8. Control, Prevention, Surveillance, Punishment and The CJS Flashcards
Principle of situational crime prevention (Clarke)
Created on the notion that people will commit offences when the costs of offending are less than the benefits
What does situational crime prevention involve?
Tougher punishments
Target hardening (making it harder to commit crimes E.g. anti-theft devices)
Increased surveillance
Is situational crime prevention attractive to policy makers? Why?
It is an attractive option for crime prevention as it offers cheap and simple initiatives to reduce crime
Evidence to support situational crime prevention (2)
What part of situational crime prevention do they support?
Fewer car thefts when car security systems are used
Redesign of a Birmingham market, where stools were further apart, linked to 70% reduction in purse theft
Supports target hardening
Negative evaluation of situational crime prevention (3)
Ignores dealing with causes of crime
Crime may not just be result of a rational choice between cost and benefit (may be due to excitement for example)
May not abolish crime, just displace it. Nature of crime changes but CR doesn’t
What does environmental crime prevention focus on?
Combination of formal and informal social control measures
What theory is environmental crime prevention based on?
Broken windows theory
If low-level antisocial behaviour can be prevented than the escalation to more serious crimes can be stopped
What does environmental crime prevention involve?
Zero tolerance policing
Intense target hardening of relatively small antisocial behaviour
Environmental crime prevention in the UK
It’s involved giving police power to issue antisocial behaviour disorders, curfews, street drinking bans and dispersal
Negative evaluation of environmental crime prevention (3)
Unaffordable to employ many more police to enforce all minor laws
Police have been more effective in the UK by targeting prolific offenders and criminals hot spots
Crime rates have decreased even when these measures aren’t used
2 parts of social and community crime prevention
Intervention
Community
Intervention part of social and community crime prevention
Identify the groups that are most at risk of committing crime and put into action forms of intervention to limit their offending
Community part of social and community crime prevention
Involving the local community in combating crime (E.g. finding out the societal motives behind criminality)
What does social and community crime prevention involve?
Skills training
Parental education
Parental training
Preschool programmes
Positive evaluation of social and community crime prevention from Michigan
Perry Preschool Project in Michigan
- 2 groups of African American children aged 3-4 from deprived backgrounds
- 1 group given preschool educational support
- By age 27, members of the group that received interventions had half the number of arrests than the group that didn’t
Negative evaluation of social and community crime prevention: what it the root of criminality according to Marxist Taylor
Structural inequalities in capitalist societies are the root of criminality according to Taylor, rather than dysfunctional families or a lack of education
Negative evaluation of social and community crime prevention: victim blaming
Intervention programmes could be seen as blaming the victims of inequality rather than society itself
Negative evaluation of social and community crime prevention: neglects some types of crime
Doesn’t address white-collar, corporate or green crime
Who talked about surveillance?
Foucault
What concept did Foucault use to illustrate the change to surveillance?
The panopticon
How do we live in the society of the panopticon according to Foucault?
Because the uncertainty of when we are under surveillance encourages us to exercise self-surveillance and not commit crime
What society do we live in according to Foucault?
Surveillance society
Purpose of surveillance in surveillance society
Not just used for criminals, but to prevent and monitor any non-conformist behaviour
Surveillance in London / the UK
1 CCTV camera for every 11 people in London
Each person in the UK is captured 30 times a day on CCTV
Recently who has increasingly used surveillance?
Companies for consumer tracking (E.g. Clubcard)
How many crimes are solved used CCTV?
A 2008 Met Police study found that only 3% of crimes are solved with CCTV evidence
Foucault’s opinion on surveillance
It’s an oppressive form of social control used to increase the power of the state
Evaluation of surveillance
If people are aware of it, they can take the steps to avoid it, bringing into question how far surveillance can influence people’s behaviour
4 aims/functions of punishment
Deterrence - bringing offenders to justice and publicly punishing them to encourage potential offenders to think twice
Incapacitation - protecting potential victims by stopping the offender from repeating their behaviour
Rehabilitation - preventing offender from committing crimes in the future by changing their attitudes, behaviour and values
Retribution - satisfying the victim by giving a fair and just punishment
Who talked about the nature and purpose of punishment?
Durkheim
Difference in punishment between previous societies and modern society according to Durkheim
Previous societies: more social solidarity so retribution was mainly used as all individuals shared the same values and all supported the punishment against those who deviated for societal norms
Modern society: restitutive justice developed where punishment attempts to return society to the state it was before the crime took place
What is law a product of according to Marxists?
Product of the interests/beliefs of the ruling class rather than shared beliefs/interests of all members of society
