form (a form which later attractedthe censureof Sir Robert
Mark himself for unduly highlightingthe ethnic element), provided the 'hard'
quantitativebasis for spirals of moral concern and correctivecontrol, whatever
theirfactualbase,and rapidlybecamea part of the spiraltheypurportedto explain.
In a largersense,the figuresare irrelevant,evenif theycouldbe mademore reliable
than they are. Blackyouth are clearly involvedin some petty and street crime in
these areas, and the proportioninvolvedmay well be higherthan it was a decade
earlier.Blackcommunityand social workersin these areas believethis to be the
case, an impressionmore reliablethan the figures.The questionis not, precisely,
how many,but why?What is the meaning,the significance,the historicalcontext
332 POLICINGTH£ CRISIS

of this fact? This crime indexcannot be isolatedfrom other related indicesif we

reallywishto unraveJthis puzzle.Whenexaminedin context,these variousindices
point to a criticalintersectionbetweenblack crime, black labourand the deterio-
rating situationin the black areas. Even these must be contextualised,by setting
themin theirproperframework:the economic,socialandpoliticalcrisisinto which
the societyis receding.These figuresrelatingto the black populationrise as the
economicand politicaltemperaturerises.The shift,then,is not statisticalbut quali-
tative.It is a matterfor structural,not quantitativeinvestigation.
The mostsalientfeatureof this qualitativeshift is the localisingof the problem.
'Mugging' is now unquestioninglyidentified with a specific class fraction or
categoryof labour(black youth) and with a specifickind of area: the inner-ring
zones of multiple deprivation. In this localising movement, the social and
economic aspects of 'black crime' become visible, even for the crime-control
agencies.The zones which are specified are the classic urban 'trouble spots',
presentingproblemsof welfare support, of crime preventionand control - but
also of social discipline and public order. Here, the infamous 'cycle of depri-
vation' bears in systematicallyon the poorer sections of the working class and
the sinkingand casual poor- black and white.These are the catchmentareas for
the new,as well as the residual,armies of the unemployed.They are where Mrs
Thatcher's 'welfare scroungers'and Sir KeilhJoseph's 'single mothers'dwell in
ever increasingnumbers.This is wherethe squeezeon welfareand publicexpend-
iture,on educationandsocialsupport,mosteffectivelybites.If theyare the classic
'crime-prone'areas belovedby the criminologists,they are also - in conditionsof
deepeningeconomicrecession- potentialbreedinggroundsfor socialdiscontent.
Overwhelmingly,in the large cities, they are also the black areas.And the black
populationstands at the intersectionof all these forces: an alienated sector of
the civil population,now also a significantsector of the growing army of the
unwaged, and one vulnerable to acceleratingsocial pauperisation.The many
harbingersof doom are constantlyremindingus that an economiccrisis can eat
awaythe supportsof democraticclass societies,and exposetheir inner contradic-
tions. These propheciesof a 'Latin Americansolution' are designed primarily
to adorn a convenientpolitical tale; but they are not wholly without substance.
Crises can sharpen antagonismsand awaken apparently abandoneddefences,
as Mr Heath discoveredin 1972and as the Conservativeswould soon discover
were they to attemptto put the 'social marketphilosophy'they espousefully into
operationin the middleof a periodof soaringunemployment.Crisescan dislocate
the 'normal' mechanismsof consentand sharpenthe class struggleover how and
wherethe costs of crisis managementare to be borne.Crises haveto be remedied,
their worst effects contained or mitigated.They also have to be controlled.To
put it crudely, they have to be policed. It is a role which the police - sensitive
to the erosion of their traditionalpositionas the state's 'keepers of the peace' -
performbut do not relish. It may be one reason why they are beginningto talk
more openly about its social and economicdimensions.In their differentways,
both the governmentand the ShadowOppositionknowit too.The constructionof
an authoritarianconsensusover a wide range of socialissue has alreadyprovided
the platform on which, if necessary,such an initiativecould be launched with
publicsupport.
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 333

Thus, in its location, the crisis now bears down directly and brutally on the
'colony' areas and the black population.Its consequencesare contradictory.As
lay-offsincrease,and the great majorityof black school-leaversdrift into semi-
permanentunemployment,the traditionaldistinctionwithinthe blackcommunity
betweenthe hard-workingmajorityand the work-shyminorityis levelled.At the
same momentdifferencesbetweenthe black and white poor are exacerbated.This
is not a singulartrend. In many of the key industrialdisputes which 'create' the
crisis - in the motor industry,for example- black and white workershave been
involvedin a common struggle. In fact, a higher proportionof black employed
men belongto unions(61 per cent) thantheir whitecounterparts(47 per cent).But
outside the work situation,the bonds of solidarityare cross-cutby the virulence
of a lingeringracism.Althoughthe black and white poor find themselves,objec-
tively,in the same position,they inhabita world ideologicallyso structuredthat
each can be made to provide the other with its negative reference group, the
'manifest cause' of each other's ill-fortune.As economiccircumstancestighten,
so the competitivestrugglebetweenworkersis increased,and a competitionstruc-
tured in terms of race or colour distinctionshas a great deal of mileage. It is
precisely on this nerve that the National Front is playing at the moment,with
considerableeffect.So the crisis of the workingclass is reproduced,once again,
throughthe structuralmechanismsof racism, as a crisis within and betweenthe
workingclasses. It sets one colonisedsector against another.The Labour Party,
havingtransformedits localpartieslong ago into pure,ratherinefficient,electoral
machines,has no means of politicalpenetrationat its commandto stem the tide
of this effect, even if it were so minded. In these conditionsblacks becomethe
'bearers' of these contradictoryoutcomes;and black crime becomesthe signifier
of the crisis in the urbancolonies.

THESTRUCTURES
OP 'SECONDARINESS'
The crisis intensifiesthe plightof blacksin society,and especiallyof blackyouth;
but it should not be allowed to conceal the structuralforces and mechanismsat
work in relationto black labour throughoutthe whole of the post-warmigration
period.This is frequentlymeasuredin tenns of indicesof 'discrimination'against
blacks on groundsof colour and race. Discriminationis a major fact of life for
black people in this society,and its incidence has been widely and frequently
documented.But the measuringof discriminationtendsto suggestthat black men
and women are reaJly in no different a position with respect to the key struc-
tures of Britishsocietythan their white counterparts,with the exceptionof that -
regrettablylarge - number who encounterdiscriminatorypractices in housing,
education, employmentor everyday social life. We believe this gives a false
picture;for it treats racism and discriminatorypracticesas individualexceptions
to an otherwisesatisfactory'rule'. Instead we want to examine what the regular
and routine structuresare and what their effects have been over the period, with
specialreferenceto black youth.
It is above all the school and the educationsystem which has the principal
functionof 'skilling' the differentsectors of the working class selectively,and
assigningblacksto their rough positionsin the hierarchyof occupations.It is the
334 POLICINGTHECRISIS

educationsystem which reproducesthe wage-earnerwithin the class-structured

divisionof labour,distributesthe cuhuralskillsroughlyappropriateto each sector
within the technicaldivisionof labour, and auempts to constructthat collective
cultural identityand dispositionappropriateto the positionsof subordinationand
secondarinessfor which the majority are destined.The school may accomplish
this role of 'reproducingthe worker', and the conditionsof his labour, well or
badly: winning compliance or generating resistance. But these differences in
performancedo not diminish their over-all function in relation to the world of
labour and work. Paul Willis has recently argued that even those 'cultures of
resistance'which schoolsappear to generate,despitethemselves,among the less
academicallyinclined (whethercapable of academicachievementor not - and
manyof those who do not choose to be, are capable),can providea sort of inter-
mediaryculturalspace which enablesthe transitioninto the troubled but subor-
dinate working-classworld of low-skilledmanual labour to be accomplished. 24

In relationto black youth, the educationsystemhas servedeffectivelyto depress

the general opportunitiesfor employmentand educationadvancement,and has
thereforeresultedin 'reproducing'the young black workeras labourat the lower
end of employment,productionand skill. Superficially,it may seem as if there is
little differencein this respect betweenwhite and black working-classboys and
girls.Whiletrue as a generaltendency,we neglectthe specificityof this processat
our peril.The educationsystemhas a differenteffect on the two sexes withinthe
workingclass - reproducingthe sexualdivisionof labour as a structuralfeature
of the class-determinedsocial divisionof labour,and the same must be said for
blackyouth,maleand female.In education,the reproductionof educationaldisad-
vantagefor blacks is accomplished,in part, througha varietyof raciallyspecific
mechanisms.The 'culturalcapital' of this black sectoris constantlyexpropriated,
often unwittingly,throughits practicaldevaluation.Sometimesthis takesthe fonn
of patronising,stereotypicalor racist altitudesof some teachersand classrooms;
sometimes,the fundamentalmisrecognitionsof historyand culture,as muchin the
over-all 'culture' of the school as, specifically,throughsyllabusesand textbooks.
This is especiallythe case in those black or nearly black schoolsin the predomi-
nantly black areas which, despite the ethnic identity and culture of their intake,
remain 'white' schools,exclusivelygeared to the reproduction,at a low level of
competence,of whileculturaland technicalskills.Anothersignificantdimension
is that of language.Languageis the principalbearer of culturalcapital,and thus
the key medium of cultural reproduction.Measures which could formally be
designedto developadditionalcompetencesin the spokenand written language
of a new, essentiallyforeign, culture frequentlybecome,instead, the means by
whichexistinglinguisticcompetencesare dismantledand expropriated- as 'poor
speech'. Insteadof standardEnglishbeing addedas a necessarysecondlanguage
to whateveris the version of patois or Creole spoken by the child, the latter are
often simplyeliminatedas sub-standardspeech.The resistanceto this now going
on in many black schools can be measured,in its intensity,by the growth and
spread of CaribbeanCreole, rather than its disappearance;and this amongst a
generationwho have never,as their parents did, heard it spoken around them as
'normal talk'. This l'esistancethroughlanguagemarks out the school as, quite
literally,a cultural battleground.The massivedislocationsand discontinuitiesof
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 335
skills and competencesal work here are manifestin the disproportionallyhigh
numbers of black children assigned, for want of some more effectiveremedial
measure,to the educationallydeprivedor 'sub-nonnal' category.2~Schools which
are predominantlyblack rarely reflect, as a positivechoice, the differentcullural
tributariesfeedinginto them.Wherevertheir culture 'of origin', studentstend to
be inserted through a narrow Jilter into a single, unilateral,prescribedcultural
stream. The spectacle of black children being systematicallyincorporatedinto
white cultural identitiesis a representativeone. That it is largelyan unintended
consequenceof how they are being 'schooled' in Britainhardlymatters.
The links betweenschool,educationaJachievementand occupationalposition
are well established.These haveserved,over all, to assign them overwhelmingly
to certain distinctive positions in the work-force,Black workers are a higher
proportionof 'unskilled workers' than the total population,and are also over-
representedproportionallyin the semi-skilledgroup.They are wellrepresentedin
what is called 'skilled work' - thoughthe sectoraldistributionhere is significant,
as we suggestbelow,and there are importantconcentrationsand absences.In all
positionsabovethatin the hierarchyof positions,blacksare under-represented. The
followinggeneralcharacterisationis broadlyaccurate:'Withinthe workingclass,
they tend to form the loweststratum,being mainlyconcentratedin the unskilled
and semi-skilledoccupations,while indigenousworkersare more frequentlyin
skilledjobs' ,7.6 The distributionof black labour betweenthe differentsectorsof
capital is, however,even more significant.Black labour is heavilyconcentrated
in somesectorsof engineering,in foundrywork, in textiles,as generallabourers,
especially in lhe building trade, in transport, the low-paid end of the service
industries,and in the health service.Three types of work are characteristicof
their occupationalposition,especiallyif Asian labour is includedhere. The first
is small-scaleproductivelabour in sweat-shopconditions,often associatedwith
small or medium capital. This work is characterisedby low piece-workrates,
low unionisationand fiercecompetitonbetweengroups of workers.Often whole
shops appearto be 'contractedout' to immigrantlabour- frequentlywomenwho
have to receiveinstructionsin their native language.The second type is lengthy
hours under the enervatingconditionstypical of low-skillwork in the catering
trades and service sectors. Much of this work, though 'service' occupations,is
organisedon a 'massified' basis (for example, large-scalecatering or London
Airportcleaningstaffs).The thirdis in the highlymechanised,heavilycapitalised,
routinisedand repetitiveassembly-linetypes of work, often in the 'local' branch
of one of the componentfirms of the large or multinationalengineeringplants.
These are highlycapitalisedsectorsof industry,with an advanced,assembly-line
organisationof the labourprocess,aimed to ensure the maximumexploitationof
labour by expensivemachinery.Despitethese apparently'advanced' conditions,
such work mainly involvesthe applicationof relativelylow and interchangeable
'skills', and regularshift-workto ensure the steadyflow of production.Although
this type of 'detailed labourer' is employed in some of the leading sectors of
modern production- for example, the motor industry - it is exactly the type
of labour which has been subject to the mercilessprocessesof 'deskilling' and
'massification'.27 Contraryto normalexpectations,43 per cent of black workers
are employedin plants of over 500 workers,as comparedwith 29½ per cent of
336 POUCINOTHECRISIS

indigenouswhiteworkers.'Almosta thirdof blackworkersworkshifts,more than

twicethe percentageof white workers.'21 The substantialpresenceof black labour
in these advancedsectorsof modernproductionrevealsthe intensityof the rate of
exploitationof blacklabourin generalin the economy.Manyof the firmsinvolved
are internationaland multinationalconcerns,withcomponentfactoriesdistributed
not only over the countrybut internationally.Here black labourin Britainstands
in precisely the same relation to modern internationalcapital as cheap 'white'
migrant labour from the southern half of Europe stands to the workers of the
'golden triangle' (the thriving NorthernEuropeancapitalistcountries).In recent
years, therefore, black workers, far from being confined to the backwatersof
British industry,have constituteda significantsector of its 'vanguard'; and they
have been substantiallyinvolvedin some of the major industrialdisputes(in, for
example,Fords, Courtaulds,I.CJ., Imperial lypewriters, StandardTelephones,
MansfieldHosiery).
Two processes have been at work here, with the double effect of a major
decompositionand recompositionof black labour- a processwith highlysignif-
icant consequences.The first is the more immediate impact of recession and
unemployment.As the recession has deepened, unemploymenthas become a
featureof crisis-riddenBritishindustry,with an immediateimpacton blacklabour
alreadyresidentin Britain.Figuresfrom the Departmentof Employmentsuggest
that 'immigrantunemploymentmay be runningat twice the nalionalaverageof
S.S per cent ... having grown by a correspondinglyfaster rate. since 1975'. 29
Unemploymentamong black school-leaversis four times the nationalaverage,
and in manyurbanareas over60 per cent of recentschool-leaversare nowwithout
work.This shortageof employmentopportunitieshas the effect of forcingblacks
further down in the hierarchyof skilled occupations.If and when the recession
ends, it is highlylikely that the generalpositionof blacksin the labour force will
havedeterioratedoverallin comparisonwith indigenousworkers.
The secondprocess is more long-term,but in the end more significant.In the
early 1950s,when British industrywas expandingand undermanned,labourwas
suckedin from the surplus labour of the Caribbeanand Asian subcontinent.The
correlationinthisperiod(andindeedthroughoutthe wholecycle)betweennumbers
of immigrantworkersand employmentvacanciesis uncannilyclose. In periods
of recession,and especiallyin the presentphase, the numbersof immigrantshave
fallen; fewer are coming in, and a higher proportionof those already here are
shuntedinto unemployment.Jn short,the 'supply' of blacklabourin employment
has risen and fallen in direct relationto the needs of Britishcapital.Black labour
has literallybeen suckedin and expelledin direct relationto the swingsand dips
in capital accumulation.
In this process,economic,politicaland ideologicalfactorsconverge.What has
principallygovernedthe 'flow' of black labour is the underlyingrhythms and
requirementsof British capital. But what has regulated the flow is, of course,
legislative(i.e. political) action.And what has prepared the ground for this use
of black labouras a fluid and endlessly'variable' factorin British industryis the
growth of racism (ideology).Here the position of black labour needs to be set
against the much wider context of the recompositionof sectorsof capital itself.
Increasingly,capitalistEuropeasa wholehas cometo dependon themigrantlabour
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUOGING' 337
systemfromsouthernEurope- Italy,Portugal,Spain,Turkey,NorthAfrica.These
'guest workers'are extremelycheap economicunits, since they are not resident,
do not bring their dependents,and live that temporaryexistenceso graphically
describedin John Berger'sSeventhMa11.:IDThey are recruitedin the primeof their
productivelife. Butadvancedcapitalbearsnoneof the costsof the reproductionof
their labourpower.Not only can their 'flow' be more finelytunedand regulatedto
the manpowerneedsof industryin the advancedsectors,but their impermanency,
dependencyand isolationmake them a vulnerableand docile labourforce,easily
organisedinto assembly-lineconditions.The Britishpatternup to the mid-1960s
was different,and representeda 'worse' deal for Britainas comparedwith other
European countries, for its migrant labour force were settlers, with citizenship
rights,anddependants,and Britainbecameresponsiblefor the 'reproductioncosts'
of this labourforce (education,healthand pensionrights,etc.). Immigrationlegis-
lation from the mid-1960sonwardsmust thereforebe understoodas an attackon
the citizenshiprightsand status of black workers,as the preconditionfor a tighter
regulationof the migrantlabour supply.Thus the series of legislativeacts in the
immigrationfield has loweredand tightenedrequirementsfor specificskills: the
severe restrictionon the entry of dependants;a transfonnationof the status of
migrant labour - through the patrial/non-patrialand Old/NewCommonwealth
distinctions- from that of settler to that of 'guest worker'. In the same period,
as the flow of black labourhas been severelyrestricted,there is a sharp upturnin
the vouchersbeing given to 'proper aliens' - i.e. 'guest workers'from the poorer
Europeancountries.As Sivanandanhas succinctlyput it: 'those who came from
the Commonwealthbefore the 1971Act ... are not immigrants,they are settlers,
black settlers.There are others who came after the Act; they are simply migrant
workers,blackmigrantworkers.'l1 The politicalrestrictionson blacks,the growth
of racist ideologyand of explicitlyanti-immigrantorganisations,the toughening
of social disciplinein the areas of black residence,the general 'unsettling'of the
blackpopulationcannotthereforebe attributedsolelyto 'discriminatoryattitudes'
on the part of particularindividualsor employers.It is a structuralfeatureof the
way in which black labour has been subsumed into metropolitancapital in the
postwar period, As has happenedbefore, the conditionsof economicrecession
are being used to drive througha major recompositionof black labourby capital
itself, through the political and ideological forces aligned with its long-term
'needs'. There is thereforeno point in trying to understandthe positionof black
workersand their labour in terms of the immediatecontingenciesof 'discrimi-
nation'. What we are dealing with here is a structuralfeatureof moderncapital,
and the pivotalrole which black labournow plays in the metropolesof capital in
a majorphaseof its recomposition.Castleshas recentlyarguedthat what we have
sketchedhere representsa structul'altendencyof monopolycapital (though one
would have to set it in the contextof earlier migrations,and of the movementin
and out of employmentof femalelabourto be able to assesspreciselyhownewthe
phenomenonis).J2 He adds that migrant labournow providesthe sector of labour
subjectto the highestrate of exploitation-a featuremademore relevantin a period
of monopoly,with the pronouncedtendencyin this phase of the rate of profit to
fall. Migrant labour in general is therefore closely integratedwith the cyclical
movementsof expansionand recessionof a type of capitalistproductionwhichis
338 POUCINGTHE CRISIS

heavilycapitalised(i.e. with a high rate of the organiccompositionof capital).It

is also, he suggests,playinga crilicalrole as a disinflationaryfactor in periodsof
capitalistrecession- one of the pivotalmechanismsof crisis managementin an
economycharacterisedby 'slumptlation'.
The residentialconcentrationof the black immigrantpopulationis one of the
most significant features of their structural position. West Indian workers are
overwhelminglyconcentrated,of course, in the inner-cityareas where, alone,
relativelycheaphousing,tenablein a multi-occupancyfashion,wasavailablein the
earlydaysas rentedaccommodation.Subsequentmigrationhastendedto reinforce
this pattern. So have such other factors as the search for friendship,kinship and
solidaritylinks, the gap between the low-wagelevels of blacks and the soaring
cost of housing in other areas, the housing policies of the inner-cityCouncils
and the discriminatorypracticesof some house agentsand mortgagecompanies.
The decline and neglectof propertyby absenteeowners,makinga short, specu-
lative profit on a deterioratedhousingstock, and the strong-armtactics of extor-
tionate landlords- sometimes,themselves,immigrants,and, whether black or
white,exploitingthe vulnerablepositionof the black family- havebeenconstant
features of the housing condition of the majority black population.During the
housingprice inflationof the 19705,landlords,hemmedin by newlegislationwith
respect to rented accommodation,often found it easier to demolishand develop
these properties,or sell for redevelopment,therebypromotingfurtherthe decline
in the availabilityof rented propertyin exactlythe housingmarketmost relevant
to the black family. It has become even more difficult than hitherto to secure
decent accommodationfor single black men and women,or for new familiesto
makea start in the housingmarket.33 As the housingsituationof black adults has
worsened,so the situationof singleyoung black men or women,seekingto leave
home, has deterioratedat an even faster pace. Youngblack adults on their own
finddecentaccommodationat modestpricesvirtuallyimpossibleto obtain;in any
event,as a higherand higherproportionof them are unemployed,theycannotpay
the rents asked for, even where they are 'reasonable'.The growingphenomenon
of 'driftingon to the streets', sleepingroughand of 'homelessness'and squatting
has thus been underpinnedby the structural position of blacks in the housing
marketsof the contemporaryBritish industrialcity.
In each of the structuralareas dealt with so far, we can see that the general way
in which class positionand the divisionof labour is reproducedfor the working
class as a whole assumes a specific and differentiatedform in relation to the
stratumof black labour.There are specificmechanismswhichserve to reproduce
what almost appearsto be a 'racial divisionof labour' within,and as a structural
feature of, the general divisionof labour. Not only are these mechanismsrace-
specific;they have a differentiatedimpact on the differentsexesand generations
withinthe blacklabourforce.Thus theyserveto underpinandsupportthepolitical
fragmentationof the class into raciallysegmentedclasses or class fractions,and
to set them in competitionwith one another.It is thereforeimportantto see race
itself as a structuralfeatureof the positionand reproductionof this black labour
force- as well as an experientialcategoryof the consciousnessof the class. Race,
for the black labour force, is a critical structure of the social order of contem-
porarycapitalism.
 THE POLITICSor 'MUOGING' 339

Historyplaysa significantpart in this story.The periodof commercialcolonial

exploitation,followedby the periodof militaryand economicimperialism,served
an imponantfunctionin securingBritain's past and presenteconomicposition.It
also imprintedthe inscriptionof racial supremacyacross the surface of English
social life, within and outside the sphere of productionand the expropriation
of the surplus.The debate as to whether the British workingclass as a whole,
or, if not, then at least an 'aristocracyof labour', benefitedeconomicallyout of
'high imperialism'continues.It is certainlythe case that colonialism,as well as
establishinginternal relationsof oppositionand competitionwithin the British
workingclass (for example, between workers in the cotton industryas against
other sectors), also set in motion relations of opposition between the British
metropolitanworking class as a whole and the colonial work-forces.Further,
the imperialperiodprovidedthe dominantclasseswith one of the most effective
and penetratingideologicalweaponswith which, in the divisiveperiod of class
connict leadingup to the First WorldWar,they sought to extend their hegemony
over an increasinglystrong, united and confidentproletariat,especiallythrough
the ideologiesof popular imperialismand race superiority.During the decline
of the Empire and the rise of post-warnationalindependencemovements,these
'colonial relations' were internalised through the importation of immigrant
labour.The differentiatedstructureof class interestsbetweenthe British and the
colonialworkingclasses was then, in a complexmanner,reproducedwithin the
domestic economy by the use of imported immigrantlabour, under conditions
of full employment,often to fill jobs which the indigenouswork force would no
longerdo. Capitalismhas continuedto reproducelabourin this internallydivided
fonn to this day. One significantaspect of this processin the post-warperiodhas
been the advantageswon in struggleby the more advancedsectorsof the white
domesticlabourforce at the expenseof the black.Race is one of the main mecha-
nisms by which, inside and outside the work-placeitself, this reproductionof an
internallydividedlabourforce has been accomplished.The 'benefits' which have
also accrued to the dominantclasses in Britain, in the light of this history,must
thereforebe reckonedto includenot only the direct and indirectexploitationof the
colonialeconomiesoverseas,and the vital supplementwhichthis colonialwork-
force made to the indigenouslabour force in the period of economicexpansion,
but also the internal divisions and connicts which have kept that labour force
segregatedalong racial lines in a periodof economicrecessionand decline- at a
time when the unity of the class as a whole,alone,could havepushedthe country
into an economic'solution' other than that of unemployment,short-time,cuts in
the wagepacketand the social wage.
We have briefly discussed the way different structures combine so as to
'reproduce', in a specific historical form, that black proletariatof which black
youth in the cities is a highly visible and vulnerablefraction.We want to stress
that we havebeenconcernedwith somethingratherdifferentfrom the cataloguing
of discriminatory practices based on racist stereotypes and attitudes which,
throughout,tend to mark the social relations betweendifferentethnic groups -
howeverwretched,demeaningand dehumanisingsuch attitudes are. Our stress
also differs from the critique of 'institutionalisedracism' which is often made -
thoughthe factscerlainlysupportthe argumentthat racismis not restrictedto the
340 POLICINOTH~ CRISIS

level of social relationsand attitudes,but is built into the fabric of such institu•
tional domainsas the housingand employmentmarkets(that is to say, racism is
a systematicfeatureof the way these markets function,and is not simply to be
ascribedto the 'racist outlook' of the personnelwho administerthem}.However,
we have been pointingto the way the differentstructureswork togetherso as to
reproducetheclass relationsof the wholesocietyin a specificformon an extended
scale; and we havebeen notingthe way race, as a structuralfeatureof each sector
in this complexprocessof socialreproduction,servesto 'reproduce'that working
class in a raciallystratifiedand internallyantagonisticform.We thereforewantto
distinguishour approachfrom the many typesof environmentalreformismwhich
(as we noted earlier in our review of the mass media) treat structureswhich are
in fact inextricablyconnected as separate and discrete sets of institutions,and
which understandsthese structures,not in terms of the task which they perform
in reproducingthe objectivesocial conditionsof a class, but in terms of their
incidental(and thus eminently reformable) 'discriminatorypersonal attitudes'.
We are concernedwith the structureswhich,workingwithinthe dominant'logic'
of capital,produceand reproducethe socialconditionsof the black workingclass,
shape the social universeand the productiveworld of that class, and assign its
membersand agents to positionsof structuredsubordinationwithin it. We have
tried to show that the structureswhich performthis critical task of 'reproducing
the conditionsof production'for the British workingclass as a whole also work
in such a way as to producethat class in a raciallydividedand fragmentedform.
Race, we have argued,is a key constituentof this reproductionof class relations,
not simplybecausegroupsbelongingto one ethniccategorytreat othergroupsin a
raciallydiscriminatoryway,but becauserace is one of the factorswhichprovides
the material and social base on which 'racism' as an ideologyflourishes.Race
has becomea crucial element in the given economicand social structureswhich
each new generationof the workingclass encountersas an aspect of the 'given'
materialconditionsof its life. Blackyouth,in each generation,does not beginas a
set of isolatedindividualswho happento be educated,to liveand labourin certain
ways, encounteringracial discriminationon the path to adulthood.Black youth
begins in each generationfrom a given class position, producedin an objective
form, by processes which are detenninate, not of their making; and that class
positionis, in the same moment,a racial or ethnic position.
But race performsa double function.It is also the principalmodalityin which
the black membersof that class 'live,' experience,make sense of and thus come
to a consciousnessof their structuredsubordination.It is through the modality
of race that blackscomprehend,handle and then begin to resist the exploitation
which is an objectivefeatureof their class situation.Race is thereforenot only an
element of the 'structures'; it is a key element in the class struggle- and thus in
the cultures- of black labour.It is through the counter-ideologyof race, colour
and ethnicity that the black workingclass becomesconsciousof the contradic-
tions of its objectivesituationand organisesto 'fight it through'.This is especially
so now for black youth. It is race which providesthe mediatedlink betweenthe
structured position of secondarinessand subordinationwhich is the 'fate', the
'destiny' inscribedin the positionof this sector of the class, and the experience,
the consciousnessof their being second-classpeople.It is in the modalityof race
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 341
that those whom the structuressystematicallyexploit, exclude and subordinate
discover themselvesas an exploited,excluded and subordinatedclass. Thus it
is primarilyin and through the modalityof race that resistance,oppositionand
rebellionfirst expressesitself.At the simplest,most obviousand superficiallevel,
one can catch this centrality of race for the structuresof consciousnessin the
immediateaccountsand expressionsof young blackmen and womenthemselves:
how race structures,from the inside, the whole range of their socialexperience.
Here, for example,is Paul,aged 18, talkingabout work:

Youalwaysget this thing like when I went for a job up the road and the man
he says: 'Youdon't mind if we call you a black bastardor a wog or a niggeror
anythingbecause it's entirelya joke.' I told him to keep his job. Him say, 'I'm
not colourprejudiced'and everythinglike this. But it's foolishnesswhena man
asks a questionlike that straightaway.

Or Leslie,talkingabout Paul's experience:

Paul here went for a job and the white man says, you've got an afro haircut
and you've got to change your hairstyle. If it had been me I'd have kicked
him down.I'd havekickedhim rassclattdown.I'd havekickedhim in his c-.
F-ing bastard.I don't wantto work for no white man.Blackpeoplehavebeen
workingfor them for a long time. I don't want to work for them. I never used
to hate white people.I still don't hate all of them. But it's them who teach me
how to hate.34

CULTURE,CONSCIOUSNESS
ANDRESISTANCE
We turn now to examinemore fully this secondqualitativedimension:changesin
consciousness,ideologyandcullure,in themodesof blackresistanceandrebellion.
Here, it is importantto note once again the differentposition which black West
Indianyouthoccupyas comparedboth withtheir ownparentsand with theirAsian
counterparts.Asians,male and female,inhabita similarstructul'aluniverseto that
outlined for West Indian workers earlier. In some ways - through the mecha-
nismsof physicalseparationin 'Asian' factories,etc. -Asians have been subject,
if anything,to a more systematicexploitationon racial lines. Perhaps,as a conse-
quence, their mode of struggle assumedan organisedcollectiveindustrialform
at an earlier stage. However,Asian 'migrant' culture is the productof a different
colonialismand dependenteconomythan that of the Caribbean.Through early
transplantation,slavery and plantationsociety,the latter suffereda more severe
processof cultural fragmentation.Asian culture is, therefore,more cohesiveand
supportivefor its youth.In additiontoAsiansemployedin productivelabour,there
is a significantindependentsector - merchants,shopkeepers,small traders- and
this sector holds out to its youth a wider range of possibletypes of employment,
includingthat of the independentself-employed,than is availableto West Indian
youth. There are, however,clear signs that these distinctionsare beginningto
breakdown in the secondgeneration.The positionof blackAfro-Caribbeanyouth
todayalso differsin a significantway from that of first-generationmigrantsfrom
342 POLICINCi
THECRISIS

the Caribbean.The fate of the Caribbeanlabour force - the employed,as well

as the seasonallyor permanentlyunemployed- has long been linked with the
economyof the metropolis.The economicdepressionof the inter-warperiod -
coupled with the long decline of West Indian sugar, the major economicexport
crop -hit the Caribbeanlater than it did Britain.The men and womenattractedto
a labour-hungryBritisheconomyin post-warconditions,were,in manyways,the
reverseside, the alternativeface. of metropolitanpost-warprosperity:the colonial
unemployed,the casual labour and the unemployedof the Caribbeancity, rural
workersfromthe plantations,subsistencefarmersdrawn fromthe rural massesof
the hinterland.Un-and under-employmentis a generaland apparentlypermanent
feature of their material condition of life. Driven into emigrationby endemic
colonialpoverty,in desperateneed for the economicand socialrewardstheir own
nativeislandscould not provide,they were massivelydisciplinedon entry,by the
wage. DarcusHowe quotes a telling excerpt from an issue of Punch (21 August
1965) in which the ruthless logic of capital with respect to black labour in the
early periodwas exposed:

Every immigrantrepresentsa store of capital. It costs £4,000 to raise, educate

and train a person for productiveemploymentand this sum is transferredas a
free exportwherevermigrationtakesplace.... Britain,with full employmentand
an immenseprogrammeof rebuildingto be tackled,needsimmigrantsurgently.
We have a populationof 50 million, a working populationof 25 million and
it is this productivegroup that feeds and clothes and sheltersall our children
and pensioners.Each new immigrantat work helps provide for the unpro-
ductivehalf of the population.Ask the Gennanshow theyhavemanagedto win
prosperityfrom the shamblesof 1945.Hardwork?Yes.But with a labourforce
strengthenedby millionsof immigrants."

The wage was low but the disciplinewas rigorous.The immigrantsfoundjobs,

albeit often the worst and lowest paid. They found accommodationsomewhere,
albeit sub-standardand decaying,in the inner rings. They settled into an inhos-
pitable climate and an inhospitableculture to 'make a life for themselves'.
Heavywork in the factories;long hoursand hard stints in LondonTransport;hot,
laboriouswork for womenin the kitchensand other serviceindustries;labouring;
sweeping up; low-skill factory labour. It is a dramatic and searing episode in
the ~istoryof t~e 'remaking' of t~e Caribbeanworkingclass. In this period, its

in the 'colony' slowly began to flourish. In the respectableworking-classWest

Indian home, this was often at first a private affair: curtains drawn against the
cold and the dark; discreetcomingsand goings againstthe pryingeyes of neigh-
bours; women muffledup going out to the shops after work;childrenhustled in
from school out of the gloom; winter eveningsthat started at four o'clock. But
in some areas a more variegated'colony' culturebegan to take shape, expressing
not only the modest achievementof the 'respectables', but the more colourful,
more native indigenousrhythms of the urban unemployed,the semi-employed,
 THB POLITICSOF 'MUOOINO' 343

the club keepersand dominomen. In these placesa little bit of the WestKingston
shanty-townor nativePort of Spain was recreated:

The gambling house where para-pinto (the Jamaican dice game) reigned
supreme was an institution in which the wage of the worker circulated into
and through the pocketsof the unemployed.... West Indians actuallyengaged
in direct productionfoundan alternativeto the well-definedhours of the public
house and the bingo halls, institutionswhich were governedby state laws and
meant to be in harmonywith the workingday. Thus the gamblinghours of the
shebeenoperatingoutsideand contraryto the rhythm of the workingday and
independentof state laws proved to be a major obstacleto capital's tendency
to controlthe workernot only in the factorybut throughevery hour of his life.
By 1955 these institutionswere well establishedin NottingHill.... By 1957a
newspaperheadline screamed 'Black Men, Brothel KeepingAnd Dope' and
called for 'tighter supervisionon the rash of clubs emergingin the WestIndian
community'.lli

Then came the first, overtlyracist onslaughton the West Indiancommunity,the

1958 race riots. We have discussed this historic turning-pointin the post-war
history of Caribbeanlabour in Britain in more detail elsewhere.It is important
simply to recall here only the fact that, thoughthe brawling,stone-throwingand
insultson the street, the breakingof windowsand daubingwith swastikasof the
doors of West Indian homes, was spearheadedby white youths, egged on in a
carefullyplannedinterventionby the organisedfascistmovement,the riots repre-
senteda majorbreak in the 'friendly relations', not simply betweenblack people
and theTeddyBoys,but betweenthe blackand whitecommunities.It thusmarked
the watershedbetween black aspirationsfor an accommodatedsettlement- the
policy of 'live and let live' - and the tangible,harsher reality. 'Notting Hill' not
only presented the spectacle of the black communityunder siege - leading to
the first organisedpolitical response by the black community,the rallying of
local West Indian organisationsand groups; it also introducedthe police - and
quicklyafterwards,fearsof policediscrimination-as a conicalforcedirectlyinto
the black neighbourhoods,establishinga presence from which they have never
withdrawn.
By the end of the 1950s,thoughit remainedan objectiveof liberalsocialpolicy,
the strategyof blackassimilatio11 had alreadybeenruledout, for the greatmajority
of blacks, as a realistic mode of survival.Blacks could not become 'white' men
and women,in looks, style, culture, even if they wanted to - and few did. They
could not, partly because it is simply not possible for a group or class to shed
its cultural identity just by thought; partly because objectively,they stood on
very different terrain, had been assigned to a significantlydifferentsocial and
economicuniverse,from those sectors of the white populationwho would have
had to providethe modelsof assimilation;and partlybecausethe whitesocietyto
whichthey wouldhavehad to assimilatedid not, in any case, want it to happenin
practice,whatevertheir leadersand spokesmensaid, Lower down the scale was
the strategyof acceptance.Acceptancemeantthe blackcommunitytakingon and
acceptingas given the profferedrole of second-classcitizen; ii also entailed the
344 POLICINGTHECRISIS

whitecommunitybeingwillingto acceptthat blacks,who wouldremaindifferent

anddistinct,livedamongstthem.Whatwas principallyat issuein thiscompromise
solutionwas the differentialincorpomtionof the blackcommunityinto the white
respectableworking class. Its outcome would have been, not fusion with, but
'informal segregation' within, the culture of a subordinateclass. Many West
Indian familiessettled, with more or less degreesof success, for this negoliated
solution,in the first generation.These includedthe vanguard,hard-workingWest
Indianfamiliesof the transitionperiod:strugglingin their ownways,butalongside
their white respectablecounterparts,withinthe disciplineof the wage, to make a
'decent life' for themselvesand their children,keepingthemseJvesto themselves.
It was not muchof a life, but it could be enduredin the belief that the experience
of rejectionand relative failure was not necessarilythe systematicfate of their
race, and that 'the children' wouldhavea chanceof succeedingin ways in which
their parents were destined to fail. This is the now wellwornpath of unending
blackpatience.
Anotherpossiblestrategywastodevelopandextendtheseparatenessandmargin-
ality endemic in the 'acceptance' solutioninto somethingfuller.But for a 'West
IndianCulture' to take root and survive in Britain,it requireda solid framework
and a materialbase: the constructionof a West Indianenclavecommunity- the
birth of colony society. At one level the fonnation of the ghetto 'colony' was a
defensiveandcorporateresponse.It involvedthe blackcommunityturningin upon
itself.This emphasison defensivespacebecomesmore pronouncedin the face of
publicracism,whichrapidlydevelopedin thesocietyoutsidethe boundariesof 'the
colony' throughthe 1960s.'Colony life' was, in one of its manifestations,simply
a defensivereaction- a closingof ranks- againstofficialracism,punctuatedby
the 1964Smethwickelection,the anti-immigrationlegislationof the mid-1960s,
Powellismand the birthof the repatriationlobby.In anothersense,the foundation
of colonysocietymeantthe growthof internalculturalcohesivenessand solidarity
within the ranks of the black populationinside the corporate boundariesof the
ghetto: the winningaway of cultural space in which an alternativeblack social
life could nourish.The internalcoloniesthus providedthe materialbase for this
cultural revival: first, of a 'West Indian consciousness', no longer simply kept
alivein the head or in memory,but visibleon the street;second(in the wakeof the
blackAmericanrebellions),of a powerfuland regenerated'black consciousness'.
Here began the 'colonisation'of certain streets, neighbourhoods,cafes and pubs,
the growth of the revivalistchurches,mid-day Sunday hymn-singingand mass
baptisms in the local swimming baths, the spilling-outof Caribbeanfruit and
vegetablesfromthe Indianshops,the shebeenand the Saturdaynight bluesparty,
the constructionof the sound systems,the black record shops selling blues, ska
and soul - the birth of the 'native quarter' at the heart of the Englishcity.
The reconstructionof the black 'colony'openedup a newrangeof survivalstrat-
egies within the black community.The majoritysurvivedby going out from the
colonyevery day to work; but others survivedby taking up pennanentresidence
inside the gheuo. The wages of respectableblack labour now tended more and
more to circulateback through the black 'colony' itself, and thus to providethe
economicbasis for a distinctiveblacksocialworld.The 'colony' also providedthe
materialand socialbasis for a newkind of consciousness-an internallygenerated
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUOOING' 345

black cultural identity.Black people were struggling hard lo make ends meet,
permanentmigrantsin a land not their own - but they were no longerapologetic
for being what they were:WestIndian people,with a homelandand a patrimony,
and black with it. As one West Indiangirl said: 'If they call me a black bastardI
say "I'm black and I'm proudof it, but a bastardI am not."' 37
'Colony life' also opened up the possibilityof modes of survivalalternative
lo the respectableroute of hard labour and low wages: above all, that range of
informaldealing, semi-legalpractices,rackets and small-timecrime classically
known in all ghetLolife as hustling. The hustle is as common, necessary and
familiara survivalstrategyfor 'colony' dwellersas it is alien and strangeto those
who know nothingof it. It is often, erroneously,thoughtto be synonymouswith
professionalcrime.Liberalopinionhas frequentlydrawnattentionto the fact that
black people were proportionallyunder-representedin the annual crime figures.
But in the later 1950sand early 1960s,the 'colony' comes to be identifiedwith
a particular range of petty crimes, of which the most common were brothel-
keeping, living off immoral earnings and drug-pushing.Darcus Howe quotes a
Home Officememorandumof March 1957which requiredthe police to provide
evidence as to 'large-scalecrime', the 'degree of mixing with white people',
the 'facts of illegitimacy', 'brothel management'and the 'conditions in which
they live' in the black 'colonies'.JBHe also recalls that when the Home Secretary
made his statementon the 1958race riots he prefacedit with a reference10 'diffi-
culties' arising 'partly through vice', and suggestedthat the governmentmight
take powersto deport 'undesirables'.This distinctionbetweenrespectableblacks
and the 'undesirableelement' has becomea commonplacein the syntaxof race (it
echoessuch earlierattempts,discussedabove,to drive a wedge betweendifferent
sectorsof a class,such as betweenthe 'deservingpoor' and the 'dangerousclasses'
early in the nineteenthcentury,and between the 'respectableworkingclass' and
the 'residuum' at the end of the century).However,like the simple identification
of 'hustling' with crime, this distinctionbetween 'good blacks' and 'undesirable
blacks'distortsthe natureof the optionwhichhustlingoffersto thosecondemned
lo live in the 'colony'.
Hustling is quite different from professionalor organisedcrime. It certainly
takes place on the far or blind side of the law. Hustlers live by their wits. So
they are obligedto move aroundfrom one terrainto another,to desertold hustles
and set up new ones in order to stay in the game. From lime to time, 'the game'
may involverackets,pimping,or petty theft. But hustlersare also the people who
sustain the connectionsand keep the infrastructureof 'colony' life intact.They
are people who always know somebody,who can get things done, have access
to scarce goods, who can 'deal' and service the less-respectable'needs' of the
respectableend of 'colony' society.They hang out aroundthe clubs, organisethe
bluesparties,set the dominogameup, knowwhatday the illegalwhiterum distill-
eries produce.They work the system;they also make it work.They are indispen-
sableto the 'colony'; for unlikethosewho livein the 'colony' but workelsewhere,
they have chosen to live in, and survive off, the 'colony' itself. By giving up
steadyand routine work, they settle instead for the upswingsand dips of a more
unsettledeconomicexistence.When the going is good, hustlersare men about the
sLreetwith style, visiblydisplayingtheir temporarygood fortune:'cool cats'. But
346 POLICINGTHECRISIS

very few succeedfor long in the game.MalcolmX, one of the most famousof all
ghetto hustlers,recallsreturning,after his 'conversion'from the life of the streets
to ElijahMuhammad,to his old haunts and:
hearingthe usualfatesofso manyothers.Bullets,knives,prison,dope,diseases,
insanity,alcoholism... so many of the survivorswhomI knewas tough hyenas
and wolvesof the streets in the old days now were so pitiful.They had known
all the anglesbut beneaththat surfacethey were poor,ignorant,untrainedblack
men; life hadeasedup on themandhypedthem.I ranacrossclose to twenty-five
of these old-timersI had knownprettywell, who in the spaceof nine years had
been reducedto the ghetto's minor,scavengerhustles to scratch up room rent
and food money.Some now workeddowntown,messengers,janitors, things
like that.~

