Crime, control and prevention - booklet 4 Flashcards
What is restorative justice?
Naming, shaming and facing the victims.
What was the aim of diverting people involved in low level minor offending away from formal sanctions?
To avoid unnecessary criminalisation of those on the fringes of criminal activity and to avoid them joining the ‘universities of crime.’
What is restorative justice more effective according to Braithwaite?
When it involves redintegrative shaming - the offender faces the victim and are publicly named and shamed making them realise the extent that society disapproves of their actions to shame them into future conformity and make them take responsibility.
Why do Postmodernists identify a growing detachment of the CJS?
As it starts to consider peoples different lifestyles and needs e.g. policing policies become more localised and community-based reflecting the communities it serves.
What is an example of growing informality and localism of criminal justice?
The voluntary use of Sharia Courts based on Islamic rather than British law among some sections of the Muslim community to deal with disputes.
What do Right realists emphasise?
The individual - people choose to commit crime because the benefits outweigh the cost of crime so society needs to increase the cost of crime.
What does Garland argue there is?
A culture of control concerned with controlling, preventing and reducing risks of people becoming victims.
Links to Hirsh’s control theory - strong social bonds integrate people into communities encouraging individuals to choose conformity over deviance and crime.
The focus is on tighter control and socialisation by strengthening social institutions like the traditional family, religion and community and constraining and isolating individuals through community pressure.
examples of increased social control:
- Making parents take more responsibility for the supervision of children - September 2024 mum fined for not taking her son to court and going to Ibiza instead has to take part in a 6 month parenting course.
- Schemes like neighbourhood watch.
- Cracking down on anti-social behaviour through naming and shaming measures like Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.
How does Clarke describe situational crime prevention?
A preventative approach that relies on reducing opportunities for crime.
What are features of situational crime preventions?
- Directed at specific crimes.
- Involve managing the environment of the crime.
- Aim to increase effort of committing crime and reducing rewards.
What are some examples of target hardening measures?
- Post-coding goods.
- Anti-climb paint.
- CCTV.
- Locks.
- Premises and car alarms.
What does target hardening reduce?
The opportunities for crime and poses greater risks for offenders and encourages them not to commit an offence.
What is SCP concerned with preventing?
Crime in particular locations rather than catching offenders.
Rational choice theory
- Offenders act rationally, weighing up benefits and risks when they see an opportunity for crime before choosing whether or not to commit an offence.
- Clarke - most theories dont offer realistic solutions to crime so we must reduce opportunities.
- Felson e.g. Port Authority Bus Terminal NYC - poorly designed, toilets were a settling for luggage thefts, rough sleeping, drug taking and homosexual liaisons - reshaping physical layout to design crime out replacing large sinks which homeless bathed in.
Routine activity theory
- Crime occurs as part of everyday routines when there are 3 conditions present:
1. Suitable target for potential offender which could be a person, place or object.
2. No ‘capable guardian’ like neighbour, police or CCTV surveillance to protect target.
3. A potential offender present who thinks the first two conditions are met and then chooses whether or not to commit the crime.
Criticism of SCP - displacement
- They don’t reduce crime simply displace it.
- If criminals are rational they simply move to where targets are softer.
- E.g. Chaiken et al found crackdown on subway robberies in NY displaced them to streets above.
Factors of displacement:
- Spatial - moving elsewhere.
- Temporal - committing at a different time.
- Target - different victim.
- Functional - different type of crime.
- Tactical -using a different method.
Evaluation of SCP
- Reduces certain kinds of crime.
- Most measures lead to displacement.
- Focusses on opportunistic petty street crime - ignoring corporate and state crime which is the most harmful.
- Assumes criminal actions are rational - unlikely as many violent crimes amongst others are committed under the influence of drugs/ alcohol.
- Ignores root causes of crimes such as poverty/ poor socialisation - makes it difficult to develop long term strategies.
Who influenced Environmental crime prevention? (ECP)
Wilson
What does Wilson argue crime is caused by?
Incivilities/ anti-social behaviour such as vandalism, graffiti, drugs being openly pushed in public places, dog fouling, littering, swearing and physical harrassment.
What does Wilson say will happen if incentive behaviour is tolerated?
Areas deteriorate and a sense of ‘anything goes’ develops.
What example does Wilson use?
- Broken window.
- If signs of disorder e.g. broken windows are left Un repaired this encourages further similar acts of deviance and sends a clear message that no one cares and encourages more of the same behaviour.
When will disorder happen according to Wilson?
- When there is little sense of community/ neighbourhood - means formal and informal social controls are weak.
- Members of community may feel powerless and older members afraid to leave.
