By Your Theories You Shall Be Known: Some Reflections on Caribbean Criminology

• Author: Christopher Birkbeck
• Pages: 19-42

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BY YOUR THEORIES YOU SHALL BE KNOWN

INTRODUCTION

In 1976, the late Ken Pryce wrote a

ground breaking article in which he called

for the development of a Caribbean

criminology. In his view, the ‘intensification

of violence, lawlessness and “white collar”

corruption’ urgently required, ‘[t]he

scientific study of crime and deviant

behaviour in the Caribbean as an

independent field of inquiry in its own right’

(1976, 3). While applauding official concern

over the growing crime problem, Pryce

argued that academic research was also a

necessary part of the search for solutions.

Such research ‘should be the concern not

only of the politician, the jurist and the

policy-maker, but the sociologist and other

social scientists as well’ (1976, 3). As the core

of Caribbean criminology, Pryce proposed

the ‘New Criminology’ (see Taylor, Walton

and Young, 1973) that was attracting much

attention among researchers elsewhere,

because it offered ‘superior theoretical

advantages...as a basis for the development

of a framework for the sociology of crime,

deviance and social control in the Caribbean’

(1976, 7).

Twenty years later, other criminologists

took up the matter of a Caribbean

criminology. Richard Bennett and James

Lynch (1996) identified five characteristics

of Caribbean societies that, in their view,

rendered existing major theories of crime

inapplicable in the region. These were the

timing of the development process, the small

size of Caribbean nations, the salience of

tourism in many Caribbean economies, the

presence of the illegal drug trade, and the

By Your

Theories You

Shall Be Known:

Some Reflections

on Caribbean

Criminology1

Christopher Birkbeck

Two

20

CRIME, DELINQUENCY AND JUSTICE

relative immaturity of political and social institutions. The authors concluded,

It may well be that with sufficient attention and thought, existing theories can

be adapted to include more transparently the situations currently confronting

Caribbean nations. At present, they do not. We argue that this inability to account

for the five areas of uniqueness of the Caribbean constitutes a plausible argument,

on intellectual grounds, for the creation of a sub-discipline of criminology:

Caribbean criminology (1996, 15).

In the same year, Maureen Cain compiled a collection of essays on crime and

justice in the Caribbean with the title ‘For a Caribbean Criminology’ (Caribbean

Quarterly, 1996). In her introductory essay, she warned against, ‘that deferential

relationship with western theory which assumes it to be right even when it does

not fit local experiences, which presents it as received wisdom even when it has

no relevance’ (Cain, 1996a, ii). Citing examples from the research included in her

compilation, Cain argued that,

Caribbean criminologists must engage with [western criminology] instrumentally

as we explore the concrete reality of Caribbean experiences: we may use it,

supplement it, and let it be our springboard, as well as challenging it, transgressing

it, and replacing it (1996a, i; emphasis in original).

Finally, in 1997, Ramesh Deosaran and Derek Chadee offered some brief

comments on the nature of Caribbean criminology, with specific reference to the

study of juvenile delinquency. Noting that the empirical status of delinquency

theories developed outside the Caribbean is by no means unequivocal, Deosaran

and Chadee concluded that ‘whatever form or shape a “Caribbean Criminology”

eventually takes, it will not be entirely immune or so distinct from theory already

developed elsewhere. It will be more likely a matter of theoretical integration,

without reinventing the wheel’ (1997, 40–41).

It is interesting that these authors discussed the identity of Caribbean

criminology in relation to theory. Such a strategy for the examination of identity

is, perhaps, not surprising. Theories represent the most general statements about

the subject we are studying, capable (hopefully) of subsuming multiple and diverse

sets of empirical circumstances. They also express the analytical orientation of a

discipline through the explanations — or linkages between variables — that they

propose. The facts of crime and criminal justice can be studied from different

viewpoints — for example, the aesthetics of crimes, the budgetary procedures of

criminal justice — but criminology has carved out its identity in relation to the

causes of crime, and the causes of social control (Black 1983). As a discipline,

criminology gains identity through its theories.

It is therefore reasonable to expect that discussions about the nature and

rationale for sub disciplines — whether cast in terms of a substantive or geographic