Chapter 1 - Interrogating crime BLOCK 1, BOOK 1

Question 1

ADDICTION:

characterised by……….

Answer 1

1. Characterised by Drug craving and loss of control of the drug.
2. Compulsive use of the drug and continued use of the drug despite the harms it causes.
3. Life is ruled by desire for the substance.

Question 2

DRUG ABUSE:

characterised by…………………

Answer 2

1. Characterised by any use of drug considered outside of ‘social norms’.
2. Behaviour that violates the law.
3. But if law changes considered abuse can become not abuse and vice versa. It is changeable.
4. NOTE - You can be an ABUSER or ADDICT without being dependent.

Question 3

PHYSICAL DEPENDENCY

characterised by…………………………………….

Answer 3

1. Characterised by you having to carry on taking drugs or you get withdrawal symptoms such as shivering, sweating,vomiting,abdominal cramps,headaches, feeling lousy.
2. NOTE - You can be physically dependent, but not abuse drugs or be an addict.

Question 4

GLOBALISATION:

Implies……………

Answer 4

1. Implies an homogeneity of national economics, politics, and culture that is driven by international flows of capital, information, and people.
2. In short -globalisation suggests worlds nations are interconnected through trade, economics, capital, markets, politics, cultures, and ideologies.
3. However, it is an error to think that globalisation is all about ‘homogeneity’ as within nation states and localities their is often ‘social differentiation’

Question 5

HARM

Answer 5

1. Injury or damage inflicted on society, social institutions, or individuals intentionally or unintentionally.
2. Social harm enables criminology to look beyond legal and state definitions of injurious practices recognising certain legal behaviours as crimes themselves.

Question 6

LOCALISATION

Local solutions to local problems.

Answer 6

1. Opposite of globalisation. Localisation refers to local solutions to local problems.
2. Indeed - DEGLOBALISATION is when local areas resist international policies and use their own traditional laws to enforce the law and resolve problems.

Question 7

POWER

Answer 7

1. Any form of constraint of human behaviour as a result of unequal social relations and dominance.
2. POWER refers to one side, person, nation, exerting more dominance, influence, control over another.
3. Issues of power play a large part in the formation of the law, I.e slavery, global warming, and ASB are not criminal offences.

Question 8

VIOLENCE

NOTE:

There are both a narrow perspective of violence (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007)

and

a broad perspective by including 4 ‘types of violence’ by (Salmi).

USE ACRONYM - R.A.I.D

Repressive violence
Alienating violence
Indirect violence
Direct interpersonal violence

Answer 8

1. This is typically restricted to how it is framed by ‘criminal statute’.
2. Legal definitions of violence emphasise the ‘proof of identity’ of assailants and the intention (mens rea) of the violent act.
3. Violence is an intentional act used to inflict physical injury or devastation to another individual, society, corporation, country etc.
4. Narrow perspective of violence is that it is physical or interpersonal harm between individuals or groups (HILLYARD AND TOMBS, 2007).
5. Broader perspective of violence includes: R.A.I.D
   (SALMI’s typology of violence):

Repressive violence
Alienating violence
Indirect violence
Direct interpersonal violence

Question 9

JURISDICTION

Answer 9

1. Jurisdiction is a state or area in which a particular court and system of laws has authority
2. Jurisdiction is the power that a court of law or an official has to carry out legal judgements or to enforce laws

Question 10

IATROGENIC ADDICTION

Answer 10

1. Addiction that occurs when a physician prescribes a drug to a patient - either through patient misuse of prescribed medication or over prescription by doctor.

Question 11

NARROW PERSPECTIVE
OF CRIME AND FEAR OF CRIME:

Example - labour government definition (HOME OFFICE, 2007).

LAW VIOLATION committed In INNER CITY/by the UNDERCLASS/involving INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE

Answer 11

1. Crime (law violation) is committed in inner city street by underclass involving interpersonal violence.
2. Example - labour government definition (HOME OFFICE, 2007). This tends to refer to street crimes by youth in public context, and not crimes committed in homes or invisible spaces against powerless, I.e domestic violence, child abuse, slavery etc.
3. This also omits faceless crimes by powerful/corporate I.e insider trading, environmental pollution etc.
4. In effect, a legal perspective of crime is narrowly understood to be any behaviour deemed to violate the jurisdictional code in which it occurs (Michael and Adler, 1933).

