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Babble: A Theater in Justice and Discourse

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Abstract

The world studied by empirical criminal justice research is babble—a congeries of voices whose meanings represent many normative worlds. Our research designs provide a frame for the babble, and our statistics codify and simplify it. We provide analytic portraits of it and, using the substantive language of crime control, give those portraits meaning. Yet, those meanings are located in a crime control discourse that de-legitimizes and destroys those normative worlds. This paper, an interpretive montage, is a collection of fractured narratives assembled to show that interpretation has something to offer the way we think about knowledge production in the field of criminal justice. It is also a cautionary tale to students in criminal justice, to remember that our scientific abstractions are an abstraction from the underlying realities of human life, not a “deeper” or in some way more real understanding. Our aim is to move the babble—the humanity from which the voices emerge—back into the foreground of justice research.

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Notes

  1. Chapman (1998).

  2. Gordon and Inmates of the Washington Corrections System (2000, p. 7).

  3. Fletcher (1990, p. 45).

  4. This is a description of a scene in the movie “American Me” produced by The Sean Daniel Company (1992) Universal Pictures.

  5. Cited from Frontline (1999).

  6. McDonald (1991, pp. 28–29).

  7. Broder (2005).

  8. A description of the case of Eddie Bell, from Home Box Office (1987).

  9. Coolio (1995).

  10. Baker (1986, p. 93).

  11. Marquart (2005).

  12. Cited from 21 Grams (1993). Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. DVD: Focus Features.

  13. Brooks (2000, p. 39).

  14. Rohrlich (1999).

  15. Baker (1986, p. 343).

  16. Home Box Office (1987) Op. Cit.

  17. Karamazov (1991, p. 509).

  18. Fletcher (1991, p. 272).

  19. That Wuornos might have plead guilty to “clear her conscience with God” may or may not have been an act of self interest, truth-claim or hope for court mercy. What is important is that the language of religion was used to convince her to plead guilty without negotiation to three charges of first degree murder.

  20. Citations and summaries from Nick Broomfield Films (1992).

  21. Dostoevski (1968, p. 332).

  22. King (2004). From The learning project. Unpublished manuscript. Prisoner talking about his inner voice.

  23. Airplane (1967).

  24. Paraphrase from Burrell (1997, p. 53).

  25. Ibid.

  26. Allusion to the potential for field change in criminal justice. The first part echoes Bob Dylan’s heralding of the 1970’s. The second, borrowed from Burrell, refers to the Minotaur and suggests the theoretical re-enchantment of the field of criminal justice (see Wallerstein 1996). This theme (and its tragic counterpart) is echoed in different forms in the narratives.

  27. Home Box Office (1987) Op. Cit.

  28. King (2004) Op. Cit.

  29. Sharp (2005, p. 41).

  30. Everlast (1998).

  31. Sharp mentions one case in which a prisoner helped the execution team by placing the needles in his own arm. Sharp (2005, p. 91).

  32. Nabokov (Dmitri Nabokov) Invitation to a beheading. Vintage International, p. 222.

  33. Sharp (2005, p. 89) Op. Cit.

  34. Nietzsche (1844–1886) “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Beyond Good and Evil. Fourth part, Maxims and Interludes. Section 146.

  35. Home Box Office (1987). Op. Cit.

  36. Jam (1991).

  37. “What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.” Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 153, Op. Cit.

  38. By corporatism is meant the tendencies in advanced welfare societies to centralize policy, government intervention into the efficient control of conflict and disruption (Pratt 1989). A part of corporatism is the co-optation of other professionals into criminal justice ideologies (McConville et al. 1991).

  39. One could subsume convict criminology, left realism, postmodern criminology, and a great deal of gender studies under cultural criminology. However, the authors view criminology and criminal justice as different academic fields with a history of conflict, though their foci seem similar.

  40. In Nafisi (2004, p. 315) Op. Cit.

  41. Jam (1991) Op. Cit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68182-0149, USA

    John P. Crank

  2. Department of Social Work, Criminal Justice, and Gerontology, Murray State University, 101 S. Applied Science Bldg, Murray, KY, 42071, Australia

    Kate King

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  1. John P. Crank
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Correspondence to John P. Crank.

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Crank, J.P., King, K. Babble: A Theater in Justice and Discourse. Crit Crim 15, 343–363 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-007-9040-6

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