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Sociology- Crime and Deviance > control, punishment and victims > Flashcards

control, punishment and victims Flashcards

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1
Q

Clarke

A

-describes situational crime prevention as a ‘pre-emptive approach that relies not on improving society or its institutions, but simply on reducing opportunities for crime’
-Argues that most theories offer no realistic solution, so the immediate crime situation should be the focus

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2
Q

What are the 3 features of situational crime prevention?

A

1) they are directed at specific crimes
2) they involve managing or altering the immediate environment of crime
3) they aim to increase the effort and risks of committing crimes and reduce rewards

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3
Q

why is situational crime prevent a ‘Rational Choice Theory’?

A

It assumes that criminals act, rationally weighing up the costs and benefits of a crime opportunity before committing

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4
Q

What does a key method of situational crime prevention include?

A

‘target hardening’
e.g. Locking doors and windows, adding CCTV and security guards
-these increase effort and risk of being caught

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5
Q

Felson: The Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York

A

-toilets were a setting for luggage theft, rough sleeping, drug dealing, sexual activity
-Changing the physical environment to ‘ design crime out’ greatly reduced such activity
e.g. Large sinks in which homeless people were bathing, were replaced by small hand basins.

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6
Q

Displacement

A

A criticism of situational crime prevention is that it only displaced crime and doesn’t reduce it
-If target, hardening occurs and criminals are rational, they will simply move to our targets are softer

-this can take several forms:
Spatial
Temporal
Target
Tactical
Functional

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7
Q

Chaiken et al: displacement

A

found that a crackdown on New York subway robberies displaced crime to the streets above

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8
Q

spatial displacement

A

Moving elsewhere to commit the crime

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9
Q

temporal displacement

A

Committing it at a different time

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10
Q

target displacement

A

Choosing a different victim

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11
Q

tactical displacement

A

using a different method

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12
Q

functional displacement

A

Committing a different type of crime

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13
Q

What is an example of the success of situational methods?
(suicide)

A

-in the early 1960s half of all suicides in Britain were the result of gassing
-At the time Britain’s gas supply came from a highly toxic gas supply.
-This was replaced from the 1960s to a less toxic natural gas -> caused overall suicide rate to decline.
-There was no displacement

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14
Q

criticisms of situational crime prevention

A

): tends to focus on opportunistic, petty Street crime and ignores white collar, corporate and state crime, which are more costly and more harmful
): assumes criminals, make rational calculations, which seems unlikely in most crimes of violence or crimes, committed under the influence of alcohol or drugs
): ignore the root causes of crime, such as poverty or poor socialisation, which makes it difficult to develop long-term strategies for crime reduction

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15
Q

environmental crime prevention: Wilson and Kellogg

A

-this approach focuses on enhancing and controlling the visible environment
-examples of disorder in an environment include:
undue noise
Graffiti
Begging
Dog fouling
Littering
Vandalism
-Neighbourhoods with these issues, lack social control (police) and informal control (community)

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16
Q

Why do neighbourhoods with these issues, lack social control (police) and informal control (community)?

A

-police have many more serious crimes to deal with
-The community may fear their safety

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17
Q

Wilson and Kelling: zero tolerance policies
What is environmental improvement and what is zero tolerance policing?

A

(1) environmental improvement: any nations crime needs to be dealt with an action immediately, otherwise more will follow e.g. Any broken windows must be repaired immediately, abandoned towed her without delay etc
(2) zero tolerance policing: police must proactively tackle, even the slightest sign of disorder, even if it is not criminal (e.g. Loitering)

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18
Q

Evidence for zero tolerance policing

A

-a ‘Clean Car Program’ who is instituted on the subway in which cars were taken out of service immediately if they had graffiti on them, only returning once clean
-As a result, graffiti was largely removed from the subway, and this led to other programs to tackle problems such as fare dodging, drug dealing etc.

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19
Q

why is it not clear how far is zero tolerance is the cause of improvement ?

A

-NYPD benefited from 7000 extra officers
-There was a general decline in the crime rate in major US cities at the time even ones were police did not adopt a zero tolerance policy
-crack cocaine became less available
-From 1994, many new jobs were being created
-improved medical emergency services caused to decline in murder rate

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20
Q

social and community crime prevention

A

-while most of the emphasis is in terms of policing, this strategy focuses on the social context of the potential offender
-The aim is to remove the conditions that increased the likelihood of crime
-These are longer term and tackle the root cause of offending
-The focus is on improving social conditions i.e poverty, unemployment, housing etc. To remove the reason for crime.
-e.g. Policies promoting full-time employment will have the side-effect of declining crime rates.

