AJCJ, Vol. Xlll, No. 1 (1988)

CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY IN CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

RICHARD R. E. KANIA, PH.D. Gil ford Col lege

ABSTRACT

As otten as the label "conservative" is used in criminological and criminal justkce books, papers, articles, lectures and discussions, rarely is the substance of what "conservative" might mean raised. Its use as a prejor~ve by those who are not conservative clouds the word and the complex of ideas it represents with a negative imagery. The author, a confessed conservative, seeks to dispel that cloud by identifying the common features of contemporary American conservative thought in its five major divisions: secular and theological fundamentalism, core conservatism, conservative pragmatism, and libertarian conservatism. How adherents of each of these five camps impact on criminal justice policy and criminological theory is explained. Proposals for a conservative pedagogy in criminal jusbce are offered to sympathizers and a conservative who's who and reading list are provided for further reading.

In discussions of ideology within the disciplines of criminology and criminal justice much is made of such terms as "Liberal" and "Conservative," "Radical," "Marxist" and "Capitalist" and a collection of other labels and dichotomies. Even those who know the meanings of these terms reasonably well often error in assuming what these labels mean in a particular case, how they manifest themselves in teaching criminology and criminal justice courses, or how they should be applied to those who are not embarrassed by being associated with the one or another ideological system.

The vast amount of literature devoted to Marxist thought in the social sciences has done much to illustrate the diversity of opinion, values and policy advocated by persons associated with that label. Those familiar with Marxist applications in criminal justice and criminology are aware of the shadings of difference which distinguish critical from radical, and both from "realistic" proponents of Marxist theory. Yet no similar body of literature has emerged from the right wing or Conservative voices in American criminal justice and criminological intellectual thought. The terms "right-winger" and "Conservative" all too often are used

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indiscriminately to characterize a very diverse and complex set of theoretical perspectives--some of which all Conservatives share, but others which at least some profoundly reject.

Among those who are not Conservative, the label often is used as a perjoritive to conjure up images of racial bigotry, religious intolerance, apologetics for capitalism, supply-side economics and big business, and a blind preference for the status quo. The stereotypic Conservative is opposed to racial equality before the law, dreams fondly of the antebellum South and slavery, "when the darkies knew their place," wants his womenfolk back in the kitchen when he is not using them as sex objects in his bedroom, hates any hint of unionism, socialism, communism, and wants his government--to which he is fanatically loyal--to stay out of domestic social issues unless its policies are firmly based in a Falwellian interpretation of the Bible.

What is most troubling with this negative image is that so many academics do not even care to look beyond it to learn what Conservatism actually encompasses. Graham Kinloch's typology of ideologies in contemporary sociological theory uses such negative terms as "reimposition of community," and "authoritarian political solutions" to "reimpose social order" to describe Conservatism, while describing liberal ideology with such terms as "reason," "logical analysis," "individual freedom" and "pragmatism" (1981: 28-29). The Conservative has become the liberal academic's straw man, beaten about by every reform or revolution-minded Jacobin in the last fifty years of Marxist, positivistic, deterministic co-dominance in social theorization. As with any negative stereotype there are individuals who conform precisely to this characterization. However, as it usually is with stereotypes, the imagery reflects only the extreme case. The essence of Conservatism includes a far wider ideological continuum with much internal diversity and substantial intellectual sophistication (Nash, 1976), missing in the stereotype. [1 ]

The college classroom long has been used by academics seeking to explain or promote their own ideological biases. In criminology and criminal justice, as with much of the rest of the social sciences, the involvement of Marxist, radical and critical criminologists has become commonplace and academicians of these persuasions already have written and spoken on the application of their views to teaching (Michalowski, 1977; Kramer, 1982). Like these Marxists [2], I find most students in my criminal justice and criminology courses biased toward Conservative beliefs, but not through an intellectual commitment. This means that there are still chores for the right-wing ideologue doing ideological missionary work among the college young. The challenge for the Conservative

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teacher is not rescuing students from the siren-song of intellectual Marxism, but providing them the tools to explore ethical and philosophical underpinnings of their own upbringing, teaching them critical introspection, and providing them with the evaluative devices they need to apply this label to themselves maturely.

As long as Conservatism remains defined by those whose goal is to defile it, its defense is most difficult. This has been especially true within criminal justice. As a new academic discipline, it emerged as academic Marxism has been at its zenith. It~ lacks a solid body of work predating the contemporary dominance of positivistic, deterministic and Marxist theories in criminal justice. To teach it from Conservative perspective, the Conservative ideologue must first define for him/herself and thus for the students what the ideology of late-20th century conservativism is. Clinton Rossiter has offered nine principles (1968: 293), a set of beliefs in:

The existence of a universal moral order;

The imperfectability of humanity;

The natural inequality of individuals in mind, body and character;

The necessity of diversity in social orders or classes;

Personal liberty, especially as associated with rights to private property and economic pursuits;

The preferability of prescriptions (precedents) to uncertain experimentation, especially in the social realm;

The necessity of a ruling class or elite;

The unreliability of human reasoning independent of tradition;

And, the danger of populistic majority rule.

