Critical Criminology Flashcards
What are the key readings?
Cockbain, Catello + Young
What are the key points from Cockbain?
Disadvantaged groups are often the target of far right ‘weaponisation’ p.4
The belief that ‘Asian/Muslim/Pakistani’ men groom white girl (form of sexual abuse)
The 4 main reasons: ‘media, politicians, the far Right and ‘special interest groups.
Often in reports (Quilliam’s for example) there are ‘obvious biases’ (p.10) and there is blame placed on the ‘‘regressive left’’ (p.40)
Often the use of racialised terminology from politicians and the media that often attempts to villainise Asian men
What are the key points from Catello?
Early critical criminology in the US was an ‘activism movement’ p.229
Docus on ‘radical politics, grassroots and social movements, and civil and human rights’ p.229
Berkeley school was criticised due to the attempt to ‘reconstruct the historical development of critical criminology p.230
Political struggles and cynicism p.230 towards the government post Vietnam war led to ‘developments in politics and civil society’ p.231
Critical crim of the 1970s was different from other criminology theories was how it addressed ‘the role of macro-social forces such as capitalism, racism, sexism and neo-colonialism as causes of crime and impediments to justice’ p.232 (Michalowski, 1996)
Platt (1974) believes that ‘historical research’ links to activism as we can find out the ‘strategies of resistance’ and relate them to the present day p.233
There is a ‘symbiotic relationship between activism and history’ p.241
What are the key points from Young?
The social and political context for radical criminology
The unflawed underdog’= ‘tendency to idealise oppressed groups’ and not see the anti-social behaviour’
‘Unwillingness to deal with positivism’
‘Unwillingness to deal with statistics’
‘Unwillingness to deal with reform’
Advantages of radical criminology
‘It is not politically constraint’ ( can see the ‘causality of crime’ + hold the admistration of justice accountable for endemic problems’ p.175
Introduction of ‘politics and morality into criminology’ p.175
The Emergence of Admistrative Criminology
Admistrative is are ‘relatively unimportant or politically impossible to tackle’ p.176
Admistrative crime is due to a ‘double failure of orthodox criminology’ p.176
What does critical thinking in crim do?
Take the perspective of the marginalised and promote inclusion and equality
What is the focus of critical thinking in criminology?
The harms caused by the CJS and state corporations
Such as laws and actions that lead to racial + gender discrimination + economic inequality
What are we encouraged to do in criminology?
To think of crime as something done by lower class people
High class are good at shielding crime
What are the harms in criminology?
Fraud, terrorism, human trafficking, human right abuses
What are the key criminological perspectives
Classical + positivist
What are the two views of the basis of social order?
Consensus view
Conflict view
What is the consensus view?
Society consists of groups who share communal norms & values
Laws are created to express these shared values
What is social order based on in the consensus view?
Based in widespread integration and stability
What is society characterised by in the consensus view?
Harmony
Integration
Stability
How does social change occur in the consensus view?
Slow and orderly via relevant social institutions
What is a criticism of social change in the consensus view?
There have been many crisis such as the 2008 bank crisis
What is the conflict view?
Society consists of groups with competing values & interests
Laws are created to further the interests of the dominant group
What is social order based on in the conflict view?
Based on coercion & control
What is society characterised by in the conflict view?
By conflict, struggle, & volatility
How does social change occur in the conflict view?
Rapidly & disorderly as subordinate groups overthrow dominant ones
What are criminologists critical of and by whom?
Domination, inequality, injustice + discrimination
The state, capitalism, patriarchy, CJS
What do critical criminologists believe in?
Social order is based on conflict between groups
Origins of deviant and criminal behaviour are found in unequal power dynamics and social inequalities that expose less powerful criminalisation + harm (labelling theory)
What is the conflict perspective?
Nature + purpose of legal and CJS
What does society consist of in the conflict perspective?
Groups of varying levels of power
Those who win the conflict get control of law & coercive power of state
What do laws focus on in the conflict perspective?
Behaviours of socio-economically disadvantaged
It benefits those in power so they maintain dominance
