NOTE
STEVEN BOX (1937-1987)
JOCK YOUNG (Middlesex)*
Steven Box was a central figure in the new wave of British criminology which
emerged in the early Seventies, and which transformed the subject, both in
terms of technical competence and theoretical sophistication.
In particular, his trilogy Deviance, Reality and Society (1981), Power, Crime and
Mystification (1983) and Recession, Crime and Punishment (1986) summarised in
painstaking detail the state of the art of Anglo-American criminology, while
attempting a much needed theoretical synthesis. I can think of no better books
to introduce a student to the subject and which will increasingly tease the
minds of both academics and practitioners set in their ways.
I first met Steve Box in 1961 on a CND demonstration. I was a student of
biochemistry at the time, he was a lecturer in sociology at Regent Street
Polytechnic. It was a revelation to me to meet a teacher who was as irreverent
as he was serious and an academic who was totally professional yet did not see
the need to present himself as a down-at-heel bank manager. I had already
spent enough time careering calves' livers around centrifuges, and Steve's
influence was a deciding point for me: I started under-graduate sociology the
next year.
His early work at Regent Street was concerned with the sociology of industry and science (he published, with Stephen Cotgrove, Science, Industry and
Society in 1970), which was also the subject of his doctorate. With his move
to the University of Kent, his interest shifted to criminology and the sociology
of deviance. Influenced as were so many young criminologists at the time by
American new deviancy theory, he embarked on a project which was to last 15
years. The link with his early work in the sociology of science and industry
was the work of Howard Becker, on occupational choice and commitment: a
sociologist whose trajectory of interests Box himself followed.
The key characteristics of Box's work are an extraordinarily wide range of
empirical data coupled with a striving for comprehensive theory. He was a
research bibliophile; he did not miss a single empirical study, yet he was
convinced that some synthesis of existing theory was necessary in order to
explain the wide and perplexing array of evidence. With this in mind he
embarked upon an attempt to synthesise the three major strands of criminology: strain theory, control theory and social reaction theory. In this he was
utilising the fact that most criminological theory is partial, in that it focuses
almost exclusively on one part of the process of criminality and criminalisation. It goes without saying that such a synthesis is sorely needed and there is
a vein of thinking here which will yield much in terms of future working of his
ideas. All of this enterprise was constantly underscored by his assiduous application of research findings. He was, as he put it, "old fashioned" in this respect,
adding "nothing gets more up the nose of some contemporary criminologists
than the assertion that ideas, no matter how orthodox in their pedigree or
* Professor of Criminology, Middlesex Polytechnic.
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NOTE
dizzying in their complexity, have to be abandoned if the results of'hypothesistesting' research fails to support them".
Thus his books provide a developing theory and a wealth of empirical data.
It is to be hoped that his publishers will regularly update the empirical side of
this work in future editions: he is one of the few textbook writers in the field
where this would be perfectly possible.
Unlike many academics from more advantaged social backgrounds, the
English amateur held no attraction for him. His remorseless exposure of
the hypocrisy of the powerful and of the crimes of the corporations and the
wealthy was well documented and never stooped to simple conspiracy.
Nor was he slow to develop in terms of criticism. In his later work he took on
board much of the feminist critique of criminology, developing well-thoughtout analyses of rape, of the female criminal and of women, crime and the
labour market.
But it is, perhaps, his most recent work on crime, punishment and the
recession which is of greatest interest to the reader living in the desolation of
monetarist Britain. Here he shows how both criminal activity by the poor and
by the corporations increases during recession and how the same forces lead to
disproportionate and repressive levels of social control. It is here that the
development of a democratic socialist criminology, towards which he was
committed, was clearly laid down, occupying that political gap between
administrative criminology (which would attempt to control crime, whilst
changing nothing politically), and radical criminology of the far left (which
would insist that nothing could be achieved without changing everything).
In this he was heartened by the parallels between his Recession, Crime and
Punishment and Elliott Currie's Confronting Crime, which he read with great
enthusiasm earlier this year.
It is a tragedy he had to end with this trilogy. In the last few months,
together with his co-worker, Chris Hale, he was working on a book which
would pinpoint the way in which present government policies increase both
the rate of crime and the rate of imprisonment. Above all, we will miss the
pieces of autobiography at the beginning of each book, details of changes in
relationships, the vagaries of his friends and the "perk" of the legendary
works-outing to Boulogne. This was a world where "when your domestic life is
chaotic and your academic friends have not got the time to whisper a word of
advice in your ear, there's nothing like a bottle (or two) of Grand Cru Chablis
to help you through the working day."
Courage born with stoicism is impressive: courage coupled with wit, black
humour and a sense of irony beats the lot. I shall remember Steve Box on his
fiftieth birthday, a few weeks before his death, with a glass of good champagne
in his hand, smoked salmon on his plate, surrounded by his friends and his
family from his various marriages, laughing delightedly at the books and
presents we had brought him. We were there, as always, too late to whisper
advice; we were present inevitably to enjoy ourselves and to learn.
Steven Box, Reader in Sociology, Kent University, Born 5th September,
1937, died 22nd September, 1987.
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