Week 2 - What is crime? Flashcards
The Law as a Social Contract
- Human beings choose to create contracts with others in their social context
- Contracts involve the performance of civic duties and can only be legitimate if people entered them freely
Rousseau (1978) elaborated the idea of a general will:
- reflects people’s collective interest in the wellbeing of the group
- Linked to the basis of both LAW and Society
Punishment in turn stems from the need to enforce compliance with this contract so long as people have freely accepted it and then broken it (Hobbes, 1968)
what is the difference between ‘‘Bad’’ to ‘‘Mad’’
Social contract theories fit the interpretation of the crime as harmful and immoral, as well as of offenders deserving punishment.
HOWEVER.
- understanding of social deviance and crime have shifted over time from a potrayal of ‘‘badness’’ to one of ‘‘sickness’’
- The approach continues to see criminality as inherently wrong (i.e. disordered) but responses to crime often focus on treatment of the individual.
But… crime is very prevalent
Moffitt (1993): It is ‘‘statistically aberrant to refrain from crime during adolescence’’
Most people break the criminal law at some point in our lives
What is a different approach to crime?
- The law is socially constructed and reflects political interests
- So ‘‘crimes’’ are not universally or inherently wrong. Law and social norms can also clash
- Todays criminal behaviour can be tomorrows ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable
What is criminal in one nation may be considered commponplace in another
The law is NOT immutable
- Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967 in the UK. It is still a crime in many countries. (e.g., see Gerber, 2014)
- In current “post-homophobic” societies, politicians and commentators frequently frame historic laws as unjust
(see Redd & Russell, 2020). - Similar reinterpretations of historical legislation have been applied to segregation laws (e.g., USA, South Africa)
The law is not perfect: Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol and drugs in the USA has been linked to the birth and growth of organised crime and trafficking
- Drug control legislation has been criticised for criminalising the poor, as well as for promoting systemic racism.
How can we quesiton The Criminal Justice System
Laws belong to socio-political systems with power dynamics that need to be recognised.
- Not all sectors of society are equally policed (e.g., consider systemic racism)
- Not all people can defend themselves legally to the same degree (e.g., consider poverty)
- Consequences of a conviction (and a criminal record) may differ for different social groups (e.g., access to later employment, impact on development of identity).
- Prisons have been argued to work as “colleges of crime” (see Muncie, 2008).
- Prisons produce harm that can enhance pre-existing psychological and social problems or produce new ones
What is the BPS definition of Forensic Psychology?
“Forensic psychology is … often used to refer to investigative and criminological psychology: applying psychological theory to criminal investigation, understanding psychological problems associated with criminal behaviour and the treatment of those
who have committed offences.” (emphasis added)
What are the implications of crime
It is implied that those who offend (break the criminal law) need to be assessed and treated within a theraputic setting.
The Apple or The Tree
- When considering the study of crime, some approaches focus on the individual as being deviant and needing to change
- Others focus on the system that is seen as producing or promoting said deviance
The dominant approach is about assessing individuals and treating individuals.
What is the Medicalisation of Deviance?
- The medicalisation of deviance occurs when dominant norms, or laws, drive the definitions and diagnoses of illness. What is non-normative becomes disordered
- Conrad and Schneider (1980) identified political influences in the process through which behaviours go before being institutionalised as a medical condition
Give examples of Medicalisation of Deviance
- Multiple historical examples of the medical labelling of minorities who behaved in ways that were seen as illegal or immoral.
- Until it was removed from the DSM, homosexuality was seen as a medical issue that needed treatment.
- Drug use has been criminalised and medicalised over time
What is a Critique of Mainstream Psychology
- Focus on individual “distorted” or “disordered”
characteristics that need treatment distracts us from the socio-structural elements that underlie crime and the power dynamics inherent to the criminal justice system. - By making them invisible, the field helps maintain socio economic barriers, as well as systemic racism and sexism.
“Criminality” is not natural, but artificial
and culture-bound.
