criminology ac 1.3

• broken windows theory- James Q. Wilson said that if a neighbourhood leaves one window broken-> many more will happen

  
  

  therefore they policed more heavily on minor crimes

  
  

  strength- 40% drop in overall crime and 50% in homicide

  
  

  weakness- may have just been a coincidence as coincided with a period of economic growth, also more policing was done on people of colour so could be seen as discriminatory
• unreported crime can lead to decriminalisation

  e.g. of homosexuality as before people were oppressed and killed because of it, but people campaigned for legalisation so, a law in 1967 allowed men to be openly gay and now people primarily accept it.
• consequences of unreported crime:

  • ripple effect- crime can have a detrimental effect on the lives of many people (e.g. harmful to both victim and those around them in a homicide)
  • decriminalisation- when crimes are widespread and normalised it goes underreported (e.g. legalisation of cannabis)
  • police prioritisation- due to police not knowing the scale of some crimes they need to prioritise (e.g. petty theft <human trafficking)
  • unrecorded crime- crimes that go unreported due to any of the reasons (e.g.the dark figure of crime)
• consequences of unreported crime 2:

  • cultural change- not reporting crimes can change the culture of your community (e.g. emergence of technology makes more cyber crime)
  • legal change- changing laws when people campaign against prosecution and no longer view it as a 'real crime' (e.g. cannabis being legalised)
  • procedural change- changing procedures to make it easier to report crimes to encourage more to do it (e.g. advertisements and campaigns for it)
• clares law- allows women to ask police about partners past convictions

  pros- gave women confirmation

  cons- gives false sense of security, cant be useful until views on domestic abuse change