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Crime and Punishment
from Workers Solidarity No 37,
the paper of the Irish Workers Solidarity Movement.
AROUND THIS TIME every year we are hit with a barrage
of articles and TV programmes about spiralling crime
figures. The usual rash of calls for stiffer sentences and
more cops on the beat are thrown out as the answer.
Anarchists have a convincing analysis of crime and some
ideas on how to eliminate it for good. Conor McLoughlin
looks at the issues.
The Russian anarchist Kropotkin in his examination of the subject
came up with three types of crime. Property related crime,
government related crime and crimes against the person. In Britain it
has been estimated (Anarchist Black Cross bulletin) that 94% of
crime is committed against property (though admittedly a lot of it
would be personal property). However what isn't recorded are those
crimes committed for property.
This isn't just playing with words. We live in a capitalist system. But
where did all the capital come from in the first place? Check your
history books. The capitalism of the 18th and 19th century was built
on the piracy and slavery of the 16th and 17th. Millions of pounds of
gold, silver and spices plundered from the "New World" financed the
basis of the banking and trade system. One of the first commodities to
be traded was human beings. Slavery played a vital in the early years
of capitalism. Many English titled families of today owe their
knighthoods and dukedoms to this sordid trade.
DAYLIGHT ROBBERY
The day-to-day running of the system is daylight robbery. A worker's
wages only represent a fraction of the value of his/her labour. The
rest flows into the boss's pocket. This was what Proudhon meant by
the oft quoted "property is theft". It would have been clearer
(though not as catchy!) if he had qualified this remark. All property
and wealth that enables you to exploit the labour of others is theft.
If we got paid what we were really worth the present system couldn't
function. This is the main and fundamental reason for all the cops
and courts, to defend the system which ensures we slave our lives
away so that the rich can get richer.
There is also the whole range of officially criminal fraudulent
activities. These range from 'insider trading' to criminal empires like
the Mafia. Only a tiny fraction of these ever come to light. The law
is built to serve the bosses not to expose them.
The Telecom scandal shows how #3 million can be made in a few weeks
by sitting on the boards of several companies and playing pass the
parcel. The Beef Tribunal was, until neutralised by the recent
Supreme Court decision on cabinet confidentiality, finding out how a
fortune could be made in export credit insurance by small donations to
the right political parties. If anyone of these businessmen are caught
they risk a few days in an open prison or have their sentences
suspended. Those that are nabbed are just the fall guys. The system
is riddled with fraud and rackets. It is a racket. The solution to these
crimes is simple. Shut the system down. It simply can't cure or reform
itself.
ROBIN HOODS?
On the other hand there are crimes against property. Living on the
dole or miserable wages leads some people into a range of dodges like
not paying for cable TV, working in the "black economy" or shop-lifting
to feed a family or a heroin habit. A small minority may even turn to
burglary, drug dealing and other organised anti-social crime.
This is certainly no justification for anti-social crime like burglary,
heroin-pushing and 'joy-riding'. We understand why they happen but
we do not condone or excuse them. Working class communities are
especially vulnerable to this type of crime. Old people and parents of
young children may live in constant fear because of it. Those who
make a living preying on their own class are as bad if not worse then
the capitalists. There aren't many Robin Hoods out there and
anarchists should never romanticise criminals for "getting back at
the system".
We recognise peoples' rights to defend themselves against anti-social
crime. This sort of action, if it is not to breakdown into vigilanteeism
must be community based and democratic. Effective community
policing has often occurred in revolutionary situations (where
property related crimes usually decline drastically). A glimpse at the
possibilities was seen in this country for short periods in the life of
"Free Derry" and "Free Belfast" in the late 1960s.
HEROIN PUSHERS
In the 1980s some Dublin working class localities saw involvement in
Concerned Parents Against Drugs (CPAD) which was initially
community based but later on tended to look to others, i.e. the IRA to
"sort things out". It is doubtful if any of the Provos' campaigns
against "undesirable elements" have represented community policing
as no sort of fair public trial is ever held before knees are capped. It is
extremely difficult to sustain genuine community-based action against
crime within the present system. It will always be seen as a threat to
the existing order and cracked down on by the police (CPAD is a good
example of this). No state will tolerate it's monopoly on power being
challenged by it's citizens.
