3.2 describe The Contribution Of Agencies To Achieving Social Control Flashcards
(16 cards)
Tactics used to achieve social control by agencies.
Environmental design, behavioural tactics, token economies, institutional tactics, and gaps in state provision.
Environmental design.
Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED).
“design of buildings can be either used to reduce or encourage crime”
- uncared for areas encourage more crime e.g alleyways and abandoned buildings. = ‘hidden from society’.
- Areas that are cared for are less likely to attract criminal activity e.g fenced communities.
Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) = change designs of buildings to reduce criminal activity through surveillance and cctv.
CPTED and Alice Coleman study = poor designs of areas encourages crime due to reduced visibility in alleys and poor lighting surrounding streets.
Gated lanes (environmental design).
- gates around back alleys.
- example of CPTED.
- provides limited access to alleyways, but also benefiting community as it becomes a public space to share
- reduces burglaries and antisocial group meetings through physical barriers.
However ….. doesn’t deter criminals already within the community, and causes issues for emergency services.
Links between CPTED and criminological theories.
Right realism - obvious overlap between CPTED and situational crime prevention, which focuses on target hardening making it harder for people to commit crime.
E.g antisocial behaviour such as drug dealing or vandalism.
Criticism faced by CPTED.
- helps prevent crimes caused by people outside of an area however does not reduce crimes inside the lanes or households such as domestic abuse or cyber/fraud crimes.
Behavioural tactics
ASBOS = antisocial behaviour orders.
CBOs = criminal behaviour orders.
ASBOS target vandalism and public disorder, is not a criminal order but instead a civil warning, but can lead to convictions if the warning is breached.
- from 2000-13, 51% of people that were given ASBOs breached their conditions leading to the creation of CBOs
CBOs target worse crimes such as harassment, warnings last for 2 years and can lead to a 5 year conviction if breached.
Do ASBOs and CBOs work?
- they prevent behaviours and re-occurring behaviours.
- Can also provide programs such as drug treatment if the warning is taken seriously.
Theories linking with ASBOs and CBOs.
Labelling theory.
- when a person is gives an ASBO or CBO they can be perceived as criminals or delinquent.
- this can lead to self-fulfilling prophecy as they adopt “criminal” as their identity and encourage further criminal activity.
Token economies.
- often used in prisons and hospitals to shape behaviour based on skinners idea of positive reinforcement.
- The idea that if desirable behaviour is rewarded, it is more likely to be repeated, = operant conditioning.
- in prison, refraining from taking drugs, and obeying police orders, will result in a token, that prisoners are allowed to exchange for privileges such as TV or tobacco, resulting in a repeat of desirable behaviour.
Do token economies work?.
✅ - Hobbs and holt found that the behaviour of 125 boys aged between 12-15 changed positively due to the token regime.
❌ - it is argued that token economies are used in prisons to make the prison run efficiently rather than to modify behaviours of prisoners.
❌ - although reoffending is slower for those taken part in token economies it is still inevitable that prisoners will return to crime once good behaviour is no longer rewarded.
Institutional tactics.
Home, prison and work. Used to shapes behaviour using systems such as token economies and positive and negative sanctions.
Criminal justice system (courts and probation services) use institutional tactics to reach social control.
Courts using institutional tactics.
Sentences determined by the crimes an offender committed.
Worse crimes = worse sentences.
Probation services using institutional tactics.
Offenders must meet criteria of their release and are constantly supervised.
Facilities to meet criteria = actions taken such as re-releasing.
Prison using institutional tactics
Prisoners must not cause harm, must not attempt to escape, must not use forbidden items, and must be obedient to rules.
- failure = removal of privileges and confinement to cells
What type of discipline is used in institutions.
All institutions used phased discipline.
This is when first offences are dealt with more leniently than future offences.
Gaps in state provision.
Each agency and institution aims to establish social control however they are not always effective.
E.g
Resources in demand = taxes are used to pay for some costs of prison and other agencies, however taxes are also used to fund places like NHS. Leading to decline in budgets in prisons and police services after Covid.
New tech causes problems = new technologies can hinder the effectiveness of agencies dealing with crime, e.g. It is time consuming and difficult to search the mobile phone, which means it’s likely that evidence may be missed.
Existing law cannot account for our behaviours = E.g social media hosts are not prosecuted for allowing hate speech and cyber bullying on their platforms since there is no law to prosecute it.