Malcolm was writing about Harlem, the best-established,most prosperousand

organisedof U.S. ghettoes.
In the English 'colonies' of the 1950sand 1960s,there were no lush pickings
for those commiUedto working the street. A certain style there was; and we
should not underestimatewhat highlychargedculturalcapital the style of 'being
cool' and 'doing well' providesfor men surroundedby the all-too-evidentsigns
of people strugglinglo survive in a more respectableway,and just makingends
meet. Drifting,unemploymentand homelessness,with little or nothingromantic
about it, was more characteristicof English hustlingthan Malcolm's zoot suits
and conservativebanker'sshoes.In the English 'colony', there are fewerfull-time
and seriouslysuccessfulhustlers. 'Hustling' should be seen more as a 'survival
strategy'. By far the largest number involvedare those who simply cannot get
steady work; they are into hustling because they are the unemployedsectors of
the class - the advance party of black labour's 'reserve anny'. For this group,
small-scaleor incidentalcrime, or involvementin the rackets, is the difference
betweensurvivaland starvation.The numbersin the 'colony' living off hustling
has therefore increasedsteadily with the rising curve of black unemployment.
Another class of person drawn into hustling are those who simply cannot or
will not subject themselvesto steady, routine kinds of labouringfor 'the Man',
They preferto risk their fortunesworkingthe street than take in the white man's
'shit-work', or sit it out in his dole queues.The.irnumber,too, has increased.A
third group are those who keep the 'colony' life moving,oil the wheels, speed
the turnover of the whole gamut of fringe cultural activities which makes the
'colony', despiteits materialimpoverishment,a substitutecommunity,something
like home.Scatteredamongstthese three kindsof people are the petty criminals,
con-men,pimps and racketeers.In a largersense, everyonelivingin 'the colony'
is into the 'rackets'. Respectableblack familiesdepend on the rackets as much
as the hustler; if the latter need 'the game' to survive economically,the former
need it to surviveculturally.Naturally,there are unsavouryparts of the hustling
networkswhich respectable,church-goingWest Indianfamilieswouldrather not
knowabout.The commitmentof first-generationmigrantsto steadyif unrewarding
labour, and of the second generationto the life of the street and hustlingrather
than labouring,are theprincipal formsin whichthe 'generationgap' is articulated
in the black community.However,as the pressureson the 'colony' community
 THli POLrrtCS Or-'MUOOING' 347
- from police surveillanceand control,from unemploymentand from officialor
institutionalracism- have steadily increased,so the divisionwithinthe 'colony'
betweenyoung and old, or betweenthose who havechosen the respectableroute
and thosewho havechosento hustleand survive,has beeneroded,and there is an
increasingtendencyto close ranks,internally,in the faceof a commonand hostile
threat. The 'colony', initiallya defensivereactionto the threateninguniverseof
blanketwhitehostility,has becomea defensivebase for newstrategiesof survival
amongstthe blackcommunityas a whole.
Blackyouth has had to surviveand makea life by choosingamongthe rangeof
strategiespioneeredby the first immigrantwave.But they encountertheir subor-
dinationat a differentstage in the historicalevolutionof theirclass.The economic
and culturalresponseswhich they have developedcollectivelythus differ signifi-
cantly from those originallyopen to their parents.The first waveconstructedthe
'colony'; the secondgenerationwas born into the 'colony'. They are its first true
progeny.They have no other home. Their parents are the bearers of that double
consciousnesscommonto all migrantclassesin the periodof transition;the second
generationis the bearerof the exclusiveconsciousnessof the black 'colony'. Their
earliest experienceis of a black enclave in an embattledpositionat the heart of
a white society.They have grown up with racial segregationas a fact of life. As
Dilip Hiro pointed out, young blacks see no visual signs of social integration
betweenraces in the adult world they inhabit;they do not notice raciallymixed
groups of adults walkingin the streets or leavingthe pub; no white friends visit
their families;the only whites with whom they have contact are people doing a
job (postmen,teachers,meter readers) or welfareofficers and social workers.411
The blackpopulationin the schoolshas grown;but they havetendedto segregate
out alongethnic linesby mutualconsent.Blackyouth has also had an experience
of which their parents were deprived:cultural expropriationthrough the school
system. Better equippedin tenns of educationalskills to take their place beside
the white peers of their own class in the ranks of skilledand semi-skilledlabour,
they feel the closure of the occupationaland opportunitystructureto them - on
groundsnot of competencebut of race- all the more acutely.Englishracism,both
as a materialstructureand as an ideologicalpresence,cannot be explainedaway
to them as a temporaryaberration,the resultof a fit of whiteabsent-mindedness.It
is how the systemworks.In their experience,Englishsocietyit 'racist' -it works
through mce. They cannot avail themselvesof the first-generationimmigrants'
principalsource of optimism:that everythingimproveswith time. In fact, things
have palpablybecomemuch worse.To casual discriminationand the loss of job
opportunitiesmust nowbe addedthe politicalmobilisationof whitehostility,new
legaldisabilitiesgoverningthemovementof their relatives-aboveall, theconstant
pressureof police harassmenton the streets. Nothingmakesone aware of living
in a 'colony' so much as the permanentpresenceof an 'occupyingforce'. They
haveno greenermemoriesof home to tum back to: 'home' is WillcsdenJunction,
Handsworth,Paddington, Moss Side, St Annes. These people are pennanent
internalexiles.As 'Paul' told Peter Gillman:
I call Barbadoshome.This isn't home.I callAfricahome.That's home.Because
1don't belonghere.Even thoughI was born here I don't belonghereand I don't
call myself an Englishman.I don't call myself nothingto do with the English
348 POLICINGTHECRISIS

race in fact.They lookupon me as a strangerso I look uponmyselfas a stranger

in their country.'1

This negative picture needs no further elaborationhere. It is also true, on the

more positiveside, that this 'colony' generationis less outfacedthan their parents
were by the realityof life in the metropolis:less willingto endure and survivein
patience;less deferentialto whitesociety;and more aggressivelyconfidentabout
who they are. In this sense the 'colony' has provideda basis for the construction
of positivealternativeculturalidentities.Manyfirst-generationblackshad to pass
painfullythroughthis transitionalpoint. It is eloquentlye~pressedin the autobi-
ographyof the WestIndianCarpenter,WallaceCollins:

I decided to quit the disenchantment,the uncompassionateyet impolite

monstrosityof lhe whiteman's society....This metamorphosisLookplacewithin
me withoutmy knowingit, until I beganto interminglewithmy own people.... I
felt wantedand desired by my own people.... I belonged.42
The second generationsimply is a black generation,knows it is black and is
not going to be anythingelse but black. Its consciousnesshas receivedwhat lhe
Ras Tufarianswould call its 'groundation' in that fundamentaland necessary
knowledge.It is most unlikely,then, that this generationwould ever set its feet,
willingly,on the pathto assimilation.As a collectivesolution,the optionof assimi-
lationhas not only beenofficiallyclosedby whitesociety,but blackshaveactively
closed the door on it themselves,from the inside, and turned the key. What we
have called an 'acceptance'strategyno longer has much to recommendit either.
Blackyouth has come to see the infiniteenduranceof their parentsas too quietist
a solution-it too often involvedgivingin, knucklingunder,to 'the Man'. One of
the principalarenasin whichblackyouth resistand reject what,unwillingly,their
parentshave had to accommodate,is in the sphere of work itself.A 17-year-old
engineeringapprenticetold Dilip Hire the story of how 'The foremantold me to
brush the floor.... There was a white labourer(whosejob it was) doing nothing,
so I refused.I got the sack. I told my dad and he said, "Youshould haveswept".
I told my dad, "You're whitewashed,those English people have corruptedyour
mind",'4J The 18-year-old'Paul' told Peter Gillman:'I get kickedout of me house.
Me old man didn't like the way I was going on. I was hustling,raisingmoneyhere
and there, not workingfor it, and he didn't like that so I just said I was leaving.
I went out on the Saturdaynight and he locked the door and wouldn't let me in
again.'.uAnotheryouth put it differently:
My ambitionis to get my fatheroff LondonTransport.... I don't feel ashamed
becausehe worksthere,that's nothingbecausehe is a workingman and he has
brought up a big family and he has to be respectedfor that. It is just that he
is on that bus collectingtickets all day and it's so uncool.I wouldjust like to
go up to him once and say, 'dad, just give them your cards and rest, take your
cards andjust rest'. He says he's proudworkinghard and everything,but really
who would like going out on a bus in this cold in this country.Nobody.And no
matterwhat he said, I knowbecauseI checkhim and I knowhe don't dig it. But
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUOGINO' 349
he knowsit's loo late for him to say, 'well, boy,I'm not working,I will hustle
or I will do this or I am going to play music- be an artist or gambler.'It's too
late. He has responsibility,but for a young guy you have to look on him and
say, 'well, look at my old man, he come to this country looking for a fortune
and he's on a bus every day climbingup and down the stairs crying out, "any
more fares"!'Yougot to say the way this systemworks I will only be one step
abovethat and then my son would haveto be one step abovewhat I was ... and
so on. There has to be one in the family who leaps, so that the whole family
goes up...~

So long as lhe labourmarketcould absorbblackschool-leavers,ii tendedsystem-

atically to assign them to whal they call the 'shit-work' end of the occupational
spectrum.But, as unemploymentdeepens,thoseheadingfor the bottomend of the
labouringpile become the unemployedreserve anny of their class. The system
which neededthem as workersdoes not need them even for that any longer, so
their objectivepositionhas deteriorated.But the dynamicfactor is the change in
the way this objectiveprocess is collectivelyunderstoodand resisted.Thus, the
socialcontent and politicalmeaningof 'worklessness'is being thoroughlytrans-
formedfrom inside,Those who cannotworkare discoveringthat theydo not want
to work under those conditions.The unemployedare developinga new form of
'negativeconsciousness'aroundthe conditionof beingunemployable.Of course,
this may be a temporarysituation, and thus a transitory form of consciousness;
we will discussbelowwhether,if lhis is so, ii is possibleto organisefrom such a
positionanythingbut a temporarynegationof the system. Meanwhile,this black
sector of the class 'in itself' has begun to undergothat process of becominga
politicalforce 'for ilself':

Economicconditions... lirsl transformedthe mass of the peopleof the country

into workers.The combinationof capital has created for this mass a common
situation,commoninterests.This mass is alreadya class as againstcapital but
not yet for itself. In the slruggle ... this mass becomesunited and constitutes
itself as a class for itself.The interestsit defendsbecomeclass interests.But the
slruggleof class againstclass is a politicalstruggle.46
The shift is a momentousone. It does not, of course, follow the classic line
sketchedout by Marx. It is the commonexperienceof 'worklessness'ratherthan
the disciplineof combinationin social productionwhich seems to be providing
the catalyst- thoughfor those sectorsslill at workthe tempoof militancyhas also
considerablyadvanced.This qualitativeshift has not happenedspontaneously.It
has a history.It began with the discoveryof black identity,more specificallythe
rediscovery,inside the experienceof emigration,of the Africanroots of 'colony'
life.The 'African'revivalin the 'colony' populationwas fed and supportedby the
post-warAfrican nationalistrevolutions.But it derived its positivecontent - as
well as its clear materialisationwithinthe life and confinesof the 'colony' -from
the black liberationmovementsin the UnitedStatesfromthe early 1960sonwards
and the blackrebellionswhichspreadthroughthe ghettoes,behindthe mobilising
slogansof 'black is beautiful'and 'black power':
350 POLICINGTHECRISIS

OnceI used to think I'm the same as everybodyelse. But thenI startedrealising.
The first time was in 1965when they had the riots in Watts.I startedlookingat
all the things in the worldand realisedI got to act like a black man and got to
be proudofit and everything.47

This is also the most intenseperiodof aclivepoliticisationof the blackcommunity

by politicalactivists,and includesthe visitsto Britainof StokelyCarmichaeland
Malcolm X. It was the style of black resistancedevelopedby groups like the
Black Panthers,and the positive images of ethnicity generaled by leaders like
Seale, Cleaver,Newton, George Jackson and Angela Davis, rather than 'black
power' as a politicaldoctrine,whichfirst seized the imaginationof blackyouth in
the 'colony', One of the most significantpoints of identificationbetweenBritish
and Americandevelopmentswas preciselythe way the latter movementbuilt on
the 'politicsof ghettosurvival',givinga newpoliticalsignificanceto 'the hustler'.
This wholly negativestereotyperole of the black workingclass was positively
redefinedin the blackculturalrenaissanceof the 1960s.Not only had manyof the
prominentleaders and spokesmenof the black Americanrebellionstarted their
careers in the life of street-cornercrime, but the whole thrust of this movement
was designedto build a politicalmovementamong blackpeople from the bottom
up - and that meant from a base insidethe 'colony', from the defensivespace of
the ghetto. The only 'troops' the Black Pantherscould aspire to commandwere
lumpen-blacksfrom the ghetto workingclass. The 'comrades in arms' were the
brothersand sisters of the streets.
Betweenthe late 1960sand the 1970s,the seeds of cultural resistancehave
not only sprouted in Britain's 'Harlems' up and down the country, they have
blossomed- but now in a distinctivelyAfro-Caribbeanform.There was no need
to borrow,literally,styles or images from the North Americanghetto, since the
street life had its own distinctiveroots in Afro-Caribbeansoil. The revivalamong
'colony' blacksof the apocalypticreligio-politicsof Ras Thfarianism,the sounds
of Anglo-Caribbean'colony' music- rock-steadyBlue-beat,ska and reggae- and
the 'harcl'style of the 1amaican'Rude Boy', combinedto providea new vocab-
ulary and syntaxof rebellionmuch morecloselyattunedto the materialexistence
as well as to the emergentconsciousnessof those condemnedto the drifting life
of the streets.In and throughthe revivalistimageryof the 'dreadlocks',the music
of the dispossessed(dispossessed,it should be added, in Kingstonas much as it
was in Brixton or Handsworth)and the insistent,drivingbeat of the reggaesound
systemscame the hope of deliverancefrom 'Babylon'. The 'culture' of the back-
to-Africasect, the Ras Tafari, is crucial here; both in Brixton and in Kingston,
in recent years, it is the dress, beliefs, philosophyand language of this once
marginaland despisedgroup which has providedthe basis for the generalisation
and radicalisationof black consciousnessamongstsectorsof black youths in the
cities: the sourceof an intenseblackculturalnationalism.It is this 'religionof the
oppressed',as embodiedin the rhythmand imageryof reggae,whichhas sweptthe
mindsas well as swayedthe bodiesof young blackmen and women.48 Britain,the
countrywhereblackpeopleare oppressed,are 'suffering', the land whichtheyare
i11 but not of. the country of estrangement,dispossessionand brutality,perfectly
recapitulatesthe 'Babylon'of the Ras Thfariancredo.Insidetheir own 'house' the
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUOOING' 351
brothersmay greeteach other with 'peace and love'. But for 'Babylon', the music
promisesthe 'rod of correction',and for the brothers,it promises'power' - 'let the
powerfall', In the wakeof this culturalupheaval,coursingthroughLambethand
WestKingstonalike,whichinvertsand transformseverysign of whitedomination
into its negativeand opposite,which rereads the culture of oppressionfrom 'the
roots' up as the culture of sufferingand struggle,every activitytouched is given
a new content,endowedwith a new meaning.It is the ideologicalpoint of origin
of a new social movementamongstblacks, the seeds of an unorganisedpolitical
rebellion.The extentof police supervisionof the 'colonies', the arbitrarinessand
brutality of the 'hassling' of young blacks, the mounting public anxieties and
the moral panic about 'young immigrants'and crime, and the size of the welfare
and communityprojects designed to relieve tension and 'cool' the problemsin
the ghetto, serve only to reinforce the impression,both inside and outside the
'colony', that, in some as yet undefinedway, a 'political' battlegroundis being
stakedout.
Manyrespectableblackadultsstill regarda full-timelife of 'worklessness'and
petty crime as a desperate and illegal solution to lhe survival problems which
confront the community.They hope and pray it is temporary.At the same time
they are increasinglyenraged at the level of exploitationwhich is driving the
youngpeopleof the 'colony' progressivelytowardsthis option,andat the arbitrary
oppressionwhichis nowthe routinecontrolresponseto thosewho cannotsurvive
in anyother way.Thereis an olderelementof the 'colony' populationfor whomthe
drift into and out of crime has alreadybecomea stableaspectof their unstableand
precariouseconomicexistence.The situationwith respect to black youth seems
to differ from bolh these dispositions.It is impossibleto tell, for example,at the
present time, how many black school-leaverscannot get jobs, how many would
not take those kinds of jobs, and how many are refusing to work as a positive
and political strategy.The uncertainty of the 'hustling' life may be preferable
to the predictablemonotonyof unskilled factory work. Presently,in any event,
the choice is simply not open for the majorityof those who have come on to the
labourmarketfor the first time.The attempt,in these circumstances,to draw such
finedistinctionsmay be a fruitlessexercise.It takes no accountof the waychoices
are conditioned.It treats the concretematerialissuesof survivalas if submittable
to a clear calculusof rationalchoiceby free agents.It reducessocialbehaviourto
the levelof decisionsin the head,made in terms of universalmoralcriteria,which
happen, fortuitously,10 coincide with the way the legal boundariesare currently
drawn.The ambiguousrelationof black youth to crime cannot be understoodin
this way.The availableaccountsclearly show that few young blacks confront a
clearchoicebetweenthe optionsof hard labourand crime.and settlepennanently
for onestrategyor another.Oneof the precipitatingfactorsis preciselya difference
in attitudeto the problemsof survivalbetweenthe two generations.Youngblacks,
unable or unwillingto work, and attractedby the more free-wheelinglife of the
street, find themselvesunableto live withoutconflictin their parentalhome. But
once outside it there are neither places to live nor any steady source of income
on which to survive unemployment.Hustlingor occasionalpilferingconstitute
an immediateand thoroughlypredictabletemporarysolution to this condition,
as does homelessness,'dossing out' and drifting. Every black colony area has
352 POLICINGTHECRISIS

its rooms,cafds or hostels,sometimesprovided,more often simply taken over -

colonised- wherealer1and intelligentblackyouths,in their overcoatsand knitted
caps, are simply sitting out the crisis. Often, a local black caf6-ownerhas taken
pity on them and cleared a room or a space in which they can at least be warm.
In other areas, black communityworkers, on practicallyno resources,attempt
to organise the pennanent 'free time' of these youths into some kind of useful
or profitableactivi1y.But the drif'tingin and out, the precariousness,is endless.
This fractionof the black labouringclass is engagedin the traditionalactivityof
the wagelessand the workless:doing nothing,fillingout time, trying to survive.
Againstthat backgroundit is not too much to say that the question 'why do they
turn to crime?' is a practicalobscenity.
Certain patterns begin to emerge here. The first step into the twilight zone of
crime comes throughsporadic pilfering:pinchingoff open stalls or from super-
markets.The secondis the lure of a biggertake - pickpocketing,snatchingfrom
a shoppingbasket, lifting a wallet.The chances are better, and the take bigger,
in the open street, in the ambiguousurban spaces and wastegrounds,or in the
labyrinthof the tube station.A certain amountof drifting 'uptown' begins,and
the activity- workingin pairs, or arranginga chain of connectionsalong whicha
snatchedpursecan be passedon - requiresmoresocialorganisation,a more stable
network.Life comes to depend more and more on these successes.A fractionof
the class is bei11gcriminalised.All the evidencesuggeststhat the numbersnow
forced to survive in these ways on the margin of the legal life are increasing,
directly in line with the numbers unemployed,and that the age limit of those
involvedis dropping.Someof these boysare now ripe for recruitmentinto the life
of professionalisedcrime, where crime - not the unpredictable,sporadic snatch
but the plannedbreakingand entry of unoccupiedhouses,often in broaddaylight
- promisesto becomea regularoccupation,a substitutejob. The numbersinvolved
in petty pilferingand snatchingare confinedto a limitedage range.Beyondthat,
the tendencyis either to give it up, especiallyif you are luckyenough to land a
job, or lo graduateinto a more settledcriminallife-style.All the evidenceclearly
points to the fact that, while still involvedin the 'twilight zone' of crime, most of
the youths are still regularlyseekingemployment.'Mugging', the more violent,
plannedand ruthlessform of survivalcrime,representsonly a tiny fractionof this
larger pattern, is indulged in by only the more hardenedsection of the drifting
population,and tends to be given up by those obliged either to move on into
conventionalcrime,or to moveout.
The way in which these massivelyoverdeterminedoptions are recoveredand
transformedin consciousnessby those caught up in their logics is a different
matter. For these are no ordinary white boys and girls, with a well-developed,
ascribed consciousnessof subordinationalready available to them. They are
an excluded black group in a dominant white world. And their growing black
consciousnesshas given them, howeverrudimentarily,a sort of awarenessof the
systematicnature of the forces driving them into certain pathways,and of the
structuringprincipleof racism at work of whichthey are the victims.Few young
blacks consciouslychoose crime as a form of political revenge against white
society.But consciousnessand motivesdo not work in that way.It is more likely
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 353

that,findingthemselvesdriftingor driveninto one of the few remainingstrategies

for survivalopen to them, they developa collectivedefinitionof their situation;
and, in doing so, they draw on the available reservoir of charged feelings and
emotions about racism and its system. Reasons and rationales,vocabulariesof
action, meaningor motive,frequently,in concreteexperience,followrather than
precede practical actions.This does not mean that they are simply convenient
excuses,cover stories. It means that certain patternsof action can be retrospec-
tively glossed and reinterpretedin the light of meanings which progressiveJy
emerge.What seems, at first, the productof circumstances- fate - comes to be
understoodas the productof particularsocialand historicalarrangements.Modes
of existence,inertly inhabitedas unchangeable,'given' in the structureswhich
inscribemen as the bearers of their conditions,can, in this way, be transformed
into a more positiveagency or practice.Thus it comes about that the attitudes
towardsand the understandingof crime amongstblack youth remainprofoundly
ambiguous,suffusedwith the ethos of racismwhichboundstheir life on all sides,
yet with no clear precipitationas a consciousor organisedpoliticalstrategy.Some
of those involvedin crime appearto haveno specialfeelingsabout it. That is how
they live; thejob of the policeis to preventor apprehendthem.They knowthat, if
pickedup, they may well be singledout for special,harsh and abusivetreatment.
The preoccupationof the professionalcriminalis to stay out of the hands of the
police,as a conditionof his existence.A spell in jail is one of the hazardsof the
trade. For many others, however,the sense of being pressuredinto the twilight
zone of crime only makes sense as part of a wider configuration.Those whites
with whom they come into contact - whethervictims or the police - are seen as
representatives,'personifications',of a societywhich is systematicallyexploiting
and excludingthem. Thus crime is ambiguouslyinvestedwith more politicised
feelingsand ideas.It relates to the traditionalstatus of the ghetto 'wide-boy' and
'hard man', in the same momentas ii expresses- often in a muffled,generalised
or apocalypticmanner- a new means of struggle and resistanceagainst white
oppression.Both structuresof feelingcoexist withinthe same patternof activity,
and may be seen in the way it combines the brazen recklessnessof the daylight
robbery in crowdedplaces with the deliberatechoice of white victims and the
plannedexploitout of the ghetto to the richerpickingsof London'sWestEnd:
'We don't touch our own people. I never thoughtof doing it to a black man',
one youngsterconfessed. 'A black man wouldn't do it to me. But I know a
white man woulddo it to me. A black man knowsthat we are all sufferingthe
same.We all try and hustle in our own way', a secondobserved.49

A certain glamour may temporarilyattach itself to the life of petty crime; but
the accounts of those who have to survive in this way for long, or those now
languishingin detentioncentres or in prison, clearly show that there is nothing
remotely romantic about it. It is a precarious,haphazard,desperate existence,
alwayson the edge of a violencewhich brutalisesall those who engage in it, for
whatevermotives.It brings in its wake the constant attentionsand harassment
of the police, who lump in this category any young black person who happens
354 l'OLICINOTHECRISIS

to be on the streets after dark. The common,root cause of it can be traced back
to simple, sheer material need. Brother Herman of the London Harambeewas
certainlyco1TeCt whenhe observed:

There is no professionalcriminal intent there. What happens is that at some

point theyare hungryand need money;a boy is on the streetand has no food to
eat and nowhereto live.I go alongto the courtseveryday and the kindsof boys
I see and the natureof the offence-I don't see any criminalabilitythere at all.
But I don't think the courts recognizetheir predicament.50

Althoughit is not possibleto reconstructthe particularbiographicalpath which

each young black person has taken to the 'mugging' solution,it is quite easy to
constructa typicalbiographyof this kind. Hereis the blackadolescentat the point
of leaving school: 'When you go to school, you realize the difference,you're
made to realizeit. They (the white kids)pick on you. First you try to bribe them-
sweets,ices,the lot. But thenone day you can't stand it any more.Youget vicious,
real vicious and you lick them.''1 (The violenceof the 'mugging' which such a
boy may one day come to commit, and which the press headlines,the judge's
homilyand the Home Officestatisticianwill abstract rrom its context,is already
inscribedin this biography,howeverfar fromhis mind the possibilityof a criminal
careerstill is.) His prospectsare none too good,and theyare gettingworse.Ifhe is
lucky,a seriesof 'dead-end'jobs interspersedwith long periodsof unemployment
- increasingly,not even that. His parents know he is having a rough time; but
they also know from biller experiencewhat awaits him if he cannot find steady
employment.He starts to drif"twith rriends,and the rowsat home becomesharper
and more rrequent.He is already too big for home, too poor for an independent
life; but sooneror later,if nothingchanges,he will leavehome.He is nowpenna-
nently on the streets. He may move in with a friend;he may find a bed at one of
the blackhostelsor he may be sleepingrough.He cannotbe seen too often on the
streets. If the police find him after dark, they will stop and questionhim, perhaps
search him. He has no permanentaddress.He has not yet committedan offence;
buta groupof blackyouths,loiteringwith no intentwhatsoever,good or bad, after
dark, are a sitting target.The policedo not like their look, their walk,their knitted
tea-cosycaps, their mannerand insolence.The youths do not much like the look
of that official white face beneath the helmet. Each expects the other to jump.
On most occasions,someonedoes. (This boy is not yet 'an offender', not yet a
'disturber of the peace'; but both these identities,which the desk sergeant will
swearto and the sentencingjudge will rehearseagainsthim,are alreadyinscribed
in his fate.)There is a fightwith the 'coppers', and the boys breakaway.They are
now on the run; but there is nowhereto run to except further up the street. The
'nigger-tauntin~:2still hangson the night air: 'all or a suddenyou see this guy and
you say,well....
Butcancrimeprovidethe basis of a resistancewhichis capableof transforming
or even modifyingthe circumstanceswhich force more and more young people
to enlist in its ranks? Is hustlingand petty crime the potentialbasis for a viable
class strategy?Or is the 'criminal consciousness'destinedto remaina quasi-po-
litical form or consciousnessonly, which, apart from providingthe immediate
 THll POLITICSOf 'MUGGING' 355

and spontaneousbasis for opposition,also permitsan accommodatio11 to the very

structureswhich are producingand reproducingcrime as a viable 'solution'? ls
not crime precisely that fonn which, while it swallowsup the extruded part of
the surplus labouringclass, rendersthat sectioninactive,politically,by bindingit
to its fate - by criminalisingand brutalisingit? This is not a questionwhich can
be answeredin tenns of consciousnessalone. It is not one which can be solved
throughan exclusivepreoccupationwith crime as such.

BLACKCRIME,BLACKPROLETARIAT
We must depart, at this point, from the immediatelogic drivingcertain sections
of black youth into 'the muggingsolution'. To assess the viabilityof 'crime' as
a politicalstrategy,we must re-examinethe criminalisedpart of the black labour
force in relation to the black workingclass as a whole, and the relationswhich
governand determineits position- aboveall, in termsof its fundamentalposition
in the present stage of the capitalist mode of production,the social division of
labourand its role in the appropriationand realisationof surpluslabour.We must
include these structural relations in our assessmentof the relation of crime to
politicalstrugglein the presentconjuncture.
In recent years social historianshave given increasingattention to fonns of
social rebellion and political insurgencyadopted by classes other than that of
the classicalproletariatof the developedindustrialcapitalistsocietiesof Western
Europe.This is the result,in part,of the long politicalcontainmentof the working
class in such societies,coupled with the fact of major historicaltransformations
elsewherewhichhavebeen spearheadedby classesother than the proletariat- the
role of the peasantryin the Chinese Revolutionbeing only the most significant
example.In addition,then, to the study of peasantrevolutions,and questionsof
strategyarising from those societies(for example,LatinAmerica)whichcontain
both substantial peasant and developingindustrialworking-classsectors, there
have also been studies of other forms of social rebellion - pre-industrialriot
and rebellion,the city mobs, rural unrest, social banditry,etc. Despite this, the
orthodox view seems to prevail that, where developedindustrial societies are
concerned,the 'rebellions' of the poor and the lumpenclasses, or the fonns of
quasi-politicalresistanceinscribedin the activitiesof the criminalelementsand
'dangerousclasses', cannotbe of muchlong-terminterestto thoseconcernedwith
fundamentalsocial movements.ProfessorHobsbawm,who has himselfmade a
major contributionto the studies referred to above (with his books on primitive
rebels, insurrectionsamongst the landless proletariatand social banditry53) has
stated the limits in admirablyclear terms. Criminalunderworlds,he argues, 'are
anti-socialinsofaras theydeliberatelyset their valuesagainstthe prevailingones'.
But:
the underworld(as distinct from,say,peasantbandits)rarelytake part in wider
social and revolutionarymovements,at least in WesternEurope.... There are
obviousoverlaps,especiallyin certainenvironments(slumquartersof big cities,
concentrationsof semi-proletarianpoor,ghettoesof 'outsider' minorities,etc.)
and non-socialcriminalsmay be a substitutefor social protest or be idealised
356 POLICINOTH6CJI.ISIS

as such a substitute,but on the wholethis type of criminalityhas only marginal

interestfor the historianof socialand labourmovements.~ 4

This is because,in advancedindustrialcapitalistsocieties,the fundamentalrevolu-

tionaryclassis the proletariat,whichhas notonlybeenformedin andby capital,but
whosestruggleagainstcapital is organised- madecollectiveand 'methodical'-
becauseit is the struggleof a class schooledby the disciplineof the wage and by
the conditionsand relationsof social labour.There is a phasedor staged history
of class conflict present here which makes the strugglesof organisedlabour the
historicalagencywith the most advancedform of struggleat the presentstage of
the developmentof capitalism:

as a conscioussocialmovementand especiallyas a labourmovementdevelops,

theroleof 'criminal'formsof socialprotestdiminishes;except,of course,insofar
as they involve'political crime'.... For the historianof labourmovements,the
study of 'social criminality'is importantduring the prehistoricand fonnative
periodsof the movementsof the labouringpoor,in pre-industrialcountries,and
possiblyduring periodsof great social effervescence,but otherwisehe will be
only very marginallyconcernedwith it.5~

Elsewhere,Hobsbawmhas argued:
The underworld (as its name implies) is an anti-society,which exists by
reversingthe valuesof the 'straight' world- it is, in its ownphrase,'bent' - but
it is otherwiseparasiticon it. A revolutionaryworldis also a 'straight' world....
The underworldenters the history of revolutionsonly insofar as the classes
da,igereusesare mixed up with the classes laborieuses,mainly in certain
quartersof the city, and becauserebels and insurgentsare often treated by the
authoritiesas criminalsand outlaws;but in principlethe distinctionis clear.'6

This argumentposes questionsof far-reachingimportance.

Hobsbawn and others are pointing to the conditions which might seem to
make the movementsof the 'criminal poor' what Gramscicalled 'conjunctural'
rather than 'organic'. This entailsthree propositions.The criminalclassescannot
play a fundamentalrole in such social movements,first, because their position
is marginalto the productivelife and relationsof social formationsof this kind;
second,because,historically,they have becomemarginalto the proletariatwhich
has replacedthem at the centre of the theatreof politicalstruggle;third, because
the fonn of consciousnesstraditionallydevelopedby this stratumis not adequate
to that required by a class which aims to supplant one mode of productionby
another.Thus, though the life and valuesof the 'dangerousclasses' representan
inversionof the bourgeoisworld,theyremainultimatelyenclosedby it- confined
by it and thus in the end parasitic upon it. The effect of this orthodox interpre-
tation on the developmentof a 'Marxist theory of crime' has been noted.Alvin
Gouldner,for example,once commented:

Viewingcriminalsanddeviantsas lumpenproletariar that wouldplaynodecisive

role in the classstruggleand, indeed,as susceptibleto use by reactionaryforces,
 THE POLITTCS
01' 'MUOOINO' 357
Marxists were not usually motivatedto developa systematictheory of crime
and deviance.In short,beingneitherproletariannor bourgeois,and standingoff
to the peripheryof the central political struggle,criminalsand deviants were
at best the butlers and maids, the spear carriers, the colourrulactors perhaps,
but namelessand, worstof all, lackingin a historical'mission', They could be,
indeed,had to be, ignored by those devoted Lo the study of more 'important'
issues- power,politicalstruggleand class conflict.''

SomeMarxistwriterswouldindeedarguethat the veryconceptsrequiredto 'think'

the problemsof crimeand devianceare foreignto Marx'sconceptualfield- Lothe
problematicof historicalmaterialismas a theory.Hirst argues,on this basis, that
there cannot by definitionbe 'a Marxist theory of crime'.s• In his mature work,
Hirstargues- the work,essentially,of Capital- Marxadoptsa viewpointon crime
which breaks with a moral critique and bases himself inslead on the scientific
propositionsof a fully materialistviewpoint.Withinthis framework,crime (theft)
is merely redistributive;like prostitution,gamblingor racketeering,it is a form
of 'unproductive'rather than 'productive' labour and though it may be 'illegal'
withrespectto the normswhichgovernnormalcapitalistrelations,it is mostoften
'capitalistic' in fonn (e.g. organisedcriminal enterprises)- i.e. adapted to the
system on which it is parasitic.This analysisof the 'marginal' positionof crime
may be extendedby lookingat the role and natureMarx ascribedto the 'criminal
classes'. The centralityof the proletariatto any transfonnationof the capitalist
modeof productionlies in its role in production,as the sourceof surplusvalue.This
positionis ascribedto the proletariatby the modeof production.It is thispo:rition-
ratherthan that processof comingto consciousnessas a collectivehistoricalagent,
of whichMarx spoke in The Povertyof Philosophy"and elsewherein the earlier
works - which defines productivelabour as the only class capable of carrying
throughthe strugglelo transfonnthecapitalistmodeinto socialism.Nowthe prole•
lariat and the bourgeoisieare, in this schema, the fundamentalpolitical forces.
Other classesexist as a result of the combinationwithin any social formationof
more than one mode of production;but they cannot be the decisiveforces in the
politicalclass struggle.Marx does suggest that, at certain momentsof struggle,
the proletariatwill seek allianceswith other subordinateclasses;and these allies
may includethe pelly bourgeoisie,the lumpenproletariatof the cities, the small
peasantsor agriculturallabourers.But, Hirstconcludes,Marxbelievedthe lumpen•
pmletariat to be unreliableclass allies. Since, throughtheft, extortion,begging,
prostitutionand gambling,the lumpenproletariattends to live parasiticallyoff the
workingclass, 'their interestsare diametricallyopposedto those of the workers'.
Further,becauseof their precariouseconomicposition,they are bribableby 'the
reactionaryelementsof the rulingclassesand the state'. Thus, the argumentruns,
individualacts of crime are the volitionlessacts of the victimsof capitalism,'not
in effect formsof politicalrebellionagainstthe existingorder but a more or less
reactionaryaccommodationto them'.00 Eventhe moreobviously'political'crimes,
like the machine-breakingof the Luddites, represent immediate,spontaneous
but ultimatelyinadequateforms of struggle since they are directed 'not against
the bourgeoisconditionsof productionbut against the conditionsof production
themselves'.As the basis for a revolutionarystruggle,such acts are useless;the
only task is to 'transfonn such fonns and ideologiesof struggle'.61
358 POLICINGTHECRISIS

Howhistoricallyspecificwas Marx's analysisof the compositionand natureof

the lumpenproletariat?He and Engels seem clearly to have had the 'dangerous
classes' of mid-VictorianEnglandand of Paris in mind as they wrote.One of the
key passagesis the analysisof their role in the crisis of 185I whichMarx offered
in The Eightee11thBrumaire. The Jumpe11pro/etariat appears in that graphic
passageas the criminaldetritusof al/ classes- the dtclas:resat the bollomof the
humanpile:
Alongsidedecayed rouls with dubious means of subsistenceand of dubious
origins, alongside ruined and adventurous off-shoots of the bourgeoisie,
were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley
slaves, swindlers,mountebanks,lauaroni, pickpockets,tricksters, gamblers,
maquereaus,brothel-keepers,porters,literati,organ-grinders,ragpickers,knife
grinders,tinkers, beggars,- in shor1,1hewhole indefinite,disintegratedmass
thrownhitherand thither,whichthe Frenchterm la boheme.62
The list will be familiar from the pages of Engels's Conditionof the Working
Classi11Eng/a11d,M or from Mayhew'saccountof life in East London.64 It is open
to question whethera class stratum with this precise social compositioncould
so easily be identifiedunder the conditionsof monopolycapitalism.This is not
simply a way of saying that Marx's historicaland politicalpredictionsare out of
date. The old petty bourgeoisie,about whichMarx and Engels were occasionally
more optimisticas alliesof the proletariat,still survives,thoughgreatlyreducedin
number.Whentheydo appearon thepoliticalstage,theytendto playthereactionary
role which Marx believedpredictablefrom their position- for example, in the
various types of Poujadismin France, and in the rise of fascismin Germanyin
the 1930s.But alongsidethis, stemmingfrom the fundamentalreorganisationof
capitalistproductionconsequenton the shift to monopolyforms, new strata have
arisen-what is sometimesdesignatedas the 'new pettybourgeoisie'.Its economic
identification,and its politicaland ideologicalcharacter,presentreal and complex
problemsfor contemporaryMarxisttheory.Such internalshifts in the strata and
compositionof the classesis perfectlyin line with Marx's maturereflections.He
was about to plunge into its complexitywhere the manuscriptof Capitalbreaks
off. The question, then, of who and what correspondsto the lumpenproletariat
in contemporarycapitalist social fonnations is not an idle speculation.And the
further question of whetherall those involvedin crime as a way of life belong,
analytically,to thecategoryof the 'lumpen' is a matterrequiringserioustheoretical
and definitionalwork, not a problemof simpleempiricalobservation.
The relationship between classes constituted in the economic relations of
capitalist productionand the fonns in which they appear as political forces in
the theatre of politicalclass struggleis no simple matter either,especiallywhen
considered from the standpoint of Marx's more mature theory. But the later
work - the analysisof the economicforms and relationsof capital accumulation
conductedin Capital- differsfromsome of Marx's earlierwritings,especiallyin
the positionof the workingclass with respectto the 'laws of motion' of capitalist
production. Whereas, earlier, Marx had tended to see the proletariat as the
'oppressed' class in a politicalstruggle with the oppressors,Capitalthoroughly
 THBPOLITICS01' 'MUGOING 0
359

reconstituteshis argument on the terrain of capitalist productionitself and the

circuitof its self-expansion.It is the exploitationoft he labourerwithinproduction,
the identificationof labour-poweras the 'commodity'on whichthe wholeprocess
rests, which finds in surplus labour the source of surplus value which is realised
as 'capital'; this providesthe basis of Marx's 'immensetheoreticalrevolution'in
Capital.Capital had at its disposal many ways of exploiting labour-powerand
extractingthe surplus - first, by lengtheningthe working day, then by intensi-
fying the exploitationof labour-powerthroughaugmentingthe productivepower
of advanced machinery,in the form of constant capital, to which the labourer
is increasinglydirectly subsumed. But, in whatever fonn, capital could not
exist for a day withoutproduction;and productionwas not possiblewithout the
exploitationof productivelabour in the class-structuredrelations of capitalist
production.Marx then lodgedthe fundamentalmechanismof capitalistsocieties
in the contradictionswhicharose in this fundamentalrelation- that betweenthe
'forces' and 'relations' of production.Many other forms were necessary,outside
the sphere of productionproper,to ensure the 'circuit of capital' - the relations
of market, exchangeand circulation;the spheres of the family,where, through
wages, labour-powerwas renewed;the state which superintendedthe society in
which this mode of productionwas installed;and so on. Ultimately,the whole
circuit of capitalist productiondepended on these other related spheres - what
havecome to be called the 'spheresof reproduction'- and on the variousclasses
and class strataexploitedby them.But productionrelationsdominatedthe whole
complexcircuit 'in the last instance';and other formsof exploitation,other social
relations,had to be thought,ultimately,in terms of the essentialcontradictionsof
the productivelevel.Marx makesthe point in severalplaces in Capital:
The specificeconomicform, in which unpaid surpluslabour is pumpedout of
direct producers,detennines the relationshipof rulers and ruled, as it grows
directly out of productionitself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining
element.... It is alwaysthe direct relationshipof the ownersof the conditionsof
productionto the direct producers- a relationalwaysnaturallycorresponding
to a definitestage in the developmentof the methodsof labourand therebyits
socialproductivity- whichrevealsthe innermostsecret,the hiddenbasis of the
entire social structure,and with it the political fonn of the relation of sover-
eignty and dependence,in short, the correspondingspecificfonn of the state.
This does not preventthe same economicbase - the same from the standpoint
of its main conditions- due to innumerabledifferentempiricalcircumstances,
naturalenvironment,racial relations,externalhistoricalinfluences,etc., from
showinginfinitegradationsand variationsin appearance.'"

