Criminal Justice system: Flashcards
(15 cards)
what agencies are within the criminal justice system?
refers to all different agencies and organisations involved in crime control and prevention, and identifying, controlling and punishing known offenders.
Key agencies:
1 - The police
2 - Crown Prosecution Service
3 - The Court System
4 - National Offender Management Service
5 - Youth justice Board.
what are the roles of the CJS?
Deterrence
Protection of the public
Retribution
Rehabilitation
what is conflict policing?
Marxists believe that police are not a part of the community but are a hostile outside force. Police are working directly in the interests of the ruling class, against the interests or the proletariat.
what is consensus policing?
Functionalists believe that police come from and are working on behalf of the community that they police. Their presence is reassuring. They follow-up crimes reported by the public and they are well known in communities.
what do functionalists see the criminal justice system as?
Functionalists see the criminal justice system as a vital institution within the society. It works with other social institutions to ensure social solidarity and cohesion by maintaining the law and order.
what do marxists see the CJS as?
Marxists see the Criminal justice system as part of the repressive state apparatus and used by the ruling class to maintain their power through oppression whilst appearing to be legitimate.
How do feminists view the CJS?
See the criminal justice system as a tool of the patriarchy to maintain their power. This is done through the fact that most members of the CJS are men and women face double victimisation and double deviancy at their hands.
what does Garland argue about the changing focus in the CJS?
Garland (2001) suggest that for the majority of the 20th century, the focus of the CJS was rehabilitation, but since the 1970’s there has been a growing emphasis on retributive justice i.e. punishment.
This has led to a huge increase in prisoners in the UK – more than doubling between 1970-2014.
This is echoed in the rhetoric’s of politicians to ‘crack down hard on crime’ and giving criminals their ‘just deserts’.
What do crawford and Evans note?
note that the emphasis on crime reduction since the 1980’s has focused on prevention of crime, rather than simply the punishment of crime as punishment of crime as it is, is expensive and often not effective.
growing recognition that the CJS should be more concerned with protecting victims and recognising their needs
What is the culture of control?
The CJS doesn’t seek to help tackle the causes of crime but just tries to control it.
Garland argues there is now a culture of control in the CJS which is concerned with controlling, preventing and reducing the risks of people being victims of crime, rather than rehabilitating criminals.
He evidences this through the increased use of private security alongside official criminal justice agents i.e. the police.
How do postmodernists support the culture of control?
Postmodernists also argue that there is a growing detachment of the CJS from centralised control to informal localised control i.e. the voluntary use of sharia courts in the UK for civil cases, and shops often have their own security to prevent crime.
What is restorative justice?
Due to the uncertainty of the impact of imprisonment on reducing crime, there are more attempts to divert people committing low level crimes away from formal sanctions in the CJS.
They have done this through restorative justice.
brings those harmed by crime or conflict and those responsible for the harm into communication, enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward.
prevent conflict
How can we prevent crime?
Situational crime prevention
Environmental crime prevention
Social and community crime prevention
How do we control crime?
Increased social control:
Neighbourhood watch
Parenting order
Heavier policing
Harsher sentences
what is reintergrative shaming?
reintegrative shaming’ – naming and shaming the offenders so that society disproves of them.
