INTRODUCTION
Given the history and development of criminology and the underdevelopment of non-Western criminology, a primary disciplinary question facing criminology is how to develop non-Western criminology? What are the promising strategies? What would be a preferred strategy?
Following the legacy of modernization from the late 19th century, a widely adopted and naturally accepted strategy is for non-Western countries to learn from Western experiences and transfer Western modern criminology knowledge to non-Western countries. Under this strategy, criminology, viewed like other sciences, seeks general cooperative principles for understanding human behavior and criminal justice. Criminology knowledge is, in principle, applicable to both Western and non-Western countries. However, many criticisms have been raised against this modernization approach. “Southern criminology,” for example, criticized the dominance of Western criminology as knowledge hegemony by the “North,” a continuation of colonial legacy and backed by a political agenda.
More broadly and more profoundly, cultural relativism theorists maintain that a person’s beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person’s own culture rather than be judged against the criteria of another. Thus, no unified knowledge is possible beyond particular cultural contexts. The extreme version of cultural relativism would deny any generalization or existence of cooperative principles and criteria. A very large literature and hot debates around cultural relativism have been going on about its implications for political and international relations.
In 2009, I published a paper in the Asian Journal of Criminology titled “Asian criminology – challenges, opportunities, and directions” (Liu Reference Liu2009). The paper’s main idea is to point out the critical role of the scientific paradigm in bringing rapid growth to criminology. The paper first reviewed the successful growth experience of Europe and North American criminology and pointed out the important role played by a Western criminology paradigm. The paper concluded that the Western “development towards relatively unified concepts, approaches, and institutionalization of criminology has led to a common paradigm for dialogue, debate, and discussion, as well as generally shared standards for evaluation of research and programs and a relatively clearer direction for advancement” (Liu Reference Liu2009:3). “Shared conceptual frameworks, research approaches, and institutionalization under a unified paradigm greatly promote the rapid growth of a science.” I suggested that the strategy for criminology in Asia should consider these historical experiences in the role of the criminological paradigm and take advantage of the opportunity offered by diversity in Asia (Liu Reference Liu2009:7).
Part of the paradigm development is the institutionalization of criminology, developed along with the conceptual and theoretical development, including the establishment of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) in the USA, the European Society of Criminology (ESC), and other academic networks, education programs, and academic journals published in English as a language that facilitates the communication within the community and with other parts of the world. The Western criminological paradigm, primarily developed in Europe and the USA, has achieved great successes, produced many influential theories, developed sophisticated methodologies, established various academic institutions, produced many effective policy instruments, and formed a productive paradigm, making criminology a productive and flourishing discipline.
In contrast, there had been a lack of an Asian criminology paradigm and a lack of platforms and institutions to exchange and share ideas among Asian criminologists and with criminologists globally. There was no Asia-wide criminology society, few criminology-related journals, and no Asia-wide annual conferences that criminologists could all go to nearby. The paper (Liu Reference Liu2009) pointed out that a primary strategy is to develop an Asian criminological paradigm and establish platforms of exchange and institutions for Asian criminologists. In the paper, I stressed that “The paradigm of Asian criminology should consider the diversity of Asia, particularly encouraging the in-depth study of particular Asian contexts, traditions, and theoretical or practice models, as well as topics that are particularly Asian.” (Liu Reference Liu2009:8)
Academic criminology originated in Western countries, primarily Europe and the USA. It has achieved great success, produced many influential theories, developed a sophisticated methodology, established various academic institutions, produced many effective policy products, and has formed a productive paradigm, which has led to flourishing criminology as a discipline.
However, over the past decade, influential scholars have been pointing out that criminology has been predominantly a “Northern” (largely Western) academic enterprise (Carrington, Hogg, and Sozzo Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016). Influenced by the development of global interdependence, criminologists are now paying increasing attention to non-Western societies, with more global outlooks beyond the West. As Belknap (Reference Belknap2016:250) has said, “We are in an exciting time in criminology, as the scholarship is becoming more global, collaborative, and interdisciplinary.” Against this background, the weakness of the Western centrism of criminology has been prominent and therefore came to be significantly criticized.
