Crime - Prevention and Punishment - Flashcards
What are the 5 aims of punishment?
Protection Retribution Deterrence Reform Vindication (to prove right)
What is Foucault’s changing nature of punishment?
Before 19th century - Sovereign power (physical punishment - public) external
- This was to create absolute fear and ultimate deterrence. - confession was seen as giving them a chance in the afterlife after suffering on this earth.
19th century - Disciplinary power (courts - private) internal.
- silence and reflection (surveillance). - aims to rehabilitate.
Disciplinary replaced sovereign as surveillance is more efficient (technology of power)
What is the panopticon?
Link to disciplinary power.
Designed by by Jeremy Bentham.
Prisoners have to behave like they are being watched at all times (due to layout of it) - surveillance becomes self - discipline.
What is carceral archipelago?
‘Series of prison islands’
Adds to idea of self surveillance as it spreads into other institutions and wider society to exercise surveillance over population.
PANOPTICON IS A MODEL OF HOW POWER OPERATES IN SOCIETY AS A WHOLE.
What is the ‘prevent strategy’ and how does it apply to Foucaults ideas?
Preventing terrorist strategy
Everyone in professional industry has training to spot extremism.
- more than 20 referred a day (nearly half children)
- 75000 referred - 3100 under 18.
Strong form of surveillance (carceral archipelago).
What are criticisms of Foucault? 3
- suggests that emotional aspect of punishment has disappeared - we are still emotional and care e.g. Islamic punishment.
- exaggerates extent of control and power of surveillance - Gill and Loveday (2003) criminals weren’t put off by CCTV.
- CCTV extension of male gaze (Koskela 2012) - male camera operator to objectify women even further.
What was Mathiesen’s (1977) theory about surveillance?
Argues media surveillance as further form of surveillance.
SYNOPTICAN - where everybody watches everybody
e.g. social media, dash cams, go-pro’s, all cameras
– this allows people to ‘control the controller’ e.g. filming police doing wrong.
- Mann (2003) calls this SOUSVEILLANCE - surveillance from below.
Evaluation of Mathiesen? 2
- McCahill (2012) - ‘hierarchies of surveillance’ - police have power to confiscate cameras and phones of ‘citizen journalists’.
- We don’t think on a day to day basis that we are being watched - over estimates power (like Foucault).
What are surveillant assemblages?
Haggerty and Ericson say that surveillance is now digital and all work together in a cyberspace rather than physical bodies in a physical space.
(the idea that all the digital forms of surveillance can work together is a surveillant assemblage)
e.g. CCTV footage analysed using facial recognition, cookies.
What is actuarial justice and risk management?
Risk of an event happening - !aims to prevent before it happens!
Freely and Simon (1994) - people are profiled and given a risk score - anything above a certain level can be stopped, searched and questioned e.g. airports.
David Lyon (2012) - categorical suspicion: people placed under suspicion because of social characteristics.
Evaluation of actuarial justice and risk management? 1
- danger of self-fulfilling prophecy - certain people targeted more so therefore more of them are going to be found guilty even though there is an equal chance between all - appears to validate original suspicion and statistic. e.g. targeting of young black males.
What are the 2 main types of punishment?
reduction: prevents future crimes.
– deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation.
INSTRUMENTAL JUSTIFICATION - punishment is to reduce crime.
Retribution: to ‘pay back’.
EXPRESSIVE JUSTIFICATION - expresses societies outrage.
What is the functionalist perspective on punishment? 2 types of justice?
Durkheim (1893) - punishment is primarily expressive: expresses societies emotional outrage.
- justified through ‘rituals of order’ (court, prison) - reinforces social solidarity.
2 types of justice for 2 different types of society:
- retributive - in traditional society (no D.O.L)
everyone is the same and does same job - strong collective conscience. PUNISHMENT IS SEVERE AND EXPRESSIVE.
- restitutive - modern society (D.O.L)
we need others to perform their role so PUNISHMENT AIMS TO RESTORE THINGS and instrumental.
What is the marxist perspective on punishment?
Function of punishment is to maintain existing social order. (part of repressive state apparatus- defend ruling class property against lower classes.
Melossi and Pavarini (1981) - prison reflects capitalist work place.
- puts price on workers time (do time to pay for offence)
- same strict disciplinary style (sub to those in authority).
Downes (2001) - US prison ‘soak up’ 30 - 40% of unemployed to make capitalism look more successful.
What is the role of prisons today?
Prison is most serious form of punishment.
- however not seen as effective: recidivism rate is 50-70% in all prisons. (expensive way of making bad people worse? - £40,000 a year per prisoner)
New Labour (1997) - prison should also be for persistent petty offenders as a deterrent - LEAD TO DOUBLE AMOUNT OF PRISONERS 85,000.
