ABSTRACT
The naive might expect society to take a view of crime which increased in severity with the degree of offence. It might be thought that society would rank the big stealing above the little stealing. In practice it does not. Society has an ambiguous attitude towards the actions of its ‘big men. To enforce the law, the police need the precise definitions produced by the law. They are reluctant to use ‘lighter’ words like ‘fixing’ and ‘dealing’ to describe what they see as corruption and fraud. If they were to do so, they would move out of the certainties of strong grid into the ambiguities of weak grid. If the ‘witch’ attempted to defend herself in the terms of her real actions and real motives as she perceived them, the administration of justice was hampered and there was no possibility of a transaction between the accusers and the accused.
