Control, Punishment And Victims

Question 1

What is situational crime prevention according to Ron Clarke?

Answer 1

Relies on simply reducing opportunities for crime, not improving society.
They are directed at specific crimes
They involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime
They aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the rewards - rational choice
‘Target hardening efforts’ like locking doors, CCTV

Question 2

How is situational crime prevention criticised?

Answer 2

It does not reduce crime, just displaces it to where targets are softer
Tends to focus on opportunistic petty street crime
Ignores the root of crime so long term strategies are difficult

Question 3

Explain the broken windows theory according to Wilson and Kelling

Answer 3

Noise, graffiti, begging, dog fouling etc. They argue that leaving broken windows unrepaired sends out a signal that no one cares. There is an absence of formal social control who focus on bigger crimes and informal control

Question 4

What was the Perry pre-school project?

Answer 4

Community programmes aimed at reducing criminality. By age 40 they had significantly fewer lifetime arrests and were in employment

Question 5

What did Foucault argue about power?

Answer 5

Sovereign power- before 19th century, monarch had absolute power over people and their bodies. Control was asserted by inflicting visible punishments on the body. It was a brutal spectacle
Disciplinary power- after 19th century. Seeks to govern not just the body but the mind and soul through surveillance

Question 6

What’s the panopticon according to Foucault?

Answer 6

Illustrates disciplinary power. The design for a prison in which each prisoner in his own cell is visible to guards from a watchtower. The prisoners don’t know if they are being watched but know they might be = self surveillance.
Unlike sovereign power which seeks to crush the offender, disciplinary power hopes to rehabilitate them.

Question 7

What does Foucault argue about the dispersal of discipline?

Answer 7

Prison is one of a range of institutions that induces conformity through self surveillance
Non prison based social control practices form part of a ‘car real archipelago’. A series of ‘prison islands’ spreading into other institutions and wider society. Professionals such as teachers etc exercise surveillance over the population
The panopticon is now a model of how power operates in society as a whole

Question 8

What are the criticisms of Foucault?

Answer 8

The shift from sovereign power to disciplinary is less clear than he suggests
Exaggerates the extent of control and the power surveillance has on behaviour
While CCTV cameras reduced crime in car parks, it had no effect on other crime - falsely reassures the public about their security
CCTV- male gaze, renders women more visible to voyeurism of the male camera operator

Question 9

What is Synoptic surveillance according to Mathiesen?

Answer 9

The media also enable the many to see the few. In late modernity, there is an increase in centralised surveillance that Foucault suggests but also surveillance from below. This is the synopticon- where everybody watches everybody
The public monitor each other with go pros and and cameras on cars. This may warn other road users that they are being watched and their behaviour changes
Camera ownership means citizens are now able to ‘control the controllers’, this is called sousveillance

Question 10

What is actuarial justice and risk management?

Answer 10

There is a technology of power- airport security screening checks are based on known offender ‘risk factors’. Anyone scoring above a given level is stopped
This is not to rehabilitate or correct, it just seeks to prevent.
One effect of this is to place entire social groups under ‘categorical suspicion’- wherre they are placed under suspicion of wrongdoing just because they belong to a particular groups. This could create a self fulfilling prophecy

Question 11

What is reduction?

Answer 11

Justification for punishing offender is that it prevents future crime. Instrumental
Deterrence- making an example of them
Rehabilitation- providing education and training
Incapacitation- remove ability to offend again. execution, chemical castration etc

Question 12

What is retribution?

Answer 12

Paying back. Offenders deserve to be punished. Expressive

Question 13

What does Durkheim argue about punishment?

Answer 13

To uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values
Retributive justice- in traditional society, strong collective conscience. When offended the punishment is severe and cruel
Restitutive justice- it aims to restore things to how they were before the event

Question 14

What do marxists think of punishment?

Answer 14

The function of punishment is to maintain the existing social order, RSA. Defending ruling class poverty from the lower class.

Question 15

How many prisoners commit another crime after being released from prison and what does this show?

Answer 15

Two thirds. Simply an expensive way of making bad people worse, it does not work

Question 16

What’s wrong with prisons?

Answer 16

Overcrowding, poor sanitation, barely edible food, lack of educational opportunities

Question 17

What percentage of the prison population are women?

Answer 17

5%

Question 18

What is ‘the ideal victim’?

Answer 18

Social construct favoured by the media, public and CJS. Weak, innocent and blameless individual- such as a small child or old woman

Question 19

What is the study of victims?

Answer 19

Victimology

Question 20

What class is most likely to be victimised?

Answer 20

The poorest groups. Crime rates are highest in areas of high unemployment and deprivation

Question 21

What age is most likely to be a victim?

Answer 21

Younger people. Those most at risk of being murdered are infants under 1. Teenagers, violence

Question 22

What ethnicity is most likely to be victimised?

Answer 22

Minority groups

Question 23

What gender are more likely to be victimised?

Answer 23

Males, especially with strangers.