Laws concerning punishment and the enforcement differential
Cards (5)
- Capital Punishment as allowed in the Uk until 1965
- Corporal Punishment has included flogging, caning, branding and put in stocks.
- 1881- Flogging was abolished in the armed forces
- 1967- All corporal punishment was abolished
- 1723- Black act made 50 offences punishable by death including theft and poaching but this reduced gradually to the be only murder and treason in the 20th Century.
- Why did law on physical punishment change:
- Corporal & Capital punishment seem to go against human rights.
- Nothing can be done to correct a miscarriage of justice once someone is executed.
- The death penalty had no apparent impact on criminal behaviour- murder rates do not go up if it was abolished.
- Norbert Elise argues society is far more civilised and less violent than the past so these punishments are no longer needed.
- Derek Bentley Case Study:
- Case was pivotal in ending capital punishment in the UK
- Executed in 1953, sentence was quashed for faulty evidence in 1998.
- 1958- Derek Bentley was acquitted for murder and his body was re buried in a religious ceremony in a churchyard
- Some argue Derek was used as a scapegoat (given the blame) because his friend was too young to hand for shooting the police officer.
- Derek Bentley was 19 years old with learning difficulties
- Moral Panics may influence the response of the law, which as those during 2011 London Riots who received harsher sentences for theft and vandalism than others convicted if the same crime at other times
- Typifications:
- William Chambliss studied two groups of youth (middle class “saints” and working class “roughnecks”) and found that despite committing the same offences the “Roughnecks” got far harsher sentences.
- William Chambliss’ work supports Aaron Cicourel, who argues police officers hold typifications- ideas about the typical criminal
- Those who fit their prejudicial idea of a typical criminal will be treated harsher that those who don’t.