While one can quibble over the specifics of this list, it certainly emerges as a more complex ideology than suggested by the stereotype or the often quoted characterization of Conservatism offered by Lord Falkland: "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." To Abraham Lincoln's rhetorical question, "Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new

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and untried?" we can answer a qualified "no" (Kirk, 1982: 1080). Conservatism and Conservatives have changed, following a slow dialectic process. Conservatism today is not what it was when Cicero spoke, or in the times of Boethius, or Aquinas. It is not bound within the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli to his prince or Cardinal Richelieu to his king. Yet they were Conservatives all, each with ideas which today's Conservatives continue to promote.

Its frequent and erroneous attribution to Edmond Burke or the 18th century French conservateurs does not freeze it into what they thought, any more than the death of Marx has halted the growth of intellectual or political Marxism. The Burkean Conservatism championed by Russell Kirk was later confronted by 19th century social, political and economic liberalism and responded by incorporating laissez-faire economics, a restated commitment to the social contract concept of governance and a renewed emphasis on the rights of individuals over the powers of government. Revolutionary Darwinian theories appalled mid-19th century Conservatives, but by century's end Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner managed a new synthesis which most later Conservatives comfortably accepted. In recent years, as the social benefits of some New Deal welfare-state programs have been demonstrated, their advocates have found acceptance within the folds of Conservatism as the "neo-Conservatives." Thus, in the final quintile of the 20th century, Conservatism appears before us with many aspects, reflecting its dynamic adaptability to those new ideas which do survive the tests of time and performance.

As any serious observer of contemporary Conservatism can attest, there are several major variants of Conservatism alive and well in America. I choose to classify these into five major divisions: libertarian, pragmatist, core, secular fundamentalist, and theological fundamentalist. The five exist in a partially overlapping continuum, and often representatives of one or the other find themselves in profound disagreement with what a Conservative stance should be on a given social policy issue in criminology or criminal justice, or in the wider arenas of social, economic and political policy. So it is no wonder that the non-Conservative observer might have some difficulty sorting out what Conservatism is in contemporary America.

THE FUNDAMENTALISTS, SECULAR AND THEOLOGICAL

The extreme rightist position is co-occupied by both theological and secular fundamentalists. Often the two are indistinguishable in p~actice and pronouncement. The fundamentalist is possessed by moral imperatives which transcend even the established political and legal strictures. In the religious

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manifestation their moral principles are supplied by divine revelation, but not necessarily arising in the doctrines of the main-stream religious institutions. Contemporary expressions include the doctrinaires of the Unification Church (the Moonies), Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and the abortion clinic bombers. Recent secular manifestations include numerous overtly nationalistic groups and individuals, including the John Birch Society, Phillis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, the Liberty Lobby, Richard Viguerie's "New Right" alliances, The Conservative Digest, N.C.P.A.C. and U.S. Senators Jesse Helms, Orin Hatch, former Senator Jeremiah Denton, a~nd recent G.O.P presidential candidate Pat Robertson.

This is the wing of Conservatism which has given us our morality-based legislation against non-predatory crimes of prostitution, fornication; homosexual acts, sabbath-day enterprise, gambling, alcohol and drug use, miscegenation, child labor, contraception, pornography, and integration. Conservatives of this genre seek to return society to some fabled past state of purity, a golden age of some sort, now lost. It is an ancient pattern of social thought which has found its expression in the religio-political movements and moral crusades of Oliver Cromwell, John Calvin, George Fox, Martin Luther, Ignatius Loyala, John Westley, John Knox and their respective followers in the Reformation. Although the political applications are different, the pattern is not confined to the Western cultural tradition, appearing in the reform Judaism of Paul of Tarsus, in Mohammedism [ancient and contemporary Islamic fundamentalism], and revitalization movements such as the Ghost Dance Religion of the North American Indians and the Mau-Mau uprising of Kenya.

The recent U.S. manifestations have alarmed the far-left (Platt & Takagi, 1981; Horton, 1981), establishment liberals (Foster & Epstein, 1964) and moderates (Crawford, 1980) alike. At the extreme, this is the "kill-a-Commie-for-Christ" mentality which actually threatens the legal order it pretends to advocate, not only because it inspires criminal acts like the abortion clinic bombings or advocates a racially exclusive "Arian Nation," but also because it makes so many unreasonable demands upon the criminal justice system for religion-based male prohibita legislation and enforcement. The extremists also are the bane of the other branches of American Conservatism who rebel at being identified with their reactionary values and radical programs.

