‘Wider and deeper’? Reflections on the challenges of doing European criminology in a demagogic age

Abstract

Over 20 years ago, in the inaugural issue of the European Journal of Criminology, David Smith identified the rising profile of crime control, criminal justice and security in European politics as one of three key processes driving the development of criminology in Europe. His 2014 exhortation to go ‘wider and deeper’ in this regard – to embrace ‘the sociology and politics of punishment’ as worthy ‘subjects for a journal of criminology’ as well as closer engagement with the humanist tradition – raises some interesting questions for the discipline in the turbulent times in which we now live. In a global and European context increasingly dominated by various alliances on the right, sometimes referred to as the ‘far’ or ‘alt’ right, what adjustments to the criminological lens are required to capture the full spectrum of exclusionary policies, practices and institutions that Smith (and others) view as so fundamental to the discipline? How – in a climate which has possibly never been more hostile to ‘epistemic crime control’ – to ‘create the conditions for a wider, more critical and more constructive debate’? Against this background, this think piece offers some brief reflections on the role of European criminology in an increasingly partisan and polarised society.

Introduction

Over 20 years ago, in the inaugural issue of the European Journal of Criminology, David Smith (2004) identified the rising profile of crime control, criminal justice and security in European politics as one of three key processes driving the development of criminology in Europe, alongside increasing awareness of human rights issues and growing communication between European countries. For him, the crime control rhetoric that so dominated electoral campaigns at that time ‘can create a demand for criminology if the political class believes that social science is potentially useful’ (Smith, 2004: 6), albeit a criminology that, through its more critical sub-strands, can grow to bite the hand that feeds it (Smith, 2014). Elaborating on this impetus 10 years later, he again positioned the wider moral and political framework of crime – qua the social practices and institutions for dealing with crime and deviance – as central to our understanding of the field (ibid).

Despite the above, there is a reticence – reflective perhaps of a desire to emulate the ‘objectivity’ of the natural sciences – among many in the European criminological community to engage in an evaluative way with the research we carry out. ¹ In his analysis of articles published in the first nine volumes of the EJC, Smith (2014) identified a reluctance to be explicit about the moral dimensions informing the research, its conclusions and policy implications as some of the weaknesses of the journal's output to date. His resultant exhortation to go ‘wider and deeper’ in this regard – to embrace ‘the sociology and politics of punishment’ as worthy ‘subjects for a journal of criminology’ (2014: 8) as well as closer engagement with the humanist tradition – raises some interesting questions for the discipline in the turbulent times in which we now live. In a global and European context increasingly dominated by various alliances on the right, sometimes referred to as the ‘far’ or ‘alt’ right, what adjustments to the criminological lens are required to capture the full spectrum of exclusionary policies, practices and institutions that Smith (and others) ² view as so fundamental to the discipline? Do these changing policies, practices and institutions, as some working in the field of border criminology argue, pose challenges for the boundaries of the discipline itself? ³ Similar questions flow from another of Smith's observations about the ‘inescapable’ links between academic work and moral and political choice and what he sees, perhaps with some justification, ⁴ as the relative weaknesses of the journal on the humanist and critical side. How – in a climate which has possibly never been more hostile to ‘epistemic crime control’ (Loader and Sparks, 2017) – to ‘create the conditions for a wider, more critical and more constructive debate’ (Smith, 2014: 5)? It is these two aspects, namely, the evolution of the sociology of punishment and criminology's mode of engagement in this new politics of crime, that I take as my point of departure for this brief think-piece, reflecting on the role of European criminology in an increasingly partisan and polarised society.

The sociology of punishment: Contemporary complexions

These are interesting times for scholars of crime and punishment. Arising from these new political formations on the right, a series of discourses and decisions can be identified that have features associated with the ‘authoritarianism populism’ of old (Hall et al., 1978). For example, as Knott (2020) astutely observes, many contemporary observers will recognise the attempts to mobilise one sector of the public (‘the silent majority’) against others, deemed to be responsible for current ills. Yet, despite the (perhaps false) air of familiarity, ⁵ the implications for crime and security are far from straightforward. On the one hand, crime appears to have slipped down the political agenda of many countries in Europe such that we can no longer speak of the law-and-order auctioneering which so defined the Blair and Sarkozy years. Indeed, with a decline in incarceration rates of more than 20% in numerous EU countries, such as Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden (Aebi and Tiago, 2020), some scholars have even described the current trajectory as ‘Eliasian’ (Chacon, 2015). On the other hand, it might be more accurate to say that the exclusionary discourse of the 1990s and early 2000s has simply found ‘new referents’ (Loader, 2018) in that today being ‘tough on crime’ means above all being ‘tough on immigration’ and vice versa (Bosworth et al., 2018). In a way, this is not new. In his 2004 piece, Smith speaks of the ‘successful effort by far-right parties to define migration and asylum seekers as a focal political issue … migrants tend to merge in the collective consciousness with the criminal other’ (2004: 1), a timely reminder that authoritarian populism did not arrive fully formed on the political scene in 2016. What is perhaps different now is the extent to which the considerable electoral success enjoyed by these ‘new right’ political alliances across Europe has meant that they are now in a position to access government. ⁶ Key to their success in this regard is the populist invocation of societal security, something with which they are ‘obsessed’ (Mudde, 2019). Indeed, as Kurylo (2022) argues, crime and security issues may even be regarded as constitutive of radical right populism ‘as its claim to defend “the endangered people” necessitates an unceasing construction of new threats’ (Kurylo, 2022).

