I. Introduction

With this fourth issue of Crime and Social Justice, we begin our third year of work on the only radical journal of criminology in the United States. Given the generally repressive nature of the field of criminology and the extension of academic repression beyond individual faculty people to include the School of Criminology at Berkeley, it has not been easy to develop a radical journal. At a time when counterinsurgency activities of the criminal justice system and other institutions of coercion have become an increasingly pervasive feature of life in the United States, a journal of radical criminology is needed more than ever. Crime and Social Justice distinguishes itself from those liberal journals that dominate the field by its commitment to a search for socialist solutions to the problem characterized as "crime" in the U.S. Theoretically, we view a Marxist analysis as the most promising framework for study, as exemplified by the work of Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer (Punishment and Social Structure, 1939), Alan Wolfe (The Seamy Side of Democracy, 1973), and Thomas Mathiesen (The Politics of Abolition, 1974). Recognizing the transitional nature of the field, we pursue a nonsectarian policy and support those progressive writers who attempt to radicalize the political content of criminology.

Since the founding of the journal in Berkeley by a collective composed of instructors and students in the School of Criminology, we have discovered that there is a worldwide interest in the development of a Marxist analysis of crime. However, the specific repression of the School of Criminology, culminating in its elimination in June 1976, inevitably affected our operation. Some of the staff have lost their jobs in Berkeley and others have been forced to take jobs in different parts of the country.

As a result of these constraints, we have decided upon several important changes to assure the continuation of the journal and the development of a union composed of community organizers, progressive criminal justice workers, and students and teachers of criminology. These changes are the product of a collective evaluation of everything from our work style and finances to the journal's political content and constituency. We have also benefited greatly from the comments and criticisms of our readers.

Our overall evaluation is positive. We have published materials that do not meet the technocratic standards of conventional journals and have encouraged scholars to write without fear of censorship; we have informed people about important struggles for social justice and emphasized the importance of praxis, i.e., the unity of theory and practice; we have provided a forum for teachers and supported the development of radical courses and experimental pedagogy; we have critically evaluated the most recent criminological literature and attempted to explain the salient distinctions between liberal and radical perspectives; we have tried to break down mental-manual divisions of labor within the journal collective and have also participated in many areas of production work such as typing, layout, graphics, etc.; and finally, we have distributed several thousand copies of the journal, primarily in North America, but also in Europe and Latin America. Nevertheless, we have experienced several problems, and our policies for the coming year will reflect changes based on an investigation of their roots.

II. Content and Format

A number of criticisms have been raised about the political content and direction of the journal. In our eagerness to be nonsectarian, we have failed to establish clear political priorities and guidelines for future work. As a result of our concern to reject criminological liberalism, we have also tended to move too far away from conventional criminological issues by printing articles of interest to the general Left, but that were only tangentially related to criminology. We have also published some informational and descriptive materials that are either quickly dated or readily available in other left publications. Finally, the format of the journal is somewhat mechanistic and too closely modeled after conventional journals. Up to now, the journal format and contents have been organized around four categories -- Articles, Struggles, Pedagogy, and Book Reviews -- with each section allocated more or less the same number of pages. In evaluating our experiences in publishing the first three issues of Crime and Social Justice, we have found that the present, artificial delineation of sections is not the only model, nor is it necessarily the most logical, since good articles tend to include a review of the literature and an analysis of theory and praxis, resulting, therefore, in a pedagogical piece.

Beginning with the publication of issue No. 5, the journal will become issue rather than section oriented. Consequently, we have decided to considerably expand the Articles section, with emphasis upon criminology. Contributions to Struggles that are analytical and politically critical will also be published in the Articles section. As noted earlier, we will not print informational articles on struggles unless they are generally unavailable elsewhere. The Book Review section will emphasize multiple reviews, survey books on special topics such as rape, economics and crime, the history of punishment, etc., and review older books and classics. We hope this new format will be helpful to our readers by serving as a timely and politically useful reference to the extant literature. Course outlines accompanied by an extensive survey of the literature or an annotated bibliography will also continue to be published.

Over the next year, we will be working to develop articles and reports on the issues that we see as key in the contemporary American criminal justice system and the popular struggle against crime. We have singled out five topics as priorities and more clearly defined the subject matter of our continuing concerns.

(1) One of our immediate priorities is the examination of the relationship between economics and crime within capitalist society. The United States is in the midst of a severe economic crisis, and unemployment in the last year has reached its highest level in 36 years. Since crime represents a particularly striking example of how victims of economic crises are placed in conflict with one another, we see a need for careful empirical and theoretical work on the actual interplay between economic crises, crime, and crime control. Speaking to this crisis, a group of police chiefs recently attributed the increasing levels of property crimes to the rising rate of unemployment and called for greater state action in crime prevention. While we support popular efforts to prevent street crime, we see a tremendous danger in governmental "get tough" policies that primarily affect Third World communities, serve as a cover for institutionalized racism, and augment the coercive power of the state without providing any genuine safeguards to human life or personal possessions. We object to the contention that the state, which, as a rule, legitimates and reproduces capitalist social relations, can also in its present form implement policies that prevent crime.

