Ac 4.1 Assess the use of criminological theories in informing policy development

Question 1

what Do biolgical theories of criminality argue and how does this effect policy development

Answer 1

Argue that criminality is caused by some physical abnormality within the individual - these theories have led to crime control & punishment policies that aim to change the working of the criminal’s brain or body and cure the condition that causes their criminality

Question 2

What crime control polciies have come from biolgocial theories of criminality

Answer 2

Drug treatments, diet, surgery, crowd control and public order offences,

Question 3

Give examples of crime control policies that have come as a result of biolical theories of criminality

Answer 3

Drug treatments - used to treat/control antisocial behaviour by affecting body’s biochemical processing
Alcohol abuse - triggers violent behaviour to combat this use of Antabuse - causes severe hangover even with a drop of alcohol
Opioid abuse - Vivitrol - treatment for dependency on opioids - blocks receptors - addicts commit crime to fund addiction
Male Sex offenders - Stilbestrol used to reduce men’s sex drive - side effects include breast development
Managing prisoners - Sedatives and tranquilisers used to keep prisoners calm

Diet - used to treat anti-social behaviour
Gesch et al supplementing prisoners’ diets with vitamins, minerals and fatty acids caused a remarkable reduction in antisocial behaviour
Vitamin B3 is used to treat schizophrenia (linked to violent offences)
Removal of chemicals from food which are linked to hyperactivity

Surgery - used to alter offending brains/bodies
Surgical castration of sex offenders
Lobotomy - cutting the connection between frontal lobes of the brain and the thalamus

Crowd control and public order offences - using chemical substances to control groups
Tear gas used against rioters

Question 4

Under the biological theories of criminality come genetic theories, what do they argue?

Answer 4

Argue tendency to commit crime is transmitted by inheriting a criminal syndrome/having genetic mutations

Question 5

In what area have individualistic theories of offending been used

Answer 5

The key use of individualistic theories of offending has been in the area of CRIME CONTROL that is dealing with the reduction of offending behaviour

Question 6

what do individualistic theories of criminality argue

Answer 6

Individualists - focus on personal weakness as the reason a crime is committed If someone chooses to offend, that is their responsibility and if caught, they should suffer the consequences.
examine crime as a phenomenon which is fundamentally linked to the human individual and locates the source of crime within certain personality traits or thinking processes in an individual or both

Question 7

What are crime contrl policies and what are state punishment policies

Answer 7

Crime control policies - refer to laws, regulations and other governmental actions that are designed to reduce criminal acts and prevent them in the first place
State punishment policies - sanctions laid down by the law that can be imposed on those convicted of a crime

Question 8

what does freuds psychoanalysis theory of personality say

Answer 8

-Highlights the unconscious conflicts between the id (instincts) and the superego (conscience
-Weak superego - cause of criminality - result of inadequate socialisation as a child

Question 9

how have psychoanalysis theories been used for crime control

Answer 9

Aichhorn - juvinile institution study using psychoanalysis ideas
rejects harshness and believese we shouldtreats the children by providing a pleasant environment to make the development of the superego possible

Question 10

are policies developed from psychoanalysis theories effective ?
freud therapy

Answer 10

Not very much -Esyneck - 44%of patients treated with psychoanalysis for neurosis showed improvement VS 72% of patients by hospitals
Cost - costly + time consuming - not used large scale
Abuse - Psychonalysis gives analysts the power to define behaviour - imposing their personal definitions can give rise to abuse e.g homosexuality

Question 11

what is operant learning theory (behavioursim) and token economies and what does it argue

Answer 11

States criminal behaviour is learned through reinforcement and punishment - applied to offenders via token economies - behaviour modification programme used in some prisons

Question 12

how does a token economy work (effect of operant learning theory informing policy development)

Answer 12

How does a token economy work:
The institution makes a list of desirable behaviours
Offendor behaves in desirable way - receives token
Token can be exchanged for a reward
Selective reinforcement - good behaviour more likely

Question 13

is operant learning theories and token economies effective ?

Answer 13

Temporary improvement in behaviour, once the offender leaves prison behaviour disappears however offenders return more slowly when compared to those who have not undergone programme
Ethical issue - food and drink as a reward BUT basic human right

Question 14

what is aversion therapy , what is it based on and why is it used

Answer 14

therapy designed to make patients give up an undesirable habit by causing them to associate it with an unpleasant effect
Aversion therapy applies Eysenck’s personality theory
Used for treatment of sex offenders
Eysenck states criminals strongly extravert + neurotic - makes harder to condition as more resistant to punishment
Conditioning THEREFORE needs to be ‘stronger’
Sex offenders:
- Offenders think about unacceptable fantasies until they are sexually aroused
- A strongly aversive stimulus is then administered e.g electric shock
- The procedure is repeated until offender no longer aroused - aim to stop thoughts and hopefully offending behaviour

Question 15

is aversion therapy effective?

Answer 15

Very limited success - only short-term
Use in ‘curation’ of gay people - considered human rights abuse

Question 16

what are cognative theories what do they state and what is CBT

Answer 16

Cognitive theories applied to CBT
Cognitive theories - state our thought processes shape our behaviour including offending behaviour - offenders have distorted cognitions that cause them to offend
CBT programmes aim to change offenders’ thoughts and attitudes so as to change their behaviour -
examples of programmes in the UK

Question 17

What are the CBT programmes in UK

Answer 17

Think first

Question 18

Desribe think first

Answer 18

THINK FIRST
-One-to-one sessions for repeat offenders on probation
-Teaches consequential thinking, decision making, perspective taking
Is it effective?
-Those completing programme 30% less likely t be re-convicted than offenders who receive an alternative sentence
-The non-completion rate is high

Question 19

What is the ‘what works’ policy in the UK

Answer 19

Home office policy - aims to ensure CBT programmes actually reduce offending and so it only accredits ones that meet certain criteria:
A successful programme must show that it has successful results

Question 20

What do sociological theories argue in relation to crime

Answer 20

caused by the result of unfavourable conditions in a community - they believe that criminal behaviour begins in youth.

