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Antu Sorainen
Christina Institute for Women’s Studies
P.O. Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38E)
00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
tel. 358 (0)9 191 24320
fax 358 (0)9 191 23315
mobile 358 (0)50 5331984
antu.sorainen@helsinki.fi
A paper to be presented at “3rd Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology “Crime
and Control in an Integrating Europe”. 27.-30.8.2003, University of Helsinki.
Queering Criminology
*”An understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture must be, not merely
incomplete, but damaged in its central substance to the degree that it does not incorporate a critical
analysis of modern homo/heterosexual definition” (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, 1991:1).
Problematising criminology's faith to its empirical objectivism and theoretical neutrality in
questions of sexuality and gender is necessary for criminology's future. It needs to be analysed why
queer sexualities have been outlawed in criminology for so long. This project means more than just
adding lesbians and gays to the list of victims - it means a thorough re-evaluation of the history,
structures, modes and effects of criminological thought and research. Basicly, it means that
criminology should focus on the question of “how” instead of “why”.
For example, the concept of “hate crime” which has been applied by Eva Tiby in Sweden and other
criminologists in Norway and North America, replaces the focus on individual perpetrators and
lesbian and gay victims with a much more challenging focus on the patterns of homophobic culture
and heteronormative laws and social practices at large. Moral codes, “crimes” and victims are
always contingent concepts constructed in specific historical and cultural contexts as Nils Christie
argued in the opening plenary. Construction of patterns of violence should be examined with a
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thorough ethnographic approach which looks beyond the positivist gaze of numbers, figures and
procents and asks, as Homi Bhabha would say, why “things are not quite, not right”. The concept
of “hate crime” can be applied to studies on sexuality and gender, but also to studies of
multiculturality, ethnicity, youth, masculinities, media and so forth.
Even though the early history of criminology is thoroughly queer – we only have to bring in mind
Sinistrari’s, Cesare Lombroso’s and other early criminologists’s approaches to race, gender and
sexuality – there have been only few attempts to queer criminology. The most up-to-the-point
contribution is written by a British criminologist Nic Groombrigde. He published in 1999 an article
in the Journal of Social and Legal Studies – it is titled ”Perverse Criminologies: The Closet of
Doctor Lombroso.”
According to Groombridge (1999, 531), criminology lumped in its early manifestation both the
”criminal” and ”homosexual” together, before ceding its interest to medicine and the law. Later on,
homosexuality was taken up again as part of the interactionist ”sociology of deviance” project. It
was dropped in the seventies when radicals got more interested in the politics of class and race.
Criminals in criminology are still mostly straight and male (ibid., 534). In recent years, criminology
has slowly granted sexuality to women, and homosexuality has been admitted to the list of victims
of crime. Lesbianism is still virtually non-existent in criminology, not to mention queer approaches
in criminological theory and practice. Even feminists, who in recent decades have influenced
criminology - even though not that strongly as many other academic research fields - have excised
mentions of lesbian or queer contributions in the histories of feminism and criminology. In
criminological textbooks lesbians are mentioned, if at all, in passing, or, for example, in relation to
feminist anti-pornography campaigns (see, for example, Lorraine Gelsthorpe and Allison Morris,
eds, Feminist Perspectives in Criminology, 1990). Further, lesbians may have been added, together
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with gay men, to the list of victims studied by realist and critical criminologists and victimologists.
(Ibid., 538.)
Legal studies does appear to be ahead to criminology when it comes to queer theories and queer
approach to sexualities. For example, the University of Keele has organised two International
Conferences on Gender, Sexuality and Law. The Keele conferences have brought together hundreds
of researchers informed by queer and postmodern theories at the field of sexuality and law. Law
departments and humanities have been well presented there, but criminology and sociology less so.
(Ibid., 541-542.)
During the last years, the most interesting books and articles on law, gender and sexualities have
been published by scholars who have attended the Keele conferences. They have been combining
theory, empirical and ethnographic approach, case-studies, cross-disciplinary methodology and
transnational perspectives for the study of sexuality in the legal field. For example, you may have a
look on an anthology titled ”Sexuality in the Legal Arena” (Athlone Press: 2000) edited by Didi
Herman and Carl Stychin.
Feminist (ex)-criminologist Carol Smart, nowadays a renowned scholar of family and kinship
issues, who has offered inspiration for numerous queer researchers of law, sexuality and gender,
claimed in 1990 that ”it is very hard to see what criminology has to offer feminism” (1990, 84).
Many feminists, following Smart, who have tried to turn criminology away from its dated ignorance
of gender issues, have preferred to walk away and turn to sociology, legal studies, political theory
or philosophy. Others have tried to knock on criminology’s often closed door. (Ibid., 532.)