Question 12

BROAD PERSPECTIVE
OF CRIME AND FEAR OF CRIME:

NOTE - There is a diversity in ‘contexts of crime as harm and violence can …………………

To tackle partiality of legal definitions of crime - HENRY AND LANIER 1998 created a BROAD DEFINITION OF CRIME to include…

Social Harm Approach - HILLYARD ET AL, 2004.

Answer 12

1. There is a DIVERSITY IN CONTEXTS OF CRIME l.e harm and violence can be more EXTENSIVE in areas such as:

a) cyber-crime
b) corporations
c) state
d) environment
e) international migration.

2. To tackle partiality of legal definitions of crime and criminology, HENRY AND LANIER, 1998 have a broader definition of crime whereby ‘INVISIBLE SOCIAL HARMS’ and ‘VISIBLE CRIMES’ are ALL included.
3. This means looking at crime in global scale, moving beyond definitions of nation states.
4. By this - HILLYARD ET AL, 2004 developed the ‘SOCIAL HARM APPROACH’ to expand traditional boundaries of criminology.

Question 13

EXAMPLES OF 6 CRIME SITES in terms of WHERE CRIME IS MANIFESTED .

Answer 13

1. City
2. Cyberspace
3. Corporations
4. State
5. Environment
6. body.

Question 14

4 POSITIVES OF GLOBALISATION

Answer 14

1. Cultural exchange
2. Free trade
3. Telecommunications
4. New opportunities

Question 15

4 NEGATIVES OF GLOBALISATION

Answer 15

1. Events out of national control
2. Global risk to society
3. Diff wealth/deprivation levels
4. Cultural differences - at local level states may be resistant to change in terms of implementing international policies around crime and justice. This is an example of DEGLOBALISATION .

Question 16

3 LEVELS OF POWER to conceal criminal acts.

Remember acronym - PED.

Answer 16

1. Political power - illegal arms dealing, genocide, torture.
2. Economic power - insider trading, money laundering, environmental pollution, death at work.
3. Domestic power - domestic abuse

Question 17

6 EXAMPLES OF AREAS of HARM and VIOLENCE occur.

Answer 17

1. Negligence
2. Environmental
3. Corporate
4. State
5. Human rights
6. Genocide (mass extinction of a group to wipe them from existence).

Question 18

6 KEY ISSUES around CRIME and the CRIMINAL.

The meaning of crime is conditional upon shifting historical, political, and cultural contexts (Muncie, Talbot, and Walters, 2019, p.3)

and who has the ‘power’ to define crime and enforce punishment (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2019, p.8).

So - crime without power is meaningless (MUNCIE)

Answer 18

1. Notions of crime not fixed or universal
2. What’s defined as crime depends on who has the power to define what a crime is, and enforce it against those deemed to have violated the law.
3. Crime is not an uncontested concept.
4. Societies define what’s criminal differently, what’s morally/ lawfully acceptable
5. What’s criminal is changeable over time. New acts become criminalised others decriminalised.
6. What constitutes a crime is contingent on CIRCUMSTANCES, i.e) legal, economic,social, cultural, ideological.

Question 19

KEY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER;

IMPORTANT NOTE - GET THESE INDIVIDUALLY ANSWERED.

Answer 19

1. Why are some behaviours/events and not others subject to criminal sanction ?
2. Who has the power to decide who or what is criminalised?
3. Why are dominated conceptions of crime dictated by the powerful who can make crimes invisible, such as bankers, mp’s, senior police officers?

ANSWER - this is because ‘the powerful’ lobby politicians, fund think tanks, and negotiate needs and terms for regulation.

4. Why are these acts not considered as part of the crime problem?
5. Why some iniquity (gross injustice) and harm is considered legitimate and not others?

