Forms and Functions Flashcards
Examples of punishment and crime throughout time and place…
Iran has the highest recorded execution rate across the globe; they are given for crimes below armed robbery, treason, espionage, murder, certain military offences, drug trafficking, rape, paedophilia, homosexuality, sodomy, sexual misconduct, incestuous relations, fornication, prostitution,plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime, political dissidence, sabotage, apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, producing and publishing pornography, burglary, reoccurring consumption of alcohol, reoccurring theft, rebellion, some economic crimes, kidnapping, terrorism and few others.
Life imprisonment is the severest form of punishment in New Zealand since the abolition of the death penalty in 1989. It is the mandatory sentence for treason, the presumptive sentence for murder, and an optional sentence for terrorism, manslaughter and certain drug-related offences. – New Zealand are actually shutting down prisons due to the lack of people in them.
Serious crimes were punished with capital punishment throughout the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Capital punishment was carried out in public until 1868. After 1868 it was still used, but was done away from public view. The most common method of execution was by hanging.
In the UK the last execution was in 1964.
These patterns are still changing and will always change.
The Criminal Justice System (CJS) forms and functions…
Concerned with 4 inter-related aims:
Deterrence - Being so afraid of committing crime they are just completely deterred from it
Public protection - the primary role, prevent and catch offenders and stop individuals causing harm
Retribution - making sure they get what they deserve for their wrong doings
Rehabilitation - changing and aiding individuals into reformed characters
Changing attitudes…
Garland (2001):
In the 19th century – public protection and retributive justice were key. Punishment upon the body.
In the 20th century - we saw a change to rehabilitation and reform. However since the 1970’s we have seen a change back to retribution.
21st century- Retribution – Newburn 2007 – we have seen a huge increase in imprisonment with the number doubling between the 70s to 2014 (increased rhetoric in media and politicians on cracking down).
David Garland…
He argues that in the 1950s the state practised ‘penal welfarism’ – in which the criminal justice system did not just try to catch and punish offenders, but also tried to rehabilitate them, so that they could be reintegrated into society.
However, since the 1950s individual freedoms have increased, while social bonds have weakened, life is more uncertain and less predictable, and (despite the fact that crime is now decreasing) the public are more worried about crime than ever.
As a result, the state has now abandoned ‘penal welfarism’, it is much less concerned with rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners, it’s primary concern is now convincing the public that it is taking a tough approach on crime and reassuring communities that something is being done about crime.
Does deterrent work?…
In the 21st century this idea of deterrent is under critique.
Victim surveys note that most crime never gets reported and Crawford and Evans found the emphasis on crime reduction has been changing to include more prevention rather than prosecution. There has been a growing recognition that the CJS needs to focus on the needs of the victim as well as punishing the criminals more heavily.
Functionalism…
Punishment represents that collective conscience is a really important element in creating a form of social cohesion.
In more simple societies and those that have a less developed form of social cohesion, are more likely to present their crimes and forms of punishment as a spectacle.
In more complex societies there is greater diversity and interdependence which means that punishments for violations of the collective conscience will be more lenient. For Durkheim, the essence of punishment is the expression of moral condemnation.
Conflict perspectives…
Marx never really spoke about control but conflict theorists emphasise punishment as a form of class control.
Rusche and Kirchheimer (1968 [1939]) show how historically labour market dynamics influence methods of punishment in a society. For example, harsh physical punishments (e.g. whipping) were replaced by work related labour punishments as capitalism needed the able bodied worker. Further, they suggest that punishment for the working-classes evolved to be harsh because of their alienation and lack of commitment to the law.
Support for conflict perspectives…
Focusing on the UK, the prison population has doubled since 1993 from approximately 40000 to nearly 90 000 today.
There is evidence to support the Marxist view that it is mainly the marginalised who end up in jail.
10% of men and 30% of women have had a previous psychiatric admission to hospital before they come into prison.
48% of all prisoners are at, or below, the level expected of an 11 year old in reading, 65% in numeracy and 82% in writing.
71% of children in custody have been involved with, or in the care of, social services before entering custody.
Left realists…
They believe it needs to be combined with the practice of restorative justice which involves the offender actively doing something to make up for the harm done as a result of their crime. This may involve measures such as reparation, (paying back) mediation, (offender meeting victim) reintegrative ‘shaming’, (facing offenders with the consequences of their actions and family conferencing which seeks to bring offender, victim and members of the community into some form of dialogue and ‘healing’ process.
All this is very unlike the anonymous processing and exclusionist shaming of the courts and prison sentences.
The healing process…
Home office research suggests meeting the offender benefits 80% of victims who choose to participate. For some victims it is about forgiveness – letting go of anger in order to move on with their lives. But for many, meeting the offender is about confronting them with the real impact of their crime, asking the questions that never get answered in court.
Right Realists would claim that locking more people up is a causal factor in the crime rate going down over the last two decades, this claim is challenged.
Symbolic interactionists…
Erving Goffman (1961) argued that places such as mental asylums, concentration camps and prisons function as ‘total institutions’ – places which are closed off to the outside world and where inmates’ lives come under the complete control of the institution.
Goffman…
According to Goffman, becoming an inmate in a total institution involves a process of “mortification of the self” – inmates are subjected to degrading and humiliating treatments designed to remove any trace of individual identity. For instance, personal clothing and items are confiscated, inmates are strip searched, their heads are shaved, and they are issued an ID number.
The point of such treatment is to mark a clear separation between the inmates’ former selves and their institutional selves. Inmates are constantly under surveillance and they have no privacy. Minute behaviour is observed and assessed, and if necessary, sanctioned.
Foucault (postmodernist)…
Surveillance society- this concept is a university level concept. Foucault argues that in society power is exerted from everywhere, as we are constantly being watched and therefore our behaviour is being restrained.
The state has expanded its control over its citizens in more subtle ways and ‘invades’ our private lives much more than at it ever used to. This is especially true when you look at the way criminals are treated today. While prisoners are unlikely to be subjected to torture or death they are subjected to an ever increasing array of what Foucault calls ‘technologies of surveillance’.
He first came up with the ideal prison system called the panopticon, the point of the panopticon is to make the prisoners feel like they are under surveillance 100% of the time, therefore limiting the prisoners behaviour and preventing uprising etc.