THE (~ORE (~ONSERVATIVES

The core position is one which supports the established social institutions of church, government, and, in the United States, big business. It has ancient and honorable origins and finds its

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philosophical support in the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Boethius, Augustine and Aquinas, among others in the classical and medieval eras. It once found expression in the "divine rights of kings" doctrine and in the cautious counsel of Cardinal Richelieu to Louis XIII. The idle philosophizing of the French conservateurs and the reactionary Conservatism of Edmund Burke are of this genre and often receive credit, especially Burke's work, for originating the Tory movement as a distinct political ideology (Hart, 1965: A36-A38; Kirk, 1982: 1080).

Begrudgingly, it has allowed or survived the admixture of laissez-faire economics, utilitarian law and penology, Spencerian social evolutionism, and John Stuart Mill's advocacy of individual freedom--but only as each of these first had become part of the established "proscription" and "precedent" of our social history. On the contemporary American scene, it has its expression in the social commentary of Paul Harvey, William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, the institutional support of the American Conservative Union and the Hoover Institute, the scholarship of Clinton Rossiter (1962), Russel Kirk (1978) and Jeffrey Hart (1965), and its voice in the publications Human Events and National Review.

In the field of criminology and criminal justice, it has found its expression in Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, and such leaders as Orlando W. Wilson, Fred Inbau, Frank Carrington, and Wayne Schmidt. In criminological theory, its best known spokesman is Ernest Van den Haag (1975). Other major voices of a less ideological character, but with clear core Conservative roots, are Jan Gorecki (1979) and Richard Posner (1981). This faction seeks to balance order against individual freedom with some concessions to each, while maintaining total faith in the political, economic and social institutions currently in the public interest. They will accept the nine principles offered by Clinton Rossiter (1968: 293) and are likely to be reactive rather than proactive (using the police-research dichotomy) in dealing with criminological issues. This group of Conservatives seeks neither radical innovation nor reform unless convinced, in Lord Falkland's assessment, it becomes necessary to change. Otherwise, it is necessary not to change."

THE CONSERVATIVE PRAGMATISTS

The Conservative pragmatists are substantially less doctrinaire in their beliefs, seeking to work within the system to the general advantage of the existing order. They differ from the Core Tories in that they are willing to employ concepts not traditionally associated with Conservatism. In Machiavelli's advice to his Prince we find this tendency. Sir Robert Peel, the Tory M. P. who helped

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create the new model for the London Metropolitan Police in 1829 was just such a pragmatist. Most of the 19th century and recent Republican presidents fit this pattern, vindictive liberal assertions not withstanding, as do most of those who are identified as moderate Conservatives today. Some of those currently identified within this segment of Conservative ideological spectrum are recent defectors from liberalism and have been labeled "neo-Conservatives." Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is one of the better known politicians in this group. The academic contingent includes Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Norman Podhoretz and Seymour Martin Lipset (Steinfels, 1979).

In the realm of criminology and criminal justice, Norval Morris and Gordon Hawkins (1970), Robert Martinson (1974), Ronald L. Akers (1968; 1979), James\Q. Wilson (1975; 1983), and Daniel Glaser (1978) follow his less ideological, more pragmatic approach. Efficiency and efficacy are more important matters than ideological purity. There is a common interest in dealing with predatory crimes, and substantially less interest in the "root causes" of crime which have entertained the more liberal social determinists and positivisms for so long. The neo-Conservatives are concerned more with dealing with the symptoms and intermediate correlates of social problems than in affecting major changes in the total social fabric of society (Wilson, 1975: 50-51):

But social problems--that is to say, problems occasioned by human behavior rather than mechanical processes--are almost invariably 'caused' by factors that cannot be changed easily or at all. This is because human behavior ultimately derives from human volition--tastes, attitudes, values, and so on--and these aspects of volition in turn are either formed entirely by choice or the product of biological or social processes that we cannot or will not change.

There is a large, latent following of his brand of Conservatism, disguised by the mask of value-free exposition and loyalty to the positivists, social determinists and social ecologists who were the pioneers and our teachers in criminology and criminal justice. Their liberal indoctrination--like my own--is difficult to overcome, but is harder still to employ when one asks "what works."

