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The Abolitionist Case: Alternative Crime Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2016

Louk Hulsman
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Extract

We are inclined to consider “criminal events” as exceptional, events which differ to an important extent from other events which are not defined as criminal. In the conventional view, criminal conduct is considered to be the most important cause of these events. Criminals are — in this view — a special category of people, and the exceptional nature of criminal conduct, and/or the criminal, justify the special nature of the reaction against it.

People who are involved in “criminal” events, however, do not in themselves appear to form a special category. Those who are officially recorded as “criminal” constitute only a small part of those involved in events that legally permit criminalisation. Among them, young men from the most disadvantaged sections of the population are heavily overrepresented.

Type
Alternatives to Punishment
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3-4 , Summer–Autumn 1991 , pp. 681 - 709
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1991

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References

1 For recent literature on the abolitionist perspective in the English language see: (1986) 10 Contemporary Crisis 3–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bianchi, H. and van Swaaningen, R., ed., Abolitionism, Towards a Non-repressive Approach to Crime (Amsterdam, Free University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Blad, J. R., van Mastrigt, H., and Uildriks, N., eds., The Criminal Justice System as a Social Problem: An Abolitionist Perspective (Rotterdam, Mededelingen van het Juridisch Instituut van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, nr. 36, 1987)Google Scholar; Blad, J. R., van Mastrigt, H., and Uldriks, N., eds., Social Problems and Criminal Justice (Rotterdam, Mededelingen van het Juridisch Instituut van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, nr. 37, 1987)Google Scholarde Haan, W., The Politics of Redress: Crime, Punishment and Penal Abolition (London, Uriwin Hyman, 1990)Google Scholar.

2 Hulsman, L. and de Célis, J. Bernat, Peines Perdues (Paris, 1982)Google Scholar; Hulsman, L., “Critical Criminology and the Concept of Crime” (1986) 10 Contemporary Crisis 63–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Gusfield, J., The Culture of Public Problems. Drinking and Driving and the Symbolic Order (Chicago/London, 1981)Google Scholar.

4 van Dijk, J., “State Assistance to the Victim of Crime in Seeking Compensation”, in Towards a Victim Policy (Helsinki, Heuni Publication Series 2, 1984)Google Scholar.

5 European Committee on Crime Problems, Report on Decriminalisation (1980) 22-24.

6 For a concrete application of such an approach to crime policy, see, the 15th Criminological Research Conference of the Council of Europe (1984), especially the adopted recommendations and conclusions of the conference. Council of Europe, “Sexual Behaviour and Attitudes and Their Implications for Criminal Law” (Strasbourg, 1984)Google Scholar.

7 Pfohl, S. J., “Labelling Criminals”, in Ross, H. D., ed., Law and Deviance (Beverley Hills, Sage, 1981)Google Scholar.

8 Council of Europe, “Report on Decriminalisation” (Strasbourg, 1980)Google Scholar.

9 Christie, Nils, “Conflicts as Property” (1977) 17 Br. J. of Criminology 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Wilkins, , “Rationality and Morality in Criminal Justice”, in Effective Rational and Humane Criminal Justice (Helsinki, Heuni Publication Series 3, 1984)Google Scholar.

11 On this case see also Stijn Hogenhuis, “The Disappearance of a Victim Position”, in J. R. Blad, H. van Mastrigt, and N. Uildriks, eds., The Criminal Justice System as a Social Problem: An Abolitionist Perspective, supra n. 1.

12 See S. Hogenhuis, supra n. 11.

13 Hes, J., “From Victim of (Sexual) Violence to Claimant in a Civil Law Case”, Paper for the 5th International Symposium on Victimology, Zagreb, 1985Google Scholar; Hes, J. and Hulsman, L., “Civil Justice as an Alternative to Criminal Justice”, Paper for ICOPA III, Montreal, 1987Google Scholar; M. Specter and S. Batt, “Towards a More Active Victim”, in J. R. Blad, H. van Mastrigt, and N. Uildriks, eds., The Criminal Justice System as a Social Problem: An Abolitionist Perspective, supra n. 1.

14 van Ransbeek, H., Het Noorderkwartier, ergernis en plezier (Rotterdam, Erasmus Universiteit, 1985)Google Scholar.

15 van Ransbeek, H., Kleine Criminaliteit? (Rotterdam, Erasmus Universiteit, 1987)Google Scholar.

16 Foucault, M., “Qu'appelle-t-on punir”, in Ringelheim, F., ed., Punir mon beau souci (Bruxelles, Presses universitaires de l'université libre, 1985)Google Scholar.