An Interview with Ken Pryce

I think the maiden entry on this blog should shed light on its title. In the early 1970s the late Ken Pryce made a call for a specific field of study that would treat with the intricacies of the Caribbean, namely our history and our socio-economic framework. This field or sub-field should be considered a Caribbean Criminology. I intend therefore to let Pryce speak to us as I interview him via his 1976 paper.

Keron: Why do we need a Caribbean Criminology?

Pryce: It’s simple we “need to examine the reality of crime from a critical standpoint in the context of the Region’s history of capitalist repression and exploitation, and in terms of the Caribbean’s structural heritage of black working class styles of protest and modes of response to oppression through slavery down to the present stage of neo-colonialism. It would be a Criminology viewing criminal acts from the standpoint of local conditions and not in terms of the frames of reference and purely bourgeois assumptions of the Establishment and the local metropolitan-orientated ruling elite.” (p.5)

Keron: Can you elaborate on what would be its theoretical foundation?

Pryce: “The theoretical foundation...can be found in the perspective of the New Criminology.” (p.5)

Keron: What do you mean by the New Criminology?

Pryce: “To explain what it is... it is necessary to contrast it with Traditional Criminology...Traditional Criminology concentrates on the deviant as an individual and seeks to correct his behaviour to bring him back in line with society as it exists. The deviant [is therefore] seen as sick, evil, or bad while the existing rules of society and the status quo are on the whole, taken for granted and regarded as being basically good and sound...The entire perspective then can be said to be based on the philosophy of correctionalism.” (p.6) However the “New Criminology is based on a structuralist approach to the study of crime... The quest is to illuminate crime and all other forms of rule breaking in terms of a critical and radical interpretation of society. Critical criminologists [therefore] prefer to work with the more all embracing perspective of deviance, which encompasses a wider range of deviant phenomena, including for example, suicide, industrial sabotage, corruption, bureaucratic mismanagement etc...Deviance is wide and it means much more than just “crime” narrowly defined by the Criminal Law.” (p.6)

Keron: So how does this New Criminology view the deviant?

Pryce: “Whereas the ideology of conventional criminology is that of correctionalism, the attitude of deviancy theorists is one of appreciation. The situation of the deviant should first be appreciated in its own right, preferably through direct observations before judgement is passed on him. You see the “deviant is not sick [instead] criminality is a matter of social definition.” (p.6-7)

Keron: And you believe that this “New Criminology has superior theoretical advantages” (p.7) to that of the conventional correctionalist approach?

Pryce: Yes I do, I also believe that it should be “the basis for the development of a framework for the sociology of crime, deviance and social control in the Caribbean.” (p.7)

Keron: Ok now that we have an appreciation for the theoretical foundation of the perspective can you delineate the key issues that this perspective would investigate?

Pryce: Sure, there are many issues but I wish to mention two at this time.
The Origins of Socio-legal problems in the Caribbean and
Modernization and Crime

Keron: When you say the Origins of Socio-Legal problems what exactly are you getting at?

Pryce: During slavery, during that plantation system the slave masters used the law and the plantation system to control and subdue the slaves. “Every slave was viewed as a potential criminal...This system was like a prison” (p.8). The law determined our social status.

Keron: But we are no under the regime of slavery, it has been abolished.

Pryce: Yes that’s true but “the economic and social status of blacks in the post emancipation period remains substantially the same and abolition brought with it no economic transformation - only a change in the basis of exploiting black labour... The laws reflect the economic interests of the masses, racism has been further institutionalized...blacks [are seen] as pagan and inferior [and are] viewed as innately criminal and their lower class institutions vilified as deviant and illegal...” (p.9)

Keron: Ken would I be right then to say that the law became the enemy of the lower class black?

Pryce: Very much so, the law was interpreted to be a weapon of the elite which resulted in the poor failing to cooperate with the police and praising those members of their community who succeeded at circumventing the law. (p.9) It is therefore the task of Caribbean governments to “radically restructure their economies and improve the lot of the broad mass of the people.” (p.9)

Keron: Are our governments accomplishing this task?

Pryce: No they are failing miserably instead they “resort to provisions in the law to restrain and crush popular discontent in the name of law and order.” (p.9) This is why I said this issue must fall within the “scope of a Caribbean” Criminology.

Keron: Many Criminologists have argued that “crime in the developing countries is the product of social change. In other words, crime is a manifestation of modernity; as we move from a traditional to a modern stage of development the natural side effect is an increase in crime. They argue that urbanization and industrialization is disruptive because it breaks the restraining effects of traditional social bonds What are your thoughts on this assertion?

Pryce: “This is a romantic view of crime and development which obscures and mystifies the process of becoming deviant.” “In the Third World the rising crime rate is not a product of modernization per se but a symptom of a particular type of development based on exploitation and the development of under- development such as been in evidence in the capitalist societies of the Caribbean for the past quarter century.” (p.10)

Keron: Hmmm, I think I am beginning to understand where you are coming from. As we bring the interview to a close are there any parting words you wish to leave with us?

Pryce: Yes, I wish to mention that “in developing a theory of deviance for the Caribbean, we should be wary of the wholesale importation of metropolitan models of explanation based, sometimes, on outdated research conducted in the USA and Britain where conditions are dissimilar to our own. In this regard overseas theories of crime and delinquency offering a purely cultural explanation are the most suspect.” (p.16)

Keron: I know we need to close but could you further explain why we need to be wary?

Pryce: Keron you must understand that “delinquency in the Caribbean... is a phenomenon of some complexity intimately fused with politics and liberation struggles. To adopt foreign models in which the phenomenon is either de-racialized or viewed in purely cultural terms, is merely to trivialize the problem and divorce it from its structural and historical context.

Keron: Thank you Mr. Kenneth Pryce for your time and wisdom.



This interview was a fictional one between myself and the late Ken Pryce. Its based on, as mentioned earlier, his 1976 paper titled “Towards a Caribbean Criminology.” Most of my questions and his responses came, as much as possible, from the paper. I hope I did him justice.


Keron King
striving to be a Caribbean Criminologist