Control, Punishment and Victims Flashcards
Outline the 3 features of positivist victimology
1) Identify factors that produce patterns of victimisation (what makes certain groups more likely to be victims?)
2) Focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence
3) Identifies victims who have contributed towards their own victimisation
Outline positivist victimology
Victim proneness- characteristics of victims that differentiate them from non victims.
People contribute towards their own victimisation which explains the patterns in victimisation i.e displaying wealth and getting robbed.
EVA:
1) Identifies interpersonal victimisation but ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation
2) Victim blaming: (Amir) 1 in 5 rapes is precipitated is the same as saying the victim asked for it.
3) Ignores situations where victims are unaware of their own victimisation i.e green crime.
Outline the two elements of critical victimology
1) Structural factors place groups i.e women/ poor at greater risk of victimisation
2) State’s power to apply/ deny label of victim. Victim is social construct by how the state applies the label of victim to some but withhold it from others.
Outline critical victimology
Tombs and Whyte- R/c hides the crimes of the powerful (delabelling) by concealling the true extent of victimisation and its real causes and denies the powerless victims any compensation
EVA:
1) CV ignores roles victims play in their own victimisation
Which groups are most likely to be victims
Impact of victimisation?
1) W/c
2) Younger people
3) EM
4) Males (violent attacks)
Secondary victimisation/ fear of victimisation
Outline the two main justifications for punishment
1) Reduction
Punishment prevents future crime by a) deterrence (discouraging them from future offending/ making an example of them) b) rehabiliatation (reform/ change offenders so they no longer offend) and c) incapacitation (removal of offender’s ability to offend again)
Punishment is a means to the end
2) Retribution
Compensate offender for committing crime
Outline the functionalist (Durkheim) pov on punishment
-Punishment is to uphold social solidarity
1) Retributive justice
Solidarity between individuals is based on similarities to one another which produces a strong collective conscience which means collective vengeful passion to repress wrongdoer i.e execution
2) Restitutive justice
Solidarity based on interdependence. Crime damages this interdependence, so compensation needed to repair this damage.
Outline the Marxist p.o.v of punishment
- Maintain social order as part of RSA
‘Rule of terror’ (Thompson)
Each type of economy has its own penal system i.e money fines under money economy
Imprisonment reflects capitalist relations of production i.e
Capitalism puts a a price on worker’s time, prisoners ‘do time’ to pay for their crime
Outline changing roles of prisons
18th century- prisons mostly as holding facilities PRE sentence
Imprisonment today= the worst punishment outside the death penalty. Ineffective- 2/3 of prisoners reoffend.
Era of mass incarceration= 3% of UK adult population in jail. 3x more than in Europe. Shows growing politicisation of crime control.
Transcarceration: individuals are locked in cycle of control and cycle between different agencies i.e foster care, jail
Alternatives to prison:
Community cased controls i.e curfews, community service orders, ASBOs
Outline Foucault’s birth of the prison
2 different powers:
Sovereign power: monarch had absolute control over people + bodies. Control asserted by damaging body i.e executions
Disciplinary power: governs not just the body but the mind and soul. Through surveillance. Foucault claims that this became the dominant way because it is a more efficient technology of power
Panopticon: Prisoners have to behave at all times as they do not know if they are being watched (self surveillance, control takes place INSIDE the prisoner)
Dispersal of discipline- this self surveillance has permeated every aspect of society
Evaluate Foucault Panopticon
EVA: shift from sovereign power–> disciplinary power less clear than Foucault suggests. He wrongly assumes the expressive element of punishment has disappeared from society.
Believes prisoners all passively self surveil themselves.
CCTVs are a form of panopticism. Not as effective in deterrent as believed. (Gill and Loveday)
Outline Mathiesen’s Synopticon theory
Foucault only tells half the story with Panopticon, nowadays there is also Synopticon (watching from below) where everybody watches sverybody
I.e politicians fear media reporting bad activities, act as form of social control.
Dashcams on cars warns road users their behaviour being watched
EVA: McCahill: does not dissuade established hierarchies of surveillance. Police can confiscate cameras off citizen journalists etc
Outline surveillant assemblages
Surveillant assemblages: Ericson
We can create data doubles of ourselves by combining different tech i.e CCTV + facial recognition software
Outline situational crime prevention
Clarke: 3 features.
1) Directed at specific crimes
2) Involve managing or altering the immediate environment of crime
3) Aim at increasing the effort/ risks of committing crime and reducing awards
Summary: Pre-emptive approach that makes it harder to commit crime in the first place.
Strategies: Target Hardening through locked doors, bars on windows etc. More CCTVs, more police on streets
EVA:
Displacement theory- does not reduce crime but moves it to a different area
Does not deal with corporate or white collar crime
Targets the w/c who cannot afford target hardening systems
Outline Environmental Crime Prevention
- Based on Wilson/ Kellings’ Broken Windows Theory
Summary: Improving local area and dealing with low level vandalism/ graffiti/ loitering
Strategies: Zero Tolerance Policing.
EVA:
Deals with symptoms not causes
Targets w/c on the street than m/c corporate crime
Displacement
However, ZTP has been very effective and has influenced anti-social behaviour policies