Question 20

AIM OF BLOCK 1

Answer 20

Explore relationship between behaviours/events that are considered to ‘violate law’ and harms which lie ‘outside criminal law’ sanctions .

Question 21

4 IMPORTANT ‘SOCIAL HARM ISSUES’

Answer 21

1. Economic and geographic inequalities, injustices and exclusions.
2. Role of government in harms
3. Social conditions cause social problems
4. Some individuals and not others are considered more worthy of criminal sanction.

Question 22

QUESTION -why are different types of crime treated differently and why are some harms seen to be more important than others?

Answer 22

ANSWER:

Proponents of the SOCIAL HARM APPROACH argue that this is because of the relevance of power in the formation of discourses of crime and practices of crime control.

Question 23

SOCIAL HARM APPROACH:

developed by - (Hillyard et al 2004).

Answer 23

This was developed to facilitate understanding of social problems and injurious practices/harms that are the typical remit of criminal justice, as well as those that are not (HILLYARD ET AL, 2004).

2. Henry and Lanier (1998) positioned crime in a broader context of ‘social harm’ to address the partiality and constructed nature of legal definitions (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2019, p.16).
3. For instance, the social harm approach acknowledges the narrowness of Labours 2007 legal definition as it omits ‘invisible’ crimes against the powerless, such as child abuse and slavery (Muncie, Talbot, and Walters, 2019).
4. Moreover, it also recognises that it excludes potentially more harmful events such as environmental pollution, or crimes by corporate activity (Muncie, Talbot, and Walters, 2019).
5. As a result, the social harm approach moves beyond the borders of everyday understandings of crime specific to nation states, and acknowledges harm on a global scale (Muncie, Talbot, and Walters, 2019).
6. However, the broadness of social harm is possibly problematic (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007, p.17) in its inference that criminal justice systems are expected to tackle and resolve the full multitude of harms on a local and global level (Muncie, Talbot, and Walters, 2019).

Question 24

ANATOMY AND CRIME ( Lombrosso 1876) in his ‘The Female Offender’ argued:

Answer 24

1. Identification of a criminal by early criminologists.
2. Criminals are born, that some people possessing a particular size and shape of skull will become criminals. Thus, criminals are biologically abnormal.
3. The criminal and the non criminal could be identified by certain physical characteristics.

Question 25

POINT - What is defined as crime is dependant on specific ‘contexts’.

It is context specific.

Answer 25

1. What we view as crime depends on who has the POWER to both ‘DEFINE’ crime, and ‘MOBILISE’ powers of enforcement against those deemed to have violated the law.

Question 26

CONSTRUCTION OF CRIME IN WESTERN SOCIETIES.

How crime is typically framed.

narrow definition - (HOME OFFICE, 2007).

Answer 26

1. How crime is typically framed within legal, political, academic discourses.
2. Typical narrow definition by labour government in western society - crime is something forbidden by the law (HOME OFFICE, 2007).

Question 27

CRIME AS A ‘CONSTRUCTION OF THE LAW’

Example of narrow definition of this is given by - (MICHAEL AND ADLER, 1933)

Answer 27

This is to partly answer the Question - what is considered to be criminal?

1. ‘Criminal law’ tends to individualise crime, therefore it is difficult to prosecute states/corporations that commit illegal international trade in cultural artefacts for instance.
2. This is because they can dictate terms of legislation and level of illegal market regulation (MACKENZIE AND GREEN, 2008) by lobbying politicians/funding think tanks etc. This is how the ‘POWERFUL’ avoid criminal label and prosecution.
3. Example of narrow definition - an act is a crime when it violates the code of the jurisdiction in which it occurs (MICHAEL AND ADLER, 1933)

A) - This tends to focus on street crimes by youth in an urban public context.

B) - This omits crimes in home or invisible spaces I.e domestic violence, slavery, or child abuse, and faceless crimes by the powerful/corporate, I. E) insider trading, and harmful behaviours such as loss of pension funds.

4. Conversely, some argue that viewing crime as a ‘construction’ means that harms produced by particular events and behaviours are not acknowledged (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2019).

