The Social Functions of Crime and Punishment: Solidarity and Exclusion Flashcards
What are some traditional justifications for punishment of criminals, and to what extent do they withstand sociological critique?
How does the criminal justice system create and maintain powerful dynamics of social exclusion?
d
What do we hope to accomplish through punishment? (four things)
- deterrence
- incapacitation
- correction
- retribution
Crime is a healthy part of society
Crime is essential phenomenon around which we create solidarity. If we’re going to label somethings okay or good, there are bound to be things that come out as bad
Order necessitates somethings will be designated as “does not belong”. Otherwise, everything would be included so there would be NO order.
Even in a society of saints, there is crime (speaking out of turn)
What is the functionalist theory of punishment? (Reading: Durkheim) What function does punishment preform?
SOLIDARITY. EXCLUSION. Punishment protects collective sentiments.
Focus of punishment isn’t offender, it’s rest of society
How does the strength of solidarity relate to standards of crime?
The more solidarity, the higher the standards of crime. In a small town, we have more nuanced what’s okay/what’s not. Not only is it “don’t murder, steal” it’s also “don’t spit on the side of the road, don’t whistle at night.” [In a UW classroom]
In big, anonymous, urban environments, there’s less solidarity, and a lower standard of crime. Just don’t kill and steal. Who cares if you whistle or spit? [On the ave.]
So if crime isn’t pathological (every society has crime, crime is normal/necessary part of human affairs), what is object of punishment? It can’t be to cure it, it must be to
INCREASE SOLIDARITY
Bauman: talk spatial confinement. retribution agaisnt the stranger. Formal social control must expand to replace eroding informal norms.
The proper defines the improper, which it seeks to isolate, exile or extinguish.
Spatial confinement is the historical means of “walling off” impermissible difference: race, religion, disease, etc. (Jewish ghettos in Germany, Muslim ghettos in parts of India, black ghettos in the US)
Explain supermax prisons and their effect on society.
They optimize exlusion and effacement of surplus populations. whose sole value is as scapegoats and allow for ritual cleansing. Prisons help us force out these surplus folks who are pointless after effacing them so we don’t care about them. We want security, safety, and certainty of order at their cost.