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21
Q

the Perry pre-school project

A

-A community program aimed at reducing criminality
-For disadvantage, black children in Ypsilanti, Michigan
-An experimental group of 3-4 year olds were offered a two year intellectual enrichment program during which time, the children also received weekly home visits
-Longitudinal study, followed the children’s subsequent progress, and showed striking differences with the control group who had not undergone the program:
-By the age of 40 they had significantly fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property crime, drugs, while more had graduated from high school and were in employment
-every dollar spent on the program had $17 saved on welfare, prison and other costs

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22
Q

What is the main criticism of all these crime prevention strategies?
What do they focus on and what do they ignore?

A

They focus on low-level crime and ignore crimes of the powerful and environmental crimes
e.g. Whyte’s survey of crime and disorder area partnerships in NW England to see what crimes their strategies were targeting, most was vehicle crimeand burglary despite the fact that NW had many more waste offences, water quality offences etc, radioactive substance offences

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23
Q

What is surveillance?

A

The monitoring of public behaviour for the purposes of population or crime control
-It therefore involves observing peoples behaviour to gather data about it and typically using the data to regulate manage or ‘correct’ the behaviour

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24
Q

what are some modern forms of surveillance?

A

-CCTV
-Biometric scanning
-ANPR: automated numberplate recognition
-Electronic tags
-Databases

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25
Q

Foucalt: the birth of the prison

A

Distinguishes between two types of punishment:
-Sovereign power
-Disciplinary power

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26
Q

sovereign power

A

-typical before the 19th century, when the monarch had absolute power over people and their bodies
-Control was asserted by disfiguring, visible punishment on the body (e.g branding or limp amputations)
-punishment was brutal and an emotional spectacle e.g. Public executions.
-seeks to crush or repress offenders

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27
Q

disciplinary power

A

-dominant from the 19th century
-A new system of discipline that seeks to govern, not just the body, but the mind or ‘soul’ through surveillance
-seeks to intensely monitor offenders with the aim to rehabilitate and develop self discipline
-Foucalt claims disciplinary power replaced sovereign power due to surveillance keeping a more efficient ‘technology of power’- way of controlling people
-An example of disciplinary power is the Panopticon

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28
Q

the Panopticon

A

-A design for a prison, in which each prisoner in his own cell is visible to the guards from a central watchtower, but the guards are not visible to the prisoners
-They do not know if they are being watched or not, but they know that they might be being watched
-As a result, they have to behave at all times as if they are being watched and so the surveillance turns into self-surveillance and discipline turns into self-discipline
-Instead of being a public spectacle that marks the outside of the body control takes place ‘inside’ the prisoner

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29
Q

the dispersal of discipline

A

The prison is just one institution, example, and other include:
-Military barracks
-Factories
-workhouses
-Schools
-Mental asylum

-Each of the above institutions has a professional who can exercise surveillance over its population
-This disciplinary power is now ‘dispersed’ across society, its institutions and all individuals

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30
Q

criticisms of Foucalt
Goffman
Norris
Koskela

A

): exaggerates the extent of control: GOFFMAN shows how some inmates of prison and mental hospitals are able to resist controls
-Also overestimates the power of surveillance to change behaviour e.g. In the Panopticon, people become self-disciplining because they can’t be sure they’re being monitored.
): NORRIS: believes, CCTV, cameras are not necessarily effective in preventing crime- reviewed dozens of studies worldwide, and found that while CCTV reduced crimes in car parks, it had a little or no effect on other crimes and even may even cause displacement
): Feminists e.g. KOSKELA criticise CCTV as an extension of the ‘male gaze’
-While it renders women more visible to the voyeurism of the male camera operator, it does not make them more secure

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31
Q

surveillance theory since Foucalt: synoptic surveillance
Mathiesen
Thompson
Mann et al
McCahill

A

-MATHIESEN argues that Foucalt only tells half the story of today’s society. Media enables the many to see the few while the Panoptican allowed the few to monitor the many
-‘synopticon’ everyone watches everyone- top down but also bottom up
-THOMPSON: powerful groups e.g. politicians fear the media’s surveillance of them as they may uncover damaging information , acting as a form of social control over their activities
-MANN ET AL: ‘sousveillance’ (surveillance from below) obile phone ownership means ordinary citizens can ‘control the controllers’ e.g. Filming police, wrongdoing
-cameras on bike helmets, dashboards warns other road users- self-discipline
HOWEVER
-MCCAHILL believes, we are unable to reverse hierarchies of surveillance sometimes e.g. Police having power to confiscate cameras, mobile phones under some laws i.e anti-terrorism

