crime control surveillance, prevention and punishment

Question 1

3 approaches to crime prevention

Answer 1

• situational crime prevention
• environmental crime prevention
• social and community crime prevention

Question 2

Situational crime prevention

Answer 2

Directed at specific point that criminals and their potential targets come together

Question 3

Clarke - “rational choice theory”

Answer 3

• Individuals are calculating in pursuit of their own interests
• potential offending based on low risks and high rewards to make it worthwhile, therefore increased punishment would increase costs

Question 4

Evaluation of Clarke

Answer 4

Lyng - emphasises the emotional factors behind crime. Cost benefit calculations assume a rational cognitive element that is lacking from crimes of passion or the influence of drugs

Question 5

Felson & Clarke - target hardening

Answer 5

• theft was more likely where attractive targets were accessible with a good chance of escaping without detection.
• Counter measures to make it more difficult to carry out crimes are referred to as ‘Target hardening’

Question 6

evaluation of Felson and Clarke

Answer 6

Walklate argued that in rape trials the female victim on trial has to prove her respectability in order to have the sentence accepted and therefore there is not quicker or harsher sentencing in CJS

Question 7

environmental crime prevention

Answer 7

localities which might encourage or discourage crime

Question 8

wilson and kelling - broken windows

Answer 8

• They argue that leaving broken windows unrepaired ,graffiti, tolerating begging etc sends out a signal that no one cares and can tip the area into social disorder.
  • In such neighbourhoods, there is an absence of both formal social control and informal control. The police are only concerned with serious crime while respected members feel intimidated and powerless.
  • Without action, the situation deteriorates, tipping the neighbourhood into a spiral of decline.
  • A way to prevent this is more police on the streets enforcing zero tolerance towards any social disorder and immediate repair of the ‘broken’ or deteriorating.

Question 9

wilson and kelling - zero policing

Answer 9

Wilson and Kelling’s solution to crack down on any disorder is by a twofold strategy.
1. First, an environmental improvement strategy: any broken window must be repaired immediately, abandoned cars towed without delay etc.
2. Secondly, the police must adopt a zero tolerance policing strategy. Instead of merely reacting to crime, they must proactively tackle even the slightest sign of disorder, even if it’s not criminal.

Question 10

evaluation of wilson and kelling

Answer 10

• however this can lead to crime displacement, moving the problem on and criminals committing different crimes, likely to move onto easier target with less costs
• “clean car programme”

Question 11

social and community crime prevention

Answer 11

underlying causes that might motivate crime.

Question 12

Kinsey, Lea and young - improving policing

Answer 12

• Improve relationships with the community, minimal policing and an open system of accountability
• Public should be involved in shaping policing policy: determine police priority
• Little point in stopping and searching suspects or police on the beat, police should spend time investigating crime rather than on crimes such as minor drug offences and more on racially motivated, corporate crimes.

Question 13

Evaluation of Kinsey, Lea and young

Answer 13

It disregards the crimes of the powerful:
Whyte points out the crime target priorities of NW England include vehicle theft, drugs and burglary. However NW, has one of the heaviest sites of the chemical productions in Europe. 2 plants produce and release into the air 40% of all factory produced cancer causing chemicals in the uk every year

Question 14

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Answer 14

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Question 15

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Answer 15

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Question 16

Joyce - reasons why punishment maybe necessary

Answer 16

• retribution - This is vengeance and justice for those who have harmed others. Most societies place some emphasis on retribution in their informal/formal systems of social control. Could include restitution, e.g. monetary
• incapacitation - this often involves imprisonment as this prevents the offender from creating more victims and offending society at large.
• deterrence - public punishment of offenders serves to demonstrate to the individual and members of the wider society the severity of consequences for not conforming or breaking the law.
• rehabilitation - like deterrence and incapacitation, this is aimed at prevention - in this case in changing the attitudes and behaviour of the offender to conform to society’s norms and values.

Question 17

Durkheim

Answer 17

Nature of the legal system is related to the divisions of labour in society - the way that work is organised between individuals and groups

Question 18

Evaluation of Durkheim

Answer 18

Criticised for assuming that there is a collective conscience in society. In reality there maybe different views in society on what is moral or immoral, just or unjust. Does not consider the role of power and inequality in shaping the law

Question 19

Murray

Answer 19

expansion of prisons is justified because ‘it works’. In this view, incapacitation is justified in itself. Instrumental thinking. There is a belief in its deterrent power and opportunities for rehabilitation.

Question 20

evaluation of murray

Answer 20

liebling and crewe suggest flaws in this strategy: 50% reconvicted within 2 years, 35% back in prison.

Question 21

Ruche and kirchheimer - marxist

Answer 21

• the law originates from the ideology of the ruling class
• systems of punishment corresponded to the particular economic system in which they developed.
eras in which different systems of punishment were dominant:
-Early Middle Ages: religious penance and fines - imprisonment or execution of workers did not serve the needs of landowners
-Later Middle Ages: brutal punishment and wide use of capital punishment - the legal system was now utilised to control the poor who were a potential threat to social order

Question 22

evaluation of Rusche and Kirchheimer

Answer 22

provide a simplistic view of punishment - take no account of factors such as gender or ethnicity

Question 23

reiman - contemporary marxists

Answer 23

• see punishment as a means of enforcing the laws that protect the public property of the wealthy
• the law is believed to be neutral and applied to all, but in reality the WC are far more likely to suffer punishment even if their behaviour does less harm to society than the behaviour of rich individuals or capitalist corporations.

