2.2.9 Crime and Deviance: Control, punishment and victims Flashcards
Crime prevention and control
What is SCP?
- Situational crime prevention.
- A pre-emptive approach which relies on reducing opportunity for crime.
- E.g ‘target hardening’
- Based on rational choice theory
Crime prevention and control
What is a zero tolerence policy and who are the key theorists?
- Zero tolerance policy is based on Wilson and Kelling’s ‘broken windows’ theory that signs of disorder prompt a spiral of decline.
- Therefore, the solution is to crack down and have a no tolerance policy.
Crime prevention and control
What is the approach of social and community crime prevention?
- dealing with the social conditions that predispose some individuals to future crime.
- E.g dealing with poverty, unemployment…
Crime prevention and control
What is an example of social crime prevention?
- The perry pre-school project in Michigan gave an experimental group of two year olds an intellectual enrichment programme which led to fewer arrests compared to peers.
Surveillance
What are the two forms of power identified by Faucault?
- Sovereign power - the monarch exercised physical power over people’s bodies and punishment was a visible spectacle. e.g public execution.
- Disciplinary power - controls not only the body, but the mind through serveillance. Dominant from the 19th century.
Surveillance
What’s Faucault’s study of the panopticon?
- the panopticon is a prison design where cells are visable to guards but guards are not visable to prisoners.
- By not knowing if they are being watched, the prisoners constantly behave as if they are, turning into ‘self-surveillance’.
Surveillance
What’s Mathiesen’s theory on surveillance developed from Faucault?
- Synoptic surveillance
- This is where everyone watched everyone.
- As well as Faucault’s top down minotoring, the public monitor the powerful groups, and the public also monitor each other.
Surveillance
What are Haggerty and Ericson’s ‘surveillant assemblages’?
- Surveillant assemblages are combining multiple different technologies in surveillance.
Surveillance
What is Feeley and Simon’s ‘actuarial analysis’?
- A method of statistical calculations to predict the likelihood of people offending.
- Individuals can be profiled using known offender ‘risk factors’ (e.g age, gender, ethnicity, religion).
Surveillance
What is a limitation of Feeley and Simon’s actuarial analysis?
- Offender profiles are compiled using official statistics.
- Profiling leads to police targetting certain groups.
- Stereotyping and labelling - enables racist judgements.
- Self fulfilling prophecy.
Surveillance
What did Norris and Armstrong find about CCTV and racism?
- found that CCTV operators targetted young, black, males based on stereotypes which led to a self sulfilling prophecy.
Punishment
What are the four different justifications for punishment?
- Deterrence - may prevent future crime for fear of punishment.
- Rehabilitation - reforming offenders so they no longer offend.
- Incapacitation - removing the offenders capacity to offend.
- Retribution - the idea that society is entitled to take revenge for the offender having breached its moral code.
Punishment
What is Durkheim’s functionalist perspective on the role of punishment?
- To uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values by expressing society’s moral outrage at the offence.
Punishment
What are the two types of punishment identitied by Durkheim?
- Retributive justice - punishment is severe due to traditional society’s strong collective conscience.
- Restituitve justice - punishment’s aim is to repair damage due to society’s interdependence between individuals.
Punishment
How do marxists see punishment?
- See punishment as part of the ‘repressive state apparatus’ that defends ruling class property from the lower class.
- The form of punishment reflects the economic base of society.
- Under capitalism, imprisonment takes the main form of punishment because time is money so offenders ‘pay’ by doing time.
Punishment
How has the role of prisons changed?
- in pre-industrial society, imprisonment was just a form of holding prisoners before punishment (banishment, flogging, execution)
- Later, imprisonment became a form of punishment in itself.
- In liberal societies, prison is seen as the most sever form of punishment.
- However, most prisoners re-offend so it may just be a way of making bad prisoners worse.
Punishment
In what way does Garland argue punishment has become more politicised?
- There has been a move towards ‘populist punitiveness’ - the political strategy of using criminal law to gain electorial popularity.
- The public approve of tougher sentances so more people are being incarcerated.
- The UK imprisons the highest proportion of people of most countries in Europe.
Punishment
What is transcarceration?
- moving young people between different prison-like institutions such as foster care, young offenders institutions, adult prisons.
- There has been a burring of boundaries between criminal justice system and welfare agencies. e.g social services, health, and housing are given an increasing role in crime control.
Punishment
What are some alternatives to prison?
- curfews
- tagging
- service orders
The victims of crime
How does Christie define a ‘victim’?
- As a socially contructred category.
- The stereotype of a victim created by the media is weak and blameless.
The victims of crime
What is positivist victimology?
- focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence.
- Seeks to find patterns in victimisation and aims to identify the characteristics of victims.
The victims of crime
What are two characteristics of victims identified by positivist victimologists, and what is the evaluation on this perspective?
- Victim proneness - characteristics that make victims more vulnerable. e.g less intellegent.
- Victim precipitation - being the first to use violence.
- Can appear ‘victim blaming’ and ignoress structural factors such as poverty and patriarchy.
The victims of crime
What is Wolfgang’s study and how does is show victim precipitation?
- Wolfgang studied 588 homocides and found that 26% involved the victim triggering the events that led to the murder. e.g being the first to use violence.
The victims of crime
What is critical victimology?
- structural factors such as patriarchy and poverty place powerless groups at greater risk of victimisation.
The victims of crime
In what ways do capitalism not apply the victim label consistently?
- When police fail to press charges against a man for assulting his wife/partner, she is denied victim status.
- Employers violation of the law leading to death or injury are often explained away as the fault of ‘accident prone’ workers.
The victims of crime
Who are the main groups most likely to be repeat victims?
- the poor
- the young
- minority ethnic groups
- males - violence
- females - domestic and sexual violence.
The victims of crime
What are the main impacts of victimisation?
(4)
- crime may create ‘indirect victims’ such as family, friends and witnesses
- crime may create fear of victimisation
- secondary victimisation by the criminal justice system
- create waves of hate crimes against minority ethnic groups.
