Prevention, policing and punishment Flashcards
Criminal Justice System
Covers England and Wales one of the major public services in this country. CJS includes agencies police, The court, court prosecution services, prisons, probation providers
The purpose of the CJS is to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, while protecting the innocent.
It is responsible for detecting crime and bringing it to
justice; and carrying out the orders of court, such as
collecting fines, and supervising community and
custodial punishment.
Ministry of justice
*Oversees the magistrates’ courts, the Crown Court, the Appeals Courts, the Legal Services Commission and the National Offender Management Service (including prisons and probation)
*The Ministry of Justice manages the justice process from end to end - from the moment a suspect has been charged, through the courts, to prison and probation if necessary.
*The ministry is responsible for criminal law and sentencing policy, for legal dia. reducing re-offending and for prisons and probation.
home office
Oversees the police.
*The Home Office protects the public from terror, crime and anti-social behaviour. It helps build the security, justice and respect that enable people to prosper in a free and tolerant society:
*The department is responsible for crime and crime reduction, policing, security and counter-terrorism.
Attorney General‘s office
oversees the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office and the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office.
*The Attorney General, assisted by the Solicitor General, is the chieflegal adviserto the Government. They are responsible for ensuring the rule of law is upheld.
* The Attorney General also has certain public interest functions, for example, in taking actionto appeal unduly lenient sentences, and bringing proceedings under the Contempt of Court Act.
what are the Criminal Justice System four key goals:
Protect the public – The Police
Deterrence- criminal penalties do not just punish violators, but also discourage other people from committing similar offenses
Retribution- If an individual has committed a wrongful act that justifies punishment,
Rehabilitation- Restoring the offender’s social or moral standing in society or his social or moral relations with others.
Effectiveness of the Criminal Justice System
Arguments FOR Effectiveness:
- Deterrence: Strict sentencing can discourage criminal behavior (Three Strikes Law in the U.S.).
-Rehabilitation Programs: Education and therapy in prisons help some offenders reintegrate successfully
-Public Protection: Prisons keep dangerous criminals away from society, reducing immediate threats.
Arguments AGAINST Effectiveness:
-High Reoffending Rates in UK 50% of ex-prisoners reoffend within a year.
-Overcrowded Prisons: Leads to poor living conditions and limited rehabilitation resources.
- Inequality in Justice: Racial and socio-economic disparities exist
Labelling theory control and prevent crime
-CJS needs to stop the negatively labelling and alienating powerless groups.
-CJS based on retributive justice punishing offenders like labelling them and perhaps removing them from society altogether
-However, Braithwaite- societies can have lower crime rates if they communicate shame about crime effectively.
-Cause of crime labelling people as criminals more difficult to integrate back into society and increases the potential for reoffending.
- Solution train those in the CJS to treat everyone equally no discriminatory labelling processes like racial profiling in police stop and search’ activities.
-Monitor sentencing ensure gender, class and ethnic bias is minimised.
-Reform the CJS and introduce restorative forms of justice.
Marxist ideas to control crime
-Cause of crime: inequality, poverty, criminogenic culture.
-Solution: politicians need to make structural adjustments like:
-reducing poverty, unemployment and homelessness & inequalities in income and wealth
-improve quality of life in inner-city areas via greater investment in housing, education and jobs
-transforming capitalism from economic system to more compassionate and community-minded economic system to reduce its criminogenic potential.
-promote building communities, providing facilities and strengthening social bonds.
Restorative Justice
-Low level criminals have been moved away from formal sanctions and the CJS
-Particularly true of youth Justice
-Emphasis now is on restorative justice bring victims and criminals together in order to help repair damage
-More effective criminal are Pubically names and shames
Postmodernsists and CJS
-CJS becoming more detached from central control
-Localised arrangements are more common for dealing with crime
-This reflects different lifestyles and needs
-Shari courts based on Islamic laws common among muslim community to deal with disputes
-Increase in private security companies to control crime
Left-realist ideas to control crime
-Cause of crime: relative deprivation and marginalisation.
-Solution- eradication of institutional racism that exists in CJS and particularly the police’s use of racial profiling in ‘stop and search’.
-Government investment in inner-city schools to increase the number of school leavers with qualifications.
-Implementation of legislation to raise minimum pay to a ‘living wage’ to avoid dependency on benefits and to reduce inequalities in wealth and income.
-Businesses should be encouraged to invest in poorer urban communities and to create jobs.
Evaluating left solutions to crime
+ It is not clear how a caring, compassionate capitalism can be brought about.
-Left Realists agree with Right Realists that communities and the police need to work together more effectively to combat crime.
