2.11 Control, prevention, punishment and victims content

• What does developmental crime prevention seek to prevent?

  The development of criminal dispositions by intervening in the early lives of children at risk of becoming offenders.
• According to Welsh and Farringdon, what four types of programmes have proved successful in developmental crime prevention?

  • Parent education (home visiting)
  • Parent management training
  • Child skills training
  • Pre-school intellectual enrichment programmes
• What is an example of a pre-school programme in the UK?

  Sure Start
• What was the Perry Pre-school project and what was its outcome?

  A longitudinal study - a project targeting 3-4 year old black children in Michigan who participated in an intellectual enrichment programme, compared to a control group. 40 years later they were found to be more successful in life.
• What is a criticism of developmental crime prevention?

  Assumes a value consensus within a community and ignores issues such as relative deprivation and institutional racism which can limit the effectiveness of community and social policies. Doesn’t deal with corporate or white collar crime.
• How would marxists criticise developmental crime prevention?

  Argue they merely tackle the symptoms rather than the root cause of criminality.
• What type of approach is situational crime prevention?

  A pre-emptive approach that aims to make it harder to commit crime in the first place by designing out crime.
• What are the strategies of situational crime prevention?

  Target hardening through bars and bolts on Windows, alarm systems, park benches that prevent homeless sleepers. More CCTV, more police on the streets Hostile architecture.
• What did Felson find in New York as evidence of situational crime prevention?

  Restrooms in a bus terminal in New York were poorly designed in a way which provided opportunities for deviant behaviour. Had large cubicles which encouraged drug dealing and long sinks which allowed homeless people to sleep in them.
• What did Felson find after methods of situational crime prevention were implemented?

  Crime was reduced as the difficulty to commit crime became greater
• How does Chaiken et al. criticise situational crime prevention?

  Displacement theory - doesn’t reduce crime but moves it to a different area.
• What does environmental crime prevention involve?

  Improving the local area and dealing with low level criminal activity such as vandalism, graffiti and loitering
• What theory by Wilson and Kelling supports environmental crime prevention and what are its strategies?

  Broken Window theory - Zero tolerance policing dealing with small petty crimes which will prevent the movement into more serious crimes.
• How is environmental crime prevention criticised?

  1. deals with symptom not the cause
  2. targets working class people and street crime rather than corporate or white collar crime
  3. displacement theory
• What did Durkheim see restitutive punishment as?

  Performing an important role in modern society by reaffirming the value consensus and demonstrating the consequences of infringing social mores.
• How can the criminal justice system be seen as playing a role in crime prevention?

  Through deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation
• Why does Durkheim believe punishment is expressive?

  As it heals the wounds of the public whilst also promoting the value consensus.
• What is the left realist view of crime?

  Crime is caused by social factors such as marginalisation, relative deprivation and sub cultures.
• What is the right realist view of crime?

  More individualistic - they feel that crime is a rational choice and that criminals are able to commit crime because the benefit outweighs the cost of being caught and there are too many opportunities to commit crime
• What is the purpose of 'restitutive justice' in society?

  Punishment must restore a sense of equilibrium to society by ensuring that the community is healed from the damage of the offence commited.
• What do marxists see punishment as functioning to?

  Maintain class domination by use of coercive force and argue that it is mainly inflicted on lower social classes.
• What are the purposes of punishment identified by Newburn?

  • Rehabilitation
  • Deterrence
  • Restorative justice
  • Protection of society
  • Boundary Maintenance
  • Retribution
• What does Garland argue about prisons?

  Shift into a 'punitive state' in which prisons are used by politicians to prove to the electorate that they are tough on crime, and as a result will gain electoral popularity and win elections.
• What did postmodernist Foucault identify a shift from?

  Sovereign power - public and physical punishment were a way of showing power by monarchs rather than deterring criminal behaviour.

  shifted to Disciplinary power - new forms of state power including surveillance and monitoring.
• What did Foucault see the development of the prison as symbolic of?

  The spread of disciplinary power in modern capitalist societies and saw its main function as an instrument of social control.
• How did Foucault illustrate his theory?

  Through his idea of the "Panopticon" where inmates in a prison are led to believe they are constantly under the threat of surveillance encouraging self-regulation. Therefore becoming a form of social control used to monitor our own behaviour.
• What do Marxists Rusche and Kirchheimer argue?

  Punishment changes as economic need changes. They see the change in punishment from the physical punishments, to transportation and now with cheap prison labour. This reflects the changing economic needs of the dominate class. Brutality rose when population was plentiful land declines as labour forces declined.
• How can prisons be seen as an effective form of punishment?

  Keeps society safe from dangerous criminals.

  Resocialisation into social norms and values

  Education to prevent recidivism.

  Bad experiences in prison will stop reoffending.
• How can prisons be seen as ineffective?

  School of crime

  Leads to Labelling which can cause reoffending.

  High recidivism rates show it is not effective.
• What is the class pattern of victimisation?

  Working class and underclass people are more likely to be a victim of crime although middle class are more likely to fear being a victim of crime. Partly due to the areas in which lower working class live.
• What is the age pattern of victimisation?

  Infants are most likely to be victims of murder.

  Teens are most likely to be victims of theft, violent crime and sexual crimes.

  The elderly are the most likely to be victims of abuse
• What is the gender pattern of victimisation?

  Men are more likely to be victims of violent crime and theft. 70% of homicide victims are male. Women as more likely to be victims of sexual crimes, domestic violence and trafficking.
• What is the ethnicity pattern of victimisation?

  Ethnic Minorities are more at risk of being victims of crime. Especially those of mixed ethnicity

  The Home Office estimates 106,000 hate crimes per year = 300 per day
• What does positivist victimology state and focus on?

  States there are characteristics which make a person more likely to be a victim. Approach focuses on the interpersonal crimes of violence and aims to identify people who have contributed to their own victimisation.
• What is Tierney's idea of victim proneness?

  Victim Proneness – identifies characteristics which make someone more likely to be a victim of crime.
• What is Tierney's idea of victim precipitation?

  Victim Precipitation – how victims have been actively involved in the crime or brought the crime upon themselves.
• What does Hans von Hentig argue?

  Argues there are 13 characteristics which make someone more likely to be a victim of crime. Developed a typology of victims based on the degree to which victims contributed to causing the criminal act.
• How do feminists attack von Hentig's study?

  Argues his notion of victim-precipitation shades into victim blaming, the victim is blamed for causing the offence.
• What does positivist victimology fail to recognise?

  That powerful groups are able to influence whether the status of victimhood is conferred on, or withheld from victims.
• What does positivist victimology miss?

  As it focuses on immediate situational context, it misses the larger structural features that shape crime and which would offer targets for crime reduction such as patriarchy and social inequality.