32
Q

Haggerty and Ericson: Surveillant Assemblages

A

-argue that surveillance technologies no longer focus on the manipulation of physical bodies, they also manipulate virtual objects (digital data)
-this is shown through the combining of different technologies e.g. CCTV and facial recognition software.
-This combination of data is called ‘surveillance assemblages’- data can be combined to make a ‘data double’
of the individual

33
Q

Feeley and Simon: Acturial justice, and risk management

A

-argue that there is a new ‘technology of power’ to add to Foucalt’s sovereign and disciplinary power
-Unlike disciplinary, this form of power, seeks to predict and prevent future offending

it does this by:
-focusing on groups rather than individuals
-is not interested in rehabilitation, only prevention
-Uses calculations of risk (acturial analysis) to predict the risk of events happening to particular groups e.g. young drivers’ risk of having an accident
e.g. Airport security screening checks based off of known offender ‘risk factors’ i.e. Age, sex, ethnicity, gender
-Given a risk score-> if scoring above a given level of the risk score, they may be stopped, questioned, searched etc.
-‘identify, classify and manage groups sorted by levels of dangerousness’

34
Q

Lyon: social sorting
Gary T.Marx: categorical suspicion

A

-The purpose of social sorting is to be able to categorise people so that they can be treated differently according to the level of risk they pose
-An effect of this is to place in entire social groups under ‘categorical suspicion’ (Marx)- people are placed under suspicions of wrongdoing, simply because they belong to a particular category or group

35
Q

Lewis: example of categorical suspicion

A

-in 2010 West Midlands police sought to introduce a counter/terrorism scheme to surround two mainly Muslim suburbs of Birmingham with about 150 ANPR cameras, some of them covert, thereby placing whole communities under suspicion

36
Q

What is a problem with acturial justice?

A

-The danger of self fulfilling prophecy e.g. Profiles of typical offenders are often compared using official crime statistics.
-If these show, for example, that young black inner city males are the group most likely to carry a weapon. Then police using the data will be more likely to stop them over members of other group groups.
-Consequently, even if in reality, all social groups have exactly the same likelihood of carrying a weapon, young black, male offenders will still be more likely than others to be caught, convicted and end up in the crime statistic which seems to confirm the validity of the profiling

37
Q

Ditton et al: labelling and surveillance

A

-in one major city CCTV system, cameras capable of zooming in on vehicle tax discs to confirm expiration
-this was left unchecked as they believed it a non-suitable use of the tech
-CCTV operators may make discriminatory judgements about potential ‘suspects’

38
Q

Norris and Armstrong: labelling and surveillance
self-fulfilling prophecy?

A

-found a ‘massively disproportionate targeting’ of young black males, just because of their social group
-these are based off of ‘typifications’ (stereotypes, held by those operating the surveillance systems) which creates a self fulfilling prophecy
-Targeting one group more means that their offences are more likely to be exposed and criminalised, and the group not targeted means their offences is often ignored leading to less criminalisation

39
Q

justification of punishment: reduction

A

reduction: the prevention of of future crime
-Deterrence
-Rehabilitation
-Incapacitation

-an instrumental justification- punishment is a means to an end-> crime reduction

40
Q

deterrence

A

punishing in order to discourage future offending
-‘ making an example’
-e.g. Thatchers ‘Short, Sharp, Shock’ regime in the 80s

41
Q

rehabilitation

A

punishing in order to reform or change offenders
-e.g. providing education and training for prisoners to enable them to work for legitimate means or anger management courses for violent offenders

42
Q

incapacitation

A

removing the offender’s capacity to offend again
-e.g. execution, cutting off hands, chemical castration
-e.g. America’s ‘Three Strikes’ policy

43
Q

justification of punishment: retribution

A

punishing by ‘paying back’ to the offender
-Used more to punish crimes that have already been committed rather than preventing them
-Based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished, and that society is entitled to take revenge for having breached its moral code
-Help society to ‘express’ outrage

-an expressive view of punishment- expresses society’s outrage

44
Q

Durkheim: a functionalist perspective

A

-The function of punishment is to uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values
-Identifies two types of justice that correspond to 2 types of society
(1) Retributive Justice
(2) restitutive justice

45
Q

retributive justice

A

-traditional society
-Little specialisation
-Solidarity was based on similarity to each other, which led to a strong collective conscience
-When this was offended, there was passion to repress the wrongdoer in severe and cruel punishment
-Motivation is purely expressive

