Jude McCulloch

Honouring white masculinity: culture, terror, provocation and the law

Late in 2004 in Victoria, James Ramage was convicted of manslaughter.1 The jury found that Ramage had been provoked to kill his wife by her comments about their marriage and his role as a husband and by her alleged expression of disgust about their sexual life together. This decision provoked sustained critique and commentary and was followed quickly by the release of the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s (VLRC) recommendations for reform of the defence of provocation.2 Close attention to the trial transcripts in the case exposes much about how the criminal justice system understands, interprets and reinforces conventional gender roles. When the Ramage case is compared with another recent intimate homicide case, Yasso,3 which involved an Iraqi national seeking Australian citizenship, these gender roles can be understood as embedded in the discourses of the ‘war on terror’ where Western legal and political liberal democratic systems such as Australia’s are implicitly set against those of nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan and cultures where women are viewed by the West as ‘oppressed’.4 Like James Ramage, Mazin Yasso killed his wife. In this article, we explore these cases, discussing the language and gender concepts that the provocation defence mobilises. We argue that a comparison of the two cases reveals the on-going protection of white middle-class masculinity and the condemnation of other masculinities associated with ‘less civilised’ cultures, which are seen as inherently violent and oppressive.

Policing hate crime: markers for negotiating common ground in policy implementation

This article considers the implementation of police hate crime policy. Victoria, a state in Australia, provides a case study of a jurisdiction where police have introduced a Prejudice Motivated Crime Strategy without an animating hate crime offence. The article identifies the organisational, relational and operational challenges and opportunities that arise in the implementation of this strategy. The literature reveals that successfully policing hate crime is impeded where the approach to defining and categorising hate crime is over- or under-inclusive. Over-inclusive approaches focus on community expectations while under-inclusive approaches are oriented towards prosecution. The absence of a legally bounded definition of hate crime in Victoria provides an opportunity to develop an approach that meets public expectations and operational needs of police, thus avoiding the pitfalls of over- or under-inclusive approaches. To realise this opportunity, the article draws upon the results of a research partnership between Victoria Police and a consortium of Australian universities. Synthesising legal standards with community interests, a set of five markers are advanced for frontline officers to negotiate, rather than assume, a common understanding of hate crime and to build police/community trust. The article makes an important contribution to the field by demonstrating that it is possible to advance the implementation of hate crime policy through strategies that are responsive to both legal standards and community expectations.

Criminology, gender and security in the Australian context: Making women’s lives matter:

This article examines how it might be possible to make women’s lives matter in contemporary criminological understandings of security. In doing so it considers the conceptual complexity of security, and reflects on the criminological engagement with that complexity and the feminist contribution to it paying particular attention to current concerns with everyday security. The article deploys the contemporary Australian policy agenda on family violence to illustrate the paradoxes to be found within these current pre-occupations. Drawing on feminist informed work that situates violence against women within the conceptual framework of everyday terrorism, it concludes by offering further consideration to the meaning of everyday security and the implications that this has for contemporary criminological concerns with security.

Penal power and border control: Which thesis? Sovereignty, governmentality, or the pre-emptive state?

This article provides a critical review of key theoretical positions relevant to border control and sets out an agenda for developing these ideas. In 2005 Mythen and Walklate published a theoretical milestone for the study of terrorism in their article ‘Criminology and terrorism: Which thesis? Risk society or governmentality?’. Those authors reviewed two theories of risk, considering how each might contribute to understanding ‘new terrorism’. Inspired by ‘Which thesis?’ we review, contrast and compare three key theoretical contributions relevant to penology, criminology and border control: Stump’s ‘crimmigration’ thesis, Bosworth and Guild’s adaptation of the ‘new penology’ perspective, and Krasmann’s critique of Jakobs’ ‘enemy penology’ thesis. The article consolidates these important theoretical strands into one critical discussion, highlighting the growing relevance of the pre-crime literature to the study of borders, and signposting potential theoretical developments within border criminology that build on these foundations.

Victim stories and victim policy: Is there a case for a narrative victimology?:

Since the 1980s, victims’ voices have been increasingly heard and have been influential in policy debates. Since that time, the nature and presence of those voices has changed shape and form from the influence and presence of victim centred organizations to the rise of the high profile individual victim. The purpose of this article is to explore the presence of one victim’s story, Rosie Batty, and to examine her influence on the rise of the policy agenda on family violence in Australia. This article considers the ways in which this story gained traction and influenced the reform of family violence policy in Australia, and considers the extent to which an understanding of this process contributes to an (emergent) narrative victimology.