Question 24

evaluation of Reiman

Answer 24

it is mainly the marginalised who end up in jail - looking at stats on prisons we find that:
• 48% of all prisoners are at, or below, the level expected of an 11 year old in reading, 65% in numeracy and 82% in writing.

Question 25

Gordon

Answer 25

prison benefits the Capitalist system in three major ways:
1. The imprisonment of selected members of the lower classes neutralises opposition to the system, keeping potential revolutionaries from forming together and taking political action.
2. The imprisonment of many members of the underclass also sweeps out of sight the worst jetsam of Capitalist society’ such that we cannot see it.
3. By punishing individuals and making them responsible for their actions, defining these individuals as ‘social failures’ we ignore the failings of the system that lead to the conditions of inequality and poverty that create the conditions which lead to crime. Attention is diverted away from the immorality and greed of the elite classes.

Question 26

evaluation of gordon

Answer 26

it is clear that the occasional capitalist finds themselves on the wrong side of the law and being imprisoned and sanctioned in other ways. —> Ghilane Maxwell

Question 27

left realism view of punishment

Answer 27

• believe that prison alone is an ineffective method at reducing crime.
• They believe it needs to be combined with the practice of restorative justice.
• This involves the offender actively doing something to make up for the harm done as a result of their crime. Such as reparation, mediation, reintegrative ‘shaming’.
• All this is very unlike the anonymous processing and exclusionist shaming of the courts and prison sentences.

Question 28

evaluation of left realist view of punishment

Answer 28

Home office research suggests meeting the offender benefits 80% of victims who choose to participate.
• For some victims it is about forgiveness - letting go of anger in order to move on with their lives.
• For many, meeting the offender is about confronting them with the real impact of their crime, asking the questions that never get answered in court, and the hope that understanding the impact of their actions might help to prevent them reoffending.

Question 29

foucault - surveillance

Answer 29

• highlights the role of prisons in the criminal justice system in using ‘disciplinary power’.
• Disciplinary power: Punishment is hidden from public view, execution was for those who were beyond redemption and done swiftly. People were imprisoned to extend power to control behaviour through monitoring or surveillance
• Foucault sees self monitoring as increasingly characteristic of modern society and is typical of settings such as schools and factories.
Eg the widespread use of CCTV - citizens can never be sure whether they are being watched and so conform.

Question 30

evaluation of Foucault

Answer 30

• some critics argue that there has been a shift back towards more direct use of force by the state to control populations

Question 31

Garland - the culture of control

Answer 31

• argues that in the USA since the 70’s there has been a shift from ‘penal welfarism’
• however this was failing and to reassure the public, there was a movement to a ‘culture of control’
• this was to change peoples mindset toward crime and the role of the state in combatting offending.
• 3 main elements:
-The adaptive response: Government identifies groups that represent a danger to society and intervene at an early age to change attitudes and behaviour
-The expressive strategy: a change in the way that crime is viewed by society. Crime is central to the political agenda and to winning elections politicians manipulate perception to enhance their status as effective in dealing with crime as opposed to achieving any real change.
- The sovereign state strategy: the state takes back control though punitive sanctions. Mass incarceration, offenders are safely behind bars

Question 32

Evaluation of Garland

Answer 32

• reflected in the very high levels of imprisonment of African Americans.
• Goffman sees mass imprisonment of young black men as a new torm of racial oppression. in 2020 UK 32% of under 18 prisoners’ are black when 13% of the whole prison population

Question 33

Cohen

Answer 33

• The state has increasingly used other agencies alongside the CJS to identify and label ‘abnormalities’.
E.g Psychologists and psychiatrists are increasingly employed to deal with deviant behaviour - conditions such as ADHD, drug use etc
• are used as justifications for state intervention.

Question 34

Evaluation of Cohen

Question 35

mathiesen - surveillance of the elite

Answer 35

• suggested with the birth of the digital age and mass media, this led to a ‘bottom up’ form of surveillance
• this is were the many are able to monitor the behaviour of the few
Eg greater availability of public records - politicians coming under particular scrutiny for expenses scandals

Question 36

evaluation of Mathiesen

Answer 36

surveillance is not immune to the influence of the powerful with them being able to manipulate the media to protect the wealthy or buried to preserve the status quo in society

Question 37

Lyon - actuarial justice

Answer 37

• the use of data to predict behaviours based upon other activities online - data collected is fed into algorithms that look to predict criminal behaviours
• lyon argues people are categorised according to levels of risk they present
• the state monitors individuals it believes to have the potential for committing crime

Question 38

evaluation of lyon

Answer 38

actuarial justice often based upon racial stereotyping of individuals, impacts of labelling individuals as criminals