46
Q

restitutive justice

A

-modern Society
-Extensive specialisation
-Solidarity is based on interdependence between individuals which crime damages, and this needs to be repaired, for example through compensation
-It aims to restore things to how they were before the offence
-instrumental, motivation restore societies equilibrium
-punishment still has an expressive element as still expresses collective emotions

47
Q

criticism of Durkheim

A

): in reality, traditional societies, often have restitutive>retributive justice as Durkheim thought
-e.g. Blood feuds (member of one clan is killed by a member of another) often settled by payment of compensation rather than the execution

48
Q

Marxism: capitalism and punishment
Thompson
Melossi and Pavarini

A

-Marxist claim, the function of punishment is to maintain the existing social order
-as part of the ‘repressive state apparatus’, it is a means of defending r/c property against the lower classes
-Thompson: 18th century, punishments e.g. hanging and transportation to the colonies for theft and poaching, were part of a ‘rule of terror’ by the aristocracy over the poor
-Melossi and Pavarini- imprisonment reflects capitalist relations of punishment
-Capitalism put a price on the workers time, so prisoners ‘do time’ to ‘pay’ for their crime (‘repay a debt to society’)
-Prisons and factories have similar strict disciplinary styles (e.g. Subordination and loss of liberty)

49
Q

imprisonment today
Carrabine et al (effects of prison population growth)

A

-Where death penalty is not a punishment, imprisonment is the most severe form
-However 2/3 of prisoners re-offend after release, which questions, effectiveness of imprisonment as a form of rehabilitation
-nevertheless, since the 1980s, it is used by politicians for electoral popularity by calling for tougher sentences (e.g. New labour in 1997), should also be a deterrent for persistent petty offenders
-As a result, prison populations have swollen in size, leading to overcrowding, poor food quality, clothing shortages, lack of education, and work opportunities, inadequate family visits (Carrabine et al)

50
Q

Garland: the era of mass incarceration

A

-the USA, and to a lesser extent the UK are moving into an era of mass incarceration
-The American prison population in 1972 was 200,000 inmates in state and federal prison
-From 1970s began to increase rapidly and there are now 1.5 million in state and federal prison, 7000 in local jails, 5 million under supervision of the criminal justice system
-This is over 3x the European rate, even though there are similar rates of victimisation
-while black Americans make up 13% of the US population, but 37% of the prison population population and 6x more likely than white males to be in prison
-Hispanic and Native American males are 2x likely
-A reason for this movement into an era of mass incarceration is due to the growing politicisation of crime control

51
Q

Downes: the era of mass incarceration

A

-US, prison system soaks up about 30-40% of the unemployed, making capitalism look more successful
-ideological function

52
Q

Simon: the era of mass incarceration

A

-A reason for mass incarceration is the use of prison to wage America’s ‘war on drugs’- ‘ because drug use is so widespread, this has produced an almost limitless supply of arrestable and imprisonable offenders’

53
Q

punishment: transcarceration

A

-has been a trend towards transcarceration
-individuals become locked into a cycle of control, shifting between different carceral agencies
-May be due to blurred boundaries between justice and welfare e.g. Housing, health and social services with crime, control rules and multiagency working

-A typical example includes:
Raised in the care system
Enters young offenders institutions
Moved to adult prisons
(possible bouts of mental hospitals between these)

54
Q

Alternatives to prison

A

-to avoid the self fulfilling prophecy, some punishments include ‘diversion’- diverting contact away from the criminal justice system
-This was typically done with non-custodial community base controls like:
Community service orders
Curfews
Electronic tags
Treatment orders

55
Q

Cohen: community based controls

A

-The growth of community base controls casts a ‘net of control’ over more people enabling control to penetrate deeper into society
-Community controls may even divert people in crime e.g. Using ASBOs (antisocial behavioural orders) to fast- track young offenders into custodial sentences

56
Q

what is a victim

A

those who have suffered harm (including mental or emotional, suffering, economic loss and impairment of their basic rights) through acts or omissions that violate the laws of the state

57
Q

Christie: ‘victim’ as a social construct
the ideal victim

A

-argues that the notion of victim is socially constructed
-The ideal victim is a weak, innocent and blameless individual (e.g. A small child or old woman)

58
Q

Miers: Positivist victimology

A

identifies three features:
-Identifies factors producing patterns in victimisation (who are more likely to be victims)
-Focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence (individual, a small group)
-Identifies victims who have contributed to their own victimisation (making yourself a victim)

59
Q

Hans Von Hentig: Positivist victimology

A

-identified 13 characteristics of victims e.g. females, elderly, or ‘mentally subnormal’
-By being the kind of person they are, they could ‘invite’ themselves to become victims
-e.g. Wealthy people who visibly display their wealth.