Question 28

QUESTION:

WHO IS CONSIDERED TO BE A CRIMINAL?

RISK FACTORS for Anti-social Behaviour (ASB) are identified by the (HOME OFFICE, 2008). These apply to certain individuals and groups.

Answer 28

1. Western jurisdictions attempt to identify social and behavioural factors that suggest certain individuals/groups may be at risk of committing crime or antisocial behaviour.
2. ‘Risk factors’ for ASB are identified by (UK HOME OFFICE, 2008).
3. These are directed towards the underclass in poor socio-economic conditions/deprived areas and are targeted as needing social policy and criminal justice interventions (Drake, 2010).
4. However, these risk factors are not directed towards those with excessive wealth and power which might lead to predisposition for ASB or Incivility.
5. This thinking demonises and marginalises the poor and suggests problem behaviour is fixed.

Question 29

Crime as a ‘SOCIAL CONSTRUCT/SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION’

This is a ‘SOCIAL RESPONSE’ to the BEHAVIOUR or to the persons who engage in it, not the CONTENT OF the BEHAVIOUR itself.

1. social constructionist position argues it is not ‘behaviour’ that constitutes crime, but how behaviour is perceived by agents of the law (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2019).
2. In consequence, this suggests notions of crime are neither fixed nor universal (The Open University, 2019), as its meaning is conditional upon shifting historical, political, and cultural contexts (Muncie, Talbot, and Walters, 2019)
3. and who has the ‘power’ to define crime and enforce punishment (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2019, p.8).
4. REMEMBER - crime is a complex and contested concept

Answer 29

1. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM argues that crime is ‘socially specific,’ dependent on time and place.
2. What constitutes crime in one society at a given moment differs from other moments within the same society, or other societies - For instance, abortion is criminalised in one society (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2019), but is morally and lawfully accepted in another.
3. It argues that - ‘Interpretations of reality’ i.e. crime and deviance are learned through ways that societies and people ‘perceive and react’ to behaviours of others, either negatively or positively.
4. For example; in one society a particular behaviour may be considered criminal, but in another it may be considered an act of honour. So it is not the content of the behaviour, but the social response to the behaviour or to the persons who engage in it (ROSENFELD)
5. IMPORTANT - HOWARD BECKER (1963) formulated this argument.
6. Labelling - is important here as allows us to explain and understand how and why certain behaviours are subject to ‘criminalisation’ and why some social harms are exempt from punishment.
7. DEBATE HERE - others debate that crime can’t be viewed as a SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION because harmful consequences of certain BEHAVIOURS must be ACKNOWLEDGED.

Question 30

Crime as mobilisation of ‘political power:’

Relevant ‘EXPANDED DEFINITIONS’ for this are by:

Sutherland (1940).

Reiman (2007).

Quinney (1970).

ACRONYM - QRS.

Answer 30

1. SUTHERLAND (1940) - EXPANDED DEFINITION -proposed an expanded definition capable of recognising regulatory offences such as white collar crime, as well as those already traditionally deemed to violate the criminal law such as theft across the social spectrum of all classes not just working classes.
2. Proponents of this include REIMAN 2007 who says avoidable deaths in work-space, pollution etc never enter crime discourse.
3. And QUINNEY (1970) who states law is applied by those who have the power to translate their own interests into public policy.

Question 31

QUESTIONS:

WHY ARE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CRIME TREATED DIFFERENTLY?

AND………

WHY ARE SOME HARMS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHERS?

Answer 31

1. Proponents of social harm approach argue this is because of the relevance of power in formation of discourses of crime and practices of crime control.
2. By this - criminal discourse and law tends to define problem if crime as interpersonal violence or property crime, and harms caused by corps and government bodies are seen as lesser concern because business and government make criminal law to protect themselves and their property.
3. Criminal law focuses on punishing crimes by individuals on individuals and not criminal responsibility on mass organisations as it is hard to prove intent within the structures of the organisation.

Question 32

VIOLENCE, CHILDREN AND YOUTH.