From this perspective,it followsthat, even if we depart from the strict implica-
tions of the earlierdiscussionof crime and the lumpe11proletariat outlinedabove,
a political strugglearising from a sector of a class living through crime cannot
be, analytically,so central to the contradictionsstemmingfrom its relationsof
production;at the simplestlevel of analysis,it is simply not strategicallyplaced
with respect to capital's 'laws of motion'. This, however,omits the question of
what the role of the criminalisedpart of a class is, structurally,to the waged,to
360 POLICINOTHECRISIS

the produclivesectors, of that class. And this returns us to the question of what
the relationis betweenthe 'waged' and the 'wageless' sectorsof the black labour
force in relationto capital in its present form.Marx had somethingcriticalto say
about this in Capital,in terms of the relationof what he called the 'reserve army
of labour' - the differentstrata of the unemployed- to the fundamentalrhythms
of capital accumulation,and we will turn to this in a moment.
First, however,we must enter a brief caveatagainst treatingMarx's theory of
capital as, essentially,what has been called a form of produc1ivisttheory- as if
nothing mattered, for capital, but that sector of the labouring masses involved
directlyin 'productivelabour'. Marx did, followingbut differingin his definition
from the classicalpoliticaleconomists,use the distinctionbetween 'productive'
and 'unproductive'labour.Productivelabourwas that sectordirectly involvedin
the productionof surplusvalue,exchangingdirectly againstcapital.Many other
sectors of the work-force,though equally exploitedby capital, did nor directly
produce surplus value, and exchanged,not against capital, but against revenue:
'Labour in the process of pure circulation does not produce use-values and
thereforecannotadd valueor surplus-value.Alongsidethis groupof unproductive
labourersare all workerssupporteddirectly out of revenue,whetherretainersor
state employees.'66
The theoryof productiveand unproductivelabour is one of the most complex
andcontestedareas of Marxisttheory,and its ramificationsdo not directlyconcern
us here. In the capitalismwhich Marx knew,'unproductivelabour' was relatively
underdeveloped,and often confined either to idlers, parasites on the labour of
others, or to marginalproducers.The same cannot be said of modern forms of
capitalism,where the service and 'unproductive'sectors of the work-forcehave
beenenormouslyexpanded,performingwhat are clearlykey functionsfor capital,
and where the largest proportion of workers exchange against revenue (state
employees,for example)and the proportioninvolvedin the direct productionof
surplus value appears to be growing smaller. In these circumstances,the line -
apparentlyrelativelysimple for Marx - between 'productive'and 'unproductive'
labour has become increasingly difficult to draw with any clear result. The
distinctionmay,nevertheless,be importantfor identifyingthe positionand identity
of the manynewlayersand strata in the modernworkingclass.However,it seems
clear that the argumenthas also been bedevilledby a clear misunderstandingof
the distinction,even as Marx made it. 'Unproductive'labourhas sometimesbeen
interpretedexclusivelyin Marx'spejorativeand morefrivoloussense-as econom-
ically and politicallyinsignificant.This was clearly not his meaning,as a reading
of volumeII of Capital,where Marx deals at length with circulationand repro-
duction,soon reveals.The wholeargumentin Capitaldemonstrateshow vital and
necessaryto the realisationof capital,and to its expansionand reproduction,are
thoserelationswhichare not directlytied to the surplus-valueproducingsphereof
capital.Capitalcould not,literally,completeits passageor circuitwithout'passing
through' these related spheres. Further, he stated directly that it is not only the
sector of the class which directly producessurplus value which is exploitedby
capital;many other class sectorsare exploitedby capital,even if the form of that
exploitationis not the direct extractionof surplusvalue.Thus, even if we need to
retain the terms 'productive'and 'unproductive'for purposesof analysis,relating
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 361
lo the identificationof the differentstrata of the workingclass,there is no warrant
in Marx for treatingthe classesand strata exploitedoutside productionproperas
unnecessaryor 'supernuous' classes,beyondcapital's contradictorydialectic:

the aim of Marx in developingthe concepts of productiveand unproductive

labour was not to divide the workers.Exactlythe opposite.... With the aid of
these concepts it provedpossiblefor Maril to analyse how value is expanded
in the direct processof productionand how it is circulatedin the reproduction
process.6'
The point is seminal for, and can be nicely illustrated from, the recent debate
withinMarxismand the feministmovementaboutthe positionof femaledomestic
labour with respectto capital. In an early contributionto this debate, Seccombe
argued that 'housework' must be judged, from a Marxist perspective,'unpro-
ductive', and seemedto implythat, for that reason,no decisivepoliticalstruggle,
capable of striking back against capital, could be organised from that base.61
(Similarly,it could, by analogy,be argued that no fundamentalpoliticalstruggle
which could affect capital could be mounted from a base constitutedby black
wageless, black hustlers involved in the essentially redistributiveactivities of
'crime', and black men and women largelyconfinedto the service and 'unpro-
ductive' sectors.)Many aspects of Seccombe'sargumentwere challengedin the
course of a lengthy and importanttheoreticaldebate.69 In a subsequentcontri-
bution,Seccombehas clarifiedhis position.,oHousework may be strictlyspeaking
'unproductive',but 'the working class housewifecontributesto the production
of a commodity- labourpower ... and throughthis processparticipatesin social
production'.71 Indeed, the reproductionof labour-power,throughthe family and
the sex.ualdivisionof labour, is, in Mar1t'sstrict tenns, one of the fundamental
conditions of existence of the capitalist mode of production, to which capital
devotesa part of what it has extractedfrom the labourer- variablecapital - and
'advances'to him and his family,in the form of wages,so that this 'reproduction'
can be effected.Domesticlabour may be 'unproductive',but it producesvalue,
Seccombeagrees. It is exploitedby capital - indeed,doubly exploited,through
the sexualdivisionof labour;and is fundamentalto the laws of motionof capital.
It is throughthe sexualdivisionof labourthat capital is able to seize 'not only the
economicbut every other sphere of society ... value regulateslabour conducted
beyondthe direct auspicesof capital'.12
Although not directly linked with our main argument, this digression on
domesticlabourhassomesignificantpay-offsfor ourconsideration.The housewife
appearsto 'do nothing'productively;she laboursbut does not appearto work.Her
sphere- the home - is thus perceivedas lying at, apparently,the oppositeend of
the spectrum to capital's productiveheart: spare, marginal,useless.Yet, by her
contributionto the reproductionof labour-power,and by her role as the agent of
the family'sconsumption,the housewifesustainsa necessaryand pivotalrelation
to capitalist production.What is importantis that this is hived off, segmented,
segregatedand compartmentalisedfrom the productionprocessproper.And what
simultaneouslyconnects and obscures this relation is the intermediationof the
sexual division of labour as a structure within the social division of labour. In
362

thisspecijicfo,m, capitalextends,withoutappearingto do so, 'its auspices'.And,

when womenare drawn into work outsidethe home,they substanliallyappear in
workwhichis not only at the unskilled,ununionisedand 'unproductive'end of the
occupationalspectrum,but in kinds of work which are often similar in nature to,
and are experiencedlike, 'housework'or 'women's work' - only done oulSidethe
home (service trades,textiles,catering, etc.). Bravermanargues that in the U.S.
economywomen have become 'the prime supplementaryreservoirof labour', a
movementessentially 'to the poorly paid, menial and ''supplementary"occupa-
tions'.73 Seccombepointsout that one of the crucialways in whichcapitalextends
its sway over domesticlabouris in regulatingwhat proportionof it will be drawn
into or thrownback out of 'productivework'. 'It [capital]structuresthe relation
or the workingpopulationto the industrialreservearmy or whichhousewivesare
a latent and often active component.'.,,.Withoutattemptingto draw the parallels
too tightly,we may then point to the following:(1) the strugglesor both women
and blackspresentacute problemsor strategyin aligningsectoralstrugglewith a
more general class struggle;(2) this may have somethingto do with the fact that
both occupya structurallysegmentaryposition,or are relatedto capitalistexploi-
tation througha 'double structure'- the sexualdivisionwithinclass relationsin
the first case, the racialdivisionwithinclass relationsin the second;(3) the key
to unravellingthe relation or both is not the question of whethereach directly
receivesa wageor not, since a proportionor each is, at any time, in employment-
i.e. 'waged' - while the rest are 'wageless'; (4) the key lies in the rererenceto
capital's controlover the movementinto and out or the reservearmy of labour.
In the debate with Seccombe, the strongest case in favour of regarding
houseworkas 'productive' was advancedby Selma James and MariarosaDalla
Costa, in The Powerof Mt.lmenand the Subversionof the Community. 15 'Wages
for housework'was, for them,a strategyof kminist mobilisation,with subversive
potential, directly against capital. In Selma James's Sex, Race and Class this
analysisis extendedto black struggles.76 The introductionto the earlierpamphlet
put the nub or the argumentclearly,highlightingthe strategicvalueor the refusal
to work:

The family under capitalism is a centre ... essentially of social productio11.

When previously so-called Marxists said that the capitalist family did not
producefor capitalism,was not a part of socialproduction,it followedthat they
repudiatedwomen's potentialsocialpower. Or rather, presumingthat women
in the home could not have social power,they could not see that womenin the
home produced.H your productionis vital ror capitalism,rerusingto produce,
refusingto work, is a fundamentalleveror social power.71

In Sex, Race and Class Selma James also extended the argumentinto a novel
interpretationof how the struggles undertakenby such groups as women and
blacksrelate to class struggleas a whole.It is based essentiallyon a reworkingor
the notionsof caste and class. 'Manuracture,'Marx argued in Capital,'develops
a hierarchyof labourpowers,to which there correspondsa scale or wages.'11 The
internationaldivision of labour, argues Selma James, leads to an accentuation
in the 'hierarchy or labour powers', which splits the workingclass along racial,
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUOOING' 363

sexual,nationaland generationallines, and confineseach sectorof the class to its

positionwithin this 'caste', at the expenseof its positionin the class as a whole.
'The individuallabourers,'Marxadded,'are appropriatedand annexedfor life by a
limitedfunction... the variousoperationsof the hierarchyare parcelledout among
the labourers according lo both their natural and their acquired capabilities.'79
(Marx, of course. was writing here of an early phase of capitalistdevelopment.
'Modernindustry',he argued,involveda differentdivisionof labour.SelmaJames
does not defend her extensionof the 'hierarchyof labour-powers'concept lo this
laterphaseof capitalistdevelopment.)This segmentationof theclasses- hierarchy
of labour-powers- representsa weaknessin lhe face of capital. But at present,
ii is argued, no alternative'general' class strategy is possible.(The argumentat
this point closely followsthat of C. L. R. James, perhaps the most seminal and
influentialCaribbeanMarxistto date, in his insistencethat no vanguardparty of
the Leninist mould can claim to 'speak for' a class so internallydivided.)The
accentof strugglethus (in line withJames's ownstresses)fallson the autonomous
self-activityof each sector of the class. Each sector must make its 'autonomous
power' felt first; and, by using 'the specificityof its experience... redefineclass
and the class struggleitself.... Jn our view,identity- caste - is the very substance
of class.'10 Onlythroughautonomousstrugglein each sectorwill the 'power of the
class' as a whole come to be felt. This line of argument,theoreticallydeveloped
in Race Today,81 has becomethe most powerfulpoliticaltendencywithin active
blackgroups in Britain.It is predicatedon the autonomyand self-activityof black
groups in struggle;and it identifiesthe most significanttheme of this struggleas
the growing'refusal to work' of the blackunemployed.The high levelsof youthful
blackunemploymentare here reinterpretedas part of a consciouspolitical'refusal
to work'. This refusalto workis crucial,since it strikesat capital.It meansthat this
sector of the class refuses to enter competitionwith those already in productive
work.Hence,it refusesthe traditionalrole of the 'reservearmy of labour'- i.e. as
an instrumentwhichcan be used to break or underminethe bargainingpower of
those still in work.Thus it 'subvertedCapital's plan for maximumsurplus-value
from the immigrantwork force'.82 Police activity,which is principallydirected
against this 'workless' stratumof the class, is definedas an attemptto bring the
wageless back into wage-labour.The 'wageless' are not to be equated with the
traditionaldisorganisedand undisciplinedlumpenproletariat.This false identi-
ficationarises only because the black working class is understoodexclusively
in relation lo British capital. But, in fact, black labour can only be adequately
understood,historically,if it is also seen as a class which has already developed
in the Caribbean- vis-tl-vis 'colonial' forms of capital - as a cohesive social
force.In the colonialsetting 'wagelessness'was one of its key strategies.It is not
surprisingthat this wagelesssectorhas reconstructedin the metropolitan'colony'
a supporting institutionalnetwork and culture. Finally, the entrance of young,
second-generationblacks 'into the class of unemployedsrepresentsnot only an
increasein numbersbut also a qualitativechange in the compositionof the class'.
This new generation now brings to the struggle through 'wagelessness' a new
confidenceand boldness.''
The position originally outlined in Selma James's Sex, Race and Class has
been extendedand developedin the Powerof WomenCollective'spamphlet,All
364 POLICINGTHECRISIS

Workand No Pay.14 Here, the original argumentabout the 'hierarchy of labour

powers'is repeated,with an interestingand relevantaddition.The wagelessnessof
houseworkis nowshownto be disguisingits realcharacteras capitalistcommodity
production;and the paymentof the 'familywage' 10the maleworkerstructuresthe
dependencyof the female labourforce on the male.This is called the 'patriarchy
of the wage' - one productof which is sexism.On this analogy,the structurally
differentiatedposition of black labour as a whole to the white working class,
may be similarlyunderstoodas a form of structureddependence,one productof
which is racism- the 'racism of the wagerelation', to coin a phrase.(But see the
penetratingcritique by Barbara Taylor which questions whether an analysis of
femaleand domesticlabourcan be so directlybasedon an assumedhomogeneity
or perfecthomologybetweenproductionand ideology,structureand superstruc-
tures.15 This is also one of the maincritiquesof the Race Todaypositionadvanced
by Cambridgeand Gutsmorein The Black Liberato,:)
It should be added, that though there is not as yet a fully theorised account
of the present stage of metropolitancapitalist developmentin the Race Today
position,some parts of their analysis of the position of blacks is quite close to
that elaboratedby a major current in contemporaryItalianMarxist theory (what
is sometimescalled 'the Italianschool').16 Verycrudely,this tendencyidentifies
the present phase of capitalist developmentas it was characterisedby Marx in
volumeIII of Capitalas 'social capital'. This involvesthe subsumptionof 'many
capitals' into one capital, based on a vastly expandedreproductionprocess;the
progressiveabolition of capital as private property and the socialisationof the
accumulationprocess;and the transformationof the wholeof society into a sort
of 'social factory' for capital.In this phase,the state is progressivelysynonymous
with socialcapital- its 'thinkinghead'- and assumesthe functionsof integration,
harmonisation,rationalisationand repressionhithertopartlythe responsibilityof
capital itself.This massiveconcentrationof capital - on an internationalscale -
is matched by the growingconcentration(again, on an internationalscale) and
massificationof the proletariat.The higher the organiccompositionof capital,
the greater the 'proletarianisation'of the worker.The recompositionof capital
along 'social-capital'lines has been accomplished,principally,by three factors:
the reorganisationof the labour process, through the application of 'Fordist'
techniquesto production;the Keynesianrevolutionin economic management;
and the 'integration' of the organisedinstitutionsof the working class through
social democracyand reformism.The recomposilionof capital has therefore,in
tum, 'recomposed'the workingclass. The tendency,progressively,to deskill the
workingclass,and to subsumeit into massitiedprocessesof productionis tending
to createthe 'mass worker'.Althoughoperatingin advancedmodesof production,
the 'mass worker'is not the old skilledworkerof an earliercapitalism,but literally
a workerwho can be movedfrom one part of a fragmentedand automatedlabour
processto another,and from one countryto another(the use of migrantlabourin
the more advancedcapitalistcountriesof Europe is a key instanceof this). This
'productive'recompositionof theclassalso involvesa politicalrecomposition-the
old reflexesand organisationsof class strugglebelongingto an earlierphasebeing
dismantled,andclass struggletendingto generatenewformsof militantresistance
 THE POLITICS OF 'MUGGING' 365

directly against the exploitationof the new labour process,often directly at the
'point of production'.Hence,manyof the formsof direct workers'resistance- of
'organisedspontaneity'- hithertothoughtof as syndicalistin character,represent
an advancedmode of struggle face to face with the new conditionsof capitalist
accumulationand production.This 'mass worker' is a concrete embodimentof
Marx's 'abstract labourer'. Without going into this argument further, it can be
seen at once how this analysiscan be extendedto illuminatethe specificposition
of black labour(and other migrant'labours') in the 'advanced'sectorsof modern
British industry;but also how fonns of 'direct resistance' - like the refusal to
work - can assume a quite differentmeaningand strategicposition,as formsof
class struggle,not of a marginalbut of pivotalsectionsof the workingclass.
It is useful at this point to turn to the altogether different analysis of the
positionof black labourand the black wagelessadvancedby The BlackLiberator
collective.Cambridgeand Gutsmorcare criticalof the Race Todayposition,and
the main argumentsadvancedagainst them are as follows.The refusal to work
amongst black labour, and black youth especially,is a real phenomenon,but it
represents an ideologicalnot a political struggle. It does not 'subvert capital'
directly,since even if the whole workingclass, black and white, were employed,
the rate of exploitationof labour by capital would not necessarilybe intensified.
Blackworkersare thereforeconceivedin moreclassicalterms as a 'reserve anny
of labour' (of a special, raciallydifferentiatedtype). They are used, productively
or unproductively,in relation to the needs and rhythms of capital.As such they
constitute a black sub-proletarianstratum of the general workingclass. When
productivelyemployed,they are 'super-exploited',in that a relativelyhigherlevel
of surplus valueis extractedfrom them.They are exploitedand oppressedat two
different levels: as black workers (super-exploitation)and as a racial minority
(racism).The idea that the function of the police in relation to this sector is
directlyto regulatethe conditionsof class struggle and to tie the workingclass
to wage-labouris undercuton the grounds(mentionedabove)that it constitutesa
falsereductionof the levelof the state (political)to the levelof the economic.The
positionadoptedhere is directlyand explicitlyin line with Seccombe'sargument
on domestic labour,17 and it shares somethi11g with the Hirst argumentat least in
seeing the 'refusal to work' of this wagelesssector as, at best, a quasi-political
rebellion,not as a fullyformedclass perspective.81 Thereare criticaldifferencesof
theoreticalanalysisbetweenthe two positionshere, and both - necessarily- lead
to very differentpoliticalassessmentsof the correctstrategyfor the development
of black political struggle. Whereas the Race Today position stresses the self-
activatingdynamicof a developingblackstruggle,with the blackwagelessclearly
providingthis strugglewith one of its key supports,Cambridgeand Gutsmore,in
The Black Liberator,while supportingthe developingindustrialand community
struggles of blacks against exploitationand oppression, are obliged to define
these as, inevitablyat this point in time, 'economist'or corporatistin form.89 Both
positions,however,agree in definingthe varioussectorsof blacklabouras 'super-
exploited'; and both analyse blacks as constitutinga raciallydistinct stratumof
the class, different in characterfrom the traditionalnotion of the lumpenp,vle-
tariat as advanced,for example,by Hirst.'°
366

Marx, it will be recalled, called the lumpen 'the social scum, the passively
rotting mass thrownoff by the lowestlayers of the old society'.91 Engelscharac-
terisedthem thus:
The lumpenproletariat,this scum of the depravedelementsof all classes, with
headquartersin the big cities, is the worst of all the possibleallies.This rabble
is absolutelyvenal and absolutelybrazen ... Every leader of the workerswho
uses these scoundrelsas guardsor relieson them for supportproveshimselfby
this actiona traitorto the movement.on

This is a verydifferentpictureto that presentedby DarcusHowe:

And now I wantto speak specificallyof the unemployed.In the Caribbeanit is

not simply that you are unemployedand you drift in hungerand total demorali-
sation fromday to day.That is absolutelyuntrue.I knowhow I first got the idea
that people thoughtabout that was from the White Left. When they talk about
the unemployed,they talk about a miserable,downtrodden,beaten population
that does not constituteitselfas a sectionof the workingclass and in one wayor
anothercany on strugglesof their own, and so the unemployedI talk about in
the Caribbean,that has not got a wage,an officialwageof any kind, no wealth,
is a vibrantpowerfulsectionof the society.It has alwaysbeen that. Culturally,
steel band, Calypso,reggae come from that section of the population.What
little there is of Nationalculturein the Caribbean,came out of the vibrancyof
that sectionof the population.9J

This sectionof the class typicallysurvivesby 'hustling' - which Howedescribes

as 'eking out' a survivalin a wagelessworld, not, usually,by resortingto crime.
The same senseof vibrancyemergesin the positivestresson avoidingthe humili-
ation of work,and also, in the way the class can be disciplinedby such activities:

In my view the minoritywould be carryingon activitiescalled criminal,in the

sense of robbery and burglaryand things like that. What normallyhappens in
thosedays wouldbe somehowyour wholesocialpersonalitydevelopsskills by
whichyou get portionsof the wage.Either by using your physicalstrengthas a
gang leader,or your cunning- so thatsectionof the workingclass is disciplined
by that generaltenn and formcalled 'hustling'. Ganjain Jamaica,anythinglike
that - I do not think ganja is a crime in that sense. All differentways, you eke
out, whichdoes not involve,in my view,a kind ofhumiliation.114

Survival by these means produces a political awareness.Talking of the inter-

ventionof the PrimeMinisterof Trinidadand the Commissionerof Police to end
one of the fiercestof localgang wars,and the needto do this by 'winningover' the
gangs, ratherthan by confrontation,Howehas this to say:

They could not choose confrontationbecause by and large that section of the
workingclass was the militaryarm of the Nationalistmovement,of the African
section of the NationalistMovement.So that when the Indianhad a tendency
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 367

to attack the African political leaders with guns at meetings and things, we
constitutedthe military arm of the African section.So that we always had to
be courled. So the Prime Ministercomes and negotiateswith the gang leader
and the policeto terminatethe war.At which point the class now beginsto see
itself as a section with formidablepower,so we begin to raise the questionof
unemployment. 95

The steadydriftof youngsterswith '0' levelsinto the ranksof the wagelesshelped

to transformthe class; and this is, again, exemplifiedby the refusalof the Army
(largelymade up of the unemployed)lo quell the mass demonstrationsduringthe
1970politicalcrisis in Trinidad:
So that this section of the workingclass, althoughnot disciplined,organised
and unifiedby the very mechanismof capitalistproductionitself, were neces-
sarily concentratedand socialisedthroughhustling,in some kind of quasi-dis-
ciplinaryway,to makean interventionin the societyand breakup the army,and
leavethe openingfor the workingclass to come on the stage.1'
6

This interpellaledhistoryof the Trinidadianwagelesshas direct relevance,Howe

maintains,for an understandingof the Britishsituation,thoughhe is awareof the
dangers of suggestingsuch simple political parallels.Furthermore,he does not
deny that this sectionof the class displaysnegativetendencies(that, for example,
the criminal element supplies most of the police informers).But he insists that
these tendenciesexist in the class as a whole,and are not specificto the wageless.
This conceptionof the black wagelessis very differentfrom that offeredby the
editorsof The BlackUberat01: For them,the wholeof the black proletariatis best
conceivedof as a sub-proletariat:a stratumof the workingclass that is the object
of two specificmechanisms- super-exploitationand racialoppression:

The interlaci1igof these specific mechanismsoperate such that they pervade

the reproductionprocessof surplus value extractionwhere the rate of exploi-
tatio11
- i.e.super-exploitation-is high withthe sub-proletariat;such that where
unemployed,the Black Masses form a disproportionatesectionof the reserve
am1y of labour;such that their class struggle combine forms, against racial
oppressionand cultural-imperialism,other than those specificallypractisedby
the indigenouswhite workingclass.117
Although,as Cambridgegoes on to say, 'the mechanismswherebysurplus-value
extractionis specifiedas peculiar10 Black workersin the metropolitaneconomy
is still to be workedout', the introductionof the notion of the reservearmy of
labour and of the black masses,where unemployed,forminga disproportionate
sectionof this, marks a crucial departurefrom the 'wageless' argumentof Race
Today.Cambridgedefinesthe reservearmy this way:

Along with the accumulationof capital, the life blood of the capitalistmode
of productioncreated by the surplus labour of the workingclass and vital for
expa11dedreproductionof the conditionsof productiongoes the reproduction
368 POLICINGTHECRISIS

not only of their means of exploitation(employment)but also of their own

dispensability(unemployment).The reproductionof the capitalist mode of
productiondepends on its constantlyfinding new markets and unproductive
sectors of productionmust go. In this connexion,capitalismhas a two-fold
need - on the one hand, for a mass of labour-poweralways ready for exploi-
tation which allows for the possibilityof throwinggreat massesof productive
workers on the decisive point of production without upset to the scale of
production,and on the other, to dispose of these workerswhen their exploi-
tation is no longer profitable.Capitalist productiondepends,therefore,upon
the constant transformationof a part of the labour force into an 'unemployed'
and 'under-employed'disposable 'industrial reserve army of labour'. In the
Imperialistdominatedworld economy,where unemployed,the Black Masses
forma substantialsectionof this industrialreservearmy of labour,increasingly
unlikelyto be used in productionas the productivityof labourincreasesin the
contextof centralisedcapital.g1

Some of the analytic difficultiesnow begin to emerge fully from the juxtapo-
sition of these positions- all of them, it must be noted,posited withina Marxist
framework. Marx and Engels clearly regard the lumpenproletariatand the
'dangerous classes' as 'scum' - the depravedelement of all classes. Parasitic
in their modes of economicexistence, they are also outside the frameworkof
productivelabourwhichalone could hone and temperthem into a cohesiveclass
capableof revolutionarystruggleat a point of insertionin the productivesystem
which could limit and roll back the sway of capital. Darcus Howe regards this
element,not as the dregs and depositof all classes,but as an identifiablesectorof
the workingclass - that sectorwhich,both in the West Indiesand in Britain,have
been consigned to a position of wagelessness,and which has developed,from
such a base, an autonomouslevel of strugglecapable, in economicand political
terms, of inflicting, through the wageless strategy, severe damage on capital
and 'subverting' its purposes.This is clearly not a descriptionany longer of a
lumpenproletariatin the classic Marxistsense.Cambridgeand Gutsmoreregard
the whole of the black labour force as a super-exploitedstratum of the prole-
tariat. Its more or less permanentposition,structurally,below the white working
class makesit a sub-proletariat.Its exploitationis then 'overdetermined'by racial
exploitationand oppression.The wageless part of this sub-proletariatdoes not
haveeither the 'lumpen' characterascribedby Marx and Engels,nor the strategic
political role predicted by Race Today.Classically,they are that sector of the
blacksub-proletariatwhichat the present time capitalca,mot employ.Thus they
performthe classic functionof a 'reserve anny of labour' - they can be used to
underminethe positionof the wagedsectors,but their ownwagelessness,far from
constitutinga strikingbase on capital,is a token of their containment.
One of the main sources of the differencebetween these descriptionsarises
from the differenthistoricalperiodsand phases in the developmentof capitalism
to whichthey refer.Marxand Engels were observingthe transitionalperiodfrom
domesticto factory labour and the historic epoch of 'classical' capitalist devel-
opment.The decantingof ruralpopulationsinto the centresof factoryproduction,
the developmentof the discipline of factory labour and the break-up of older
 THEPOLITICSOF "MUCJGING' 369
systemsof productioncreated in their wake, at one end, the first industrialprole-
tariat,at the otherend, the casualpoor and the destituteclasses.In Hobsbawmand
RudC'sstudies,911the Wilkes, 'King and Country' and city 'mobs' and 'crowds',
which appearat the end of the eighteenthcentury,are the last occasionwhen the
latter are seen - in combinationwith skilled artisans in decliningtrades and the
petty criminals- in a leading role on the political stage. After that, to be sure,
this humandetritusof the capitalistsystem- its massivecasualtylist - accumu-
lates in the hovels and wens, often (as Hobsbawmargued)overlappingthrough
their occupancyof certain slum areas of the cities with the 'labouring classes',
but already declining in historicalimportance.Both Race Todayand The Black
Liberatorbase their analyseson accountsof the subsequentphase of capitalism-
that period of growing monopolywhich, under the title of 'imperialism', Lenin
characterisedas capitalism's'highest' - and hopefully,its last - stage.The main
outlinesofLenin's thesis are too well knownto rehearseat length- the growing
concentrationof production;the replacementof competitionby monopoly;the
shift of power within the ruling fractions of capital from industrialto tinance
capital; the deepening of the crises of overproductionand underconsumption;
leading to the sharpeningcompetitionfor overseasmarketsand overseasoutlets
for profitablecapital investment:and thus the period of 'imperialistrivalries'and
of world wars.100 What is importantfor us is the impact which Lenin assumed
this new phase in the developmentof capitalism would have on the internal
structure and compositionof the proletariat. He argued that the much higher
profitsobtainablethroughoverseasinvestmentand the exploitationof the hinter-
lands by a global capitalismwould enable the ruling classes to bribe or buy off
an 'upper' stratumof the proletariatat home- incorporateit in the imperialistnet
and blunt its revolutionaryedge. This would create sharper distinctionswithin
the proletariat,between its 'upper' and 'lower' sectors.The term he coined for
that stratumsuccessfullyboughtoff in this way was the 'aristocracyof labour'.
Lenin also believed it would widen the gap between the British proletariatas
a whole (upper and lower) and the 'super-exploited'colonial proletariatat the
other end of the imperialistchain.The concept of an 'aristocracyof labour', as a
way of accountingfor the sectionalismand internaldivisionsof the proletariat,
was not new. Hobsbawmnotes that the phrase 'seems to have been used from
the middleof the nineteenthcenturyat least to describecertain distinctivestrata
of the workingclass, better paid, better treated and generallyregardedas more
"respectable"and politicallymoderatethan the rest of the proletariat'.191 Lenin, in
fact,had quoted with approvalEngels's letter to Marx (7 October 1858),in which
the formernotedthat 'the Englishproletariatis actuallybecomingmoreand more
bourgeois,so that the mostbourgeoisof all nationsis apparentlyaimingultimately
at the possessionof a bourgeoisaristocracyand a bourgeoisproletariatalongside
the bourgeoisie.For a nation whichexploits the whole world,this is of course to
a certain extentjustifiable.'102Alreadycontainedwithin Engels's ironic exasper-
ation is (i) the appearanceof new internalstratificationswithin the metropolitan
workingclass; and (ii) the germ of the idea that the proletariatof an imperialist
power benetits economically(and so the ruling classes profit politically)from
the super-exploitationof the colonial proletariat.Looked at from the underside,
withintheglobal frameworkof the capitalistsystem,thecolonialproletariatwhich
370 POLICINGTHECRISIS

is excessivelyexploitedso as to producethe superprofitswith which to placate

the proletariatat home is, structurally,alreadya sub-proletariatto the latter.It is
hardlysurprising,then, that when,at a later stage, sectionsof this colonialprole-
lariat are attractedto work in the metropolis,they are insertedinto the productive
relationsin a sectionallyappropriaterole- as an internalisedsub-proletariat.The
subordinateeconomicrole which this black sub-classhas alwaysplayed,histori-
cally, to the white metropolitanworkingclass is reproducedin the metropoles:
in part, throughideologicaldistinctionsbasedon racism,the effectsof whichare
to reproducethat subordination,ideologically,withinthe metropolitaneconomy,
and to legitimateit as a 'permanent'- or caste- divisionwithinthe workingclass
as a whole.But the pictureis not completeuntil we look al thoseundersidecondi-
tions in which, before emigration,the colonial proletariatwas constituted.And
here, of course, we find, as a constantand apparentlynecessaryconditionof its
super-exploitation,the conditionof 'wagelessness':

One of the major features of the contemporaryThird World is the explosive

growth of urban populationscomposed of immigrantsfrom the countryside
and the smaller towns who are not establishedproletarianseither in terms of
occupation- since they live in a chronic state of unemploymentor underem-
ployment- or of politicalculture, since they have not absorbedthe lifestyle
and mentalityof establishedurban workers.Countrieslike India and China are
indeed overwhelminglypeasantsocieties. But in Argentina,Chile, Venezuela
and Uruguay,40% and more of the populationlive in townsor citieswith more
than 200,000 inhabitants.... Every year thousandsof new recruitsflock 10the
favelas,barridas,bidonvilles,shanty-townsor whateveryou like, in encamp-
ments made out of cardboard, flattened petrol tins and old packing cases.
Whateverterm we may use to describe this social categoryit is high time to
abandon the highly insulting, inaccurateand analyticallybefoggingMarxist
term lumpenpro/etariatwhichis so commonlyused. 'Underclass'or 'subprole-
tariat' wouldseem much moreapt characterizationsof these victimsof 'urbani-
zation withoutindustrialization•.
103

Such an 'underclass', as Worsleydescribesin his importantessay,may, in strict

terms, be 'unproductive', in that its members are not in regular productive
employment.But in Third Worldsocieties,where shanty-townsare a permanent
and structuralfeature of life, they cannot be considered'marginal' in any other
sense.They are large in number,and growing;their economicactivities,however
transientand precarious,are of crucial importanceto the wholesociety;and their
strengthmustbe compared10what,in manycases, is a very small,and sometimes
non-existenturbanproletariatin lheclassicalsense.The Portuguese-African leader,
AmilcarCabral, who spoke of two categorieswithin the 'rootless' - 'young folk
comelatelyfromthe countryside',and 'beggars,layabouts,prostitutes,etc' - said,
of the lattercategory,it 'is easilyidentifiedand mighteasilybe calledour lumpen-
proletariat,if we had anythingin Guinea we could properlycall a proletariat'.11"'
And,so far as politicalrole is concerned,it was,of course,just thisgroupof urban
dispossessed,in and out of work,chronicallyun- or under-employed,scrapinga
livingby all means- straight,illegal,and in between- permanentlyon the border
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUOGINO' 371
of survival,whom Fanon believedconstituted'one of the most spontaneousand
the most radicallyrevolutionaryforces of a colonisedpeople'.10-'They,with the
peasantry,wel'ethe 'wretchedof the earth'.
We have here two, apparentlydivergentways of attemptingto understandthe
natureand positionof the blackworkingclass andof the typesof politicalstruggles
and formsof politicalconsciousnessavailableto it. Thesedivergentpathsmay be
summedup in the followingway.If we focuson wagelessness,as a pertinentand
growingconditionfor a greater and greater proportionof black labour,but limit
our treatmentof it to its British metropolitancontext, then the wagelessappear
as a sinking class fraction,expelled into povertyas superfluousto capital; then
the temptationto assimilateit, analytically,to the classic lumpenproletariatof
Marx and Engels's earlier descriptionsis a strong one. Race Todaybreaks with
this ascription, by redefiningblack labour in terms of two 'histories'. First, it
is a sector of Caribbeanlabour,and, as such, central to the history of struggle
and the peculiarconditionsof the Caribbeanworkingclass from which it origi-
nates. Second, it tends to be insertedinto metropolitancapitalistrelationsas the
deskilled,super-exploited'mass worker'.In redrawingthe historicalboundariesof
black labourin this way,so to speak,the Race Todaycollectiveis able to redefine
'wagelessness'- in two differentcontexts- as a positiverather than as a passive
formof struggle:as belongingto a majorityratherthan a 'marginal'working-class
experience,a positionthoroughlyfilled out and amplified,culturallyand ideologi-
cally,and thereforecapableof providingthe base of a viableclass strategy.From
this combinationof Third,and 'First', Worldperspectives,the black wagelessare
verydifferentindeedfromthe 'passiveandrottingscum' of the traditionallumpen.
The BlackLiberatoris as concernedwith Caribbeanand 'Third World'politicsas
is Race Today.But it analyses the positionof black labourin Britain principally
in relationto the presentclass relationsof Britishcapital, into whichthe migrant
labourforce has been directly subsumed;that is to say, not historically,in tenns
of the mechanismsof 'colonial' capital in the past, but structurally,in terms of
the mechanismsof Britishcapitaland in the presentconjuncture.What matters is
howblacklabourhas beensubsumedunderthe swayof capitalin the metropolis-
i.e. as a sub-proletariat- and how its relationsto capital are governed- i.e. in
terms,not of the culturalstruggleexpressedin the strategyof 'wagelessness',but
throughthe more classicmechanismsof the reservearmy of labour.
Another way of examining the same terrain would be to distinguish more
carefullybetweenthe detenninacyover black labourof the levelof the economic,
and the political and ideological practices of struggle. We cannot push this
argumenttoo far at this point; but it is sufficientmerelyto sketch out the possi-
bilitiesit entails.
What determinesthe size of the wagelesssector of the black workingclass at
any point may be less the political strategy of a minority 'not to take shit-work
any longer', and more the fundamentaleconomicrhythmswhich Marx analysed
as structuringthe size and character of the differentstrata of the 'reserve army
of labour'. However,it is still possible for those so ascribed (economicclass
relations)to developthis into a more positivestrategyof class struggle(political
and ideological).The forms of political class struggle would then relate to
previousmodesof survivaland resistanceby that class,deriving,essentially,from
372 POLICINOTHECRISIS

its pre-metropolitan past. This latter position is not as constrained by a 'history of

origins' as it may at first appear.For there may be politicalfactorsin the present
recreatingfor black labour the possibilitiesof waginga politicalstruggleof this
kind from such a base. In the sectionwhich follows,we tracesome of the ractors
which may have helped to determinethe forms of politicalstruggle face to face
with metropolitancapital in the present conjuncture. On the other hand, this type
of explanation remains open to the objection that it tends to be 'historicist': it
explainspresent formsof strugglein terms of traditionsderivedfrom the past. It
is of critical importance at this point to remind ourselves of the economic mecha-
nisms which do, indeed, appear to have the effect of fundamentaldeterminate
forces governingthe size and positionof the black wagelesstoday.This returns
us to Marx's analysis of the 'reserve anny' of labour. For Marx, the industrial
reserve army of labour (the 'relative surplus population') becomesa permanent
feature of capital accumulationonly after the transition from manufactureto
modernindustry,whencapital takes 'real control'. Modernindustryrequires'the
constant fonnation, the greater or less absorptionand the re-formation,of the
industrialreservearmy or surpluspopulation'.As capitaladvancesinto new areas
of production,'there must be the possibilityof throwing great masses of men
suddenlyon the decisivepoints withoutinjury to the scale of productionin other
spheres'.106 Capitalism,thus, not only required a disposable reserve anny, but
attemptedto governits size and character- that is, the rate at which,in accordance
with capital accumulation,sectionswere drawn into productionor expelled into
unemployment.Thus, for Marx, the question of the reserve army was centrally
linkedto the capitalistaccumulationcycle.As the proportionof 'dead' to 'living'
labour(machinesto labourers)increased,so a sectionof the wagedforce was 'set
free' to be availableelsewhereas and when capital required.The presenceof the
reservearmy thus also helped to determinethe conditionsand wagesof those in
employment.When the reservearmy was large,employedworkerswere obliged
to accept lower wages since they could easily be replaced by their substitutes.
The presenceof a 'permanent' reserve army thereforewas consideredto have a
competitiveeffect on the employed,tendingto lower the value of labour-power
to capital.If the reservearmy is small,workersare in a better positionto demand
higher wages. But the resulting fall in profits and capital accumulationleads to
workersbeing thrownout of work and a consequentgrowthof the reservearmy,
and a fall or slower rise in wage levels.101 In the differentphases of this cycle,
capital continuallycomposesand recomposesthe workingclass through its own
dynamicmovement:it generatesa certain level of unemploymentas a necessary
featureof that movement,unless this tendencyis counteractedin someother way.
The 'recompositionof the labourforce' argumenthere is a criticalone.For sections
of the waged,thrown temporarilyinto the reserve army, may not necessarilybe
re-employedeither in the same sectorsof production,or at the same levelsof skill.
Both 'deskilling' and substitution- replacingone sector of labour by a cheaper
one - are thereforecentralaspectsof the processof the formationand dissolution
of the reservearmy.This 'then raises the questionof the sourcesof labourwhich
becomepart of the workingclass' when labour is being attractedinto production
from the reserve anny, 'while the tendency to repulsion raises the question of
 THE POLnlCS OF 'MUOOINO' 373

the destinyof the labourers,whetheremployedor unemployed(for example,the

tendencytowardsthe marginalizationof certaingroups of workers)'.11111
Marx, in fact,distinguishedseveraldifferentlayersor strata withinthe 'reserve
army': the floating strata were those repelled and drawn back into production
in the heart of the productivesector; the late11tstrata were principallythose in
agriculturalproductiondisplacedin the course of the capitalistadvanceinto the
rural economy;the stagnantwere those 'permanently'irregularlyemployed.All
three weredistinctfromthe lumpenproletariat-the 'dangerousclasses', and from
pauperism- 'the demoralisedand raggedand those unableto work ... the victims
of industry'. Pauperism,he added, is the 'hospital of the active labour-annyand
the dead weight of the industrialreserve anny'. Ill') As we shall see, there is no
intrinsicreason why these mechanismsshould not operate at the marginalpoles
of capitalismas a global system- i.e. in the colonial hinterlands- as well as in
the metropolis.Thus we must modify,now,the argumentoutlineda little earlier.
The size and significanceof the unemployed,the wageless,the semi-employed
and the 'marginalised'sectors of the colonialproletariatmay differ from that in
the metropolitansociety;but vis-d.-viscolonialcapital,too, its fonnationmay well
be governedby the kinds of rhythmsoutlined by Marx in this crucial argument
in Capital.
The industrialreserve army of the unemployedis as fundamentalto the laws
of capitalist accumulationas the size of the productive 'labour-anny'. But in
the developedcountriesof WesternEurope in the post-warperiod, it has proved
increasinglydifficultto sustain it in its classical form, at least until recently.As
a result of a complexset of factors which cannot be rehearsedhere - including
the growing strength of the labour movementitself - capitalism, in order to
survive,had to aim for continuousproductiveexpansionand 'full employment'
for the native work-force.This ran counter to the need for a 'reserve anny'. A
substitute 'reserve anny' was thereforeneeded:one neithercostly nor politically
unacceptable- as unemploymentresultingfrom capitalism'scyclicalmovement
then was. Modern capitalismhas made use of two principal 'reserve' sources:
women and migrant labour. 'The solution to these problems adopted by West
Europeancapitalismhas beenthe employmentof immigrantworkersfrom under-
developed areas of Southern Europe or from the Third World.'110 These had
alwaysplayeda part; but in post-warconditionsthey becamea permanentfeature
of the economicstructureof these societies (as, accordingto Braverman,Latin
Americanand Orientallabourhas becomefor the Americanpost-wareconomy).
Migrantworkersnow fonn the permanentbasis of the modem industrialrese~
army. In the period of productiveexpansion,labour was sucked into production
from the Caribbeanand Asian sub-continent.Gradually,as economicrecession
beganto bite, a more restrictivepractice was instituted- in effect, forcinga part
of the 'reserve anny' to remainwhere it alreadywas, in the Caribbeanand Asian
homelands.Now,in the depths of the economiccrisis, we are in the alternatepole
of the 'reserve-army'cycle:the phase of controland expulsion.In the intervening
period, both women and some southern European labour had already begun to
'substitute' for the black reservearmy.In the 1970s,the politicalassault on 'full
employment'has demolishedthe politicalbarriers;and the reconstitutionof the
374 POUCINOTHECRISIS

layers of the 'reserve anny' is proceedingfull tilt. The black youths roamingthe
streetsof Britishcities in search for work are its latest, and rawest,recruits.

