Crime Control, Surveillance, Prevention and Punishment: the role of the CJS and other agencies Flashcards
What is the Criminal Justice System (CJS)?
Agencies like the police, Crown Prosecution Service, courts, prisons, etc. These agencies are the main means of identifying, controlling and punishing known offenders.
What are the means of punishment that aim for reduction?
Incapacitation, Rehabilitation and Deterrence.
What are the means of punishment that aim to make amends?
Retribution (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth).
Incapacitation (reduction, right realism):
Punishment that removes the offender’s capacity to offend again, such as imprisonment or capital punishment.
Evaluation = costly, is it really a punishment? criminal universities, meeting fellow offenders and forming criminal gangs outside of prison.
Rehabilitation (reduction, left realism):
Punishment used to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend. E.g: education/training, anger management courses.
Evaluation = some criminal behaviours are difficult to rehabilitate, assumes the offender wants to change, can be costly.
Retribution (amends, right realism):
‘Paying back’ rather than prevention, based on the idea that the punishment should be equal to the crime.
Evaluation = unjust decisions can be made, two wrongs don’t make a right
Deterrence (reduction, both):
Designed to discourage others from future offending, deter others because of the punishment they witness. E.g: prisons, ‘short, sharp, shock’ regime in 1980s.
Evaluation = doesn’t always work, assumes offender has rational choice, doesn’t tackle cause of crime
What are Prisons?
The most serious sanction available to the CJS (UK). Garland = growing emphasis on retribution since the ’70s, so prison population has doubled since.
Prison is meant to be a deterrent, but doesn’t work as a prevention measure: doesn’t address cause of crime, doesn’t stop offenders re-offending/secondary deviance.
What are the alternatives to Prison?
Increase of restorative justice, as it brings the victim and offender together, helping to repair the harm done and make offenders take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Braithwaite = reintegrative shaming where offenders are publicly named and shamed so offenders realise the extent of the disapproval of their offending, shames them to conform
- Curfews
- Community Sentences
- Electronic Tagging
- Criminal behaviour orders
Functionalist Perspective:
Durkheim = punishment is needed to uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values, expresses society’s emotions of moral outrage at an offence, violates cc.
- Laws express the collective conscience of society.
Retribution reasserts boundaries between right and wrong, provides an outlet for public outrage, reaffirms value consensus.
However, assumes that the law reflects a value consensus, ignores structural inequalities. Also punishments may threaten social order due to secondary deviance.
Marxist Perspective:
Punishment maintains social order as part of the RSA (Althusser). It is a means of defending RC property against WC. E.g: hangings for theft/poaching.
- Laws are an expression of ruling-class ideology.
Rusche and Kircheimer = type of punishment corresponds to the type of economy. E.g: money fines are impossible without capitalism.
- Imprisonment is a dominant form of punishment, similarities between prisons and factories: price on the worker’s time (‘do’ time to ‘pay’ for crimes), strict disciplinary style.
Postmodernist Perspective:
- Modernity was based on formal methods of control, but now there is more emphasis on denying people access rather than punishing their behaviour. E.g: banning from clubs.
- Draws attention to the growing detachment of the CJS from centralised control to localised arrangements, takes into account people’s different lifestyles and needs (could link with metanarratives).
What is Surveillance?
The monitoring of public behaviour for the purpose of population or crime control. Observes people’s behaviour to gather data about it, using data to regulate or ‘correct’ behaviour.
What are Foucault’s 2 forms of punishment?
Sovereign Power = where the monarch had power over people’s bodies, used for control/as a spectacle e.g public execution.
Disciplinary Power = where punishment was through the mind (ideology), such as the panopticon where the prisoners think they’re being watched - surveillance becomes self-discipline, control takes place ‘inside’ the prisoner.
Disciplinary power is modern (post-19th century), sovereign is 19th century
Evaluation = exaggerates the extent or surveillance in preventing/controlling crime, as not all crime is rational.
What are the other types of surveillance inspired by Foucault’s ideas?
Synoptic Surveillance = today the media enables the many to monitor the few. E.g: media uncovering information about politicians, people filming each other, acts as social control. Widespread camera ownership. E.g: Neighbourhood watch, livestreaming.
Surveillant Assemblages = combines lots of different technologies such as CCTV to use facial recognition software, etc, to monitor and collect data. Surveillance now comes from multiple, integrated sources.
Actuarial Justice/Risk Management = focus is now often on groups rather than individuals, aim is not to rehabilitate but to predict and prevent offending. Calculates the risk E.g: airport security checks.
Evaluation of Surveillance:
Research shows that CCTV operators make discriminatory judgements about who they should focus on. This could lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy in which the criminalisation of some groups are increased = secondary deviance = master status due to being targetted.