International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

http://ijo.sagepub.com New Directions in Criminal Behavior Studies: Revisiting the Unresolved Questions
Bruce Arrigo Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol 2004; 48; 129 DOI: 10.1177/0306624X03261259 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ijo.sagepub.com

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ijo.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations (this article cites 10 articles hosted on the SAGE Journals Online and HighWire Press platforms): http://ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/48/2/129

Downloaded from http://ijo.sagepub.com at Uni Transilvania Brasov on September 19, 2008

Guest Editorial

New Directions in Criminal Behavior Studies: Revisiting the Unresolved Questions

Bruce Arrigo
During the past decade, investigators have begun to re-examine a number of taken-for-granted assumptions integral to scholarship in the cognate area of criminal behavior. Broadly defined, this subspecialty includes studies in legal psychology, clinical criminology, forensic mental health, and criminological psychiatry (Arrigo, in press-a). Although mostly speculative and conceptual to date, this trend represents a radical departure from many mainstream liberal efforts at reform, as it challenges the ontological and epistemological commitments of the social and behavioral sciences, especially when applied to pressing and enduring problems at the law-psychology-crime divide. This editorial, then, briefly describes some of the key features informing this more heterodox agenda. Particular attention is given to the perspectives reassessment of established and unresolved issues in the study of criminal (and delinquent) behavior. Positioned under the unifying banner of psychological jurisprudence (Arrigo, in press-b), proponents of this radically inspired orientation argue that a significant body of technically relevant research has been published during the past 30 years (Arrigo, 2003b). Examples include eyewitness testimony, jury selection, sex offender treatment, and risk assessment. However, what is deeply troubling about these investigations is that they are largely atheoretical (Ogloff, 2000), mostly ignoring the philosophical context in which conclusions are reached and policy recommendations are proposed. In addition, although the scientific findings are useful in their own right, they often fail to contribute to or otherwise connect with the macrological debates concerning the administration of justice and prospects for structural change in society and in our lives (e.g., Arrigo, 2002a; Haney, 1993; Roesch, 1995). In response to these shortcomings, psychological jurisprudence is deliberately self-conscious about its theoretical standpoints and methodological predispositions. Moreover, the aim of this radical approach is to reclaim such values as humanism, fairness, citizenship, and equity in scholarly pursuits, acknowledging
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 48(2), 2004 129-132 DOI: 10.1177/0306624X03261259 2004 Sage Publications

129

Downloaded from http://ijo.sagepub.com at Uni Transilvania Brasov on September 19, 2008

130

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

them as necessary and fundamental to any proper assessment of law-psychologycrime research and policy reform. Perhaps what is most interesting about psychological jurisprudence is its reliance on various strains of conceptual (and dissident) analysis, adapted from established and emerging lines of critical inquiry. Examples are found within such diverse intellectual realms as anarchism (Fox, 2001; Williams, in press), Marxism (McCubbin & Weisstub, 1998), deconstructionism (Arrigo, 2003a; Arrigo & Williams, 1999), semiotics (Williams, 1998), peacemaking criminology (Vitello, 2003), chaos theory (Walters, 1999; Williams & Arrigo, 2002), restorative justice (Noll, 2003), constitutive theory (Arena & Arrigo, in press; Arrigo, 2001), and postmodern psychoanalysis (Arrigo, 2002b). Given its breadth, psychological jurisprudence, as a sophisticated challenge to orthodox reasoning in criminal behavior studies, endeavors to re-examine the taken-for-granted assumptions of much of what passes for law-psychology-crime research in the academy today. However, more than signaling a return to philosophical exegeses in matters of criminal behavior studies, psychological jurisprudence reorients the scholarly community to the elementary and underlying questions the academy has yet to answer systematically. Consider the position of chaos theory: What is the nature of mental illness, predictions of dangerousness, and determinations of civil and criminal confinement, given the adaptive capacity of humans, as complex systems, to naturally self-organize in the face of extreme states of disorder? Consider the position of Marxism: In what way is the onset and maintenance of pedophilia and sexual misconductbehaviors identified at the fringes of our culture linked to the conditions of society at its center in which the proliferation of prepubescent sexuality is celebrated through corporate advertisements, media campaigns, and television network programming? Consider the position of postmodern psychoanalysis: If the words and expressions we use to describe the thoughts that we think convey hidden messages and implicit values that are convenient substitutes for our own sense of being and our unique way of knowing, whose voice is privileged in the discourse of legal psychology, clinical criminology, and forensic mental health, and to what extent is the subjects reality (e.g., the experiences of the offender, patient, prisoner) genuinely embodied (if at all) in the systems decision-making logic? Central to these sorts of queries is a more subtle and reflective regard for such notions as agency, identity, personhood, community, autonomy, self-determination, responsibility, and freedom. Admittedly, these are intellectually challenging constructs to comprehend. Moreover, their meanings are not easily recognizable in a data set or a statistical equation, the preferred tools and techniques of the social and behavioral sciences. However, in its attempts to revisit the unresolved questions of the field, psychological jurisprudence forces us to acknowledge that much of the traditional research in criminal behavior studies neglects to consider these all too human dimensions of our existences. As such, these features of our being are assumed and relegated a peripheral status rather than critiqued and assigned a pivotal role in the scholarly investigations representative of the field.

