This lecture is part of a series of events to mark the 30th anniversary of the inception of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies in the School of Law at Leeds.

This plenary lecture will revisit the themes of the Conference on Regulation and Criminology: Looking Back, Thinking Forward, which include regulation of the economy, of corporations, space, cyberspace, individuals, their biologies, their families and regulating situationally. Regulation of airlines is the most profound accomplishment of regulatory capitalism. Most recently, it has been the most successful part of the war on terrorism, as it was in the 1970s response to its spate of aircraft hijacking. Airline safety regulation has also had remarkably diffused effectiveness. It is much safer to fly through the air in Democratic Republic of Congo than it is to travel across the ground in Britain. Some of the challenges here overlap: prevention of drink-driving, driver fatigue prevention, wearing seat belts, maintenance of the safety of tyres, travel lane architectures that maximise traffic separations, terrorism prevention, safe use of computer communication systems while driving etc. The fundamental reason air safety regulation has been more successful than other forms of regulation is that it has been non-punitive toward people who recklessly make awful mistakes. It is a forgiving regulatory regime so long as there is learning from near misses and from tragedies about how to improve situational crash prevention. Yet it is punitive toward cover-up. Airline safety’s effectiveness is contrasted with the ineffectiveness of regulation of torture. Torture is rife in Western criminal justice systems because cover-up is rewarded, rather than punished as in airline safety. Torturers are punished severely when they are detected, but they rarely are uncovered. Extraordinary rendition of alleged terrorists is the paradigm case of how western states have distanced themselves from accountability for terrorism. So is stripping dual citizens in Australia of their citizenship throwing them upon the mercy of statelessness. States have learnt that it is best to steer rather than row with torture. One path is contracting to private corporations to run sensitive prisons, as in Iraq or with Australian off-shore detention of refugees. Another is more banal and routine. My most recent visit to an Australian prison was to one where it was estimated that 80% of the drugs brought into the prison were sold by prison officers. Not that the prison officers run this prison. The inmates do. Interrogation and torture of inmates who disrupt things like the illegal disruption of drugs or who compete with prison-officer-approved distribution is undertaken by inmates. When prison officers approve of a particular incident of violence in the prison or do not like the person being tortured, they are slow to intervene. A more dramatic illustration of the state in El Salvador indirectly mobilising torture in prison by gang leaders is used to reveal how states steer rather than row through torture.

With Respondent: Adam Crawford, University of Leeds, UK

Biography:

John Braithwaite with Valerie Braithwaite founded RegNet, the School of Regulation and Global Governance, at the Australian National University. He is best known for work on restorative justice, responsive regulation and corporate crime. He currently works on the relationship between crime and war in the context of a large project he has led since 2004 called Peacebuilding Compared. Free downloads of most of his work can be found at johnbraithwaite.com

If you would like to register for the Conference on Regulation and Criminology: Looking Back, Thinking Forward including the evening plenary lecture by John Braithwaite please register here.

Location Details

Moot Court Room
Liberty Building
School of Law
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT

(Please use postcode LS6 1AN for Sat Navs)

The Liberty Building is number 16 on the downloadable campus map.

How to get to the University.

There is limited car-parking available on campus on a first come, first serve basis.
Parking spaces are available on campus for blue badge holders. Please contact 0113 343 5491 or carparking@leeds.ac.uk for further details.

Regulatory Capitalism and Criminology, John Braithwaite, ANU, Australia