Crime And Deviance : Control, Punishment And Victims Flashcards by Unjal Hussain

What are the 3 types of crime prevention and control

Right realists : situational crime prevention - reducing opportunities for crime, making it harder to commit crime
Right realists : environmental crime prevention - ‘broken windows’ theory, improving run down areas, zero tolerance
Left realists : social and community crime prevention - tackling the root causes of crime, long term solutions

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Right realism - increased social control

Link to Hirschi’s control theory - individuals are encouraged to choose conformity over crime when they are strongly integrated into their communities
= Right realists - we should promote conformity and isolate deviant individuals

Policies include:
- parental responsibility (2003 parenting order)
- informal surveillance - neighbourhood watch
- cracking down on anti social behaviour
- zero tolerance policy
- heavier policing and harsher punishment

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Situational crime prevention (SCP)

Clarke - SCP involves reducing opportunities for crime
= increasing risk, reducing reward
= managing environment of crime

Criminals make rational choices (rational choice theory) - if rewards are reduced people won’t commit crime

Clarke - most theories offer unrealistic solutions to crime, we must focus on the immediate crime situation

Most crime is opportunistic, so we need to reduce the opportunities

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AO2 for SCP

The Port Authority Bus Terminal

Felson
The Port Suthority Bus Terminal in NY was poorly designed and provided opportunities for deviance
= luggage thefts, rough sleeping, drug dealing

Reshaping the physical environment reduced crime - EG replaced large sinks with small basins to prevent vagrants from bathing there

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Criticism of SCP - displacement

SCP doesn’t reduce crime, it displaces it - criminals will respond to target hardening by moving to where targets are softer

EG Chaiken - found that a crackdown on subway robberies in NY just displaced them to the streets above

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Evaluation of SCP

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths:
It works to some extent in reducing certain kinds of crime
EG Bowers et al : targeted policing in high crime areas found SCP led to neighbouring districts also seeing reductions in crime

Weaknesses:
Marxists - ignores WCC, corporate and state crime, which are more costly and harmful

Assumes criminals make rational calculations - seems unlikely given that many crimes of violence are committed under the influence

Left realists + Marxists - ignores root causes of crime like poverty. Makes it hard to develop long term solutions for crime reduction

Poorer areas will still have crime, whilst wealthier ones will be more protected = creates increased inequality

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Environmental crime prevention (ECP) - right realism

What is it? What are the solutions?

Wilson - broken windows theory
Tolerating graffiti and vandalism signalises than no one cares

In such neighbourhoods, there is an absence of social control
= without action, the area becomes a magnet for deviants

Absence of control LEADS TO crime

Solutions:
1. Environmental improvement strategy - any broken window must be repaired immediately, any graffiti cleaned
2. Police must adopt a zero tolerance policing strategy - actively tackling any sign of disorder, even if it’s not criminal (this prevents serious crime from occurring)

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Evidence for ECP AO2

‘Clean Car Program’ in NY - subway trains out of service if vandalised, then returning once clean

NY zero tolerance 1990s - tackling most minor offences
= 73% fall in homicides
= 35% fall in overall crime

However, at the same time of zero tolerance
- there was a general decline in crime in major US cities even where zero tolerance wasn’t adopted

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Evaluation of ECP

Mx - ignores WCC, corporate and state crime, which are more costly and harmful
labelling theorists - zero tolerance can have long term negative consequences for people who have committed minor offences. Police will label potential offenders (leads to SFP, master status) EG London riots 2011
left realists - doesn’t address wider causes of crime
PM Lyng and Katza - do offenders make rational choices ? It’s the thrill that makes people commit crime

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Left realists : Social community and crime prevention

Recognise offenders and victims are from disadvantaged communities
= socially excluded

We should tackle deprivation as this generate frustration which leads to crime

We must improve POLICING AND CONTROL, and deal with DEEPER STRUCTURAL CAUSES OF CRIME
= long term

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Left realist solutions to crime : improving relationship between the police and communities

Kinsey, Lea and Young

Police depend on the public to provide them with information about crime (90%)

Police losing support due to lack of time taken investigating local crime (flow of information dries up) - have to rely on military policing
= THIS alienates communities and weakens relations

Police must deal with local concerns, improve relationships by spending time investigating crime and involving the public in policing policies

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Left realist solutions to crime : improving relationship between the police and communities

Lewis et al

Resentment of a perceived lack of respect from the police and the stopping / searching of innocent people was a major factor behind the 2011 London Riots

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Left realists : tackling deeper structural causes of crime

Causes of crime are due to the unequal structure of society
= to reduce the cause, we must become more tolerant of diversity, and have major structural change

We must tackle deprivation

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Left realists : tackling deeper structural causes of crime

