Control, Punishment and Victims Flashcards
(36 cards)
Situational crime prevention
Ron Clarke (1992) defines situational crime prevention as a strategy that focuses on reducing opportunities for crime rather than addressing broader social issues. It involves targeting specific crimes, changing the immediate environment, and increasing the effort and risk while reducing the rewards of committing crime. Examples include target hardening (e.g. locks, CCTV) and replacing coin-operated meters to reduce theft.
This approach is based on rational choice theory, which sees criminals as rational actors who weigh up risks and benefits. Clarke argues it’s more practical to reduce crime opportunities than to try solving deep-rooted causes like poor socialisation or inequality.
Marcus Felson (2002) supports this with an example: redesigning New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal—such as replacing large sinks with small basins—helped significantly reduce deviant behavior by altering the physical environment.
Displacement
A key criticism of situational crime prevention is that it may not reduce crime but displace it—criminals might simply shift to softer targets or different methods. Chaiken et al. (1974) found that cracking down on subway robberies in New York just moved them to nearby streets. Displacement can be spatial, temporal, target-based, tactical, or functional.
However, some evidence suggests displacement doesn’t always occur. A notable example is Britain’s switch from toxic coal gas to natural gas in the 1960s. Suicides by gassing dropped to near zero, and importantly, the overall suicide rate fell, indicating that people did not simply switch to other methods—showing situational measures can be truly effective.
Evaluation of situational crime prevsntion
- Situational crime prevention works to some extent in reducing certain kinds of crime. However, with most measures there is likely to be some displacement.
- It tends to focus on opportunistic petty street crime. It ignores white collar, corporate and state crime, which are more costly and harmful.
- It assumes criminals make rational calculations. This seems unlikely in many crimes of violence, and crimes committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
- It ignores the root causes of crime, such as poverty or poor socialisation. This makes it difficult to develop long-term strategies for crime reduction.
Environmental crime prevention
The Broken Windows theory, introduced by Wilson and Kelling (1982), suggests that visible signs of disorder—like vandalism, graffiti, and begging—signal a lack of care and control in a neighbourhood. When minor issues are ignored, it creates an environment where more serious crime can flourish.
They argue that both formal control (police) and informal control (community) are often absent in such areas. Police tend to overlook minor offences, and residents feel powerless, leading to a spiral of decline as respectable people move out and the area attracts more deviant behavior.
Zero tolerance policing
Wilson and Kelling argue that disorder and lack of control lead to crime, so their solution involves a twofold strategy:
Environmental improvement – fix issues like broken windows or abandoned cars immediately to prevent further decline.
Zero tolerance policing – police should proactively address all signs of disorder, even minor non-criminal behavior, to stop serious crime from developing and restore community control.
The evidence - zero tolerance policing
Zero tolerance policing was seen as a major success in New York, especially on the subway, where initiatives like the Clean Car Program quickly removed graffiti. This approach expanded to crackdowns on fare dodging, drug dealing, and begging, and between 1993–1996, the city saw a 50% drop in homicides.
However, it’s unclear if zero tolerance was the main cause. Other contributing factors included:
7,000 additional police officers
A nationwide drop in crime, even in cities without zero tolerance
Economic improvements and job growth from 1994
Reduced crack cocaine use
Better emergency medical care, possibly lowering homicide deaths
Despite the debate, zero tolerance policing has been influential worldwide, including in shaping UK policies on antisocial behaviour.
Social and community crime prevention
While Wilson and Kelling acknowledge the role of community in crime prevention, their approach mainly focuses on policing. In contrast, social and community prevention strategies target the root causes of crime, such as poverty, unemployment, and poor housing. These are long-term solutions aimed at changing the social conditions that lead to offending, rather than just reducing opportunities. Broader social reforms, like promoting full employment, may also help reduce crime—even if unintentionally.
The Perry pre-school project
The Perry Pre-School Project in Michigan is a well-known community crime prevention program targeting disadvantaged Black children. It provided 3–4-year-olds with a two-year educational enrichment program and weekly home visits. A long-term study showed that, by age 40, participants had fewer arrests, higher graduation rates, and better employment outcomes compared to a control group. The program also proved cost-effective, saving $17 for every $1 spent through reduced spending on welfare, prisons, and other services.
Foucault: birth of the prison
Michel Foucault (1979) contrasts two forms of power: sovereign power and disciplinary power.
Sovereign power, common before the 19th century, used brutal, public punishments (e.g., executions, mutilation) to assert control.
From the 19th century, disciplinary power took over, focusing on controlling the mind and behaviour through surveillance rather than physical punishment.