THE 'WRETCHEDOFTIIB EARTH'

We have followed the argument through, from the new stratificationsin the
workingclass of the metropolisset in train by imperialism,to the very different
disposition of the strata of the work-force in Third World colonial societies,
throughimperialismand neo-imperialism.The connectionbetweenthe latter and
the black workingclass in Britain must now be pursued further.First, in order
to take up the theme that the black working class as a whole beJongsto rwo,
different,though intersecting,histories:the history of Caribbeanlabour and the
history of the British workingclass. One line of argument,which could follow
from attemptingto hold these two histories in mind, is that when black labour,
pulled in by an expanding phase of British capital, is thrown temporarilyor
permanentlyinto unemploymentas a result of a recession,it developsa way of
survival,outlookand modesof class strugglewhich appear similarto that of the
white 'reserve anny' or lhe lumpenproletariat,but which are far better under-
stood in terms of its other, previous,colonial history.Thus this propositionof
the 'double positioning'of the class throws a differentlight on how we assess
the potenlialpoliticsand trajectoryof its more self-consciousstrata. Second,the
Third World connectionputs the relationshipbetween unemployment,margin-
ality and crime in a new perspective.In Britain, the distinctionbetween those
describedby Marx,Engelsand others as 'lumpen' and thosesectorsof productive
labourthrowntemporarilyinto the reservearmy of the unemployedmay remain
a sharp one. But, for example, Keith Hart, in one of the few (though growing)
studiesof a colonialsub-proletariat(in Nima,Accra),goes so far as to reject the
categoriesof 'unemployed'and 'underemployed'altogether,preferringto think
insteadof 'formal' and 'informal' incomeopportunities.Even the employedhave
to supplementtheir meagreincomes,Hart observed,and hence 'money-lending,
moonlighting,dependenceon kin and livingon credit,the workingof land within
the city, and crime becomecentral featuresof everydayeconomiclife' .111 Third,
theoriesof the potentialpoliticalrole and consciousnessof these 'rootless' poor in
colonialeconomies,such as those propoundedby Fanon,havehad a majorretro-
spectiveimpacton the emergentconsciousnessof black peoplei11the metropoles.
In Britain, for example,the impact of Fanonistperspectiveshas been exercised,
partly through the African revolutions,and partly through the mediationof the
black movementin the United States.Thus, on severallevels,the problemof the
colonial 'underclass' or lumpenproletariatis directlygermaneto any discussion
of the position and potential political consciousnessof that black 'underclass'
which now increasinglyappears,in Britain, in a marginalor criminalisedfonn.
The size, social complexionand economicposition of the rootless poor of the
colonialcities will varyconsiderably,of course,fromone area of the Third World
to another.ChrisAllan,in a usefulsummarisingessay,describesthe typical,large
sectorof the urban poor in colonialcitiesas unemployed,of lowstatus, with little
contactwith other dominantsocialgroups,livinga marginaleconomicexistence,
usually in a distinct area of the city or town, and generallyregardedas 'social
 THEPOLITICSor 'MUOGING' 375
outcasts'by the rest of the community.112Withinthese 'outcasts', he distinguishes
betweenthose who are born into the status - childrenof 'outcast' familiesborn
and reared in 'outcast' slum areas- and those who havebeen throughthe process
of 'becoming outcast'. He also distinguishesbetween those who have lost jobs
and becomepermanentlyor semi-pennanentlyunemployed,and those who have
neverreally beenemployedsince driftinginto the cities. Manyin both categories
will be internal migrants from the countryside (one of Marx's 'reserve-army'
categories).Both kinds of adult outcast groups will scrape a living by a host of
occasionaljobs, petty-trading- and crime. Speakingof the Africanexperience,
he writes:

If as is increasinglythe case, he fails to find some pennanent occupation,the

migrant will then move along a series of contacts, initiallyrelativesand then
acquaintances,with and off whom he will live, until he ceases to be supported
by the last memberof the series,and has to liveentirelyfrom parasiticoccupa-
tions: sporadic petty-trading,car-cleaningand watching, begging, pimping,
or prostitution,petty theft, minor bullyingfor politicalleaders,shoe-cleaning,
bottle-cleaning,porteringand occasionalunskilledlabouring.

Giveor takesomeitemsin this list of occupations,it could be immediatelyreferred

to, for example,the 'outcast' areas of West Kingstonin Jamaica.The group may
includethose occasionalor street traders involvedin the economicactivitywhich
Sol Tax called 'penny capitalism',iu Allan stressesboth the heterogeneityof this
groupas a wholeand the differentmodesin which outcastsexist:

The unemployedbecomeshunned,and move into areas of cheap housing;they

steal to live,and may becomefull-timecriminals,movingto yet more isolated
areas of town.Blacksfindbothjobs and housinghard to get, and are in any case
treated by most personsas both socially and psychologicallyoutcast.Any of
such outcastscan become,in Fanon's words, 'the hopelessdregs of humanity,
who turn in circles betweensuicideand madness'.114

More recently,Latin Americaneconomistshave been studying the growth of a

permanently'marginalisedlabour force'. As one sector of the economybecomes
progressivelyadaptedto the internationalcapitalistmarket,so a substantialsector
of the labour force at the other end is driven towardsthe 'marginal pole' of the
economy.Obregon,for example,considersthe positionof whathe explicitlycalls
this growing'reservesurpluspopulation'.m Such a population,he notes,exists in
severalforms,againcorrespondingto Marx's distinctions.There are the 'floating'
sectors, drawn into and expelled from employmentby turns, dependingon the
cyclesof economicexpansionand contraction.Therearethe 'latent' sectors- rural
workers,thrown out of employmentor unable to get it in the countryside,who
drift into the cities. There is an 'intermittent'sector - in permanentbut irregular
employment,outworkersfor example.Then there is the 'lumpenproletariat'or
the raggedproletariat,often comprisedof vagrants,prostitutesand criminals;and
the pauperised- those totally unemployedand lacking any source of income,
destinedfor a state of permanentpoverty.Obregongoes on to argue that, in the
376 POUCINOTHECRISIS

parlicularcircumstanceshe is examining(that of a LatinAmericaneconomywith

an advanced, leading capitalist sector), this 'surplus population' is no longer,
strictlyspeaking,a 'reserve army'; since it is unlikelyto be re-employed,even in
prosperouseconomiccircumstances;hence it ceases in manyways to be a 'lever'
oncapilal.
One of the confusionsarises from the fact that, since the internaldistinctions
betweenthe differentlayersof the 'underclass'are not clearlydefined,and differ
considerablyfrom one society of this type to another, they tend to have been
saddled with the catch-all label of lumpenproletariarand then to have ascribed
to them the derogatorydescriptionsreservedby Marx and Engels for one sector
only - the 'lumpen', which is takenfrom a quite specificset of historicalcircum-
stances, the destitute classes of the industrial cities of Western Europe in the
mid-nineteenthcentury.The revisionshavethus beenseen as runningcounterto a
classicalor orthodoxversionof the theory.In fact,these revisionsare not so much
economicas political.Theystem in part fromthe fact that,since 1917,revolutions
have assumedanythingbut a 'pure' or classicalshape.There has been a decisive
shift in the locationof revolutionarystrugglefrom Europeto the Third World-
i.e. to societieswith strikinglydifferenteconomicand class structuresfrom those
of WesternEurope.In these situalions,the industrialproletariatis relativelyweak
and small,and sometimesnon-existent.This shift has thereforebroughtto the fore
the vexingquestionof the form of alliancebetweenthe oppressedclassesand the
'nationalbourgeoisie',especiallyin a perioddominatedby nationalismratherthan
a socialrevolution(the distinctions,of course,are neverso clear-cut).In practice,
these questionshavebeen answereddifferently,in differentsettings.But whether
one takesAsia,LatinAmericaor Africa,each formof the solutioncontainscertain
clearly 'unmarxist'or revisioniststrands.China providesthe exampleof a nation-
alist struggle which became during its course a social revolution,spearheaded
by the peasants,the Party and the Red Anny, culminatingin a military victory.
It also, through its theoreticalelaboration in 'Maoism', embodied a stress on
the over-ridingimportanceof the collective,'subjective'will, as comparedwith
objectiveconditions,and on the key role of the peasantryqua peasantry(neces-
sarily underthe leadershipof a proletarianparty).It includedMao's ownenthusi-
astic recruitmentof what he calleddklasses elements(soldiers,bandits,robbers,
etc.) into the revolutionarystruggle.Schramm,for example,remarks:
The episodeof WangandYuan[a referenceto two banditchiefsMao had united
with in 1928in preferenceto the central committeeinstructionsto 'workerise'
the cadresof the Party and the Army] has in fact broad implications.It reflects
the accenton the humanwill,ratherthanon objectivefactors,whichstill charac-
terisesMao's versionof Marxism.A little later,commentingon the presenceof
an extremelyhigh percentageof elementsdie/asses in his army,Mao affirmed
that the only remedywas to intensifypoliticaltraining 'so as to effect a quali-
tativechangein these elements'.116

In theCubancase,therevolutionaryleadershipunderCastroerfected,bya masterly
combinationof politicalandmilitarystrategies,a further'Latinised'deviationfrom
the pure Europeanmodel of revolutions.Here, the concern was with a military
 THE POLITICS01' 'MUGGING' 377
solution,based on the use or rovingguerrillafocos,leadingLoa socialrevolution,
after the nationalistone, from 'on top' - a strategywhich,as elaboratedby writers
like Debray,played a directly influentialrole in LatinAmerica,at least up to the
death or Guevarain the Bolivianjungle. Debrayremindsus how Guevaraset out
the preconditionsor thisfoco strategyin his prefaceto GuerillaWa,fiu-e:117

The Cubanrevolutionhasmadethreefundamentalcontributionsto revolutionary

strategy in Latin America: I: The popular forces can win a war against the
anny; 2: It is not necessaryalwaysLowaituntil all the conditionsfor revolution
are fulfilled- the insurrectionarycentre can create them; 3: In underdeveloped
Americathe terrainor armed strugglemust basicallybe the countryside.111

There is no need to follow through the successesand defeats or this strategy in

Latin America, and the reappraisalwhich has followedits containment,to see
how distinctivethis scenariois from any classical one, above all in terms or the
compositionor the classes which will be principallyinvolvedin political and
militarystruggle.
It is Fanon, however,writing or the Algerian and other African struggles,
whose 'revisions' are most appositeto our concerns.Fanon laid particularstress
on a violent (as opposedto a purely military)solutionto the questionor colonial
oppression, since the practice or violence binds the colonised 'together as a
whole', as well as, individually,freeing 'the nativefrom his inferioritycomplex
and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-
respect'.119 Worsleyhas made the importantpoint that Fanon is not an apostleor
unorganisedexpressiveviolence but or violence 'as a social practice'.120 More
germanefor us, Fanon regardedthe key socialclasses in the colonialstruggleas
the peasantry- 'the only spontaneousrevolutionaryforceor the country'- and the
lumpenproletariat,'one or the most spontaneousand the most radicallyrevolu-
tionaryforces or the colonisedpeople':

It is within this mass or humanity,this people or the shantytowns,at the core

or the lumpen-proletariatthat the rebellionwill find its urban spear-head.For
the lumpen-proletariat,that horde or starvingmen, uprootedfrom their tribe
and from their clan, constitutes one or the most spontaneousand the most
radicallyrevolutionaryforcesor a colonisedpeople.... The lumpen-proletariat,
once it is constituted,brings all forces to endangerthe 'security' or the town,
and is the sign or the irrevocabledecay, the gangreneever presentat the heart
or colonialdomination.So the pimps, the hooligans,the unemployedand the
petty criminals,urged on from behind, throw themselvesinto the struggleror
liberationlike stout workingmen.121
It is importantto rememberthat Fanon also regardedas crucial the role or the
revolutionarynationalists- the 'illegalists'- who, disaffectedwith the reformist
nationalist parties, retreat to the countryside,identify with the peasantry and
learn from them, and come to providethe vanguardstratum in the revolutionary
coalition- a 'potentpoliticalforce'.12zHe also acknowledgedthat thespontaneous
peasantuprising,by itself,could not win a revolutionarywar.And he recognised
378 POLICINGTHBCRISIS

that the 'oppressor... will be extremelyskilfulin usingthat ignoranceand incom-

prehension...of the lumpen-proletariat'. 123 They had, he said, to be 'urged on from

behind'. Nevertheless,he believedthat the lumpen-proletariat- which is clearly

a very broad and rather ill-definedcategoryin Fanon's analysis- is capableof a
revolutionary,as well as a reactionary,political role. His writings were clearly
attemptingto generaliseoutwardsfrom the Algerianexperience,where 'tens of
thousandsof the volatile lower depths of the city slum populationwere trans-
formed from being an anarchic,hopeless,depoliticisedmass into a reservoirfor
the revolution',1u
Fanon's thesis has been substantially criticised in the years which have
followedhis death. Worsley,for example.seems to be correct in his judgement
that Cabral's more sober assessmentof the role of the lumpenproletariat,and
dee/asses in general, has been historically more accurate than Fanon's. It is
Cabral's rather than Fanon's version which seems most sensitiveto the specific
social and cultural factors helpingto determinethe politicalrole of the different
class strata in the specificconditionsof Guinea: 'Lima is not Bissau,and Bissau
is not Calcutta.'However,Worsleyalso argues that what these instancesreveal
is that a particularfonn of consciousness,mode of struggleand position in the
revolutionaryspectrumcannotbe permanentlyascribedto anyonesector:'Similar
thingswere said in historyaboutwomen,Blacks,the proletariat,colonialpeoples,
and so on.' Although the fonns of consciousnessof the lumpenproletariatwill
tend to be, at best, corporate,or 'communal', Worsleyremindsus that slum life
is in fact a highlyorganisedand structuredfonn of existence,not the 'total social
disorganisation'whichhas often been fosteredon those livingwithinthe 'cultures
of poverty'.And they can be won to a differentmode of struggleprovidedcondi-
tions, organisationand leadershipintervenein their materialmodes of existence
to break the existingchains of inaction,and developamongstthem the basis for
an authenticpoliticalstruggle.Others,often workingfroma differentbasis,have
been more sceptical of the potential for collectiveaction amongst the marginal
classes.125
Worsley,however, also observes that Fanon's arguments have found their
greatestresonancein places verydifferentfrom his nativeAlgeria- especially'in
the revivalof direct action in Paris and Berlin,but aboveall in the Blackghettoes
of the UnitedStateswherehis bookshavesold in thousands'.The 'taking up' of a
Fanonistperspectiveamongstwhiterevolutionaryyouthdoes not directlyconcern
us here. Terrorismand violence as revolutionaryweapons,and the key role of
the lumpenproletariat,form central strands withincertain historicaltraditionsof
anarchism,which came to the fore in the 1960sand 1970sas the Communist
Parties of the West were outpacedby the revolutionaryand extra-parliamentary
groups of the extreme left. It also stemmed from the ideologicalidentification,
especiallyby the student movements,with Third Worldrevolutionarystruggles.
But the adoptionand adaptationof Fanonismwithin the black movementin the
UnitedStates is more directlygermane:first, becauseof its impacton the devel-
oping consciousnessof black people everywhere,including those in Britain;
second,becauseit suggestedthat a politicalanalysis,initiatedin terms of colonial
society and struggle, was adaptable or transferableto the conditions of black
minorities in developedurban capitalist conditions.During the high tide of the
 THEPOLITICSOF 'MUGGING' 379

black movementin lhe United States, there were always a numberof rhetorics
and ideologiescompetingfor hegemonyamongstblacks;but,despitethis compe-
tition, the decisiveshirt was from the reformist,integrationistperspecliveof the
civil rights phase to the revolutionaryand separatistphase identifiedwith Black
Power, the Afro-Americancultural nationalists,the Muslims and (though they
were not 'separatist' in the same manner)the BlackPanthers.If we try to recon-
struct the key ideologicalelementscommonto manyof these differenttendencies
withinthe blackmovement,we can discoverhow the transpositionwasattempted
from African to Americancircumstances:how Cleaver's lumpe11proletariat was
graftedon to Fanon's.
The identificationwith Africa meant, for the black American movement,a
rediscoveryof a common, black,African historicaland cultural identity.In the
same moment,it engendereda rediscoveryof underdevelopment,oppressionand
super-exploitation.Amongstthe black populationin the United States, all these
were to be discoveredmost evidently in the black ghettoes of Americancities,
which thereforeceased to be regarded,statically,as 'resource-starvedenclaves'
of social disorganisation,and came to be reconstructedas internal colonies.
Integrationinto the white economicand social system through the extensionof
equal opportunitybecameless experient.allyrelevantas comparedwith a struggle
for the liberationoft he black 'colony' fromthe imperial'metropolis'.As.Worsley
notes, these internalcolonieswere in fact conceivedas parts of the Third World
within the 'First World'- the tenn 'Third World' thus comingto signify a set of
characteristiceconomic, social and cultural exploitativerelations, rather than a
set of geographicalspaces. Other struggles - for example, the VietnamWar -
may have been more significantin the developmentof a strategyaimed to 'bring
the war of liberationback home'. But Fanon wascritical for his analysisof the
'colonialmentality'amongstblacks, its appositenessfor an understandingof the
cultureof the ghetto,and his thesis of the possibilityof the transformationof this
mentalityas the struggledevelopedfrom the limited aim of 'rights' to the more
ex.tendedrevolutionaryaim of 'liberation'.
In economic terms, the American black population is a distinct, super-ex-
ploitedclass within the wider (white) workingclass. At any time, it is substan-
tially recruitedto the lowesl rungs of the occupationalladder,and a substantial
majority are permanentlymarginal,under- or unemployed.Black politics has,
therefore, never been able to function exclusivelywith the advanced industrial
vanguard,or to developexclusivelyaround the point of production.It has been
obligedto adopt a more 'populist' approachto its constituency,and to work from
a communitybase.Here, the base in the ghetto and the importanceof the politici-
sationof the unemployedbecamekeypoliticalfactors.The Panthers,for example,
basing themselveson a broad non-sectarianprogramme,went out to recruit the
unemployedto the struggle,not in the first instancebecauseof a romanticidentifi-
cationwith the 'hustling'life of the colony,but becausethis wasthe representative
conditionandexperienceof their potentialconstituency.They approachedit in full
awarenessof the difficultiesinvolvedin bringinga degree of politicaldiscipline
and organisationto this typically unorganisedclass stratum. Racial oppression
was the specificmediationthroughwhich this class experiencedits materialand
culturalconditionsof life, and hencerace formedthe centralmode throughwhich
380 POLICINGTHli CRISIS

the self-consciousnessof the class stratumcould be constructed.The importance

of race as a structuringfeatureof life for this wholesector can hardlybe denied.
Indeed,the importantgains made for some blacksduringthe PovertyProgramme
period and the failureof such reformsto underminestructuralpoverty for black
workers,must have positivelycontributedto the recognitionof the centralityof
race as a key componentof their oppression.
But for the Panthersto address themselvesto the politicisationof the gheuo
inevitablyinvolvedtheir also finding a strategy,a positivecultural identity and
political role. for the ghetto's main economic activity: hustling. The husller
was the product of the combinationof racism and unemployment.But he also
provided one of the few positive role models for young blacks on the block:
one or the rew not cowed by oppression,not tied to the daily grind or low-wage
poverty.By no meanseveryonein the ghetto was a hustler.But the imageor the
husller was positivelysanctioned- and this is or key importance(what marked
out Hobsbawm's'social bandits' from traditionalcriminalswas their 'sanctioned'
place in the community).126 In the transformationor black politics which Huey
Newton, Bobby Seale and the rest or the Panther leadershipattempted, what
was posed was a form or black revolutionarypolitics alternativeto the worlds
or low-wagework, hustling, the middle-classpolitics or 'civil rights' and the
separatismor culturalnationalism.This meantrecruitingthoseblacksstill auached
to one or other or these survivalstrategies.But the solution which the Panthers
adoptedwas predicated,neitheron the worldor the black rather,nor or the black
worker,but on the world or his lately awakenedbrother.And if a politicalalter-
nativeto the sanctionedpotencyor the 'brother' who was also invariablya hustler,
was to gain command,it had to be a 'lumpen polities'. This perspectivewas not
limitedto the tacticsor the PantherParty, thoughthey took it further than most,
and it had majorsuccesses.The well-knowncases- the conversionfrom hustling
and crime or MalcolmX, EldridgeCleaverand George Jackson- were only the
best known or countless other examples.A lumpen politics meant, in the first
place,developinga resistancewithinthe defensivespaceor the ghetto,againstthe
most immediatefeaturesor oppression.And this led straightto the open warfare
between black activistsand the police. The traditionalrole exercisedwithin the
ghetto or policing 'the colony' was politicisedin the process.This, togetherwith
examplesdrawn from other revolutionarystruggles,contributedto the comple-
mentarystrategyor 'armed self-defence'.Amongstthe Panthers,specifically,this
was no simple,adventuristadoptionor spontaneousviolence.It was that measure
or self-defencewhichthe severerepressionby the policeon the blackcommunity
required.It was also exemplarywork: to demonstrateto the communitythat, if it
exercisedits power and stood on its rights, and preparedto defend itself 'by all
means necessary',the most immediateformsor oppressioncould be held at bay.
In this way,a powerlesscommunity,schooledto the mentalityor colonialsubordi-
nation,could be transformedinto an organised,self-conscious,activesocialforce.
The second strategy was the attempt to base activitieson communityself-help.
Again, this had two aspects: to establish the rudimentsor an alternativesocial
infrastructurewithinthe community;but also, to givethe communitya senseor its
own capacilyto organise,control and developits authenticformsof self-activity.
The importantpoint to remark,here, is the way the strategiesor groups like the
 THBPOLITICS01' 'MUGGING· 381
Pantherleadershipwere designed,at one and the same time, to take root in the
conditionsof life of the majorityof people in the ghettocolony,and to transform
thoseconditionsthrougha consciouspoliticalpractice.It is importantlo bear both
aspectsin mind,since in recentyears the perspectivehas come to be equatedwith
a simpler,spontaneousaffirmationof anythingand everythingwhich the ghetto
people chooseto do in the face of their oppression.The Panthersnever believed
nor argued that all survivalstrategiesof the black massescould becomepolitical
withoutan activeprocessof politicaltransformation.121
The 'armed struggle' side of the black movementhas tended to command
greaterattentionin recent years, as comparedwith its more complexpolitics,in
part because,since the Panthersand other black movementshave beendecimated
and destroyedin the confrontationswith the police,urban terrorismand guerrilla
warfare have been more widely adopted as modes of struggle in the developed
Westernworld. But, in assessingthe impact of the Pantherson black people in
otherparts of the developedworld,thisconflationof two ratherdistincttendencies
hinders rather than aids our understanding.Seale, Newtonand Cleaverwere, of
course, perfectly well aware that they were departing from any of the classical
recipes for revolutionarystruggle.This is clear from Cleaver's writings,where
the ascriptionof the label 'lumpenproletariat'is positivelywelcomed;or in Seale,
whoonce remarkedthat 'Marx and Leninwouldprobablytum over in their graves
if theycould see lumpenproletarianAfro-Americansputtingtogetherthe ideology
of the Black Panther Party'.128They were also aware of the complicatedstrands
and cultural influenceswhich they were attempting to weave together in this
programmefor a black politics in the heartland of industrialcapitalism.Seale
recordsthat:
WhenmywifeArliehada babyboy,I said, 'The nigger'snameis MalikNkrumah
StagoleeSeale.'BecauseStagoleewasa bad niggeroff the blockanddidn't take
shit from nobody.All you had to do was organizehim, like MalcolmX, make
him politicallyconscious....'The niggerout of prisonknows',Hueyused to say.
'The niggerout of prison has seen the man nakedand cold, and the niggerout
of prison,if he's got himselftogether,will come out just like MalcolmX came
out of prison.You never have to worry about him. He'll go with you.' That's
what Hueyrelatedto, and I said, 'Malik for Malcolm[Malcolm'sMuslimname
was El Hajj MalikShabazz]Nkrumah,StagoleeSeale.'129

HARLEMTO HANDSWORTH:BRINGINGIT ALL BACKHOME

In this chapter we have attempted 10 explore the social content of 'mugging',
and so pose some questionsabout its 'politics' in relationto the black struggle.
Our aim has not been to provide definitiveanswers, but to examine what seem
to us the componentelementsof an explanation,and thus the basis of a political
judgement.Here, we wish only to resume, in summaryfonn, the path which the
argumenthas taken.
The criminalacts labelled'muggings' and the patternsof blackcrime to which
'muggings' have been assimilated constitute the starting-point,only, of this
examination.We insist on the requirementto go behind the criminal acts to the
382 POLICINGTHECRISIS

conditionswhichare producingblackcrime as one of their effects.We examined,

briefly,the structureswhich directlyaffect the socialgroup most concernedwith
this patternof crime: black youth. Black youth, we argue, can only be properly
understoodas a class fraction- a fraction,definedby age and generation,but also
by its position in the historyof post-warblack migration,of the constitutionof a
metropolitanblackworkingclass.We then lookedat the structureswhichproduce
and reproducethis class as a class of black wage-labourers,which assign them,
throughspecificmechanisms,to specificpositionswithinthe socialand economic
relationsof contemporarymetropolitancapitalistsociety.Wedefinedthese,not as
a set of discrete institutionswhich exhibit 'racially discriminatory'features,but
as a set of interlockingstructureswhich work throughrace.The positionof black
youth,definedin termsof the reproductionof class relationsthroughtheeducation
system, the housing market, the occupationalstructure and division of labour,
cannot be properlyanalysedat all outsidethe frameworkof racism.Racismis not
simply the discriminatoryattitudesof the personnelwith whomblackscome into
contact. It is the specificmechanismwhich 'reproduces'the black labour force,
from one generation10another, in places and positions which are race-specific.
The outcomeof this complex process is that blacks are ascribed to a position
withinthe classrelationsof contemporarycapitalismwhichis, at one and the same
time, roughlycotenninouswith the positionof the white workingclass (of which
black labour is a fraction), and yet segmentallydifferentiatedfrom it. In these
terms, ethnic relationsare continuallyoverdeterminedby class relations,but the
two cannot be collapsedinto a single structure.The positionwhich results from
this combinationof race and class wehavecalled a positionof secondari11ess. In
the presentconjunctureof crisis,definedin the two previouschapters,the position
of the workingclass in general is under pressure.Unlesssocietycan be radically
transformed,that position will continueto deterioratealong each of the crucial
dimensions.Economically,the class is now subject to growing unemployment,
at the same time as it is called upon to bear the costs of the crisis and the forms
in which it is to be resolved.Politically,positions won in an earlier period by a
processof unevenreformare beingdrasticallyerodedand reversed.Ideologically,
the most advancedpositionsof the workingclass and its representativeorganisa-
tions are subject,in the crisis of hegemony,to a systematicideologicalonslaught
aimed al transformingthe ideologicalterrain into an 'authoritarianconsensus'
favourableto the imposition of strong remedies and reactionarypolicies. The
positionof black labour,subordinatedby the processesof capital,is deteriorating
and will deterioratemore rapidly,accordingto its own specific logic. Crime is
one perfectlypredictableand quite comprehensibleconsequenceof this process
- as certain a consequenceof how the structureswork, however'unintended', as
the fact that night followsday. So far, there are no problemsal the explanatory
or theoreticallevel.Thereare, of course, the most massiveand criticalproblems
of strategyand struggle:the 'so-called rising black crime rate', which presentsa
problemof containmentand control for the system,presentsa problemfor black
peopletoo. It is the problemof how to preventa sizeablesectionof the class from
being more or less permanentlycriminalised.
Here, however,the problemsbegin,for just as the structureswhich reproduce
the black worker,male and female, as a sub-proletariat,work through race, so
 THI! POUTICSOF 'MUOOINO' 383

the forms or resistance and struggle which have begun to reveal themselves in
response, also - naturally and correctly - tend to crystallise i11relationto race.
It is through the operation or racism that blacks are beginning to comprehend
how the system works. It is through a specific kind or 'black consciousness'
that they are beginning to appropriate, or 'come to consciousness' or their class
position, organise against it and 'fight it out'. If race is the conductor or black
labour to the system, it is also the reversible circuit along which forms or class
struggle and modes or resistance are beginning to move. And black crime,
including 'mugging', has a complex and ambiguousrelation to these forms or
class resistance and 'resistance-consciousness'. By examining the history of
the formation or the black 'colony' - itself a defensive strategy in reaction to
earlier phases or 'secondariness' - we have tried to show the complex process by
which crime, semi-crime, fringe-dealing and hustling became appropriate modes
of survival for the black community, and thus how the terrain and the networks
were formed, and certain cultural traditions established, by means or which what
appears to those outside the 'colony' as the criminal lire or the minority became,
if not fused, then inextricably linked to the survival or the black population as a
whole. It is perfectly clear that c,ime,as such, contains no solution to the problem
as it confronts the black worker. There are many kinds or crime which, though
arising from social and economic exploitation, represent, in the last result, nothing
but a symbiotic adaptation to deprivation. Crime, as such, is not a political act,
especially where the vast number or the victims are people whose class position
is hardly distinguishable from that or the criminals. It is not even necessarily a
'quasi-political' act. But in certain circumstances, it ca11 provide, or come to be
defined as expressing some sides of an oppositional class consciousness. Without
hailing crime as a resolution to the problem or the secondariness or the black
working class, it requires only a moment's reflection to see how acts of stealing,
pickpocketing, snatching and robbing with violence, by a desperate section or
black unemployed youth, practised against white victims, can give a muffled and
displaced expression to the experience or permanent exclusion. It is essential,
here, not to reduce the political content or what is expressed to the 'criminal'
forms in which it sometimes appears.
The questions or crime and or black youth, then, consistently drive us back to a
consideration of the whole black class - the black sub-proletariat- of which those
who are, temporarily or permanently, involved in crime constitute a criminalised
fraction. How to understand the position or this black working class? How to
relate the question or crime to its forms or struggle?
Here we encountered one powerful interpretation. The connection it is said,
lies, not in the fact of 'crime', but in the position of wageless11ess. What crime
is concealing, at the same time as it 'expresses' it, is the growing wagelessness
or the black proletariat. But there are two ways or understanding that condition
of 'wagelessness' and the forms or political organisation and ideological
consciousness which arises or could arise from its base. One interpretation sees in
'wagelessness' principally the presence, already, or a quasi-political consciousness:
the consciousness or the new mass worker - often a migrant worker - expressed
in the growing 'refusal to work'. Those who 'refuse lo work' must continue to
survive, and crime is no doubt one or the few available modes or survival left
384 POLICINGTHECRISIS

to the 'wageless'. But this is incidentalto the positive rejection of 'secondar-

iness' representedin the refusal of one of the principaldefiningstructuresof the
system- its productiverelations, which have systematicallyassignedthe black
workerto the ranksof the deskilledlabourer.Thereis goodevidenceof a growing
resentmentby blacks to the limited opportunitiesfor work which the capitalist
systemholdsout to the black worker.It is also clear that this has coincidedwith a
growingwillingnessto resist, struggleand opposethe formsof racist oppression
which then inevitablyfollow.This interpretation,therefore,has the strength of
helpingus to 'make sense' of the materialbase of the uneventransformationsof
consciousnessnow in progressin the black communities.It helps, that is to say,
to make sense of developmentsal the ideologicaland political levels. But, as
the recessiondeepens, so it becomesclear that those blacks, in larger numbers,
who are 'refusing work' are making a virtue of necessity;there is hardly any
work left for young black school-leavers10 refuse.As large as is the sectionwho
havejust found it possible to survive through the hustlinglife of the street, the
numbersof blacks who would take work if they were offered it is larger.Thus
the 'wagelessness'argumentappearsweakerwhen it comes to understandingthe
economiclevel at which the reproductionof the class now proceeds.There is an
appropriationof a limitedformof economicslruggleas if it werea full economic,
political and ideologicalconfrontationwith capital. Somethingof vital impor-
tance to this argument is no doubt added by insisting that black labour is the
productof two intersectinghistories,not one. Alongsidethe direct subsumption
of black migrantlabourin the metropolis,one must set the historyof the ex.tended
subsumptionof the black colonialproletariatto capital on a world scale through
imperialism.This accounts for certain essential specific features of the black
workingclass in Britain;but it does not explainadequatelywhat the mechanisms
are, in the present situation, in the present conjuncture,which govern its social
reproduction,especiallyat the levelof economicrelations.
At thislevelthealternativeexplanationseemsto havegreaterexplanatorypower.
This treats the racially segmentaryinsertionof black labour into the productive
relationsof metropolitancapitalism,and thus its positionas a sub-proletariatto
the white workingclass, as the central,all-importantfeaturewith respectto how
capital now exploits black labour-power.This structuralposition accountsboth
for the structuredrelationto capital,and for the internallycontradictoryrelationto
othersectorsof the proletariat.Thus it is able to accountfor the growingcondition
of 'wagelessness'in terms of the classic mechanismsof capital accumulationand
its cycles:the constitutionof the 'industrialreservearmy of labour'. Strugglesby
blackworkers,whetherwagedin the industrialsectoror outside,by the seclionof
the class which remains wagedor by the 'wageless', havea critical politicaland
ideologicalsignificancein terms of the growingcohesion,militancyand capacity
for struggle of the class. But they are, from this position, less significantat the
economiclevel:still clearly 'corporate' in character- pursuedwithin,ratherthan
against, the whole 'logic of capilal'. Here, then, arose the questions about the
role of black labour in the reserve army of labour:the dependenceof capital on
its formation;the specificrole which 'migrant labour' - whetherblack,southern
European,NorthAfricanor Latin American- now plays in advancedcapitalism
everywhere;and questions concerningthe position of those who, at this point
 THEPOLITICSOf' 'MUGGING' 385
in the cycle, are being rapidly expelled from productivework - marginalised.
By lookingal this question from several points of view, we were able to show
that capital 11eedsto exploit not only those who remain in productivework but
those who are expelledfrom production,pauperisedout of work, or assignedto
a positionof more-or-lesspennanent 'marginality',or who, when recruitedback
into capital's fitful productivecycle, are taken up through the operation of its
secondarylabourmarkets.
Now there are several ways of understandingthe position of a whole class
fraction which appearssystematicallyvulnerable- as migrant workersare now
everywhere,in the period of capitalistrecession- to these mechanisms;and one
of them is in terms of the traditionallumpenproletariat.What makes this assig-
nation tenable is the fact of its growingdependenceon crime and the dangerous
life of the street as its principal mode of survival.But it can clearly be shown
that this is not, in any classicalor useful sense,a lumpenproletariatat all. It does
not have the position,the consciousnessnor the role in relation to capital of the
lumpen. II may be rather more like the lumpe11proletariat of the colonialhinter-
lands underdevelopedby capitalism.But this, too, is not a traditionallumpenpro-
letariatin any meaningfulsense,and to call it so is to gloss oversome of the most
fundamentalmechanismsof capital in the colonialand post-colonialworld.The
growth, size and positionof 'marginalisedlabour' in those areas is not the fate
of a small, sinking,Lazarus-likefraction, but a common,necessaryand rapidly
expandingcondition.In the colonialcity,this layercorrespondsexactlyto Marx's
latentstratumof the reservearmy - those thrownout of agriculturallabourby the
uneven fluctuationsof capital. The fact that both this sector and the traditional
lumpe11proletariat tend to live,partly,off crime is neitherhere nor there,as a way
of identifyingwhat this stratumis in relationto capital.
The problemaboutthismore 'classical'kindof analysisis that it is theobverseof
the first argument.It has considerableexplanatorypowerat the levelof economic
and productive,or 'unproductive',relations.But it does not sufficientlyexplain
thingsat the political,culturaland ideologicallevel.The 'unwaged'sectorof black
labour in Britainmay be a floatingor stagnantstratumof the 'reservearmy'. But
it does not exhibitthe forms of politicalconsciousnesstraditionalto this stratum.
It was at this point that we were obliged, once more, to redirect the path of the
argument.By examiningwhat we havecalled the 'wretchedof the earth' and its
contemporaryhistory of political struggle, we attemptedto bring back into the
picture, now clarified and to some degree 'corrected' at the economic level, a
contingenthistorywhich mighthelp to explainsomerecentdevelopmentsamong
blacks in Britain. This does not represent an 'answer' to the problems posed,
even if it contributessomethingsignificantto their resolution,for it is, at best, an
ambiguoushistory.Its greatestand most profoundsuccesseshave been achieved
far from the metropolitanheartlandof capitalism.The closer it has approached
the centre of the most advancedfonns of capitalistdevelopment,the less political
purchaseit exhibits.The transformationsof Africa,Chinaand Cubaare one thing:
but, heroic as has been the struggleof the black masses in the United States, its
transformatorypower,so far, has been severelylimited.If this goes some way to
explainingwhat is now in train amongst militantblack youths in the metropolis,
it certainlydoes not hold out any possibilityof immediatesuccess.And part of
386 POI..ICINOTHECRISIS

its weaknesshere, even in comparisonwith the U.S. instance,may be accurately

measuredby its general failure,so far, to transformthe 'criminal' consciousness
into a politicalone.
Withoutexaggeratingthe position,we are left, then,apparentlywith a difficult
problemof analysis-one withpertinenteffectsat the levelof developinga theoret-
ically informedpoliticalpractice and strategy.This is the problemof the discon-
tinuities, the discrepancies,the divergences,the non-correspondences,between
the differentlevelsof the social fonnationin relationto the black workingclass -
between the economic, political and ideological levels. This question is being
widelydebatedat this time, but it is not our intentionto go into these theoretical
issuesfurtherhere.Rather,we want,if anything,to point to the practicaJ,strategic
and politicalconsequencesof this debate.To put it directly,the problemswhich
nowconfrontus are thoseof developingformsof politicalstruggleamongstblacks
adequate to the structures of whose contradictionsthey are the bearers. This
politicalknot cannot be untied here. Indeed, this is not the book and we cannot
presumeto offer quick solutionsto these problemsof strategy and struggle.We
havedeliberatelyrefrainedfrom enteringdirectlyinto this question,becauseit is
a matter which webelievemust be resolvedin struggle,ratherthan on paper.We
hope, nevertheless,that our argumenthas servedto highlightcertain aspects and
to clarify the terrainon which answerscan be sought.
Thereis, however,one dimensionaJongwhichwe can beginto rethinkthe issues
posedin this section.Our readerswill recall our insistenceat an early point in the
chapter on the strategic and structuralposition of race.The structuresthrough
which black labouris reproduced,we argued,are notjust colouredby race; they
work by meansof race. We can think of the relationsof productionof capitalism
articulatingthe classes in distinct ways at each of the levels or instancesof the
social fonnation- economic,political,ideological.These levelsare the 'effects'
of the structuresof a capitalist mode of production.The 'relative autonomy' of
the levels- the lackof a necessarycorrespondencebetweenthem- was discussed
earlier. Each 'level' of the social fonnation requires its independent'means of
representation'- the means by which the class•structuredmode of capitalist
production 'appears' at the level of the economic class struggle, the political
struggle, the ideologicalstruggle. Race is intrinsic to the manner in which the
black labouringclasses are complexlyconstitutedat each of those levels. Race
enters into the way black labour, male and female, is distributedas economic
agents on the level of economicpractice - and the class struggles which result
from it; into the way the fractionsof the black labouringclass are constitutedas a
set of politicalforces in the 'theatre of politics' - and the politicalstrugglewhich
results; and in the mannerin which that class is articulatedas the collectiveand
individual'subjects' of emergent ideologiesand forms of consciousness- and
the struggle over ideology,culture and consciousnesswhich results.This gives
the matter of race and racism a theoretical as well as a practical centrality to
all the relationsand practiceswhich affect black labour.The constitutionof this
class fraction as a class, and the class ~lations which inscribe it, function as
race relatio11s. The two are inseparable.Race is the modality in which class is
lived.It is also the mediumin whichclass relationsare experienced.This does not
 THE POLITICSOF 'MUOOING' 387

immediatelyheal any breachesor bridgeany chasms.But it has consequencesfor

the whole class, whoserelationto their conditionsor existenceis now systemati-
cally transfonned by race. It detennines some or the modes or struggle. It also
providesone or the criteria by which we measurethe adequacyor struggleto the
structuresit aims to transrorm.
This has consequences,first for how we think, and organise to contest, the
internaldivisionswithinthe workingclass whichcurrentlyarticulatethemselves
'along racial lines'. These are no mere impositions rrom above. If they serve
capital, they are not one or its better con-tricks.Ir they are elaboratedand trans-
fonned into practical ideologies,into the 'common sense' of the white working
class, it is not because the latter are dupes of individualracists, or prey to racist
organisations.Those who seek to articulate working-classconsciousnessinto
the syntax of a racist ideologyare, of course, key agents in the struggle at the
ideological level: they have pertinent effects. But they succeed to the measure
that they do because they are practising on real relations, working with real
effectsof the structure,not because they are clever at conjuringdemons.Racism
is, therefore, not only a problem for blacks who are obliged to 'suffer' it. Nor
is it a problem only for those sections of the white workingclass or those class
organisationswhich are infected by its stain. Nor indeed can it be overcome,
as a virus which can be treated by a heavy dose of liberal innoculation.Capital
reproduces the class as a whole, structured by race. It dominates the divided
class, in part, through those internal divisions which have 'racism' as one of
their effects. It contains and disables the representativeclass organisationsby
confining them, in part, to strategies and struggles which are race-specific,
which do not sunnount its limits, its barriers. Through race, it continues to
defeat the attempts to construct, at the political level, organisationswhich do
in fact adequately represent the class as a whole - that is, which represent it
against capitalism,agaii1stracirm.
The sectionalstruggleswhich continueto appear are the necesraryderensive
strategiesof a class which is dividedagainstitselr, race to face with capital.They
are, therefore.,also the site of capital'scontinuingswayover it. The whiteworking
class and its economicand politicalorganisations{ithas, currently,no ideological
organisationswhich adequatelyrepresent it) fundamentallymistakes itselr and
its positionwhen it extendsitselr, out or rellow-reelingor fraternalsolidarity,to
struggleagainstracism on behalf or 'our black brothers';just as black organisa-
tions misrecognisethe nature of their own strugglewhen they debate whetheror
not to form tactical allianceswith their while comrades.This is certainlynot to
be interpretedas a tacticalcall for a united struggle,a commonfront- 'black and
white,unite and fight!' It is said fully confrontingthe impossibilityof developing
the strugglein this rormat this time. It is said in the full awarenessthat, at every
critical moment in the post-warhistory of the class in advancedcapitalism,the
strugglehas necessarilydivided into its separate,strategicparts. But the analysis
has a certain logic, which must drive through to its conclusion.We must add
that every time the struggle appears, once again, in its divided form, capital
penetratesthrough and occupies the gap. The theoreticalargumentcompels us
to say that each sec1ionor the class requires to confront capital as a class, not
388 POLICINGTH6CRISIS

out of solidaritywith others, butfor itself. Otherwise,as Marx observedin The

EighteenthBrumail'e:

in so far as millionsof familiesliveundereconomicconditionsof existencethat

separatetheir mode of life, their interestsand their cullUrefrom those of other
classesand put them in hostileoppositionto the latter,they form a class. In so
far as there is merelya local interconnectionamong these ... and the identityof
their interestsbegetsno community,no nationalbond, and no politicalorgani-
zationamongstthem,theydo not forma class.They are consequentlyincapable
of enforcingtheir class interestsin their own name.

