Consorting, then and now: Changing relations of responsibility

What the paper says

Consorting - broadly, the offence of association with criminals - is typically understood as an issue of police powers. But consorting is of interest to criminal law scholars, and particularly, to scholars of criminal responsibility because it is a distinctive configuration of criminal responsibility principles and practices. This article tells the legal story of consorting, with a focus on the sets of relations that are at the heart of criminal responsibility. Based on an examination of consorting offences enacted in Australian jurisdictions since their introduction in the early 20th century, I argue that the laws fall into two generations, each of which encodes different relations of responsibility. The first generation of consorting offences proscribed 'companionship with thieves', with relations of responsibility reinforcing existing, highly stratified social relations, and the laws operating to keep different categories of 'undesirables' apart from each other. By contrast, the second generation of laws inculcate 'friendship with the state', with relations of responsibility assuming a standardised structure, according to which the state is brought into the relationship between individuals in a distinct way - as a 'friend'.