Foucault rejects the idea that punishment became more humane; instead, he argues that surveillance is simply a more efficient way to control people.
Panopticon
Foucault rejects the idea that punishment became more humane; instead, he argues that surveillance is simply a more efficient way to control people.
He illustrates this with the Panopticon—a prison design where inmates never know when they’re being watched, so they self-discipline their behaviour.
Disciplinary power aims to rehabilitate rather than crush offenders, and relies on experts (e.g., psychologists) to monitor and correct deviant behaviour. Foucault argues that the rise of social sciences coincided with the development of the modern prison system.
The ‘dispersal of discipline’
Foucault argues that from the 19th century onwards, institutions like mental asylums, barracks, factories, workhouses, and schools began using disciplinary power to enforce conformity through self-surveillance. He introduces the idea of a “carceral archipelago”, where prison-like social control practices, including community service orders, spread into various parts of society, with professionals like teachers, social workers, and psychiatrists monitoring individuals. Foucault believes that disciplinary power has dispersed throughout society, with the Panopticon becoming a model for how power operates in all social institutions, influencing every individual.
Criticisms of Foucault
Foucault’s work on surveillance and disciplinary power has sparked research into the concept of the “electronic Panopticon”, where modern technologies monitor individuals. However, Foucault has faced criticism on several points:
The shift from sovereign power to disciplinary power is not as clear-cut as he suggests.
He incorrectly assumes that emotional aspects of punishment have disappeared in modern society.
Critics argue he overstates the extent of control and power of surveillance, with some prisoners resisting control, as shown by Goffman.
Regarding modern surveillance, like CCTV, it may not always be effective in preventing crime. Norris’s (2012) review found it reduced crime in car parks but had little impact on other crimes. The real function of CCTV may be more ideological, offering a false sense of security. Feminists, like Koskela (2012), also critique CCTV as an extension of the male gaze, making women more visible to male surveillance without increasing their security.
Surveillance theories since Foucault - Synoptic surveillance
Thomas Mathiesen (1997) expands on Foucault’s theory of surveillance, arguing that it only tells half the story in today’s society. While Foucault’s Panopticon describes top-down surveillance (few monitoring the many), Mathiesen introduces the idea of the “Synopticon”, where the many also watch the few. In modern society, surveillance occurs both from above (by authorities) and below (by the public).
Examples of Synoptic surveillance include:
**Politicians fearing media scrutiny, which acts as a social control.
Ordinary citizens using devices like dashcams or mobile phones to monitor each other’s actions or expose wrongdoing, such as police misconduct.**
Mann et al. (2003) call this “sousveillance” (surveillance from below). However, McCahill (2012) argues that while bottom-up surveillance can occur, it may not challenge established power structures, as seen with anti-terrorism laws allowing police to confiscate cameras or phones from citizen journalists.
Surveillance theories since Foucault - Surveillant assemblages
Foucault’s idea of surveillance focused on controlling physical bodies in confined spaces, like prisons. However, Haggerty and Ericson (2000) argue that modern surveillance targets virtual data in cyberspace, not just physical spaces.
They highlight a shift from isolated surveillance tools to integrated systems, where technologies are combined—for example, using CCTV with facial recognition software. They call these combinations “surveillant assemblages”, suggesting we’re moving toward a system where different data sources merge to create a “data double” of each person—an extensive digital profile used for monitoring and control.
Surveillance theories since Foucault - Actuarial justice and risk management
Feeley and Simon (1994) argue a new form of “actuarial justice” is emerging, distinct from Foucault’s disciplinary power. It:
Focuses on groups, not individuals.
Aims to prevent crime, not rehabilitate.
Uses actuarial analysis—statistical risk assessments—to predict who might offend.
For example, airport security uses personal data (age, sex, etc.) to assign risk scores and screen higher-risk passengers more thoroughly.
David Lyon (2012) calls this “social sorting”, where people are categorized by risk and treated accordingly. This can lead to “categorical suspicion” (Marx, 1988), where entire groups (e.g., young Muslim men) are treated with suspicion.
A major criticism is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: profiling based on biased stats leads to disproportionate policing of certain groups, reinforcing those same biased stats.
Surveillance theories since Foucault - Labelling and surveillance
Ditton et al. (1999) found that although CCTV technology in one city could detect expired vehicle tax discs, operators chose not to use it for that purpose. Instead, CCTV operators make selective, often discriminatory decisions about whom to monitor.
Norris and Armstrong (1999) found young Black males were disproportionately targeted, not due to actual behaviour, but due to stereotypical assumptions about likely offenders—what they call “typifications.”
