Jason Dittons 'Controlology Beyond the New Criminology' (Macmillan 1971) is a sociological study. However its subject, social control, has an intrinsic interest for Systems thinkers. The book examines critically the phenomena of crime waves, arguing that they are oscillations in the police/judicial/media control system.
Chapter 2 introduces the main theoretical structure of the book. Ditton claim that crime figures measure the output of the police/judicial system rather than measure an input to it. The error of treating an output as an input results in the perturbations in the system commonly called crime-waves, but being in this view control waves. By treating crime as an output of the police/judicial system Ditton partially closes the system, thus allowing it to be analysed. No assumption is made about the level of undiscovered crimes. Instead only acts which provoke a reaction from the control system are defined as crimes. The concept of undiscovered crimes which the police seek to locate is replaced by an infinite number of acts, from which a few are selected by the police/judicial system and criminalised.
A scheme of a cybernetic model is presented to explain oscillation of crime rates. The chapter is not very suitable as material for systems students because of its heavy sociological style and a problem with the concept of feedback. Ditton refers to feedback as being negative when the effect of a control action produces a response contrary with the objective of the controller. When the counter-intuitive behaviour of complex systems is taken into account this can result in feedback which is cybernetically negative being referred to as being positive.
Chapter 3 takes us into Wellbread Bakery. The crime, £46 worth of biscuits were illegally removed from the biscuit store. This chapter is a delightful description of work experience. It is a fascinating example of how peoples mental models and value systems condition what they observe. The style of the chapter is very different from the rest of the book. It describes the action as it unfolds, spiced with flash-backs.
The role of fantasy in social control systems is examined. A fantasy in this sense is the mental model of reality used for control purposes. This model is used to formulate the questions asked and to interpret the answers. A particular problem of human activity systems is the ability of people to manipulate their response to control in order to conform to the controller's fantasy. This makes it difficult for the control system to adjust its model to conform more closely to reality. Instead information about reality is adjusted to suit the controller's model thereby obstructing learning processes.
Chapter 3 nicely violates the premise of chapter 2, that crime does not exist outside the control system. There are examples of people getting away with (what they themselves believe to be) crimes. Ditton tries to escape from this by means of a footnote that is "not the usual criticism-deflecting pre-emptive hedge".
Chapter 4 briefly concludes the book by arguing that control and not crime should be the focus of research. The relevant question to ask is not why do 'they do it' but 'why don't we do it'.
For comparison I re-read Stafford Beer's 'The Law and the Profits' from 'Platform for Change' (Wiley 1975). Beer failed to note that the question 'Are we more or less secure than before' may be answered 'we are less secure because our security is threatened by excessive control' (i.e. positive feedback). He has noticed that his model of a national police force could lead to violent oscillations, but has not associated this insight with crime-waves. It may be noticed that Ditton's model conforms to the recent observation that the increased spending on the police and strengthening of control in the UK is being accompanied by rising levels of crime.
It seems that Crime and Control (or Law and Order) is a suitable subject to introduce students to applied systems ideas. Beer offers one systems view, Ditton offers a critical sociological view, with an extensive bibliography and some systems influence.
Roger Hill Published in the UK Systems Society Newsletter May 1982. Art work by Richard Drydon