Firstly, this paper will introduce the historical development of modern criminology and point out that the current state of criminology is Western-centric. Secondly, through describing the weaknesses of this Western-centrism, it is argued that promoting the development of non-Western criminology is one important measure to advance international or global criminology. Thirdly, to demonstrate how non-Western criminology can be developed, the development process of “Asian criminology” will be taken as a strong example. Finally, it is suggested that the most important theme is to end the current Western-centric character of criminology and advance non-Western criminology to develop international or global criminology.
ACHIEVEMENTS OF CRIMINOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE
The discipline of criminology has known several distinct stages during its development, though it has developed differently in different countries. It is said that the discipline of criminology originated in Western countries during the 18th century, when systematic research on crime and punishment began. The most famous work of that era is the book On Crimes and Punishments by the Italian lawyer Cesare Beccaria (Reference Beccaria1764). Influenced by the Enlightenment movement, Beccaria advocated libertarianism, free will, and abolishing the death penalty and was regarded as the most celebrated representative of the classical school of criminology and the father of modern criminal law. The classical school of criminology maintained that people have free will to decide to commit a crime and thus be assigned criminal responsibility.
However, in the 19th century, the rapid rise of the industrial revolution led to widespread unemployment and social contradictions. Unfortunately, the accompanying increasing crime rates could not be effectively explained by the classical school of criminology. Against this background, researchers’ focus shifted from “crimes” to “criminals,” that is, from exploring how to punish criminal behaviors to exploring why people commit crimes (Jeffery Reference Jeffery1959). Cesare Lombroso, the father of modern criminology, raised the idea of the “criminal man” in 1880 and explained the causes of crimes from the biological perspective through applying empirical research methods (Lombroso Reference Lombroso1891). His student, the Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo, coined the word “criminology” in 1885 and emphasized that scientific criminology required applying empirical research methods (Garofalo Reference Garofalo1914). Based on the thoughts of Lombroso and Garofalo, the positivist school of criminology was established, stressing that scientific and empirical methods were significant for criminological research.
The positivist school of criminology represented the thoughts of the above Italian criminologists and dominated American criminological thinking (Jeffery Reference Jeffery1959). It is suggested that the great early progress of criminology occurred during the early years of the 20th century in the USA. For example, the “National Conference on Criminal Law and Criminology” was held in Chicago, Illinois, in 1909 and as its product, the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology was established in 1910 (renamed Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology in 1931). Then criminology became an important subspecialty of research agencies and US universities, such as the University of California at Berkeley and Michigan State University since the 1930s (Miller Reference Miller2009). Simultaneously, thinkers in Europe, such as Weber and Durkheim, were also increasingly interested in the sociological aspects of crime and crime control. Soon after, several research centers and institutes had sprung up (Bowling Reference Bowling2006). For example, the “Association for the Scientific Treatment of Criminals” was established in London in 1931 (renamed the “Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency” (ISTD) in 1932, and the “Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency” in 1951). In 1950, the ISTD published the British Journal of Delinquency (renamed the British Journal of Criminology in 1960) as Britain’s first professional journal on criminology. In 1937, the International Society for Criminology was founded in Rome, Italy. As the only worldwide organization in the field of criminology and criminal justice, it has provided a broad platform for researchers to exchange their ideas. In 1941, the Department of Criminal Science was founded at Cambridge University. Generally, during the first half of the 20th century, criminology became identified as an academic field of study with its professional organizations, courses, and journals, though it was still dominated by the disciplines of psychology and sociology and was mainly contained in the sociology departments (Miller Reference Miller2009).
During the last half of the 20th century, criminology grew away from the more established social sciences and became an independent discipline (Miller Reference Miller2009). This era is recognized as a significant turning point for criminology (Braithwaite Reference Braithwaite2000). The number of courses and programs on criminology and criminal justice and the number of criminological journals significantly increased. The existing criminological associations developed substantially while new criminological organizations were established. Theories about criminal behaviors became more and more multidisciplinary, including more causal factors, like biological, psychological and sociological factors (Miller Reference Miller2009). Criminology gradually evolved into an independent discipline, freeing itself from the dominance of sociology.
