Unit 2- All Policies Flashcards
Biological Policies: Biochemical Crime Control (1)
Drugs
Drug Treatments:
-Alcohol Abuse. Often leads to violent behaviour. Antabuse is a drug used in aversion therapy to treat alcoholism. Prevents body breakdown of alcohol causing hangover symptoms.
-Heroin Addiction. Often leads addicts to commit crimes to pay for the drug. Methadone is used to treat addicts as a long-term alternative, and helps with withdrawal symptoms. Medically controlled legal substitute helps reduce crime.
-Sex Offenders. Stilbestrol, a type of chemical castration that suppresses testosterone to reduce sex drive in Male Sex Offenders.
-Managing Prisoners. Sedatives and tranquilisers such as Valium have often been used to keep potentially troublesome/violent prisoners calm.
Biological Policies: Biochemical Crime Control (2)
Surgeries
Surgery:
-Surgical Castration. Used in past for reducing sex offending behaviour, Mixed results
-Lobotomy. Procedure that cuts the connection between the frontal lobes and thalamus. Used for paranoid schizophrenia, sexually motivated and spontaneously violent criminals. Rare now, as serious side effects.
Crowd Control & Public Order:
-Using chemical substances to control groups. Such as tear gas for crowd dispersal/riots. Causes uncomfortable/distressing sensations such as disorientation and breathing difficulties.
Biological Policies: Genetics Eugenics
Based on the ‘criminal gene’ theory and classism that the poor where passing on inferior genes of low intelligence, poverty, insanity and criminality.
Sterilisation:
-Idea that the ‘genetically unfit’ should be prevented from breeding. Leading to policies that allowed the compulsory sterilisation of criminals, the mentally ill and those with learning difficulties. Includes restrictions on Right to Marry, and forced abortions.
The Holocaust:
-Murder of 6 Million Jews, 1.5 million Roma, and thousands of deviants such as gays and lesbians, the homeless and drug users. All based on the idea of the ‘superior’ Aryan race.
Individualistic Policies: Psychoanalysis
Based on Freud’s theory of personality.
-Bringing the unconscious conflicts and repressed emotions into conscious mind to be resolved. Used hypnosis and free association.
-Aichhorn applied this to treating children at an institution he supervised. As they had uncaring parents, failed to develop loving relationships. Rejected harsh environments normal to the time and instead provided a happy and pleasant environment that would allow the development of a superego.
Effectiveness:
-Not very. Eysenck found only 44% of psychoanalysis patients showed improvement, compared to 72% by hospitals/GPs.
-Costly and time consuming, never used on large scale.
-Gives analysts powers to define what’s normal and abnormal. E.g Freud viewed homosexuality as abnormal. Can give rise to abuse.
Individualistic Policies: Operant Token Economies
Behaviour Modification program:
Token economies:
-Institution draws a list of desirable behaviours e.g obeying rules.
-If offender acts in desire way, earn a token.
-Tokens may be exchanged of rewards such as phone calls.
-Selective reinforcement causes good behaviour to become more likely and bad behaviour less likely.
Effectiveness:
-Some studies show improvement in behaviour, but when rewards stop, offender will also stop. But may return to crime slower compared to an offender that didn’t take the program.
-Make prisoners more manageable
-Cases that food/drink have been withheld and used as rewards. Crits argue it’s a human right.
Individualistic Policies: Aversion Therapy
Aversion Therapy:
-Links to Eysenck’s theory that criminals tend to be highly neurotic and extraverted. Harder to condition as resistant to learning through punishment.
-Ask offender to think about unacceptable fantasy, followed by strongly aversive stimulant such as nausea or electric shock. Repeated until thoughts associated with the stimulus.
Effectiveness:
-Limited success, and usually only short term.
-Attempted to be used in ‘curing’ gay people, criticised as human right abuse.
Individualistic Policies: CBT (1)
CBT Programs aim to change the thoughts and attitudes to change their behaviour. Offenders have distorted cognitions that lead them to offend.
Think First: one-to-one sessions of repeat offenders on probation. Aims to enable offenders to control their thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Problem solving kills and consequential thinking.
Effectiveness:
Those who complete this program are 30% less likely to be re-convicted compared to alternative community sentences. But non-completion rate is high.
