ABSTRACT
Britain's New Labour government, on the rare occasions it deigns to do so, castigates criminology’s critiques as ideologically inspired anachronisms, being both pre-scientific and woefully inadequate to the problems of ‘real-world’ crime. Uncritical criminology has achieved a level of political influence quite incommensurate with its explanatory power or intellectual bite. Critical criminologists must perforce be suspicious of such invitations because, all too often an apparent desire on the part of government to embrace its critics as ‘partners in progress’ may well mask a less creditable urge to marginalise, discredit or silence the critique. The citizens of a democratic society are best served if the academic, and for that matter the professional, resists the ever-present temptation to serve as an apologist for the ephemeral ambitions of governments and speaks out.