We would never join calls for extra policing as any kind of solution.
But where practical suggestions to reduce the effects of crime are
brought forward within communities we would certainly support them.
For example, ramps and security gates to slow down 'joy-riders'.
However we know these can only contain the problem. The only way
to tackle it is to get at the root causes.
Again we are down to the capitalist system, and the poverty and
alienation it causes. People constantly bombarded with images of
expensive consumer goods well beyond their means won't always shrug
and say "shucks I guess that's not for me". The only solution is to
abolish poverty and give people something to live for.
DEMOCRACY?
The second type of crime on Kropotkin's list are crimes relating to
government. These are almost too many to mention. From trade wars
to shooting wars, they and their system have probably killed more
workers then any other single cause.
It's easy to point at nasty Third World dictators and their record of
political prisoners and human rights abuses. However this country
and our nearest and dearest neighbour have nothing to boast about.
The Nicky Kelly case shows that the Irish government had no problem
torturing and framing a man because of his political views. The laws
that allowed them to do this have not been changed. And let us not
forget the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Maguire family,
Tottenham Three and all the other victims.
The publishing of information on abortion is banned under the
Censorship of Publications Act, and the giving out of a telephone
number where a woman may obtain advice about legal abortion
services abroad is prohibited by High Court injunction. Republicans
aren't allowed on the air under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act.
Books and films are banned and subjected to censorship. So much for
democratic rights!
Most laws are concerned with protecting property and giving business
an easy ride, or are integral to the State's own good health. Some
make sense such as those against drunk driving, breaking a red light
or selling heroin. These would continue in some form in a future
anarchist society. For the moment, obviously, unjust laws have to be
fought - like those relating to sexuality, contraception, divorce,
abortion, etc. where no state should have a right to intervene in
people's private lives.
This leads us to the final area, that of crime against the person. Not
all of these can be dismissed by simply saying "it will disappear with
the end of capitalism". Many do arise out of property related crime
and will indeed disappear. But there are some crimes committed by
mentally unbalanced people, or ones committed for a range of personal
reasons which will continue after the revolution.
RAPE AND CHILD ABUSE
Our analysis of crime against the person is very different to that put
forward by most establishment figures, or that of many feminists.
Rape is a horrific and brutal crime, the extent of which is only now
beginning to come to light due to years of widespread under-reporting.
Even now Rape Crisis Centres estimate that up to 90% of rapes go
unreported. Most media and public attention is focussed on individual
horrific cases where the woman involved may also be kidnapped and
murdered by a madman. This gives the impression that rape is always
carried out by mad axe-murderers on dark streets. It totally detracts
from the reality of rape and sexual abuse in many womens' lives. In
fact, all available evidence points to the rapist usually being someone
known to the victim.
In Ireland 92% of victims are estimated to have known their attackers.
A 1989 Home Office survey in Britain found this for 61% of reported
rapes (of course you are less likely to report the rapist if you knew
him). Ruth Hall's American survey ("Ask any women", Bristol 1985)
put the figure at 75%. Most police advice is focussed on telling women
how to dress, when to go out and to beware of strange men. This
implies women share some blame for the problem though 'carelessness'.
It also fails to even address the reality that most rapes are carried out
by someone known to the victim.
AN ABERRATION?
Rape is not an aberration. If one considers the wide degree of under-
reporting and the increasing reports of child-abuse and rape in
marriage it becomes clear that rape is extremely common and bound up
with women's day-to-day social existence. It is very much part and
parcel of our present form of social organisation.
Another misconception that has to be laid to rest is that rape is a
crime undertaken purely out of uncontrolable lust or sexual desire.
One leading authority, Dianna Russell argues in her book "Rape
within marriage" (1982) argues that rape should be seen at one end
of a continuum with voluntary mutually desirable sex at the other. In
other words that the sex-obsessed male will not accept "no means no".