Where does this leave European criminology in 2025? Reflecting immigration's current role as a ‘condensation symbol’ and, in the spirit of being ‘wider’ in the scope of the subject matter, it clearly behoves contemporary criminologists to adopt what Brandariz (2021: 100) terms, an ‘expanded analytical gaze on penal power’. Reflecting the longstanding work in the border criminology field, immigration detention and deportation measures should undoubtedly be considered alongside more traditional criminological foci such as prisons and community sanctions. More than this, perhaps, in the light of policies in some jurisdictions specifically aimed at creating a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants, there is a need to decentre both the criminal law and the nation-state to look at transnational ‘ordering practices’ that are at play beyond the national criminal justice system (Moffette and Pratt, 2020; van der Woude, 2023). Thus, for example, alongside transnational prisons (Liebling et al., 2021), we have seen the outsourcing of detention centres seemingly designed to elude the scope of application of EU law (see, e.g., Montaldo, 2025 on the Italy and Albania Protocol).

Doing European criminology in a populist age

Returning to the second critical issue identified by Smith (2014: 5), namely, how criminology can help to ‘create the conditions for a wider, more critical and more constructive debate’, the recent rise of populism, particularly on the right, and its preference for ‘instinct’ over reason (Fieschi, 2019) directly challenges the epistemic authority of criminology. Scepticism about experts in general now permeates political life tout court, ‘becoming a structuring feature of politics marked by fake news, post-truth and tribal epistemology (we have our facts, you have yours)’ (Loader, 2018: 6). ⁷ In a recent analysis on populism in Europe, well-known political scientist, Cas Mudde (2021) sees its recent ascent as partly a reaction to rising technocracy, of which criminology – or at least that branch of the discipline that can be described as ‘epistemic crime control’ (Loader and Sparks, 2017) – forms a part. Thus, where many mainstream politicians have sought to depoliticise matters, including those pertaining to crime and justice, by claiming ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA), populists have responded by stating that everything is political. Indeed, for many sympathetic to populism, the simple process and outcomes of engaging in the production of knowledge are associated with being politically on the left. ⁸

While many criminologists will bristle at such a statement, as Loader and Spark’s (2011) excellent work on ‘public criminology’ attests, there is clearly a kernel of truth in the argument: criminological engagement with public life ranges all the way from the scientific expert to social movement activist, encompassing along the way the policy advisor, observer-turned-player, and lonely prophet. Thus, we are not neutral players but have professional, moral and political interests in debates over crime and its control. Indeed, as Flyvbjerg (2001: 3) has argued about the social sciences in general, what sets us apart from the natural sciences is our ability to engage in ‘deep, reflexive, and contextualised analysis about people and societies as a point of departure for values-based action’. Perhaps, following Mudde (2021), we should shift the focus away from the need to ‘counter’ populism and towards strengthening democratic debate, including a shift away from TINA politics and towards ‘explaining the benefits of your position’. In this context, the need for strong social scientific research that can produce, and communicate, robust empirical evidence is more important than ever (see further, Treiber and Hardie, 2025, this collection).

Greater attention should also be paid to what are essentially ethical questions about modes of engagement with this ‘new’ form of politics. In an important discussion about what academics should do about the widespread flourishing of conspiracy theories, Drążkiewicz Grodzicka and Harambam (2021) make the point that this is essentially a question that is closely related to specific disciplinary ethical codes of conduct, research methodologies, and theoretical approaches. As they argue, ‘facts’ are not all that shape people's attitudes towards various topics; equally as important are people's relationships with experts, including those in the academic world. From a criminological perspective, an important start in framing and advancing better crime politics in these more ‘demotic times’ is Loader's (2018) elaboration of a new ‘political ethic’ guided by three virtues of humility, intense curiosity about how other people think and feel, and civic care. The significance of this, more relational, positioning in the context of a growing populism cannot be understated: one need only recall Hilary Clinton's infamous ‘basket of deplorables’ speech to illustrate how comments can become synonymous with an arrogant liberal establishment pouring scorn on ordinary people (Homolar and Lofflmann, 2021). ⁹ Like politics, knowledge is therefore a relational issue that refers to the relationships between people that emerge within a given field (Hastrup, 2004: 456). In a European context where, until very recently, eight out of 27 European Union countries either had hard-right parties in government or relied on them in a confidence and supply agreement, the practice of criminology as a craft takes on a renewed urgency.

Conclusion

This brief reflection has considered some of the challenges for European criminologists of a ‘wider and deeper’ engagement with the sociology and punishment of crime in today's turbulent, and increasingly polarised, political environment. Reflecting immigration's current role as a ‘condensation symbol’ and, in the spirit of being ‘wider’ in the scope of the subject matter, it argues for an ‘expanded analytical gaze on penal power’ as well as greater attention to ethical questions about modes of engagement with this ‘new’ form of politics. While, as Smith (2014) contends, there is little doubt ‘how the politics of crime frustrates reform, and how that problem can be overcome’ remains one of the most important questions for criminologists, in contemporary times there is the added, essentially relational, question of the criminological ‘craft’ in this type of engagement (Loader, 2018). Even for those criminologists who wish to stay ‘neutral’ in the battles for epistemic authority, the task is now as much about communicating knowledge and ensuring its receptivity as ‘producing’ it. Indeed, in the context of the European Society of Criminology, where, as Treiber and Hardie (2025) argue, diversity forms one of its core strengths, widening divides in political perspectives may yet present – Janus-like – as one of its most important contemporary challenges.