AO2 examples

Parenting support (Sure Start Centres) to help poorer children have head start - risk factors for crime are greatest

Perry Pre School Project - experimental group of 3-4 year olds offered a 2 year intellectual enrichment programme. By age 40, they had much less arrests than those who didn’t undergo the programme (36% v 55% arrested 5 times or more)

Contemporary : Tory cuts to youth services fuelling crime, says Keir Starmer
= cuts were greatest in the most deprived areas (services in the least deprived areas were cut by 60%)

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Evaluation of Social and Community Crime Prevention

Strengths and weaknesses

Strength : seeks to tackle the root causes of crime unlike SCP and ECP strategies

Weaknesses:
Deterministic - not everyone living in deprived areas will turn to crime
RR - LR deflect attention away from more practical measures like tighter social control and SCP
Mx - ignores WCC, corporate and state crime which is more costly and harmful
They are being soft on crime - downplaying the role of the offender

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Evaluation of both RR + LR

They all take for granted the definition of crime - only focus on street crime / violent crime

This ignores crimes of the powerful and green crimes

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Feminist solutions to the problem of crime

Newburn

make victimisation clear - extent of DV, sexual harassment etc must never be ignored
exposing the threat against women + showing that it’s never usually a stranger, but often occurs in the home
expose the male domination in the CJS and how it fails to respond appropriately to crimes against women
protecting women at all stages of the process - stopping their reputation from being scrutinised

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Feminist solutions to the problem of crime

Liberal v Marxist v Radical

Liberal:
- Issues like police not taking crimes against women seriously must be tackled
- Underreporting of offences is due to unsympathetic approach of police and CJS

Marxist:
Women should be better supported so they are not forced to turn to crime to survive
Tackling social inequality is key (synoptic link to Carlen’s class and gender deals)

Radical:
Men need to be re-socialised so they don’t commit crimes where they exert their power

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The role of the CJS in crime control and prevention

Deterrence - discourages them and others from future offending

Rehabilitation - punishment can reform lives

Incapacitation - removing their capacity to offend again (EG prison)

Retribution - paying back via a punishment

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Changing roles of prisons

Garland

Imprisonment today:
Prison sentence seen as the harshest punishment - doesn’t provide good rehabilitation because 2/3 of criminals come out and commit more crime

‘Populist punitiveness’ - putting everyone into prison for major and minor offences = leads to overpopulation in prisons

Changing roles of prisons

The era of mass incarceration

Transcarceration

Garland - more people in prisons (Link to rishi sunak’s tough on crime)

Number in prison nearly doubled between 1990-2015

England + wales - highest incarceration rate in W Europe

Transcarceration: individuals are in a cycle of control
EG raised in care, sent to juvie, sent to prison etc.

Functionalism and punishment

Punishment upholds social solidarity and reinforces shared values

Punishment expresses society’s emotions of moral outrage

Punishment reaffirms the value consensus to create a sense of moral unity

Evaluation of the functionalist view on punishment

Postmodernists - assumes society has shared values to begin with

Marxists - punishment reflects the values of the RC and acts as a form of control over the WC, instead of benefitting everyone

Some punishments make things worse - prisons creating more crime

Marxism and punishment

The function of punishment is to maintain the existing social order - part of the RSA to defend RC and keep WC in their place

Marxism and punishment

Rusche and Kirchheimer

Types of punishments used by a society were determined by what was in the economic interests of the dominant class

EG Middle Ages - religious penances used against peasants

Marxism and punishment

Melossi and Pavarini

Imprisonment reflects capitalist relations of production

EG
Capitalism puts price on the worker’s time - prisoners ‘do time’ to ‘pay’ for their crime

Prison and capitalist factory both follow similar disciplinary style - subordination and loss of liberty

1994 crime bill - Marxism and punishment

3 strikes and you’re out

Reinforces power dynamic - disproportionately targeted w/c communities
= overrepresentation of WC in prison population

Evaluation of Marxist view on punishment

Left realists - W/C actually do commit the most crime

Functionalists - function of punishment is to reaffirm society’s values

Does imprisonment prevent crime?