- Respectable people may move away and more anti-social elements replace them.
What do police feel about anti-social behaviour?
That it isn’t their responsibility - target more serious offences.
Without remedial action of the broken window theory what happens?
Situation worsens tipping the neighbourhood into a spiral of decline.
What are Wilson’s two environmental solutions?
- Environmental improvement strategy - any broken window must be repaired immediately, abounded cars towed without delay.
- Zero tolerance policing - Instead of reacting police should be proactive tackling even the slightest sign of disorder - even if it’s not criminal. This halts neighbourhood decline.
Evidence of Wilsons environmental solutions working:
- NYC clean cars programme - subway cars removed and cleaned if graffitied - graffiti largely removed from subway.
- NYC crackdown on ‘squeegee merchants’ discovered many had outstanding warrants for violent property crimes.
- Between 1993-96 there was a significant drop in crime in NYC including 50% drop in homicides.
Evidence of Wilsons environmental solutions not working:
- NYC benefited from 7,000 extra officers - general decline in major US cities including those who didn’t accept new policy.
- Early 1990s was a time of major recession but from 1994 new jobs were being created - decline in crack cocaine but attempted homicides remained high.
- IT suggested the fall in murder rate owed more to improved medical emergency services than policing - emphasis upon the role of police NOT community.
What do left realists focus on?
Organisation of society especially inequality, disadvantage and poverty resulting from this which creates an environment which crime might be the norm.
What do Left Realists recognise?
That offenders and victims that worry people most are found in the highest levels of marginality and social exclusion - empathise the need to tackle material and cultural deprivation.
Risk factors for crime according to LR:
- Poverty
- Unemployment
- Poor housing/ education
- Poor parental supervision
- Broken families/ family conflict
What do LR argue urban crime is?
A rational response to lack of legitimate opportunities and powerlessness deprived groups feel.
What do social and community crime prevention place the emphasis on?
The potential offender and their social context.
What is the aim of social and community crime prevention?
To remove conditions that predispose individuals to crime.
What does lack of confidence in police in deprived areas mean?
Police have to sue military style policing e.g. CCTV, stop and search and flooding an area with police to find suspects.
What did Lewis et al find one of the major factors behind the 2011 English riots?
Resentment of a perceived lack of respect from police and the experience of innocent people being repeatedly stopped and searched.
Factors of preventing crime by tackling social issues
- Building community cohesion to develop informal behaviour controls.
- Multi agency working police, council agency and probation work with local people not just relying on police and CJS.
- More community control of policing - response to local needs and concerns to build public confidence to encourage reporting of crime and leads on offenders.
- Tackling social deprivation improving community facilities such as youth leisure activities, reduce unemployment and improve housing.
- Intensive parenting support e.g. Sure Start children sentries in poor areas where risk factors for crime are highest.
Perry Pre-School Project 1962
- Where - Michigan
- Who for - disadvantaged black children 3-4
- What happened - offered 2 years intellectual enrichment programme inc weekly home visits.
- Impact - Longitudinal study followed students progress - by 40 fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property crime and drugs, more graduated high school and were in employment. For every $ spent $17 saved on welfare prison and other costs.
What is missing from crime prevention methods?
- Focus on low level crimes ignoring those of the powerful.
- Definition of ‘crime problem’ reflects politicians priorities and crime prevention agencies.
Whyte survey
- Survey of 26 crime and disorder area partnerships in NW of England to discover what crimes were being targeted.
- Top 3:
- Vehicle crime 26
- Burglary 24
Drug related crime 15
NW green/ corporate crime
- One of the most heavily concentrated sites of chemical production in ENgland.
- 2 plants releasing 40% of all factory produced cancer causing chemicals in the air in the UK each year.
- Whyte - despite this activities aren’t included in crime and disorder partnership agendas.
Right Realists evaluation:
- Don’t address wider social causes of crime.
- Don’t allow that some may be targeted unfairly by police e.g. stereotyping, labelling and racism generating resentment and making problems worse.
- Assume offenders act rationally in choosing crime and deviance and some benefit from it but some crimes are impulsive/ irrational and dont have any obvious gain e.g. vandalism or violence.
- Surveillance may be a problem as camera operators may subscribe to similar stereotypes to police officers and end up focusing on young males - labelling.
- RR solutions are geographically limited and only prevent crime in a particular location.
- RR remove focus from other forms of crime prevention such as looking at wider economic and social policies which cause crime.
- Felson and Clarke displacement theory - SCP doesnt pay enough attention to catching criminals/ punishments to deter offenders - doesnt prevent overall crime but displaces crime to softer targets in other areas - Chaiken found that when there was a crackdown on subway robberies in NY criminals moved elsewhere.