This brings us back to crime: for now we can see how black crime functionsas
one of the vehiclesof this division. It providesthe separationof the class into
black and white with a material basis, since, in much black crime (as in much
white working-classcrime),one part of the class materially'rips off' another.It
providesthis separationwith its ideologicalfigure, for it transformsthe depri-
vation of the class, out of which crime arises, into the all too intelligiblesyntax
of race, and fixes a false enemy: the black mugger.Thus it sustains the political
separation.For the momentblack organisationsand the blackcommunitydefend
black youth againstthe harassmentto which they are subject,they appear on the
politicalstage as the 'defendersof street criminals'.Yet not to defend that sector
of the class whichis being systematicallydriveninto crime is to abandonit to the
ranks of thosewho havebeen permanentlycriminalised.
We have been trying, throughoutthis study,to followthe logic which unfolds
froman apparentlysimplebeginningin the 'mugging'scare.We haveattemptedto
reconstructthis logic as fully as we can. It shouldbe clear that this does not entail
approvingof 'mugging' in some simple moral way, or positivelyrecommending
it as a strategy,or romanticallyidentifyingwith it as a 'deviant solution'. As the
Race Todayeditorialexpressedit: 'The resort to muggingat this time represents
that the youth failedto graspthat gettingmoneyby forceor stealthfrom members
of the whiteworkingclass is itselfsubversiveof their strugglesagainstthe slavery
of capitalist work. It is not white workerswho have the money.'In addition,the
violencewhich is sometimesinvolvedhas the effect of disablingand degrading
those who perpetrate it in the same moment as it 'pays back' those enemies
againstwhomit is principallydirected.Seen in this way,'mugging'by blacksmay
appearas the sameset of behaviouralacts as 'mugging'committedby other young
people; but in its social content and positionin relationto the problematicof its
class as a whole, it is not the same. The Race Today editorial also added: 'We
stand openly with the refusers to work. We have explainedhow this action is a
sourceof power for the whole class.We are uncompromisinglyagainstmugging.
We see the muggingactivityas a manifestationof powerlessness,a consequence
of being without a wage.'130 The two propositionscontained there will appear
to be contradictoryonly to those who believethat 'mugging' is a simple, open-
and-shut'moral issue', and who think they can comprehendits socialmeaningby
transparentlyreadingit off from its most immediatesurfaceappearances.
 THE POLITICS01' 'MUOGINO' 389
Whether,in itself, this conditionis a 'source of power for the whole class' we
have had cause to doubt, when formulatedin that way. When we confront, not
crime, but the economic,political and ideologicalconditionsproducingcrime,
as the basis of a possiblepolitical strategy,the issues become necessarilymore
complex.They bring togetherthe most difficultmattersof strategy,analysisand
practice.We hope that those who do not acceptour way of makingthat anaJysis
will neverthelesshave found our examinationof it useful. It is conductedin that
spirit,directedto that end.Thereare, we saw,importanthistoricalexampleswhere
precisely such a class stratum has become the basis of a significant political
struggle.But the conditionsare somewhatdifferentfrom those prevailinghere -
if only because the ways in which the class as a whole has been subsumedinto
the sway of capital is differenthere.Worsleyis right to remind us that it was the
FrenchParas, not Ali-la-Pointe.the lumpenhero of Pontecorvo'sfilm, who won
'the Battle of Algiers' - and that, though the nationalstrugglewas successful,it
wasnot the lumpenwho inheritedthe Algerianearth. The Black Panthersrepre-
sentedone of the most seriousattemptsto organiseblackspoliticallyin the heart
of the capitalist world; but they have been decimatedand destroyed.The fact
is that there is, as yet, no active politics, no form of organisedstruggle. and no
strategywhichis ableadequatelyanddecisivelyto i11tetvenein the quasi-rebellion
of the black wagelesssuch as would be capable of bringingabout that break in
the current false appropriationsof oppressionthroughcrime - that critical trans-
formationof the criminalisedconsciousnessinto somethingmore sustainedand
thorough-goingin a politicalsense.This is certainlynot an argumentfor failing
to do political work in this area. But it constitutesa powerfulreminder that we
should not mistake a proto-politicalconsciousnessfor organisedpoliticalclass
struggleand practice.It sets up a necessarywarningabout any strategywhich is
based simply on favouringcurrent modes of resistance,in the hope that, in and
of themselves,by naturalevolutionrather than by break and transformation,they
could become,spontaneously,anotherthing.
 Afterwords

RACE,CRIMEANDPOLICING(TJ)
Although often seen only as a book about a moral panic and criminalisation, PTC
has a final chapter on the crime or mugging. This is a (necessarily simplified)
update of both stories - criminalisation and crime - and their imbrication.
By 1976, the date our story ended, robbery statistics (most of which were
regarded as muggings) and youth unemployment were rising in tandem, black
youth and mugging had become synonymous, the police were aggressiveJy
swamping 'black' areas using local stop and search powers and the old 'sus'
laws largely against young black males, and an emboldened National Front had
marched specifically against black muggings.
The advent of Thatcher and Thatcherism worsened matters considerably during
the eighties. Her authoritarian, cosHutting, neo-liberal agenda was to produce
fierce industrial disputes, wholesale deindustrialisation, growing inequalily,
mass (especially youth) unemployment, growing anti-immigrant reeling, and
regular inner city riots: in Bristol, Brixton, Toxteth, Tottenham, Handswonh
and elsewhere. Scarman's conclusion that the Brixton riots were 'essentially an
outburst or anger and resentment by young black people against the police' 1 was
broadly true or all or them. In Brixton 1981 it was a mass stop/search operation
over 10 days that was the immediate trigger. In Tottenham 1985 it was the rough
handling or a black woman in a drug raid, precipitating a fatal heart auack. The
Metropolitan Police's response to Scarman was to release figures showing black
people were largely responsible for muggings in London and to introduce the idea
or targeting 'symbolic locations' - places where unemployed (of'ten black) youth
congregate (read: 'black areas').
Although the ancient 'sus' laws were eventually scrapped, the Police and
CriminalEvidenceAct 1984 gave police new [nationwide], stop and search
powers (SI) that required 'reasonable grounds' for suspecting an offence. A new
Preventionof TerrorismAct (1989) to combat Irish terrorism could be used to
search anyone, without prior suspicion. Increasingly, both were used to stop and
search black youth (as were Section 44 powers under the replacement Terl'orism
Act, 2000). The excuse for such over use was the still rising robbery statistics: up,
on average, 11 per cent per annum between 1980 and 1989.2
Neo-liberal policies outlasted Thatcher, as did the riots, which spread from the
overtly political poll tax riots in London to poor, white areas in Cardiff, Oxford
and lyneside in 1991] and then to the Asian areas or Bradford (1995 and 2001),
Burnley and Oldham in 2001. Partly anti-police, these latter riots were also expres-
sions or a disaffected masculinity and a response to racist attacks.
 Al'TERWORDS 391

1990-3 witnessed a 60 per cent increase in the robbery statistics, nationally.

Rising figures in London during this period, combined with a relatively low clear
up rate, increasingly concerned the Metropolitan Police.4 According to the then
Metropolitan Commissioner, Paul Condon, black youth were responsible for the
majority of London's muggings. Operation Eagle Eye, a new strategy to deal with
the problem, was established in 1995. Concern about violence and weapons led
to the police being given yet more powers to stop and search at random, under
certain circumstances (Section 60, Crimi11al Justiceand PublicOrderAct 1994).
The resentments of poor whites, fuelled by tough talk on immigration and
the emergence of the racist British National Party, contributed to the growth of
racist attacks. These were notoriously under-policed, even after an official report
exposed the extent of the problem., Eventually, the racist murder of Stephen
Lawrence in I 993 forced an official enquiry,6 which found the police guilty
of institutional racism, a view supported by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of
Constabulary. Numerous reforms - Codes of Practice, Guidance notes, specially
trained Community Safety Units, etc. - followed. A short-lived reduction in the
stop/search figures was followed by a huge spike in the robbery figures (up 39
per cent, 1999-2001), largely attributable to a rise in mobile phone thefts. This
ensured it was business as usual 'on the ground': between 1998-9 and 2001-2, the
use of the new section 60 search powers nearly tripled, with black people 28 times
and Asians 18 times more likely lo be stopped than white people.7Previous guesti-
mates of ethnic over-representation could now be precisely quantified, given the
requirement, from April 1996, that the police record the ethnic origins of suspects
and offenders.
As well as setting up the Macpherson Inquiry, the incoming Labour government
made good its promise to be 'tough on crime': it gave the police new powers to
deal with 'racially aggravated' assaults in the Crimeand DisorderAct 1998 and
to stop any car for any reason in the Road TrafficAct 1998. It massively invested
in another Street Crime Initiative in 2002 (with robbery a major priority), estab-
lished a programme to crack down on 'gangs', and, later, knife crime (which
relied heavily on the use of police searches). The object of attention in each case
(unsurprisingly) was, in Prime Minister Blair's own words, 'black kids'. The
new ethnically categorised criminal justice statistics were consistently showing
black over-representation in the robbery statistics. The same was true of the
prison population. By 2004-5, black people accounted for a third of all arrests
for notifiable offences in London; and in 2005 nearly half of black British male
prisoners were incarcerated for robbery or drugs offences.8 By 2008-9, black
disproportionality rates - in SI searches, arrests and the prison population - were
all getting worse.9 One or the aggravating factors was 9/11 and the following 'war
on ten-or'. Although its primary effect would be on the criminalising or Asian
youth, black youth too would continue to be 'over-fished'.
Riots recommenced in Tottenham in August 201 I, the result of the mishandling
of another police killing of a black man, and spread nationwide. A month later
a newspaper headline announced: 'Met puts 1,000 officers on school mugging
patrols' . 18 Six months later we read 'Half or young black men out or work.
Unemployment rate has doubled in last three years from 28.8% to 55.9%' . 11 Later
392 AFTERWORDS

the same montha 'new racismscandal'in the Met wasexposed'after a black man
used his mobilephoneto recordofficerssubjectinghim to a tirade of abuse'.12
In 1972,the year our story began,a Select Committeeof the Houseof Commons
on Race Relatio11s and Immigrationreportedthat West Indians were,proportion-
ately, less criminal than the indigenouspopulation.Forty years later,as we have
seen, AfricanCaribbeansare consistentlyoveMepresentedin a host of criminal
justice statistics. Understandingthis development has entailed a short-lived,
vituperativedebate about race and crime statistics, which broadly pitched the
left realists, who felt the need ror the lefi to acknowledgethe 'reality' of black
crime.againstthe so-calledleft idealists,whosaw discriminatorypolicingand the
resultingcriminalisationas the core issue.1l Since 1996,there has beenan increas-
ingly sophisticateddebate about the meaningof the new,ethnicallycategorised
statistics. When assessing the disproportionatestop/searchingof black youth,
shouldthe appropriatecomparatorpopulationbe 'resident' or 'available'popula-
tions, the crime statistics or 'hit rates' (proportionleading to arrest)?14 In their
attempt to explain the disproportionateappearanceof black males in recorded
street crime in London, FitzGerald,Stockdale and Hale concluded that when
variables like income inequality,child poverty and population turnover were
includedin the (statistical)model,ethnicitydisappearedas a factor.15There is no
spacehere to discussthese issues;16 but, it is clear,regardlessof statisticalniceties,
that being black means to be concentratedin places where levels of inequality
and child poverty are high and where slOpand search is commonplace;being
also young and male means to be at risk of the sorts of crime police tackle, and
of being subjectedto what elsewhereI call the 'racism of criminalisation':being
reproducedas the 'criminalOther' in line with the police's historicalstreetcrime
controlmission.11
This brings us back to our starting point: the black mugger as folk devil.
Over the last forty years, all the relevantindices implicatingcriminalisationand
crime have worsened for those on the wrong side of the tracks: coercive state
powers; socio-economicconditions; media-fannedpublic fears; and the crime
figuresthemselves(robberyup 905 per cent, 1970-97,after which the counting
rules change).Arguably,the contemporary'folk devil', commensuratewith this
worseningscenario,is no longeronly black,but has widenedto includeall disaf-
fectedyouth:the 'underclass', 'chavs', 'hoodies' and, post 9/11,Asian 'terrorists'.
Structuralinequalitiesand worklessness,social exclusionand racism, criminali-
sation and brutalisationremain toxic symptomsof the present conjuncture,as
they wereof the one weexploredin PTC.The crisismay be different,but it is still
being vigorouslypoliced.

NEWS MEIDIAAND MORAL PANICS(CC)

A central theme of PTC was the role of the news media in reportingmuggingas
a moralpanic.This reviewexaminesfour aspectsof the subsequentdebate: first,
where moral panic definitionsoriginate; second, the peculiaritiesof crime as a
news topic; third, how the public are invokedin moral panics; and finally,the
implicationsof digital communicationsfor news media practices.Exampleswill
be drawn from major areas of moral panics in the last thirty years; AIDS, child
 Al'TERWORDS 393

abuseincludingpaedophilia,hard and soft drugs, immigrationand asylum,media

violence,riots and publicdisorder,streetcrime and gangs.
Our first aspect is the sourceof the term muggingand its connotationsof race,
the ghetto and random violence.We traced it back via police and press to the
USA.This importationof social problemshas continuedacross a wide range of
issues: black gang crime, guns and knives; physical child abuse, alleged ritual
sexual abuse and paedophilia;the war on drugs; and the war on terror. For all,
Americansourceshaveprovideddefinitions,estimatedprevalenceand advocated
remedies.
But definitionsalso emerge closer to home. We argued that the news media
systematicallyreproducethedefinitionsof the powerful.Froma positionof 'struc-
tured subordination'they rely on accreditedsources for the primary interpreta-
tionsof political,economicand social issues.They thus act as secondarydefiners
for primarydefinitions.Schlesingerargued that this frameworkdid not allow for
differenceswithinelitesor variationsin their abilityto influencemediacoverage;
for the strategiesadoptedby primarydefiners;for changesin the rangeof primary
definersover time; or for the media's role in challengingprimarydefiners.Such
complexitiescould not be read off from mediatexts alone.18
Our original argumentdid allow for contesteddefinitions,dependingon the
topic or issue and whether the process of definitionhappens under routine or
extraordinaryconditions.Duringa riot or when in court, for example,riotersmay
be defined unproblematicallyas criminal opportunists;yet an inquiry into the
riots generatesa definitionthat the riot is symptomaticof a cluster of underlying
socialproblems.This alternativedefinitionis drownedout at the time of crisis but
reappearsonce normalityhas beenrestored.The same patternoccurredafter 2011
as after 1981.
Moral panics are perceivedcrises in the moralorder, reinforcingthe tendency
of elites to embracea singledefinitionof the problemand the mediato reproduce
il. However,the defining elites can vary. With child abuse, for example, the
dominantdefinitionemergedfrom alliancesbetweenthe social work profession,
child saving organisations and government ministers. The police were key
definers of street crime, paedophiliaand rave/ecstasy,usually having to work
hard to secure the supportof politiciansand the press. Some issues that become
moral panics, such as immigrationand asylum, embarrassgovernments.There
the primary definitionis more likely to come from some combinationof press,
oppositionpoliticiansand campaigninggroups.On any issue the press may itself
take the role of primary definer.Nevertheless,the primary definersof deviance
are most likely to be those in authority to whom the media will normallydefer,
especiallyat times of perceivedcrisis.19 A definingcharacteristicof moralpanics
is that contributorsare requiredto accept the dominantdefinitionof the problem
or risk being regardedas apologistsfor evil.
Our second aspect is the peculiaritiesof crime as a news topic. PTC argued
that crime, especiallyviolentcrime, was a staple of news media because it met
almost every requirementof news making, as Chibnallconfirmed.20 Continuous
revisionof the newsvaluesframework21 leavesintactthe symbiosisbetweennews
media and crime. PTC further argued that crime was a morally transparentand
thus an ideologicallyclosedissue.Debatewas allowedonly on the termsof moral
394

outragedictated by elite and media opinion.The same is true of terrorism:then

Irish republicanism,now Muslimfundamentalists.
We sought to verify this argumentthrough an empirical examinationof the
mugging panic in selected national and local newspapers.We offered detailed
analysesof primarynews stories,especiallytheir headlinesand photos;of edito-
rials; and of featurearticleswith their own news values.Deridedin somequarters
as litera1ycritics, we used the tools availableat that time. Subsequentlymore
sophisticatedtools have been developed,notablythose derivedfrom linguistics.
They have been applied to both broadcasting22 and the press.2l The latter offers
a model for identifyingthe 'argumentationstructure' of readers' letters. Our
further interest in abusive letters prefigures current concerns over offensive
biogs and tweets now regularlyaimed at figures in public life. All give vent to
submergeddiscourses,often violentlyprejudiced,whichanonymityprotectsfrom
consequences.
Other linguistshaveindicatedhowto understandthe modesof addressin edito-
rials.24 Much less developedis work on other news related formats:featuresand
leuers pages in newspapers;current affairs and documentarieson televisionand
radio.25Aimingto explorethe issuesbehindthe headlines,theydelveinto explana-
tions that draw on both expert paradigmsand common-senseideologiesof crime.-
Equivalentformats have covered child abuse in all its forms, terrorism,recrea-
tionaldrug taking,riots and peripheralissueslike bingedrinking.Hard newsneed
not be the main preoccupationof moralpanic analysts;other genres mailertoo.
Our third aspect is how the public are invokedin moral panics.We focussed
on how news media translatedofficialdiscourseinto popular argot (the 'public
idiom'), then assumedthe mantleof speakingon behalfof the public ('taking the
public voice'). Thus the media do not representpublic opinion; they construct
and orchestrateit, assumingthe mantle of commonsense. This line of enquiry
seemsto havebeen littledeveloped.An exceptionis Brookeset al. who examined
the constructionof public opinionon terrestrialTV news in the 2001 election.hi
Though forbidden to editorialise,journalists neverthelesssought to construct
publicopinionby a selectiveuse of opinionpolls,arbitraryvoxpops andtheir own
unsubstantiatedassenions about the public mood: 'the representationof public
opinionproducedthroughthe media has importantideologicalconsequences'_n
Our argument was that securing consent does not require the explorationof
public opinion,merely its invocation.PTC was neverdesignedto establishhow
news media messages are understoodby their audiences.Some have criticised
moral panic analysisfor assumingthat the audiencereadilybelievesnews media
messages about deviant threats.21 The Glasgow Media Group's AIDS project
concludedthat the model was generallytoo mechanisticto be of any analytical
use.29 However,the moral panics approachis in principleperfectly compatible
with the encoding/decodingparadigmJO and the relatedempiricalwork.11 Nothing
in the model precludesquestionsabout whether,how or why public support for
moral panicsis forthcoming.
Our fourthaspectis theimpactof digitalcommunications.The newsmediascape
of the mid-1970swas very differentfrom today's.The nationalpress was recog-
nisablealthoughthe regionalpress has since rapidlydeclined.But there wereonly
three nationalTV news channels,no internetor social media. Digitaltechnology
 AFT~RWORDS 395

has transformedlhe natureof news.Innovationslike 24 hour newschannels,web

editions of newspapers,citizenjournalists,the use of smarl phonesfor audio and
video recording of events by eyewitnesses,biogs and tweets - all suggest that
'news can no longer be reducedto a narrowcorporate-centricinformationgenre
producedby majormediacorporations',32
McRobbieand Thorntonfamouslyargued that such new forms of media and
politics requiredreformof the old moral panic model,1~ but nothinghas emerged
to replace it. It can be argued that alterationsin the news mediascapehave had
limited impact upon the course of moral panics. Such may be the lesson of two
very different recent examples: the prohibition of new designer drug mephe-
drone:wand the social reaction to the inner city riots.li Social media were in
both cases used by deviantactors to share their world-views,but, once in public
view, condemnationand retributionwere unequivocal.The centralisedsystems
of media, social control agencies and governmentstill retain an extraordinary
culturalpower,despitelackinginfluencein cyberspace.
New media clearly need to be incorporatedinto moral panic media analysis
but should not dominateit. Three other projectsmay be equally productive.One
is the need for continuedempirical work using analyticaltechniquesdeveloped
since P'TC. Recent work on the asylum seekers panic is exemplary.:w; 1\vo, the
genresthroughwhichmoralpanicsoperatemightprofitablybe analysedin terms
of narrativestructure.3 7 Three, connectionsmight be made with work on risk,
notablythe role of the media in its socialamplilication.38 Then,just as PTC once
did, moral panic analysiscan benefit from and contributeto the field of media
studiesas a whole.

PTC ANDTHB EXCEPTIONAL STATE (JC)

PTC exploredthe conditionsfor the movementtowardsan 'exceptionalstate'. It

chartedthe tilt in the balanceof socialcontrolfrom the consensualto the coercive
pole,identifyingthisas 'an exceptionalmomentof the state'. However,this tenni-
nologyis neithervery relined nor reliable.We said it was a 'moment' becausewe
assumedthat it wouldbe temporaryand that the consensualpole wouldeventually
be restored.However,some commentatorsargue that, far from disappearing,the
coercivemeasureshave been institutionalisedand have becomethe normalstate
of affairs.39 Supportingevidencefor this wouldincludethe inventionof anti-social
behaviourorders,the normalisationof publicand privatesurveillanceby the state,
the imprisonmentof suspectedterroristswithoutdue legal process,the continu-
ation of stop and search, the militarisationof social control in NorthernIreland,
the use of 'kettling' and other 'tough' strategiesfor policingpoliticaldemonstra-
tions, the rise in the prison population,deaths in custody,etc. Thesecritics argue
that this represents,not a temporary,but a permanent shift to 'an exceptional
state'.
However,the proceduresof representativegovernmentand the rule of law,
thoughweakened,havenot beensuspended,as one wouldexpectin a dictatorship,
authoritarian,one-partyor police state. The jury is still out on the nature of this
'exception', and we must guard againstexaggeratingone set of tendencieswhile
ignoringcontradictorymovements.Evidenceof the trend to the 'nonnalisation'
396
of coercion can be seen in such developmentsas the out-sourcingof policing
functionsto privateproviders,the privatisationof the prisonsand the proliferation
of private security firms, together with the intensifiedpolicing of borders, the
asylum and expulsionprocess, etc. More work is needed to address the contra-
dictoryrelationshipsamongthe normalisationof coercion,the 'neo-liberalisation'
of the state. and the managementof the increasinglyresidualsocial or welfarist
tasksof the state.Contradictionsof this kindare not uncommonin liberalregimes;
but theyrequireexplanation.Wehopethat the republicalionof PTC will contribute
to the task of explainingthese problems.
So, how might we now think about the complexof relationsamong consent,
coercion, crisis, power, politics and the state? Forty years of political and
analyticaldevelopmentsdirect us to the questionof what is differentnow? PTC
was importantfor eslablishingthe centralityof a racialisedlaw and order politics,
and the emergenceof authoritarianpopulismas a mode of doing politicsafter the
social democraticconsensus.We think the tenns establishedin PTC remainvital
ones, but how they are conligureddemandsrenewedattention.40
Most obviously,the characterof the 'crisis' (or, more accurately,the concate-
nation of multiple crises) is different. Where PTC traced the multiple crises
around the dislocationsof British capitalism, its social formation,its political
representationsand the problemsof the slate, we must now addressthe accumu-
lated failuresand consequencesof Thatcherite/neo-liberalstrategiesthat sought
to liberatecapitaland capitalismfromthe 'shackles' of the post-warsettlements.•1
Thatcherism (and its successors) have produced new economic, social and
political dislocationsand antagonisms(from deindustrialisationto debt-fuelled
consumptionbooms; from rapidly deepeninginequalitiesof wealth and income
to the dis-uniting of the United Kingdom). These accumulatingantagonisms
and contradictions,overlaidon older and still unresolvedones, culminatein the
absenceof any newexpansivepoliticalsettlement'after Thatcher'.42 The effortsto
generatenew formsof consenthavebeenonly partiallysuccessfulandcontinually
unstable:producingwhat Jeremy Gilberthas nicely called 'disaffectedconsent'.
Althoughthe multiplecrises are differentin somecriticalrespects,theyare articu-
lated in a continuing- and unresolved- crisis of authority.
All of thesedevelopmentshavetakenplacewithina differentlyinternationalised
field of relationships,flowsand forces,such that it is difficultto speak of a purely
Britishcrisis.The differentinsertionof Britishcapitalinto a globalisingeconomy
that was driven by Thatcherite 'liberalisation'also created the conditionsfor a
series of economiccrises throughthe last thirty years, culminatingin the massive
dislocationsof global financein 2008.Althoughthey occulTedon a global scale
and withinglobalisedeconomicinstitutions,these contemporarycrises have also
been 'nationalised'- turned into problemsof nationaldebt, public spendingand
governmentalresponsibility.They have become issues through which virtuous
nationsmay be distinguishedfromthe slovenlyand irresponsible.This 'nationali-
sation' of crisis, entwinedwith the pursuitof austerity,has provedto be a fertile
groundfor the reworkingof varietiesof authoritarianpopulism.4J
The discoursesand practicesof coercionthat were emergingin the 1970shave
been everywhereextended, deepenedand, so to speak, put on steroids.To put
it another way, the movementtowards an exceptionalor 'law-and-order'state
 AFTERWORDS 397

that we traced during the 1970sis now thoroughlynormalised.As Crawfordhas

argued,policing- in its widestsense - is one area in which !herehas not been a
shrinkingof the stale's power,evenif the state has beenincreasinglysupplemented
by privatisedor corporateformsof providing'security'.44 The expandingappara-
tuses of crime control and surveillancefailed - perhaps predictably- to reduce
public anxietiesabout crime. Such anxietieswere, on the contrary,sustainedand
crystallisedby a viciouscircleof popularmediaand authoritarianpopulistpolitics
rediscoveringthe apparently permanent, but always shockingly new, crisis of
'law-and-order'.
Here we see a critical point of intersectionwith the growing significanceof
'security' as a related figure through which crises, coercion,consent and power
havebeen reworkedinto new formationsparticularlyafter 9/11.45 Securitynames
the combinationof external and internal threats - terrorists who may attack
the West/CivilisationffheFree World/OurCountry from anywhere but, most
troublingly,from within. Policing the security crisis involvesexternal interven-
tions (from wars to 'police actions'), borderstrengtheningand the intensification
of domestic surveillanceand interventionsin relation to suspect populations.46
GivenPTCs roots in Birmingham,it may be worthnotingthe erectionof the 'ring
of steel' (of securitycameras)aroundBalsallHeathin 2010, publiclylegitimated
as a measureagainstcrime and anti-socialbehaviour,but fundedby and supplying
informationto the government'santi-terrorismprogramme."The network was
partially dismantled following a public outcry about this wilful conflation of
purposesand populations.
These developmentshave been reflectedin a deepeningacademic interest in
how crime acts as a focal point for governingand the organisationof state power
that has extended some of our concerns into new analyses,new times and new
ways of theorising.41 Such studies have examined the ways in which crime is
mobilisedas a centralpoliticaltrope-enabling thosedistinctionsbetweenthe 'law
abiding majority' of citizens and the various 'enemies within' that have formed
a consistentthread in British,Europeanand NorthAmericanpopulistdiscourses
during the last thirty years. And in most NorthAtlanticsocieties,these 'problem
of crime' discourses- and the criminalisingpracticesassociatedwith them- have
been profoundlyracialised as the question of the nation (its imaginedcompo-
sition, bordersand conditionsof membership)has taken an increasinglycentral
place in domestic politics. Such discourseshave been central to the continuing
reinventionof different 'national-populars':from Nikolas Sarkozy's condemna-
tionsof the 'racaille'(rabble/scum)in Franceto the recurringgovernmentalefforts
to define and inculcate 'Britishness'. These discourseshave also been imponant
in the USA, in the shiftingforms of the 'urban crisis'411and the increasingcrimi-
nalisationof 'illegal' migrants.
Such developmentspoint to one aspect of changingstate formations.A rather
differentone lies in the growingsignificanceof non-stateagenciesand organisa-
tionsfor strategiesof 'governingthe social'.!()Wehaveseen complexdevelopment
of new formsof power,controland intervention(communitysafety,youthjustice,
anti-socialbehaviourorders,new formsof welfareconditionalityinvolvingsocial
complianceand performance.etc.), workingthough new organisationalamtnge-
ments(partnerships,locality-basedorganisations,hybridagencies,etc.) that cross
398 AfTfiRWORDS

what were understoodas public-privateboundaries.'1 Newanalyticalapproaches

to such 'non-state'agencieshaveemergedfrom both a politicalscienceinterestin
governanceand a Foucault-inspiredinterestin governmentality.Both approaches
have a tendency to downplaythe state or overstate its decline, albeit for very
differentreasons.They haveoften been counteredby assertionsof the continuity
of the state and state power,withouttaking into accountthe changinginstitutional
and organisationalforms.We think that this risks missing importantnew forma-
tions of power and discourse.52
Analysingthese changesposes a problemof focus:concentratingsolelyon the
coerciveapparatuses,or only the coerciveelements of other changes, may miss
the multipleways in which,in Foucault'sterms, conduct is being conducledand
differentgroupsare being targetedby differenlstrategies.53 So Wacquant'sexplo-
rationsof punitivepenalityas the hard core of neo-liberalism54 have takenforward
questionsabout how neo-liberalismtargets problematicpopulationsand extends
processesof criminalisationand incarceration.However,we think these changing
strategies,fonns of power and organisationalarrangementsmay be better under-
stood if simplifying binaries are avoided (state versus governance;coercion
versusconsent;or Wacquantand Bourdieu'sdistinctionbetweenthe left and right
handsof the state- welfarismversuscoercion/penality).Thinkingaboutchanging
state formationsin which new strategies,new organisationalarrangements,new
modes of exercisingpower are combinedin hybrid or compoundformsremains
a pressing analyticalas well as politicalchallenge.We think they are essential
issuesfor deciding'what is differentnow'.

STRUCTURES,CULTURBSAND BIOGRAPHIES(BR)
PTC attempled to outline the necessary broad transactional, structural and
hislorical'terrain' required for a more completeand dynamicexplorationof the
meaningof 'mugging', than in traditionalapproaches(pp. 183-4, 321). In the
finalchapterthe experienceof innercity youth is consideredby interrelatingthree
dimensions- structures, sub/culturesand biographies55 - taken from previous
theories.In retrospectit set a challenge- subsequentapproacheswould have to
combineelementsfrom a range of theoreticalapproachesto accountfor 'dimen-
sions' of streetcrime.
In PTC, crucial 'structuresof secondariness'(work, class, race, gender,etc.),
reflecting distributionsof wealth and power outside an individual's control,
are described (pp. 333-41). But, it is argued, a 'structural' approach to race/
ethnicityand racism(as in some older 'race relations'research)may,then as now,
providethe necessarycontoursof disadvantagebut neglectactual socio-cultural
experience. Similarly, recent developments in 'cultural' approaches around
issues of agency,identity/hybridityand 'new racisms' may limit understanding
of 'culture, consciousnessand resistance'(pp. 341-55) and contemporarydisad-
vantageunle1scombinedwith the 'structuring'effects of family,neighbourhood,
schooling,work,and local/ nationalState. 'Cuhural' approaches,whileadvancing
knowledgeof culturaldynamicsanddiscoursesaround'race' andcriticisingformer
'macro-structuralanalyses', where lives may be simply 'reduced' to reactions
to socio-economicfactors, may fail to represent the complexityof individual
 AFrERWORDS 399
experience.56 In highlightingthe shifting,complex,contextualand multiplenature
of identityfonnation, 'cultural' accountsmust emphasisethat structuresare also
lived,and culturesconstrain.
While the prime focus of PTC is 'mugging' in a societal perspective, in
contestingthe 'folk devil' or 'symbolicimage' of 'black mugger', it also delivered
a different'biography'in which an individual'sposition,decisionsand trajectory
were 'structured' within a set of availablecultural alternatives(pp. 159-60,321,
333-41). A 'typical' biographicalpath is constructed,includingpossiblefamily
troubles, friendships,educationalproblems,police contact, and so on (p. 354).
Thus, in explainingyouth behaviourneitherstructuraldisadvantagenor cullural
values are held to be sufficientexplanations.As Pryce's ethnographyof West
Indianlifestylesin Bristolin the 1970semphaticallydemonstrated,a 'response'to
a situationis not simply determined.~ 1 From such a perspective,'mugging' is one

of severalpaths, a 'drift' within criminaland non-criminaloptions in the face of

'endless pressure'.51 'Macro-structuralconditions' impact, for example,through
inferioremploymentprospects,so shapingconditionsfor various lifestyles."As
Gunterrecentlyargued,notingthe diversityof 'black masculinities':'Manyblack
men cope with their bitterness,failures,frustrationsand social marginalisationby
focusingtheir creativity' on various 'expressive' behaviours;611these can include
clothing,sexuality,gesture, and so on. Implicatedhere are the complexitiesof
how ideologiesand social constraints'operate' together in fanning masculinity,
femininity and other identities and in defining spaces. Inner city youth have
some commonalitybut, nevertheless,are socially differentiatedin their cultural
experience of structures of age, gender, family, religion, ethnicity,education,
etc. At the same time, it is apparentthat youth conform,resist, re-interpret,and
negotiatecultural-structural'positioning'and identityformation.61
In examining 'inner-city' areas, PTC noticed the emergenceof 'West Indian
enclaves' including 'expressive' cultural forms of resistance,in face of 'public
racism'(pp. 343-4). Significantly,for latercommunalaction,we observedthatthe
post-1974Recessionbroughta more localised,organised'ethnic consciousness'
as evident in major communalcampaigns.61 Further,PTC posited that policing
black people 'threatenedto mesh' with policingthe disadvantagedin city areas
(pp. 325-6)- a 'meshing' seeminglyevidentin 201I Riots (see 'Race, crime and
policing'section,above).
Growinginequalityhas been a recurrent public issue. The idea of a 'divided
society' was particularly prominent during 1980s recession and riots63 and a
similar debate may have begun again. The Government-commissioned Riots,
Communitiesand Victims Panel ReportMpointed to issues in educationaland
work opportunities,ineffectiveor low trust in officialagencies,failingcommunity
ties and 'aggressivemarketingand materialism'towardsyouth.Manyparticipants
interviewedfor the Report admittedopportunismin stealing unaffordablegoods,
but others expressedinjusticedue to lack of opportunities,money or general ill
treatment.65
The identification of increasing materialism and unmet expectations in
explaining the 2011 Riots finds strong resonance in recent research on street
robbery in Britain. This work has sought a 'comprehensive'explanationof the
offender,socialcontrol,and victimtargeting- and policy measures.Authorshave
400 AFTERWORDS

attempted a more 'complete' account of offendingby integratingelements of

varioustheoriese.g. subcultural,rationalchoice,Katz's 'seductionsof crime', and
control theories.66 Generally,street robberystudies have a common(Mertonian)
'cultural theme'. Such studies outline a 'street culture' infused by 'pervasive'
consumeristvalues,but where 'desire' for an expensive'street style' is unsatisfied
by legitimatemeans due to differentialopportunities. 61 In this situation,certain

'adaptations' ranging from conformityto illegality arc available.lntereslingly,

despitepostmodem(and 'global') emphasesonconsumerist'style' inyouthstudies,
some idea of 'subculture'(linked to area/class)68 is still importantfor writerson
street robbery,6'.I
Alongsidethis researchthere has beenrevivalof academicstudy
on 'gangs' (existence,definition,activities,ethnic and gender composition)and
associated'preventionmeasures' due in part to intense political/publicconcern
over 'gang culture'.70 Serious 'group violence and robbery' certainly occurs,
and requiresdetailed, careful research. However,within public discussion,the
constructionof the gang memberas a 'folk devil' only servesto limit,distort,and
inhibit a deeper understandingof structural-culturalcontexts of youth culture,
crime and the inner city- a processwitnessedin the 'muggingpanic'.
Withinrecentresearchon street robberyand violencemuch attentionhas been
given to offender 'motivations'.Writers have identifieda number of elements:
including need for cash 10 fulfil 'street cuhure style', search for excitement
(i.e., gambling,drugs), and 'masculinity'/'reputation'(i.e., status, respect)- and
'rationalisations'for infraction. Here more considerationcould be paid to the
theoreticalcomplexityof 'motivation',for instance,with furtherdevelopmentof
subculturalideas (for example,'neutralisation', 'leisure values', 'desperation'),71
Additionally,concepts from the continuingChicagoan/interactionist'tradition'
(for e.g., 'life history', 'deviantcareer') remainhighlyapplicable.72 Finally,there
are importantrelevantdevelopmentsin biographical/narrative 73 and 'psychosocial'
approaches.7' 1 Thesetheoreticalapplicationscould furtherclarify 'motivations'by

linkingsocio-culturalfactors(i.e., family,gender,class, ethnic group, age) with

available'repertoiresof motives'as biographicallyexperiencedin their parlicular
(inner-city)context(pp. 352-3).1'The biographical-cultural-structural accountin
PTCcould have beenenrichedby these developments.Its ethnographicapproach
(which includes secondary materials)would have also benefitedfrom support
from deeper material of its own or from other sources, as provided by Pryce's
contemporaneousstudy,76 and by subsequentdeveJopmentsin qualitativeresearch
(for example,visual).But, this different'balance' of materialcould haveresulted
in a loss of detail, force and intent in the book's main analysis.
The present 'conjuncture' of 'stagnation' and the Government's 'austerity'
programmeare narrowingyouth opportunities.Meanwhile,a keyexplanationfor
riots and street robberyhas been the pervasiveeffectsof consumeristvalues.But,
howdo these valuesactuallyinfluencebehaviour?Howdo youth 'manage' differ-
ences betweenaltachmentto 'desired' lifestyleand daily 'reality'? 'Consumerist
values', and other values,are not simply receivedand acted out but interpreted,
and differentially'adopted' in contexts of family,street, neighbourhood,ethnic
group, and so on. 'Drift' occurs accordingto youth's perceptionof options and
also beliefs, motives, ra1ionalisationsand feelings (desires, injustices,desper-
ation, and so on). Todayan understandingof cultural/structural'reproduction'in
 AFTERWORDS 401

specificcontexts(family,school,work,and so on) is urgentlyrequired:howyouth

use materialand social capital, construct identities,and act within local-global
'networks' (i.e., internetsites, in style, musicand 'political' expression).Analysis
is needed of the interrelationof micro-macro relations," of inclusionary/exclu-
sionary processes,and (crucially)of social closure and consciouschallenge,in
shaping biographicalexperienceof all youth, in inner cities and elsewhere.But,
any accountof participationin street robbery,shouldretain PTC's elhnographical
and theoreticalfocuson the 'biographicalpath' optionswithinstructural-cultural
framing.
Finally,as PTC argued, whateverthe 'temporaryglamour' of street crime, for
those who 'survive' for long, it is not 'romantic' but rathera 'desperateexistence'
which 'brutalisesall those who engage in it, for whatevermotives'{p.353).
 Notes and References

PREPACBTO THE SBCONDEDITION

I. H. Becker,Outsiders:Studies in the Sociologyof Deviance(New York:The
Free Press, 1963).
2. J. Young,The Drugtakers(London:Paladin, 1971).
3. S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (London: MacGibbon& Kee,
1972).
4. S. HallandT.Jeffersoneds,ResistancethroughRituals(London:Hutchinson,
1976;2nd edn, London: Routledge.2006).
5. See S. Hallsworth, 'Street Crime', Crime, Media, Culture 4(1), 2008:
137-43.
6. P. Atkinson,A. Coffey,S. Delamont,J. Lofland and L. Lofland, 'Editorial
Introduction',in Handbookof Ethnography,ed. P. Atkinson, A. Coffey,S.
Delamont,J. Lofland and L. Lofland (London:Sage,2001:6).
7. P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant, 'The Purpose of ReflexiveSociology(The
Chicago Workshop)',in An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology,P. Bourdieu
and L. Wacquant(Cambridge:Polity,1992: 113).
8. C. Sumner,'Race, Crime and Hegemony',ContemporaryCrises,5, 1981:28.
9. Ibid.
10. K. Pryce,EndlessPressure(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1979).
11. P.Willis,Learningto Labou,.(Farnborough,Hants.:Saxon House, 1977).
12. D. Hebdige,Subculture(London:Methuen, 1979).
13. I. Chambers,UrbanRhythms (Basingstoke:Macmillan, 1985);D. Hebdige,
Cut 'n' Mix (London:Methuen,1987).
14. A. McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1991).
15. A. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence&
Wishart, 1971:323).
16. Ibid.: 55, n5.
17. P. Gilroy,After Empire(London:Routledge,2004).
18. K. Marx, Grundrisse(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1973:IOI).
19. Gramsci,Selections/rom the Prison Notebooks,pp. 177-9.
20. L. Althusser,For Ma,-x(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1969:249).
21. Ibid.: 99; emphasesin original.
22. Gramsci,Selectionsfrom the PrisonNotebooks,pp. 105-20.