We also recognize the positive potential of the fiscal crisis to broaden the base of popular support for resisting the repressive apparatus of the criminal justice system. We welcome analytical reports on progressive efforts such as that of the Jail Moratorium Committee in Santa Cruz, California (see Crime and Social Justice, issue No. 2) to organize local communities against the building of new jails, prisons, and other detention facilities. Similarly, we seek reports about the struggles of prisoner groups, such as that on Rikers Island in New York, to maintain and improve their living and working conditions in the face of increased overcrowding and deteriorating facilities.

(2) Another priority for Crime and Social Justice will center around the area of women and crime. We see three categories as needing further exploration: women as perpetrators of crime, as enforcers within the criminal justice system, and as victims of crime. One example of the struggle by women against victimization is the anti-rape movement. Spurred by the women's movement, the popular struggle against rape has, over the last several years, developed throughout the country. Organized primarily on a local level, this movement has given immediate support to thousands of women victimized by rape, publicized the danger of rape, and advocated preventive measures. It has also won progressive legislation in several states that seeks to reverse the judicial doctrines formulated in 17th-century English law and thus better protect the legal rights of women who have been victimized. We support this movement and see a need for analyses of its strengths and weaknesses so that local groups can learn from one another's experience. In addition, the state has been attempting to establish control over this movement, especially through the guidelines of its "public safety" funding programs, which promote technocratic professionalism over local control. We encourage critical analyses of state action, which we suspect would reveal the fundamental inadequacies of the criminal justice system in stopping rape, and provide the movement with tools to combat racism, sexism, and capitalism.

(3) Our third specific priority for the next year is to generate study and analysis of the composition, working conditions, and political demands of people employed by the criminal justice system. We think that this is important because between "1960 and 1973, municipal unions grew across the country as the number of local government workers climbed by 72 percent. City spending more than tripled; most went to pay workers in expanding health, police, and educational programs. At all levels of government, business is now attempting to take back some of the hard-won gains of working people during this period" (see Dollars and Sense, Number 8, Summer 1975: 9). Recent strikes by state workers, including probation and parole officers as well as police in Santa Clara County and San Francisco, California, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, have served to underline our relative ignorance of the situation of criminal justice system workers. We are looking for articles that assess the tasks and achievements of progressive individuals and organizations within this work force, especially the struggles of Third World and women workers around institutionalized racism and sexism.

(4) We also recognize a responsibility to encourage the careful investigation of contemporary strategies of state repression and legitimation, particularly the uses of counterinsurgency against Third World communities, the labor movement, and progressive political organizations. Since Watergate, a great deal of popular shock and indignation has emerged over the extralegal surveillance and covert political activities of the FBI, the CIA, and, to a lesser degree, the IRS and the Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms Division of the Treasury Department. This exposure is long overdue, but we must not allow the partial reform legislation being proposed by Congress to divert attention from the less-publicized but potentially more repressive policies being developed, such as the unprecedented level of police, FBI, and army cooperation in the attack on the Native Americans at Wounded Knee. We are looking for articles that analyze national crime control proposals, such as the Omnibus Court Proceedings Bill and SB 1. We also seek research along the lines of The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove (see Book Reviews in this issue), which attempts to evaluate the changing nature of repression, especially the integration of explicit and subtle forms of coercion. For example, we need to know much more about the ideology and operation of liberal "reforms," such as diversion, work and educational furloughs, community corrections, and decriminalization.

Further, the use of highly sophisticated technology in police surveillance, communication, and weaponry must be investigated in the light of the increasing, direct involvement of corporate representatives in government and the growth of the police-industrial complex (see the McLauchlan article in this issue). This expansion is structurally connected to the imperialist exportation of repressive technology to countries such as South Korea, the Philippines, Iran, and Brazil.

(5) Finally, to deepen our understanding of the contemporary criminal justice system, we will continue to publish articles on the history of the criminal justice system and on radical criminological theory. We also welcome articles that explore the regulation of crime in socialist countries and that seek to develop progressive proposals for the U.S. Above all, we are especially anxious to publish historical and comparative articles that make an original contribution to current theoretical debates on the state.

III. Constituency

In the past, we have attempted to build a broad-based audience composed of five different though interrelated constituencies within the U.S. and abroad: radical criminologists and social scientists, organizations struggling against the criminal justice system, prisoners, and progressive state workers. However, an analysis of the contents of the last three journals reveals that the political content of such material has been aimed at only a small segment of that larger constituency, namely radical criminologists, other academics, and the general Left.

Therefore, one of our immediate priorities lies in making the content more relevant to the constituencies we think are most directly involved in criminological and criminal justice struggles. First, we plan to continue with analytical and pedagogical materials that assist academic criminologists in universities and state and community colleges. Second, we will attempt to build strong relationships with political people who are doing organizing around criminal justice issues, both by more fully assessing their programs and by encouraging them to write articles for the journal. We see this part of the constituency as including people working around anti-rape issues, police control activities, prison struggles, anti-repression groups, and leftist legal strategies. Third, we are committed to serving criminal justice system workers open to progressive politics by making our content more relevant to their work in probation, parole, rehabilitation, research and consultation, and community-based corrections.

