Crime control, prevention and punishment Crime and deviance Crime control, prevention and punishment

Learning Objective: To be able to understand the role of the criminal justice system To be able to describe and evaluate Left and Right Realist explanations for crime prevention and control

The CJS is responsible for crime control, prevention and punishment. Construct: The CJS is responsible for crime control, prevention and punishment. TASK – In your booklet, fill in the missing words Answers: Police Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) Prisons Home Office Ministry of Justice Youth Punishing Middle-class Judges White Education Oxford Cambridge

The criminal justice system: The CJS is concerned with four inter-related aims: Deterring people from crime - This is the ultimate aim of the CJS, and in an ideal world it would be so effective that people would be afraid to get caught and therefore deterred from committing crime Protecting the public – it is the primary role of the police to maintain public order and to catch offenders, and the courts, through a wide range of penalties, aim to stop them causing further harm to people or property. Punishing criminal behaviour – this is linked to protecting the public, and is perhaps the most popular conception of the CJS. Reforming or rehabilitating criminals – at the end of the CJS process, after various punishments have been applied, ideally criminals will turn into reformed characters, so that they never offend again.

Crime prevention and control: What are the forms of punishment and prevention taking place in each image above? Which of these methods of punishment and prevention are most effective and why?

Construct: There are two main ways to explain crime prevention and control. These come from: Right Realism Left Realism TASK – Using the card sort – judge which statements relate to Left Realism and which relate to Right Realism

TASK – work through pages 4-9 in your booklet using the textbook Construct: TASK – work through pages 4-9 in your booklet using the textbook

Right Realism: Environmental crime prevention Hirschi believes that strong social bonds (e.g. With the community) will encourage people to choose conformity over deviance. Policies flowing from this include: Making parents take responsibility for supervision of their children, and socialising them more effectively into conformist behaviour. Those who don’t may be issued with Parenting Orders – court orders for parents to attend parenting classes or counselling Schemes like Neighbourhood Watch, which help to build community controls over time through informal surveillance and ‘good neighbourliness’ – e.g. keeping an eye on each other’s home Cracking down on anti-social behaviour like graffiti, hoax calls, verbal abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, and intimidating behaviour by groups of youths through measures like Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs or ‘Crimbos’.

Right Realism: Environmental crime prevention 4. Supervision of offenders – e.g. electronic tagging and curfew orders to restrict and monitor their movements 5. Adopting zero tolerance policies (‘broken windows’) which involves taking steps against all crime, even low-level offences like graffiti, vandalism, to prevent community breakdown and nip problems in the bud before they destroy a sense of community and individuals come to believe they can get away with offending, and crime subsequently escalates 6. Heavier policing and more arrests, particularly targeted on high-crime areas, to deter potential offending. 7. Fast-track punishment of offenders, with more imprisonment and harsher sentences. 8. Making it harder to commit crime e.g. CCTV and anticlimb paint

AO3 – Criticisms of Right Realist crime prevention policies: Zero tolerance policing and a strong police presence in neighbourhoods with high levels of crime may involve a wasteful over-emphasis on minor and trivial offences, which may divert police resources away from more serious crimes which cause greater harm. Labelling theorists suggest that some groups may be targeted and victimised unfairly by police e.g. Police racism; which will lead to a SFP. This was found to be one of the causes of the 2011 riots. They ignore white-collar and corporate crimes, which can have serious consequences for victims They don’t address the wider social causes of crime that Left Realists do. They assume that offenders act rationally in choosing crime and gain benefits from it, but crimes like vandalism, hate crimes, joy-riding are impulsive and do not bring any obvious gain.

Left Realism: Social crime prevention Preventing crime involves addressing these social issues through policies such as: Policies to reduce the cultural and material deprivation, such as Sure Start, to encourage better parenting, reduce social exclusion and increase social mobility (under the Coalition government Sure Start was abolished) Schemes such as Safer Neighbourhoods where communities work together with the police, encouraging people to pre-empt crimes, e.g. securing their homes more effectively. Building community cohesion and trusting and positive relationships with the police e.g. more public involvement in choosing senior police personnel. Making the police more accountable for their actions.

Left Realism: Social crime prevention 4. Multi-agency working, such as Community Safety Partnerships, where a variety of agencies – such as the police, the local council, and the health and probation services – work together with local people to tackle crime, rather than just relying on the police. 5. Perry Pre school project – Community programme aimed at reducing criminality, Michigan. A group of 3-4 year olds were offered a two-year intellectual enrichment programme, where they received weekly home visits. The longitudinal study followed their progress and found striking differences with a control group who did not have the programme. By age 40, they had significantly fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property crime and drugs, while more had graduated frp, high school and were employed. It was calculated that for every dollar spent on the programme, $17 were saved on welfare, prison and other costs.

AO3 – Criticisms of Left Realist crime prevention approaches: They are ‘soft’ on crime, as they focus too much on the social causes of crime, and downplay the role of the offender in choosing to commit crime. The offender almost becomes a victim of him- or herself. The explanations are inadequate, as the majority of those living in deprived communities share similar risk factors do not turn to crime. They deflect attention away from more practical crime prevention measures, like the tighter social control and situational crime prevention that Right Realists suggest. They (like Right Realists) ignore white-collar and corporate crime. Neighbourhood policing, in which police try to integrate themselves into communities as part of community approaches, might be seen as an extension of control and surveillance by the state over the whole population, whether or not they are involved in offending.

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