School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemPostcolonial penality: Liberty and repression in the shadow of independence, India c. 1947(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2017-05)This article reports primary archival data on the colonial penal history of British India and its reconfiguration into the postcolonial Indian state. It introduces criminologists to frameworks through which postcolonial scholars have sought to make sense of the continuities and discontinuities of rule across the colonial/postcolonial divide. The article examines the postcolonial life of one example of colonial penal power, known as the criminal tribes policy, under which more than three million Indian subjects of British rule were restricted in their movements, subject to a host of administrative rules and sometimes severe punishments, sequestered in settlements and limited in access to legal redress. It illustrates how at the birth of the postcolonial Indian state, encompassing visions of a liberal, unfettered and free life guaranteed in a new Constitution and charter of Fundamental Rights, freedom for some was to prove as elusive as citizens as it had been as subjects.
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Item"An Unqualified Human Good"? On Rule of Law, Globalization, and Imperialism(Wiley, 2018)Forty years ago, E. P. Thompson praised the English rule of law forged during the bloody and fractious eighteenth century, calling it not only “an unqualified human good,” but also a “cultural achievement of universal significance.” This article examines colonial rule-of-law development as another example of law and state building. Both have relevance for contemporary rule-of-law programming in the Global South where Thompson’s “cultural achievement” has resisted fabrication by legal technicians. The problems faced today are not new, for colonial rulers also engaged with complex indigenous norms and forms and sought to balance universal principles with political control imperatives. Contra arguments about colonial “lawfare,” colonial rule of law often frustrated authoritarian tendencies while developing new forms of legal subjectivity and avenues for redress of grievances. Using data from the Indian province of Punjab, the article illustrates how historical case studies might aid contemporary rule-of-law programming in the Global South.
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ItemBefore citizenship: liberalism's colonial subjects(Canberra: Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) & Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), The Australian National University, 2006)This paper is concerned with the way colonial states established limited forms of access to civic and political life for their subjects. The issue of how colonial subjects were constructed as political and civil subjects is not well understood and one aim of this paper is to propose a new and hopefully more productive way of understanding the relationship between colonial subjects and their colonizers. This might be understood as a new lens through which colonial debates around native participation may be read and understood, or a new ear to some of the nuances of colonial language and concern. At the same time as saying this it must be recognized that the colonial state, and those subject to it, were not homogeneous. Marked differences existed between the early and late periods of colonial rule in British India, just as also between British colonialism in India and Africa, or British colonial rule in India and that practiced by, say, the French in Algeria. The case study for this research has been British rule in India in the second part of the nineteenth century. This should be borne in mind when considering conclusions drawn here and the extent to which they might reasonably be generalized to other colonial contexts. The paper is divided into three sections. Section I provides a brief sketch of nineteenth century British liberal political thought in respect of colonialism and the projection of British rule offshore. Its aim is not to provide a comprehensive review of this topic but rather to indicate some of the broader views and assumptions that animated colonial administration from the latter part of the nineteenth century forward (for a more comprehensive review, see Moore, 1966; Sullivan, 1983). Key amongst these was the idea that liberty rights and political participation were the preserve of societies that had reached a mature level of civilization; for those that had not, despotic government was not only preferable but indeed desirable. Postcolonial the
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ItemColonial history and theories of the present: Some reflections upon penal history and theory(Willan Publishing, 2013-01-01)
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ItemMentoring, Social Capital and Desistance: A Study of Women Released from Prison(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2010-04)Mentoring ex-prisoners is an increasingly popular tool in the burgeoning field of offender reintegration and resettlement. Yet surprisingly little is known about what makes mentoring effective and indeed even whether it can be effective within the domain of criminal justice. This article proceeds in two parts. First, drawing upon desistance theory it attempts to develop a theoretical underpinning for mentoring practice with ex-offenders that would identify appropriate targets for mentoring practice, including the development of social capital or connectedness. Part two of the article utilises data from research on a women's mentoring program in Victoria, Australia, to understand how one key dimension of desistance — social capital — is recognised by women as a domain of need and those women's perceptions of the way mentoring may deliver gains in social connectedness and capital. The article concludes with a discussion of the distinctly gendered nature of women's postprison experiences and the way in which these factors shape both the process of desistance and the nature of mentoring interventions.
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ItemThe Pathways Model of Assault A Qualitative Analysis of the Assault Offender and Offense(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2009-09)Research on offending behavior rehabilitation suggests that offenders would gain the maximum benefit from programs that reflect the individual needs of different types of offender. Multivariate theories of offending behavior are thus required to inform individualized rehabilitation. The aim of the current study was to construct a multivariate model for the prolific offense of assault. Qualitative methodology was used to construct a descriptive model of assault for 25 adult assault offenders. The model incorporated the development of violent behavior, types of anger, violence motivation, and the assault offense. The model consisted of 14 categories, 10 of which allowed for individual differences in behavior. A total of 35 participant transcripts were then coded through the model where the individual differences occurred. Five main offense types were found. The characteristics of the types of assault offense gave indications for how rehabilitation may be targeted for each group.
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ItemLiberal exclusions and the new punitiveness(Willan Publishing, 2005)
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ItemCrime, liberalism and empire:: Governing the Mina tribe of northern India(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2004-06)Cultural analyses of empire inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) have focused on certain artefacts of imperial thought, representing them as emblematic of a totalizing Orientalist discourse. This article examines one such case in nineteenthcentury India: the identification and legal notification of communities as Criminal Tribes. Taking the case of the Mina tribe of northern India, an attempt is made to illustrate how strategies like the criminal tribes policy fall far short of reflecting some broad and monolithic approach to governance. By examining the divergent views of orthodox and authoritarian strains within British liberalism, and showing how they were directly reflected in quite different approaches to governing the Minas, the article reveals the criminal tribesman as less an archetype of British crime control strategy than the product of a limited and partial examination of the colonial archive. It is hoped that the present investigation of the case of the Mina tribe will provide a more complex and sophisticated understanding of the doctrines and strategies under which Britain governed its empire.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEthnology and colonial administration in nineteenth-century British India: The question of native crime and criminality(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2003-06-01)This paper examines the central role of ethnology, the science of race, in the administration of colonial India. This occurred on two levels. First, from the late eighteenth century onwards, proto-scientists and administrators in India engaged with metropolitan theorists through the provision of data on native society and habits. Second, these same agents were continually and reciprocally influenced in the collection and use of such data by the political doctrines and scientific theories that developed over the course of this period. Among the central interests of ethnographer-administrators was the native criminal and this paper uses knowledge developed about native crime and criminality to illustrate the way science became integral to administration in the colonial domain.