Forms And Functions Flashcards
What is the relevance of place in forms and functions?
Different places have different laws and punishments for crime
- Iran: highest recorded execution rate since its highly used for a wide variety of crimes
- New Zealand: life imprisonment severest form of punishment since abolishment of dealth penalty
What is the relevance of time in forms and functions?
Patterns of law and punishment are constantly changing over time
Serious crimes punished with capital punishment from 16th to 19th centuries in UK
- last execution in 1964
What are the four inter-related aims of the Criminal Justice System (CJS)?
- Deterrence: fear of punishment prevents crime
- Public protection: prevent and catch offenders to stop infliction of harm
- Retribution: giving offenders what they deserve
- Rehabilitation: changing and aiding individuals into reformed characters
Who observed changing attitudes throughout the CJS?
Garland
- 19th century: mainly public protection and retribution - punishment upon the body
- 20th century: change to rehabilitation and reform (slow change to retribution since 1970s)
What change in focus occurred in the 21st century regarding punishment?
According to Newburn, retribution with a huge increase in imprisonment due to increase rhetoric in media and politicians cracking down
Doubling between 70s and 2014
What did Garland argue about penal welfarism in the 1950s?
The CJS tried to rehabilitate offenders for reintegration into society alongside catching and punishing offenders
What occured since the 1950s?
According to Garland, increase in individual freedom and weakening of social bonds making life uncertain and unpredictable
Public more worried about crime than ever (despite descreased crime rates) thus abandoning penal welfarism
What happened as a result of abandoning penal welfarism?
Primarily concerned with convincing the public that it’s taking a tough approach on crime
Does deterrence work?
Victim surveys note that most crime never gets reported
Crawford and Evans found emphasis on crime reduction now includes more prevention
What is the focus of the Criminal Justice System needed as recognized by recent studies?
The needs of the victim alongside punishing criminals
What sociological theories are key to understanding punishment?
- Functionalist perspective
- Conflict theories
- Left realism
- Foucault
According to Functionalism, what does punishment represent?
The collective conscience
How do more complex societies handle punishments compared to simpler societies?
Punishments are more lenient in complex societies
Greater diversity and interdependence
What did Durkheim suggest is the essence of punishment?
Expression of moral condemnation
What do conflict theorists emphasize about punishment?
Punishment as a form of class control
Rusche and Kirchheimer shows how historically labour market dynamics influence methods of punishment in a society
What’s an example of Rusche and Kirchheimer’s point?
Harsh physical punishments were replaced by work related punishments as capitalism needs an able bodied worker
Punishments for working classes evolved to be harsh because of their alienation and lack of commitment to the law
What evidence supports the Marxist view regarding the prison population?
The marginalized are disproportionately represented in jail
48% of all prisoners are at, or below, the level expected of an 11 year old in reading, 82% in writing
What do left realists advocate to address crime?
The practice of restorative justice
offender actively does something to make up for the harm done from their crime
What are some measures involved in restorative justice?
- Reparation (paying back)
- Mediation (offender meeting victim)
- Reintegrative ‘shaming’
What percentage of victims benefit from meeting their offender, according to Home Office research?
80%
What do symbolic interactionists say about forms and functions?
Goffman argues places like prisons and concentration camps function as ‘total insitutions’
Places closed off to the outside world with inmates under complete control of institution
What is the process of ‘mortification of the self’ in total institutions?
Inmates undergo degrading treatments to remove individual identity
Behaviour constantly observed, assessed and sometimes sanctioned
Treatment marks separation between inmates former selves and institutional selves
What does Foucault argue about surveillance in society?
Power is exerted everywhere as individuals are constantly watched = restrained behaviour
Known as surveillance society
Prisoners subjected to ‘technologies of surveillance’ rather than torture and death
What is the Panopticon according to Foucault?
An ideal prison system designed to make prisoners feel constantly surveilled
= limiting prisoners behaviour and preventing uprising/escapes
