Crime And Deviance 11 - Surveillance, Punishment, Etc. Flashcards
Joyce (2006) reasons for punishment?
Deterrence - demonstrates severity of consequences of breaking the law (individual and others)
Retribution - vengeance and justice. Could involve restitution e.g. money (Lucie Blackman case)
Incapacitation - imprisonment to stop more victims
Rehabilitation - aimed at prevention
Durkheim (1893) idea on division of labour reflecting punishments?
Pre-Industrial societies - few specialists jobs and similar individuals, mechanical solidity and strong social collective conscience, so deviance offended whole society and retributive justice was supported
Modern Industrial societies - specialist roles encouraged differences between individuals, collective conscience is not strong and people are reliant on each other, restitutive justice therefore as people still need them to do those jobs and people are less outraged
Punishments important to re-establish boundaries
Criticisms of Durkheim?
Assuming there’s a collective conscience
Theres probably more likely different views about what’s moral and immoral e.g. misuse of substances act (drugs) caught out with spice (legal cannabis) which was worse
Nothing on role of power and inequality in shaping the law
Right realists view on punishment, etc.?
Murray, expansion of prisons is justified because ‘it works’. Incapacitation is justified in itself as a deterrent and as a rehabilitating tool (reduced crime)
Criticisms of Murray?
Liebling and Crewe (2012) 50% re-convicted within 2 years, 35% back in prison, could be down to labelling ‘master label’ theory, could be because prisoners are re-socialised into values of other criminals and their techniques
Alternatives such as unpaid community service, treatment programs and curfews have a more varied re-conviction rate
Marxists Rusche and Kirchheimer view on punishment and law etc.?
Early Middle Ages - religious penance and fines (execution of workers wasn’t helpful to landowners)
Later Middle Ages - brutal and more capital punishment (legal system used to control poor who now are threat to social order)
17th Century - prison development because shortage of labour and prisoners could breach gap (Melossi and Pavarin said ‘factory’ like prisons meant to teach them to be an obedient labour force, but is fully exploited by upper class)
Reiman (2009) view on punishment etc.?
Way of reinforcing laws that protect private property
We more likely to suffer punishment even if their behaviour does less harm than behaviour of rich individuals
Gordons view on prison benefiting the capitalist system?
- Imprisonment neutralises lower class opposition to system and separating potential revolutionaries
- Imprisonment of underclass makes the country look better as we don’t see those worst off
- Punishing and blaming individuals ignores failings of the system
Support for Gordon?
10% of men and 30% of women have had previous psychiatric admissions before prison
48% at the level expected of an 11 year old in reading, 65% in maths, and 82% in writing (or below)
71% children in custody have been in social services or involved with it beforehand
NB2 - Right Realists claim increased imprisonment has taken down crime rate, but correlation may be a coincidence
Criticism of Marxists view?
Simplistic view of power and punishment
No account of gender or ethnicity
Occasional capitalist does find themselves on the wrong side of the law and being sanctioned and imprisoned
Left realists view on punishment?
Prison is ineffective and needs to be combined with restorative justice
Offender needs to actively do something to make up for it e.g. reparation, mediation, reintegrative ‘shaming’
Unlike anonymous processing and shaming of courts and current sentences
Support for left realists?
Home office meeting offender benefits 80% of victims who choose to participate (either letting go of anger or confronting them with their actions impact)
Restorative justice is stronger than any other criminal justice intervention (27% drop in reoffending for those who met victim)
It’s only offered currently to 1% of criminals
Foucault view on birth of prisons?
Sovereign power - Kings and Queens had control so extreme violent capital punishment to prolong agony as public spectacle
Disciplinary power - punishment hidden from public view, execution for those beyond redemption. Perfected in prisons due to constant observation causing them to self-discipline
Self-monitoring characteristic of modern society and may be becoming too extensive and invasive
Criticisms of Foucault?
Imposition of surveillance always met with degree of resistance
Postmodern society knowledge is power and cannot be monopolised and can be used to call powerful agencies and individuals to account e.g. citizen journalism
Contradictory growing power of authorities is pervasive, conscious resistance that people have to resist this control
Shift towards direct use of force to control populations (some sociologists say so)
Garland (2001) ‘Culture of Control’?
USA (potentially UK) moved from penal welfarism, which included rehabilitation in prison and valued reintegration in society, because ‘late modernity’ the economy, etc. were less certain.
They then moved to:
Adaptive response - government identifying certain groups that represent a danger and intervening at an early age to change attitudes
Expressive strategy - change in the way crime is viewed, typically done by politicians to show their good at dealing with crime but in actuality no change has been made
Sovereign state strategy - mass incarceration by state (part of expressive strategy) to reassure population
This was to reassure people