This results in a self-fulfilling prophecy: targeted groups are more likely to be caught and criminalised, reinforcing stereotypes, while others (like motorists) go unchecked, reducing their likelihood of being criminalised.
Reduction
Punishment is often justified as a way to prevent future crime, using three main strategies:
Deterrence: Punishing offenders discourages them and others from committing crimes (e.g., Thatcher’s 1980s “short, sharp shock” for young offenders).
Rehabilitation: Aims to reform offenders through education, training, or therapy, so they don’t reoffend.
Incapacitation: Prevents further offending by removing the offender’s ability to commit crimes (e.g., prison, execution, or policies like the U.S. “three strikes” law).
These are all instrumental justifications—they use punishment as a tool to achieve crime reduction.
Retribution
Retribution is the idea of punishing offenders as payback for crimes already committed. It’s based on the belief that offenders deserve punishment and that society has a right to express its outrage. Unlike approaches focused on preventing future crime, retribution is an expressive justification—emphasizing moral condemnation rather than practical outcomes.
Durkheim: a functionalist perspective
Functionalists like Durkheim see punishment as a way to maintain social solidarity and reinforce shared values. It is mainly expressive, reflecting society’s moral outrage. Public rituals like trials and punishments help reaffirm collective values and strengthen moral unity within society.
Two types of justice
Durkheim argues that punishment supports social solidarity, but its form varies by society type:
Retributive justice occurs in traditional societies with strong collective conscience and little specialisation. Punishment is severe, vengeful, and expressive, aiming to repress wrongdoers.
Restitutive justice is found in modern societies, where individuals are interdependent. Punishment aims to repair harm and restore balance, making it instrumental, though it still contains expressive elements.
However, Durkheim may have overstated the prevalence of retributive justice in traditional societies, as many used compensation instead of harsh punishment.
Marxism: capitalism and punishment
Marxists view punishment as a tool to maintain class domination and protect ruling-class interests. It is part of the repressive state apparatus, used to control the working class and defend ruling-class property.
E.P. Thompson shows how harsh punishments in the 18th century, like hanging for theft, enforced class power.
Rusche and Kirchheimer argue that the form of punishment reflects the economy; for instance, capitalism favors imprisonment as the main penalty.
Melossi and Pavarini suggest that prison mirrors capitalist work structures — both involve control, discipline, and loss of freedom, and treat time as a commodity.
The changing role of prisons
In pre-industrial Europe, punishments included warnings, banishment, corporal punishment, and execution. Prisons were mainly used to hold offenders before punishment. Only after the Enlightenment did imprisonment become a punishment in itself, aimed at reforming offenders through hard labour, religious instruction, and surveillance.
Imprisonment today
In liberal democracies without the death penalty, imprisonment is the most severe punishment, but it’s largely ineffective at rehabilitation—around two-thirds reoffend after release. Critics argue prison is costly and often worsens offenders.
Since the 1980s, there’s been a shift toward “populist punitiveness,” with politicians pushing for tougher sentencing to gain public support. This led to a surge in the prison population—doubling between 1993 and 2021 in England and Wales to around 80,000.
The result has been overcrowding, poor conditions, and limited support or opportunities for inmates. England and Wales have one of the highest incarceration rates in Western Europe, with 130 per 100,000 people, compared to France (93), Germany (69), and Sweden (68). The global leaders are Russia (328) and the USA (639).
The prison population is mostly young, male, poorly educated, and disproportionately made up of ethnic minorities.
The era of mass incarceration?
Garland Mass Incarceration: Since the 1970s, the USA (and to a lesser extent the UK) has entered an era of mass incarceration, with a sharp rise in the prison population.
Garland Prison Population Growth: The US has 1.4 million people in state and federal prisons, 750,000 in local jails, and 4.5 million under criminal justice supervision (over 3% of the adult population).
Garland Disproportionate Imprisonment of Black Males: Young Black males, who make up 12% of the population, represent 33% of the prison population. Black males are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white males.
Ideological Function: The prison system helps absorb unemployed individuals, making capitalism seem more successful (as suggested by David Downes).
Shift in Crime Control: The rise in incarceration is linked to a shift from rehabilitation-focused policies to more punitive “tough on crime” policies since the 1970s.
Increased Female Incarceration: There has been a rise in female incarceration, despite no clear increase in female criminal activity.
War on Drugs: The “war on drugs” has significantly contributed to mass incarceration, creating a large pool of offenders to arrest and imprison due to widespread drug use.