Criticisms of LR prevention approaches
- ‘Soft’ on crime - focus on social causes, downplaying the role of the offender in choosing to commit crime. The offender almost becomes a victim.
- Explanations inadequate as the majority of those in deprived communities don’t turn to crime. Social deprivation and other risk factors don’t apply equally to all those in similar circumstances.
- Deflect attention away from more practical crime-prevention measures like tighter social control and situational crime prevention measures advocated by RR.
How does the article on someone pretending to be a mannequin show the limits of SCP?
- Doesn’t always stop crime.
- Relies on humans who can make mistakes.
How does the mannequin article support RR view of crime as a rational choice?
- Saw an opportunity to commit crime.
- Done it once before he got caught.
What do feminists focus on?
- Issues affecting women.
- Fear of crime especially patriarchal based violence.
- Domestic and sexual violence.
Newburn - feminist solution to crime
- Makes more visible forms of victimisation that have been ignored e.g. DV.
- Exposing violence mainly in the home not stranger danger.
- Showing sexual violence is an issue of power and misogyny not sex.
- Showing how a male dominated CJS hols stereotypes of women.
- How CJS contribute to further victimisation e.g. rape trials women ‘on trial.’
- More specialised training of police DV and rape to encourage reporting and prosecution - more rape crisis centres.
- Reduce crimes committed by women - more supportive welfare/ better jobs - Marxists: capitalism impacts women - deal with social inequality and poverty.
Evaluation of feminism and the control/ prevention of crime
- Marxists and radical feminists solutions point to huge social change with revolutionary action against patriarchy and capitalism but they would also support practical, short term measures too.
- Exposing the extent of male crimes against women and taking steps to prevent men from committing them by re-socialisation, tighter controls and tougher sanctions men might be persuaded not to commit crime against women.
How do Postmodernists see crime?
As a social construction based on a narrow legal definition.
How do Postmodernists think of law?
An outdated metanarrative which doesn’t reflect growing diversity of society.
What does Lea suggest the CJS needs to recognise?
- Diversity of social groups.
- Needs to become more sensitive and tolerant of ethnic and gender identities.
What do postmodernists believe growing diversity leads to?
- The need for more informal, localised arrangements to prevent and control harms caused by crime and disorder.
- This involves replacing the centrally managed CJS process with localised customised community policing, the use of private security and informal controls through family, community, schools and work.
What do postmodernists believe justice should be in order to reduce reoffending?
More individualised - alternatives to prosecution which better suit the needs of those causing harm and reduce the risk of reoffending.
Strengths of postmodernism the control and and prevention of crime
- Draws attention to diversity of society and to the idea that a centralised CJS may not meet all needs and law, policing and the CJS need to be flexible to be effective in controlling crime.
- Provides insight into developments like extensive surveillance CCTV etc more localised policing and control entry to some private ‘public’ areas like shopping malls can reduce harms.
Limitations of post modernism the control and prevention of crime
- Doesn’t recognise the importance or impact of social inequality. Pays little attention to the poor who aren’t significant consumers. These groups face increasing exclusion from public places like shopping malls, more surveillance and stricter control e.g. through heavier and more repressive policing.
- Doesn’t recognise that decentralised and informal arrangements are likely to benefit the most well organised and affluent m/c groups.
Definition of surveillance
Monitoring of public behaviour for the purposes of population or crime control. Therefore it involves observing people behaviour to gather data about it and typically using data to regulate, manage or correct behaviour.
What can show surveillances long history?
14th century plague communities nominated an individual to monitor and record the spread of the plague - used to stop people from moving to uninfected areas.
Modern surveillance methods
- CCTV
- Biometric scanning
- Electronic tagging
- Automatic number plate recognition
- Databases
What did Foucault say happened in 1979
The birth of prison
Sovereign power - typical pre 1800
- Monarch had absolute power over people and bodies.
- Control asserted nu inflicting, disfiguring visible punishment e.g. amputation.
- Punishment brutal and public to crush offenders.
Disciplinary power - Dominant 1800 onwards
- Control of mind and ‘soul’ as well as body through surveillance.
- Surveillance was a more effective way of controlling people.
- Punishment in prisons is highly monitored with the aim of rehabilitation.
- Panopticon:
- Design of prison where each criminal had their own cell visible to guards in a central watch tower. Guards aren’t visible to prisoner so prisoner doesn’t know he’s being watched. Prisoners therefore have to behave at all times as a result surveillance turns into self surveillance/ self-discipline with control taking place inside the prisoner with help of professional like psychologists.
what are non prison based social control measures part of?