These theories have led to CRIME CONTROL and PUNISHMENT POLICIES that aim to punish the criminal (right realists), monitor (surveillance theory), or to improve the state of society (Marxism/left realist/ strain/labelling theory)

Question 21

what does Merton + other subcultural theoriesist say abotu crime

Answer 21

Crime is caused by blocked opportunities:

Question 22

merton + other subcultural theories - what policies do they influence and are their influence on policies effective ?

Answer 22

Crime is caused by blocked opportunities:
Societies structure should be made more equal in these ways:
Policies to tackle poverty
Equal opportunities in school
Education in prison - 50% of pop has reading age of 11
These ARE EFFECTIVE - societies that spend more on welfare, jail less people

Question 23

what does labelling theory argue

Answer 23

crime is a result typifications held by the police and court system that create self fulfilling prophecies which lead to crime

Question 24

what is secondary deviance

Answer 24

deviant behavior that results from being labeled as a deviant by society

Question 25

how has labelling theory influenced decriminalisation and why is decriminialising important

Answer 25

Decriminilisaing minor offences - mean fewer young people labelled as criminals

BECAUSE criminal record can create secondary deviance

Question 26

how has labelling theory influenced diversion policies and give examples of informal + formal diversion policies

Answer 26

aim to keep offender out of justice system so as to avoid them being labelled

diversion policies: informal - police use discfetion not to charge someone
formal - reuiring offender to attend anger management programme to avoid prosecution

Question 27

how has labelling theory influenced reintegrative shaming and explain what it is

Answer 27

BRAITHWIATE identified two types of shaming :

disintegrative shaming - crime + criminal labelled as bad + offender excluded from society = secodnary deviance

reintegrative shaming- labels act BUT not the actor - avoids stigmatising offender as evil which encoruages them to repent + allows them to intergate back into soceity

Question 28

how do left realists influence policy to reduce inequality ?

Answer 28

Call for major structural changes to tackle discrimination, inequality of opportunity and unfairness of rewards and to provide good jobs and housing for all - this would reduce relative deprivation

Question 29

why do left realists what want to introduce more democratic policing

Answer 29

democratic policing
Police are losing policing support especially in poorer areas where they are widely distrusted - have to rely on military policing e.g stop + searches - NEED TO WIN BACK PUBLIC SUPPORT by including communities and focusing on crime that victimise disadvantaged
Some success for left realist policies:
Domestic + hate crime now high priority

Question 30

why do left realists say we need a multi agency approach to tackling crime and what is an example of this

Answer 30

Crime control (argued by left realists) must involve multiple agencies that cover different aspects of life e.g the police and in education
No knives better lives is an example of this

Question 31

one example of right realist crime control is situational crime prevetion - desribe it

Answer 31

Reduce opporunities for crime by increasing risk and reducing reward
Based on RCT

Target hardening e.g employing security guards, locking cars

Question 32

is situational crime prevention effective?

Answer 32

Although it can prevent some crime taking place, the backlash of target hardening is displacement of the criminals. If the criminals are rational actors then when they find a target to hard they wil simply look for a softer one, meaning more vulnerable targets are more likely to be victimised.

Question 33

what is Enviromental crime prevention/zero tolerance policing - Wilson and Kelling

Answer 33

broken windows theory

Enviromental improvement strategy
Zero tolerance policing strategy

Question 34

is zero tolerance policing effective ?

Answer 34

Can lead to ethnic minorities being targeted
Fail to tackle structural causes of crime - only focus on low-level street crime

Question 35

what is penal populism

Answer 35

Penal populism is a media driven political process whereby politicians compete with each other to impose tougher prison sentences on offenders based on a perception that crime is out of control

Question 36

what did prison workers say about prisons and what two functions do right realsits see prison to have

Answer 36

Argued that ‘prison works’. In the right realist view, prison has two functions -

1. Incapacitation - criminals become incapable of harming the public - jail takes them ‘out of circulation’
2. Deterrence - Criminals think twice before offending when they see tough punishments.

Question 37

desribe penal populism and give an example

Answer 37

Due to politicians believing tough penalties were popular with the public the policy came to be known as ‘penal populism’. An example of this is in 1997 the Conservatives brought in the crime Act, which introduced mandatory sentences for repeat offenders
Automatic life sentences for a second serious sexual or violent offender

Question 39

Surveillence theories influecing policy - CCTV

Describe CCTV and what foucault argues in relation to the panopticon

Answer 39

The modern form of Panopticon - Foucault argues this leads to prisoners monitoring themselves

Question 40

Is CCTV effective?

Answer 40

Depends on whether criminals believe they are being watched and therefore being uttered by this
Gill and Loveday found very few criminals were put off by CCTV
CCTV rarely catches someone ‘in the act’
Stereotyping:
Unfairly used - CCTV operators use racist stereotypes, singling out black youths
Surveillance creep:
FAILURE: cameras used to identify bombers during IRA bombing now used to identify untaxed vehicles

Question 41

Surveillence theories influecing policy - CCTV
Describe profiling

Answer 41

Involves using data to draw up a statistical picture of likely offenders often using official crime statistics to do so e.g airport security checks (people scored based on characteristics and higher scores = able to be stopped)

Question 42

Surveillence theories influecing policy - CCTV
Is profiling effective ?

Answer 42

Can be extremely discriminatory - profiles made based on official crime statistics = can create a self-fulfilling prophecy
Black youths 10x more likely to be stopped than white youths