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THE LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATIVES

The libertarian wing of Conservatism once was the antithesis to Burke's core Conservatism. The once radical ideas of Adam Smith (1759 [1966]; 1776 [1937]), Cesare Beccaria (1764 [1963]), Jeremy Bentham (1776 [1951]; 1789 [1948], Thomas Jefferson (1783 [1954]: 209-225), John Stuart Mill (1859 [1956]), and Herbert Spencer (1850-1884 [1896]]; 1879-1891 [1978]) have found intellectual and political respectability over time and have been admitted to the cherished ideas of Anglo-American philosophical Conservatism; although there are some Conservatives still voicing reservations and objections (Kirk, 1954). All of these libertarian ideas share a common source in the ideas of John Locke (1690 11952]) in whose works can be found the five libertarian principles which have been added to the core Conservative doctrines enumerated by Rossiter (1968:293): the social contract ]3], laissez-faire economic freedom, pragmatic utilitarianism, a total commitment to individual over collective rights, and a strong distrust of government and centralized authority. These ideas were merged with the mainstream of Conservative ideology in the cauldron of the American Revolution and through the reasoning of Tory pragmatists like Sir Robert Peel who were dedicated to preserving the old order, but who also were willing to tolerate minor changes when their benefits could be demonstrated.

By the mid-twentieth century these libertarian-utilitarian ideas were being promoted as a fully acceptable component of Conservative by such political economists as Ludwig yon Mises (1944a; 1944b; 1957), Friederick A. Hayek (1944; 1960) and more recently by Milton and Rose Friedman (1979) and Thomas Sowell (1981). Fired up by the presidential candidacy of Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, the emergence of the Young Americans for Freedom [4], and the social commentary of James J. Kilpatrick, this segment of the Conservative movement is unashamedly ideological and political. Its advocates have forged alliances with the Republicans in some states and formed Libertarian splinter-parties in others to promote their political agenda: the roll-back of income taxes, the flat-rate tax, deregulation of business and industry, conversion of many public services to private enterprise [including police services and prisons] and decriminalization of numerous nonpredatory victimless acts. The popular hero of the libertarians was novelist Ayn Rand. The self-appointed intellectual leader of the libertarians in the United States is Murray Rothbard. The journal of choice for libertarian scholars is The Journal of Libertarian Studies and the Center for Libertarian Studies is their think tank. The Cato Institute and its Cato Journal is its policy-voice in the nation's capital.

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Often sounding like the modern-day liberals, they are, nonetheless, quite different in their underlying ideologies--especially in the matter of the good of the individual whose actions cause no direct harm to others taking precedence over the common good of society. There is an overriding stress on the rationality of human action correlated with the doctrine of free will which compels the libertarian to reject the social, environmental, biological and economic determinisms which have been so popular among liberal social scientists.

As libertarian Conservatism applies to criminology, all laws must be consensual to achieve legitimacy, only acts which directly injure others and are the product of deliberate, rational decisions are crimes [5], punishment is an appropriate reaction to crime if it either deters or incapacitates the offender (Locke, 1690 [1952: 9[. [6] and is an established condition of the social contract. Because rational human decision-making is forward-looking and goal-oriented, both causal arguments and crimogenic theories are given little credence (Sowell, 1981: 108):

That criminality and slum have gone together down through history is demonstrable, but the direction of causation is by no means clear. The same attitudes that create crime may also create slums.

The original elements of late-18th and 19th century libertarian thought have undergone some modification by their exposure to more traditional reasoning. Laissez-faire policies continue to be expounded, but a greater role for government than either Adam Smith or Thomas Jefferson would have preferred now is tolerated. The extreme utilitarianism of Bentham has been muted by contemporary philosophers (Nozick, 1974), economists and legal scholars (Posner, 1981), but individual calculations of economic and social benefits remain critical elements in their application of theory. Criminal justice scholars like James Q. Wilson (1975) and Jan Gorecki (1979) make use of libertarian concepts in their commentaries on law and crime.

CONSERVATIVE VALUES IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY

Both what we teach and how we teach reflect the application of our values. Often we are told that teaching in the social sciences should be done in a value-free fashion, just as research should be. (Weber, 1949: 1-112; Znaniecki, 1934; 1940). Some have rejected this notion, decrying all attempts at value-freedom as either an illusion or a fraud (Gouldner, 1973: 3-26; Popper, 1969

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[1976]: 92-98). Some of these voices feel that social scientists have a social role to play in social life, as advocates of reform and social change. Their research and their arguments must conform to their objectives. Research and findings which do not are to be ignored or voted down, as the Society for the Study of Social Problems, American Sociological Association, and American Society of Criminology each did on matters of deterrence and racial bias in the death penalty debate in their 1987 business meetings.

If it cannot be reality, value-freedom should remain a goal in the social sciences. But our allegiance to that goal should not blind us to our own prejudices and biases. The very act of selecting topics and issues in a course betrays one's social values, biases and prejudices; as does the failure to raise issues. It is easier to see the bias in other points of view than our own, hence Conservative criminology has reawakened as a response to the conspicuous biases of liberal, critical, radical and Marxist attacks on the American criminal justice system. But Conservatives often innocently assert their values by accurately describing the criminal justice system while implying that the current situation is the natural and proper state of affairs. Approaching issues from a self-aware ideological perspective, confronting the opposing ideologies directly, has the advantage of exposing the biases of both points of view and allowing a truer examination of empirical reality than a single perspective ever could (Hunt, 1985: 12).