Downloaded from http://ijo.sagepub.com at Uni Transilvania Brasov on September 19, 2008

Editorial

131

Overall, then, I note that the questions asked, the methods endorsed, and the reasoning employedunresolved, assumed, or unexamined by much of the conventional and progressive research in the sub-disciplinereturn us full throttle to the kinds of fundamental debates that criminal behavior studies regrettably has failed to address fully. To be sure, the answers remain elusive; however, they are not out of reach. The approach of psychological jurisprudence, as a radical departure theoretically and methodologically, reminds us that we can simultaneously make law-psychology-crime research relevant while promoting a set of core values whose effect advances prospects for structural and sustainable reform. From my perspective, this blueprint for change is itself a rallying cry for rethinking our approach to the human condition and to social relations. To this extent, then, the future of the discipline, and our ability to understand delinquency and crime for individuals, groups, and communities, will depend on how we champion the cause of reform and make real this call for justice in our lives and in the lives of others. REFERENCES
Arena, M. P., & Arrigo, B. A. (in press). Media images, mental health law, and justice: A constitutive response to the competency of Theodore Kacyznski. In B. Arrigo (Ed.), Psychological jurisprudence: Critical explorations in law, crime, and society. Albany: State University of New York Press. Arrigo, B. A. (2001). Transcarceration: A constitutive ethnography of mentally ill offenders. The Prison Journal, 81, 162-186. Arrigo, B. A. (2002a). The critical perspective in psychological jurisprudence: Theoretical advances and epistemological assumptions. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 25, 151-172. Arrigo, B. A. (2002b). Punishing the mentally ill: A critical analysis of law and psychiatry. Albany: State University of New York Press. Arrigo, B. A. (2003a). Justice and the deconstruction of psychological jurisprudence: the case of competency to stand trial. Theoretical Criminology: An International Journal, 7, 55-88. Arrigo, B. A. (2003b). Psychology and the law: The critical agenda for citizen justice and radical social change. Justice Quarterly, 20, 399-444. Arrigo, B. A. (in press-a). Criminal behavior: A systems approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Arrigo, B. A. (Ed.). (in press-b). Psychological jurisprudence: Critical explorations in law, crime, and society. Albany: State University of New York Press. Arrigo, B. A., & Williams, C. R. (1999). Law, ideology, and critical inquiry: The case of treatment refusal for incompetent prisoners awaiting execution. New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, 25, 367-412. Fox, D. R. (2001). A critical-psychology approach to laws legitimacy. Legal Studies Forum, 25, 519538. Haney, C. (1993). Psychology and legal change: The impact of a decade. Law and Human Behavior, 17, 371-398. McCubbin, M., & Weisstub, D. (1998). Toward a pure interests model of proxy decision making for incompetent psychiatric patients. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 21, 1-30. Noll, D. E. (2003). Restorative justice: Outlining a new direction for forensic psychology. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 3, 5-24.

Downloaded from http://ijo.sagepub.com at Uni Transilvania Brasov on September 19, 2008

132

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

Ogloff, J. R. P. (2000). Presidential address to the American Psychology - Law Society. Two steps forward and one step backward: The law and psychology movement(s) in the 20th century. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 457-483. Roesch, R. (1995). Creating change in the legal system: Contributions from community psychology. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 325-343. Vitello, C. J. (2003). Stalking laws, therapeutic jurisprudence, and peacemaking criminology: A radical law-psychology inquiry. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 3, 1-38. Walters, G. (1999). Crime and chaos: Applying nonlinear dynamic principles to problems in criminology. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 43(2), 134-153. Williams, C. R. (1998). The abrogation of subjectivity in the psychiatric courtroom: Toward a psychoanalytic semiotic analysis. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 11, 181-192. Williams, C. R. (in press). Anarchic insurgencies: The mythos of authority and the violence of mental health. In B. Arrigo (Ed.), Psychological jurisprudence: Critical explorations in law, crime, and society. Albany: State University of New York Press. Williams, C. R., & Arrigo, B. A. (2002). Law, psychology, and justice: Chaos theory and the new (dis)order. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Bruce A. Arrigo, Ph.D. Professor and Chair Department of Criminal Justice University of North CarolinaCharlotte 9201 University City Blvd. Charlotte, North Carolina 28223-0001 USA

Downloaded from http://ijo.sagepub.com at Uni Transilvania Brasov on September 19, 2008