Secondary harm mitigation: A more humanitarian framework for international drug law enforcement

This article introduces the concept of secondary harm mitigation as a framework for improving the humanitarian credentials of international drug law enforcement agencies. The concept is rooted in a critical analysis of the compatibility of the harm reduction philosophy with Australias international drug law enforcement practices. On a utilitarian level, the net benefits of international drug law enforcement are determined to be, at best inconclusive, arguably counterproductive and in most cases, incalculable. On a humanitarian level, international drug law enforcement is also determined to be problematic from a criminological standpoint because it generates secondary harms and it is indifferent to the vulnerability of individuals who participate in illicit drug trafficking. Accordingly, the article concludes that a philosophy of harm reduction grounded in the public health perspective is inadequate for mitigating secondary harms arising from Australias efforts to combat international illicit drug trafficking. A tentative list of secondary harm mitigation principles is presented and the article argues that secondary harm mitigation should replace supply reduction as a core tenet of Australias National Drug Strategy. The article also concludes that secondary harm mitigation may provide a viable framework for stimulating a productive dialogue between those who advocate prohibition and those who call for decriminalisation at the global level.

Violence, Policing, and War

The chapter analyses the rise of paramilitary styles of policing in the Anglo-American context. It describes the militarization of police and the way policing functions have been absorbed into the military parallel with the various wars on crime and terror. It sets out the different and formally separate operational philosophies of the police and the military and the implications for justice and democracy of hybrid policing military frames. It contextualizes this shift as part of a continuing legacy of colonial relations of power in white settler countries and former colonial powers. It describes the relevance of counter-insurgency strategy developed by colonial powers to overcome anti-colonial struggles and argues that paramilitary policing reflects and reinvigorates colonial relations of power within and between nation states.

Staying Safe from Crime

There is little existing literature according specific attention to how international students stay safe from crime. However, literature relating to the use of professional counselling services is extensive and generally suggests that international students are reluctant to seek help for fear they will be judged poorly by peers for not managing their personal problems (Flum 1998; Russell, Thomson and Rosenthal 2008; Zhang and Dixon 2003). In contrast, Lippincott and Mierzwa (1995) found that Asian international students reported they would seek counselling services more frequently than US students but would present with somatic health issues. The attention afforded to professional counsellors by the help seeking literature contrasts with Gonzalez’s (2001) finding that only 8 per cent of international students had sought help from counsellors, lecturers, general practitioners, or religious leaders. Nonetheless, the literature suggests that students with health and/or psychological problems can be particularly vulnerable to issues relating to safety and crime.

International Students as Perpetrators of Crime

The literature relating to migration and crime suggests that similarities exist in the experiences of migrants and international students. Many international students stay in their host country after completing their studies (Access Economics, 2009) and, as a consequence, are often considered as temporary or ‘backdoor’ migrants (Robertson, 2011). Contemporary findings confirm that immigration does not increase crime and may indeed lessen it (Reid et al., 2005). However, migration can weaken the social institutions within a community, leading to increased levels of crime attributable to both immigrants and native-born residents (Bankston, 1998; Sampson and Groves, 1989; Vessey and Messner, 1999). To date, there has been very little attention paid to the topic of international students as perpetrators of crime. While interviewees in all three countries did not think it was common for international students to be perpetrators of crime, they were able to provide examples where this was the case. The experience and knowledge of our interviewees provides new insights into the problem of international students as perpetrators of crime.

Serious and Violent Crime

The issue of serious and violent crime in relation to international students was perceived to be much less prevalent than non-violent crime. Nonetheless, the interviewees provided many accounts of violent crime. This chapter focuses on robbery—including armed robbery—assault, and the more serious crimes of homicide, kidnapping, extortion and terrorism. Robbery was thought to be the most prevalent violent crime relating to international students and it was often associated with assault. Consequently, attention will be given to a series of assaults and robberies in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, which made international headlines. It is noted that this form of crime was also raised as a problem in other parts of Australia, the UK and the US. Some cases of assault and robbery also involved homicide, increasing the seriousness of the crime.