Answer 32

1. Prevailing international message is ‘Youth out of control’
2. Governments and parents are often blamed
3. Media and political discourses amplify rare exceptions of this such as COLUMBINE, and use them to declare that modern youth and societies are on verge of anarchy.
4. Critical interrogation - suggests research mostly focuses on kids as perpetrators rather than victims. They lose their child status and protections of this as perpetrators, but keep it as victims

Question 33

CHILD VICTIMISATION

Answer 33

1. EXAMPLES - Child slavery, child labourers, child trafficking, child prostitution, child soldiers, child slavery, forced child marriage.
2. These are harms by adults on children, and show relative powerlessness of children locally and globally.
3. Child violence occurs globally across social spectrum of class, ethnicity, income, race etc (UNGA, 2006)
4. Majority of violence against kids is by IMMEDIATE ACQUAINTANCES - i.e parents, teachers, employers, partners etc.
5. AMBIGUITY HERE IS - law and order discourses see violence perpetrated by kids as a major harm to society, and that policies, policing, must control disorderly behaviour to prevent it getting out of control. However, it can be argued that YOUNG PEOPLE exposed to harm by adults globally because of powerlessness. This in turn suggests that young people need protection and support rather than law and order.

Question 34

NATURAL DISASTERS

Answer 34

1. Asia is worst hit continent by natural disasters
2. Bangladesh - worst affected country - More people die from natural disasters such as tsunamis,earthquakes etc, as these wash up hazardous toxic waste that has been dumped in Bangladeshi waters by western companies that flout international law.
3. Harms caused include skin disease and blindness in children (Independent Bangladesh, 2008)
4. Natural disasters often involve NON-NATURAL or HUMAN INPUT (UNESCO, 2008)
5. Affluent countries emit pollution that affects climate change, this in turn affects the worlds poor.
6. The World Disasters report - identified landslides as being caused by illegal logging, flooding due to pollution, and collapse of buildings as a result of inadequate architecture.
7. Rising sea levels caused by climate change - cause flash floods, and destroy biodiversity, and impact on food security.
8. UK and USA Carbon emissions are high, Bangladesh is low.
9. Bangladesh faces natural disaster of arsenic poisoning, 80 million are at risk and 18 million are affected by it. This is a natural process turned catastrophe by human intervention.
10. GREEN AND WARD (2004) - argue victims of natural disasters are victims of human rights through ‘ORGANISATIONAL DEVIANCE’.
11. ORGANISATIONAL DEVIANCE - states commit human rights violations but are uninterested in preventing/protecting citizens against potential catastrophes of natural disasters, i.e dumping of toxic waste in waters.
12. These are examples of power intersecting with harm on a global level, as the powerless suffer negatively as a result of natural disasters influenced by human input and wealthy countries/corporations.

Question 35

INTERROGATION OF CRIME

Answer 35

1. This alerts us to relations of power embedded in social orders that generate social problems for populations, but only a few are considered worthy of sanction.
2. So - it can be argued that conception of crime without a conception of power is meaningless (MUNCIE, 2001).

Question 36

CONTEXTS OF CRIME

Answer 36

1. There is a diversity in contexts of crime
2. FOR EXAMPLE - harm and violence can be more extensive in areas such as:
   a) cyber-crime
   b) corporations
   c) state
   d) environment
   e) international migration.

Question 37

POSITIVIST SCIENCE

Answer 37

1. A theoretical approach that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century that argues that social relations and events (including crime) can be studied scientifically using methods derived from the natural sciences.
2. Its aim is to search for, explain and predict future patterns of social behaviour.
3. For Criminology as a positivist science - positivist science harnesses criminal biology, criminal anthropology, and criminal behaviour.

Question 38

POSITIVIST CRIMINOLOGIES - to identify causes of crime

Answer 38

1. In criminology, positivism straddles biological, psychological and sociological disciplines to identify key causes of crime
2. Whether genetic, psychological, social or economic - that are thought to lie largely outside of each individual’s control.

Question 39

INDIVIDUAL POSITIVISM:

stresses crime to be generated by forces in the individual.

