Acting as the secretary during those formative years from 1972 through 1978 Mario was absolutely reliable in all kinds of organization and communication. And he edited together with Herman Bianchi and Ian Taylor the first book of the EG “Deviance and Control in Europe” (1975). He published together with Margherita Ciacci about the European Group in French (in: Déviance et Société 1977, 109-117). He was especially engaged in the inclusion of scholars from France and other countries with a Roman language. Mario Simondi returned to the Dipartimento Statistico-Matematico at the Universita degli Studi di Firence, where he was lecturer, and became responsible for the organization of the first conference of the EG in Impruneta, September 1973. (How the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control started is a story I tell elsewhere.) Thus we promised to create such a network after returning to Europe. The more we understood that in our home countries a change of paradigm in regard to conceptions of deviance took place, the more we thought it would be a good idea to connect all those innovative and critical initiatives together in Europe. We added similar stories about the subgroup-building of young criminologists in Germany (Arbeitskreis Junger Kriminologen, AJK) and the anti-psychiatry-movement of Basaglia in Italy. Those news had not yet been spread in Italy or Germany. He told us about the activities of the National Deviancy Conference in the UK. One was already taken by Stan Cohen, who taught a class at the School. At the School of Criminology we sat again together, this time in an office which consisted of six cubicles. When I moved in summer 1971 to the Bay Area to continue my research at the Center for the Study of Law and Society, UC Berkeley, Mario decided to follow me to the West Coast. At the end of our daily work Mario and I liked to go often to the gym and play pool billiard together. That appeared quite exotic to the Americans who use to conduct their academic life as a rat-race which allows no waste of time. While we spent the days at our offices, Mario surprised the Americans with his habit to close the door of his office each day after lunch and take a nap. I made research on plea bargaining in criminal cases. Mario was to collect material on youth gangs. Each of us had received a fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies. From September 1970 until July 1971 we were both fellows in the Institute of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. He, Stan Cohen and I planned, while sitting together in a UC Berkeley office, that a network of critical criminologists in Europe should be established. There would probably be no European Group without Mario Simondi’s engaged work as founder and subsequent secretary of the EG. There are many people who are not mentioned here but who provided inspiration and friendship to our members. Could John, if he agreed to it, not donate his fee to charity or make restitution in some other way? Give him a path forward and a chance to make amends.These pages are dedicated to members of the European Group who have died but who remain with us, continuing to inspire and stimulate us. Nobody should have to suffer indefinitely for mistakes made years ago. While it might seem all right to cancel the story, where could it stop? Should Big Finish delete all John's back catalog? What about their audio stories starring Noel Clarke? At what date, if ever, does John deserve to work again? Nobody has a blameless past. While I do not expect BBC or the Big Finish to reinstate the production any time soon, this petition could also have symbolic value.
Big Finish have, possibly due to pressure from the BBC, dropped Absent Friends from their schedule, John Barrowman has already recorded his part and has already gotten paid for it, which makes the choice a symbolic one. The audio drama production company Big Finish Productions has removed the upcoming Torchwood audio drama Absent Friends from its schedules, in the same month as its release.
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