But who will champion this new approach when almost all those in the crime industry have a vested interest in the status quo? The media prefer to see crime as a series of individual human dramas which every now and then reward them with juicy headlines. Lawyers are steeped in traditional ways of doing things (indeed they are taught that precedence is a virtue) and are broadly content with a system which puts them at the centre and feathers their nests. Most politicians,
shuffling from one policy portfolio to another, reckon crime can be tackled intuitively which, for them, means being tougher if they’re of conservative inclination, and softer if they’re liberal. And many criminologists have been too interested in theorising to be of any practical value to anyone but themselves.