punishment and victims

Question 1

reduction and retribution

Answer 1

deterrence - punishing the individual discourages them from future offending. making an example of them may also serve as a deterrent to the public at large - thatcher’s government’s short, sharp shock regime in young offenders institutions in the 1980s

rehabilitation - punishment can be used to reform or change the offenders so they no longer offend. providing education and training for prisoners so they are able to earn a living on release, anger management courses

incapacitation - punishment is used to remove offenders capacity to reoffend. imprisonment, execution

retribution - offenders deserve to be punished and that society is entitled to take its revenge in the offender for having breached moral code

Question 2

durkheim

Answer 2

the function of punishment is to uphold social solidarity

retributive justice - paying back to society. traditional society has a huge collective conscious and so punishment is vengeful and cruel and its motivation is expressive of their collective views.

restitutive justice - restoring things to how they were before the offence. modern society is interdependent on individuals, crime damaged this relationship and so there needs to be some restoration of this relationship, this is done through things like compensation.

Question 3

marxism

Answer 3

the function of punishment is to maintain existing social order as part of the repressive state apparatus - transporting criminals to colonies in the 18th century

the form of punishment reflects the economic base of society. rusche and kirchheimer - each type of economy has its own corresponding penal system. money fines are impossible without a money economy

melossi and parvani - see imprisonment as reflecting capitalist relations of production:
- capitalism puts a price on worker’s time, so prisoners do time to pay for their crime
- the prison and capitalist factory both have a similar strict disciplinary style, involving subordination and loss of liberty

Question 4

the changing roles of prisons

Answer 4

since the enlightenment, prison has begun to be seen as a form of punishment itself, where offenders are reformed through hard labour, religious instruction and hard labour

imprisonment may not be an effective method of rehabilitation because 2/3 of prisoners commit further crime on release

prison populations in england has increased since politicians are calling for tougher sentences. new labour government took the view that prison should be used for petty crime as well as serious crime

Question 5

the era of mass incarceration

Answer 5

garland - in the usa, there are 1.4 million state and federal offenders and 750,000 in local prisons, 3 times more than europe

the impact of high rates of incarceration is that it becomes systematic imprisonment of whole groups - black people make up 33% of the prison population

downes - the ideological function of prisons is to make capitalism look more successful - prisons soak up 30 - 40% of the unemployed

penal welfarism - the idea that punishment should reintegrate offenders into society

Question 6

transcarceration

Answer 6

the idea that individuals become locked into a cycle of control, shifting between different carceral agencies during their lives

transcarceration can be seen as a product of the blurring of boundaries between the criminal justice system and welfare agencies . health, housing and social services are increasingly being given a crime control role, and they often engage in multi agency working with the police, sharing data on the same individuals

Question 7

alternatives to prison

Answer 7

community based controls such as probation, curfews and community service are used as alternatives to prison

cohen - argues that this has cast a net of control over people, since the range of sanctions simply enables control to penetrate deeper into society

Question 8

victims of crime

Answer 8

christie - ‘victim’ is socially constructed. the stereotype of the ideal victim is favoured by the media, public and criminal justice system - a weak, innocent and blameless individual, such as an old woman or child

it is important to study victims because they provide much of the evidence used in the detection of offenders and act as a witness at trials

Question 9

positivist victimology

Answer 9

miers - identifies positivist victimisation as having 3 features:
- it aims to identify factors that produce patterns of victimisation, especially those that make some individuals/ groups more likely to be victims
- focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence
- aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation

earliest positivist studies focused on the idea of victim proneness and sought to identify the social and psychological characteristics of victims that make them more vulnerable than non victims

von hentig - identified 13 characteristics of victims such as they’re likely to be female, elderly or mentally subnormal - invites victimisation

wolfgang - studied 588 homicides in pennyslvania and found that 26% involved victim precipitation - victim triggered events such as being the first to use violence

Question 10

evaluation of positivist victimology

Answer 10

brookman - wolfgang shows the importance of the victim offender relationship, but in many homicides, it is a matter of chance which partly becomes the victim

identifies certain patterns of interpersonal victimisation, but ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation such as poverty and the patriarchy

can easily tip over into victim blaming. amir’s claim that 1 in 5 rapes are victim precipitated is not very different from saying that victims asked for it

ignores situations where victims are unaware of their victimisation - crimes against the environment

Question 11

critical victimology

Answer 11

based on conflict theory. focuses on two elements:
- structural factors such as the patriarchy and poverty, which place powerless groups such as women at greater risk of victimisation. mawby and walklate - victimisation is a form of structural powerlessness
- the states power to apply or deny the label of victim - social construct. through the criminal justice process, the state applies the label of victim to some but withholds it from others. when the police decide whether or not to press chances against a man for assaulting a women

tombs and whyte - safety crimes are often explained as a fault of accident prone workers. the ideological function of this failure to label conceals the true extent of victimisation - hides crimes of the powerful

Question 12

evaluation of critical victimology

Answer 12

disregards the role victim may play in bringing victimisation on themselves such as not making their home secure

valuable in drawing attention to the way that victim status is constructed by power and how this benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless

Question 13

patterns of victimisation:

class

Answer 13

the poorest groups are more likely to be victimised. crime rates are typically highest in areas of high unemployment and deprivation

newburn and rock - out of a survey of 300 homeless people, they were 12 times more likely to have experienced violence compared to the general population

Question 14

patterns of victimisation:

age

Answer 14

younger people are more at risk of victimisation. those most at risk of being murdered are infants under one, while teenagers are more vulnerable than adults to sexual harassment and assault.

the old are also at risk of abuse in care homes

Question 15

patterns of victimisation:

ethnicity

Answer 15

minority ethnic groups are at greater risk than white people in general, as well as racially motivated crimes

more likely to report feeling under protected, yet over controlled

Question 16

patterns of victimisation:

gender

Answer 16

males are at greater risk than females of becoming victims of violent attacks, especially by strangers

70% of homicide victims are male

women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, stalking and harassment

Question 17

patterns of victimisation:

repeat victimisation

Answer 17

if you have been a victim once, you’re more likely to be one again

british crime survey - 60% of the population have not been victims in a given year whereas a mere 4% of the population are victims of 44% of all crimes in that period

Question 18

the impact of victimisation

Answer 18

crimes may have serious physical and emotional impacts on its victims such as disrupted sleep, feelings of helplessness, and increased security consciousness

crimes may also create indirect victims, such as friends, relatives and witnesses to the crime. pynoos found that child witnesses of a sniper attack continued to have grief related dreams after a year of the event

hate crimes against minorities may create waves of harm that radiate out to affect others. theses are message crimes aimed at intimidating whole communities, not just the primary victim

secondary victimisation - individuals may suffer further victimisation at the hands of the criminal justice system. feminists argue that rape victims are often so poorly treated by the police and courts, it amounts to a double violation

fear of victimisation - crime may create fear of becoming a victim. some sociologists argue that some surveys show this fear to be often irrational. women are more afraid of going out for fear of attack, yet it is young men who are main victims of violence from strangers