criminal justice system, prevention and punishment

Question 1

Crown Prosecution Service

Answer 1

give guidance on sentencing and charging ​

Question 2

His Majesty’s Court Service

Answer 2

give verdict and sentencing​

Question 3

His Majesty’s Prison Service

Answer 3

hold people for custodial sentence​

Question 4

National Probation Service

Answer 4

helps ex-prisoners re-integrate back into society​

Question 5

Police

Answer 5

arrest, charge, gather evidence ​

Question 6

NACRO

Answer 6

a crime reduction charity that helps ex-offenders and tries to prevent young people from getting into crime.​

Question 7

Victim Support

Answer 7

A charity that gives free, confidential help to victims of crime, witnesses, their family, friends and anyone else affected across England and Wales. They also campaign for the protection of victims and witnesses. ​

Question 8

Legal Services Commission (LSC)

Answer 8

runs the legal aid scheme for people who need legal representation, but can’t afford it. ​

Question 9

Youth Justice Board

Answer 9

oversees justice and offending in relation to those under the age of 18.​

Question 10

functionalism view on cjs

Answer 10

FUNCTIONALISM​

Key thinker: Durkheim​

The law and CJS reflects value consensus ​

The law and its enforcement reinforces the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. ​

Question 11

trad marxism view on cjs

Answer 11

Key thinker: Chambliss –​

Serves the interest of the r/c ​

Selective. Only the working class are criminalised​

Ideological role, via laws which seem to protect ordinary people (e.g. H&S legislation) leading to a false consciousness

Question 12

femenism view on cjs

Answer 12

Key thinker: Smart -​

Smart CJS is biased against women because they are seen as ‘doubly deviant’. ​

Pollak​

Pollak – chivalry thesis, CJS is lenient​

HOWEVER,​

‘Liberation thesis’ = more women in CJS so less patriarchal.​

Question 13

labelling theory on cjs

Answer 13

Key thinker: Cicourel -​

Courts and probation services reinforced the police bias and justice is negotiated.​

Key thinker: Becker -​

The CJS moral entrepreneurs.​

CJS labels people then this can become a ‘master status’ and lead to deviant career.​

Question 14

formal social control

Answer 14

legislature: houses of parliament make laws which constrain our behaviour and give power to the CJS to punish those who do not follow them.​

​Police: formal powers to arrest and charge criminals​

Prisons: keep criminals in custody​

Army: an organisation with formal power to control members of society​

Courts: have legal power to make decisions about how to control criminal behaviour​

Question 15

informal social control

Answer 15

religion: religious teachings often include a set of rules e.g. 10 commandments in Christianity, that control behaviour. ​

Media: shares the dominant ideology promoting value consensus and discouraging rule breaking​

Friends and family/socialisation: learning and reinforcing of norms and values throughout our lives​

Education: reinforcing values through secondary socialisation​

Community groups/neighbourhood watch: keeping local people in line and following the rules​

Question 16

What prevents people from committing crime and deviance according to Durkheim?​

Answer 16

Value consensus, boundary maintenance, shared values through socialisation ​

Question 17

Hirschi’s social bonds theory puts forward a similar argument. What does Hirschi says prevents most people from committing crime?​

Answer 17

Social bonds of belief, attachment, involvement, commitment. To prevent crime, we need to give people a sense of belonging in society and shared beliefs. ​

Question 18

If Durkheim and Hirschi are correct, what should social policies focus on in order to keep crime and deviance to a minimum?​

Answer 18

social clubs, community centres, British Values, improve employment rates, educational intervention ​

Question 19

postmodern view

Answer 19

Postmodernists have also written about crime control and prevention in contemporary society.​
They argue that the fragmentation of society has been reflected in a similar fragmentation of formally organised crime prevention. A growing emphasis is placed on private crime prevention and informal localised arrangements for controlling crime. E.g.​
Increasing use of informal control agencies like private security firms controlling public spaces such as shopping centres.​
Use of surveillance techniques to control everyone not just offenders. This is supported by Foucault who pointed out how surveillance is penetrating more and more into private aspects of our lives.​
Increased control of entry to particular streets and housing communities – ‘gated communities’.​

Question 20

foucault on surveillance

Answer 20

argues that the nature of social control (which he calls ‘discipline’) has changed from public punishments to the body to more subtle types of punishment. He used the analogy of a ‘panopticon’ (meaning ‘all-seeing place’) which was a prison design allowing guards to watch prisoners in their own cells at all times, without the guards being seen

Question 21

Deterrence as a form of punishment

Answer 21

punishing individuals deters them from reoffending and serves as a deterrent to others in society

