AC 4.1 Assess the use of criminological theories in informing policy developmen Flashcards
Types of policy:
Informal and Formal
Formal policy - making refers to governmental policies and laws made by authority figures which go through parliament.
- e.g.Units of alcohol in blood =
- punishment
- crime control policies
- state punishment policies
Informal policy making - is done by less authoritative figures and are not enforced nationally. It is the Encouraging/discouraging certain types of behaviour.
- E.g. don’t drink and drive
Biological Theories informing policy development:
Biochemical
- Drug Treatment:
Drug Treatment:
- Alcohol abuse
- used in aversion therapy to treat alcoholism, Prevents the body from breaking down alcohol, immediately causing hangover symptoms if the user consumes any alcohol.
- Heroin addiction
- Methadone is used to treat addicts, as a long term alternative or to prevent withdrawal symptoms.
- Managing prisoners
- Sedatives and tranquilisers such as Valium have been used to keep potentially violent prisoners calm.
- Sex offenders
- Stilbestrol is a form of chemical castration. It is a female hormone that supresses testosterone as a way of reducing men’s sex drive – side effects include breast development, feminisation and psychiatric disorders
Biological Theories informing policy development:
Biochemical
- Diet:
Diet:
- Supplementing prisoners diets with vitamins, minerals and fatty acids can cause a reduction in anti-social behaviour (Gesch et al)
- Vitamin B3 has been used to treat some forms of schizophrenia, sometimes associated with violent behaviour
- Dietary changes have been used to try to control hyperactivity – for example removing food containing artificial colouring tartrazine from children’s diets.
Biological Theories informing policy development:
Biochemical
- Surgery:
Surgery:
- Surgical Castration
- Used on sex offenders in the past to change offending behaviour e.g. Denmark and the USA
- Lobotomy
- This is a major procedure that involves cutting the connection between frontal lobes and the thalamus.
Used to treat schizophrenia, violent and sexual crimes
Can have serious side effects – rarely used
Biological Theories informing policy development:
Biochemical
- Crowd control and public order offences:
Crowd control and public order offences:
- methods aimed at controlling groups by using chemical substances.
- For example, tear gas may be used to control crowds or disperse rioters.
- It works by causing uncomfortable or distressing sensations, including vomiting, breathing difficulties and disorientation.
- It can also cause lung damage and even death.
Biological Theories informing policy development:
Genetic
- Eugenics
Eugenics:
- Improving the genetic quality of the human population
Eugenics: Nazi Germany
- used methods to attempt to improve eugenics
- Sterilisation
- Euthanasia
- Concentration camps
Eugenics: in Britain
- Eugenics has not had a huge impact on UK policy development.
-
Biological Theories informing policy development:
Genetic
- Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment:
- The practice of executing someone as punishment for a specific crime after a proper legal trial.
- It is the death penalty.
Capital Punishment and the World:
- UK
- The UK temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1965.
- The monitored the murder rate in the following years and it did not increase. Therefore the decision to abolish permanently for murder in the UK was finally made in 1969.
Around the World:
- Many countries around the world still have the death penalty.
- One of the biggest is the USA. It is not in every state.
- However in the states that do not have the death penalty, murder rates are significantly lower. Those that have the death penalty have higher murder rates.
- These statistics suggest that the death penalty is not a deterrent at all.
Individualistic Theories informing policy development:
Psychoanalysis
Main points:
- founded by Freud, is a therapy in which patients verbalises their thoughts
- The aim is to access the unconscious mind, where repressed trauma is causing ‘criminal’ behaviour
- Crime is a product of unconscious desires and repressed memories that can manifest into outbursts of criminal behaviour
- The goal of the therapist is to bring that trauma into the patients conscious experience where it can be dealt with directly
Dream Analysis - Freud believes that all dreams are significant and if analysed appropriately could gives us clues as to the contents of the unconscious mind, including repressed memories
Slip of the Tongue - Slips of the tongue (or the Freudian Slip) – the times that a person uses one word but means another. Freud analysed the wrong words to uncover the unconscious thoughts.
Free Association - Patients are encouraged to lie comfortably on a couch and speak aloud any thoughts that come into their head. So repressed memories may slip out without thinking.
Study:
Case Study: Oakridge
- a small group of male offenders in a room for 11 days, during which time they were kept completely nude and given large amounts of LSD
- The only food available had to be sucked through straws in the wall
- He would combine coercive techniques like truth serums and sensory deprivation with patient-led encounter groups to force psychopaths to confront their illnesses.
- Follow-up research showed offenders were one-third more likely to commit violent crime after release than those that didn’t receive the “treatment”.
Effeciveness:
WORKS
- Shelder (2010) concluded that it works as well as, or is at least equivalent to, other psychotherapy treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy. Further evidence supports this view.
