Below the state Flashcards
Discuss the term ‘community’?
- Nexus of crime and community remains a heavy debate
- Questions of: does community still exist? Is there a ‘rose-tinted’ view of community?
- Communities are both places we get ‘local’ and a source of identity
- Community has an ideological appeal but social scientists often argue community is fictional and fantasy BUT arguably a ‘necessary fiction’ given its pull on our fundamentally collective and inter-dependent quality of our existence (aka we are social creatures and need community bonds) - ideological ideal vs. fiction and fantasy
- It is time for criminologists to study communities on a case study level
What is meant by the term ‘governing through crime’ and discuss with reference to community safety MUST KNOW
Governing through crime
- Need crime in order to have power: paternal hierarchy of the nation and the state who need crime to be able to punish those who misbehaviour, and through punishment they reproduce more power
- Simon 2001: Like metaphors in literacy which are used to move knowledge from one domain to another, Crime is used to move knowledge and power from the state to the community, as well as from criminal matters to all matters that are not inherently criminal (criminalisation of social policy) ‘re-conceptualising social policy as criminal policy, used for political agendas/campaigns and used to legitimise the further intervention of the state into matters that are not crimes’ (Simon, 2007)
- Edwards and Hughes, 2008: Social policy is driven by crime reduction and crime prevention, rather than an end in itself e.g. Housing sector are forced to find houses for the homeless, not for the homeless peoples welfare, but to prevent fear of crime and crime occurring
- Links to community safety: Because governing through crime is occupied with prevention and dealing with the causes of crime, it tackles all factors of the community that are not crime matters e.g. education, housing, health, etc - Hence multi-agency partnerships are introduced taking a harm based approach to incorporate social policy and all aspects of local community to have the primary goal of crime reduction (Morgan Report, 2001) - hence governing through crime (Edward and Hughes, 2008)
- Example: ASBOs
What is critical criminology’s model of neo-liberal dystopia for the future outcome of crime control and security in late modernity?
- Crime prevention is recoded as a practice of privatism/privatisation, segregation of rich and poor and exclusive inclusion of ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ e.g. gated communities
- ‘Black holes of globalisation’ (Castells, 1997) caused coercive policing, technological surveillance and gated communities
- Predicted in Cohen’s ‘Visions of Social Control’ (1985) and seemly concretised via Los Angeles of Mike Davis (City of Quartz, 1990) ‘apocalypse now’ - widening net of control, using ‘soft’ control but vastly - Taking a social-welfare approach which expands even further into our lives than ever before, incorporating even more people into the criminal justice system
What are the features of crime prevention of the dystopia future?
- Segmentation and social polarisation, alongside increasing corporate power over the state and citizenry
- Politics of risk, fear and security become apart of our everyday lives - local, national and global level ‘terror comes home…’
- ‘Governing through crime?’ Simon, 2008
Give criticisms of critical criminology neo-liberal dystopia…
- seductions of grand narratives of disaster and catastrophic change cant be easily dismissed and do touch on macro-structural change that is happening…
- …However, social scientists have a long tradition of predicting doom, the theory is too pessimistic, negative and closed off
- Future crime prevention is more contested and less apocalyptic than critical criminology models allow for (Hughes; Garland; O’Malley)
- Underestimates the messiness, mundanity and contradictions in local crime control and public safety
- Empirical studies of ‘geo-histories’ need to done on the ground, not through reading off text and official discourses - Need real-life, practical contextual understanding
- Also requires comparative local case study research into policies and practices of control, safety and prevention (Hughes, 2007)
- Antidote to dystopianism is not utopianism but critical realism
Give 3 research implications…
1) Distinction between rhetoric and actual practice - gap between intended governmental projections and actual outcomes at the stage of implementation
2) The power-dependency of would-be sovereign actors on other actors and institutions at different levels of governance e.g. PCCS are not able to do what they want to do due to power-dependency relationship
3) Alongside dominant global and national trends and discourses, localities and institutional sites have distinct and uneven geo-histories that makes a difference to effect (Contra-simon)
What context/situation did community responses to crime and disorder come out of?
- Communities have always been apart of informal social controls, they are firmly embedded in the community structure e.g. youth clubs
- Come from accepting that the sovereign state cannot police at all times and ensure constant safety to all citizens - however, withdrawal of police runs risk of vigilantism (‘autonomous citizenship’)
- ‘responsible citizen’: responsiblisation of power to the community from the state, and self-regulation (links to Foucault)
- The big society: we must all contribute as active citizens to protecting society
Give examples of ‘responsible citizens’ /citizen policing…
- Johnston, 2000
- Volunteer policing special constabulary who are trained but not paid
- Neighbourhood watch/Street watch - ‘walking with a purpose’
- Speed wardens
- Voluntary patrols e.g. street pastors
- Crime stoppers - Share information with the police e.g. on drug dealers
- Guardian angels e.g. New York underground
What are the key features of Vigilantism
Johnston, 1996 - ‘autonomous citizenship’
Features (Johnston, 1996):
- Preparation and planning
- Voluntary activity taken by…
-…Voluntary, private citizens
- Use or threat of violence/force
- Trying to achieve some control in conditions of instability/disorder (perceived or real)
- Offers of assurance ‘guarantees of security’ to both participants and the public
Give examples of cases of vigilantism
- Paramilitary policing in Northern Ireland
- Community response to naming and shaming local suspected paedophiles e.g. attacked, paedophile hunter
- Informal justice e.g. poured tar over drug dealer in Northern Ireland with signs saying ‘I am a drug dealing scumbag’
- Punishment/beatings/executions in Northern Ireland
- Rough justice in the UK
- Case of Tony Martin - shot dead a 16 year old burglar who was on his property
What is the Zwelethemba Model?
- Restorative justice that is focused on the victim, offender and the community
- Originated in South Africa
- Local capacity governance
- Aim was to have a sustainable model of governance based on local knowledge/capacity
- Based on resolving disputes in the community and ‘community building’ in poor neighbourhoods outside of the criminal justice system
- Revolves around the idea of peace-making through peace committees, peace gatherings and ‘peace building’
What is the background and key elements of restorative justice?
Background
- Critique of retributive justice
- Moral/religious themes
- Theoretical developments of new control theory and reintegration shaming
Key Elements
- Stakeholder inclusion (victim, offender, families, community, friends, etc)
- Needs participation and deliberation
- Restorative outcomes: symbolic, emotional and material repair caused by harm of the offence e.g. shaming
What forms of restorative justice are there? Give recent example from the UK
Forms:
- Mediation = third party mediator to help resolve dispute
- Family conferences = mediation but with the inclusion of family (especially in juvenile delinquency)
- Healing/sentencing circles = more religious/spiritual integration
- Citizen panels = offender and victim meet with panel to discuss the pain caused to victim by offender and mediate and resolve problem
UK Examples:
- Restorative cautioning = victim and offender meet face-to-face to share views and deter future offending
- Youth referral orders = refer to citizen panels
- Circles of support and accountability = Circles.uk reintegrate sex offenders into the UK
What is the problem with state provisions that mean there should be non-state governance of security? Give reference
Shearing and collegaues
- Centralised bureaucratic organisation
- Distance from local views/needs of people to what the state think
- inefficient and ineffective
- oppressive and unjust - big control the small/top-down approach
Give 5 advantages of community governance…. Reference
Shearing et al
1) local community feel sense of empowerment
2) Local knowledge and capacities are used to an advantage
3) Includes those who are disadvantaged/usually marginalised
4) Takes a forward-looking, problem-solving approach
5) Avoids recourse to the criminal justice system - prevents net-widening and criminalisation
