crime- policies

• Right realism

  Harsher sentencing, Incapacitation/custodial sentences
• Right realism approach to controlling crime, harsher sentencing

  • Tough and swift punishment for the targeted criminal class
  • Incapacitation - imprisonment prevents offenders from committing crimes during the length of their stay
  • Greater use of prison and punishment discourages the individual from future offending
  • Making an example of offenders may serve as a deterrent to the public at large
• right realism- harsher sentencing, Slogans used by right-wing parties

  • Prison Works (UK)
  • Three Strikes and you are Out (USA)
• right realism- harsher sentencing- Michael Howard, Conservative Home Secretary in 1993: '"Prison works... It is no coincidence that recorded crime has fallen by record amounts over the last four years at the same time that the prison population has risen."'
• right realism- harsher sentencing- From 1987-1995 the USA increased their prison population by 124%

  During this time there was a 2% increase in crime
• right realism- harsher sentencing- The evidence suggests that Incapacitation is not effective
• Right realism- cctv

  The offender will make a choice between committing a crime or not, depending on benefit/risk analysis
• right realism-Situational crime prevention policies

  1. Aim to reduce crime by increasing surveillance

  2. Increase the risks of committing crime

  3. Focus on reducing opportunities for crime
• right realism-CCTV

  • Aspect of surveillance that has expanded dramatically since the 1980s
  • If potential criminals see CCTV cameras then they will make a choice not to commit crime
  • Apartments with CCTV have fewer burglaries
• right realism- target hardening- Individual responsibility for target‐hardening: this refers to security measures such as locks, alarms etc., designed to make crime more difficult. There were campaigns in the media to encourage householders to secure their property and car owners to lock their cars to prevent theft – often with thieves portrayed as predatory animals. It is sometimes argued that these campaigns shifted responsibility for crime from the offender to the victim
• Right realism- broken window theory, zero tolerance policy

  Environmental crime prevention policies
• right realism-Broken windows theory

  • Signs of disorder and lack of concern for others in some neighbourhoods (e.g. graffiti, begging, dog fouling, littering, vandalism)
  • Leaving broken windows unrepaired sends out a signal that no one cares
  • Essential to maintain the orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking hold and the community tipping into a spiral of decline
  • Any sign of deterioration, such as graffiti or vandalism, must be dealt with immediately
• right realism-Environmental crime prevention policies 

   The second part of the theory is that the police must adopt a Zero tolerance policing strategy. Instead of merely reacting to crime, they must proactively tackle even the slightest sign of disorder, even it is not criminal. This will halt neighbourhood decline and prevent serious crime taking root. Therefore, the police should focus on controlling undesirable behaviour on the streets (e.g. prostitution, begging and drunkenness) so that law-abiding citizens feel safe. 
• left realism-Neighbourhood watch: there should be a return to the informal community control structures that prevent crime, the neighbourhood watch approach is favoured as it involves local people looking out for each other and regular meetings with local police community officers
• left realism-Restorative Justice is a scheme specifically for victims of crime. It gives people affected by a crime the opportunity to hold offenders to account personally and directly. Victims get the chance to ask questions and tell offenders the full impact of their crime. Restorative Justice has been shown to deliver 85% victim satisfaction for victims who choose to participate, and reduces the frequency of re-offending by 14% according to evidence. 
• left realism-Community sentences as an alternative to prison (custodial) sentencing:  

  1. Community rehabilitation orders – The offender is supervised by probation officer and may be required to take part in various programmes. 
  2. Community punishment order – The offender is required to perform unpaid work for the benefit of the community, under supervision of the probation officer.     A review shows that non-custodial sentencing is at least as effective as imprisonment; some researchers argue that given other negative effects of prison community sentencing is preferable. 
• left realism-Multi-agency approach

  • Crime control cannot be left to the police alone
  • Involves agencies such as local councils' social services, housing departments, schools and leisure services, voluntary organisations and victim support, plus the public
• left realism- multi agency approach-Left realists have had more influence on government policy than most theories of crime
• left realism- multi agency approach-Tony Blair

  Used the left realist theory of criminologist Jock Young as a base for the Labour party's crime and justice policy
• left realism-multi agency approach-New labour's policies

  • Firmer approach to policing hate crimes, sexual assault and domestic violence
  • Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs)
  • Policies for unemployed youth
  • Anti-truanting policies
• left realism- multi agency approach-New labour's policies attempted to reverse the exclusion of young people at risk of offending
• left realism-multi agency approach-New labour's policies

  Often do not recreate a sense of community and largely just address the symptoms of crime rather than the underlying causes
• left realism- multi agency approach-Jock Young: 'Criticises New labour's policies'
• left and right realism are individualistic theories
• Biological policies

  The idea that behaviour has a genetic basis has led to controversial policies
• Biological policies

  • Reflect the idea that your behaviour is determined (if it is in your genes to be a criminal, then this cannot be changed) and you have no freewill
  • Either remove the potential for you to commit crime (death penalty) or pass on your genes to offspring (eugenics)
• biological- Death penalty

  The lawful infliction of death as a punishment
• Death penalty

  • Permanently removes the worst criminals from society - dead criminals cannot commit any further crimes, either within prison or after escaping or after being released from it
  • In some countries (e.g. Singapore) which almost always carry out death sentences, there is far less serious crime, indicating the death penalty is a deterrent, but only where execution is a certainty
  • In most states, other than Texas, the number of executions as compared to death sentences is small
  • Rates for unlawful killings in Britain have more than doubled since abolition of capital punishment in 1964
  • Genuinely innocent people have been and could continue to be executed, with no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice
  • Potential suffering from the method of execution
  • Brutalising effect upon society by carrying out executions
• biological- Eugenics

  The improvement of the human race by better breeding
• Eugenics

  • Characterised by a strong belief in the power of heredity in determining physical, physiological, and mental traits; and a belief in the power of science to solve social problems
  • Eugenicists lobbied for compulsory sterilisation laws for the "genetically unfit"
  • Eugenic sterilisation reached astounding proportions worldwide in the first half of the 20th century
  • Many of the basic premises of eugenics received critical scrutiny by biologists, medical doctors, social workers etc.
• biological- eugenics-Charles B. Davenport (1866–1944) coined the term "the improvement of the human race by better breeding"
• biological- eugenics-The United States passed eugenical sterilisation laws during the interwar period
• bio-eugenics-In the United States over sixty thousand eugenic sterilisations were performed between 1907 and 1963
• bio-eugenics-A similar number of eugenic sterilisations was estimated for Sweden, while the Germans ultimately sterilized over 400,000
• bio-eugenics-Morgan criticised eugenicists for lumping many mental and behavioral conditions together under a title like "feeblemindedness" and treating it as if it had a single underlying cause in a single gene
• bio-eugenics-Morgan argued that because environmental influences on mental and nervous development are so strong no rigorous claims could be made about a genetic basis for such traits
• individualistic- psychodynamics-Psychoanalysis

  A form of counselling created by Freud, where individuals with an imbalance in their personality can be treated
• individualistic-psychodynamics-Goal of psychoanalysis

  • To uncover unconscious conflicts causing the abnormality
  • To gain insight and cause the conflicts between the parts of personality to lose their power
• individualistic-psychodynamics-Techniques used in psychoanalysis

  1. Free association

  2. Word association

  3. Projective tests

  4. Dream analysis
• individualistic-psychodynamics-psychoanalysis-A wide range of treatment models are based (in whole or part) on the theoretical assumptions of Freud