Unit 4 Topic 5 - Describe the contributions of agencies to achieving social control

Question 1

What are the formal agencies of social control

Answer 1

Police
CPS
Judiciary
HM Prison Service
The National Probation Service

Question 2

What are the environmental tactics used to achieve social control?

Answer 2

It is possible to ‘design crime out’ of a situation by manipulating the environment. This occurs in two main ways:
Limiting an offender’s opportunity to offend
Allowing people to control their spaces

Question 3

What agencies use environmental tactics of social control?

Answer 3

CPTED and Panopticon. These are associated with the agencies of government, police and prisons

Question 4

Define and give examples of indefensible spaces

Answer 4

There are certain spaces in society that cannot be defended from crime - These are places in which no one takes responsibility for them eg:
Alleyways
Public car parks
Stairwells
Lifts

Question 5

Define and give examples of defensible spaces

Answer 5

Spaces owned and observed which often have lots of people around to take responsibility for what happens there e.g:
Public parks (in the day)
Shopping centres

Defensible spaces have four things:
Territoriality
Natural Surveillance
Safe Image – link to a theory 
Safe Location

Question 6

What is CPTED?

Answer 6

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

Question 7

What is the CPTED?

Answer 7

The logic of designing out crime and defensible spaces has been used by criminologists and agencies of social control to devise policies and strategies to reduce crime e.g restricting the building of block flats

Ideas of CPTED were influenced by Wilson and Kelling’s Broken Windows Theory

Question 8

What are the criticisms of CPTED?

Answer 8

It does not reduce crime - it displaces it

If crime becomes harder the criminal should target a less hard area - according to rational choice theory

Different forms of displacement:
Spatial
Temporal 
Target 
Tactical 
Functional

Question 9

What is Panopticon?

Answer 9

A hypothetical prison designed by Jeremy Bentham where all cells can be watched from a watch tower, the watch tower was not visible to the cells ie. the inmates do not know if they are being watched

Surveillance turns into self-surveillance and self-discipline. Control now takes place inside the prisoner and it is the role of specialised individuals to rehabilitate the offender

Question 10

What are behavioural tactics?

Answer 10

Tactics from agencies of social control that aim to actively change the behaviour of offenders to stop them offending e.g:
ASBOs and CBOs
Token Economies in Prison

Question 11

What is ASBO?

Answer 11

ASBO (Anti-social Behavior Order) introduced in 1998 for people committing acts of anti-social behaviour or harassment, causing alarm or distress - over age of 10
dealt with offences such as arson, disturbing peace or intimidation and had punishments such as curfews, banning from certain locations

Question 12

What is CBO?

Answer 12

Criminal Behaviour Order introduced in 2014 made to replace ASBOs

Question 13

Explain token economies in prison

Answer 13

A reward system used within prisons to encourage good behaviour from offenders, by giving them tokens, that they can then exchange for something they would like e.g:
Following rules
Staying clean from drugs
Seek a job

Question 14

What are the things needed for token economies to work?

Answer 14

• Clear definition of what constitutes ‘good behaviour’ -
• Cannot be deprivation of basic needs involved
• Rewards must be consistent
• There should be gradual increase in the expectation and level of good behaviour

Question 15

Explain how the Lack of resources restrict agencies from maintaining social control

Answer 15

• The police budget was cut by 9% between 2010 and 2018 leading to a loss of 20,000 officers
• The CPS budget was cut by 25% and lost a third of its staff
• Prisons had their budget cut by 16% and lost 15% of all staff

Question 16

Explain how the development of technology used by offenders restrict agencies from maintaining social control

Answer 16

Due to the enhances in technology, and how that has affected relationships, it is incredibly difficult for agencies to investigate and charge offences

Question 17

Explain how crimes going unreported restrict agencies from maintaining social control

Answer 17

Just 40% of crime is reported, agencies are severely handicapped by only being able to control the crime they know about e.g fraud being too complex

Question 18

Explain how the lack of existing laws restrict agencies from maintaining social control

Answer 18

• Crime is changing all of the time. Offenders come up with new ways to harm victims so the law cannot keep up and prevents agencies of the CJS from punishing offenders and maintain social control
  eg. In 2017 Germany created a law which made social media companies have to remove hate speech from their platforms or they could face fines up to 50m euros. This was due to offenders often using social media sites to insight hatred