The said turning point for criminology meant that it became an independent discipline and transformed the scope of criminological research. Since the 1960s, criminologists have become increasingly focused on cross-regional and cross-cultural comparative studies (Clifford Reference Clifford1978; DeFleur Reference DeFleur1969; Friday Reference Friday1973). Until the end of the 20th century, transnational crimes (e.g. drug smuggling, human trafficking, weapon smuggling, rare animal and plant smuggling, terrorism) were rampant with increasing globalization and internationalization. Against this background, a series of criminological studies across different countries was conducted. For example, Newman (Reference Newman1976) conducted a systematic attempt to survey cross-culturally public perceptions of deviant behaviors in India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Yugoslavia and the USA. Shelley (Reference Shelley1981) conducted a criminological study on developed and developing countries to explore the divergent crime models of these different societies. In addition to the criminological research conducted across nations, many international criminological works have been published, such as the book Transnational and Comparative Criminology, edited by Sheptycki and Wardak (Reference Sheptycki and Wardak2005), and the book Comparative Criminal Justice: Making Sense of Difference, authored by David Nelken (Reference Nelken2010). Moreover, some well-known criminological societies, such as the ASC, the ACJS, the International Society of Criminology and the ESC, have increased the proportion of transnational criminological research in the themes of annual conferences. Criminology has developed to become international criminology.
In general, modern criminology developed from classical school to positivist school, from a subfield of sociology to an independent discipline, and from domestic research to transnational or international research.
CURRENT STATE OF AND CHALLENGES FOR CRIMINOLOGY
Examining the current state of criminology, the lack of non-Western contexts and the dominance of Western-based criminology have been major shortcomings (Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Dixon, Fonseca, Goyes, Liu and Zysman2019). Most research is based on Western data, addresses Western concerns, and adopts Western literature and perspectives but generalizes the results as universally valid to all places (Connell Reference Connell2006). Thus, the canon of criminology, just like other social science disciplines, is Western, white and male (Aas Reference Aas2012; Bosworth and Hoyle Reference Bosworth and Hoyle2011; Lee and Laidler Reference Lee and Laidler2013). As early as 1988, Stanley Cohen recognized the Western-centric character of criminology as problematic in his notable work Against Criminology and objected against Western criminology being applied uncritically to non-Western countries (Cohen Reference Cohen1988). Without reflecting on the ethnocentrism within criminology, criminologists still often believe that Western criminology is “universal” and “scientific” and routinely prioritize Western concerns over non-Western perspectives and experiences (Connell Reference Connell2006, Reference Connell2007; Tauri Reference Tauri, Carrington, Ball, O’Brien and Tauri2013). Comparative criminology tends to conduct comparative criminological research between Western countries only (Aas Reference Aas2012; Liu Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018). Generally, the state of contemporary criminology is Western-centric, as acknowledged by many prominent scholars (Aas Reference Aas2012; Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016; Connell Reference Connell2007; Liu Reference Liu2009, Reference Liu2016, Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017; Walklate Reference Walklate2016; Young Reference Young2011).
Some scholars have been querying about the reasons why criminology remains Western-dominated. Moosavi (Reference Moosavi2018, Reference Moosavi2019) demonstrated several main factors, summarized as three aspects in his paper. Firstly, Western criminologists, with the semblance of being “intellectually lazy,” do not think of Western bias or dominance within criminology as problematic and argue that it is a prejudiced viewpoint of some non-Western criminologists (Santos Reference Santos2015). As for non-Western criminologists, most of them are educated in Western countries, hence agreeing that the Western-centric character of criminology is not problematic for them, and they will easily follow this bias in their work (Carrington and Hogg Reference Carrington and Hogg2017; Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016). Secondly, non-Western criminologists may be restricted when striving to produce their criminological scholarship by the socio-political contexts in which they find themselves, such as censorship, deprivation, and a lack of opportunities, resources and academic freedom (Laidler, Lee, and Wong Reference Laidler, Lee and Wong2017; Lee and Laidler Reference Lee and Laidler2013; Liu, Hebenton, and Jou Reference Liu, Hebenton and Jou2013). In addition to restrictions imposed by socio-political contexts, language barriers are also a factor hindering the production of non-Western criminological scholarship (Mazenod Reference Mazenod2018; Suzuki, Pai, and Islam Reference Suzuki, Pai and Islam2018). Simultaneously, structural inequality and discrimination still exist in academic meetings, scholarly organizations, and the publishing industry, excluding non-Western criminological scholarship (Belknap Reference Belknap2016; Kidman and Chu Reference Kidman and Chu2017; Medina Reference Medina, Smith, Zhang and Barberet2011). Thirdly, the competitive and precarious environment within the field of criminology is not helpful for new literature exploration, theoretical innovation, leading contemporary criminology to be pictured as “theoretically light” (Matthews Reference Matthews2017).