DOESN’T WORK
- Psychoanalysis is very time consuming and expensive – it may take many years to uncover repressed memories and the patient could ‘just be getting better’ on their own.
- Blackburn (1993) points out there are few positive evaluation points on classic psychoanalysis as a treatment for criminals.
- Andrews et al. (1990) argue: ‘ Traditional psychodynamic … therapies are to be avoided within general samples of offenders’.
- The nature of psychoanalysis creates a power imbalance between therapist and client that could raise ethical issues.
- A patient could discover very painful memories that were deliberately repressed.
Individualistic Theories informing policy development:
Behaviour Modification
Main points:
- Criminal behaviour is learned through reinforcement and punishment
- A token economy is a behaviour modification programme used in some prisons
Crime Control
- Prison sets a list of desirable behaviours
- If prisoner behaves in the right way – token
- Tokens exchanged for reward – sweets/ phone calls etc
- Selective reinforcement makes good behaviour more likely than bad
WORKS
- Fo & O’Donnell (1975) found a buddy system in which adult volunteers reinforced socially acceptable behaviour to a young offender improved the behaviour of serious offenders but was less effective for non-serious young offenders.
DOESN’T WORK
- Evidence suggests token economies work in the short-term, but the improvements do not last once that criminal leaves prison (Allyon & Milan, 1979).
Sociological Theories informing policy development:
Functionalist/ Right Realist
penal population
- Penal populism refers to the Government’s attempts to propose laws that punish offenders that they believe will be popular with the general public
- Tony Blair’s New Labour government came to power in 1997, promising to be ‘tough on crime’. They introduced ASBOs.
- This led to it becoming ‘popular’ to put more people in prison
- Number of people in prison (UK) rose from 45,000 in 1993 to 80,000 by 2021.
- The UK has the highest prison population in Europe
Sociological Theories informing policy development:
Functionalist/ Right Realist
Prison
- Prison sentences can be
- Concurrent – 2 or more sentences served at the same time
- Consecutively – 2 or more sentences severed one after the other
- Suspended – served in the community
- Determinate – for a fixed period
- Indeterminate – for no fixed period
Does it Work?
- Incapacitation
- Prisons might work temporally
- Offenders cannot commit crime against the public but could against staff and inmates
- Rehabilitation
- Function of UK Prisons but overcrowding and budget cuts means many prisoners lack access to services e.g. education or treatment programmes
- Recidivism
- Prison is ineffective in reducing reoffending
- 47% of released adults area reconvicted in a year
- Deterrence
- Right Realists believe that prisons act to deter criminals
- Studies show that the risk if prison does not make offenders think about the risk or stop crime
Sociological Theories informing policy development:
Functionalist/ Right Realist
Zero Tolerance Policing
- Linked to broken window theory (Unit 1)
- Zero Tolerance means taking a tough stance on crime
- Police concentrate on tackling ‘quality of life’ offences e.g. aggressive begging, prostitution and vandalism
Does it Work
- Crime did fall in New York in the 90’s but other cities also not using ZTP saw a fall
- Males and Macallair found ZTP curfews increase juvenile crimes
- Targeting of ethnic minorities due to police racism and confrontations due to heavy handed policing
- fail to tackle the structural causes of crime e.g. inequality
- Focus on low-level street crimes only
Sociological Theories informing policy development:
Functionalist/ Right Realist
Situational Crime Prevention
Main points:
- Aim to reduce the opportunity to commit crime by increasing the risks and difficulties of commit it and reducing the rewards
- SCP is based upon Rational Choice Theory
- e.g. Locking cars
- Security guards
- Reshaping the environment to “Design Crime Out” of the area
Does it work:
- Problem of displacement – criminals will simply look for an easier target
- More vulnerable targets become victimises increasingly due to other targets being hardened
Sociological Theories informing policy development:
Strain Theory / Subcultural / Left Realist / Marxist
Democratic Policing
Main points:
- Police have lost public support particularly in poorer areas
- The police have to rely on militant policing e.g. stop and search generating more losses of cooperation
- The police therefore need to win back trust and build relationships with communities
- Police must focus on the crimes that victimise the disadvantaged e.g. hate crime/domestic violence (Unit 1)
- Police not focus on offences such as possession of “soft drugs”
Does is work:
- There have been some successes with this
- Neighbourhood policing and police community support officers have been introduce to build community ties and relationships
- Many forces have refocused their priorities e.g.
- cannabis is low level
- Domestic violence and hate crime high level
Sociological Theories informing policy development:
Strain Theory / Subcultural / Left Realist / Marxist
Reducing Inequality
- Left Realists call for major structural changes to tackle discrimination, inequality and unfairness of rewards
- They call for increase of support for all people to allow them to access jobs, education and opportunities to allow them to lead a good life e.g. housing
- This would reduce deprivation – the main cause of crime