In this way, the Conservative agenda for criminology and criminal justice has been set by the liberal side of the House for decades. The intellectual left has found the inherent flaws of our system of justice which have been masked by the Conservatives' complacency. Most American Conservatives tend to be reactive rather than activist in social issues. The fundamentalists are the exception, but they speak mostly from the pulpit, and only rarely from the academic lectern. Thus advocating the death penalty, using incarceration as punishment and incapacitation, "taking the handcuffs off the police," by showing more tolerance for technical and procedural errors in police and prosecutorial practices, using more pretrial detention, opposing quotas in staffing criminal justice agencies, and advocating tougher penalties all are Conservative issues because liberal activists have made them so by taking contrary stands and either carrying the day or keeping the issue alive, thus forcing a Conservative rebuttal.

Similarly, teaching criminology and criminal justice topics with an awareness of the ideological content of the subject matter requires an understanding of the theories, points of view and goals of teachers of the opposing philosophical camp. Conservative criminologists are compelled to look beyond the immediate

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questions of crime, criminals and criminal law because the liberals and the left in academia have chosen to do so. Those who reflect the "critical criminology" school "which attempts to develop a historically grounded political economy approach" by focusing upon "structured inequalities, in class, race, sex, and authority relations" and which addresses "a larger set of questions concerning social structure, economic inequality, social conflict, political power, and social justice" in the study of crime (Kramer, 1982: 1-2) have had enormous influence on criminology.

Ronald Kramer, one of those critical criminologists, assigns to himself and other critical criminologists five responsibilities (1982: 7):

1) Developing students [sic] capacity for theoretical or conceptual thought; 2) providing students with a vision of a possible society which is more desirable than the present society; 3) emphasizing that social change is a matter of collective action involving large scale political movements; 4) providing students with concrete strategies for achieving change and examples of specific reforms; and 5) developing students [sic] appreciation of other people's views and actions.

Conservative criminologists have been relatively passive in making such assertions, largely contenting themselves with describing the system as it exists, perhaps teaching something of its development, and only attacking the most obvious of its problems. Major structural change is not an item likely to appear on a Conservative's agenda, with the fundamentalists again being the major exception. It is not that Conservatives totally resist change. Wisdom in making change is much to be prized. As Cardinal de Richelieu advised his king (1688 [1947]: 236, my translation [7]):

An architect who, in the excellence of his art, corrects the faults of an ancient structure and who, without bringing it down, keeps it in some bearable state of symmetry, merits more praise than another who pulls it down and constructs a new edifice, though perfect and accomplished.

Returning to Kramer's five goals, the self-aware Conservative should have a similar set of objectives, reflecting those key points on which ideological disagreements are most profound and stressing Conservative values:

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1) Developing students' capacity for theoretical and conceptual thought [no disagreement with the opposition on this point]; 2) providing students with an accurate vision of our present society which acknowledges its flaws, but also highlights its relative advantages over other existing social arrangements; 3) advocating social change only when the alternatives are known and demonstrably superior to the existing situation; 4) stressing individual responsibility and action over the collective; 5) providing students with concrete strategies for achieving change and examples of specific reforms [no disagreement here either]; and 6) developing students' appreciation of other people's views and actions.

Having accomplished this, a Conservative teacher is free to select an agenda of issues which are not exclusively reactionary. There are a few issues which Conservatives can claim for themselves: tighter restriction on the application of the insanity defense, advocacy of selective incapacitation, the application of proven modern technologies to law enforcement and other criminal justice activities [8], stepping up the war on controlled substances, [9] and greater privatization of police services, adjudication and incarceration.

Conservative criminologists are on the counter-attack against pernicious liberal myths which fix the direction of causality in the linkage of crime and poverty, and which support the suggestions that socialism will create a crime-free social order (Wilson, 1983), that full-employment will eliminate crime (FreeHi,~,,, 1983), that more education will produce less criminality (Toby, 1983), that criminals are "just like us" (Herrnstein, 1983), that rehabilitation works, that handguns are inherently crimogenic (Moore, 1983), or that the death penalty has no utility or deterrence value (Van Den Haag, 1975).

Conservatives are seriously divided over the propriety of more restrictive laws or greater enforcement of existing laws relating to private, consensual sexual activity, pornography, drug use and similar "moral" issues. In these areas the diversity of modern Conservatism comes to the forefront. The fundamentalists advocate intervention against these activities, while the libertarians object to empowering the government to take a stand one way or the other. Conservatives are generally pro-life on the abortion question, but some would prefer that state and federal governments have no role on either side of the issue. Although there may not be a single Conservative point of view on these issues, nonetheless, these

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controversial topics present useful opportunities to promote discussions of the Conservative values which these issues have placed in conflict.

