8. Control, Prevention, Surveillance, Punishment and The CJS

Question 1

Principle of situational crime prevention (Clarke)

Answer 1

Created on the notion that people will commit offences when the costs of offending are less than the benefits

Question 2

What does situational crime prevention involve?

Answer 2

Tougher punishments
Target hardening (making it harder to commit crimes E.g. anti-theft devices)
Increased surveillance

Question 3

Is situational crime prevention attractive to policy makers? Why?

Answer 3

It is an attractive option for crime prevention as it offers cheap and simple initiatives to reduce crime

Question 4

Evidence to support situational crime prevention (2)
What part of situational crime prevention do they support?

Answer 4

Fewer car thefts when car security systems are used
Redesign of a Birmingham market, where stools were further apart, linked to 70% reduction in purse theft
Supports target hardening

Question 5

Negative evaluation of situational crime prevention (3)

Answer 5

Ignores dealing with causes of crime
Crime may not just be result of a rational choice between cost and benefit (may be due to excitement for example)
May not abolish crime, just displace it. Nature of crime changes but CR doesn’t

Question 6

What does environmental crime prevention focus on?

Answer 6

Combination of formal and informal social control measures

Question 7

What theory is environmental crime prevention based on?

Answer 7

Broken windows theory
If low-level antisocial behaviour can be prevented than the escalation to more serious crimes can be stopped

Question 8

What does environmental crime prevention involve?

Answer 8

Zero tolerance policing
Intense target hardening of relatively small antisocial behaviour

Question 9

Environmental crime prevention in the UK

Answer 9

It’s involved giving police power to issue antisocial behaviour disorders, curfews, street drinking bans and dispersal

Question 10

Negative evaluation of environmental crime prevention (3)

Answer 10

Unaffordable to employ many more police to enforce all minor laws
Police have been more effective in the UK by targeting prolific offenders and criminals hot spots
Crime rates have decreased even when these measures aren’t used

Question 11

2 parts of social and community crime prevention

Answer 11

Intervention
Community

Question 12

Intervention part of social and community crime prevention

Answer 12

Identify the groups that are most at risk of committing crime and put into action forms of intervention to limit their offending

Question 13

Community part of social and community crime prevention

Answer 13

Involving the local community in combating crime (E.g. finding out the societal motives behind criminality)

Question 14

What does social and community crime prevention involve?

Answer 14

Skills training
Parental education
Parental training
Preschool programmes

Question 15

Positive evaluation of social and community crime prevention from Michigan

Answer 15

Perry Preschool Project in Michigan
- 2 groups of African American children aged 3-4 from deprived backgrounds
- 1 group given preschool educational support
- By age 27, members of the group that received interventions had half the number of arrests than the group that didn’t

Question 16

Negative evaluation of social and community crime prevention: what it the root of criminality according to Marxist Taylor

Answer 16

Structural inequalities in capitalist societies are the root of criminality according to Taylor, rather than dysfunctional families or a lack of education

Question 17

Negative evaluation of social and community crime prevention: victim blaming

Answer 17

Intervention programmes could be seen as blaming the victims of inequality rather than society itself

Question 18

Negative evaluation of social and community crime prevention: neglects some types of crime

Answer 18

Doesn’t address white-collar, corporate or green crime

Question 19

Who talked about surveillance?

Answer 19

Foucault

Question 20

What concept did Foucault use to illustrate the change to surveillance?

Answer 20

The panopticon

Question 21

How do we live in the society of the panopticon according to Foucault?

Answer 21

Because the uncertainty of when we are under surveillance encourages us to exercise self-surveillance and not commit crime

Question 22

What society do we live in according to Foucault?

Answer 22

Surveillance society

Question 23

Purpose of surveillance in surveillance society

Answer 23

Not just used for criminals, but to prevent and monitor any non-conformist behaviour

Question 24

Surveillance in London / the UK

Answer 24

1 CCTV camera for every 11 people in London
Each person in the UK is captured 30 times a day on CCTV

Question 25

Recently who has increasingly used surveillance?

Answer 25

Companies for consumer tracking (E.g. Clubcard)

Question 26

How many crimes are solved used CCTV?

Answer 26

A 2008 Met Police study found that only 3% of crimes are solved with CCTV evidence

Question 27

Foucault’s opinion on surveillance

Answer 27

It’s an oppressive form of social control used to increase the power of the state

Question 28

Evaluation of surveillance

Answer 28

If people are aware of it, they can take the steps to avoid it, bringing into question how far surveillance can influence people’s behaviour

Question 29

4 aims/functions of punishment

Answer 29

Deterrence - bringing offenders to justice and publicly punishing them to encourage potential offenders to think twice

Incapacitation - protecting potential victims by stopping the offender from repeating their behaviour

Rehabilitation - preventing offender from committing crimes in the future by changing their attitudes, behaviour and values

Retribution - satisfying the victim by giving a fair and just punishment

Question 30

Who talked about the nature and purpose of punishment?

Answer 30

Durkheim

Question 31

Difference in punishment between previous societies and modern society according to Durkheim

Answer 31

Previous societies: more social solidarity so retribution was mainly used as all individuals shared the same values and all supported the punishment against those who deviated for societal norms

Modern society: restitutive justice developed where punishment attempts to return society to the state it was before the crime took place

Question 32

What is law a product of according to Marxists?

Answer 32

Product of the interests/beliefs of the ruling class rather than shared beliefs/interests of all members of society