Criminalisation and Regulation - fall term final

Question 1

What is the politics of representation?

Answer 1

• the idea that meanings are determined on individual interpretations
• the meanings behind representation
• example: Trayvon Martin (murdered 17 year old black boy) - some news outlets used a picture of him smiling while others used photos of him in a hoodie or smoking (depicted as a thug)

Question 2

What are crime waves?

Answer 2

when the news media devotes a lot of attention to a small number of crimes in order to create a false impression that crime is on the rise (e.g. example of sexual assault in the rise of the MeToo movement, drug crises)

Question 3

What are the five core characteristics of moral panics as outlined by Goode and Ben-yehuda (1994)?

Answer 3

1. Disproportionate reaction to the event
2. Concern about a threat
3. Hostility towards a particular group of the subject of the panic
4. There is a widespread agreement that the threat is a real one
5. Volatility: moral panics are random in terms of scale or length

Question 4

Outline Hall’s mugging case

Answer 4

This case looked at the association between black men and mugging. Hall argued that mugging became a symbol for a range of problems in society (it stood in for anxieties about drugs, urban crime, homelessness etc.). Thus, attention shifted and the focus on many social issues drew attention away from the crime itself and towards the relations between the crime and the media/government officials. Mugging also became synonymous with street crime, thus creating racial undertones.

Question 5

What is the masculinity turn?

Answer 5

1. The belief that there is something distinct about men and the existence of being a man disposes men to criminality in a way that differentiates men from women
2. It is through the framework of gender and crime (more specifically, masculinities) that the relationship between men and crime is being explored

Question 6

What are some of the problems with masculinity that are outlined within the masculinity turn?

Answer 6

1. Masculinity is politically ambiguous - it is used in different ways in different discourses and perspectives. This is because of the open-ended nature of the concept. It is also mobilised differently in different historical periods
2. Masculinity is conceptually imprecise - Masculinity appears as both a specific form of culture and as something which varies between cultures
3. It is unclear how masculinity might be thought about in terms of ageing and moving through the lifecourse - Do individuals grow out of crime? Essentialists and constructionists disagree on at what point the relationship between masculinity and crime can be seen as synonymous

Question 7

Key arguments of Tough Guise

Answer 7

• masculinity is socially constructed
• the media plays a high role in this construction
• Why is it that girls also live in a world with violent video games, substance abuse, mental health etc. but only commit a fraction of the crime committed by men?
• When girls commit crime/violence, their gender becomes the story. The same happens when a racialised body commits crime - this does not happen when men commit crime
• Men take up more symbolic space and women taking up less symbolic space (e.g. figurines more more muscular but female beauty standards have changed - less curvy more slim)

Question 8

Key arguments of Better Luck Tomorrow

Answer 8

• directed by an Asian director
• The central characters all followed traditional American film tropes such as ‘the beauty’, ‘the boyfriend’, ‘the overachiever’ but with a Asian-American cast and within an Asian-American context
• Asian men are often stereotyped as martial artists, warriors or villains
  Deconstructing the Asian American “model minority” stereotype
  
  • “yellow peril”
  • None of the characters in the film are suspected of their crimes

Question 9

What is the official version of law?

Answer 9

• Law is neutral and impartial
• The law reflects the tradition of legal positivism (rationality and objectivity)
• There is a separation between the makers of rules (elected officials) and the administrators of the law
  
  • The rule of law:
    ○ Everyone is subject to the law
    ○ Everyone is equal before the law

Question 10

What are the critiques of the official version of law?

Answer 10

Critiques of the official version of law

• The legal subject is not a universal subject
• The law posits a decontextualized, ahistorical subject
• Can law be value free?

Question 11

What is critical race theory?

Answer 11

• Examines race and processes of racialisation in social, legal, political, cultural and economic processes
• Racism is a central feature of advanced liberal and capitalist societies
• Racism is interwoven into the fabric of these liberal, capitalist societies
• The law (and legal processes) is a product of societies that are organised around ideas of race
  Intersectionality is important to acknowledge

Question 12

What is colonisation?

Answer 12

the practice of acquiring political control over another land (and its people), occupying and exploiting it

Question 13

Outline the key points in ‘When Justice Isn’t Just’

Answer 13

• discusses police brutality
• highlights the need for more sensitivity and tolerance training in the police force
• black on black crime has the same rates of crime as other races

Question 14

What is synoptic power?

Answer 14

while the panopticon allows “few to see the many”, the synopticon allows “many to see the few”

Question 15

What is the masculinisation thesis?

Answer 15

idea that due to changes in gender roles, women are acting more and more like men (women who commit crimes are therefore ‘masculinised’)