THE TECHNIQUES OF A CONSERVATIVE PEDAGOGY

All educators possess personal values and most of them feel sufficiently proud of their merits to want to pass them on to the students who come to them for education. Yet educators should not be intellectual and ideological imperialists, pushing personal views down the throats of students without regard for their own values. Thus all educators face a dilemma.

My own solution is to state unequivocally what my ideological biases are, usually in the opening session of each of my classes. I will trace my background to each new group of students, identifying my ethnic heritage, religious affiliation, family history and the circumstances which brought me to the study of criminal justice and criminology. I explain how these values and experiences will color what I will teach. I also inform them of the ideological persuasions of the authors of their texts and reading materials and comment on their backgrounds. Having done so, I offer each student fair warning of the values and biases they will confront in the classes and readings to follow. I also advise them that I recognize the legitimacy of holding contrary opinions and challenge them to use them in their evaluation of mine. Above all, I advocate a wholesome distrust of all figures of authority, recalling Thomas Jefferson's oath, "1 have sworn hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

I use the ideological values, biases and preferences of my students to further enhance teaching of theory and its application. When I find a genuine Conservative in one of my theory classes, from whichever of the five types I have described, I use that student's values by challenging him or her to apply those values to the discussions, knowing that if the student falters in doing so I can come to his or her rescue with a supporting argument with which he or she can agree. Similarly, I can use the views of the radical, socialist or liberal students who take my classes to exemplify their beliefs more eloquently and sincerely than I could do myself. Having been the ideological odd-man-out in most of my graduate education, I am quite sensitive to attacking the views of those students with whom I do not agree. I take Marxist criminologist Dr. Raymond Michalowski's counsel to heart in these cases (1977: 72):

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Never deny the legitimacy of another's feeling. On the other hand, leading an individal to an examination of the source of that feeling can often result in a critical re-evaluation of the subjective construction of reality from which the feeling emerges.

Dr. Michalowski has written very perceptively on the techniques of teaching critical criminology and its underlying values to students with traditional backgrounds and values. Believing in the merits of the technique of collective action, he has encouraged collective recognition and team grades (1977). True to my own Conse rva t i ve ideology and values, I employ the survival-of-the-fittest, individualistic approach, encouraging competition and rewarding excellence. I strive to keep "A~ dear. I stimulate competition and superior performance by making a ceremony of returning test and papers. I return the "A" papers and tests first, naming the students who have earned the "A"s and praising them for their achievement. I see these grading practices as a step toward rewarding genuine achievement. I also am aware that this emphasis on individual effort and competition is an ideological practice, just as Dr. Michalowski's collective action is.

I also do not accept Dr. Michalowski's premise "which recognizes the political right of each student to self-determinism" (1977: 70), especially when that self-determinism extends into the content of the course, the selection of what is relevant, or what is important for them to know. It assumes that each student is equal in experience and judgment, an assumption that empirically is invalid and ideologically offensive to my brand of Conservative. I would agree that each person is equal in moral sense and should be treated equally before the law, but to assume that students are equal to professors defeats the purposes of institutionalized education. This difference of opinion originates in our different views of what students are. Dr. Michalowski sees them as social equals in an effort to achieve an egalitarian society. I do not. Like Norman B. Ryder (quoted in Wilson, 1975: 12), speaking of each new generation of young people:

There is a perennial invasion of barbarians who must somehow be civilized and turned into contributors to fulfillment of the various functions requisite to societal survival.

I prepare each class around selected learning objectives and build the lecture and guide the discussions with these points always in mind. Although my lecture style is not entirely authoritarian and I do encourage a dialectic exchange of ideas, encouraging

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opposing points of view, I set the agenda for each session and conclude each class with a specific summation of the key points I expect the students to take away with them. I offer none-to-subtle hints as to which materials will return to their lives in the near future. I see my role as a teacher as that of a guide to the inexperienced and unwary. They will have a lifetime to prove me wrong if I am in error. I do not credit them with the judgment at age 19 to make those choices just yet. I am also convinced that education involves the transmission of some elements of concrete knowledge which do not require subjective inteFpretation, and therefore do not avoid "an authoritarian imposition of what I feel they ought to need" (Michalowski, 1977:70) when I am dealing with materials which are not subjective. I strive to make clear the distinctions among educated opinions, scientific inferences, and empirical reports (Hayakawa, 1972: 34-40). I offer contrasting views on controversial issues and leave the final judgments to the students, providing them the literary references to explore these issues on their own, should they be so inclined. I make it clear from the onset that they are entitled to hold opinions different from my own, to make their own interpretations, to return to the same references I use, and to seek out other original literature and evidence for their own analysis--encouraging them to supplement, rather than replace, the information I provide and later may test on.

