Table Of ContentPALGRAVE PIONEERS IN CRIMINOLOGY
Colin Sumner
Criminology Through
the Looking-Glass
David Moxon
Palgrave Pioneers in Criminology
Series Editors
David Polizzi
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN, USA
James Hardie-Bick
School of Law, Politics & Sociology
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK
Palgrave Pioneers in Criminology examines the theorists and their work
that has shaped the discussions and debates in the interdisciplinary, grow-
ing field of Criminology, focussing particularly on Critical Criminology.
The pioneers range from established to newer academics in Criminology
and beyond from other disciplines including Sociology, Psychology,
Philosophy and Law. Each book in the series offers an overview of a pio-
neer and their contribution to the field of Criminology, from the perspec-
tive of one author or multiple contributors. The series charts the historical
development of key theories and brings discussions up to the present day
to consider the past, present and future relevance of these theories for
society. This series presents in-depth, engaging, new discussions about this
field and the directions that it will continue to grow in.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15996
David Moxon
Colin Sumner
Criminology Through the Looking-Glass
David Moxon
Sheffield, UK
Palgrave Pioneers in Criminology
ISBN 978-3-030-36940-8 ISBN 978-3-030-36941-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36941-5
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A
cknowledgements
I first encountered Colin Sumner’s work as an undergraduate whilst pot-
tering around the law library in the Crookesmoor building at the University
of Sheffield when I should really have been reading texts and cases on
employment law, public law and the like. Since then it has been a constant
companion, and although I no longer work in academia, it continues to
inform my outlook. I have been fortunate enough to get to know Colin
personally, and to assist in the preparation of this volume, he very kindly
allowed me to borrow some papers and books that would otherwise have
been all but impossible to get hold of. For this, and for all his work over
the years, I thank him sincerely.
Thanks also to Tony Amatrudo, who commissioned this book in the
first place and has always been supremely encouraging and supportive.
A number of other obscure papers were efficiently sourced by the
British Library’s document supply service. The staff at the University of
Sheffield’s Western Bank Library kindly facilitated access to Colin’s PhD
thesis even though my credentials had long since expired.
I am grateful to the typically hospitable Canadians who have hosted me
and allowed me to set up shop in their homes: the Borody family—Marin,
Cam, Brenner and Olen—in Toronto, and everyone at the cottage. I will
try to have a proper holiday next time.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Finally, Jaime, Isla and Beth. Thanks as always for giving me the space
and the support to do this. As Colin Sumner (1979: xi) himself once said,
“I will organise it better next time.”
RefeRence
Sumner, C. (1979). Reading ideologies: An investigation into the Marxist theory of
ideology and law. London: Academic Press.
c
ontents
1 I ntroduction 1
2 Sumner and Ideological Censure 5
3 After Censure 39
4 Sumner and the Death of Deviance 67
5 After the Death of Deviance 87
6 Sumner and the Looking Glass 113
7 After Sumner? 133
Works by Colin Sumner 147
Index 153
vii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Sometime after the year 2000, a young criminologist will provide a
biographical account of Colin Sumner’s contribution to critical
criminology during his sojourn at the Cambridge Institute. Several
dozen students […] from the UK and from other countries have now
passed through postgraduate studies which were exceptionally informed
by his presence.
—Brogden (1993: 304)
Abstract This chapter introduces the book. It outlines the intention of
the book to take a fresh look at the work of Colin Sumner, placing it in its
disciplinary and wider social context. The sometimes divisive and contro-
versial nature of Sumner’s work is noted, and it is suggested that despite
being a distinctive and important thinker who has produced works of
great theoretical sophistication, his influence in criminology has not been
as great as it might have been. It is suggested that Sumner’s work has
involved a gradually deepening understanding of his core notion of ideo-
logical censure, which has given his career a remarkable consistency and
clarity of purpose. An outline of the book is provided, and it is noted that
the book will refer extensively to original sources, chiefly in order to act as
a corrective to some of the misconceptions that abound about Sumner’s
work.
Keywords Sumner • Criminology • Censure
© The Author(s) 2020 1
D. Moxon, Colin Sumner, Palgrave Pioneers in Criminology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36941-5_1
2 D. MOXON
It was with a certain degree of prescience that Mike Brogden opened his
review of Imperial Policing (Ahire 1991), a book written by one of Colin
Sumner’s erstwhile students at Cambridge. While a digest of Sumner’s
time at Cambridge has yet to appear, the present book at least partly
affirms Brodgen’s confident prediction by offering an assessment of
Sumner’s entire work and career to date, including but not limited to his
Cambridge years. What Brogden did correctly identify was the sense that
Sumner’s contribution to criminology, through both his writing and his
teaching, had reached the point where it was deserving of recognition in
some way. By 1993, Sumner was well known as a “combative” (Rock
1988: 193) criminologist who had long been part of the radical faction of
the “fortunate generation” (1988: 190), but had counter-intuitively
landed a position at the Cambridge Institute of Criminology where he had
been in post for the best part of a decade and a half. What is now Sumner’s
best-known work, The Sociology of Deviance: An Obituary (1994), would
be published just a year later.
But this does not tell the whole story. Sumner’s direct and uncompro-
mising style, his longstanding commitment to Marxism or at least a Marx-
inspired worldview, his refusal to shy away from criticism of the work of
others, and a barely disguised contempt for the direction of the discipline
as a whole was not to everyone’s taste. Indeed, the reception to The
Obituary only seemed to reinforce Sumner’s status as a polarising figure in
the discipline, particularly in North America. As a result, his standing as
one of criminology’s most distinctive and important thinkers was never
really consolidated, and his early semi-retirement from academia in 2002,
though later aborted, saw him increasingly move towards the fringes of
the conversation in the discipline at a time when his contemporaries were
cementing their legacies.
Against this background, this book takes a fresh look at the entirety of
Sumner’s work with the aim of restoring his standing in the discipline. He
should be thought of as a criminological pioneer who has produced works
of great theoretical sophistication which were well ahead of their time. By
systematically considering Sumner’s entire output, the book will show
how his thought has involved a gradually deepening understanding of his
core notion of ideological censure, a slowly unspooling appreciation of the
ramifications of that singular theoretical insight which first appeared in his
PhD. This has given his career a remarkable consistency and clarity of pur-
pose. His thinking has been vindicated by the rise of a hyper-i ndividualised,
aggressive neo-liberalism where anxious, atomised subjects busy t hemselves