Problems with Western-Centrism Within Criminology
Regardless of the many influencing factors, the current state of criminology is recognized as Western-dominated or Western-centric. Undoubtedly, Western dominance has greatly contributed to the development of criminology in many aspects, like the well-established criminological associations (e.g. the ASC, ACJS), the influential Western criminological journals, the countless criminological publications and databases. However, increasing attention has been paid to the weaknesses of Western dominance within criminology.
Firstly, the Western-centrism within criminology leaves non-Western criminology significantly ignored and marginalized (Moosavi Reference Moosavi2018, Reference Moosavi2019). In the past century, many criminological studies have been conducted in non-Western countries but have nevertheless been ignored by Western criminologists (Cross Reference Cross, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018; Hebenton and Jou Reference Hebenton and Jou2005; Wang and Tan Reference Wang, Tan, Liu, Hebenton and Jou2013). For example, Chinese, Japanese and Indian criminology has been well established for many years but remains barely known in the West (Belknap Reference Belknap2016). It is suggested that academic scholarship in social sciences outside the West is low-quality, irrelevant or non-existent. Several non-Western criminologists have even been discriminated against by criminological associations and organizations (Barberet Reference Barberet2007).
Secondly, Western dominance may obscure the circumstance that well-known criminological theories and policies may not apply in non-Western contexts. Criminology remains Western-centric because it is typically based on Western concerns, perspectives and literature (Moosavi Reference Moosavi2019). However, the distinct differences between Western and non-Western contexts, such as differences in culture, economy, politics, and criminal justice systems, imply that the concerns, perspectives and literature, and the theories and policies associated with these, are context-dependent (Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016; Connell Reference Connell2007; Liu Reference Liu2009, Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017; Liu et al. Reference Liu, Hebenton and Jou2013). Sandra Walklate (Reference Walklate2016), when analyzing the problem of Western dominance within criminology, commented on the intersection of the North–South and East–West axes in terms of geography and culture and stated that researchers might think differently, both conceptually and methodologically, about the criminological enterprise and the debates in it. Given this, it is more likely than not that the criminological theories and policies established in Western contexts may not be similarly applicable in non-Western contexts (Messner Reference Messner2015). More importantly, much research on criminology has proved that influential Western theories do not show positive results when tested in non-Western contexts (Liu Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018).
Thirdly, the Western dominance within criminology has hindered the progress of international or global criminology and the dealing with transnational crimes. As Kitossa (Reference Kitossa2012) has pointed out, the emphasis on Westernized theories has severely limited applying alternative or oppositional theories (non-Western theorizing) to crime problems. That is to say, the Western-centrism within criminology unnecessarily excludes alternative accounts that may be advantageous for establishing new criminological scholarship (Moosavi Reference Moosavi2019). Many scholars have drawn attention to the critical importance of decolonizing criminology for the growth of global criminology, arguing that it may produce new agendas, analyses and newly created proposals relevant to criminological topics that are focused upon in non-Western countries as well as to newly emerging crimes, such as transnational crimes, and may also produce new insights into understanding crime and punishment (Agozino Reference Agozino2010; Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg, Scott, Sozzo, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018; Connell Reference Connell2006, Reference Connell2007; Cunneen Reference Cunneen, Bosworth and Hoyle2011; King Reference King2017). Given this, the Western-centrism within criminology may be a barrier to international or global criminology development.
In summary, as a core challenge of contemporary criminology, Western-centrism is commonly regarded as problematic for the development of non-Western criminology, and, more broadly, for the advance of global or international criminology.