Individualistic Policies: CBT (2)
Aggression Replacement Training:
For violent or aggressive offenders
-Interpersonal skills training
-Anger control techniques, dealing with emotions and providing offenders with alternative courses instead of violence
-Moral reasoning training that challenges their attitudes by confronting them with moral dilemmas to consider
Effectiveness:
Show lower re-conviction rates. Some evaluations have found that although thinking skills have improved, behaviour didn’t.
What Works Program:
Home Office program that ensure CBT programmes actually reduce offending, accredits those that follow certain criteria
-Clear plan and proven methods of altering behaviour
-Careful matching in terms of re-offending and learning abilities
-Targeting the risk factors that lead to offendingg
Sociological Policies: Merton and Subcultural
Crime Control and punishment policies:
-Better welfare benefits, wages and job security would reduce crime by giving everyone a more equal chance of achieving success legally.
-Treating working class students equally would reduce failure rate, less likely to suffer status frustration and join delinquent subcultures.
-Half UK prisoners have a reading age of 11. Better education in prisons would help inmates gain skills to get a good job and go straight
Effectiveness:
Show anti-poverty policies have a positive effect. Societies that spend more on welfare jail fewer people.
Sociological Policies: Labelling Theory (1)
Decriminalisation:
-Minor offences such as possession of cannabis would mean fewer young people were labelled as criminals, which would prevent them getting a job, which leads to further offending
Diversion Policies:
Aim to keep offender out o justice system to avoid labelling them.
-Informal, such as police using discretion not to charge someone
-Formal, requiring offender to attend anger management to avoid prosecution
Sociological Policies: Labelling Theory (2)
Reintegrative shaming:
-Disintegrative: Both crime and criminal are labelled as bad and the offender is excludes from society. Push to further crime.
-Reintegrative: labels the act but not the offender. Avoids stigimatising the offender as evil while still encouraging them to repent an be admitted back into society.
Effectiveness:
Deal successfully with minor offences and young offenders. Avoid pushing people into a deviant career
Sociological Policies: Right Realism (1)
Situational Crime Prevention:
Intend to reduce the opportunities for crime by increasing risks and decreasing rewards. Idea that criminals would weigh up risks of committing the crime.
-Employing security
-Reshaping environment e.g Westminster Bridge barriers following 2017
Effectiveness:
Displacement, may result in more vulnerable members in society becoming targets as others have been made difficult. Viewing criminals as rational actors, if one target is too hard will look for something easier e.g different target, time, method ect.
Environmental Crime Prevention:
Based on Broken Windows Theory
Effectiveness:
-Launched in NYC in 1990’s, crime fell, yet so did non ZTP cities.
-Curfews increase juvenile crime, the absence of law abiding youth leave streets emptier and favourable to crime.
-Targeting of minorities due to police racism and confrontations due to militant policing
-Fail to tackle structural cause of crime such as inequality. Heavily focus on street level, ignoring white collar and state crime.
Sociological Policies: Right Realism (2)
Penal Population:
Argue for harsher penalties to deter criminals.
Effectiveness:
Incapacitation- May work temporarily as prisoners cannot commit crimes in public while imprisoned, but can against inmates and staff.
Rehabilitation- Overcrowding and budget cuts mean prisoners lack access to education, skills training or treatment programs that would help them.
Recidivism- Ineffective as recidivism rate is 48% within a year of release.
Deterrence- Studies show risk of imprisonment doesn’t deter offenders enough to affect overall crime rates.
Sociological Policies: Left Realism (1)
Policies to reduce inequality:
Call for major structural changes to tackles discrimination, inequality of opportunity and unfairness of rewards, and providing good jobs and housing for all. Would reduce relative deprivation, main cause of crime.
Democratic Policing:
Police are losing public support in poorer areas, wildly distrusted. Flow of info stops, have to turn to militant policing. Say police must win back public support, focus on crimes that victimise the disadvantaged e.g domestic abuse, and possession of soft drugs.
-Neighbourhood policing and police community support officers now introduced to build better relationships.
-Many forces make cannabis possession a low priority crime.
-Domestic abuse and hate crime now a higher priority.
Sociological Policies: Left Realism (2)
Multi-Agency:
Argue crime control must involve other agencies apart from police: schools, youth, social, probation services, NHS, housing departments. Local councils can improve facilities for young people
Charities like No Knives, Better Lives, approach aimed at reducing youth knife crime.
Effectiveness:
Not effective as doesn’t look at Non-utilitarian crimes, doesnt look at murder or white collar crime. Stereotypes the working class.
However, Democratic policing is effective as it re-establishes ties with the community to support crime reporting.