CHAPTERI
I. K. Chesney,The Victo,.ianUnderworld(Harmondsworth:Penguin,1972).
 N<Jl'llSANDREPERENCllS 403

2. Ibid.: 162-5; see also I. J. Tobias, Crime and Industrial Society in the
Ninetee11th Ce11tury(London:Balsrord,1967:139-40).
3. See F. H. McClinlock and E. Gibson, Robbery in Londo11(London:
Macmillan, 1961:1)and J. W. C. Turner,Kenny's OutlineofCl"iminalLaw
17thcdn (CambridgeUniversityPress, 1958:291-2).
4. See The Times, I November1972.
5. Su11dayTelegraph,5 November1972.
6. See Daily Express,20 March 1973.
7. See the report or the crime at the time; Guardian, 17,19,23 April 1969.
8. Su11dayTimesand Su11dayTelegraph,both 5 November1972.
9. S. Ross, 'A Mug'sGame',New Society,5 October 1972;C. McGlashan,'The
Makingor a Mugger',New Statesman, 13October 1972.
10. The Times,20 October 1972.
II. London EveningNews,1 October 1972.
12. Sunday Mirror, 15October 1972.
13. Guardia,r,3 November1972.
14. Daily Mail, 26 October 1972.
15. See The Times, I November1972.
16. The Times,2 November1972.
17. For example,Daily Mail, 1 December1972.
18. See Daily Mirror,25 January 1973.
19. See Guardia11, 8 March 1973.
20. The Times, 12March 1973.
21. London EveningStandard,30 March 1973.
22. Daily Telegraph,17April 1973;London EveningSta11dard,16April 1973.
23. Daily Mail, 4 May 1973;Sunday Mirror,6 May 1973.
24. London EveningStandard, 11May 1973.
25. Daily Mail.
26. Daily Mirro1~23 May 1973.
27. Observer,29 July 1973.
28. Daily Mirror.
29. Report of the Departmental Committee on Criminal Statistics (Perks
Committee)Cmnd 3448 (London:H.M.S.O.,1967).
30. For example, McClintock and Gibson, Robbery in London; and F. H.
McClintocked., Crimesof Violence(London:Macmillan, 1963).
31. For a more extended treatment or the problemsor criminal statistics and
the rising crime rate, see P. Wiles, 'Criminal Statistics and Sociological
Explanationsor Crime', in Crime and Delinque11cyin Britain, ed. W, G.
Carson and P. Wiles (London:Martin Robertson, 1971);N. Walker,Crime,
Courts and Figures (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1971);and L. McDonald,
The Sociologyof Law and Order (London:Faber, 1976).
32. W. I. Thomas, The U11adjusted Girl (Boston:Little, Brown, 1928).
33. F. H. McClintockand N. H. Avison,Crime in Englandand Wales(London:
Heinemann,1968:18-19).
34. Annual Reports or the MetropolitanPolice Commissionerand the Chief
Inspectoror Constabulary.
35. Guardia11, 30 June 1972.
404 NOTl:SANDRIWERENCES

36. Guardia1i,13 February 1970.

37. Data from F. H. McClintock, quoted in N. Fowler, 'The Rewards of Robbery',
The Times,1 April 1970.
38. Data from Annual Reportsof Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the
Chief Inspector of Constabulary.
39. Guardia11, 8 March 1973.
40. McClintock and Avison, Crime in Englanda,1dWales.
41. McDonald, The Sociologyof Law and Order.
42. See, for example, Sir Robert Mark, 'The Disease of Crime - Punishment or
Treatment', paper deJivered to the Royal Society of Medicine; reported in
the Guardian,21 June 1972; and Sir Robert Mark, The DimblebyLecture,
broadcast on B.B.C., 5 November 1973.
43. S. McCabe and R. Purves, The Jury at Work (Oxford: Blackwell, 1972);
reviewed in the Guardian, 17July 1972.
44. S. J. Elgrod and J. D. M. Lew, 'Acquittals - a Statistical Exercise', New Law
Journal 123(5626), 6 December 1973; reviewed in the Sunday Times, 9
December 1973.
4S. R. F. Sparks, Local Priions: The Crisisin the EnglishPenalSystem(London:
Heinemann, 1971).
46. Peoplein Pri:w11s, Cmnd 4214 (London: H.M.S.O., 1969).
47. The Regimefor Long-TermPrisonersin Conditionsof MaximumSecurity:
Repol'lof the Advisory Council on the Penal System (Radzinowicz Report)
(London: H.M.S.O., 1968); S. Cohen and L. Taylor, PsychologicalSurvival:
The Experience of Lo11g-Termlmpriso11ment(Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1972: 15-17).
48. L. Radzinowicz, 'Preface' to McClintock and Gibson, Robberyi11London,p.
xvi.
49. McClintock and Avison, Crime in Englandand Waler.
50. R. Baxter and C. Nuttall, 'Severe Sentences: No Deterrent to Crime?' New
Society,2 January 1975.
51. Metropolitan Police District Statistical Unit, Robberyand KindredOffences,
1968-72 (London: Metropolitan Police, 1973).
52. Cohen, Folk Devilsand Moral Panics, p. 28.
53. Ibid.
54. R. Lejeune and N. Alex, 'On Being Mugged: The Event and Its Aftermath',
paper presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of
Social Problems, August 1973; see also D. W. Maurer, Whizz Mob (New
Haven, Conn.: College & University Press, 1964: 171);and G. Myrdal, A11
AmericanDilemma(New York: Harper, 1944).
55. See E. Partridge, A Dictionary of Historical Slang (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1972).
56. See National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, Final
Report (New York: Award Books, 1969).
57. Lejeune and Alex, 'On Being Mugged'.
58. See Henry Brandon, 'America in a State of Rebellion', Sunday Times, 27
October 1968;Andrew Kopkind's review of 'Wallace-Mania', Sunday Times,
 NOTESAND REFERENCES 405

magazine, 3 November 1968;and 'The Year the World Swung Right', Su11day
Times,magazine, 29 December 1968.
59. See Su11dayExpress,3 March 1968, 17August 1969,28 September 1969.
60. For example, 'Mobbing and Mugging', Daily Sketch, 25 June 1970; see also
'Violent Crimes', Daily Telegraph,25 August 1971(both editorials).

CHAPTER2
I. See K. T. Erikson, WaywardPuritans:A Study i11the Sociologyof Deviance
(New York: Wiley, 1966: 8-19).
2. On the importance of the symbolic role of the judiciary, see T. Arnold, The
Symbols of Govemment (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1962); S. Lukes,
'Political Ritual', Sociology9(2), May 1975;on the grounding of ideology in
ritual practice. see L. Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses',
in Lenin and Philosophy,and OtherEssays,L. Althusser (London: New Left
Books, 1971).
3. EveningStandard,8 November 1972.
4. Daily Telegraph,10 October 1969.
5. Guardian,30 October 1969.
6. Guardian, 14 January 1972.
7. Guardian,20 May 1972.
8. See Report of the Parole Board for 1972 (London: H.M.S.O., 1973);
'Conflict over Numbers in Juvenile Courts', Guardian, 8 February 1972;
M. Berlins and G. Wansell, Caught in the Act: Children,Society and the
Law (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974:77-98); and Guardian,30 December
1972, on the CriminalJusticeAct.
9. For a more general assessment of the Act, see Berlins and Wansell, Caught
in the Act; and D. Ford, Children,Courts and Caring (London: Constable,
1975).
10. Berlins and Wansell, Caughtin the Act, p. 36.
II. Ibid.: 83.
12. Ibid.: 63-84.
13. L. Blom-Cooper, 'The Dangerous Precedents of Panic', The Times, 20
October 1972.
14. Report of the ParoleBoardfor 1972,p. 8.
15. A. Morris and H. Giller, 'Reaction to an Act', New Society, 19 February
1976.
16. See J. Paine, 'Labour and the Lawyers', New Statesma,1,11July 1975.
17. See Young, The Drugtakers;J. Young, 'Mass Media, Deviance, and Drugs',
in Deviance and Social Control, ed. P. Rock and M. McIntosh (London:
Tavistock, 1974);and S. Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics and the Media', in Devia11ce
and Social Control,ed. Rock and McIntosh.
18. See L. Wilkins, Social Deviance: Social Policy, Action and Research
(London: Tavistock, 1964); and Young, The Drugtakers.
19. EveningStandard,25 September 1972.
20. EveningStandard,8 November 1972.
406 NOTESANDREl'ERENCES

21. Time Out, 27 October-2 November 1972, 17-23 November 1972, 11-17 May
1973.
22. Sunday Times,S August 1973.
23. Time Out, 11-17May 1973;SundayTimes,S August 1973.
24. Robberyand KindredOffences, 1968-72.
25. Young,The Drugtakers,p. 189;but see also M. Stellman, 'Sitting Here in
Limbo', Time Out, 23-29 August 1974.
26. See T. Bunyan,The History and Practice of the PoliticalPolice in Britain
(London:Friedmann, 1976).
27. C. McGlashan, 'The Making of a Mugger', New Statesman, 13 October
1972.
28. See, House of Commons Select Committee on Race Relations and
Immigration:Police/ImmigrantRelations(Deedes Report), vol. I: 'Report';
vols 2-3: 'Minutes of Evidence' (London: H.M.S.O., 1972); and the analy-
sis of the structuringpresuppositionsof the Committeein relationto black
evidencein J. Clarke et al., 'The Selectionof Evidenceand the Avoidance
or Racialism: A Critique or the ParliamentarySelect Committee on Race
Relationsand Immigration',New Community III(3),Summer 1974.
29. The Times, 12March 1973.
30. Time Out, 17-23November1972.
31. Young,The Drugtakers, p. 171.
32. Becker,Outsiders.
33. Cohen,Folk Devils and Moral Panics, p. 168.
34. J. Lambert, Crime, Police and Race Relations (London: Institute or Race
Relations/OxfordUniversityPress, 1970: 190).
3S. The Times, 26 August 1972;Su11dayTimes and Sunday Telegraph, I October
1972; see also London Evening News, 1 October 1972; Sunday Mirror, IS
and 22 October 1972.
36. Dally Mail, 26 October 1972.
37. The Times, I November 1972; Guardian, 3 November 1972; Sunday
Telegraph, S November1972;The Times, 2S January 1973.
38. Su11dayMirror, 6 May 1973.
39. Reportedin Daily Mail, 15May 1973.
40. Daily Mirror, 1 June 1973.
41. Daily Mirror, I October 1973.
42. Su11day'flmes, S August 1973.
43. D. Humphry,Police Power and Black People (London:Panther, 1972).
44. Lambert, Crime, Police and Race Relations.
45. Ibid.: 183.
46. See the re-analysis or this evidence by Clarke et al., 'The Selection or
Evidenceand the Avoidanceor Racialism'.
41. Guardian, 28 January 1972.
48. Gual'dian, II February 1972.
49. Gua1dia11,9 March 1972.
50. Guardian, 28 April 1972and II May 1972.
SI. Seeevidenceor MarkBonham-Carter,Chairmanor theCommunityRelations
Council,to the SelectCommiuee,Guardian, 12May 1972.
 NOfESAND REFERENCES 407

52. Deedes Report, vol. I, p. 69.

53. National Council for Civil Liberties,A1111ual Repol"/1971(London: N.C.C.L.,
1972).
54. Guardian,5 May 1972.
55. Guardian, 18 July 1972.
56. For a fuller account of the Lewisham police 'affair', see Time Out, 21-27 July
1972.
57. Quoted in Humphry, PolicePowera11dBlack People,pp. 109-10.
58. S, Pullt Police ImmigrantRelations i11Ealing: Report of an lnvestigatio11
Conductedon Behalfof the Ealing CRC (London: Runnymede Trust, 1973).
59. SeeJ. Rexand R. Moore.Race,CommunityandConflict:A StudyofSparkbrook
(London: Institute of Race Relations/Oxford UniversityPress, 1967).
60. See Lamber!, Crime,Policea11dRace Relations,pp. 123-4.
61. See Stellman, 'Sitting Here in Limbo'.
62. This being a process recommended by the Royal Commission on the Police,
Final Report,Cmnd 1728(London: H.M.S.O., 1962:eh. VII).
63. See the conclusion to M. E. Cain, Societyand the Policeman'sRole (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973); for a summary of other important police
changes between 1964-74, especially the development of a wider political
role, in the areas of computerised surveillance, pre-emptive policing and
co-operation with the military, see Bunyan, History and Practice of the
PoliticalPolicein Britain, pp. 74-101.
64. See the Reports of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for the relevant
years for details.
65. Time Out, 23-9 March 1973.
66. Ibid.
67. See Bunyan, Historyand Practiceof the PoliticalPolicein Britai11.
68. J. Young, 'The Role of the Police as Amplifiers of Deviancy, Negotiators
of Reality and Translators of Fantasy', in Images of Deviance,ed. S. Cohen
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).
69. See A. C. H. Smith et al., Paper Voices: The Popular Press and Social
Change,/935-1965(London: Chatto & Windus, 1975);and J. Clarke, S. Hall,
T. Jefferson and B. Roberts, 'Subcultures, Cultures and Class: A Theoretical
Overview', in ResistancethroughRituals,ed. Hall and Jefferson.
70. See, i11teralia, Mark, The DimblebyLecture.
71. See E. C. S. Wade and G. G. Phillips, Constitutional Law (London:Longmans,
1960),quoted in P.Laurie.ScotlandYan:I(Harmondsworlh:Penguin, 1972:113).
72. Laurie, Scot/a11dYard,p. I 16.
73. Data from McClintock and Avison, Crime ill England a11dWales,pp. 127,
140.
74. Guardian(extra) 16 January 1973.
75. See T. Tullett, 'The Thin Blue Line', Daily Mirror, 17 February 1970; and
M. De-La-Noy, 'Stress and the Law: The High Cost of Being a Policeman',
Guardian,29 July 1974.
76. For race relations in the period, see C. Mui lard, BlackBritain(London: Allen
& Unwin, 1973);and D. Hiro, Black British, WhiteBritish(Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1973).
408 NOTESANDREFERENCES

77. Lambert,Crime,Policeand Race Relations,p. 181.

78. Ibid.: 183.
79. Young,'The Role of the Police as Amplifiersof Deviancy,Negotiatorsof
Realityand Translalorsof Fantasy',p. 39.
80. Lambert,Crime,Policeand Race Relations,p. 183.
81. Reporl (London:H.M.S.O.,1971).
82. The Timer,9 June 1971.
83. The Times,24 August 1971.
84. The Times,25 August 1971.
85. See Guardianand The Times,25 August 1971;Sunday Timesand Observer,
29 August 1971.
86. EveningStandard,25 September 1972.
87. Daily Telegraph,25 August 1971.

CHAPTERJ
I. C. MacDougall, Interpretative Reporting (New York: Macmillan,
1968:12).
2. For a fuller account of the impact of these 'bureaucratic' factors in news
production,see P. Rock, 'News as Eternal Recurrence',in The Ma11ufacture
of New1:Social Problems,Devianceand the Mass Media, ed. S. Cohenand
J. Young(London:Constable,1973).
3. See J. Galtung and M. Ruge, 'Structuring and Selecting News', in The
Manufactureof News,ed. Cohen and Young.
4. See ibid; K. Nordenstreng,'Policy for News Transmission',in Sociologyof
Mass Communications,ed. D. McQuail (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1972);
W. Breed, 'Social Controlin the Newsroom?A FunctionalAnalysis',Social
Force, 33, May 1955;and S. Hall, 'Introduction',in Paper Voices,ed. Smith
etal.
5. L. Wirth, 'Consensus and Mass Communications',American Sociological
Review 13, 1948.
6. The Times,28 February 1973;quotedin G. Murdock,'PoliticalDeviance:The
PressPresentationof a MilitantMassDemonstration',in The Manufactul'eof
News,ed. Cohenand Young,p. 157.
7. Rock, 'News as Eternal Recurrence'.
8. G. Murdock, 'Mass Communicationand the Constructionof Meaning', in
RethinkingSocial Psychology,ed. N. Armistead(Harmondsworth:Penguin,
1974:208-9); but see also S. Hall, 'A Worldat One with Itself', New Society,
18June 1970;and I. Young,'Mass Media, Devianceand Drugs.
9. Rock, 'News as Eternal Recurrence',p. 77.
JO. Murdock,'Mass Communicationand the Constructionof Meaning',p. 210.
11. For a historical account of the evolutionof those rules, see I. W. Carey,
'The CommunicationsRevolution and the Professional Communicator',
SociologicalReviewMonograph13, 1969.
12. H. Becker,'Whose Side are We on?' In The Relevanceof Sociology,ed. I. D.
Douglas(New York:Appleton•Century•Crofts,1972).
 NOfESAND REFERENCES 409

13. K. Lang and G. Lang, 'The Inferential Structure or Political Communications',

Public Opinion Quarterly 19,Summer 1955.
14. J. D. Halloran, P. Elliott and G. Murdock, Demonstrations and
Communication: A Case Study (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970).
15. See S. Hall, 'The "Structured Communication" or Events', paper for the
Obstacles to Communication Symposium, UNESCO/Division of Philosophy;
Clarke et al., 'The Selection or Evidence and the Avoidance or Racialism'.
16. F. Parkin, Class Inequality and Political Order (London: MacGibbon &
Kee, 1971:83).
17. On the Mirror's transformations, see Smith et al., Paper Voices.
18. L. Goldmann, The Huma11Scie11cesand Philosophy (London: Cape. 1969).
19. See I. L. Horowitz and M. Liebowitz, 'Social Deviance and Political
Marginality', Social Problems 15(3), 1968; and S. Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics
and the Media.
20. See Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics and the Media'.
21. J. Westergaard, 'Some Aspects orthe Study or Modern Political Society',
in Approaches to Sociology, ed. J. Rex (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1974);see also S. Lukes, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974);
and J. Urry, 'Introduction', in Power in Britain, ed. J. Urry and J. Wakeford
(London: Heinemann, 1973).
22. Urry, 'Introduction', p. IO.
23. For a more detailed analysis or this relationship, see S. Hall, I. Connell and L.
Curti, 'The Unity or Current Affairs Television', Working Papers in Cultuml
Studies No. 9, C.C.C.S., University orBirmingham, 1976.
24. Erikson, Wayward Puritans, p. 12.
25. Daily Mail, 13 August 1966; quoted in S. Chibnall, 'The News Media and
the Police', paper presented to Natio11alDeviancy Conference, University or
York, September 1973.
26. See A. Shuttleworth et al., Television Violence, Crime-Dmma and the
Analysis of Content, C.C.C.S., University or Birmingham, 1975.
27. See Chibnall, 'The News Media and the Police'.
28. See M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (Harmondsworlh: Penguin, 1966).
29. See P. Rock and F. Heidensohn, 'New Reflections on Violence', in Anarchy
and Culture, ed. D. Martin (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969); and
S. Cohen, 'Protest, Unrest and Delinquency: Convergences in Labels or
Behaviour?' /11ternationalJournal of Criminology and Penology I, 1973.
30. Galtung and Ruge, 'Structuring and Selecting News', p. 65.
31. Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics and the Media'.
32. See Cohen, Folk Devils a,1d Moml Panics, p. 39.
33. See Daily Mirror, 1 September 1972; and Daily Express, I December 1972.
34. See Sun, 6 January 1973;Daily Mail, 9 February 1973;and Daily Mirror, 28
June 1973.
35. See also Daily Mail, 29 March 1973; Sun, 14 April 1973; and Daily Mail, 6
April 1973.
36. See Daily Mirror, 12 August 1973.
37. Report, p. 44.
410 NOTESANDREFERENCES

38. See B. Roshier, 'The Selection of Crime News by the Press', in The
Mamifactureof News,ed. Cohenand Young.
39. Ibid.: 34-5.
40. Daily Telegraph,21 March 1973.
41. Althusser,'Ideologyand IdeologicalSlate Apparatuses'.

CHAPTER4
I. Sec, for examples,E\!eningStandardand Daily Mirror,6 October 1972;and
Sunday Mirror,22 October 1972.
2. See, for example,SundayTime, and SundayTelegraph,5 November1972.
3. H. Marcuse.OneDimensionalMan (London:Sphere, 1968:79, 84).
4. R. Barthes,Mythologies(London:Paladin, 1973:153).

CHAPTBR5
1. But see K. Pearson, 'Letters to the Editor', New Society, 30 January 1975;
and E. P. Thompson, 'Sir, Writing by Candlelight',in The Manufactureof
News,ed. Cohen and Young.
2. R. Williams, 'Radical and/or Respectable',in The Press WeDeserve,ed. R.
Boston(London:Routledge& KeganPaul, 1970).
3. Ibid.
4. But see Daily Mail, 27 March 1973;and Daily Telegraph,30 March 1973.
5. See Baxterand Nuttall, 'SevereSentences'.
6. This is the only letter to shift the terrain of the debate completely- it con-
nects CharlesSimeon'sstatementsabout the 'rule of law' to the levelof poli-
tics: 'Ireland musthavegone to their heads'.
7. See EveningMail, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27 March 1973;and BirminghamPost,22,
23, 24, 28 March 1973.
8. But see Evening Mail, 23, 24, 28 March 1973;and BirminghamPost, 27
March 1973.
9. See C. Pawling,'A Bibliographyof the Frankfurt School',WorkingPapersin
CulturalStudies No. 6, C.C.C.S.,Universityof Birmingham,Autumn 1974;
E. Fromm,The Fearof Freedom(London:Routledge& KeganPaul, 1960);
T. Adornoet al., The AuthoritarianPersonality(New York:Harper, 1950);
and W. Reich,The Mass Psychologyof Fascism(Harmondsworth:Penguin,
1975).

CHAPTER6
I. See D. Marsdenand E. Duff, Workless(Harmondsworth:Penguin,1975).
2. SeeE. P.Thompson,'TimeandWorkDiscipline',Pastand Present,December
1967.
3. See Young,The Drugtakers.
4. See Westergaard,'Some Aspects of the Study of Modern PoliticalSociety';
H. Moorhouse and C. Chamberlain, 'Lowerclass Attitudes to Property:
Aspectsof the CounterIdeology',Sociology8(3), 1974.
 NOfES ANDREFERENCES 411

S. R. Jessop, Traditionalism, Conservatism a11dBritish Political Culture

(London: Allen & Unwin, 1974);butseealsoJ. Westergaard, 'The Rediscovery
of the Cash Nexus', in Socialist Regirter /970, ed. R. Miliband and J.
Saville (London: Merlin Press, 1970); See H. F. Moorhouse, 'The Political
Incorporation of the British Working Class: An Introduction', Sociology7(3),
1973: 314-59; and Moorhouse and Chamberlain, 'Lowerclass Attitudes to
Property'.
6. Reich, The Mass Psychologyof Fascism.
7. G. Playfair, The PunitiveObsession(London: Gollancz, 1971).
8. See G. Pearson, The DeviantImagination(London: Macmillan, 1975);and L.
Chevalier, Labouring Classesand DangerousClasses (London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1973).
9. G. Orwell, 'Lion and the Unicorn', in Collected Essays, Journalism and
Letters, vol. 2 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970); see the development of
the argument in relation to the war in S. Hall, 'The Social Eye of Picture
Post', WorkingPapers in Cultural Studies No. 2, C.C.C.S., University of
Birmingham, Spring 1972.
10. See, for example, B. Jackson, Wo,*ingClass Commu11ity (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1968) chapter entitled 'Riot'.
II. J, Young, 'Working Class Criminology', in Critical C,-iminology,ed. I.
Taylor, P. Walton and J. Young (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975).
12. See P. Anderson, 'Origins of the Present Crisis', New Left Review 23, 1964;
reprinted in TowardsSocialism,ed. P. Anderson and R. Blackburn (London:
Fontana, 1965); T. Nairn, 'The British Political Elite', New Left Review 23,
1964; T. Nairn, 'The English Working Class', New Left Review 24, 1964;
reprinted in Ideologyin Social Science:Readingsin CriticalSocial Theory,
ed. R. Blackburn (London: Fontana, 1972); E. P. Thompson, The Making of
the English Wo,*ingClass,rev. edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968); R. B.
Johnson, 'Barrington Moore, Perry Anderson and English Social Development',
WorkingPapersin CulturalStudiesNo. 9, C.C.C.S.,UniversityofBirmingham,
1976;E. P. Thompson, 'The Peculiarities of the English', in SocialistRegister
1965,ed. R. Miliband and J. Saville (London: Merlin Press, 1965).
13. K. Marx, ThePovertyof Philosophy(Moscow:Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1956: 115).
14. A. Dummett, Portraitof EnglishRacism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973).
IS. N. Poulanlzas, PoliticalPowerand Social Classes(London: New Left Books,
197:l:223).
16. See T. Nichols and P. Armstrong, Wo,*ers Divided (London: Fontana,
1976).
17. R. Hoggarl, The Usesof Literacy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958:72-3).
18. Ibid.: 102.
19. Ibid.: l03.
20. Gramsci, Selectio11sfrom the Prison Notebooks,pp. 419,421.
21. Ibid.
22. G. Nowell-Smith, 'Common Sense', 7 Days, 3 November 1971.
23. See Anderson, 'Origins of the Present Crisis'; and Parkin, Class Inequality
a11dPoliticalOrder.
412 NOfESAND REl'ERl:NCflS

24. Parkin, Class Inequalityand PoliticalOrder.

25. See Moorhouse, 'The Political Incorporation of the British Working Class'.
26. N. Harris, Beliefs in Society (London: Watts, 1968:54).
27. Dummett, Portmit of E11glish Racism.
28. K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 1965).
29. Harris, Beliefsi,i Society.
30. F. EngeJs, 'Ludwig Feuerbach and the End or Classical German Philosophy',
in Marx-Engels Selected Works, vol. 2 (London: Lawrence & Wishart,
1951).
31. See Harris, Beliefsin Society,and C. Geertz, 'Ideology as a Cultural System',
in Ideologya11dDifcontent,ed. D. Apter {New York: Free Press, 1964).
32. See the eJoquent portrait by R. Lewis and A. Maude, The English Middle
Classes (London: Phoenix House, 1949), a seminal text, written in this
period, and represenling an important, early moral Cri de coeur.
33. G. Steadman-Jones, 'The Remaking of the English Working Class', Journal
of Social History1, Summer 1974.
34. See Cohen, Folk Devils and Moml Panics: and Clarke et al., 'Subcultures,
Cultures and Class'.
35. Clarke et al., 'Subcultures, Cultures and Class'.
36. See R. Glass, Newcomers:The West Indians i11Lo11do11 (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1960).
37. Cohen, Folk Devilsand Moml Panics,p. 192.
38. See Clarke et al., 'Subcultures, Cultures and Class'; J. Clarke, 'Style', in
Resistance through Rituals, ed. Hall and Jefferson; and P. Cohen, 'Sub-
cultural Conflict and Working Class Community', Working Papers in
Cullum/ StudiesNo. 2, C.C.C.S., University of Birmingham, Spring 1972.
39. J. Seabrook, City Close-up(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973:62).
40. Ibid.: 57.
41. See C. Critcher et al., 'Race and the Provincial Press', Report to UNESCO,
1975;also available as C.C.C.S.StencilledPaperNo. 39.
42. Seabrook, City Close-up,pp. 79-81.
43. Ibid.: 198-9.
44. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks.
45. C. Levi-Strauss, The SavageMind (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966).
46. K. Marx, 'The EighteenthBrumaire of Louis Bonaparte',in Marx-Engels
Selected Works,vol. I. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1951).
41. The Times,28 June 1973.
48. P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Co11structio11 of Reality
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).
49. Ibid.
50. On behavioural ideologies, see V. N. Volosinov,Marxismand the Philosophy
of language (New York: Seminar Press, 1973).
51. Berger and Luckmann, The Social Constructionof Reality.
52. Volosinov,Marxismand the Philosophyof Language.
53. Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes; and Althusser, 'Ideology
and Ideological State Apparatuses'.
 NOTl:SAND REl'ERl:NCl:S 413

S4. Marx, Gru11drisse.

SS. H. Maine,A11cie11t Law (London:Dent, 1917);selectedin The Sociology of
Law, ed. V. Aubert(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1969).
S6. Quoted in I. Taylor,P. Walton and J. Young,The New C,-Jn,i110Jogy:
For a
Social Theory of Devia11ce(London:Routledge& KeganPaul, 1973:I).
S1. Ibid.
58. Quoted in L. Radzinowicz,Ideology a11dCrime: A Study of Crime in its
Social and Historical Context (London:Heinemann,1966).
59. Chevalier,Labouring Classesand Da11gerousClasses.
60. Pearson,The Deviant lmagi11ation.
61. But see Taylor,Walton and Young,The New Crimi11ology;and S. Cohen,
'Criminologyand the Sociologyof Deviance in Britain', in Devia11ceand
Social Control, ed. Rockand McIntosh.
62. Cohen, 'Criminologyand the Sociologyof Deviancein Britain'.
63. But see, inter alia, G. Steadman-Jones,Outcast Lo11don(OxfordUniversity
Press, 1973);Pearson, The Deviant Imagination; R. Bailey and M. Brake
eds, Radical Social Work (London:Arnold, 1976)for some of the elements
of social work'sdevelopment.
64. See J. Clarke, 'The Three R's: Repression, Rescue and Rehabilitation:
Ideologiesof Control for WorkingClass Youth',C.C.C.S. Stencilled Paper
No. 41, Universityof Birmingham,1976.
65. SeeE. J. Hobsbawm,Labouring Me11(London:Weidenfeld& Nicolson,1964);
I. Taylor,P. Waltonand J. Young,'Critical Criminologyin Britain: Review
and Prospects',in Critical Criminology, ed. Taylor,Waltonand Young.
66. On this ambiguous relation, see Taylor, Walton and Young, 'Critical
Criminologyin Britain'.
67. R. Nisbet,The Sociological Tmdition (NewYork:Bas.icBooks, 1966).
68. Gramsci,Selectio11sfromthe Prison Notebooks,p. 210.

CHAPTER7

I. Deedes Report.
2. Humphry,Police Powe,.a11dBlack People.
3. See D. Humphry,SundayTimes,31 October 1976.
4. Steadman-Jones,Outcast Londo11.
S. See Hobsbawm,Labouring Men; F. Mather,Public Order ill the Age of the
Chartists (ManchesterUniversityPress, 1959);G. Rude, Wilkesand Liberty
(Oxford University Press, 1962);G. Rudi!, The Crowd in History (New
York:Wiley, 1964);G. Rude and E. J. Hobsbawm,Captain Swing (London:
Weidenfeld& Nicolson, 1969); F. 0. Darvall, Popular Disturbance and
Public Order i11RegencyEngland (Oxford UniversityPress, 1934);E. P.
Thompson, 'The Moral Economyof the English Crowd in the Eighteenth
Century', Past a11dPrese11tSO,February 1971;F. Tilly, 'CollectiveViolence
in EuropeanPerspective',in Viole11ce
i11America,ed. H. GrahamandT. Gurr,
TaskForceReport to the NationalCommissionon the Causesand Prevention
of Violence(1969);and J. Stevensonand R. Quinaulteds, Popular Protest
and Public Orde,-(London:Allen & Unwin, 1974).
414 NOTESANO REFERENCES

6. For example.E. J. Hobsbawm,Bandits (Harmondswor1h:Penguin, 1972);

Thompson,The Making of the English WorkiligClass; E. P. Thompson,
Whigsa11dHunters(London:Allen Lane, the PenguinPress, 1975);D. Hay,
P. Linebaughand E. P. Thompson,Albion'sFatal Tree:Crimeand Society in
EighteenthCenturyEngland(London:AllenLane.lhe PenguinPress. 1975).
7. See R. Samuel, 'Conference Report', Bulleti1125, Autumn 1972,Society
for the Study of Labour History; and L. Taylorand P. Walton, 'Industrial
Sabotage:Motivesand Meanings',in Imagesof Deviance,ed. Cohen.
8. For example, Steadman-Jones, Outcast London; Chevalier, Labouring
Classesand DangerousClasses;and G. Lefebvre,The Great Fear of 1789
(New York:Vintage,1973).
9. E. J. Hobsbawm,'ConferenceReport',Bulletin25, Autumn 1972,Societyfor
the Studyof Labour History.
10. Hay,Linebaughand Thompson,'Preface', in Albion'sFatal Tree,p. 14.
11. See Clarke et al., 'Subcultures,Cultures and Class'.
12. See H. Mayhewetal., LondonLabourand the Lo11don Poor,vol.IV (London:
Griffin, Bohn & Co., 1862).
13. Thompson,Whigsand Hunters,p. 194;see also E. P. Thompson,'Patrician
Society,PlebeianCulture',Journal of Social Histo1-y9(4), 1974.
14. See Chevalier,Labouring Classesand DangerousClasses;and Steadman-
Jones,OutcastLondon.
15. Steadman-Jones,OutcastLondon.
16. See Clarkeet al., 'Subcultures,Culturesand Class'.
17. See M. Mclntosh, 'Changes in the Organizationof Thieving', in Images of
Deviance,ed. Cohen;and M. McIntosh,The Organisationof Crime{London:
Macmillan,1975).
18. Thompson,Whigsand Hunters.
19. See Cohen, 'Protest, Unrest and DeJinquency';Horowitz and Liebowitz,
'Social Deviance and Political Marginality'; Hall, 'Deviancy,Politics and
the Media'; Rock and Heidensohn,'New Reflectionson Violence';and T.
Bunyan,'The Reproductionof Poverty',unpublishedMS, 1975.
20. Cohen, 'Protest, Unrestand Delinquency'.
21. MalcolmX andA. Haley,TheAutobiographyofMalcolmX(Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1968).
22. See G. Jackson,Soledad Brother {Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1971);and E.
Cleaver,Soul on Ice (London:Panther,1970).
23. P. Linebaugh,'ConferenceReport', Bulletin 25, Autumn 1972,Society for
the Study of Labour History.
24. SeeL.Radzinowicz,AHistoryofEnglishCriminallawandltsAdministration
from 1750,vol.I {London:Stevens& Sons, 1948).
25. Seeibid.;Thompson,WhigsandHunters;andHay,LinebaughandThompson,
Albion's Fatal Tree.
26. Hay,Linebaughand Thompson,'Preface',p. 13.
27. D. Hay, 'Property, Authorityand the Criminal Law', in Albion's Fatal Tree,
Hay,Linebaughand Thompson,p. 55.
28. Thompson,Whigsand Hunters,p. 191.
29. Hay, 'Property,Authorityand the Criminal Law', p. 25.
 NOTllSANDREl'ERENCllS 415

30. Ibid.: 58.

31. Ibid.: 62.
32. Hay, Linebaugh and Thompson, 'Preface', p. 13.
33. W. Blackstone, Commental"ieson the Laws of England, vol. 11 (London:
T. Cadell, 1793-5); quoted in Hay, 'Property, Authority and the Criminal
Law'.
34. Linebaugh, 'Conference Report'.
35. E. P. Thompson, 'Conference Report', Bulletin25, Autumn 1972,Society for
the Study of Labour History, p. 10.
36. See K. Marx, 'Introduction: Late August-Mid-September 1857', in
Grundrisse; L. Althusser, 'Contradiction and Overdetermination', in For
Marx, Althusser; Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes; and S.
Hall, 'Marx's Notes on Method: A "Reading" of the "1857 Introduction"',
Working Papers in Cultural Studies No. 6, C.C.C.S., University of
Birmingham, Autumn 1974.
37. See Hay, 'Property, Authority and the Criminal Law'.
38. J. Griffith, 'The Politics of the Judiciary', New Statesman,4 February 1m.
39. Quoted in ibid.
40 E. M. Lemert, Social Pathology(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951).
41. Becker, 'Whose Side are We on?'
42. K. Marx, 'Preface to Critique of Political Economy', in Marx-EngelsSelected
Works,vol.1
43. Marx, Grundrisse.
44. K. Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophyof Right (Cambridge University
Press, 1971).
45. Marx, Grundrisse.
46. Engels, 'Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy', p.
359.
47. Ibid.
48. Marx and Engels, The Germa11 Ideology.
49. Ibid.: 66.
50. V. I. Lenin, The State a11dRevolution(London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1933:
13).
51. Poulantzas, PoliticalPowerand Social Classes,p. 150.
52. See N. Geras, 'Marx and the Critique of Political Economy', in Ideology
in Social Science,ed. Blackburn; I. Mepham, 'The Theory of Ideology in
Capital', WorkingPapers in Cu/ruralStudies No. 6, C.C.C.S., University
of Birmingham, Autumn 1974; M. Nicolaus, 'Foreword', in Grund,-isse;
Hall, 'Marx's Notes on Method'; and J. RanciCre,'The Concept of Critique',
Economyand Society 5(3), 1976.
53. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks,p. 158.
54. F. Engels, 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific', in Marx-EngelsSelected
Works,vol. 2.
55. K. Marx, Capital,vol. I, eh. 23 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1974:572).
56. Ibid.: part vu.
57. Ibid.: eh. 23, pp. 568-9; part VII, p. 565.
58. Ibid.: eh. 6, p. 176.
416 NOTESANDREFERENCES

59. Marx, 'The EighteenthBrumaireof Louis Bonaparte'.

60. Ibid.
61. See Engels,'Socialism'.
62. Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological Stale Apparatuses', p. 127.
63. Marx, The Povertyof Philosophy.
64. Marx in a letter to A. Ruge.
65. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Priso11 Notebooks,p. 247.
66. Ibid.: 246.
67. See Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'.
68. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the PrisonNotebooks,pp. 181-2.
69. Ibid.
70. Anderson 'Origins of the Present Crisis'.
71. See Thompson, 'The Peculiarities of the English'; and Johnson, 'Barrington
Moore, Perry Anderson and English Social Development'.
72. K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain(Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1962).
73. Engels,'Socialism'.
74. E. Mandel, IAte Capitalism(London: New Left Books, 1975:479).
75. F. EngeJs, Anti-Diihring(London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1954: 386).
76. See Poulantzas, PoliticalPowerand Social Classes,p. 53.
77. Ibid.: 53.
78. Ibid.: 211.
79. A. Hunt, 'Law, State and Class Struggle', MarxismToday,June 1976.
80. Thompson, Whigsand Hunters,p. 258 ff.
81. Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'.
82. Hunt, 'Law, State and Class Struggle'.
83. K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation(Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
84. E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
1973).
85. See D. Melossi, 'The Penal Question', Capital, Crime and Social Justice,
Spring/Summer 1976.
86. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks,p. 210.