HOW TO DEVELOP NON-WESTERN CRIMINOLOGY
Recently, the debate on Western dominance within criminology has been reignited, and many scholars have raised their suggestions to solve this problem. Such suggestions, amounting to the advance of non-Western criminology, comprise the rise of “counter-colonial criminology” (Agozino Reference Agozino2004), “transnational criminology” (Bowling Reference Bowling, Bosworth and Hoyle2011; Sheptycki Reference Sheptycki2008), “African criminology” (Agozino Reference Agozino2010), “Asian criminology” (Belknap Reference Belknap2016; Liu Reference Liu2009, Reference Liu2016, Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018; Liu et al. Reference Liu, Hebenton and Jou2013), and “Southern criminology” (Carrington and Hogg Reference Carrington and Hogg2017; Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016, Reference Carrington, Hogg, Scott, Sozzo, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018; Hogg, Scott, and Sozzo Reference Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2017). How to develop non-Western criminology has consequently become an important research focus. This paper will specifically explain how to develop non-Western criminology by giving the example of “Asian criminology.”
Scientific Paradigm and Western Criminological Paradigm
Thomas Kuhn, the influential philosopher of science, put forward in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) the idea of “paradigm” and emphasized the important role of scientific paradigms in the development of science, the role of paradigm change in scientific revolutions, and the role played by new scientific paradigms in the rapid growth of new knowledge. Kuhn referred to a scientific paradigm as the “universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners” (Kuhn Reference Kuhn1962).
After Kuhn, scholars in the field of social sciences have further worked on “paradigm.” For example, Handa (Reference Handa1987) put forward the idea of “social paradigm” in social sciences contexts and identified the essential components of a social paradigm. In modern social sciences, some conditions have been outlined that help an ideology to become a recognized “dominant paradigm,” such as professional organizations, dynamic leaders, journals and editors writing about the ideology, support from government agencies (e.g. funding) and educators (propagating the paradigm’s ideas to students), conferences held to discuss ideas of the paradigm, media coverage, and more (Hutchin Reference Hutchin2012).
Criminology, as a social science discipline, is also developed under the direction of a paradigm. As for modern criminology with Western-centrism and Western dominance, the dominant paradigm directing its rapid development has been the Western criminological paradigm. The Western “development towards relatively unified concepts, approaches, and institutionalization of criminology has led to a common paradigm for dialogue, debate, and discussion, as well as generally shared standards for evaluation of research and programs and a relatively clearer direction for advancement” (Liu Reference Liu2009). In the West, the institutionalization of criminology has developed under the direction of the Western criminological paradigm, including the establishment of the ASC, ACJS, ESC, and other professional organizations, academic journals published in English, education programs on Western criminology and criminal justice, and conferences held to facilitate the communication within the community and with other parts of the world.
The Asian Criminological Paradigm as an Example of a Non-Western Paradigm
Judging from the development experiences of the social sciences and Western-centric criminology, developing non-Western criminology also requires the direction of a scientific paradigm. This paper will take “Asian criminology” as an example, which has just developed from establishing an Asian criminological paradigm.
Jianhong Liu first proposed the “Asian criminological paradigm,” stressing the diversity of Asia, particularly encouraging the in-depth study of particular Asian contexts, traditions, theoretical or practical models, and topics that are particularly Asian (Liu Reference Liu2009, Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018). As the world’s largest continent, Asia has a long history and many countries. The distinct differences between Asian countries can be manifested in many aspects, such as economic development, forms of political organization, social systems, cultural traditions, and more (Liu Reference Liu2009, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018). The huge diversity of Asia makes the continent a wonderful area for criminological research because criminology, as a social scientific discipline, is essentially comparative (Heidensohn Reference Heidensohn, King and Wincup2007; Nelken Reference Nelken2010). Regardless of the diversity of Asian contexts, there also exist some more or less shared characteristics and features. For example, restorative justice has been practiced in many Asian countries for centuries (Liu Reference Liu2007). With such diversity and shared features, the research of Asian criminology will need a unified paradigm to lead the development of the discipline in Asia to grow with guidance, strategies, and successful examples and models. The Asian criminological paradigm will form while developing Asian criminology, which studies crime and justice in Asian contexts.