Answer 39

1. Individual Positivism views crime as being generated primarily by forces located within the individual. It usually takes one of two forms:

Criminal predisposition is to be found as a result of:

1. biological factors
2. psychological make-up of particular individuals.

Question 40

SOCIOLOGICAL POSITIVISM:

stresses the importance of social factors as causes of crime.

Answer 40

1. Sociological positivism stresses the importance of social factors - such as social disorganisation, and economic recession - as causes of crime.
2. The broad aim is to account for the distribution of varying amounts of crime within given populations. [Compare with Critical criminology.]

Question 41

ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR DEFINITION

Answer 41

1. ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR - The concept of anti-social behaviour (ASB) is usually invoked to refer to such issues as youths causing ‘trouble’, noise, vandalism, abandoned vehicles, litter, graffiti and drunkenness. But definitions of ASB are highly contested and, in the eyes of many, legally quite imprecise. The definition of ASB in England and Wales is left intentionally very wide, involving, according to the Home Office ‘acting in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household (as) the defendant’. Nevertheless it is typically applied to individual (usually youthful) behaviour and rarely applied to the harmful activities, for example, of some corporate and state practices.

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

Question 42

CRIME DEFINITION

Answer 42

1. CRIME - In everyday terms, crime is a status conferred on and ascribed to certain non-approved acts legislated against and punished as specified by the criminal laws of particular nation states.
2. However, given its variability and context-specific nature, its meaning is rarely self evident. What is defined as ‘crime’ in one society and at one particular time might not be in others. The concept of crime, then, is diverse, historically relative and as a result, what constitutes ‘crime’ can be continually contested.

Question 43

CRIME SCIENCE DEFINITION

Answer 43

CRIME SCIENCE - A school of criminology emerging in 2001 concerned with the application of scientific principles - particularly those relevant to forensic science, crime mapping, psychology and computer science - to aid in the detection and prevention of crime and disorder.

Question 44

CRIMINALISATION

Answer 44

1. CRIMINALISATION - Derived from labelling theory, criminalisation is the institutionalised process through which certain acts and behaviours are labelled as ‘crimes’ and ‘outlawed’. It reflects the state’s decision to regulate, control and punish selectively.
2. Critical theorists have developed this analysis further, arguing that criminalisation does not occur in a vacuum. It is influenced by contemporary politics, economic conditions and dominant ideologies and is contextualised by the determining contexts of social class, gender, sexuality, ‘race’ and age.

Question 45

CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY DEFINITION

Answer 45

1. CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY - The term ‘radical criminology’ was first used in the 1960s to delineate a series of distinct theoretical positions whose main common characteristic was one of anti-positivism [see Labelling]. Rather than viewing crime as determined by individual or social pathology, radical criminologies assumed humans are active agents in the construction of their own biographies.
2. Critical criminology further applies such critical analysis to the ‘discipline’ of criminology, the study of crime, and the administration of criminal justice. It locates ‘crime’, ‘deviance’ and ‘social conflict’ within their determining contexts rather than seeking universal behavioural causes (as a positivist might do).
3. It endeavours to broaden the scope of analysis to a consideration of harm rather than crime, social justice rather than criminal justice, reintegration rather than punishment and discourses of human rights rather than discipline and control. [Compare with Positivist criminologies.]

Question 46

DEMONISATION DEFINITION

Answer 46

DEMONISATION - The ascription of negative and pathological labels, epitomised by popular representations of some children as ‘feral’ or ‘evil’.

Question 47

LABELLING DEFINITION

Answer 47

1. LABELLING - A sociological approach to understanding crime and deviancy that refers to the social processes through which certain individuals and groups classify and categorise the behaviour of others.
2. On this basis, labelled individuals are stereotyped to act in certain ways and are responded to accordingly. Such reactions tends to reinforce a self-conception as deviant and has the unanticipated consequence of promoting the behaviours that it is designed to prevent.

Question 48

RISK FACTORS

Answer 48

1. RISK FACTORS - Those characteristics (such as, large family size, criminal parents, abuse) that longitudinal and quantitative research suggests will produce negative outcomes such as an increase in the likelihood of future offending.