(Sociologists + stats)

Becker - leads to deviance amplification spiral, master status and deviant career

Goffman - prisons have their own subcultures that provide training grounds for criminals

Prisons may make pre-existing problems worse - destabilising family ties, disrupting employment opportunities

Stats:
Downing Street Strategy Unit - 22% increase in prison population (1997) but reduced crime by only 5%

Ministry of justice - 48% of prisoners released in 2010 reoffended within a year (for juveniles this was 70%)

Alternative to prison

Who says this is bad

Community based controls - curfews, tagging

Cohen - this has expanded the net of control over more people…increased range of sanctions means state control can penetrate deeper into society

Foucault - from sovereign power to disciplinary power

Foucault (postmodernist)

As power in society changes, so do the punishments (EG public punishment reflected the supreme power of the sovereign)

Once power of the sovereign declined, a new form of state power emerged
= Foucault calls this disciplinary power

Disciplinary power means criminals are controlled via surveillance

Punishments have now changed to the development of the prison that is meant to ‘correct’ the criminal

Prison like culture + panoptic model of surveillance

Foucault

Panopticon designed prison - prisoner is always visible to be watched (prisoner cannot see the guard)

This LEAD TO self-surveillance and self discipline

The dispersal of discipline

Foucault

Disciplinary power has now dispersed throughout society, permeating all institutions

Form of surveillance in the panopticon is now a model of how power operates in society as a whole

What does Foucault say we are living in

A surveillance society

Evaluation of the surveillance society

Strengths:
Shows how the power of surveillance can increase the power of the state

Shows how the WC especially are socially controlled, leading to conformity

Surveillance can be useful to reduce crime - esp in deprived areas

Weaknesses:
People are now aware of surveillance and can avoid it

Doesn’t tackle root problem of crime (poverty)

Social sorting and categorical suspicion

Labelling theory

G.T. Marx - West Midlands and Muslim communities targeted - cameras for counter terrorism schemes

This can cause SFP - they believe they actually are offenders

What is victimology?

Study of the impact of crime on victims

Not easy to research - dark figure of hidden victims

The social construction of victimisation

The ‘victim’ label can become a master status the same way ‘deviant’ can.

Society can fail to see someone as a victim because thy do not conform to an idealised image of a victim

Christie - victim is a concept like crime that is socially constructed - who is and isn’t a victim changes depending on the context

Effects of victimisation

Physical, financial, mental harm

Restrictions over movement (women at night)

Hate crime

Ongoing sense of fear

Patterns of victimisation

Gender and victimisation

CSEW - women are more likely to worry about being victims of violent crime

Young men 2x risk than young women of being the victim of violent crime

DV - more female victims
= many suffer repeat victimisations

90% rape victims are women

Patterns of victimisation

Age and victimisation

Lifestyles of the youth expose them to greater risk of being victim

Risk decreased with age

Young people more likely to be victims of violent crime

Patterns of victimisation

Ethnicity and victimisation

Minority ethnic groups more likely to be a victim of personal crime - deprived areas, class and younger age profile

Minority ethnic groups have more fear of crime than whites

Victims from minority ethnic groups made up 23% of homicide in 2007-2010 (2x risk than white)

2012-15 - 106,000 racially motivated hate crimes a year

Patterns of victimisation

Class and victimisation

Poorest of the WC more likely to be victims:
Unemployed, long term sick, low income families

Areas with widespread vandalism, poor home conditions, high levels of deprivation

CSEW - those in 20% of poorest areas face much higher risk of being victims of HH crime than those in the 20% of the most affluent areas

Positive victimology AO1

Miers - positive victimology has 3 parts:

Aims to identify factors that produce patterns of victimisation, and make people more prone to be victims
Focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence
Aims to identify victims which have contributed to their own victimisation

Positive victimology AO2

Hentig - victim proneness - characteristics that make someone more vulnerable than non-victims
= implies that they ‘invite’ victimisation

Wolfgang study of homicides - 26% of cases the victim triggered the events leading to murder EG by using violence first

Positive victimology AO3

Strength:
Wolfgang shows the importance of victim-offender relationship

Weaknesses:
Ignores structural factors influencing victimisation EG poverty or patriarchy

They victim blame - Amir’s claim that 1/5 rapes are victim precipitated is basically saying they asked for it

Radical / critical victimology AO1

Based on conflict theories - focuses on 2 elements:

Structural factors - patriarchy and poverty laced powerless groups at greater risk of victimisation - women and the poor
The state’s power to apply or deny the label of victim - victim is a social construct, like criminal. The CJS applies labels of victims to some and not others. (EG police may not press charges against a man for DV, so the woman is not a victim eventhough she actually is)

Radical / critical victimology AO2

Tombs and whyte - when employers violate the law that leads to death, the victim is called ‘accident prone’ rather than a victim

Tombs and whyte - there is an ideological function of ‘de-labelling’ - by concealing the true extent of victimisation and its real causes, it hides the crimes of the powerful
= EG Hillsborough disaster

Radical / critical victimology AO3

Strength:
Draws attention to the way the victim status is constructed by power and how this benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless

Weakness:
Disregards the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves EG not making their home secure, drug users fighting with their drug dealer

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Crime And Deviance : Control, Punishment And Victims Flashcards

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