Crime Prevention/Crime Control and Punishment Flashcards
1
Q
Realist Criminology
A
- They abandon grand theories such as Marxism as they are not interested in looking at the ‘deep structural causes’ such as capitalism
↳ it is not criminologists job to get rid of capitalism so it is pointless focusing on it - They are more ‘pragmatic’: they ask how governments can reduce crime and work within the constraints on the social system and build solutions and policies to tackle crime
- They take a victim-centred approach to crime, putting victims and the public’s concerns about crime at the centre of theorising and policy making
2
Q
Right and Left Realism
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Right Realism
- Associated with the right wing neoliberal government of Margaret Thatcher which came to power in 1979
- Reject the idea put forward by Marxists that deeper structural or economic factors such as poverty are the causes of crime
- The individual is responsible for crime
↳ although they do accept that high levels of ‘social disorder’ and low levels of ‘social control’ are associated with higher crime rates - We need to get tough on criminals to reduce crime
Left Realism
- Left wing theory of crime
- Inequality is the main cause of crime
- We need more community interventions to reduce crime
3
Q
Right Realism - Causes of Crime
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Wilson’s - Rational Choice Theory
- Individuals choose to commit crime
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Most criminals are rational actors: if the criminal calculates that the risk of getting caught is low, or that the punishment will not be severe, then they are more likely to commit crime, assuming the reward for doing that crime is high enough
↳ they are rational in that they weigh up the costs and benefits to assess whether a crime is worth committing
Rational Choice Theory predicts that Crime will increase if:
- If crimes bring higher rewards relative to working within the rules of society
↳ rewards could be material or they could be things like higher status or more security - There is no risk of getting caught committing a crime
- No punishment for crime
Cohen and Felson - ‘Routine Activities Theory
- Developed rational choice theory
- In most circumstances, social mechanisms, lack of opportunity and/or the risk of getting caught prevented crime from taking place
- Most crime was opportunistic rather than planned in advance
- If individuals motivated to commit crimes encountered easy opportunities to commit them in the routine activities of their daily lives then crime was more likely to occur
- Three conditions for crime to take place: Individuals were motivated to offend, the availability of opportunity and targets, and the lack of capable guardians such as parents or police who might prevent crime occurring
Wilson and Kelling - Broken Windows Theory
- Use the phrase ‘broken windows’ to stand for all the various signs of disorder and lack of concern for others that are found in some neighbourhoods
↳ includes undue noise, graffiti, begging, dog fouling, littering, vandalism etc - Leaving broken windows unrepaired, tolerating aggressive behaviour etc sends out a signal that no one cares
- In these neighbourhoods, there is an absence of both formal social control and informal social control (police/the community)
- The police are only concerned with serious crime and turn a blind eye to petty nuisance behaviour, while members of the community feel intimated and powerless
- Without remedial action, the situation deteriorates, tipping the neighbourhood into a spiral of decline
↳ respectable people move out and the area becomes a magnet for deviants
Charles Murray - Underclass
- Changes to family structure was responsible for much of the increase in the crime rate in the 1970s and 80s
- Largely attributes this to a growing underclass or ‘new rabble’ who are defined by their deviant behaviour and fail to socialise their children properly
↳ fail to learn self-control and also fail to learn the difference between right and wrong - Underclass increased due to increasing welfare dependency: increasingly generous welfare benefits since the 1960s have led to increasing numbers of people to become dependent on the state
↳ led to a decline of marriage and the growth of lone parent families, because women can now live off benefits rather than having to get married to have children
↳ means men no longer have to take responsibility for supporting their families so they no longer need to work - Lone mothers are ineffective agents of socialisation and absent fathers mean that boys lack paternal discipline and appropriate male role models
↳ as a result, young males turn to other, delinquent role models on the street to gain status through crime - Increasing crime is effectively a result of children growing up surrounded by delinquent, deviant criminal adults which creates a perfect criminogenic environment
- Underclasses very existence threatens society’s cohesion by undermining the values of hard work and personal responsibility
4
Q
Right Realism - Controlling Crime
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- Main techniques of crime control: situational crime prevention and environmental crime prevention
↳ both of which involve making it harder for criminals to commit crime and increasing the risk of getting caught committing crime, thus making crime a less attractive proportion to prospective criminals -
Situational Crime Prevention: involves protecting specific targets from potential criminals
