Piers Beirne's provocative essay on animal-related human behavior -- social deviancy in the form of "animal abuse" -- takes on particular relevance in light of the recent challenge to biotechnology and genetic engineering organized by Jeremy Rifkin and 200 religious leaders from a coalition of 80 religious groups representing every major denomination. The controversy centers on the morality of claiming ownership of human or animal "life forms" and ultimately speaks to the nature of human life and animal life (see Hall, 1995a and 1995b; Freedberg, 1995). Depicting the marketing of human life as "a form of genetic slavery," these groups have called for an immediate moratorium on patents for human genes and genetically engineered animals. With staunch opposition forthcoming from the scientific community, the biotechnology industry, and among prominent theologians, however, the issue could approach the intensity of the anti-abortion debate in coming years.

In contrast to these larger theological concerns, Beirne's project is simply to place animal abuse firmly on the sociological agenda, given that scholarly studies of animal abuse remain virtually non-existent and the topic is completely ignored in criminology textbooks. Historically, non-human animals have not been absent from criminological discourse. Yet Beirne asks whether they appear as authentic subjects or as mere appendages to humans? Are they viewed as sentient beings with innate rights or as edible meat awaiting slaughter? When answered, these questions invite the charge that criminology has been guilty of a thoroughgoing speciesism. Rather than engaging in animal advocacy as such, the essay describes the roles that animals occupy in criminology as criminals, as partners to humans in crime, and as objects, while also drawing analogies between animals and humans.

According to Beirne, despite a substantial mass of legislation specifying various crimes against animals, including the federal Animal Welfare Act (1965) and numerous state anti-cruelty laws, the concerns of sociology and criminology lag far behind those of criminal law. Even the most enlightened or progressive definitions of crime are permeated with speciesism. To define crime as "social harm" or "analogous social injury," for example, precludes harms and injuries committed against animals. The untheorized treatment of animals as objects in the literature of sociology and criminology mirrors how they are routinely treated in factory farms, research laboratories, zoos, and aquaria, or displayed as items of clothing. Animals are used and abused by humans in many of the same ways, and for many of the same dominionistic reasons, Beirne argues, as those accounting for why males have oppressed women and whites have enslaved persons of color. Given the threat posed by an activist, right-wing-dominated Congress to the Endangered Species Act and the degree to which profit-centered development has imperiled the planet's ecosystem, the arguments in this challenging essay deserve a close reading.

In his article, Ronnie Lippens make a plea for renewed utopian thinking in critical criminology. Critical criminology must avoid nihilism and postmodernist impossibilism, along with its fragmenting dynamics. Instead, it must make substantial efforts to fight the contemporary (postmodern) condition, where possibilities and opportunities for human emancipatory action are splintered, and where postmodernist rhetoric serves as a legitimating logic for the ways of postmodern global capital. To this end, the traditional divide separating "realist" and "idealist" critical criminologies must end; they must reemerge as companions in a utopian, "antisystemic" project. Lippens' overview of post-World War II social transformations nicely complements the political-economic work in the following article, but also adds the ideological dimension of postmodernism and a serious effort to develop strategic options.

"Class and Criminality," by Rob White and John van der Velden, analyzes the relationship between crime and the class structure by exploring typical patterns of crime associated with specific classes and discusses attempts by the state to regulate and control capitalist marketplace activities and working-class life. Empirical indicators are drawn from the Australian context. The authors were concerned that in the post-Cold War ambiance, both the study of the structural conditions producing crime, and class as an analytic category were falling by the wayside. For them, crime under capitalism is endemic to the system, involving working-class criminality and the crimes of members of the capitalist class and middle strata. Class criminality is causally linked to the logic of a system geared to capital accumulation and private profit, rather than to meeting social needs. The criminality associated with economic marginalization and social alienation stems from the subordinate position of the working class in society. In this regard, the functions of the welfare apparatus are extensively examined. Alternatively, the crimes of the well-to-do are linked to their efforts to enhance their competitiveness and profit margins within the context of market transactions, as well as to their ability to further their individual and collective social and material interests through a wide variety of illegal and formally legal means. The need to address legitimate personal safety concerns and the role of "law and order" campaigns are examined within this framework.

In "Organizational Crime in NASA and Among Its Contractors," Jurg Gerber and Eric Fritch's research carries on the muck-raking tradition that has long played a prominent role in American progressive social thought. Although corporate lawbreaking is perceived to be common, the authors note that data are difficult to obtain (e.g., the Crime Index does not include any corporate crimes). This article builds on an earlier project in which the authors developed a method for estimating the extent of corporate crime by using The Wall Street Journal. Here the earlier focus on one corporation and its violations in securing contracts from the Department of Defense has been expanded to all corporations that have received contracts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Using the regional press, the extent of violations and their consequences (or the absence thereof) for the corporations are documented for the period 1980 to 1989. The analysis also focuses on organizational law breaking by NASA and its officials. The authors explore the implications of their findings for future research on organizational crime.

The "Silence of the Left: Reflections on Critical Criminology and Criminologists," by Kenneth D. Tunnell, makes the case that critical criminology and critical criminologists are valuable resources for enlightening the general public and political officials about crime and justice-related issues. Although their work is central in the contemporary U.S. to innovative, humanistic interpretations of crime and justice, critical criminologists have little access to politicians or the media, and hence, to the general public. In the U.S., academics as a whole, and particularly those on the Left, have historically had a minimal public voice and remain outside public policy debates. The author explores the academic and social-structural constraints that account for this inaccessibility.

Neil Websdale's article, "An Ethnographic Assessment of the Policing of Domestic Violence in Rural Eastern Kentucky" extends to rural communities the body of research on the experiences of battered women and the nature and extent of interpersonal violence against women. It raises questions about the marginalization of rural women, the violence they experience, and the often inadequate police response to that violence. An overview of theories of domestic violence and police response is provided, along with an analysis of ethnographic data based on extensive interviews and a discussion of the social policy implications.

Devereaux Kennedy's article attempts to evaluate the significance of the reform school regimes of E.M.P. Wells and Joseph Curtis. Kennedy examines the utilitarian correctional theory and practice dominant in the U.S. during the 1820s and 1830s and the Progressive approach to corrections that held sway during the first two decades of the 20th century. The author concludes that the correctional methods of Curtis and Wells failed to become institutionalized on a wide scale during their tenure because they did not fit with the utilitarian ideology and the disciplinary techniques favored by the ante-bellum reformers who controlled correctional institutions. It was not so much that the correctional institutions and schools of that period were designed to train a work force for capitalists as it was that those in charge of policy were convinced that the manufactory, the prison, the reform school, and the school should be based on the same disciplinary techniques, which stressed orderliness, obedience, and habits of industry, including constant drill and repetition to facilitate the performance of specific tasks in prescribed ways at assigned times. Many of Curtis and Wells' correctional techniques and practices, such as individualization of treatment, taking initiative, and encouraging self-expression were, however, later reinvented by Progressive reformers.

Finally, Robert Ackerman's lively review of Harold Pepinsky's The Geometry of Violence and Democracy notes that in defining crime as a politically arbitrary subset of violence, Pepinsky has written a powerful and moving book that explains the apparent irrelevance of much of what is normally considered criminology and offers the prospect of a genuinely new approach to studies of crime. Indeed, like Lippens, Pepinsky appeals to the search for possible utopias, but stresses that there are no ultimate solutions. There are only attempts to make peace and subordinate tendencies toward war. Following the review is Pepinsky's response, in which he shares his personal views and doubts on the prospects for resolving the cycles of violence in which human beings are caught.

-- G.S.