Control, punishment and victims

Question 1

Positive victimology - Miers

Answer 1

there are certain factors that lead to some individuals or groups being a more likely victim of crime.
- middle-class victims of crime have contributed to their own victimisation by displaying their wealth, therefore encouraging crimes such as theft, and the working class are more likely to provoke threats, leading to violent crimes against them

Question 2

Critical victimology - Mawby and Walklate

Answer 2

victimisation is a form of structural powerlessness, thereby structural factors such as patriarchy and poverty place powerless groups such as women and the poor at greater risk of victimisation

Question 3

Tombs and Whyte - victims

Answer 3

‘victim’ is a social construct. Through the criminal justice system, the state applies the label of the victim to some but withholds it from others, and therefore have an ideological function of ‘failure to label’ or ‘de-labelling’. By concealing the true extent of victimisation and its real causes, it hides the crimes of the powerful

Question 4

Situational crime prevention - clarke

Answer 4

SCP is a pre-emptive approach, focussed on reducing opportunities to commit crime, rather than improving society or institutions

Question 5

Displacement of crime

Answer 5

SCP moves crime elsewhere:
Spatial - moving elsewhere
Temporal - Different time
Target - Choosing different target
Tactical - Different method
Functional - Different type of crime

Question 6

Environmental crime prevention - Wilson and Kelling

Answer 6

The Broken Windows thesis refers to disorderly neighbourhoods with an absence of formal social control (police) and informal control (community). Police are merely concerned with serious crime and turn a blind eye to nuisance behaviour

Question 7

Zero tolerance - wilson and kelling

Answer 7

the police crack down and tackle any form of disorder and repair any disorderly signs in neighbourhoods (eg. graffiti)

Question 8

Social/community crime prevention

Answer 8

Community classes to prevent crime for black women etc

Question 9

Surveillance

Answer 9

the monitoring of public behaviour for the purpose of crime control. In today’s society, surveillance is carried out by the use of CCTV cameras, biometric scanning, information databases etc

Question 10

Types of power - foucalt

Answer 10

Sovereign power - the monarch had absolute power over people and their bodies. Control was asserted by inflicting visible punishment on the body. This was a brutal and emotional spectacle, such as a public execution
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Disciplinary power - became dominant from the 19th century, and involves a new system of discipline that seeks to govern the mind, soul and the body. It does this through surveillance

Question 11

Punishment - reduction

Answer 11

One justification of punishment is that it prevents future crime:
Deterrence - punishing an individual discourages them from future offending.
​Rehabilitation - punishment can be used to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend. This can be done so through providing education and anger management courses.
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Question 12

Punishment - retribution

Answer 12

​Based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished and society is entitled to take revenge on the offender