According to Liu (Reference Liu2009, Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018), the Asian criminological paradigm includes key concepts and theories as core components and research strategies and methodologies. It focuses on studying the different crime models in Asian countries, thus establishing a unified paradigm that fully considers the cultural and criminal differences of Asian countries.
Strategies for Building and Developing an Asian Criminological Paradigm
As a successful new scientific paradigm, the Asian criminological paradigm provides three strategies for developing core concepts and theories for Asian criminology (Liu Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018). The strategies also represent three stages of paradigm development: from relatively simple transportation and testing of the theories to more complex elaboration and transformation of the theories, and ultimately to the most innovative tasks of conceptual innovation and proposing new theories (Liu Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018).
The first strategy is to transport Western mainstream criminological theories, such as social learning theory, general strain theory, social control theory and more, into Asian contexts and then test whether these criminological theories, which are widely accepted in the West, can similarly be applied in Asian contexts. According to Liu (Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018), the empirical results of testing such influential Western theories in Asian contexts are complex and may differ greatly from those obtained in Western contexts. It has been demonstrated that in some studies, well-established Western criminological theories are still applicable in Asian contexts, whereas in other studies, the findings proved different in Asian contexts, as summarized by Liu (Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018).
Given that some Western criminological theories proved not to be applicable in Asian contexts, the second strategy of developing Asian criminology is necessary to elaborate theories in different contexts (Liu Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018). The elaboration involves identifying the scope applied in the influential theories and reworking or modifying those theories in new contexts. Liu (Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018) has given several examples for such an elaboration. For example, the institutional anomie theory, which explains the dominance of economic outlooks in all institutions of a country as the core cause of anomie, was critiqued as not applicable in Asian countries because the dominance of politics is common in most Asian countries; the theory was thus proposed to be transformed in Asian contexts (Messner Reference Messner2015).
The third strategy is the most significant one for the development of Asian criminology. Given the large differences between the Western and Asian contexts, some influential theories cannot be applied in Asian contexts even after the elaboration stage. Then, the way ahead is for scholars to develop new concepts and theories in Asian contexts, as advocated by John Braithwaite (Reference Braithwaite2015). The newly developed concepts and theories, such as the conceptual innovations of restorative justice (Braithwaite Reference Braithwaite2015) and relationism theory (Liu Reference Liu2016, Reference Liu, Liu, Travers and Chang2017, Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018), are expected to be universally applicable in both Asian and Western contexts.
Institution Building and Achievements of the Asian Criminological Paradigm
With the strategy of developing core concepts and theories of Asian criminology, the Asian criminological paradigm includes institution building and has achieved much success in Asian criminology.
Firstly, the Asian Criminological Society (ACS) was established in 2009, when about 50 criminologists from 14 countries and areas in the Asia-Pacific region gathered in Macau, and the Society held its first Annual Conference (Liu Reference Liu, Carrington, Hogg, Scott and Sozzo2018). By 2019, 11 annual conferences have been held in different countries. Papers presented at those annual conferences focus on criminology and criminal justice systems in Asia and on studies comparing the West and the non-West.
Secondly, the Asian Journal of Criminology, the official journal of the ACS, has played an important role in the development of Asian criminology since its establishment in 2006. It is a key platform for global scholars to exchange ideas and publish their papers on Asian criminological research. In 2017, the Scientific Journal Rankings, the world’s leading academic journal ranking, reported that the Asian Journal of Criminology ranked 83rd of all 488 journals across the world in the field of law and criminal justice. In 2018, the journal was officially included in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), becoming the first criminological academic journal to be included in the SSCI in Asia.
Thirdly, many books on Asian criminology and criminal justice systems have sprung up. For example, Springer has published a series of books, such as the Handbook of Asian Criminology (Liu et al. Reference Liu, Hebenton and Jou2013) and the “Springer Series on Asian Criminology and Criminal Justice Research,” which includes Comparative Criminology in Asia (Liu, Travers, and Chang Reference Liu, Travers and Chang2017), Crime and Justice in Contemporary Japan (Liu and Miyazawa Reference Liu and Miyazawa2018), Restorative Justice in China: Comparing Theory and Practice (Yuan Reference Yuan2017), Restorative Justice in India: Traditional Practice and Contemporary Applications (Thilagaraj and Liu Reference Thilagaraj and Jianhong2017), and Internal Migration, Crime, and Punishment in Contemporary China: An Inquiry into Rural Migrant Offenders (Shen Reference Shen2018). These books have addressed some major findings of criminological research in the Asian context and have played an important role in promoting the development of comparative criminology. Palgrave has also published another serious book series, “Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia,” co-edited by Bill Hebenton, Susyan Jou, and Lennon Y. C. Chang.