CONSERVATIVE CRITICISM OF THE CURRENT EDUCATIONAL SITUATION

One of the most commonly voiced criticisms of our educational system--one that I certainly share--is that our students come to us ill-versed in the basic skills of reading comprehension and written exposition. More recently the criticism has been added that they come to us culturally illiterate (Hirsch, 1987). It is not, therefore, surprising that I find few who are well-versed in the classics of moral, social and political philosophy, or history--American, western or world. Although I am tempted, correcting this basic inadequacy cannot be done by requiring reading the great books or even summarizing the leading ideas and major events of the past in stirring lectures. When one lectures on Plato or Aristotle to today's scholars, the only stirrings are of the students' restless bodies, not their minds.

To convey the ideals and ideas of the past which we Conservatives do cherish to current and future generations some nontraditional techniques must be employed. Popular novels, from gritty police procedurals to science fiction, promote key concepts which do not come across as well in lectures. The futuristic novels and short stories of several Conservative authors can convey

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Conservative values and libertarian concepts just as fiction has used for years to promote more liberal and radical ideals. Coventry by Robert Heinlein is an excellent science fiction novella that takes the social contract concept out of the dust of Plato's 5th century B.C. or the drawing rooms of the 18th century French philosophers and thrusts it into the 22rid century A.D., also reviving the 18th century penal colony idea as a futuristic alternative to prisons. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s "Harrison Bergeron" and Robert Heinlein's Glory Road both speak eloquently for the creative, achievement-oriented spirit of individuality in clear preference to the mediocrity of extreme democratic egalitarianism.

This point brings us to another of the criticisms we Conservatives level at contemporary education, criminological and otherwise: the stress placed on the collective performance of the group, remedial education and the effort expended to keep the slow students up with the class and, perhaps unintentionally, to retard the gifted ones. The assumption that all students, regardless of capacity, are entitled to higher education is an egalitarian liberal value judgment that most Conservatives oppose, yet can accommodate; but not at the expense of those students who are intellectually prepared and truly motivated to learn. Better students--better in the performance sense and not as a moral judgment--need to be treated as special and treasured resources. The liberal tendency toward equality through forced mediocrity is unwholesome and dangerous to our long-term future. This "elitism" is a concept which Conservatives cherish, reminded of George F. Will's comment on the subject (1979: 135):

The word elitism is of recent vintage: it does not appear in the American Heritage Dictionary published in 1969. It is a pejorative label for social philosophies opposed to the notion that rigorous egalitarianism is a democratic imperative. And elitist is a label for people (like me) who believe that, frequently, egalitarianism is envy masquerading as philosophy.

SUMMARY AND COMMENTARY

There are far more Conservatives in academia than William F. Buckley, Jr. (1950) or Benjamin Hart (1984) would be willing to acknowledge. However, in the social sciences a professor with a clear Conservative orientation is rare. And this is appropriate. Formal education in the United States is organized as a socialistic undertaking. Most education is provided state-financed or heavily subsidized institutions, supported by taxation or tax deductible contributions for the common good, with faculties paid for what

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they are and not what they produce. The professor who advocates free-market laissez-faire economics, limited governmental intervention in social affairs, and individualism over collectivism ought to feel out of place. These values are far more likely to motivate a person toward the commercial sector than an academic life.

Yet much of what I have stated about education should not seem excessively reactionary. Most professors use some approach to grading similar to what I use, one that encourages individual performance and rewards excellence. Even the liberals and radicals on campus bemoan the ignorance and poor preparation of their students. Most teach a Conservative academic agenda, even if only because they usually cite the proven classics of academic thought in their respective specialities before venturing into current issues or their own pet ideas. Only the most radical truly seek revolutionary solutions to the social ills which they identify in our contemporary institutions. Even most academic liberals seek only reasonable, limited corrective action based upon widely shared social values. In a sense, the process of educating is a Conservative activity, even if the institutions for delivering education are not.

Although there are some scholars who are most fearful of the influence of Conservatives (Horton, 1980), there is a place in the academic marketplace for Conservative values, Conservatives' issues and Conservative faculty members. In my field of criminal justice and criminology, finding that place has not been difficult. Some of the other social sciences do not appear to be as tolerant of Conservative ideas and ideology. This is unfortunate. The ideological debates within criminological and criminal justice fora have been lively and intellectually stimulating. As one educated as both a sociologist and an anthropologist, I can attest to the need in these academic disciplines for more diversity in points of view. Just as most academics would resist an assault by anti-Marxist McCarthyism on the ivy halls, all scholars should be as intent upon protecting the Conservative voices in our midst from a McCarthyism of the left. Preservation and promotion of Conservative points of view in criminal justice and criminology can encourage dialogue and debate which can spread to the other social sciences and that should serve the interests of all ideological points of view and all college education.

