But it must be 'cautious' reaffirmation because we know the
flaws in the 'beautiful theory' of inclusion.
(1) It fails to confront the moral issues of guilt, wrong-doing,
punishment and responsibility and the empirical issues of harm,
danger and fear which are raised by the problem of crime. By
favouring a naive individualism, it does not give enough space to
legitimate collective interests.
(2) In terms of 'doing good', the non-interventionist, abolitionist
message of inclusion can easily provide a benevolent licence
for neglect. A conservative Iaissez faire state can now use incl1.1sionary
slogans to abdicate responsibility for caring for its
weaker citizens. And in terms of 'doing justice', conservative
law-and-order policies will fill the instrumental and symbolic
gaps left by non-interventionist policies about crime.
(3) Inclusionary policies can inadvertently lead to the establishment
of new agencies and professionals whose very existence
and traditional modes of operation lead to new forms of exclusion.
The project of normalizing people is carried out in such
a way as to classify and 'problematize' them even further. The
dispersal of social control which follows the attempt to break
up centralized concentrations of exclusionary power, might
draw new (that is, previously 'included') populations into the
orbit of social control.
(4) Inclusion does not confront the uncomfortable facts of
human diversity. People are different not just in the labels
attached to them. And the attachment of .labels might anyway
be the only way to create a social policy genuinely responsive to
human needs.
It is this last flaw which is hardest for the inclusionary vision
to confront. For many of us (and this is why labelling theory was
so attractive) the positivist doctrine of 'differentiation' - the
notion that deviants were different from non-deviants in any way
other than the labels - had to be denied. Metaphysically this
denial remains valid. Practically speaking also, as Scull nicely
remarks, the guiet reabsorption into the community of many
recently decanted inmates is scarcely surprising as 'many of those
subject to processing by the official agencies of social control have
been virtually indistinguishable from their neighbours who have
been left!alone.'34
But not always. Where differences do exist, it by no means
follows that non-exclusionary forms of welfare and control are