Crime Reduction, Crime Prevention and Government Policy Flashcards
(47 cards)
Realist criminology
An approach to studying crime which focuses on the real causes, real victims and real offenders in society. It is an approach which claims to suggest practical solutions to dealing with crime rather than endless theories and ideas.
The 2 realist approaches
- Right realism: New Right views
- Left realism
Right Realists - The New Right
Strand of conservatives influenced by Thatcher’s government from the 80s, advocating social traditionalism and economic liberism.
Right Realists - main approach
Influenced conservative policies to instill a tough, law and order approach to tackling crime. A ‘crackdown on soft justice’.
Right Realists - Causes of crime
- Biological explanation: men have higher levels of testosterone, increased agression can cause crime
- Changing culture in society: immediate gratification takes priority over human compassion
- Inadequet socialisation: Murray
- Weak social bonds: Hirschi
Right Realists - Murray - The underclass and Married to the State
The absence of a nuclear family and being dependant on state benefits are the reasons for inadequet socialisation. He believes teenage girls purposefully get pregnant to get benefits. Welfare dependancy among Britian’s underclass (below working-class) create weak social bonds and are a part of inadequet socialisation.
Right Realists - Tackling crime
The Right realists believe:
- crime is a rational choice
- situational crime prevention measures include the use of target hardening; to make properties less accessible and more secure to detter bulgarly. Alarm systems, tall fences/gates, anti-climb paint can make potential offenders think twice
- strengthening formal social control: 0 tolerance policing, increased use of custodial sentences
Right Realists - Marcus Felson - Target Hardening
Following complaints about homeless people bathing in rectangular sinks in public toilets in New York, money was spent installing smaller, circular hand basins. Neon-lighting was installed, making it difficult for drug users to inject. This is a desgin out deviance strategy.
Right Realists - Marcus Felson - criticisms
- Only focuses on street crimes, doesn’t tackle white-collar, corporate or victimless crimes.
- Crime may be displaced, rather than prevented (zone of transtion).
- Situational crime prevention fails to tackle the root causes of crime.
- Not all crime is rational. The defence of loss of control exists for a reason.
Right Realists - Masland - breakdown of informal social control
Crime and delinquency could be linked to a breakdown in the moral fabric of society. Schools and religionhave become less effective agencies of social control and the moral glue of society, once strong, is weakening. Morality has declined subsequently and crime has increased. A growing social underclass, where a culture of dependancy exists, feuls criminal activity. Informal social control has weakened as people only look out for themselves.
Right Realists - Conservative Crime Policies, 1980s-90s
During their campaign, the Conservatives promised to restore the ‘rule of law’ with ‘war on crime’. They believed criminals, rather than societywere responsible for crime. The ‘soft’ Labour policies of the past were blamed for the increase in crime rates. Conservatives invested money intoequipping the CJS with the means of dealing with offenders. Expenditure on the police force increased by 40% and courts were asked to give their toughest sentencing to deter offenders. Thatcher inroduced a ‘short, sharp shock’ policy to young offenders.
Conservatives prioritised strategies in fighting crime:
- Tough prision sentences
- Zero-tolerance policing
- Strong communities
- Naming and shaming
Right Realists - Conservative Crime Policies, 1980s-90s - criticisms
- Naming and shaming can lead to futher deviance via labelling theory.
- Prisions are overcrowded, where do prisioners with long and harsh sentences stay? Unrealistic.
- Re-offending is very high, within 2 years of release 1/2 of offenders return back to prision.
- Too much power to police can cause unfair targeting, lead to further deviance, corruption and an artificial increase in crime. Police bias is dangerous.
- Doesn’t tackle the true root of crime.
- Only focuses on street crime, not white-collar crime.
December 2019 - Joseph McCann
Serial rapist given 33 life sentences after being released from prision following a probation error in Feburary.
