Crime 4.8 - Prevention, Punishment, Control

Question 1

Situational Crime Prevention

Answer 1

CLARKE describes SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION as a pre-emptive approach that simply looks at how the opportunities to commit crime can be reduced.

Question 2

3 features of SCP

Answer 2

1. DIRECTED AT SPECIFIC CRIMES
2. MANAGING OR ALTERING THE IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT OF THE CRIME
3. INCREASING RISKS OF CRIME AND REDUCING THE REWARDS

Question 3

Who advocates for SCP?

Answer 3

Right Realists

Question 4

What theory does SCP link to from Right Realism?

Answer 4

Rational Choice Theory and Target Hardening

Question 5

New York Port Authority Bus Terminal (Example of Situational Crime Prevention)

Answer 5

Poorly designed and offered opportunity for deviant behaviour. To tackle this they redesigned the environment and ‘designed crime out’ e.g. large sinks where homeless people were bathing were replaced by small hand basins.

Question 6

AO3 of SCP

Answer 6

1. Displaces crime
2. Focuses on street crimes
3. Assumes criminals make rational choices
4. Ignores the root cause e.g. poverty or poor socialisation

Question 7

5 ways SCP displaces crime according to Chaiken

Answer 7

1. Spatial
2. Temporal
3. Target
4. Tactical
5. Functional

Question 8

Environmental Crime Prevention (ECP) - Wilson and Kelling

Answer 8

Communities have to be kept in order through a policy of ZERO TOLERANCE of any petty crime and by maintaining the physical environment.

Question 9

Who advocates for ECP?

Answer 9

Right Realists

Question 10

What theories from Right Realism does ECP link to?

Answer 10

Broken Windows and Zero Tolerance

Question 11

New York example for ECP

Answer 11

implemented a Zero Tolerance approach to crime both petty and
more serious. They had a clean car approach on the subway meaning that any carriage with graffiti was taken out of action immediately and cleaned up, this resulted largely in graffiti being removed from the subway altogether.
Between 1993 and 1996 the crime rate fell significantly and the murder rate
fell by 50%.

Question 12

AO3 of ECP and Zero Tolerance

Answer 12

1. NYPD benefitted from 7,000 officers
2. General decrease in crime across major cities
3. There was a decrease in availability of crack cocaine
4. From 1994 there were more jobs created which meant less unemployment

So unclear on how far zero tolerance actually impacted the fall in crime

Question 13

Social & Community Crime Prevention (SCCP)

Answer 13

Social and community crime prevention strategies place the emphasis firmly on the potential offender and their social context. The aim of these strategies is to remove the conditions that pre-dispose individuals to commit crime in the first place.

Question 14

Which theory advocates for SCCP?

Answer 14

Left Realists

Question 15

What do LR and SCCP think need to be done?

Answer 15

Tackle the root/ structural causes (relative deprivation, marginalisation and subcultures) – namely poverty, housing and
unemployment.

Question 16

Perry Pre-School Project (Evidence for SCCP)

Answer 16

Disadvantaged, black youngsters part of an intellectual enrichment programme and these grew up to be more successful and less prone to crime than those who weren’t - showing importance of social factors such as education in predicting criminality.

Question 17

AO3 of SCCP

Answer 17

1. Take for granted the nature and definition of crime placing their focus on low level and interpersonal crimes of violence.
2. Disregard environmental crimes and crimes of the powerful
3. Whyte found the above in his survey of 26 crime and disorder partnerships in the North West

Question 18

Key theorist for surveillance?

Answer 18

Michel Foucault

Question 19

Surveillance - Sovereign Power

Answer 19

During the 19th century the monarch had
control over people. Punishment was public through execution,
branding, limb amputations. Complete control over the body.

Question 20

Surveillance - Disciplinary Power

Answer 20

Dominant after the 19th century this
involves not only control through our body but more
importantly through the mind and soul. This is done through
SURVEILLANCE.

Question 21

Surveillance - Panopticon

Answer 21

Foucault refers to the PANOPTICAN which was a design for a prison in which all prisoners’ cells are visible from a
CENTRAL WATCH TOWER, but the guards are not visible to the prisoners.

Question 22

Impact of the Panopticon Prison

Answer 22

SELF-SURVEILLANCE or SELF-DISCIPLINE.

Question 23

AO3 of Foucault and Surveillance

Answer 23

1. The shift from sovereign and corporal punishment o disciplinary power is less clear than he suggests
   e.g. the US, in some states they use both as they still execute people.
2. FOUCAULT assumes expressive (emotional) aspects of punishment disappear.
3. FOUCAULT exaggerates the extent of control e.g. GOFFMAN shows how some inmates resist control
   even in such controlled environments, this is the same in mental hospitals.
4. CCTV cameras are a form of panopticism yet NORRIS found that whilst CCTV reduced crime in car
   parks it had no effect on other crime – it may just cause displacement
5. Use of CCTV assumes criminals will be put off by them, research shows however that few are
   deterred.
6. Feminists see CCTV as an extension of the ‘male gaze’ as it renders women visible to voyeurism.

Question 24

Mathieson - Synoptic Surveillance

Answer 24

The many can now monitor the few via the media, he calls this the panopticon where everybody can watch everybody.

Question 25

Haggerty and Erikson - Surveillant Assemblages

Answer 25

Surveillance now manipulates virtual objects. E.g. CCTV can now
be used alongside facial recognition software – these become ‘surveillant assemblages’.

Question 26

Ditton - Labelling and Surveillance

Answer 26

CCTV operators make discriminatory judgements
e.g. there is a massive disproportionate of black
males targeted by operators for no other reason
than their membership of that social group.

Question 27

Feeley and Simon - Actuarial Justice and Risk Management

Answer 27

There is a new technology of power replacing disciplinary power:
 It focuses on groups
 Not interested in rehabilitation but
prevention
 It calculates risk ‘actuarial analysis’

Question 28

Lyon - Social Sorting and Categorical Suspicion

Answer 28

Social sorting is about categorising people so they can be treated
different according to level of risk e.g. more CCTV in Muslim areas as part of counter-terrorism.

Question 29

Deterrence - Punishment

Answer 29

–Punishing the offender, making an example of them may discourage future offending for the
individual and public at large (acts as a deterrent).

Question 30

Rehabilitation - Punishment

Answer 30

Idea that punishment can be used to reform offenders includes education and training in order to allow offenders to ‘earn an honest living’ on release.

Question 31

Incapacitation - Punishment

Answer 31

This physically removes the opportunity to offend this can include imprisonment, execution, cutting off hands and chemical castration.