60
Q

Wolfgang: Positivist victimology

A

-Study of 588, homicides in Philadelphia
-26% of the victims triggered the event leading to their homicide (i.e. Initiating the violent event.)
-Most common in domestic violence cases where the perpetrator was female and victim was male

61
Q

evaluation of positivist victimology

A

): ignore situations where victims are unaware of their victimisation, as with some crimes against the environment, and where harm is done, but no law is broken
): it can easily tip over into victim blaming e.g. Amir’s claim that 1 in 5 rapes are victim precipitated is not very different from saying the victim ‘asked for it’
(: identify certain patterns of interpersonal victimisation
): ignores, wider structural factors influence victimisation such as poverty patriarchy etc.

62
Q

Critical victimology

A

-based on conflict theories (e.g. Marxism, Feminism) and focuses on two elements:
-Structural factors
-The state’s power to apply or deny the label of the victim

63
Q

structural factors

A

e.g. Patriarchy and poverty, making women and the poor at greater risk of victimisation.

64
Q

the state’s power to apply or deny the label of the victim

A

-‘victim’ = a social construct, and the state can apply the label of victim to some, but withhold it from others
-e.g. Police not pressing charges against a man for assaulting, his wife, denying her victim status.
-By concealing the true extent of victimisation, it hides the crimes of the powerful and denies, powders victims any acknowledgement

65
Q

Tombs and Whyte: the state’s power to apply or denied label of the victim

A

-‘safety crimes’ e.g. employers violating health and safety are often explained as the fault of ‘accidental prone’ workers.
-Similar to rape cases, it denies official ‘victim status’ and blames them for their fate
-blaming the victims for fault

66
Q

evaluation of critical victimology

A

): disregards, the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices (e.g. Not making their home secure) or that own offending.
(: it is valuable in drawing attention to the way that ‘victim’ status is constructed by power, and how this benefits, the powerful as expense of the powerless

67
Q

the impact of victimisation

A

-crime may have serious physical and emotional impacts on its victim e.g. Disrupted sleep, feelings of helplessness, increased security- consciousness, difficulties in social functioning
-Crime can also create indirect victims e.g. Friends and family witnesses e.g. PYNOOS ET AL

68
Q

Pynoos et al: the impact of victimisation

A

-Child, witnesses of a sniper attack, continue to have grief-related dreams and altered behaviour a year later

69
Q

the impact of victimisation:
secondary victimisation

A

-In addition to the crime, individuals may suffer further victimisation in the criminal justice system
-e.g. Rape victims are often poorly treated by the police and courts (double violation)

70
Q

The impact of victimisation:
Fear of victimisation

A

-crime create a fear of becoming a victim
-e.g. Women are more afraid of going out for fear of attack, despite young men, being the main victims of violence from strangers.
): however, feminists argue that it focuses on women’s passivity and psychological state, rather than safety which we should be focusing on i.e. on the structural threat of patriarchal violence

71
Q

patterns of victimisation: CLASS
(Newborn and Rock)

A

-poorest groups are most likely to be victimised
-Crime rates are typically higher in areas of high unemployment and deprivation
-Newborn and Rock: survey of 300 homeless people found out they were 12x more likely to have experience violence than the general population
-1 in 10 had been urinated on while sleeping rough

72
Q

patterns of victimisation: AGE

A

-Younger people are more at risk of victimisation
-Infants under 1 most risk of being murdered
-Teenagers are more vulnerable than adults to assault, sexual harassment theft, abuse at home
-Old are also at risk of abuse e.g. In nursing homes where victimisation is less visible
BUT in general risk of victimisation decreases with age

73
Q

patterns of victimisation: ETHNICITY

A

-Ethnic minority groups are at greater risk than whites of being victim of crime in general and racially-motivated crimes.
-Ethnic minorities, the young and homeless are most likely to report feeling under-protected, yet over-controlled by the police

74
Q

patterns of victimisation: GENDER

A

-males are greater risks than females of becoming victims of violent attacks, especially by strangers- about 70% of homicide victims are male
-Women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, stalking and harassment, people, trafficking, and in times of armed conflict, mass rape as a weapon of war

75
Q

patterns of victimisation: REPEAT VICTIMISATION

A

-Refers to the fact that if you have been a victim once you’re very likely to be one again
-British Crime Survey: about 60% of the population have not been victims of any kind of crime in a given year, whereas a mere 4% of the population of victims of 44% of all crimes in that period

Sociology- Crime and Deviance (11 decks)

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