Criminology scholars have a long history of seeking answers to difficult questions. Consider the following examples. Why is one individual more inclined to commit a crime? What environments are more conducive to individual criminal activity? How does an offender’s background or life course influence their motives and activities? It is far less common, however, to entertain thoughts and questions such as why war in one country increases the propensity for domestic violence a decade from now in another; how suicide rates decrease when a democratic leader is in power, but increase after media coverage of a celebrity suicide; how using Facebook can lead to drug addiction and overdoses; why the fear of crime can increase homicide rates; what middle-class victimization of Canadians and Americans by Jamaican phone scammers has to do with the later having one of the highest homicide rates in the world; or why drunk driving is better prevented by global construction technology than patrol policing and punishment. While these connections may seem far-fetched initially, understanding them is within our grasp and it is imperative to developing effective large-scale crime prevention and mitigation strategies. A macro mindset may be the new “normal” in criminology.

In Macrocriminology and Freedom, eminent Australian scholar John Braithwaite examines criminal connections globally. Boldly moving away from the traditional, often micro-level views and endeavors of criminology, the author takes a broader approach to understanding crime evaluation. Braithwaite considers the sprawling, overlapping, and intertwining infrastructure within which crime can manifest and proliferate to prevent and reduce crime, and contemplates the impact and prevalence of large-scale, institutional, white-collar crime as a greater source of domination than “garden variety” crimes. Macrocriminology and Freedom holds that conventional criminology remains fixated on offending in the streets and neglecting “crime in the suites,” which causes more significant victimization, financial loss, and general devastation. To remedy this skewed orientation toward crime, macrocriminology transcends traditional methodological individualism to reframe criminology beyond individual offenders.

Braithwaite’s eye for detail and carefully chosen words are the fabric that weave together the threads of his theory. He attempts to reframe criminology and asks us to view the field through a wider lens. He offers a detailed explanation of the far-reaching influences and global relations that constitute the need for a macro-level theory of crime that is appropriately proportionate to the scope of such an extensive criminal network. While macrocriminology can seem overwhelming, partly because it is outside the boundaries of traditional criminological scholarship and practice, Braithwaite spares no linguistic expense to ensure that his examination is in-depth and comprehensive. His description of institutionalized crime is as intricate as the web spun by criminalized market institutions.

Braithwaite’s theory of macrocriminology delivers an integrated explanation and examination of criminalized markets, states, norms, and organizations, which rely on historical, macro-level trajectories of crime and violence. A central contemporary theme of Braithwaite’s theoretical masterpiece is the criminalization of markets and criminalized market institutions, which span from state powers to schools, and have the power to influence crime and impede upon freedom because of the concentrated power structures they create and operate in. The text includes references from Sun-Yet San to Shakespeare, vignettes from the past expose how destroying market institutions creates black markets, hidden crime, shadow economies, and how restructuring them can strengthen crime prevention. Social action is more embedded in networked markets than ever before and facilitates a strict divide between markets of vice and markets of virtue, markets that produce crime and markets that prevent crime. Good competition drives markets of inequity such as child pornography, human trafficking, gambling, gangs, and big Pharma, which peddle themselves to us via readily available personal electronics. These commercial-driven devices allow many aspects of our lives to be ruled by the markets and are designed to control the flow of events, including criminal enterprise.

The effects of criminalized institutions on society give way to anomie, a social phenomenon rooted in the work of numerous sociological and criminological theory. Durkheim held that society’s institutions during times of normlessness were being re-oriented by capitalism to place efficiency and profit above all other goals. Prioritizing efficiency and profit then translate into criminalized norms that enhance criminal activity. As a result, anomie is a central variable in macrocriminology because it reproduces cycles of crime and violence. Anomie becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, “begetting” crime and violence, which then causes more normlessness. It also produces fear of market victimization and drives retaliatory motivations to seek revenge on institutions citizens feel mistreated by. Anomie is prone to prompting distrust in institutions and legal cynicism, leading to ensnarement in red tape and criminal activity provoked by need. Anatomical influences fuel institutional anomie and create recursive crime patterns. The Korean War, for example, spurred a downward trend in homicide rates, and later northern and western wars caused those rates to rise again. The impact of killing during the Korean War had a more significant influence on the children of veterans than on veterans themselves. Historical patterns of violence, war, and crime are crucial to understanding the global and institutional market patterns of crime that proliferate today.