This may sometimes occur, especially in cases of "date" rape. However
in the vast majority of cases the means should not be confused with
the end. Rape is carried by means of penetrative sex but rarely has
anything to do with sexual desire. Interviewed rapists rarely report
any lust for the victim or sense of sexual satisfaction after carrying
out a rape.
DOMINATION
Rape is primarily an act of domination. Those raped are seen as people
who can be easily dominated and humiliated. Rape is a power crime.
Though generally the rapist has the monopoly of force in the rape it
may also indicate powerlessness on behalf of the rapist within society
as a whole. Dianna Russell in her look at stranger rape in America in
"Sexual Exploitation" (London 1984) found that these were often
carried out by young men on low incomes. Ageton in another
American study of sexual assault among teenagers ("Sexual Assault
among Adolescents", Lexington, Massachusetts 1985) identifies
rapists as being failures at school and isolated at home. The phrase
she uses is "more delinquent types".
Rape within marriage seems to be clearly bound up with women's
inferior position within the home and family. In Russell's study of
rape in marriage (ibid. 1982) she found whether women stayed in such
a marriage was entirely linked to their financial dependence. 100% of
wives who had been the primary bread-winners when first raped had
since left their rapist husbands.
In this context more policing, mandatory sentencing and imposing
curfews on women don't address the main issue. The pathetic
sentences often handed out to rapists give out the impression that
rape is not taken seriously by Irish society. Cases like Levinia
Kerwick's where the rapist walks free disgust most people. On the
other hand we shouldn't take the easy option of blindly joining the
call for harsher sentencing. The government can easily cave in on
this giving the impression that they have somehow dealt with the
problem. But it is no solution.
Rape is bound up with women's inferior role in our society in which
they are systematically oppressed, as well as the sexist attitudes of
many men. Improvements in attitudes and some small improvements in
women's actual position have made a difference. At least now rape is
talked about and taken seriously. The overthrow of capitalism, and
the end of the nuclear family as the only acceptable form of social
organisation, will make a difference. However this will only be the
beginning of the battle to gain full and absolute equality for women,
which is the only way that rape will finally be dealt with.
PUNISHMENT: WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS?
There are three possible aims of punishment: restraint, revenge or
reform Capitalism only seems to succeed at the first two. The
retributive and vengeful "justice" of the present system has been a
total and utter failure.
Attempting to reform people through coercion and force can never
succeed. Arguments based on fear and terror are never very
convincing. The institutionalised murder of the death penalty has
never had the slightest effect on violent crime figures. It amounts to
no more then revenge. Prison, if it achieves anything, tends to
perpetuate crime with minor offenders often going on to commit
greater crimes. Why not re-offend if nothing has changed when you
get out?
Capitalism can not solve the problem. It creates the conditions which
lead to most crimes. The supposed system of justice amounts to a
closed caste of judges and legal professionals. These are initiated into
a tangled web of complex rules and regulations, where any concept of
justice or fair play intrudes purely randomly.
ANARCHIST POLICE?
Getting rid of capitalism, and replacing it with an anarchist system,
will greatly reduce crime. But what about the mentally unbalanced or
"crimes of passion"? Their is no doubt that some form of incarceration
will be needed in particular cases. There are people who will have to
be removed from society for their own good and that of others.
This in turn implies some form of law enforcement agency (or whatever
title you come up with) will be needed. Of course this will be smaller,
and fully answerable the the community as a whole. It will focus
purely on the detection of individuals and their imprisonment. There
must be no element of revenge. The aim, where possible, should be
their reform and release.
These are some ideas on crime and punishment. Obviously there is no 100%
perfect solution, though we think we can suggest a drastic improvement. The
issue of crime and punishment in a future anarchist society does raise some
complex questions. The WSM doesn't claim to have all the answers. Let
Workers Solidarity readers know what you think. Drop us a line at P.O.
Box 1528, Dublin 8.