Fourthly, the rapid development of Asian criminology has attracted more and more scholars toward paying attention to the development of non-Western criminology (Belknap Reference Belknap2016; Braithwaite Reference Braithwaite2015; Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016; Moosavi Reference Moosavi2018; Walklate Reference Walklate2016). Belknap (Reference Belknap2016), a former president of the ASC, has conducted an influential study to track the developing path of Asian criminology. She searched the Web of Science for all papers on crime, crime control, and criminal justice after 1900 from all disciplines, concluding that criminology in Asia has entered a period of rapid development since 2010 (Belknap Reference Belknap2016). Under the influence of Asian criminology, another non-Western criminology scholarship has sprung up. For example, the advocates of “Southern criminology” have highlighted the major issue of the global divide in criminology and pointed out that the dominance of the global North within criminology has led to the serious underdevelopment of criminology in the global South, except “in Asia, with the establishment of the Asian Criminological Society and its journal” (Carrington et al. Reference Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo2016). Their views have affirmed the usefulness of developing Asian criminology for constructing strategies to link the North and South and develop non-Western criminology.
Further Directions for Asian Criminology
Over the past decade, the Asian criminological paradigm has been built, leading to a rapid growth of Asian criminology. Along with this development, Asian criminology will stress its importance in the following directions.
Firstly, we should emphasize exploring research questions of high importance and salience in Asian countries. On the one hand, the stage of social development in Asia is different from that in the West. Most Asian countries are developing countries while most Western countries are developed countries. On the other hand, the historical, cultural and international contexts of the Asian countries are also different from those in the West. Thus, the research questions that are important in Asia may hugely differ from those in the West. For example, in China, corruption may be considered more serious than violent crimes. Environmental pollution has been considered more serious in China and India than in Europe and North America. Industrialization and urbanization have led to internal migration as a major process in Asian countries rather than international migration in Western countries.
Secondly, we should emphasize the importance of developing the research strategies and methodology with the best response to the specific features of Asian contexts and conceptual processes. This dimension is important for developing concepts and theories that reflect and guide Asia’s criminology and criminal justice studies. The common methods applied in Western criminology may not be similarly applicable in Asian criminological research due to the specific characteristics of the questions and the data. The different thinking models of the West and the non-West may also be a factor. Many issues in research strategies and methods need to be studied in the future direction.
To put it simply, to develop non-Western criminology requires the direction of a scientific paradigm. The Asian criminological paradigm has supplied an excellent example for the development of non-Western criminology in general.
CONCLUSION
This paper mainly reviewed the historical development of modern criminology and observed that Western-centrism within criminology has led to non-Western criminology being ignored, marginalized, and underdeveloped. To resolve this problem, a new direction was proposed, namely, to develop non-Western criminology. Just as Moosavi (Reference Moosavi2019) has pointed out, multiple measures can be used to decolonize the social sciences, including criminology, but the most promising one is to incorporate non-Western scholarship into teaching and research. This paper supplied a good example showing how non-Western criminology may be developed. As one typical form of non-Western criminology, Asian criminology has developed rapidly under the Asian criminological paradigm, thus significantly influencing the development of other non-Western criminological scholarship. This, to a certain extent, partly changed the Western-centric state of criminology and promoted the advance of international criminology. It is advocated that, in the future, more non-Western criminology be advanced to bridge the gap between the West and non-West and promote the development of international and global criminology.
Jianhong Liu is a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Macau. He is the Founding President, Honorary President and Chairman of the General Assembly of the Asian Criminological Society, and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Criminology. He is the winner of the 2016 American Society of Criminology’s “Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award” and of the 2018 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ “Gerhard O.W. Mueller Award for Distinguished Contributions to International Criminal Justice.” Professor Liu has published 138 academic articles and 30 books.