Right Realists - Surveillance
The monitoring of public behaviour for the purposes of population or crime control. Involves using people’s behaviour to gather data about it and uses that data to regulate, manage or ‘correct’ their behaviour.
Right Realists - Michel Foucault - Birth of the prision
In the past, peoples’ behaviour was brutally controlled by the soverign power, enforced by means of reactive oppression.
Right Realists - Michel Foucault - The panopticon principle
Draws upon a prision desgin commonly used in the US - prisioner cells face inwards to look at a centrual guard tower. Prisioners can see the guard tower at all times but they cannot see whether guards are present and looking back at them. Surveillance becomes a form of self-surveillance; they know they might be being watched, so they behave well. This is more cost effective than just reacting to criminal behaviour and by encouraging conformity, there is less burden on the CJS. The panopticon principle has been adapted and rolled out to allow surveillance to moniter people through the use if CCTV. This is referred to as the dispersal of discipline.
Right Realists - Michel Foucault - criticisms
- Doesn’t tackle causes of crime, just displaces it.
- Invasion of pricacy is a human rights concern.
- Only focuses on street crime, ignores white-collar crime.
- Crime still happens regardless of surveillance.
- Is there too much reliance on CCTV? Recordings don’t hold the full context or audio often times.
- People can disguise themselves if present in CCTV.
Right Realists - Synoptic surveillance
With advancements in technology, everyone is able to moniter everyone (the masses monitering the few). Politicians can now ensure that they themselves follow the law. This is seen in:
- Facebook resulted in people being able to influence each others behviour.
- Cyclists wear cameras to make sure drivers behave themselves on the road.
- Police officers wear cameras to capture evidence as it happens.
Behaviours are controlled and self-surveillance encourages everyone to follow the law.
Right Realists - Synoptic surveillance - Draft Communications Data Bill, 2012
Proposed by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, requiring internet service providers and mobile phone companies to store records of internet search history, browising and text messages, voicemail conversations, ect. for 12 months. The gov believed it was essential in the prevention and tackling of terrorism andother extremist activities. If people had nothing to hide, they should not fear this law.
Right Realists - Synoptic surveillance - Draft Communications Data Bill, 2012 - criticisms
This can led to categorical surveillance - causing racism and counter-productive surveillance that doesn’t help anyone.
This would also allow the state unregulated access to private communications between people and increases the potential for such powers to be abused by this mass surveillance.
Right Realists - Feeley and Simon - Surveillance and Risk Management
Argued that a new technology of power has emerged in society whereby the state can monitor whole groups of people in an attempt to cut offending rates. For example: Airport security scanners gather data on passangers about the passangers age, sex, ethnicity, ect. and are used to proflie ‘high-risk groups’ to allow officials to stop and search them. This form of social sorting allows the state to put whole groups under categorical suspicion. This is a prevention crime reduction strategy.
Right Realists - Feeley and Simon - criticisms
This will definately be racially motivated. Labelling theory can be included here to show how conter-productive this can be, and the symbolic violence it can lead to. Some groups will be over-policed whilst others will slip completely under the radar.
Crime and Physical Disorder - Wilson and Kelling - Broken Windows Theory
Areas where informal social controls have broken down, or are weak, tend to experience most anti-social behaviour. If graffiti appears on a wall and remains there or a fence has been kicked down and not fixed, a message is sent to the offender that ‘nobody cares’. This implicity invites more of the same behaviour. The area deteriorates into chaos. If broken windows are immediately fixed, offenders will get bored and move to another area. The community sends out a message that anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated.
Crime and Physical Disorder - Welsey Skogn - the Spiral of Decay
Believes that physical disorder such as litter, graffiti, ect. combined with social disorder, like prostitution, druken behaviour and violence quickly lead to a spiral of decay. Left unchallenged, this can quickly lead to an area developing a negative reputation. People become too afraid to go out after dark and any sense of neighbourliness is quickly destroyed. This makes it easier for further crime to occur.
