Quiz 2 Flashcards
Classicism
Reason
Study of human behavior and rational choice/hedonism
Focus on the individual and study of their free will – focus of punishment is on the individual’s free will.
Most free will.
Beccaria - Classicism
Deterrence: Emphasis on rationality and utilitarianism. Individuals have free will and people choose to engage in crime. In order to prevent crime, we must deter and divert people away from crime. We punish simply for deterrence to punish the original offender and keep the rest of people away from crime.
Individualization of sentencing: We must find out what motivates the offender and he must be punished accordingly.
Prevention: We must punish crime to prevent future crime. Provide consequences to persuade people to avoid crime. Punish a few people to protect all of society (utility).
Bentham - Classicism
Deterrence: Utilitarianism – greatest good for the greatest number.
Theory of fictions – Signs for security systems. How do we know we are being recorded or the systems are live? We assume and it deters people.
We do not need constant surveillance to change behavior, or need a police officer directly in front of you.
Neo-Classical Theory (Us, right now?)
- Econometrics: view behavior as the result of choices. Weighing the costs and benefits when making a decision. Crime was committed because man made a rational choice between benefits and what he stood to lose.
- Deterrence
- Harsher sentences: Overcompensate with harsher laws and zero tolerance policies – mandatory minimums and three strikes laws. In a system where everyone views the system as weak and ineffective, harsher sentences will deter and scare some people to make people change their conduct.
Consensus and Conflict Theories
- Moral panic – people use as a rallying point for power and control. Are you with us? Moral entrepreneurs.
- Punishment as unifying force
•Punishment by powerful over powerless
Consensus vs. Conflict – with us or against us
Just Deserts (Us right now?) Contemporary Classical Theory
- Retribution – deserved punishment - you do the crime, you do the time. Our intention isn’t about what happens after, there is no future focus. We need to be harsh right now.
- No future focus
The iron law of corrections is 98% of all people currently involved in corrections will come back. We must punish those who violate as harshly as possible.
Positivism
• Role of science
• Human behavior is a product of social, biological, psychological, and economic factors.
Darwin – survival of the fittest.
Challenge to classical thinking
• Criminal anthropology – brought study of crime into the field
Assumptions of positivism were used/exploited to defend punitive and lethal control over particular groups. (Colonization in America.) (Also used during the holocaust) (Kosovo, Rwanda)
Lombroso - Positivism
Field research to study the physical attributes of criminals. Criminals have different genetic make up than most people.
Born criminals
Atavism – Some people were born a throwback to an older, more primitive person, which are predisposed to more barbaric populations. (teeth, brow bones)
Micro vs. macro
Micro is individual, macro is cultural
Positivism in the CJ System
• Incapacitation – science based on who poses the biggest threat and they are then locked up
Mass – identify people who are likely to be problematic based on their group identity and then they are locked up. (drug crimes, based on gender, based on race)
Selective – identify who are the core criminals and lock them up for long periods of time to reduce crime in society
• Rehabilitation
Medicalization – electro shock, medication.
• Forward looking punishment – change individual to address crime. Attempting to address crime and make a change – something that classicism cannot do
Radicalism or Critical Criminology
• Need to address social context
• Structural inequality
• Link to capitalism and patriarchy
There needs to competition amongst people to keep people working and moving forward. Always going to need garbage men.
Patriarchy negatively impact all of society
Critical Crim Functions
• Conflict, domination, and repression. – Those in power will maintain their power. There is a disproportional emphasis placed on street crime vs. white collar crime. • Inherent contradictions of capitalism. • Laws by the powerful for the powerful. Structured inequalities • Criminal justice and social justice
Functions of Critical Crim in CJ
- Prisons as big business. – Billion dollar industries.
- Prison/unemployment link.
- Race & gender matter.
- Need for social transformation.
Main goal of Critical Crim
• Restorative justice
Integration/reintegration -should be an absolute goal from a critical perspective
Re-entry – an ongoing process
Coercive pro-socialization – require people to take part in programs
Women’s prison pop over last three decades
Increased 646%, 1.5x faster than men’s
Since 1980, offending..
Patterns of offending remain virtually static since 1980 – the laws changed and we simply caught more women
What percentage of total prison pop are women?
10
Chivalry Effect
Women were given courtesy and more lenient treatment than men. State would ‘take care’ of them and give them a pass regarding punishment
Equality with a Vengeance
War on drugs has disproportionately effected women more harshly than men
History of women in corrections
Women have been largely ignored by the criminal justice system
Prostitutes and petty thieves were often incarcerated with me
Immortality was seen as primary problem for women
Assumption was that good, virtuous women cared for home and family
Reality is lower income women were servants in the homes of the wealthy and cared for the children
Abolition and women’s suffrage
Women were active in fight to end slavery
Female activists assumed that once slavery was abolished the focus would turn to women’s rights
This did not happen
Elizabeth Gurney Fry
prison activist who fought for safer and humane prisons for women
Get men out of women’s prisons
Separate housing for women
Sought to have female administrators and staff as a means of combating sexual violence against women prisoners
Incarceration Rates by Race
133/100,000 Black women
77/100,000 Hispanic women
47/100,000 White women
Changing Racial Disparity
In 2000, black women were incarcerated 6x rate of white women.
By 2009 that ratio had declined by 53%, to 2.8:1.
From 2000 to 2009, the rate of incarceration in state and federal prisons declined 30.7% for black women, while rates for white women rose 47.1%, the Hispanics women’s rate rose by 23.3%.
Liklihood of being Incarcerated
1 in 19 for black women
1 in 45 for Hispanic women
1 in 118 for white women
Women in prison ________ than are men (43%) to have chronic and/or communicable medical problems (including HIV, Hepatitis C, and sexually transmitted diseases).
are more likely (59%)
_________of women in state prisons in 2004 had symptoms of a current mental health problem, compared to 55% of men.
Nearly 3/4 (73%)
- In 2007, _______ children had a parent in prison on any given day.
- The number of children with parents in prison increased 80% between 1991 and 2007.
1.7million
1 in ___black children, 1 in ___ Latino children, and 1 in ___ white children had a parent in prison in 2007.
15, 42, 111
Black children are ____ more likely and hispanic children are ____ more likely than white children to have a parent in prison
7.5, 2.6
of parents in prison were homeless in the year before the arrest leading to their current imprisonment.
9%
____ were physically or sexually abused prior to imprisonment
20%
____ do night have a hs diploma or GED
38%
have infectious medical problems (including tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV, and sexually transmitted diseases).2
41%
____ have mental health problems
57%
___ have history of alcohol or drug abuse
67
children are separated from their parents due to incarceration each year
1.5-2.5 million
Soft Determinism (Positivism)
People engage in criminal behavior partly based on free will but also in terms of the contexts of their lives.
Influenced by their environment.
Free will is balanced with the constraints of environment.
Free will is moderately influenced.
Hard Determinism (Radicalism)
Social construct of race and gender and it gives other people more advantages than others.
Constructs of race class and gender restricts or influences behavior.
We are limited in the choices we can make based on these social constructs.
Social political and economic forces.
There is no free will.