Criminology has turned an even more blind ear to queer issues and theories. Queer issues that have
been taken seriously in sociology, anthropology and humanities during the late 1990s, are still
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rather unknown and overlooked in criminology. For example, in the present conference which
should portray the developments in European criminology, there are no queer papers. I think that is
purely scandalous!
But has criminology something to offer for queer studies or politics? And what might a queered
criminology look like?
At the moment, it is, indeed, hard to see what criminology would have to offer for queer studies.
Gender and sexuality are not brought up in criminology in many other occasions than in relation to
victims of crime (rape, violence against women, domestic violence). These are important issues, of
course, but, male criminologists have tended to ignore these topics as trivial. Besides, if these are
the ONLY references to gay and lesbian sexualities, the result is a quite impoverished picture of
queer sexualities and the political influence of queer theories remains nil in criminology and in
decision making in criminological questions in practice.
It is much more easier to see what queer theories might have to add to the criminological enterprise
than what criminology in its present positivism could have to offer for queer politics. According to
Groombridge, we should pass as criminologists and drag criminolgy out of its closet. Queered
criminology should take a fresh and active approach to homophobia, to the questions of race, class
and gender and to the question of kinship. The gendered and sexualised positions of offenders and
victims should be thought anew. The heteronormative way of thinking about kinship and family
should be replaced by a new view which sees human relationships, identities and concepts as
contingent and historically specific relations of power and political interests. Queered criminology
would offer new and important insights to global crime, as queer subjets have always been nomadic
and transnational by nature (see Stychin 2000).
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Criminology needs to reflect seriously its own history, methodology and practices in relation to
sexuality, gender and subjectivity. This reflection should benefit of and take place within the
feminist project inside criminology, in order to question not only criminology’s but also feminism’s
assumptions about gender and sexuality. For example, domestic violence in lesbian relationships
(and police practices and court reactions to it) have been largely ignored both in feminist and
criminological studies for political reasons. Proponents of feminine ethics have feared that if
women start to beat each other, claims about gender would go ashtray. However, if we look at
gender as an effect of heteronormative kinship, as “doing”, not as a biological causality, as Päivi
Honkatukia pointed out yesterday in her paper, we can trace deep cultural patterns of legal and
informal repression. Queered criminology should further focus on homophobic crime, hate crimes
and queer-bashing in similar intensivity it has earlier looked at homosexuality as criminal,
pathological or deviant phenomenon (Groombridge 1999, 543-545). Further, studies on policy
making, police practices and media should note and study phycical and verbal attacks against
queers and queer communities.
It is also crucial to focus on the wider theoretical and paradigmatic level at which criminology
should queer itself. Criminology should open itself up to other disciplines, such as philosophy and
gender studies and look for new ways to combine theory and empiricism. Most importantly,
criminology should look for feminist and queer theories in order to see what it means and how it
feels to live as an unorthodox sexualised and gendered person in heteronormative society. Queer
theorists should publish more in criminological journals and attend criminological conferences in
spite of the ignorant attitude of most criminologists. Criminology should not be ignored by queers,
despite of the somber history the field has offered for gays and lesbians. Criminological desicion
making and criminal policy is made based on American and British criminological research and
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theory, as pointed out by Rene van Swaaningen and others yesterday. Queer research and politics
should be fully presented in this process.
References
Groombridge, Nic (1999) Perverse Criminologies: The Closet of Doctor Lombroso. Social & Legal
Studies 8:4, 531-548.
Moran, Les, Daniel Monk & Sarah Beresford (1998) Legal Queeries. Lesbian, Gay and
Transgender Legal Studies. London and New York: Cassell.
Smart, Carol (1990) Feminist Approaches to Criminology or Postmodern Woman Meets Atavistic
Man. In Lorraine Gelsthorpe and Allison Morris (eds.) Feminist Perspectives in Criminology.
Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 70-84.
Stychin, Carl and Didi Herman (eds.) (1995) Legal Inversions. Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics
of Law. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Stychin, Carl and Didi Herman (eds.) (2000) Sexuality in the legal arena. London: The Athlone
Press.
Stychin, Carl F (2000) ’A Stranger to its Laws’: Sovereign Bodies, Global Sexualities, and
Transnational Citizens. Journal of Law and Society 27:4, 601-625.
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Tiby, Eva (1999) Hatbrott? Homosexuella kvinnors och mäns berättelser om utsatthet för brott.
Avhandelsserie Nr1. Stockholm: Kriminologiska institutionen.
Tomsen, Stephen (1997) Was Lombroso a Queer? Criminology, Criminal Justice and the
Heterosexual Imaginary. Homophobic Violence. Sydney: Hawkins Press, Australian Institute of
Criminology.