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a conservative criminological or social marked with the asterisk before the

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"Akers, R. L. (1979) Theory and Ideology in Marxist Criminology. Criminology, 16, (February): 527-544.

Beccaria, C. (1764 [1963]) On Crimes and Punishments, translated by H. Paolucci. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

Bentham, J. (1776 [1951]) A Fragment on Government, edited by F.C. Montague. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon.

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Buckley, W. F., Jr. (1950) God and Man at Yale.

Crawford, A. (1980) Thunder on the Right. New York, (1980) NY: Pantheon Books.

Forster, A., and B. R. Epstein (1964) Danger on the Right. New York, NY: Random House.

*Freeman, R.B. (1983) Crime and Unemployment. Crime and Public Policy. J. Q. Wilson (ed.) San Francisco, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies.

"Friedman, M., and R. Friedman (1979) Free to Choose. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

*Glaser, D. (1978) Crime in Our ChanQing Society. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Gouldner, A. W. (1973) For Sociology. New York, NY: Basic Books.

*Gorecki, J. (1979) A Theory of (;riminal Justice. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

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Harring, S., T. Platt, R. Speigleman, and P. Takagi (1977) The management of police killings. .Cri.me. and Social Justi.c.e, 8 (Fall-Winter): 34-43.

*Hart, B. (1984) Poisoned Ivy. New York, NY: Stein and Day.

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Horton, J. (1981) The Rise of the Right: A Global View. Crime and Social Justice, 1__55, (Summer): 7-17.

Hunt, A. (1985) The Ideology of Law: Advances and Problems in Recent Applications of the Concept of Ideology to the Analysis of Law, Law and Society Review, 19, (1): 11-37.

*Jefferson, T. (1783 [1954]) Draught of a Fundamental Constitution, pp. 209-222 in Notes on the State of Virginia, edited by W. Peden. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

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*Kirk R. (1982) Conservatism: A Succinct Description, National Review, 34, (3 September): 1080-1084, 1104.

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`Morris, N. and G. Hawkins (1970) The Honest Politician's Guide tO Crime Control. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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*Rossiter, C. L. (1962) C0nserv.atis.m in America: The Thankless Persuasion, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Knopf.

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*Toby, J. (1983) Crime in the Schools." Crime and Public Policy. J. Q. Wilson (ed.) San Francisco, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies.

"Van Den Haag, E. (1975) Punishing Criminal~. New York, NY: Basic Books/Harper Colophon.

`von Mises, L. (1944a). Bureaucracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

`von Mises, L. (1944b) Omnipqtent Government. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

`von Mises, L. (1957) Theory and Hi~;tory: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolu1~i0n. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

"Weber, M. (1949) The Metho(;Iology of the Social Sciences, translated by E. A. Shils and H. A. Finch. New York, NY: Free Press-Macmillan.

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'~/ill, G.F. (1979) The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts. New York, NY: Harper & Row/Harper Colophon.

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1. Among those who know me reasonably well there is little doubt that I am a "Conservative," one of those voices of the "right-wing" on social and political issues. I have been identified as such by no less August an entity of the intellectual left than Crime and Social Justice (Harring et al., 1977: 36-37).

2. Dr. Raymond Michalowski notes that most of his students already are biased toward the Conservative point of view, so for him the pedogogic challenge has been weaning self-styled Conservatives away from this label and point of view.

3. This version of the social contract is revived from Plato, The Republic, Book I1: 369-376 1961: 615-623, and differs from the metaphysical conceptualization of the social contract which entertained the French philosophers in the next century.

4. Now this group is shifting more toward the fundamentalist "New Right," but the struggle for control over the organization is ongoing.

5. Crimes are violations of the tacit social contract upon which all order is based and from which all human rights are derived.

6. Punishments which inflict substantially more harm than the offense are inappropriate (Beccaria, 1764 [1963]). However, some libertarians also argue in favor of punishment as a symbolic rejection of the offense or the offender and as a devise to demonstrate society's revulsion with a violation of the contract.

7. Un architecte, qui, par I'excellence de son art, corrige les defauts d'un ancien batiment et qui, sans I'abattre, le reduit a quelque symetrie supportable, merite bien plus de Iouange que celui qui le ruine tout a fait et construit un nouvel edifice parfait et accompli.

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8. Ironically, it is more often the liberals who are up in arms over the application of computer technology to law enforcement. Conservatives are fully capable of advocating change when the proposed change has demonstrable benefits in terms of economy or efficiency.

9. However, Conservatives are divided on the propriety of governmental intervention in the private use of controlled drugs and alcohol.

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