Module 16: 3 Ideal Philosophical Perspectives for Crime Control and Penal Reform

Question 1

Explain: Conservative views, the get tough policy

Answer 1

• suggests that the best way to deal with crime is to give police more power to arrest, more severe penalties, more police officers to patrol the streets, locking people up for a long time
• all we need to control crime is to apply these penal philosophies:
  1. deterrence; specific and general
  2. retribution; revenge, society has the right to punish offenders and punishment has a vital role in a just society, to teach others right vs wrong, to reinforce conformity, to build deviance avoidance habits, to satisfy the psychological needs of the victims
  3. incapacitation; to make the criminals powerless and disable them
• very costly, very single minded

Question 2

Explain: Liberal views, treatment and rehabilitation

Answer 2

-social workers, sociologists, psychologists, parole officers
-view conservatives as ignorant citizens, never happy with the correctional system
They want:
-short sentences
-protection for prisoner’s human rights
-less reliance on prisons
-true diversion
-they have difficulty pushing their agenda because of pressure from misinformed citizens/public who don’t know the factors contributing to crime, and special interest groups with political and financial motivations (ex. lawyers who don’t like prison diversion programs)

Question 3

Explain: Critical perspective, conflict theorists

Answer 3

• we need certain social and structural changes in society to control crime
• they want:
• to attack poverty and social inequality, because persistence of poverty, unemployment etc. present a variety of hazards, ex. lack of food, mental illness, lack of opportunity for upwards social mobility, recidivism is higher among the powerless in society because they are incline to view prisons and CJS as unjust and be bitter, crimes related to poverty and employment
• revising the criminal code to reform the principles of criminal law, ex. to have more tolerance for marginally deviant activities (stop over legislating and decriminalize moral offences)
• reassessing values conducive to criminality: relentless materialism/competition/individualism

Question 4

Define/explain: Realistic crime control orientation (M. Gottfredson and T. Hirshi)

Answer 4

• they call for a general theory of crime that can be applied across countries
  1. if we wan’t to prevent crime, we ought to support programs designed to provide effective child parenting, to teach children self-control at home and school too, by providing them with firm and consistent discipline, affection, nurturance, support, guidance and direction, teaching them to respect all humans without discrimination, children raised by nurturing parents are more likely to exhibit pro-social behaviour
  2. we ought to support policies that promote and facilitate two parent families, to increase the number of caregivers relative to the number of children, it is easier with two loving and caring parents
  3. don’t try to control crime by incarcerating adult offenders, because adult offenders have moved beyond the teen years (age of maximum participation in crime), they suggest other penalties which they believe are just as effective and much less expensive
  4. don’t try to control the crime rate in society by rehabilitating adults, because they say time cures all offenders faster than is possible through the best effort of dedicated correctional officers, they believe adults will age out with maturation, rehabilitative effects are not real most people just age out
  5. don’t try to control crime by increasing the severity/disabling effects of penalties, the idea that swift and severe penalties deter some offender is real, but penalties in NA are far removed from the criminal act, benefits of crime are immediate but costs are far in the future, so punishment should be swift and certain not severe