IV. Finances and Distribution

In any type of work to which people are committed, the question of the material means of production plays an important role. A journal of radical criminology is no different. Given the national economic crisis with its attendant inflation of costs and reduction of real wages, the financial problematics that face us as a relatively young periodical have forced us to reevaluate the basis of our continuing operation. In critically analyzing our past practices in finance and distribution, it is clear that we have made some serious mistakes. We tended to focus on production of the journal at the expense of management and distribution.

To correct this problem, we constituted an ongoing committee which will analyze our fiscal situation, explore the possibility of publishing three times a year (at no additional cost to our subscribers), and promote distribution. To avoid the often haphazard correspondence with our subscribers and inefficient mailing, we plan to systematically organize and delegate the office work. We realize that these functions comprise political work that is of equal importance to writing and publishing a journal of this type, for if Crime and Social Justice is not distributed, its function in the development of a radical criminology is lost.

Many of these changes will require the help of our readers. We encourage you to assist us in those areas where you feel most able. We are aware that in the past it has been very difficult for nonsubscribers to obtain journals from their local bookstores. For this reason, we are making a concentrated effort to supply bookstores with copies of the more recent issues. Since we do not know all of the stores that exist across the country, we are asking people to send us information concerning those that are interested in carrying the journal. In addition to this, we hope to expand our distribution to libraries, departments in universities, state and community colleges, and criminal justice agencies. Here again you can help us by asking your library, school, or place of work to subscribe to the journal.

Conferences also are another important forum for disseminating and building the journal, as well as for making contacts with people who share our interests. We hope the united efforts of the collective and our constituency will succeed in expanding distribution and consolidating our finances. This will, in turn, allow us to focus more attention on the political content of the journal.

V. Collective Work Styles

Several problems have developed in the work style of the journal collective. In the past, while being committed to a collective work style, the organization of the journal was centered around four fairly autonomous sub-groups (Articles, Struggles, Pedagogy, and Book Reviews). As a result of this division of labor, meetings typically focused on the practical problems of soliciting materials, editing, and production. While this was somewhat efficient, there had been a tendency to defer important political discussions and to avoid problems relating to the long-range goals of the journal. The struggle against racism, sexism, liberalism, and elitism within the collective has also suffered from periodic lapses.

We have recently initiated a more self-conscious and systematic process, which includes political education sessions to help us advance and develop our analysis of radical criminology. Eventually, our labor will result in more collectively written material for the journal. We also recognize that collective work places value on the labor process as well as on the product, and are therefore attempting to practice criticism/self-criticism. In addition, we have formed new subgroups, including an articles screening committee, a circulation/distribution/finances committee, and various writing collectives, all of which have equal importance to the functioning of the journal. This new division of labor has promoted a more equitable distribution of work and reduced the reproduction of hierarchical relationships.

We have discussed how the nature of collective work in the journal fits into our long-range survival, and are now trying to come to grips with the prospect of more fully utilizing the potential of decentralized groups. Therefore, we support the development of centers of radical activity that could eventually share in the work of the journal, and the establishment of a national network of collective units

Radical criminological research is emerging steadily in North America, and we see it as our task to further this development. To succeed, we must fight the tendency to look solely to ourselves for political guidance. Therefore, our evaluation of the process of collective work styles is important not because we see ourselves as an academic group producing a journal, but rather because we are a political collective concerned with generating an analysis of crime as part of the struggle for socialism.

VI. Building the Network

The future development of a radical criminology movement requires the building of a network for correspondence, support, and exchange of information. While the journal collective has played an important role in beginning this process, it lacks the resources to maintain an appropriate forum for exchanging letters, discussing projects, advertising jobs, announcing meetings, etc. Consequently, we would like to encourage the creation of a more systematic correspondence network, the formation of collectives, and study groups where there is a concentration of radical criminologists (for example, New York, Boston, Ottawa, Montreal, and Chicago), and more support for the newsletter begun by Ray Michalowski in the spring of 1975. Please send contributions for the newsletter (letters, ideas, notes, thoughts, etc.).

Several individuals and groups have agreed to serve as coordinators between the journal and those interested in radical criminology. Discuss your interests, investigate the possibilities for political work, and consider the formation of study groups with them. We invite you to explore the possibility of setting up a group or acting as a coordinating editor with us. Through the combined efforts of the newsletter and the network of collectives connected to Crime and Social Justice, we will be able to build the foundation for a national organization of radical criminologists.

At the present time, the coordinating editors for Crime and Social Justice are Jim Brady (Boston), Drew Humphries (Brooklyn, NY), Richard Quinney (Providence, RI), Dorie Klein (Portland, OR), Virginia Engquist Grabiner (Buffalo, NY), Yvon Dandurand (Ottawa, Canada), Ray Michalowski (Charlotte, NC), Mary Marzotto (Evanston, IL), Al Pinkney (New York, NY), and Pat Morgan (Santa Barbara, CA).