Righ-realist ideas control crime
-During the 1980’s and 1990’s British policing was based around situational crime policies
-There was a sociological move from left realist theories (based on causes of crime social inequality) to right realist theories (based on consequences of crime harsher punishments/reducing public fear)
-We now have a culture of control
-Responsibility for preventing crime was passed onto the public from the police
Right Realists
Charles Murray
Cornish and Clarke
Charles Murray– Causes of crime: work shy and immoral underclass who are too reliant on the
benefit system. Solution: reduce benefits, introduce
penalties forcing people to look for jobs
Cornish and Clarke- The benefits of committing a crime outweighs the costs of being caught. Solution: Situational Crime Prevention, Target hardening, Greater surveillance, Environmental management
Situational crime prevention
Ron Clarke (1992)
Describes situational crime prevention reducing opportunities for crime. He identifies three features of measures aimed at situational crime prevention:
-They are directed at specific crimes.
-They involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime.
-They aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the rewards.
Example- ‘target hardening’ locking doors and windows increase the effort a burglar needs to make, while increased surveillance in shops CCTV or security guards increases the likelihood of shoplifters being caught.
Displacement oppose situational crime
Chaiken et a
Do not reduce crime; they simply displace it. If criminals acting rationally will respond to target hardening by moving to where targets are softer.
Chaiken et al found that a crackdown on subway robberies in New York merely displaced them to the streets above.
Displacement can take several forms:
-Spatial – moving elsewhere to commit the crime.
-Temporal – committing it at a different time.
-Target – choosing a different victim.
-Tactical – using a different method.
-Functional – committing a different type of crime.
Evaluation of situational crime prevention measures
-It tends to focus on opportunistic and petty street crime. Ignores white collar, corporate and state crime, which are more serious and harmful.
-It assumes criminals make rational calculations. This may not apply in many crimes of violence, and crimes committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
-It ignores the root causes of crime, such as poverty or poor socialisation. This makes it difficult to develop long-term strategies for crime reduction.
Environmental crime prevention
Wilson and Kelling ‘broken windows’
Wilson and Kelling use the phrase ‘broken windows’ signs of disorder and lack of concern in a neighbourhoods. They argue that leaving broken windows unrepaired, tolerating aggressive begging, sends out a signal that no one cares.
-Absence of both formal social control (the police) and informal control (the community). Area becomes a magnet for deviants.
-Solution to crack down on any disorder. Broken windows repaired immediately, abandoned cars towed without delay. Any sign of deterioration must be dealt with.
-Secondly, police must adopt a zero tolerance policing strategy. Must tackle even the slightest sign of disorder, even if it is not criminal. This will halt neighbourhood decline and prevent serious crime taking root.
The evidence support Zero tolerance policing
Other side of argument
Support- Crackdown on ‘squeegee merchants’ (those that many had found intimidating) led to their disappearance. There was a significant fall in crime in the city during the 1990s:
-The homicide rate fell by 50%, from 1,927 to 673.
However, it is not clear how far zero tolerance was the cause of the improvements:
-The NYPD benefited from 7,000 extra officers.
-Decline in the crime rate in major US cities at the time including ones where police did not adopt a zero tolerance policy.
-Early 1900 low employment 1994 high unemployment many new jobs were being created.
Newburn (2007)- why do we punish criminals
examples types of Punishment
-Discourage from re offending (rehabilitation) or deter other people from re-offending (deterrence)
-Make amends to victims (reparation/restorative justice)
-Protect society from dangerous individuals (incapacitation) Reinforce social values
-Punish them because they deserve to be punished (retribution)
Public hanging/hung drawn and quartered common in UK from middle ages. Still found in some Muslim countries. Death penalty legal in 58 countries
In the UK today we have less brutal punishments:
Imprisonment, Parole, Probation, Restorative Justice etc
Does the Prison System prevent crime?
-Doesn’t work very well as a crime prevention measure like prison although should be the ultimate punishment deterrent
-When in England and Wales were in the EU they had the highest imprisonment rate it is expected to rise
to 86,400 by the end of this year.
-More people in prison doesn’t reduce crime
-About 65% of former prisoners released in 2004 were reconvicted within two years of being released, and
for young men (18—20) it was 76%
Foucault- postmodernist
-In the past public physical punishments reflected sovereign power
-As the power of the sovereign declined, state power increased (called disciplinary power).
-Criminals were controlled and disciplined by surveillance.
-There was a move from punishments involving pain to less brutal forms of punishment
-Change from sovereign power to disciplinary power through surveillance is illustrated through panopticon – a prison design where prisoners were fully visible to the guards but they couldn’t see them or each other
-This led to criminals exercising self surveillance and control because they never knew when they were being watched
Rusche and Kirchheimer- Marxism
- Punishments are a source of social control and class domination in an unequal society
-They have changed over time to reflect the interests of the dominant class
-When labour was plentiful, brutality rose, when there was a shortage of labour brutality declined
Sociological approaches to punishment
Functionalist Approach (Durkheim) – CJS acts in the interests of society. Punishments lead to social solidarity and cohesion. People come together to condemn the criminal
Marxist Approach (Althusser/Rusche and Kirchheimer) – punishment is part of the repressive state apparatus for upholding the interests of the ruling class
Weberian Approach – Modern society has undergone a process of rationalisation based around laws/ rules/ regulations. The CJS is a large bureaucratic hierarchy which deals with offenders impersonally and
deciding upon punishments to be given
