prevention, surveillance and punishment

• surveillance

  CCTV acts as a formal method of surveillance within society, recording and monitoring behaviour

  overt method and can have deterrent effects on criminal behaviour
• Foucault - surveillance

  postmodernist

  formal and external surveillance is an increasing feature of contemporary society with the use of CCTV

  he argues that we are so conscious of it that we now effectively monitor ourselves through internalised surveillance
• internalised surveillance

  suggests that we behave in a socially desirable manor for fear of judgement because we are so used to being watched
• situational crime prevention

  refers to that in some social situations adaptations can be made to prevent criminal acts

  target hardening and designing out
• target hardening

  decreases the opportunity for crime with measures like window locks and CCTV
• designing out

  means that some features of an area are redesigned in order to make some crimes impossible

  eg. sloping bus seats and anti homeless spikes
• evaluation of situational crime prevention

  a problem is displacement

  the measures prevent crimes in some areas but its likely to move elsewhere
• environmental crime prevention

  broken windows theory - Wilson and Kelling

  examples - curfews, no alcohol zones and security guards

  ASBO's - anti social behaviour orders
• evaluation of environmental crime prevention

  the same problem as situational crime prevention being displacement
• social and community crime prevention

  actuarial approach - they are based on identifying individuals and groups who are most at risk of committing crime

  eg. the troubled families programme
• evaluation of social and community crime prevention

  as with situational and environmental crime prevention this approach only tackles crime by the working class and not white collar or corporate crime
• the sociology of punishment

  two main purposes - prevention and retribution
• prevention


  rehabilitation

  deterrence

  incapacitation
• restoration

  fines - some crimes are punished by paying a fine to cover the cost of the damage

  restorative justice - people are encouraged to make amends for their wrong doing
• retribution

  punishment is about the criminal paying for their crime and for justice to be seen and done
• right realist view of punishment

  they emphasise the deterrence role of punishment : criminals should make a rational choice not to offend
• left realist view of punishment

  emphasise restorative justice and the idea that a key role of punishment is to make amends for the harm caused