Abstract
The aim of Criminologists on Terrorism and Homeland Security is to address the problem of terrorism from the perspective of criminology. To date, most engagement with terrorism and security has come from scholars in the field of international relations, but the last decade has seen criminologists begin to embrace the subject. Most contributions in this vein have come from what might be termed the “critical” criminological perspective: works like Lucia Zedner, Security (2009), Ian Loader and Neil Walker, Civilizing Security (2007), or Les Johnston and Clifford Shearing, Governing Security (2003) to name only a few. There are also more theoretical contributions from Michael Dillon, The Politics of Security (1996) and Mark Neoleous, Critique of Security (2008).
What distinguishes this collection of essays is that it focuses more on questions of policy rather than theory or critique per se, although many of the conclusions reached might be termed critical. The rationale for this is that criminological research has amassed a body of knowledge about criminal motivation, group dynamics, opportunity and prevention in relation to “antisocial” and “deviant” behavior of various kinds, which could be used to aid our understanding of terrorism, as it appears to share many features with more ordinary forms of crime.
The book addresses the subject through eighteen essays by twenty-three scholars, twenty-one from across the United States, with particular concentrations in Washington, DC and Texas, one from Canada and one from Australia. Most of the contributors are distinguished academics, but the collection also draws in security and legal practitioners. Overall the emphasis is very much on the analysis and development of security policy in the United States. This focus on the United States is both a strength and a weakness of the collection. Clearly, if the concern is to address U.S. security policy, then it makes sense to have contributions from those who know the field best. However, there are several points in the collection where reference is made, albeit relatively fleetingly, to forms of terrorism other than the so-called “international” terrorism which is currently the focus of so much debate. This leads the reader to wonder if more could not have been done by way of systematic comparison with the history of terrorism, hardly a recent phenomenon, or its manifestation in other territories. For example, sustained analysis and comparison of different policy engagements in the Basque country in Spain, or in Northern Ireland, might have yielded productive results. Of course, there are many existing studies of these subjects, but it would have been interesting to see what lessons might be learned for engagement with the U.S. case.
Overall, however, the focused nature of the collection gives it a coherence that is often lacking in most edited volumes, which means that scholars engaged in work on terrorism and security policy, and policymakers charged with practical engagement with these subjects, will find this book essential reading. Part I of the book brings to bear an array of criminological perspectives on the root causes of terrorism, with contributions on the importance of understanding aggression, gang membership and group action, gender, and even evolutionary ecology. This first part of the book also draws attention to what is at stake in the definition of particular kinds of crime as “terrorism” and the ways in which the choice of definition affects the nature of the “solution” proposed, with considerable consequences for all involved. This inaugurates a theme running throughout the collection, with several authors pointing to the damaging effects of attempting to deal with “terrorism” in ways that appear, when one takes a criminological approach to understanding the motivation of terrorists, actually to increase its attractions and incidence. The whole notion of a “war on terror” is subject to criticism as problematic, counter-productive, and even dangerous as a concept in attempting to reduce the real incidence of terrorism. This perspective is not shared by all authors, and there is some debate between the chapters on this subject. Nonetheless, these contributions illustrate that it is possible to be critical even while operating within a policy-oriented framework, although some scholars may balk at the notion put forward in the introduction that the aim of academic research is “the preservation of the legitimacy of governmental action” (p. 1). The book’s aim (p. 1) to provide “objective, comprehensive” discussion of the subject of terrorism to some extent overlooks the fact that defining particular acts as “terrorism” is by nature a political act, but these complexities are well drawn out by several of the authors in the substantive contributions.
Part II of the book, by far the largest section, analyzes the different strategies put forward for dealing with the problem of terrorism, including an adaptation of Rosenberg and Knox’s Child Well-Being Matrix, opportunity theory, the importance of effective co-operation between the police and the military, community policing, the necessity but great difficulty in proper assessment of intelligence, management of the culture of fear that has developed around terrorism, ethnic profiling, the coordination of different security agencies, the apparent need to “balance” security and liberty, and the possibility of treating terrorism through regulation and amelioration rather than deterrence. Once again, many of these chapters are critical of, and all are critically engaged with, their subject matter and by no means necessarily seek to promote the security practice in question.
Part III, the final section of the book, contains only two chapters, the first addressing the relationship between policy and evidence and the importance of basing the former on the latter, rather than on misconceptions about the real incidence and effects of terrorism, and the second acting as a useful review of and engagement with the collection as a whole, focused on setting an agenda for future research on the subject. Not everyone will agree with the specific observations put forward, but it serves to round off the collection and, taken in concert with the editors’ introduction which clearly outlines the content of the volume, the whole is easy to navigate, while generally letting the individual essays speak for themselves.