At its core, Macrocriminology and Freedom presents a theory of freedom and crime. Freedom is non-domination, and the freest societies have the lowest crime rates. Braithwaite conceptualizes crime as a form of domination. Freedom from domination is the key to controlling crime, and crime control is essential to freedom, which strengthens crime control. Freedom is necessary to achieve a low-crime society, and crime prevention is essential to freedom, making the two connected maybe better here. By a mutually dependent, cyclical relationship. Braithwaite believes that being attentive to freedom permits us to prevent crime more effectively, thus averting threats to freedom and protecting the attainment of freedom. Prevention can be achieved by rewriting normative order, restructuring institutions, and relying on collective efficacy, the mechanisms necessary to securing freedom.

These tools can fortify freedom to prevent crime and prevent crime from reducing freedom by illuminating the relationships between inequality, crime, freedom, war, and justice as they exist across history and institutions. Through the “craft of institutional weaving,” Braithwaite attempts to untangle these threads without unraveling them, then intertwine them in a pattern that makes them stronger. The stitches that hold together a global tapestry of crime can be ripped out and resewn into solutions that bind us together by freedom. However, Braithwaite cautions that the solutions to crime will not be uncovered in the justice system. Instead, solutions will be found when we solve other wicked problems, such as health disadvantages; racial, gender, socio-economic, and other forms of inequality; and environmental injustices. In contrast, inequality and state-sanctioned discrimination are the direst threats to freedom, driving crime and civil war and eroding trust in institutions. There must be checks and balances of domination and market power to obtain freedom and prevent crime and domination. Market power and crime control strategies are essential to crime prevention and freedom, especially corporate crimes, which tend to be the most destructive, prominent in scale, far-reaching in their victimization, and impactful on human lives. Notably, these strategies can prevent bank robberies and car thefts, too.

According to Braithwaite, the key to achieving freedom and mitigating anomie is strengthening weak institutions to the point that they are unable to overwhelm other institutions. Freedom and low crime can be attained by allowing all institutions to grow, enabling the checks and balances of an institution to ensure they are not dominating others, and encouraging and incentivizing market “guardians” to monitor and regulate crime control. These techniques require perpetual fine-tuning, which ensures continuous education as local and global conditions change and evolve. Tempering institutional strengths is a primary key to the macrocriminology and freedom theory and includes the tempering of patriarchal, statutory, and corporate tyranny.

Braithwaite denotes that criminology contributes to the quality of life on our planet because it relates to criminalization and the militarization of states and powers, cybercrime, nuclear war, ecocide, and genocide. He also discusses the importance of macrocriminology during global crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Economic, ecological, and security crises that occur on national or global scales produce crime-war cycles, meaning that they perpetuate and sustain one another and replicate instances of themselves. These cycles, which Braithwaite dubs crime cascades, combined with recurrent anomie, prompt us to consider the place of social movements in mitigating and eradicating crime and protecting freedom. These considerations are presented as 150 propositions about crime and freedom that comprise the theory of macrocriminology and freedom. Macrocriminology interprets and uncovers the iceberg of crime blanketed by unchecked institutional domination and power by looking at aggregated patterns of crime and is, essentially, a study of social systems, processes, and interactions. The wide lenses of the theory view crime holistically, moving beyond micro-level crime theories and prevention strategies. Inside the folds of Braithwaite’s newest book, the fabrics of crime and humanity are revealed.

For criminologists, if our goal is to change the cycle of crime and associated harms, then Braithwaite’s work is essential, though dense, reading. Macrocriminology, as proposed by the author, has the potential to change the world. Even the most skeptic among us will see the power his thoughts and theory present.