A carceral archipelago or prison islands in society where professionals such as teachers, social workers and psychiatrists observe the population.
How does Foucault see disciplinary power?
As dispersed throughout society reaching every individual - sees the form of surveillance in the panopticon as a model of how power operates in society as a whole.
Criticisms of Foucault
- Shift from sovereign power and corporal punishment to disciplinary power and imprisonment is less clear than suggested.
- Accused of wrongly assuming expressive aspects of punishment disappear in modern society.
- Some in deprived areas would welcome CCTV.
- Exaggerates the extent of control - Goffman shows how some prison inmates and patients at mental hospitals resisted controls.
- Overestimates power of surveillance to change behaviour. Panopticon worked as people thought they may have been watched.
- CCTV - a form of panopticism doesn’t always prevent crime - Norris reviewed studies worldwide that concluded whilst CCTV reduced crime in car parks it had no effect on other crimes and may have caused displacement.
- CCTV isn’t always a deterrent - Gill and Lovedays found few robbers, burglars and shoplifters were put off by CCTV - suggests CCTVs real function was ideological falsely reassuring the public about security.
- Feminists such as Koskela view CCTV as an extension of the ‘male gaze’ increasing voyerism without making women more secure.
What are 3 main differences of Feely and Simons new tech of power compared to Foucault disciplinary power?
- Focuses on groups not individuals.
- Interested in prevention as well as rehabilitation.
- Uses calculation risks/ actuarial justice.
What is the aim of surveillance according to Feely and Simon?
To predict and prevent crime.
what did Young suggest actuarial justice is?
A damage limitation strategy.
How did Lyon describe social sorting?
Treating people differently based on their level of risk.
Marx categorical suspicion
- People placed under suspicion of wrongdoing because they belonged to a particular group.
- 2010 West Midlands police sought to introduce a counter terrorism scheme to surround 2 mainly Muslim suburbs of Birmingham with about 150 ANPR cameras some of them covert thereby pacing whole communities under suspicion.
Problems with risk calculation
- Profiles of offenders are made using official statistics.
- Black male youths from inner city more likely to carry a weapon.
- Police more likely to stop them.
- More likely to be caught and convicted and appear on crime stats confirming validity of profiling.
What does Mathiesen say about Foucaults account?
- Only shows part of the story.
- Panopticon allows few to watch many whereas modern surveillance e-banking many to see the few.
- Synopticon - everybody watching everybody.
What does Thompson argue powerful groups fear?
Media surveillance which acts as a form of social control over actions. However Jimmy Saville proved this wrong.
How do the public monitor each other?
Dash cams which may warn motorists and see them exercise self discipline.
Mann - sousveillance
Citizens can now control the controller.
What does McChail argue bottom up scrutiny cant reverse?
Established hierarchies of surveillance e.g. under anti-terrorism laws police can confiscate cameras/ phones from citizen journalists.
What does Foucault say surveillance is?
Manipulation of physical bodies in confined spaces.
What do Haggerty and Ericsson argue surveillance technologies now involve?
Manipulation of virtual objects in cyberspace.
Surveillant assemblages
- Surveillance can now talk to each other e.g. CCTV can be analysed using facial recognition softwares.
What do CCTV operates make?
Discriminatory judgments about who potential suspects are based on typifications or stereotypical beliefs of operators.
What do Norris and Armstrong say about labelling and surveillance?
Massively disproportionate targeting of young black males for no other reason than their membership of that social group - SFP.
What did Ditton et al find one major city centre CCTV cameras did?
Zoom into vehicle tax discs from 100s of metres away to see if they’d expired however system managers didnt think this was a suitable use of tech so motorists were left unchecked.
What are the 2 main justifications of punishment?
- Reduction
- Retribution
Reduction
- Deterrence - Thatcher ‘short sharp shock’ 1980s.
- Rehabilitation - education and training.
- Incapacitation - remove offenders capacity to reoffend - policies differ in different societies but include prison, execution and chemical castration. The view that prisons work as they remove offenders from society.
Retribution
‘Pay back’ - expressive view of punishment - expresses societies outrage.
- Since 1970 there has been a growing emphasis on retributive justice - Newburn just desserts leading to imprisonment doubling in the UK between 1970-2014.
What does Durkheim think punishment bolsters?
The collective conscience.
What is punishment primarily?
Expressive.
What is the purpose/ function of punishment?
Through rituals of order (public trail and punishment) societies shared values are reaffirmed and its members feel a sense of moral unity.