Question 22

Rehabilitation as a form of punishment

Answer 22

punishment can be used to reform and change offender behaviour and attitudes

Question 23

Incapacitation as a form of punishment

Answer 23

punishment is used to remove the offender’s ability to offend again

Question 24

retribution as a form of punishment

Answer 24

This means ‘paying back’ society. It justifies punishing crimes that have been committed rather than preventing future crimes. It is based on the idea that offenders deserve to punished for breaking moral codes of society, therefore society is entitled to take their revenge

Question 25

functionalist view on punishment

Answer 25

Durkheim, the functionalist, argued that punishment is a very important part of maintaining boundaries in society. Therefore, punishment should be visible, to remind members of society what happens if those boundaries are crossed. This also increases social solidarity and gives people an opportunity, when a crime occurs, to express their views on the crime and share these, thus reinforcing social solidarity. Durkheim thought that a little crime in society therefore played a positive role in reinforcing social solidarity and maintaining value consensus. Durkheim argued that in modern society, the function of punishment nowadays is to be restitutive: to maintain the social solidarity of society and reinforce shared values. In the past the function of punishment was to be retributive. This is because in modern society, there is extensive specialisation and this means that social solidarity is based on interdependence between individuals.

Question 26

marxist view on punishment

Answer 26

Marxists are critical of punishments used by the CJS, as they believe that the function of punishment is to maintain the existing social order, which is corrupt and unfair. As part of the repressive state apparatus punishments are used to protect ruling class property and values from the lower classes. For example, 18th century punishments such as hangings were part of a ‘rule of terror’ by the land owning aristocracy. Imprisonment reflects capitalist values
*Capitalism puts a price on the worker’s time, prisoners ‘do time’ to ‘pay’ for their crimes.

*The prison and the capitalist factory have similar structures, with both enforcing strict disciplinary styles, subordination and a loss of liberty and power.

*Rusche and Kirchheimer see punishments as part of the system of social control and class domination in unequal societies: they see changing forms of punishment over time, ranging from public spectacles of physical cruelty, to exile/hard labour, to the contemporary use of prisoners as cheap labour in prisons, arising from the changing economic interests of the dominant class.

*I.e. the scale of brutality of punishments seems to rise when economies are strong/labour plentiful, and declines when there’s a labour shortage so that prisoners can concentrate on/be fit for hard labour.

Question 27

right realest/ new right view on punishment

Answer 27

Right realists argue that one of the reasons crime increased in the latter half of the 20th century was that punishment and particularly prison was regarded by criminals as too soft: it was no longer a deterrent. Therefore New Right sociologists like Van Der Haag argue that the CJS needs to be harsher (more punitive and retributive) in terms of both the length of prison sentences and the actual experience of imprisonment. He recommends a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ approach, where offenders are jailed for life after three offences, no matter how trivial those offences are. He also recommended that parents who could not control their children should be sent to prison. The best examples of this sort of approach are to be found in the USA – many US states have capital punishment and prisoners have to do ‘hard labour’, e.g. breaking rocks or working in the fields as part of their prison programme. This retributive approach is based on the approach that ‘prison works’ because fear of it increases the cost of crime in terms of losing one’s freedom (rational choice theory – Clarke). It is also suggested that prison works because it takes criminals off the streets.

Question 28

left realest views on punishment

Answer 28

Left realists, differ and argue that punishment is also connected with rehabilitation and reducing the risk of the person reoffending through tackling the causes for them offending in the first place, usually material and cultural deprivation. This means for example, re-educating offenders, working with them to ensure that they find a place within the community once they have come out of prison to avoid them ending up reoffending, reducing their sense of marginalisation and social exclusion. Left realist approaches to punishment include alternatives to incarceration such as community service orders.

Question 29

labelling theory on punishment

Answer 29

Cohen argues that the growth of community controls has cast a ‘net of control’ over more people.

He therefore agrees with Foucault that social control has spread through society to more agencies of social control than in the past.

But in many cases the community controls frequently fast track young people into the criminal justice system. For examples, ASBOs used by the police have not diverted young people away from the criminal justice system, but have actually increased their chances of entering custodial (prison) sentences.

Question 30

Mathews on punishment not being fair and effective

Answer 30

Matthews notes that prisons often act as ‘universities of crime’, educating prisoners about more serious crime.

Question 31

garlands view on punishment not being fair and effective

Answer 31

Garland argues that we are living in a time of ‘mass incarceration’ of particular social groups e.g. young black men. Yet prison isn’t particularly effective rehabilitation because 2/3 of prisoners reoffend. Garland believes that governments nowadays are more concerned with ‘managing’ crime than preventing it.