Postmodernism

• > argue that crime is a social construction, reflecting an outdated metanarrative of the law which does not reflect the diversity of society

  > Henry and Milovanovic - crime should be considered as a wider conception of social harm, and crime should be seen as people using power to show disrespect to others by causing them harm

  > two forms of harm: harms of reduction (power is used to cause a victim to experience some immediate loss or injury) and harms of repression (power is used to restrict future human development)
• The Causes of Crime:

  > society is characterised by a fragmentation of social structures - metanarratives of class, work and family (formed identity, provided social roles and integrated them into society) have been replaced by uncertainty and individual choice of identity

  > individuals increasingly focus on themselves, often with little regard for others

  > each crime becomes a one-off event and is motivated by an infinite number of individual causes e.g. emotional reasons
• The Control of Crime:

  > growing emphasis on private crime prevention rather than reliance on the police e.g. private security firms control public places such as shopping centres

  > contemporary societies use surveillance techniques to control everyone, not just offenders - monitors movements of people in every sphere of life (liquid surveillance)

  > vast amounts of data are collected on individuals, through consumer tracking and loyalty cards