CHAPTERS
I. Althusser, 'Contradiction and Overdetermination'.
2. See K. Marx, 'Population, Crime and Pauperism', New YorkDaily Tribu11e,
16 September 1859.
3. For example, L. Wilkins, Social Deviance: Social Policy, Action and
Research(London: Tavistock, 1964); and Young, The Drugtakers.
4. Horowitz and Liebowitz, 'Social Deviance and Political Marginally'.
5. Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics and the Media', p. 263.
6. See V. Greenwood and J. Young,Abortionon Demand(London: Pluto Press,
1976).
7. R. Moss, The Collapseof Democracy(London: Temple-Smith, 1976).
8. Ibid.
9. A. Gramsci, 'Modern Prince', in SelectionsfromthePriso11
Notebooks,Gramsci.
 NOTESAND REFERENCES 417

10. B. Barker ed. RamsayMacDonald'sPoliticalWritings(London: Allen Lane,

the Penguin Press, 1972).
II. Quoted in A. Gamble, The Co,uervative Nation (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1974).
12. R. Titmuss, E:r:rays on the WelfareState (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958).
13. See R. Miliband, ParliamentarySocialism(London: Allen & Unwin, 1961);
T. Nairn, 'Anatomy of the Labour Party', in TowardsSocialism,ed. Anderson
and Blackburn; J. Saville, 'Labourism and the Labour Government', in
SocialistRegister1967,ed. R. Miliband and J. Saville (London: Merlin Press,
1967); and D. Coates, The Labour Party a11dthe Strugglefor Socialism
(Cambridge University Press, 1975).
14. See Gamble, The Co11servative Nation; and N. Harris, Competitionand the
CorporateSociety (London: Methuen, 1972).
15. See G. Kay, Development and Underdevelopment(London: Macmillan,
1975); and E. J. Hobsbawm, 'The Crisis of Capitalism in Historical
Perspective', MarxismToday,October 1975.
16. Quoted in Kay, Developmentand Underdevelopmelll.
17. Quoted in M. Pinto-Duschinsky, 'Bread and Circuses: The Conservatives in
Office, 1951-64', in The Age of Affluence: 1951-1964,ed. V. Bogdanor and
R. Skidelsky (London: Macmillan, 1970).
18. P. Addison, The Road to 1945(London: Cape, 1975).
19. Barthes, Mythologies.
20. Kay, Developme11t a11dUnderdevelopment.
21. The Economist, 16 May 1959; quoted in S. Hall, 'The Condition of
England', People and Politics (Notting Hill Community Workshop
Journal), 1960.
22. See the longer discussion in Clarke et al., 'Subcultures, Cultures and Class'.
23. See P. Rock and S. Cohen, 'The Teddy Boy', in The Age of Affluence, ed.
Bogdanor and Skidelsky.
24, For an analysis of the Teddy-Boy style, see T. Jefferson, 'Cultural Responses
of the Teds', in Resista11cethroughRituals,ed. Hall and Jefferson.
25. The Times,5 September 1958.
26. Marx, 'The Eightee11th Brumaireof Louis Bonaparte'.
27. L. Panitch, Social Democracy and Industrial Militancy (Cambridge
University Press, 1976).
28. Ibid.
29. Cohen, Folk Devilsand Moral Panics.
30. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks.
31. P. Hansford-Johnson, On Iniquity (London: Macmillan, 1967).
32. Sunday Express, 16 January 1966.
33. Sunday Express,8 May 1966.
34. Analysed in Young, The Drugtakers.
35. P.Foot,ImmigrationandRacein BritishPolitics(Harmondsworth:
Penguin,1965).
36. P. Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell: An Examination of Enoch Powell's
Attitude to Immigrationand Race (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969).
37. See Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics and the Media'; and Young, 'Mass Media,
Deviance and Drugs'.
418 NOfl:S ANDREl'ERENCES

38. Sunday Express, I January 1967.

39. K. Marx and F. Engels, The CommunistManifestoin Marx-EngelsSelected
Works,vol. I.
40. G. Cohn-Bendit and D. Cohn-Bendit, ObsoleteCommunism:The Left-wing
Alternative(London: Deutsch, 1968).
41. N. Mailer, 'The White Negro', in Advertisementsfor Myself (London:
Deutsch, 1961).
42. Sunday Express,1 April 1968.
43. See Hall, 'Deviancy, Politics and the Media'.
44. Halloran, Elliott and Murdock, Demonstrations and Commu11icatio11.
45. 'End this Menace', Sunday Express,27 October 1968.
46. The Timesand the Daily Mirror,28 October 1968.
47. 'Can we arford to let our Race Problem Explode'?' Sunday Express,9 July
1967.
48. Quotes from Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell.
49. E. PoweJI,M.P., text of speech delivered in Birmingham, 20 April 1968,Race
X(I), July 1968.
SO. See T. Nairn, 'Enoch Powell: The New Right', New Left Review61, 1970.
51. Sunday Times, 14July 1968.
52. Open letter to the Underground from the London Street Commune; quoted
in P. Stansill and D. Z. Mairowitz eds, BAMN: Outlaw Manifestoesand
Ephemera, 1965-70 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971: 224). (The style,
viewpoint and rhetoric show unmistakably the hand of 'Dr John' of the 144
Piccadilly Squat.)
53. Sunday Times,28 September 1969.
54. Hiro, Black British, WhiteBritish.
SS. Foot, The Rise of EnochPowell.
56. 'Living around the Crime Clock', Sunday Times,9 March 1969.
51. Sunday Express,23 February 1969.
58. Sunday Times,6 April 1969.
59. Su11dayTimes,23 February 1969.
60. Sunday Times,26 October 1969.
61. Sunday Times,1 December 1969.
62. Sunday Times,20 April 1969.
63. 'Anarchy at Large', Sunday Times,2 November 1969.
64. Sunday Times,27 July 1969.
65. M. Whitehouse, WhoDoesShe Think She ls? (London: New English Library,
1971: 107).
66. See the analysis of this period in Young, The Drugtakers.
61. Sunday Timer,20 July 1969.
68. D. Phillips, 'The Press and Pop Festivals: Stereotypes of Youthful Leisure',
in The Manufactureof News, ed. Cohen and Young, pp. 323-33.
69. Whitehouse, Who Does She Think She Is? p. 107.
70. A. Arblaster, AcademicFreedom(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974:29).
71. B. Benewick and T. Smith, DirectAction and DemocraticPolitics(London:
Allen & Unwin, 1972: 206).
 NOTESANDREl'ERBNCES 419

72. See E. P. Thompson, WarwickUniversityLtd. (Harmondsworth: Penguin,

1970).
73. See P. Hain, Don't Play with Apa11heid(London: Allen & Unwin, 1971).
74. B. Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party (London:
Hutchinson, 1970).
75. Stansill and Mairowitz, BAMN.
76. J. Mitchell, Woman'sEstate (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).
77. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks;and Althusser, 'Ideology
and Ideological State Apparatuses'.
78. Mitchell, Woman'sEstate.
79. T. Nairn, 'Why it Happened', in TheBeginningof the End,ed. A. Quattrocchi
and T. Nairn (London: Panther, 1968).
80. Mitchell, Woman'sEstate,p. 32.
81. Ibid.: 32.
82. Marcuse, One DimensionalMan; and H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilit.atio11
(London: Sphere, 1969).
83. Sunday TimesInsight Team, Ulster(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
84. In Marx and Engels, On Britain.
85. K. Marx, Speech at the Anniversary of the People'sPaper in Surveysfrom
Exile, K. Marx (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973:300).
86. Marx, 'The EighteenthBrumaireof Louis Bonaparte',p. 258.
87. For example, A. Glyn and B. Sutcliffe, British Capitalism,Workersa11dthe
Profits Squeeze(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972); D. Yaffe, 'The Crisis of
Profitability: A Critique of the Glyn-Sutcliffe Thesis', New Left Review80,
1973;Mandel, Ute Capitalism;and P. Bullock and D. Yaffe, 'Inflation, the
Crisis and the Post War Boom', RevolutionaryCommunist3/4, 1975.
88. Yaffe, 'The Crisis of Profitability', p. 53.
89. Ibid.
90. I. Gough, 'State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism', New Left Review
92, 1975; and Bullock and Yaffe, 'Inflation, the Crisis and the Post War
Boom'.
91. Glyn and Sutcliffe, British Capitalism,Workersand the Profit Squeeie.
92. S. H. Beer, Modern British Politics: A Study of Parties and Press,,,.e
Groups(London: Faber, 1965).
93. G. A. Dorfman, WagePoliticsin Britain, /945-/967: Governmentvs TUC
(Iowa State University Press, 1973).
94. Ibid.: IOl-2.
95. Signed December 1964.
96. Quoted in R. Hyman, Strikes (London: Fontana, 1972:22).
97. Ibid.: 121.
98. Dorfman, WagePoliticsin Britain, /945-1967, p. 140.
99. H. Wilson, The Labour Governme11t, /964-70 (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1974:591).
l00. H. A. Clegg and R. Adams, The Employers' Challenge:A Study of the
NationalShipbuildingand EngineeringDifputesof /957(Oxford University
Press, 1957:20).
420 NOTESANDREFERENCES

IOI. T. Lane and K. Roberts,Strike at Pilklngton's(London:Fontana, 1971).

102. T. Lane, The UnionMakes Us Strong(London: Arrow, 1974:155).
103. Hyman,Strikes,p. 144.
104. See the excellentstudy by H. Beynon,Workingfor Ford (Harmondsworth:
Penguin,1973).
105. Dorfman,WagePoliticsin Britain, 1945-/967, pp. 133-4.
106. See H. Braverman,Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly
ReviewPress, 1975).
107. Quoted in T. Cliff, The Employers' Offensive(London:Pluto Press, 1970:
140).
108. The Economist,S June 1965.
109. Cliff, The Employers'Offensive,p. 126.
110. Quoted in P. Jenkins, Battle of DowningStreet (London:Charles Knight,
1970:58).
111. Quoted in Beynon,Workingfor Ford.
112. Ibid.: 243.

CHAPTER9
I. A. Gramsci, 'Notes on Italian History', in Selections from the Prison
Notebooks,Gramsci,p. 61.
2. K. Marx, 'The Crisisin Englandand the BritishConstitution',in On Britain,
Marx and Engels,p. 424.
3. D. Humphryand G. John,BecauseThey'reBlack (Harmondsworth:Penguin,
1971).
4. ManchesterC.R.C.letter in the Sunday Times, 18January 1970.
5, Gual'dian,1 February 1970.
6. Sunday Times,8 February 1970.
7. Guardian,1 February 1970.
8. Sunday Express, l February 1970.
9. Sunday Express,8 February 1970.
10. Sunday Express,22 February 1970.
11. Quoted in Sunday Times,8 February 1970.
12. Lord Hailsham,quoted in Guardian, 12February 1970.
13. Sunday Express,8 March 1970.
14. Sunday Times,5 April 1970.
15. Sunday Times, 14June 1970.
16. Ibid.
17. Sunday Times,1 June 1970.
18. Sunday Times, 11August 1970.
19. Sunday Times,6 December1970.
20. See Sunday Times, 12July 1970.
21. The Ustener, 8 October 1970.
22. Lambert, Crime,Policeand Race Relations.
23. Humphry,PolicePowerand Black People.
24. Ibid.
25. Quotes from ibid.
 NOfES AND REl'ERllNCES 421
26. Sunday Times, I February 1970.
27. See R. Bailey,The Squatters(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1973).
28. Sunday Times, 18October 1970.
29. Su11dayExpress,26 July 1970.
30. See R. Blackburn,'The Heath Government:A New Course ror Capitalism',
New left Review 10, 1971.
31. Quoted in A. Buchan,The Right to Work(London:Calder & Boyars, 1972:
49).
32. The Times,22 July 1972.
33. Stuart Hood in The Ustener,25 February 1971.
34. Quoted in Buchan,The Right to Work,p. 71.
35. See B. Cox, Civil Libertiesin Britain (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1975).
36. See Bunyan,The Historyand Practiceof the PoliticalPolicein Britain.
37, See, for quotes,Stuart Hood in The Listener,14January 1971.
38. Cox, Civil Libertiesin Britain.
39. Quoted in T. Palmer,Trialso/Oi (London:Blond& Briggs, 1971).
40. Sunday Expre1s,2 May 1971.
41. Cox, CivilLibertiesin Britain.
42. Sunday Times,3 January 1971.
43. M. Muggeridge,'Foreword',in F. Dobbie,I.AndAflame (London:Hodder&
Stoughton,1972).
44. Viewel'sa11dListeners,Summer 1970(NVALANewsletter).
45. See R. Wallis,'Moral Indignationand the Media:An AnalysisorNY.A.L.A.',
unpublishedms (Universityof Stirling, 1975).
46. The Times,21 December1970.
47. Viewersand Listeners,Spring 1971.
48. The Times,27 April 1972.
49. Whitehouse,Who Does She Think She Is?.
50. Ibid.: t!0.
51. Ibid.
52. Lord Longford, The Lo11gfordReporl.· Pornography (London: Coronet,
1972:26).
53. Quoted in ibid.: 22.
54. Cox, Civil Libertiesin Britain,p. 117.
55. The Times, 18October 1971.
56. Sunday Times,21 November1971.
51. CurrentI.AwStatutesAnnotated /97/ (London:Sweet& Maxwell,1971).
58. Bunyan,The Historyand Practiceof the PoliticalPolicein Britain.
59. See ibid.
60. F. Kitson,Low Intensity Operatio11s (London:Faber, 1971).
61. Ibid.
62. See Time Out,29 August-4 September 1975;Guardian, 16July 1976.
63. Time Out, 29 August-4 September 1975.
64. Guardia11,16July 1976.
65. Sunday Times InsightTeam, Ulster(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1972).
66. T. Rose ed., Violencein America (New York:RandomHouse, 1969).
67. G. Carr, The A11gryBrigade(London:Gollancz,1975).
422 NOfESAND Rlll'ERENCES

68. Quoted in London EveningStandard,25 September 1972.

69. The Time1, 30 December1972.
70. Quotes from ibid.
71. E. Mccann, Warand an Irish Tow11 (Harmondsworth:Penguin,1974).
72. R. Clutterbuck,Protest and the Urban Guerrilla (London:Cassell, 1973:
234).
73. Ibid.
14. Daily Telegraph, 16February 1967.
75. Hiro, Black British, White British, p. 222.
76. Ibid.
77. Daily Mirror, 15February 1968.
78. Sunday Times, 18February 1968.
79. See R. Moore, Racism and Black Resistance in Britain (London: Pluto
Press, 1975).
80. See. inter alia, ibid.,or Race Today, passim, for an accountof the immedi-
ate effectsof this on the blackcommunities.
81. Sunday Express, 6 February 1972.
82. Ibid.
83. Sunday Times, 2 April 1972.
84. A. Maude. 'Now Anarchy Has Shown Its Face', Sunday Express, 30 July
1972.
85. Sunday Timeseditorial,8 June 1972.
86. Sunday Timeseditorial,23 July 1972.
87. Sunday Expresseditorial,30 July 1972.
88. A. Barnett, 'Class Struggleand the Heath Government',New Left Review
77, 1973.
89. Ibid.
90. I. Birchall,'ClassStrugglein Britain:WorkersagainsttheToryGovernment,
1970-1974',RadicalAme,-ica8(5), 1974.
91. P. Johnson,'The Know-NothingLeft', New Statesman,26 September1975;
and P. Johnson,'Towardsthe ParasiteState',New Statesman,3 September
1976.
92. Guardian, 12January 1976.
93. Guardian,21 May 1975.
94. Sun, 21 February 1975.
95. Guardian,9 June 1975.
96. Birmingham Evening Mail, 12June 1975.
91. Guardian, 11October 1975.
98. J. Griffith, 'Hailsham - Judge or Politician?' New Statesman, I February
1974.
99. Quoted in ibid.
l00. J. Arnison,ShrewsburyThree (London:Lawrence& Wishart, 1975).
IOI. G. Robertson,WhoseConspiracy?(London:N.C.C.L.Publications,1974).
102. Ibid.
l03. New Statesman,3 August 1973.
104. See J. C. Aldersonand P. J. Stead eds, The Police We Deserve (London:
Wolfe, 1973).
 NOfES AND REFERENCES 423

105. Observer,16March 1975.

l06. See Guardian,26 November1975.
l01. Guardian,1 November1975.
l08. Guardian, 18March 1975.
109. Observer,23 March 1975.
110. Robertson,Whose Conspiracy'!;and Bunyan,The Historyand Practiceof
the PoliticalPolicein Britain.
111. New Statesman, 13June 1975.
112. So describedin the Spectator,26 April 1975.
113. Sunday Times,20 October 1974.
114. Guardian,5February 1976.
115. See ibid.
116. Centre for Policy Studies, Why Britain Needs a Social Market Eco11omy
(London:C.P.S.pamphlet).
117. See 'Why High Marx Means Low Marks', Su11dayTelegraph,12October
1976.
118. Poulantzas,'Marxist PoliticalTheory in Greal Britain', New Left Review
43, 1967.
119. Gramsci,Selectionsfrom the PrisonNotebooks,p. 161.

CHAPTER10
1. Daily Telegraph,12April 1976.
2. See the full and detailedaccount in Race Today,June 1974.
3. See I. MacDonald,Race Today,December1973.
4. See F. Dhondy,Race Today,July 1974;see also Race Today,March 1975.
S. 'Danger Signals from the Streets of Lambeth', Sunday Times, 5 January
1975.
6. Quotesfrom the Sunday Timer,5 January 1975.
7. Quotedin the Daily Mail, 16May 1975.
8. The Timer,2 July 1976.
9. Sunday Times, 28 March 1976;see also M. Phillips, 'Brixton and Crime',
New Society,8 July 1976.
10. The Timerand Guardian, 12April 1976.
11. See Race Today,June 1976.
12. Daily Mail, 24 May 1976.
13. Daily Telegraph,26 May 1976.
14. 'The Factsand Myths',Sunday Times,30 May 1976.
IS. Daily Telegraph,26 May 1976.
16. Daily Mail, 25 May 1976.
17. See C. Husbanded., WhiteMediaand Black Britain(London:Arrow, 1975);
and Critcheret al., Race and the ProvincialPress.
18. Daily Mirror,25 May 1976.
19. See BirminghamEveningMail, 21 June 1976.
20. Sunday Times,4 July 1976.
21. Sunday Telegraph,17October 1976.
22. See Daily Telegraph,23 October 1976.
424 NOTESANDREFERENCES

23. See Daily Mail, 26 October 1976.

24. Willis,Learning to Labour.
25. SeeB.Coard,Howthe Westlndia11Childis MadeEducatio11allySub-Normal
ill the British School System (London:NewBeaconBooks, 1971).
26. S. CastlesandG. Kosack,lmmigmnt Workersand Class Structure in Western
Europe(London:OxfordUniversityPress/Instituteof Race Relations,1973:
116).
27.• See Braverman,Labor a11dMonopoly Capital;and A. Gambino,'Workers
Strugglesand the Developmentof Ford in Britain', Red Notes Pamphlet,I,
1976.
28. C.I.S. and Instituteof Race Relations,Racism: Who Profits? 1976(our ital-
ics).
29. Ibid.
30. J. Berger,The SeventhMa11(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1975).
31. A. Sivanandan, Race, Class and the State (London: Institute of Race
Relations,1976).
32. Castles and Kosack, Immigrant Workersand Class Structure in Westem
Europe.
33. See Notting Hill People's AssociationHousing Group, Losing Out, 1972,
Notting Hill People's Association Housing Group, 60 St Bvan's Road,
LondonW.10;and J. Greve,D. Page and S. Greve,Homelessnessin London
(Edinburgh:ScottishAcademicPress, 1971).
34. Quotes from P. Gillman's account of black youth at the Harambee hos-
tel in Holloway:'I blame England',Sunday Times, colour supplement,30
September1973.
35. D. Howe,'FightingBack:West Indian Youthand the Police in NottingHill',
Race Today,December1973.
36. Ibid.
37. Quoted in Gillman, 'I blameEngland'.
38. Howe, 'FightingBack'.
39. MalcolmX and Haley,The Autobiographyof MalcolmX, pp. 315-16.
40. Hiro, Black British, WhiteBritish, p. 81.
41. Quoted in Gillman, 'I blameEngland'.
42. Quoted in Hiro, Black British, WhiteBritish, p. 80.
43. Ibid.
44. Quoted in Gillman, '1 blame England'.
45. 'The BlackYouthSpeak',Race Today,April 1975.
46. Marx, The Povertyof Philosophy.
47. Quoted in Gillman, 'I blame England'.
48. See D. Hebdige, 'Reggae, Rastas and Rudies: Style and the Subversionof
Form',C.C.C.S.StencilledPaperNo.24,C.C.C.S.,UniversityofBirmingham,
1974;reprinted,in shorter form, in Resistanceth,vugh Rituals,ed. Hall and
Jefferson; and R. Nettleford, Mirror, Mirror (London: Collins-Sangster,
1970).
49. Quoted in Gillman, 'I blameEngland'.
50. Ibid.
51. Hiro, Black British, WhiteBritish, p. 79.
 425
52. Quoled in Gillman, 'I blame England'; see also V. Hines, Black Youthand
the Survival Game in Britain (London:Zulu Publications,1973).
53. E. 1. Hobsbawm,Primitive Rebels (ManchesterUniversity Press, 1959);
Hobsbawm,LabouringMen; Hobsbawm,Bandits.
54. Hobsbawm,'ConrerenceReporl'.
55. Ibid.
56. Hobsbawm,Bandits,p. 98.
57. A. Gouldner,'Foreword',inTaylor,Waltonand Young,TheNew Criminology,
p. xii.
58. P. Q. Hirst, 'Marx and Engels on Law, Crime and Morality', in Critical
Criminology,ed. Taylor,Waltonand Young.
59. Marx, The Povertyof Philosophy.
60. Hirst, 'Marx and Engelson Law,Crime and Morality',p. 218.
61. Ibid.: 219.
62. Marx, 'The EighteenthBrumaireofLouis Bonaparte',p. 267.
63. F. Engels,The Co11dition of the WorkingClassin England(London:Panther,
1969).
64. Mayhewet al., London Labour and the London Poor,vol. 1v.
65. K. Marx, Capital, vol. 111(London:Lawrence& Wishart, 1974:791-2); ror
a relevantdiscussion,see J. Gardiner, S. Himmelweitand M. Mackintosh,
'Women's Domestic Labour', Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist
Economists1v(2(11)),June 1975.
66. I. Gough, 'Productiveand UnproductiveLabour in Marx', New Left Review
76, 1972.
67, P.HoweH,'OncemoreonProductiveandUnproductiveLabour',Revolutio,rary
Communist3/4, November1975,
68. W, Seccombe,'The Housewifeand her Labour under Capitalism',New Left
Review 83, 1973.
69. For ex.ample,M. Benston,'The PoliticalEconomyor Women'sLiberation',
Mo11thly Review,September1969;P. Morton,'Women'sWerleis NeverDone',
Leviathan, May 1970; S. Rowbotham, Woma11'sConsciousness,Man's
World(Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1970);J. Harrison,'PoliticalEconomyor
Housework',Bulletinof the Confere11ce of SocialistEconomists,Spring 1974;
C, Freeman,'Introductionto "DomesticLabourand WageLabour"', Women
a11dSocialism: Confere11cePaper J, Birmingham Woman's Liberation
Group;J. Gardiner,'Women'sDomesticLabour',New Left Review 89, 1975
(froma paperoriginallyprintedin Wome11 and Socialism:ConferencePaper
J, 1974);M. Coulson,B. Magasand H. Wainwright'The Housewifeand Her
Labour under Capitalism- A Critique',New Left Review 89, 1975(from a
paperoriginallyprintedin Wome11 and Socialism:ConferencePaper3, 1974);
and Gardiner,Himmelweitand Mackintosh,'Women'sDomesticLabour'.
70. W. Seccombe, 'Domestic Labour: Reply to Critics', New Left Review 94,
1975.
71. Coulson, Magas and Wainwright, 'The Housewifeand her Labour under
Capitalism'.
72. Seccombe,'DomesticLabour'.
73, Braverman,Labor and MonopolyCapital.
426 NOTESANDREFERENCES

74. Seccombe, 'Domestic Labour'.

75. S. James and M. Dalla Costa, The Powerof Womenand the Subversio11 of
the Community(Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972).
76. S. James, Sex, Race and Class (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1975).
77. James and Dalla Costa, The Power of Womenand the Subversionof the
Community,p. 6.
78. Marx, Capital,vol. 1.
79. Ibid.
80. James, Sex, Race and Class,p. 13.
81. For example, in Howe, 'Fighting Back'; I. MacDonald, 'The Creation of the
British Police', Race Today,December 1973; and F. Dhondy, 'The Black
Explosion in Schools', Race Today,February 1974.
82. Howe, 'Fighting Back'.
83. Ibid.
84. Power of Women Collective, All Workand No Pay (Bristol: Falling Wall
Press, 1975).
85. B. Taylor, 'Our Labour and Our Power', Red Rag 10, 1976.
86. See M. Tronti, 'Social Capital', Telos,Autumn 1973; M. Tronti, 'Workers
and Capital' in LabourProcessand ClassStrategies,Conference of Socialist
Economists pamphlet, 1976;S. Bologna, 'Class Compositionand the Theory
of the Party', in Labour Processand Class Strategies;Gambino, 'Workers
Struggles and the Development of Ford in Britain'; G. Baldi, 'Theses on the
Mass Worker and Social Capital', RadicalAmerica,May-June 1972.
87. See A. X. Cambridge, 'Black Workers and the State: A Debate Inside the
Black Workers' Movement', The Black Uberator 2(2), 1973-4, p. 185n.
88. Hirst, 'Marx and Enge]s on Law, Crime and Morality'.
89. See A. X. Cambridge and C. Gutsmore, 'Industrial Action of the Black
Masses and the Class Struggle in Britain', The Black Uberator2(3), 1974-
5.
90. Hirst, 'Marx and Engels on Law, Crime and Morality'.
91. Marx, 'The EighteenthBrumaireof Louis Bonaparte',p. 44.
92. F. Engels, 'Preface to ''The Peasant War in Germany"', in Marx-E11gels
Selected Works,vol. 2, p. 646.
93. Howe in a personal interview.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. A. X. Cambridge, 'Glossary', The Black Uberator 2(3), 1974-5, p. 280.
98. Ibid.: 279.
99. See G. Rude, Paris a11dLo11donin the Eighteenth Century (London:
Fontana, 1952); G.RudC, The Crowd in The French Revolution(Oxford
University Press, 1959); Rude, Wilkesand Uberty; Rude, The Crowd in
History,·and Rude and Hobsbawm, CaptainSwing.
100. V. I. Lenin, 'Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism', in Selected
Worksin One Volume(London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1969); see also R.
Owen and B. Sutcliffe eds, Studies in the Theory of Imperialism(London:
Longmans, 1972).
 NOTESAND Rm'ERENCES 427

101. Hobsbawm, LabouringMen, p. 272; see also J. Foster, Class Struggleand

IndustrialRevolution(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975).
102. Quoted in Lenin, 'Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism', p. 247.
103. P. Worsley, 'Fanon and the "lumpenproletal"iat"', in SocialistRegister1972,
ed. Miliband and Saville.
104. Quoted in ibid.
l05. F. Fanon, The Wretchedof the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963).
106. Marx, Capital,vol. 1, p. 633.
l07. See Castles and Kosack, lmmigrontWorkersand ClassStructurein Western
Europe,p. 4.
l08. V. Beechey, 'Female Wage Labour and the Capitalist Mode', unpublished
mss, University of Warwick, 1976.
109. Marx, Capital,vol. ,, pp. 600-02.
I 10. Castles and Kosack, Immigrant Wo,*ers and Class Structure in Western
Europe.
111. Quoted in Worsley, 'Fanon and the "lumpenproletariat" ', n. 23.
112. C. Allan, 'Lumpenproletarians and Revolution', Political Theory and
Ideology in African Society, seminar proceedings, Centre for African
Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1970.
113. S.Tax, Penny Capitalism:A Guatemalan Indian Economy (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1953).
114. Allan, 'Lumpenproletarians and Revolution'.
115. A. Q. Obregon, 'The Marginal Pole of the Economy and the Marginalised
Labour Force', Economyand Society 3(4), 1974.
116. S. Schram, Political Leaders of the Twentieth Century: Mao ne-tung
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966: 127).
117. C. Guevara, Guerrilla Wa,fare (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969).
118. Quoted in R. Debray, 'Castroism: the Long March in Latin America',
in Strategyfor Revolution, R. Debray (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973:
39); see also R. Debray, Revolution in the Revolution?(Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1968).
119. Fanon, The Wretchedof the Earth, p. 73.
120. Worsley, 'Fanon and the "lumpenproletariat" '.
121. Fanon, The Wretchedof the Earth, pp. 103-4.
122. I. L. Gendzier, Fmnz Fanon:A CriticalStudy (London: Wildwood House,
1973:207).
123. Fanon, The Wretchedof the Earth, p. 109.
124. Worsley, 'Fanon and the "lumpenproletariat" ', p. 40.
12S. See, for example, R. Cohen and D. Michael, 'Revolutionary Potential of the
African Lumpenproletariat: A Sceptical View', Bulletin of the Institute of
DevelopmentStudies 5(2-3), October 1973.
126. See Hobsbawm, Bandits.
127. See Seale, Seize the Time;and H.P. Newton, RevolutionarySuicide (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1974).
128. B. Seale, 'Foreword', in Seize the Time, Seale.
129. Ibid.: 4.
130. 'The Police and the Black Wageless', Race Today,February 1972.
428 NOTESANDREFERENCES

AFT'ERWORDS
I. Lord Scarman,The ScarmanReport (Harmondsworth:Penguin,1982:78).
2. Since muggingis still not an officialoffence,the robberyfiguresprovidethe
nearestequivalent.Unlessotherwisestated,all figuresare fromthe Recorded
Crime Statistics /898-2001/02 and 2002/03-2006/07, compiledby Chris
Kershawand suppliedby SteveFarrall.
3. See B. Campbell,Goliath(London:Methuen,1993).
4. I. E. Stockdaleand P.J. Gresham,TacklinaStreet Robbery (London:Police
ResearchGroup, HomeOffice. 1998:7).
5. HomeOffice,RacialAttacks (London:HMSO, 1981).
6. W. Macpherson,The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (London: Home Office.
1999).
7. B. Bowling, A. Parma and C. Phillips, C. 'Policing Ethnic Minority
Communities', in The Handbook of Policing 2nd edn, ed. T. Newburn
(Cullompton,Devon:Willan, 2008).
8. M. FitzGerald, 'Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System',
UnpublishedBriefing Paper, House of CommonsHome Affairs Commillee
on YoungBlack Peopleand the CriminalJustice System,2006: 27-8, 55.
9. M. FitzGerald,'Ethnicityand Crime', UnpublishedLecture,2010: 10.
10. Guardian,5 September2011.
II. Guardian, 10March2012.
12. Guardian,31 March 2012.
13. For an attemptto reconcilethese positions,see T. Jefferson,'Discrimination,
Disadvantageand Police-work',in Out of Order?ed. E. Cashmore and E.
McLaughlin(London:Routledge,1991).
14. B. Bowling and C. Phillips, 'Disproportionateand Discriminatory', The
ModernLaw Review70(6), 2007: 944.
15. M. FitzGerald,J. E. Stockdaleand C. Hale, YoungPeople'sInvolvementin
Street Crime (London:YouthJustice Board,2003).
16. But see C. Phillipsand B. Bowling,'Racism,Ethnicity,Crime and Criminal
Justice', in The OxfordHandbookof Criminology4th edn, ed. M. Maguire,
R. Morganand R. Reiner(O1tford:O1tfordUniversityPress, 2007).
17. T. Jefferson,'The Racismor Criminalization',in MinorityEthnic Gl"Oups in
the CriminalJustice System, ed. L. R. Gelsthorpe(Cambridge:Instituteof
Criminology,Universityof Cambridge,1993).
18. P. Schlesinger, 'Re-thinking the Sociology of Journalism', in Public
Communication,ed. M. Ferguson(London:Sage, 1990).
19. M. Welch,M. Fenwickand M. Roberts, 'Primary Definitionsof Crime and
Moral Panic', Journal of Researchin Crime and Delinquency34(4), 1997:
474-94.
20. S. Chibnall,Law and OrderNews (London:Tavistock,1977).
21. P. Brightonand D. Foy,News Values(London:Sage,2007).
22. M. Montgomery,The Discourse of Broadcast News (London: Routledge,
2007).
23. J. E. Richardson,AnalysingNewspapers(Basingstoke:Macmillan,2007).
24. R. Fowler,Languagein the News (London:Routledge,1991).
 NOl'ESAND REFllRENCES 429
25. I. Corner, TelevisionForm and Public Address (London: Edward Arnold,
1995).
26. R. Brookes,J. Lewis and K. Wahl-Jorgensen,'The Media Representationof
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27. Ibid.: 64.
28. Y. Jewkes,Media and Crime (London: Sage, 2004); J. Kitzinger,Framing
Abuse (London:Pluto,2004).
29, D. Miller, J. Kitzinger,K. Williams and P. Beharrell,The Circuit of Mass
Communication(London:Sage, 1998),
30. S. Hall, 'Encoding/Decoding',in Culture,Media, Language,ed. S. Hall, D.
Hobson,A. Loweand P. Willis (London:Hutchinson,1980).
31. D. Morley,The'Nationwide'Audience (London:BFI, 1978).
32. J. Jones and L. Salter,DigilalJoumalism (London:Sage,2012: 171).
33. A. McRobbieand S. L. Thornton, 'Re-thinking "Moral Panic" for Multi-
mediatedSocial Worlds',Bl'itishJour11alof Sociology46(4), 1995:559-74.
34. J, Collins, 'Moral Panics and the Media', paper deliveredto conferenceon
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20IO.
35. G. Scamblerand A. Scambler,'Underlyingthe Riots',SociologicalResearch
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36. J. Banks,'UnmaskingDeviance',CriticalCriminologyDOII0.1007/sl0612-
0ll-9144-x, 2011;J. Matthews and A. R. Brown, 'NegativelyShaping the
AsylumAgenda?JournalismDOI: I0.1177/1464884911431386, 2012.
37. H. Fulton ed., Media and Nar,-ative(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005).
38. N. Pidgeon,R. E. Kaspersonand P. Sloviceds, The Social Amplificationof
Risk (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2003).
39. For example,P. Hillyard,'The "Exceptional"State', in State, Powe,; Crime,
ed. R. Coleman,J. Sim, S. Tombsand D. Whyte (London:Sage, 2009); R.
Coleman,J. Sim, S. Tombs and D. Whyte, 'Introduction',in State, Power,
Crime,ed. Coleman,Sim, Tombsand Whyte.
40. J, Clarke, 'Of Crises and Conjunctures',Journal of CommunicationInquiry
34(4), 20IO:337-54.
41. B. Jessop,The Futureof the CapitalistState (Cambridge:Polity,2002).
42. Seel. Peck,ConstructionsofNeo-LiberalReason(Oxford:OxfordUniversity
Press, 20IO),on the tendencyof neo-liberalismto 'fail forwards'.
43. J. Clarke. 'Austeritae Autoritarismo',La Rivista delle PoliticheSociali N.I,
2012: 213-30.
44. A. Crawford, 'Networked Governance and Lhe Post-regulatoryState?'
TheoreticalCriminologyI0(4), 2006: 449-79.
45. J. Huysmans,The Politicsof Insecurity(London:Routledge,2006).
46. E. Balibar, We, the People of Europe? (New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 2004).
47. P. Lewis, 'SurveillanceCamerasSpring Up in MuslimAreas - the Targets?
Terrorists', 2010 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uknDIO/jun/04/birmingham-
surveillance-cameras-muslim-community), date accessed 13 March 2012;
moregenerally,see S. Graham, Citiesunder Siege (London:Verso,2010).
430 NOTESANDREFERENCES

48. Coleman,Sim, Tombsand Whyteeds, State, Powe,;Crime;D. Garland,The

Cultureof Control(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 2001);J. Simon,
GoverningthroughCrime (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 2007).
49. M. Ruben and J. Maskovsky,'The Homeland Archipelago', Critique of
A11thropology 28(2), 2008: 199-217.
50. N. Rose,Powersof Freedom(Cambridge:Polity, 1999).
51. K. Stenson, 'Governing the Local', Social Wo,* and Society 6(1), 2008
(http://www.socwork.net/2008/l/special_issue/stenson).
52. J. Newmanand J. Clarke,Publics,Politicsand Power(London:Sage,2009);
A. Sharma and A. Gupta, 'Rethinking Theories of the State in an Age of
Globalization',in TheAnthropologyof the State,ed. A. Sharmaand A. Gupta
(Oxford,Blackwell,2006).
53. J. Clarke, 'New Labour's Citizens',CriticalSocial Policy25(4), 2005: 447-
63; J. Clarke, 'Subordinatingthe Social?CulturalStudies 21(6), 2007: 974-
87.
54. L. Wacquant,Punishing the Poor (Durham, NC: Duke UniversityPress,
2009); butsee N. Lacey,'DifferentiatingamongPenalStates',BritishJournal
of Sociology61(4), 2010: 778-94.
55. C. Critcher, 'Structures, Cultures and Biographies'in Resistance through
Rituals,ed. Hall and Jefferson.
56. A. Gunter,Growingup Bad? (London:TufnellPress, 2010: 13-14).
57. Pryce,EndlessPressure.
58. Ibid.
59. E. Cashmoreand B. Troyna eds, Black Youth U1 C,-isis(London: Allen &
Unwin,1982);M. Fuller,'Young,Femaleand Black' in Black Youthin Crisis,
ed. Cashmoreand Troyna.
60. Gunter,Growingup Bad? p. 7.
61. Hall and Jeffersoneds, ResistancethroughRituals;S. Hall, 'The Questionof
Cultural Identity' in Modernityand Its Futures,ed. S. Hall, D. Held and T.
McGrew(Cambridge:Polity,1982).
62. B. Roberts, 'The Debate on "Sus" ', in Black Youthin Crisis,ed. Cashmore
and Troyna.
63. Scarman,The ScarmanReport;Archbishopof Canterbury'sCommissionon
Urban PriorityAreas, Faith in the City (London:Church HousePublishing,
1985).
64. The Riots, Communitiesand Victims Panel, After the Riots (London:The
Riots, Communitiesand VictimsPanel,2012).
65. Guanlia11/LSE,Reading the Riots, 2011 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/
series/reading-the-riots);see also K. Dunnell, Diversity a11dDifferent
Experiencesin the UK (London:Officeof NationalStatistics,2008).
66. J. Katz, Seductionsof Crime (NewYork:BasicBooks, 1988); T. Bennettand
F. Brookman,'The Roleof Violencein Street Crime',InternationalJournal
of OffenderTherapyand ComparativeCriminology53(6), 2009: 617-33; S.
Hallsworth,Street Crime (Cullompton,Devon:Willan,2005).
67. M. Barker, J. Geraghty, B. Webb and T. Key, The Prevention of Street
Robbery, Home Office: Police Research Group, Crime Prevention Unit
Series, 40 (London: Home Office, 1993); R. Wright, F. Brookmanand T.
 431

Bennett, 'The Foreground Dynamics of Street Robbery in Britain', British

Journal of Criminology 46(1), 2006: 1-15; J. Young, 'Merton with Energy,
Katz with Structure', TheoreticalCriminology7(3), 2003: 389-44.
68. Hall and Jefferson eds, Resistance through Rituals.
69. G. Martin, 'Subculture, Style, Chavs and Consumer Capitalism', Crime,
Media, Culture 5(2), 2009: 123-45.
70. S. Batchelor, 'Girls, Gangs and Violence', Probation Journal 56(4), 2009:
399-414; T. Bennett and K. Holloway, 'Gang Membership, Drugs and
Crime in the UK', British Journal of Criminology 44(3), 2004: 305-23; S.
Hallsworth and T. Young, 'Gang Talk and Gang Talkers: A Critique', Crime,
Media, Culture 4(2), 2008: 175-95; I. Joseph and A. Gunter, Gangs Revisited
(London: Runnymede, 2011).
71. D. Matza, Delinquency and Drift (New York: Wiley, 1964).
72. B. Roberts, Biographical Research (Buckingham: Open University Press,
2002: 33-51); B. Roberts, Micro Social Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006:
30-61); D. Matza, Becoming Deviant (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
1969).
73. Roberts, Biographical Research, pp. 115-33.
74. D. Gadd and T. Jefferson, Psychosocial Criminology (London: Sage, 2007).
75. See also Gunter, Growing up Bad?
76. Pryce, E11dlessPressure.
77. Roberts, Micro Social Theory.
 Index

abusiveletters, 128-35 and law-and-ordercampaign,270,

see also letters to the editor 273-4
acquittalrates, 15-16 social authority,188-9,212-13
Adams,R., 419 Avison,N. H., 15-17,403-4, 407
Addison,P.,227,417
Adorno,T., 133,4IO Bailey,R., 413,421
affluentconsensus,227-31 Balibar,E., 429
Akass, J., 93-4, I 16 Banks,J., 429
Alderson,J. C., 328-9, 422 Barber,A., 274
Alex, N., 22-4, 404 Barker,B., 417
Allan, C., 374-5, 427 Barker,M., 430
Althusser,L., xiv-xv, 195,205,216, Barnett,A., 296-7, 422
250,402,405,410,412, Barrow,C., 104
415-16, 419 Barthes,R., I07, 229,4IO,417
anarchic violence,294-5 Batchelor,S., 431
Anderson,P., 149,202,411,416-17 Baxter,R., 17,404, 4IO
Angry Brigade,285-7 Becker,H., xi, 45, 61, 192,402,406,
anti-immigrationlobby,241-2, 283, 408,415
293,329,391 Beechey,V.,427
Anti-Mugging Squads,43, 44, 50 Beer,S.H., 259,419
Anti-TerroristBill, 291 Beharrell,P.,429
anti-Vietnamdemonstrations(1968), Benewick,B., 418
239-40 Benn, A., 265, 300
Apter,D.,412 Bennett,T., 430-1
Arblaster,A., 418 Bennion,F., 304
'aristocracyof labour',369-70 Benston,M., 425
Armistead,N., 408 Bentham,J., 171
Armstrong,P.,411 Berger,J., 337,424
army,counter-insurgencyrole of, Berger,P. L., 412
283-7 Berlins,M., 405
Arnison, J., 422 Beynon,H., 420
Arnold,T., 405 biography
Asiancommunity,236,241, 292-3, portrait or criminals
329, 330-1, 341,391 in local press features, 108
Atkinson,P., 402 in nationalpress features,
Aubert,V.,413 100-1
authority typical,see blackyouth: typical
crisis or, see crisis orhegemony biographyof
and hierarchy,142 Birchall,I., 422
434
BirminghamEveningMail
on deterrentsentencing,29-30
editorialon blackunemployment,
330
featureson Handsworth'mugging',
109-12
Birminghamnewspapers
Handsworth 'mugging'
featureson, 107-IS
letters to the editor on, 125-8
BirminghamPost, featureson
Handsworth'mugging', 107-9
Blackburn,R., 411,415,417,421
blackconsciousness,and resistance.
344-9, 352-3
blackcrime
locationand situationof, 323-4
Oval 4 case. 42-4
and policing,post-1976,390-2
precipitatingfactors,348-9, 351-2
significanceand historicalcontext
of increasein, 331-2
as a survivalmode.,352-4, 383
and 'wagelessness',383-6
see alsoblackyouth;crime;
Handsworth'mugging';
hustling;'mugging';race and
crime
black labour
criminalisedpart of, in relationto
blackworkingclass as a whole. Blackstone,W,, 190,415
355,359-61
doublepositioningof, 374
first generation,341-4
forcesgoverningsize and position
of wagelesssector in, 371-2
structural forcesand mechanisms
that impactand shape, 333-41,
372-3
sub-proletarianstratum,365,
367-9, 383
see alro lumpenproletariat; 'reserve blackyouth
army of labour'; working-
classes
BlackUberator,364-5, 367,369,371
BlackPantherParty
British,275-6
us,379-81, 389
black people
colonycultureof, 342-7, 383
Englishsuperiorityover, 146
first generationimmigrants,240-1
first,overt racist onslaughton, 157,
343
impactof economicrecessionon,
325
politicisationand organisationof,
244
residentialconcentrationof, 338
routinisedformsof informal
pressureon, 283
structuresof 'secondariness',333-41,
382-4, 398-9
seealso police-blackrelations
BlackPower,241-2, 244, 275-6,
350-1
blackresistanceand rebellion
and changesin consciousness,
347-50
culturalchangesand, 341-5,350-1
formationof, 244
'refusal to work',323,348-9, 351,
363,365, 383-4
self-activatingdynamicof, 363,
365,368
throughlanguage,334-5
black unemployment,330,336, 349,
391-2
policingthe unemployed,325-6
'refusal to work', 323,348-9, 351,
363,365, 383-4
see alsoblack labour; 'reservearmy
of labour'; 'wagelessness';
'worklessness'
blackworking-classes,see black
labour
ambiguousrelationto crime, 351-3
differencesbetweenfirst generation
blacksand, 341-2, 346-7
and educationsystem,333-6
 435
identityissuesand consciousnessof, Campbell,B., 428
347-9, 398-401 capitaliststate
and 'mugging',53-4, 321-2, 352, and counter-cultures,250-3
390-2 crisis ofand for,3 I0-12
stop/searchof, 390-2 formsof, 206-13, 298
typical biographyof, 354,399-401 exceptional,206, 214,223,303,
understoodas a class fraction,382 395-8
seealso blackcrime; youth growingweaknessof, 258-9
Blom-Cooper,L., 7-8, II, 39,405 interventionist,209-12
BloodySunday,see NorthernIreland Labour's contributionto foundation
crisis of, 225-6
Bogdanor,V.,417 and law, 198-200,204-5
Boland,R., 249 Marxist theory of, 193-8
Boldi,G.,426 politicalorderof, 200-4
Bologna,S., 426 see alsoGramsci,A.; law-and-order
Bonham-Carter,M., 406 society
Boston,R., 410 Carey,J. W.,408
Bourdieu,P.,398,402 Carr, G., 285-6, 421
Bowling,B., 428 Carr, R., 9, 10, 13,274
Boyson,Sir R., 308 Carson,W. G., 403
Brake,M., 413 Cashmore,E., 428,430
Brandon,H., 22, 25, 244, 404 Castle, B., 266
Braverman,H., 362, 373,420,424-5 Castles,S., 337,424, 427
Breed,W.,408 censorshipand control,280
Brien,A., 22 Centre for PolicyStudies,423
'British crisis' Chaggar,G. S., 330-1
and coercion,312-14 Chamberlain,C., 4I0-11
and consent,312-14 Chambers,I., 402
seealsocrisis of hegemony Che Guevara,377,427
Brighton,P.,428 Chesney,K., 8-9, 402
Brittain,S., 265 Chester,L., 282
BrockwellPark incident(1973),323 Chevalier,L.,171,411,413-14
Brookes,R., 394,429 Chibnall,S., 393,409, 428
Brookman,F., 430 child muggers,39
Brown,A. R., 429 Childrenand YoungPerson'sAct
Buchan,A., 421 1969,38-40
Buchan,N., 279 city,traditionalistviewof, 144-5
Bullock,P.,419 civil society
Bunyan,T., 283,406-7, 414,421,423 and the state, 194
Butt, R., 269,282 under corporatecapitalism,238-9
Clarke,J., 406-7, 409, 412-14,417,
Cabral,A., 370 429-30
Cain, M. E., 407 class struggle
Callaghan,J., xv-xvi, 233, 239-40, and criminal classes,355-7
245-6, 301 crisis of, 311-12
Cambridge,A. X., 365, 367-8, 426 in early 1970s,255-67, 300-2
436
classstruggle- continued
forms or, 371-2
and law, 277-9, 296-7
race as a key elementin, 340-1
and state, 194-6
Cleaver, E., 380-1
Clegg, H. A., 261,419
Cliff, T., 266, 420
Clutterbuck, R., 284, 422
Coard, B., 424
coercion
and 'British crisis', 312-14
and capitalist state, 200-1, 204,
396-7
regulation of Jabour and the
economy by, 277-9, 288
see also law-and-order society
Coffey, A., 402
Cohen, R., 427
Cohen, S., xi, 20-1, 157, 172,402,
404, 406-10, 412-14, 417-18
Cohn-Bendit, D., 236,418
Cohn-Bendit, G., 236,418
Coleman, R., 429-30
collective bargaining, 262-3
Collins, J., 429
'colony culture', 342-7, 383
commonsense
Gramsci on, xiii, 152-3, 164, 168-9
'journalistic common sense',88,
98-101
as root of traditionalist world view,
113-15, 124-5, 149-55, 161-3
view of 'mugging', 179-81
Condon, Sir P., 391
conjuncture/conjunctural, xiv-xviii,
1-2, 183-4, 215-16, 297-8,
356, 371-2
see also coercion; consent; crisis of
hegemony; Welfare State
Connell, I., 409
control culture, see societal control
culture; state
consciousness, see black
consciousness
consensus
authoritarian, 214, 382
and crime, 68-9
'managed consensus', 265-6,
312-13
political realisation of, 227-31
post-war construction of, 223-7
social-democratic variant of, 231-5
society as a, 58-60, 68-9
on values, 212-13
consent
and 'British crisis', 312-14
and capitalist state, 200-1, 207-8,
216-17
role in shaping, 211-12
Conservative Party
anti-immigrant lobby within, 241
conversion to indicative planning,
259-60
emergence of radical right within
the leadership, 308-9
role in construction of consensus,
225, 226-31
unity in pre-election period, 273-4
see a/so law-and-order society
conspiracy
Sayre's notion of, 305
world view, 303-7
convergence, 37-8, 188, 220-1, 229,
233, 243-4, 283
Corner, J., 429
corporatism, 232-3, 238-9
Coulson, M., 425
counter-cultures
permissiveness of, 223
politicisation of, 246-8
repression of, 280-3
at superstructural level, 250-3
court cases, press reportage of,
33-5
Cox, B., 280,421
Crawford, A., 397,429
Crawford, J., 47
crime
in 18th century, 185
common sense ideas about, 168-9
conservative vision of, 92-3
explanations of, 165-8
Marxist theory of, 356-7

