The culture of control

Question 1

What are the key themes of ‘penal welfarism’ (1800s-1970s)?

Answer 1

• rehabilitation of offenders as core principle
• political consensus
• penal ‘experts’ rather than politicians or the public
• low crime rates

Question 2

When was the era of ‘penal welfarism’

Answer 2

1945 - 1970

Question 3

what is ‘penal welfarism’ underpinned by?

Answer 3

underpinned by social and economic features of 20th century society:
- relatively low crime rates
- community cohesion
- high employment

Question 4

transformation to a ‘culture of control’ (1970s - )

Answer 4

• high levels of crime and insecurity
• loss of faith in penal ‘experts’ and rehabilitation
• a policy predicament: contrasting strategies of populism and managerialism

Question 5

What is the transformation to a ‘culture of control’ underpinned by?

Answer 5

a shift in social/economic structures and cultural aspects:
- high crime rates
- community breakdown
- individualism
- unemployment
- inequality

Question 6

What are the three foundation conditions of ‘penal-welfarism’?

Answer 6

• political-economic conditions
• social conditions
• theoretical conditions (dominant ways of thinking about crime)

Question 7

What are political-economic conditions?

Answer 7

• welfare capitalism (businesses providing welfare services to employees)
• economic management to attack issues of inequality (poverty, bad health, poor education and housing)

Question 8

What are the social conditions?

Answer 8

• stable/falling crime rates
• full employment
• stable families
• cohesive communities

Question 9

What are the theoretical conditions?

Answer 9

• positivist theories of crime causation
• strain theory
• psychological theories
• social disorganisation theory

Question 10

What were the political conditions of garlands culture of control?

Answer 10

The attack on welfare capitalism

• neoliberalism and the new right
• conservative dominance and the reinvention of the left
• moral authoritarianism
• economic liberalism
• the politicisation of crime and punishment
• the role of mass media

Question 11

What is neoliberalism?

Answer 11

Market-oriented reform policies e.g. free market economy, privatisation of public services

Question 12

What is economic liberalism?

Answer 12

• free market economy with limited government interference

Question 13

What were the social conditions of garlands culture of control?

Answer 13

• unemployment and economic recession
• changes in family structures
• the eroding of community
• new middle class insecurity
• rapidly rising crime rates

Question 14

What were the theoretical conditions of garlands culture of control?

Answer 14

• the etiological crisis: nothing works
• criminologies of everyday life e.g. risk management and rational choice theories
• criminologies of the ‘dangerous other’

Question 15

Adaptive strategies

Answer 15

1. professionalisation and the rationalisation of justice
2. the commercialisation of justice
3. defining deviance down
4. redefining success
5. concentrate upon consequences
6. relocating and redefining responsibilites

Question 16

Professionalisation and rationalisation of justice

Answer 16

• rise of technology
• systemisation and rationalisation of criminal justice

Question 17

Commercialisation of justice

Answer 17

• managerialism
• privatisation

Question 18

Defining deviance down

Answer 18

• reclassification of crime

Question 19

Redefining success

Answer 19

• from outcomes to output: an economy of efficiency

Question 20

Concentrating upon consequences

Answer 20

• fear of crime
• ‘customer satisfaction’

Question 21

Relocating and redefining responsibilites

Answer 21

• responsibilisation below, beyond and above
• steering but not rowing: the public sector should be less in the business of ‘rowing’ e.g. delivering health services, and more onto ‘steering’ e.g. providing and ensuring strategic guidance

Question 22

What are punitive control strategies?

Answer 22

• respond to predicament by denying it
• reactivate and embrace the myth of the sovereign state crime control
• engage in emotional rituals of condemnation and punishment - ‘acting out’

Question 23

What are the two feature of punitive control?

Answer 23

1. expressive responses
2. punitive segregation

Question 24

Expressive responses

Answer 24

• denying the myth of limits to supreme authority over crime control
• restoring faith in the cjs
• tough political rhetoric and emotional tone
• crime and punishment as a key political background
• privileging of public opinion

Question 25

Punitive segregation

Answer 25

• greater use of custody overall
• longer sentences/indeterminate (undetermined) sentences
• focus on incapacitation of dangerous and/or repeat offenders
• mass incarceration