Crimes & Dog Whistles

Like so many others, I've been swept up in the true crime craze and immersed myself in books, podcasts and documentaries. Along with doing martial arts and the sheer fact of having survived until now, that's one of things that have made me reflect back on what I learned about crime and deviance in grad school.

My thinking has changed in significant ways since then. For instance, I'm reading Samenow's "Inside the Criminal Mind". He's a psychologist who works directly with offenders and describes their world view. At one time I would have felt his approach too essentialist, whereas now I find his observation-based conclusions valuable. (He also explicitly warns readers against putting an essentialist interpretation on his work.)

So the other day when a headline about "what criminologists get wrong and why" or somesuch popped up in my news feed, I read the article. Hoping for, I don't know, a thoughtful reappraisal of the field, some lessons learned, and possibilities for the future? I know, I know! That's not the stuff news feeds are made of.

The article started off reasonably enough and had me nodding my head at first. There was a misfire of logic here and a bit of a sweeping generalization there, but it cited academic literature, which is always good for seeming legit. It's true there's bias, fashion and fad in academia; social factors shape what counts as knowledge, which is something I've always found fascinating.

About half way through the article, though, it became clear that the author's analysis was very simple. Liberal research was biased and therefore wrong; it had largely silenced conservative research - which is unbiased and therefore right - for political reasons. So much for nuanced, thoughtful, or for that matter even informed reappraisal!

But there was more. Now that conservative voices were coming to the fore once more (Hi there, alt right!), there was hope for returning criminology to where it should have been all along in terms of theory and research. For instance, looking at factors like intelligence –

I'm going to stop right there. The mention of intelligence is classic racist dog whistle dressed up in cap and gown. A very old and tattered cap and gown in this case, because the scientific battle whether intelligence can be linked to race was settled a long time ago, and actual science has long since moved on (spoiler: race is a social construct). To mention intelligence as an important variable in studying crime is not just to highlight the fact that you're probably not conversant with the contemporary academic scene; it is to specifically reference a period in history when race, intelligence and criminality were all linked together by eugenic "science." Hence: dog whistle.

I finished the article, but came away with a distinct sense of having contracted a case of morgellons by reading it. The sad thing is that anyone who didn’t have my knowledge of that particular field might be taken in by the use of citations, miss the dog whistle and take the article as legit - while those who hear the dog whistle will see all those cool citations and think their opinions are now based in science.

There is still a valid question to explore in how the assumptions and biases of academe have shaped the field of criminology. (What I find most thought-provoking in this regard is what I see as the emerging field of the sociology of violence – which covers everything from the true crime craze to stuff like Rory Miller’s books to the course on Understanding Terrorism running on Coursera right now.) In the meantime, I like to think that persuasive arguments based on

~ Rejection of science
~ Disavowal of history of scientific discoveries up until now
~ Obvious promotion of a political agenda
~ Hope that no one will notice any of the above/counting on stupidity

are ultimately doomed to fail, and hopefully doomed to fail before they destroy the United States.

Former EPA head Christie Whitman in the NYT:

"The red team begins with his politically preferred conclusion that climate change isn’t a problem, and it will seek evidence to justify that position. That’s the opposite of how science works. True science follows the evidence. The critical tests of peer review and replication ensure that the consensus is sound. Government bases policy on those results. This applies to liberals and conservatives alike."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/opinion/how-not-to-run-the-epa.html?mcubz=0