2 types of justice according to Durkheim
- Retribution justice
- Restitutive justice
Durkheim - Retribution justice
- Traditional societies solidarity based on similarity producing strong collective conscience.
- When collective conscience is offended, punishment is sever and cruel.
- Motivation = expressive.
Durkheim - restitutive justice
- Solidarity based on interdependence between individuals.
- Crime damages interdependence.
- Needs to be repaired through compensation - restitutive justice aims to make restitution to restore how they were before the offence.
- Motivation = instrumental to restore equilibrium.
In modern society what is punishment?
An expressive element because it’s expresses collective emotions.
Within Marxist view of society what does the ruling class do?
Exploits the labour of subordinate class.
What is the function/ purpose of Marxists punishment?
To maintain existing order - a means of defending ruling class property against lower classes e.g. 1700s punishment of hanging and transportation for theft and poaching.
What did Rusche and Otto say each economy has?
Its own penal system e.g. money fines not possible without a money economy - under capitalism imprisonment becomes dominant.
How do Mellisa and Pavarini see imprisonment?
Reflecting capitalist relations to products relations to productions:
- Prison and capitalist factory have similar disciplinary styles involving subordination and rigid timetables.
- Capitalism puts a price on workers time so prisons do time to pay for crimes.
What is the main criticism of the Weberian view?
The stent to which rules and regulations are fair to the extent to which officials follow the rules.
E.g. Guildford 4.
Evidence of prisons not being effective for rehabilitation?
2/3 of prisoners reoffend.
What is the move towards popular punitiveness?
Politicians sought electoral popularity by calling for tougher sentences e.g. New Labour Government 1997 - 2010 took the view prisons shouldn’t be used for just serious offenders but also as deterrence to petty offenders - slogan: ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.’
What has happened to the prison population between 1993-2016?
Almost doubles to 85,000.
What are the consequences of prison population doubling?
- Overcrowding.
- Poor sanitation.
- Poor food and clothing and
- Limited work and educational opportunities.
Evidence of Britain imprisoning the highest proportion than almost anywhere else in Western Europe
- England and Wales 124/100,000 people.
- France - 100/100,000.
- Sweden - 55/100,000
However Russia and USA - 698/100,000.
What are the features of the prison population?
- Largely male (5% female).
- Young.
- Poorly educated.
- Black and EM over represented.
How does Garland see the USA and to a lesser extent the UK?
Moving to an era of mass incarceration:
- USA in 1972 200,000 inmates in state and federal prison - today 1.5 million like Rikers Island and 700,00 in local jails.
In 2018 how many Black Americans were represented in the sentenced prison population?
33% - nearly triple their 12% share of US adult population.
Downes - Ideological function
US prison system soaks up 30-40% of unemployed - capitalism looks successful.
Garland - politicisation of crime control
Raises prison numbers - 1970s a general consensus of penal welfarism- punishment should rehabilitate.
- From 1970s growing consensus of punitive tough on crime policies leading to a rising number of women being convicted of violent crime despite any evidence they are committing more offences.
Simon - war on drugs
Widespread drug use = limitless supply of arrestable/ imprisonable offenders.
Transcarceration defintion
The idea individuals become locked in a cycle of control shifting between different carceral agencies during lifetimes.
What does Cohen argue the growth of community control has cast?
The net of control over more people following focaults ideas cohen argues increased range of sanctions enables control to penetrate deeper into society.
UN definition of crime
Those who suffered harm through to acts/ omissions that violate las of the state.
How does Christies see victims?
As socially constructed.
What is the stereotype of the ideal victim?
Weak, innocent and blameless.
Elements of positivist victimology
- Miers - identify factors producing patterns in victimisation, interpersonal crimes of violence and victims who’ve contributed to their own victimisation.
Studies - positivist victimiology
- Hans von Hentig - victim proneness implies victims invite victimisation - 13 characteristics of victims inc females, elderly and mentally subnormal.
- Wolfgang - 588 homicides in Philadelphia - 26% involved victim precipitation - victim triggered events leading to homicide.
Evaluation of positivist victimology
- Ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation.
- Easily lead to victim blaming - Amirs claim that 1/5 rapes are victim precipitated is no different from saying victims asked for it.
- Ignores situations where v is unaware of victimisation.
- Downplays role of law, police and other CJS agencies in not tackling crimes effectively.
- Ignores issues of victim precipitation proneness that positive victimology identifies.
Radical victimology elements
- Based on conflict theories.
- Victimisation is a form of structural powerlessness - structural factors place groups at a greater risk of victimisation.
- State’s power to apply or deny label of victim - victim is a social construct - through CJS state applies label of victim on some but not others.