↳ eg by putting window locks on windows or putting CCTV in a shop -
Environmental Crime Prevention: focuses on making whole neighbourhoods or larger areas more crime-resistant
↳ eg through putting more police on the streets or adopting a more ‘Zero Tolerance’ approach to minor crimes
5
Q
Situational Crime Prevention
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- Involves protecting specific targets from potential criminals: by putting window locks on window a or putting CCTV in a shop
- Focus on the specific point at which potential victims and criminals come together, making it harder for the criminal to commit crime
- Stem directly from Rational Choice Theory
- Aims to either reduce the opportunity for people to commit crime or increasing the risk of getting caught when committing a crime
- Basic ways to do this: increasing surveillance of the population (monitoring their behaviour and making them aware of the fact they are being monitored) and target hardening (making buildings, objects and people harder to steal/kidnap/damage)
- Governments find that these such policies appealing because they are relatively cheap and simple to implement
↳ can be carried out by a wide range of actors: formal social control agencies (government/police) but also local councils, schools, businesses and private individuals can make their property and possessions harder to burgle or steal relatively easily
Marcus Felson
- Port Authority bus terminal in NYC
- Reshaping the physical environment to ‘design out’ crime led to a large reduction in crime
↳ eg replacing the large sinks which homeless people used for washing reduced the numbers of homeless people handing around the bus station
6
Q
Evaluations of Situational Crime Prevention
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- The Port Authority Bus Terminal Building is an example where this worked successfully, although during the same time-period NYPD got 7000 extra officers
↳ nationwide crime drop 1990s were tough until 1994 when more jobs were created decline in availability of crack cocaine - attempted homicide was very high - Newburn: points to an obvious link between improved car security measures and reduced car crime
- Garland: situational crime prevention ignores factors such as inequality and deprivation as causes of crime
- Lyng: ignores the role of emotional and thrill as a cause of crime
- Only tackles opportunistic street crime: won’t work for other types of crime such as DV, white collar crime or state crime
- Leads to crime displacement: makes it move to another place or another time
↳ if criminals are acting rationally, they will simply move onto easier targets - Bauman: creates divided ‘Fortress Cities’ as the wealthy hide away behind gated communities living poorer people in the mean streets outside
7
Q
Environmental Crime Prevention
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- Involve changing the broader area/environment in which crime occurs through increasing formal and informal social control measures in order to clamp down on anti-social behaviour and prevent an area from deteriorating
- Stems directly from Broken Windows Theory
- Examples: zero tolerance policing, clean car programme, ASBOs, CBOs curfews, street drinking bans, dispersal orders and the 3 strikes in America
Zero Tolerance Policing
- Involves strictly enforcing penalties for relatively minor crimes or anti-social behaviour such as begging, drug possession, public drinking
- Famously used to crack down on rapidly increasing crime in NYC in the 1980s, which was suffering from a crime epidemic, linked to high levels of crack-cocaine use at that time
- ’Clean Car Programme’: in which tube cars were taken out of service immediately if they had any graffiti on them, only being returned once clean
- Other successful programmes were put in place to tackle fair dodging, drug dealing and begging; which resulted in a 50% reduction in crime in NYC in 1993-1996
- Slashed crime in Liverpool: overall recorded crime fell by 25.7% in the 3 years to 2008 with violent crime falling by 28%
- Twice a month hundreds of officers flooded the streets to hunt suspects who had jumped bail or those wanted for a particular kind of offence
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022
- A bill which aims to back the police by equipping them with powers/tools to keep themselves and society safe
↳ introduced tougher sentences for worst offences and end automatic halfway release from prison for serious crimes and improve the efficiency of the court and tribunal system by modernising existing court processes - Considered necessary to crack down on protections and disruption caused by them
- Controversial as its said to take away protesting rights and make it harder for protesters to protest especially outside Parliament
Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs)/Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs)
- ASBOs we’re introduced in 1998 to correct minor acts of deviance which would not ordinarily warrant criminal prosecution
- Anyone over the age of 10 could receive an ASBO and about half of them have been handed out to 10-17 year olds or ‘juveniles’
- ASBOs we’re often worn as a badge of honour, making little difference in deterring people away from crime
- 2014: ASBOs were replaced with CBOs which are designed to tackle high level anti-social behaviour rather than low level crimes
↳ aimed at tackling the most serious and persistent offenders where their behaviour has brought them before a criminal court
