Things fall apart: From law, order and justice to lawlessness, disorder and injustice

Moore, John

Abstract

Criminology, legal studies, political science and other disciplines all operates with assumptions about the benefits of the rule of law, the legitimacy of the state’s role in establishing and maintaining order and the centrality of justice within penal law. This paper deploys a postcolonial perspective to undermine those assumptions. By exploring the foundations of Britain’s worldwide empire, how the British state governed these colonies and the legacies of imperial power in post colonial states law and order and justice are shown to be facades constructed to facilitate domination, cultural destruction, genocide, sexual violence and economic exploitation. The paper goes on to argue that the injustice of these colonial legacies continue to cause widespread harm. Indigenousness people continue to experience the violence of colonialism and in the metropole the descendants of colonised and enslaved are subjected to a continuing culture of institutionalised racism which is a direct result of imperialism. The paper concludes by demonstrating how the historic and contemporary impacts of colonialism show that criminal justice has been and continues to be a mechanism for promoting lawlessness, disorder and injustice.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Division of Sociology Seminar
• Start Date: Dec 4, 2014
• End Date: Dec 4, 2014
• Publication Date: Dec 4, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: lawlessness, disorder, injustice, colonialism, postcolonial
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/806636
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Division of Sociology Seminar, University of Abertay, Dundee