crime - co11tinued
mobilisationas central political
trope, 397
neo-class.icalrevisionof, 171-2
as news,68-72, 393-4
'normal'/social, 184-91
relationshipsamong political
movements,economic
transformationand, 184-S
retributiveattitudeto. 124-S, 130
revengistattitudeto, 132-4
traditionalistattitudeto. 93, I22-8,
138,147-8,163-4, 166,168,170
transactionalviewor, 181-3
see also blackcrime; environment
and crime; hustling;
'mugging';race and
crime;socialdislocationand
crime; street crime; youth:and
crime
Crime a11dDi:rorderAct 1998,391
crime controland surveillance
effectsof increasingthe intensity
of, 182-3
of immigrants,283
as wider exerciseof socialauthority,
188-9
crime detectionrates, 51
crime statistics
as 'barometer' of social
disorganisation,171-2
'circumstantial'categoriesof,
19-20
limitationsof, 13-14
of 'mugging', 15, 17-21,32, 43,
321-2, 331-2, 390-1
over-representationof African
Caribbeans,392
post-1973,18
of robberiesand snatchings,18-19,
76, 390-1
tacticaluse by press,7, 12,88,
324-5
up until 1972-3,14-18
of 'violentmuggings',9, 76
CrimillalDamage Act 1971,282-3
Criminal Justice Act 1972,38
437
Criminal Justice and Public Order
Act 1994,Sec. 60, 391
Criminal Law RevisionCommittee's
Report,40
criminal subcultures,185-7
crisis of authority,see crisis of
hegemony
crisis of hegemony
counter-culture,247-54
crisis of authorily,211,213-14,
235-7, 253-4
deepeningof crisis, 272-6,
287-8
descenlto, 235-6
drugs issue,246
fusionof crime and racismwith,
323-33
ideologicaldimensionof, 216-17
immigrationissue,292-3
'incomes-policy'strategy,258,
260-4
'indicalivecapitalistplanning',
259-60
momentof constraint,256-7
'momentof mugging',298-9
and race, 240-2, 244, 268-9, 271
studentand youth unrest,238-40,
246-7
threal of anarchy,xvi-xvii, 243-6
understandingof, 310-14
US and Europe,236-8, 240
and violence,291-2, 293-6
see also law-and-ordersociety
Critcher,C., 412,423,430
Croom-Johnson,Sir D., 83-4, 87, 99,
133-4
see also Handsworth'mugging'
Crozier,B., 284
cultural resistance,late l960s-70s,
349-50
'culturalrevolution'
counter-culture,247-54
permissiveness,243-6
studentunrest,246-7
'culturesof resistance',and black
youth,334,398-401
Curli, L., 409
438
Dagenhamwomen'sstrike (1968), see
Ford:sewingmachinists'strike
Daily Express
featureby montageeffect, 105
Handsworth'mugging', 116
editorial on sentences,923
featureson, 100-2
DailyMail
crime as news,69
featureby montageeffect, I05-6
Handsworth 'mugging', 116
editorialon sentences,92-3
featureson, 99, 100-3
Daily Mirror
1972Hills case report,7, 73-4
'bizarre' muggingreports,75
campaigningrole of, 77
Handsworth'mugging', 116
lack of editorial on, 91
newspresentationof, 89
on sentencesawarded,93-4
'A JudgeCracksDown on Muggers
in City of Pear', 77
'mugging' reports, 73
study on reportingof violencein,
69-70
transformationof officialviewpoints
into publicidiom,64
Daily Telegraph
1972Hills case report, 10
editorial on violent crimes, 53
featureby montageeffect, 106
Handsworth'mugging', 117
editorialon sentences,92
featureson, 101-2
newspresentationof, 88
racial referencein reportsabout
'mugging',322
Dalla Costa, M., 362, 426
Darvall,F. 0., 413
Davis,T.,41
Debray,R., 377,427
Deedes Report,47, 407,413
Delamont,S., 402
De-La-Noy,M., 407
'determinationin the last instance',
195,201
INDEX
deterrence, 16-17,29-30
Dhondy,F., 423,426
digitalcommunications,and media
practices,394-5
displacementeffect, 315-16
divisionof labour,333-4, 338-9,
386-7
dockers' strike (1972),288
domesticlabourdebate,361-4
DonovanCommissionReport,
265-6
Dorfman,G. A., 259-60, 419-20
Douglas,J. D., 408
Duff, E.,4l0
Duignan,J., 83-4
see alsoHandsworth'mugging'
Dummett,A., 150, 154,411-12
Dunnell,K., 430
Dutschke,R., 279-80
Eden, A., 227
editorials
on Handsworth'mugging',90-5,
112-13
and public opinion,65-6, 77-8
see also news;press coverage
educationsystem,'skilling'different
sectorsselectively,333-6
Edwards,A., 294
Elgrod, S. J., 16,404
Elliott, P., 409, 418
empiricism,149-51
Engels, F., 194,202,366, 369-70, 412,
415-16, 425-6
see alsoMarx, K. and Engels,F.
England
hostilityto outsiders,158-9
ideas of, 145
imperialimageof, 145-6
social changesduring post•war
years, 156-7,227-31
Englishtraditionalism
and cross•classalliances, 138,
153-5
Marx on empiricismof, 149-50
and 'personalexperience' 150-1
and working•classculture, 151-3
 INDEX 439
environmentand crime sewingmachinists'strike (1968),
in local press 249
features, 108-9, 110-12, 115, Ford, D., 405
118-19 Foucault,M., 398
letters to the editor, 126-7 Fowler,N., 404
in nationalpress features, 100-4 Fowler,R., 428
Enzensberger,H. M., 251 Foy,D.,428
Erikson, K. T., 69, 405, 409 Fraser,J.,43
ethnography,xi-xii, 399-401 Freeman,C., 425
exceptionalstate, 206, 214,223, 303, Fromm,E.,410
395-8 Fuat, M., 83-4, 87, 100
and normalisation,39S-7 see also Handsworlh'mugging'
explanationsof crime, 163-5, 168-9 Fuller,M.,430
classical, 169-70 Fulton,H., 429
conservative,166-8
liberal, 167 Gadd, D., 431
and liberalreformism,174 Galtung,J., 74, 408-9
neo-classicalrevision, 171-2 Gambino,A., 424, 426
'science of crime', 172 Gamble,A., 417
three levels, 165-6 Garden Houseriot (1970),270,274-5
Gardiner,J., 425
Fairlie.,H., 25, 28, 244 garrotting,8-9
family Geertz, C., 412
breakdownof mother'srole as key Gelsthorpe,L. R., 428
integrativemechanism,I 13-14 Gendzier,I. L., 427
traditionalistviewof, 143-4 Ge,aghty,J., 430
Fanon,F., 377-8, 427 Geras, N., 415
see also 'the wretchedof the earth' Gerrard,Judge.,35
Fanonism,378-9 ghettoes
Farrall, S., 428 and crime,23-4, 101-2,118-19,324
featurearticles politicisationof, 380-1
explanationsof crime in, 165-6 reconstructionas internalcolonies,
on Handsworth'mugging' 379
in local press, 107-15 see also housing
in nationalpress,97-107, 118-19 Gibson,E., 403-4
in The Sun, 96-7 Gilbert,J., 396
see also news;press coverage Giller,H., 40, 405
Feiffer,G., 27-8 Gillman,P.,347-8, 424-5
Fenwick,M., 428 Gilroy,P., xiv,402
Ferguson,M., 428 GlasgowMediaGroup,394
FitzGerald,M., 392, 428 Glass,R., 412
Folk Devils,20, 157-61,180,299, 316, Glazer,N., 22
392, 399---400 Glyn,A.,419
Foot, P.,236,244, 417-18 Goldmann,L., 67,409
E'crd Gough, I., 419
Halewoodplant strike (1968),243, Gouldner,A., 138-9,356-7, 425
266-7 Graham, H., 413
440
Graham,S., 429
Gramsci,A., 140,175,190,402,
411-13,415-17,419-20,423
on capitalislstate, 195,198,200-3,
206
on commonsense.xiii, 1S2-3,164,
168-9
and conjuncture/conjunctural,
xiv-xv,356
on hegemony,201,215,223-4
crisis of, 213-14,235
momentof constraint,257
Greenwood,V.,416
Greig, I., 284
Gresham,P. J., 428
Griffith, J., 191,304,415,422
Griffiths,P.,51
Guardian,The
'bizarre' muggingreports,75
featureby microcosmeffect, 106-7
Handsworth'mugging'
coverageof, 117
featureson, 99, 103-4
lack of editorialon, 91
'mugging' reports, 73
on need for heavysentences,87-8
Gunter,A., 399,430-1
Gunter, R., 266
Gupta, A., 430
Gurr, T.,413
Gutsmore,C., 36S,367-8, 426
Hailsham,Lord,see Hogg,Q.
Hain, P.,270,276, 304-5
Hale,C., 392, 428
Halewoodplantstrike (1968),see
Ford: Halewoodplant strike
Haley,A., 414,424
Halloran,J. D., 62,409,418
Hall, S., 74, 220, 402, 405, 407-9,
411-12,414-18,424,429-31
Hallsworth,S., 402, 430-1
Handsworth
and crime, 101-4
sketchon, xiv,268
Handsworth'mugging',2, 9-10
abusiveletters on, 128-35
editorialson, 90-5
the event,83-4
featureson
in Birminghampress, 107-15
in the nationalpress on, 97-107
ideologicalconstructsof, 85
letters to the editor on, 122-5
primary newstreatmentof, 85-90
sentencesawarded, 12,83-4
The Sun report of, 95-7
see also 'mugging'
Hansford-Johnson,P.,235,417
Harris, N., 412,417
Harrison,J., 425
Hay,D., 189,414-15
Hayday,Sir F., 278-9
headlines,see primary news
Heath,B., 59, 244-5, 257,264, 267,
269,270, 273-4, 300, 309
see also ConservativeParty
Hebdige,D.,402, 424
hegemony,201-2, 215
modesof, 206-11
post-war,223-31
see also crisis of hegemony
Heidensohn,F., 409,414
Held,D.,430
Hills, A.,see WaterlooBridgekilling
Hillyard,P.,429
Himmelweit,S., 425
Hinchcliffe,Sir R., 38
Hines,Judge,35, 77
Hiro,D., 244, 293,347-8, 407,418,
422,424
Hirst, P.Q., 357,365,425-6
Hobson,D.,429
Hobsbawm,E. J., 156,184-5,207,
355-6, 369,380,413-14,
416-17,425-7
Hoggart,R., 151-2,411
Hogg,Q. (Lord Hailsham),245-6,
269--70,280-1, 304,420
Holloway,K., 431
HomeOffice,71, 428
HomeSecretary,12, 14,45
Home,Sir A. D.,245
Hood,S., 421
 441
Horowitz,I. L., 220,409, 414,416 Joseph,Sir K., 307-9
housing judiciary
in Handsworth,102-3 attitudein the periodleadingup to
structuralpositionof blacksin, 338 'mugging' moral panic, 36-8
see also ghettoes commondefinitionof 'mugging',
Howard,P.,235 35-6
Howe,D., 342, 345,366-8 criticismof, 305-6
Howell,P.,425 and explanationsof crime, 165
Humphry,D.. 46, 179,268, 275, indicesof soft policy of, 15-16
324-5, 407,413,420 Morris' attack on wholeblackurban
Hunt,A., 204-S, 416 population,327
Husband,C., 423 reactionagainstsoft legislation,
hustling,345-7, 351-2, 366 38-40
Huysmans,J., 429 reactionlo 'muggings',II
Hyman,R., 419-20 reciprocalreJationsbetweenmedia
and, 77-80
ideologiesof crime
Englishtraditionalistviewof, 138-9 Karama decision(1973),304-S
roots of, 149-5S Karmel,A., 41, 53
and publicopinion, 13S-7 Kasperson,R. E., 429
see also explanationsof crime Katz, J., 400, 430
ImmigrationAct 1971,283,292 Kay,G.,417
immigrationcontrol,292-3, 329,337 Keenan,R., 83-4, 9S-6, 99-100
IndustrialRelationsAct 1971,278-9, see also Handsworth'mugging'
287-8, 296-7 Kershaw,C., 428
In Place of Strife, 266 Key,T., 430
InternationalTimes,280 Kitson,F., 283-4, 290, 421
Irish RepublicanArmy (I.R.A.),254-5 Kitzinger,J., 429
Knight,J., 30
Jackson,B., 411 Kopkind,A., 404
Jackson,G., 350,380,414 Kosack,G., 424, 427
Jackson,Sir R., 235
James,S., 362-3, 426 labour,see blacklabour;migrant
James,Sir A., 84, 165 labour;'reserve army of
Jarvis, B., 330 labour'; working-classes
Jefferson,T., 402,407,412,417,424, Labour Party
428, 430-1 ambiguityregardingcrime, 174
Jenkins, P.,420 long-termvoluntaryincomespolicy,
Jenkins,R., 37, 235-6, 246, 292-3, 330 260-5
Jessop,B., 429 and NorthernIrelandcrisis, 255
Jessop,R., 411 and 'Red Scare', 306-7
Jewkes,Y.,429 role in constructionof consensus,
John, G., 268,420 224-6
Johnson,P.,302, 422 slide into corporatism,232-3
Johnson,R. B., 411,416 'tough on crime', 391
Jones,J., 429 versionof managedconsensus,
Joseph,I., 431 266-7
442 INDEX
Lacey,N., 430
Lambert,J., 45-7, 52, 275,406-8, 420
Lane,T., 261-2, 420
Lang,G., 61,409
Lang, K., 61,409
language,resistancethrough,334-5
larceny,legaldistinctionbetween
robberyand, 9
Laurie,P.,407
law
as binary oppositionof violence,
2%-7
and capitaliststate, 198-200,
204-5
classicalconceptionof, 169-70
class nature of, and its exercise,
187-91
counter-cultureengagementwith,
248-9
Englishtraditionalistviewof,
146-8
introductioninto economicand
industrialrelationssphere,
277-9, 296-7
mobilisationof, 282-3
modernideas of, 171-2
and moral order,280-2
on obscenepublications,280
recourseto, 245-6, 273
regulationof labour,277-9
thresholdof, 222, 245
law-and-ordersociety
authority,nationalunity and, 270,
273-4
birth of, 219,256, 268-9, 272-3,
314-15
escalationof issues,270-1, 273
impactof, 269-70
and moralpanics, 315-17
and populardemonstrations,274-6
see alsocrisis of hegemony
Lawrence,S., 391
Lawton,Sir F., 37-8
Lefebvre,G., 414
Lejeune,R., 22-4, 404
Lemert,E. M., 192,415
Lenin, V. I., 151,369,415,426-7
leuers to the editor, 120-1
and argumentationstructure,394
in nationalpress on Handsworth
'mugging', 122-5
see alsoabusiveletters
Levi•Strauss,C., 164,412
Lewis,J., 429
Lewis,P., 429
Lewis,R., 412
Lew,J. D. M., 16,404
liberalreformism,173-4
Liebowitz,M., 220,409,414,416
Linebaugh,P., 190,414-15
Lloyd,S., 232, 259-60
Lofland,J., 402
Lofland,L., 402
London
19thcentury street crimes in, 8-9
statisticalincreasein 'muggings',
12-13, 17-18,390-2
LondonEveningNews,324
LondonSchoolof Economics,'affair
of the gates', 247
LondonStreetCommune,248-9, 418
Longford,Lord, seePakenham,F.
Lowe,A., 429
Luckmann,T., 412
Lukes,S., 405, 409
lumpenproletariat
a catch•alllabel for 'underclass',
376
criminal and deviantsas, 356-7
Fanon'sviewson, 377-8
Marx's viewson role and nature of,
357-60, 366, 368-9
Obregon'sviewson, 375-6
'reserve army of labour'
distinguishedfrom,373
'wageless'distinguishedfrom, 363
see alsosub.proletariat;
'underclass';working•classes
Lynch,C., 47
Lyon,A., 329
Mac•,seealso Mc--
MacDougall,C., 56, 408
Mackintosh,M., 425

Macmillan, H., 213,227,229,231
see also Conservative Party
Macpherson Inquiry, 394
Macpherson, Sir W., 428
Mages, B., 425
Maguire, M., 428
Mailer, N., 237,418
Maine, H., 170,413
Mairowitz, D. Z., 418-19
Malcolm X, 346,350, 380-1, 414,424
managed dissensus, 235-6, 313
Mandel, E., 416,419
Marcuse, H., 96-7, 237,253,410,419
Mark, Sir R., 12-13, 15-16, 40, 45,
305-6, 33I, 404, 407
Marsden, D., 410
Marshall, P., 325
Martin, D., 409
Martin, G., 431
Marxism, 193,264, 300-1, 361
Marx, K., 402, 411-3, 415-20, 424-7
analysis of 'reserve army of labour',
360, 372-3
Capitalvol. I, 196-7, 362, 372-3,
415, 426-7
Capitalvol. II, 360-1
Capitalvol. III, 358-60, 364, 425
The EighteenthBrumaireof Louis
B011aparte,197-8, 258, 358,
388
on empiricism of English thought,
149-50
Gru11drisse, xiv, 194,402,413,415
on Ireland, 254
on lumpe11proletariat, 357-60, 366,
368-9
notion of appearance, 195
notion of social capital, 364-5
The Povertyof Philosophy,351,
411,416, 424-5
on 'spheres of reproduction', 358-9
Marx, K. and Engels, F., 146, 193,
208,412, 415-16, 418-20
The GermanIdeology,194
Maskovsky, J., 430
Mather, F., 413
Matthews, J., 429
443
Matza, D., 431
Maude, A., 29, 276-7, 280-1, 309,
316,412,422
Maudling, R., 14,277
Maurer, D. W., 404
Mayhew, H., 358,414,425
McCabe, S., 16, 404
Mccann, E., 422
McClintock, F. H., 15-17,403-4, 407
McDonald, L., 15, 403-4
McGahey, M., 300-1
McGlashan, C., 44, 403, 406
McGrew, T.,430
McIntosh, M., 405, 413-14
McLaughlin, E., 428
McQuail, D., 408
McRobbie, A., 395, 402, 429
media
agenda setting function of, 64-5
campaigning role of, 65-6, 77
explanations of crime in, 165-6
ideological reproduction role of,
60-3
implications of digital
communications for, 394-5
on IndustrialRelationsAct, 296-7
and moral panics, 218-19, 392-5
and public idiom, 63-5, 394
publicity for moral protests, 281
and public voice, 65-6, 77-8, 394
reciprocal relations between
primary definers and, 77-80
reduction of dissent/protest to
violence, 239-40
role in shaping public opinion,
66-8, 394
state's role in shaping public
opinion through, 217-18
see also news; newspapers; press
coverage
Mellish, R., 330
Melossi, D., 416
Mepham, J., 415
Metropolitan Police Commissioner's
A11nualReport
for 1964, 9
for 1972, 18-20
444 INDEX
Metropolitan- continued
distinctionbetweenrobberiesand
snatchings,76
for 1975,18-20
MetropolitanPoliceDistrictStatistical
Unit,404
Michael,D.,427
middleclass
erosionof 'Protestantethic', 251
and morality,161-3
see also working-classes
migrantlabour
and capital,342
and needs of Britishcapital,336-8
source of 'reserve army of labour',
373-4, 384-S
1eealso blacklabour
Miliband,R., 411,417,427
Miller,D., 429
miners' strike (1972), 289-90, 300-1
MisuseofDrugsAct 1971,282-3
Mitchell,J., 250,419
'monopoly'capitalism,transitionfrom
lais1ez.-faireto, 208-9
Montgomery,M., 428
Moore,R., 407,422
Moorhouse,H. F.,410-12
morality
calculusof work, 140-1
featurearticleson, 113-15
and law-and-ordersociety,280-2
letters to the editor on, 127-8
and 'petty-bourgeois'social groups,
161-3
moralpanic
about 'mugging',20-1, 179-80,394
judiciary's influenceon public
perceptionof, 3S
momentof, 298-9, 316-17
role of 'mugging' label in
developmentof, 30
role of police in, 40-5, 54
changingshape of, 216-19
Cohen'sdefinitionof, 20
and definers,393
and law-and-ordersociety,316-17
post-warsourceof, 231
role of media in reporting,393
social anxiety transformationinto,
31S-16
Morgan,R., 428
Morley,D.,429
MorningStar
Handsworth'mugging', 117
editorialoppositionto sentences,
91-2
featureson, 99, 105
Morris, A., 40, 405
Morris, G., 327,331
Morris,T., 99, 105-6
Morton,P.,425
Moss,R., 222,416
Muggeridge,M., 281,421
'mugging',388-9
and blackcrime, 53-4, 321-2, 324,
328-9, 331-2, 352,390
definitionsof
American,7, 8, 393
catch-alllabel for mindless
hooliganism,322
commonjudicial definition,3S
commonsense view, 179-80
counter-definition,35-6
HomeSecretary's, 12
as a publicissue,77-80
early cases of, 41-3, 180-1
historicaland structuralview of,
183-4
historicalparallelsbetweenearly
crimes and, 8-10
and novelty,7-IO
and offendermotivations,400
panic of 1972-3,see moralpanic:
about 'mugging'
police crime-controlperspectiveof,
324-S
problemof isolatinga statistical
base on, IS, 17-18,32, 321-2,
331-2
and social anxiety, 160-1
as a social phenomenon,1-2, 321,
381-2
social-problemperspective,324,
326-7
 INDEX 445

as a solution,354,399 newspapers
statisticson, 15, 17-21,32, 43, organisationalframeworkand mode
321-2, 331-2, 390-2 or addressor, 63-4
street crime, 8-9, 181,324-5, 400 see also Birminghamnewspapers;
'mugging' label,3, 9-10 press coverage;individual
Britishappropriationof, 26-31 newspapers,e.g. DailyMirror
local press featurestreatmentof, Newton,H. P.,427
109-10 Nichols,T., 411
referentialcontextof, 23-6 Nicolaus,M., 415
Mullard,C., 407 Nisbet,R., 413
Murdock,G., 59-60, 408-9, 418 non-stateagencies,397
Myrdal,G., 404 Nordenstreng,K., 408
NorthernIrelandcrisis
Nairn, T., 411,417-19 BloodySunday,290-1, 294-5
NationalCommissionon the Causes evolutionof, 254-6
and Preventionof Violence, mobilisationof law,282
404,413 NottingHill People'sAssociation
NationalCouncil for Civil Liberties, HousingGroup,424
87,407 Notting-Hillrace riots (1958),157,343
NationalFront,327-8, 330,333,390 Nowell-Smith,G., 153,411
NationalOpinionPolls (1971)on race Nuttall, C., 17,404, 410
relations,47-8
NationalViewersand Listeners Obregon,A. Q., 375-6, 427
Association,281-2 ObscenePublicationsSquad,280, 282
Nettleford,R., 424 OperationEagle Eye,391
Newburn,T., 428 Orwell,G., 145,411
Newman,J., 430 Oval 4 case,42-4
neworganicintellectuals,250, 252 see also blackcrime
news Owen,R.,426
crime as, 68-72, 393-4 Oz,280,304
framing and interpretationof,
59-60 Paine,J., 405
identificationand contextualisation Paisley,I., 254
of,56-8, 63 Pakenham,F. (Lord Longford),281-2,
primary and secondarydefinersof, 421
60-3, 67,77-80 Palmer,T.,421
value(s),56-7 Panitch,L., 232,417
of age of offender/lengthof Parkin,F., 62, 153-4, 409,411-12
sentence,85-90 Parma, A., 428
of 'bizarre' and 'violence',74-5 Partridge,E., 404
cardinal, 56-7 Pawling,C., 410
ofcrime, 70-1 Pearson,G., 172,411,413
and news selection,56-7 Pearson,K., 410
of 'novelty',74 peasantry,355,377-8
see also editorials;featurearticles; see also 'underclass'
letters to the editor; media; Peck,J., 429
press coverage;primary news permissivelegislation,38-40
446 INDEX
permissiveness
and 'affluence',155-6
as civilisation,246
Marcuse'snotionof, 253
moral indignationagainst,23S-6
'revoltagainstpermissiveness',280
role in shapingjudicial attitude,
36-7
threshold,221-3
personalexperiences
in abusiveletters, 130-1
in letters to the editor, 127-8
in publicdiscourse, 150-1
petty crime, 352-4
see alsoblackcrime; crime
Phillips,C., 428
Phillips,D.,418
Phillips,G. G., 407
Phillips,M., 423
pickpocketing,76, 40, 42, 44, 181,352
Pidgeon,N., 429
Pinto-Duschinsky,M., 417
Playfair,G., 144,411
Polanyi,K., 206,416
police
as amplifiersof 'mugging',40-S
attitudetowardsalternativesociety,
286
'crackdown'on 'muggings',11-13
internal reorganisationin 1960s,
48-50
'losing the war againstcrime', 235
and policing
pre-emptive,43-4
as primary definers,71
problemsin publicordersphere,
305-6
public statementsabout crime 'war',
52-3
race, crime and, post-1976,390-2
sensitisationto 'mugging',46
socialcontextsof, 50-2
police-blackrelations,46-8, 52,
179,182-3,275-6, 283,323,
325-6, 331
Policeand CriminalEvidenceAct
1984,390
police-immigrantrelations,47,
51-2, 293
politicalconsensus,58, 228-9
politicaldeviance,220-1
politicalkidnappingsand hijackings,
291-2
politicalviolence,239-40, 244, 276,
283-5, 291-6
popularprotests/dissent
anti-Vietnamdemonstrationsof
1968,239-40
and law-and-ordercampaign,274-6
and maintenanceof publicorder,
184-5
and police problemswith public
order,305-6
see also studentmovementsand
demonstrations
Poulantzas,N., 151,195,203,216,
411-12,415-16,423
poverty
and crime, 103-4, 106,186-7
and respectability,140
and WelfareState, 229
'wretchedof the earth',370-1,374-81
Powell,E., xvi-xvii,240-2, 244,268,
270-1, 292,321,328--9,331,418
Powerof WomenCollective,363-4,
426
pre-emptivepolicing,43-4
Prescott,J., 286
press coverage
culminationof reportingof
American'mugging',27-8
of garrottingcases, 8
ofHandsworth 'mugging',84-5,
115-19
interfusionof anti-raceand anti-
welfarethemes,329
of 'mugging' as an Americancrime,
24-6
of 'mugging' eventsand court cases
about 'mugging' events, 11-12,
33-5, 72-7, 394
see also editorials;featurearticles;
lettersto the editor; news;
primary news

Preventio11 of TerrorismAct 1989,390
Priestley,B., 111-12, 119
primary definers
and differenceswithin elites, 393
reciprocalrelationsbetweenmedia
and, 77-80
role
in crime newsproduction,71-2
in news production,60-3, 67
in shapingpublic opinionthrough
media,217-18
primary news
about Handsworth'mugging',
85-90
in The Sun, 95-6
see also news;press coverage
propertyand law, 170-1, 188-90, 205
CriminalDamageAct, 282-3
equalityof protection,147-8
Theft Act, 9
provincialnewspapers,see
Birminghamnewspapers
Pryce, K., xii, 399-400, 402, 430-1
publicopinion
and ideologiesof crime, 135-7
media'srole in shaping,65-8, 77-8,
394
state's role in shaping,211-12
throughmedia, 217-18
see also abusiveletters; letters to
the editor
publicreaction
to garrotting,8-9
to 'mugging',chronological
synopsisof, 11-13
Pulle, S.,407
Purdie,I., 286
Purves,R., 16, 404
Quattrocchi,A., 419
Quinault,R., 413
race
and crisis of hegemony,240-2,
268-9, 271
as a key elementin class struggle,
340-1
447
and 'mugging',324, 327-9, 331-2
as a structural featurein divisionof
labour, 338-9, 379-80, 386-7
race and crime
in abusiveletters, 132-4
fusion with crisis of hegemony,
323-33
in nationalpress features, 101-2
race riots of 1958,see Notting-Hill
race riots
Race Today,363,365,367,371,388
racist attacks, 390
Radzinowicz,L., 16,404, 413-14
Ranciere,J., 415
Ras Tafari,349-50
Rawlinson,Sir P.,276
recidivism,16-17
'Red Scare', 300-1, 306-7
RegionalCrime Squads,49-50
Reich,W., 133, 144,4I0-11
Reiner,R., 428
relativeautonomy,194-5, 202, 214,
386
Relf,R., 330
repression,305
of blacks,275-6
and conspiracy,303, 304-5
and immigration,283
and law-and-ordercampaign,257,
273, 277-80, 298
and moralorder,280-2
'normalisedrepression',184
NorthernIreland,254
and police,305-6
of studentmovements,274-5
'reserve army of labour'
black labour,365, 367-8, 384-5
Marx's analysisof, 371-3, 385
principalsourcesof, 49, 373-4,
384-5
women,362, 373
see also lumpenproletariat;sub-
proletariat;'underclass'
resistance
through language,334-5
working-classes,186-7, 255-7,
287-90. 300-2
448

resistance- conti11ued Saunders,E., 96, IOI, 108, 129-31

containmentstrategies,264-6 see also Storey,P.
shift in, 262-3 Saville,J., 411,417,427
see alsoblackresistanceand Sayre,F., 305
rebellion;Ford; underground Scambler,A., 429
press Scambler,G., 429
respectability Scargill,A., 306
and crime, 147 Scarman,L., 390, 428
and working-class,139-40, 156, Schlesinger,P., 393,428
342, 344-5, 369 Schram,S., 376,427
respectable/rough,140,173-4 ScotlandYard,49-50, 324-5
Rex, J., 407,409 Seabrook,J., 158, 160-1,412
Rhodesianstudents' case.43-4 Seale, B., 248,350, 380-1, 419,427
Richardson,J. E., 428 Seccombe,W.,361-2, 365,425-6
Ridgewell,D., 41-3, 46 Sedley,S., 275
riots, 390-1 SelectCommitteeof the Houseof
The Riots, Communitiesand Victims Commonson Race Relations
Panel,430 and Immigration,1972,392,
Road TrafficAct 1998,391 406
robbery sentencesand sentencingpolicy
legaldistinctionbetweenlarceny Borstalsentencesfor child
and,9 muggers,39
statisticson, IS, 19-20,76, 391 deterrence, 16-17
see also 'mugging' Garden Houseriot case, 274-5
Roberts,B., 407,430-1 for Handsworthmuggers,83-4,
Roberts,K., 261-2, 420 90-5, 99-IOO,108,122-4,
Roberts,M., 428 126
Robertson,G., 305,422-3 as news value,86-90
Rock, P., 60,405, 408-9, 413-14, 417 statisticson, 15-16
"rolled"crime, 9-10 sexualdivi&ionof labour.as
Rolph,C. H., 305 structure withinsocialdivision
Rose,N., 430 of labour,361-4
Rose,T.,421 Sharma,A., 430
Roshier, B., 77,410 Shawcase (1964), 10
Rask.ill,E., 37 Shuttleworth,A., 69-70, 409
Ross,M., 25-6, 244 &ignification spirals
Ross,S., 403 escalatingmechanismsof, 220-3
Rowbotham, S., 425 notionof, 219-20
RoyalCommissionon the Police, Simeon,C., 96, 124-5,410
51,407 Sim, J., 429-30
Ruben,M., 430 Simon,J., 430
Rud~,G., 413,426 Sivanandan,A., 337,424
Ruge,A.,416 Skidelsky,R., 417
Ruge,M., 74, 408-9 Slovic,P.,429
Smith,A. C. H., 407-9
Salter,L., 429 Smith,T., 418
Samuel,R., 414 Smythe,T., 282

snatchings,182
distinctionbetweenrobberiesand, 76 Stevenson,M., 274-5, 286
statisticson, 76
see also 'mugging';robbery
social anxiety, 156-63,314-16
about immigrants,240-1
social authorily,188-9,312-13
social bandits/banditry,355,380
see also crime: 'normal'/social
socialchange,during post-waryears,
156-7,227-31
'social contract',233, 260, 300-2, 306 StreetCrime Initiative,391
socialcontrol
apparatusesof, xii-xiii, 32-3, 54-5
inter-relationshipsamong,77-80
reactionto 'mugging',298-9
exerciseof, 187-8
see also crime controland
surveillance;judiciary; media; 'subordinatevalue systems', 1S3-5
police and policing;state
social crime, 184-91
social democraticconsensus,231-5
social discipline,141-3,307-8
social dislocationand crime, 113-15,
119
'social outcasts',374-5
social reproduction,199,250-1
societalcontrolculture, 192-3
see also social control:apparatuses
of;state
SpaghettiHouseaffair (1975),183
Sparks,R. F., 16,404
SpecialPatrol Groups(S.P.G.),49-50
SpecialSquads, 12
Stansill,P.,418-19
Starr, R., 28
state
exceptional,206, 214,223, 303,
395-8
law-and-order,303
and societalcontrolculture. 193
see also capitaliststate
Steadman-Sones, G., 156, 186,412-14
Stead,P.1.,422
Steel,D., 268-9
Stellman,M., 406-7
Stenson,K., 430
449
Stevenson,1.,413
Stockdale,!. E., 392,428
stop and search,see blackyouth:stop
and search of
Stop the SeventiesTour {S.T.s.n, 247
Storey,P., 83-4, 87, l00-2, l04,
111-12,165
motherof, see Saunders,E.
see also Handsworth'mugging'
street crime, see 'mugging'
structuresof 'secondariness',333-41,
382-4, 398-9
sLudentmovementsand
demonstrations,239-40,
246-7, 270
see alro popularprotests/dissenl
sub-proletariat,365, 367-9, 383
Sumner,C., 402
Sun, The
Handsworth'mugging',93-4, I 16
lack of editorialon, 91
newsangle of, 9S-7
and public voice,77-8
Sunday Express
on 1968GrosvenorSquarestudent
demonstrations,239
about BloodySunday,294-5
on industrialunrest,274
on law-and-ordercampaign,269
'mugging' as an Americancrime,
25-6
recourseto law,245
Su11day Merr:ul'y,featureson
Handsworth'mugging',112-15,
119
Su11dayTelegraph,'War on Muggers',
44
Su11dayTimes
on industrialunrest,274
'mugging' as an Americancrime,
25
'New York:a Lessonfor the World',
27-8
recourseto the law,245-6
450 INDEX
SundayTimes- continued
on Robert Relrs racism,330
'A Soft Sell on Law and Order', 269
on violencein the year 1972,
295-6
super-exploitation,365,367,369-70,
379
'sus' laws,390
Sutcliffe,B., 419,426
'symboliclocations',390
Tax,S., 375,427
Taylor,B., 364
ToddyBoys,50, 119,157,231,316,343
terrorism,49, 222, 247,280, 284, 287, Villiers,C., 265
291-2, 390
TerroriimAct 2000, Sec. 44, 390
Thatcherism,xvii, 390,396
Thatcher,M., xvii, 308,390,396
Thomas, W. I., 14, 403
Thompson,E. P., 184-90,205, 410-11,
413-16,419
Thompson,Sir R., 284
Thompson,W. F. K., 284
Thornton,S. L., 395,429
thresholds, employed in signification
spirals,221-3
Tilly,F.,413
Times,The,52-3
Handsworth'mugging', 117
editorial on sentences,92
lack of featureson, l05
on need for heavysentences,87-8
reviewof the year 1972,287-8
Titmuss,R., 231,417
Tobias,1.J., 403
Tombs,S., 429-30
Trade UnionCongress(T.U.C.),
260-1, 267,277-JJ
TransportPoliceSpecialSquad,see
Anti-MuggingSquads
Tronti,M., 426
Troyna,B., 430
Tullett,T., 407
Turner,J. W. C., 403
'fyndall,J., 327
UgandanAsian immigrants,292-3
'underclass',370-1, 374-81
see also lumpenproletariat; migrant
labour; 'reservearmy of
labour'; sub-proletariat
undergroundpress, 247-8, 280
unemployment,see black
unemployment
unproductivelabour,251,342,357,
360-2, 365,370-1, 385
Urry,J., 68, 409
victim(s)of crimes,99-100, 295
see also Keenan,R.
violence
1972,287
and abusiveletters, 128,130-4
crimes of, 7-10, 16, 19-20, 37
call for end of leniencytowards,
52-3, 305-6
newsvalueof, 64, 70-1, 74-5
rise in, 13-15, 17-18,21, 27
formsof, and law, 147
mob,294-5
and studentmovements,239
thresholdof, 222-3, 245,276,
293-4
see also 'mugging';political
violence
Volosinov,V. N., 412
Wacquant,L., 398,402, 430
Wade,E. C. S., 407
'wagelessness',363-4, 366-n, 383-6
seealso black labour;black
unemployment
wages
labourmilitancy,259-63, 274
miners' strike, 289-90, 300-1
publicsector demands,267
'wage drift', 263-5
wage-form,196-7
Wahl-Jorgensen,K.,429
Wainwright,H., 425
Wakeford,J., 409
 INOBX 451
Waldron, Sir J., 52 and capitalist state, 225-6
Walker, N., 403 coercive regulation of, 277-9
Wallis,R.,421 and common sense, 151-3
Wallon, P.,411, 413-14, 425 and English traditionalism, 140,
Wansell, G., 405 142-8
Waterhouse, K., 93-4, 116 resistance, 186-7, 255-67, 274
Waterloo Bridge killing, 7, 10, 73-4 and social anxiety, 156-8
Webb,B.,430 state's hegemony over, 209
Webster, M., 327 and 'subordinate value systems',
Welch, M., 428 153-5
Welfare State, xv, 209-12, 225-6, 229 and welfare reformism, 173-4
Westergaard, I., 68, 409-11 seealso black labour;
West lndians,see black people lumpenproletariat; migrant
Whitehouse, M., 243, 246, 248, 281-2, labour; 'reserve army of
308,418,421 labour';
Whyte,D.,429---30 sub-proletariat;
Widgery,/., 84, 165 'underclass';wages
Wiles, P., 403 'worklessness', 348-9, 351,365
Williams, K., 429 Wo,sley, P., 370,377-9, 389,427
Williams, R., 410 'wretched of the earth', 370-1,
Willis,A.,37 374-81
Willis, P., 334, 402, 424, 429 Wright, R., 430
Wilkins, L., 405, 416 Wright, S., 47, 102
Wilson, H., xv, 232-5, 242, 260,
266-7, 419 Yaffe, D.,419
see also Labour Parly Yapp,S,, 104
Wirth, L., 408 Young, H., 272
Woodcock, G., 261 Young, J., xi, 44, 50, 52,402, 405-8,
Woods, C., 88 410-11,413,416-18,425,
Wootton Report (1968), 246 431
wo,k youlh
attitude of black youth towards, 323, biographical experience of, 400-1
348-9, 351,363, 365,383-4 and crime, 50-1, 110
traditionalist idea of, 140-1 vs. length of sentences as news
working-classes value, 86-90
'aristocracy of labour', 369-70 as source of moral panic, 231
black sub-proletarian stratum of, seealso black youth; studenL
365,367-9, 383 movements and demonstrations