↳ includes prohibitions to stop the anti-social behaviour, and may also include requirements to address the underlying causes of the offenders behaviour
↳ Have harsher consequences for not following the conditions and focus on the positive things criminals need to do in rather than what they shouldn’t
↳ up to 2 years in a detention centre if you’re under 18 & up to 5 years in prison or an unlimited fine (or both) if you’re 18 and over
8
Q
Evaluations of Environmental Crime Prevention
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- Levitt and Dubner: dramatic crime drop (35-40%) due to locking up over a million more criminals, the among it the crack epidemic, more cops on the streets, legislation of abortion
- Zero Tolerance in NYC was very successful & ‘Clean Car Program’ greatly reduced amount of graffiti
↳ other policies in NYC resulted in fall in crime overall and 50% drop in homicide (1993-96)
↳ Levitt and Dubner: found this correlation was coincidental (above) - More expensive than situational crime prevention: it takes a lot of police to patrol an area and clamp down on anti-social behaviour
- Reiner: police would be better deployed focusing on more serious crime hot spots rather than clamping down on minor forms of anti-social behaviour
- Interactionist: giving more power to the police will just lead to more labelling and more criminal careers
9
Q
Left Realism
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- Tries to focus on finding practical ways of solving crime
- As a criticism of Marxism, Left Realists point that the victims of working class street crime are most likely to be the working class and it is these types of ‘ordinary crime’ that worry working class people
↳ should focus on dealing with these types of ‘ordinary crime’ rather than focusing on elite crime - Major causes of street crime: relative deprivation, marginalisation and subcultures
- Solutions to Crime: focus on social and community crime prevention and improving relations between the police and local communities
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Young: you have to be tough on crime, but this does not just mean being tough on criminals, it means being tough on trying to change the social factors which have long-term impact on crime rates and ensuring the CJS promotes social justice
↳ rising living standards and the development of welfare provisions have gone hand in hand with a higher crime rate
10
Q
Lea and Young - Relative Deprivation
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- Crime has its roots in deprivation, but deprivation itself is not directly responsible for crime
↳ living standards have risen since the 1950s, so the level of deprivation has fallen, but the crime rate is much higher today than it was in the 1950s - Draw on Runciman’s: how someone feels in relation to others, or compared with their own expectations
- Helps to explain the apparent paradox of increasing crime in the context of an increasing wealthy society
↳ although people are better off today, they have a greater feeling of relative deprivation because of the media and advertising have raised everyone’s expectations for material possessions
↳ we are wealthier but we feel poorer; there is more pressure to get more stuff to keep up with everyone else, which generates historically high crime rates
11
Q
Subcultures
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- Draw on Cohen’s theory of status frustration to explain how they emerge
- There are many different subcultural adaptions to blocked opportunities, and not all result in crime: but those subcultures which still subscribe to the mainstream values of material wealth but lack legitimate opportunities to achieve those goals
12
Q
Marginalisation
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- Where people lack the power or resources to fully participate in society
- Marginalised groups lack both clear goals and organisations to represent their interests
- Groups such as workers have clear goals (eg wanting better pay and conditions) and organisations to represent them (such as trades unions) and as such they have need to resort to violence to achieve their goals
- Unemployed youth are marginalised; they have no specific organisation to represent them and no clear sense of goals
↳ which result in feelings of resentment and frustration - Having no access to legitimate political means to pursue their goals, frustration can become expressed through violence
13
Q
Left Realism - Solutions to Crime
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- Emphasise social and community crime prevention strategies as solutions to crime
- Involves changing the social context which encourages offenders to commit crime
- Three broad approaches: intervention, community based approaches, improving policing
14
Q
Solutions to Crime - Intervention
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- Identifying groups at risk of committing crime and taking action to limit their offending
Example - Perry Pre-School Project
- Aimed at reducing criminality for disadvantaged black children
- More focused and intends to deal with the root causes of crime
- By age 40, they had had significantly fewer arrests for various types or crime and a higher percentage had graduated high school and made it into full-time employment
- Outcomes: earning higher wages, less criminals convictions, less in prison, higher educational attainment
15
Q
Solutions to crime - Community Based Approaches
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- Involving the local community in combating crime
