Download Marxist Views

Crime control,prevention and
punishment
Revision
The role of the police and the courts
• For most of us the role of the police would
be to enforce the law by prosecuting and
catching criminals.
• The role of the courts would be to
determine guilt and impose an appropriate
sentence.
• But for sociologists the role of the police
and the courts varies depending upon your
sociological perspective
Perspectives
Right wing:
 Functionalists & Subcultural theorists view the
role of the police and courts is to catch and
punish mainly male working-class criminals.
Social action theorists:
 The role of the police is to label some groups
more criminal than others in order to target and
arrest them. From this perspective working
classes only appear to be more criminal as other
criminal groups escape labelling. The courts
then impose heavier sentences on these groups.
Traditional Marxists
 Business crime and state crime are often
ignored and the role of the police is to target
those with less power i.e. working classes
Neo-Marxists
 Believe the same as traditional Marxists but
think that ethnic minority groups are the least
powerful.
 On the rare occasion when the rich and
powerful end up in court they are leniently
sentenced.
Feminists
 Police and courts do not treat women fairly
The role of the prison
• Being sent to prison is the most common form
of punishment used.
• The world prison population is 9 million.
• The USA has the highest prison population
rate at 700 per 100,000
• The UK has the highest rate in Europe at 140
per 100,000
• There were 18,000 prisoners in the UK in
1900
• Today there are 87,000 – each costing the
state £36,000 per year.
Prisons have four key goals
1. Protects the public (Incapacitation) - lock away
undesirable and violent people
2. Punish criminal behaviour (Retribution) –
prisons are not too soft. They can be
overcrowded, violent and degrading places.
3. Reform criminals (Rehabilitation) – educational
programmes help prisoners learn new skills so
they can lead an honest life
4. Deter people from crime (Deterrence) – the
threat of being sent to prison should ensure
people never break the law.
Do prisons work?
Does prison work ?
• Roger Matthews – rather the reducing crimes
prisons act as ‘universities of crime’ and an
‘expensive way of making bad people worse’.
– “Prisons are ‘warehouses’ in which reasons for
offending are rarely addressed and little attempt
is made to rehabiliate the offender.”
• E.Soloman – many people are being imprisoned
for minor offences in which community
punishments would be more suitable .
• High rate of recidivism (repeat offending)
suggest prisons do not deter.
Emile Durkheim
• Societies can only exist if members share
common values and a collective consciousness. A
legal system is then put in place to create
boundaries.
• Mechanic societies - Retribution
(common shared values are broken)
• Organic (complex) societies - restitutive law
(go to prison to make amends for wrong doing.)
This could also be linked to compensation – paying the victims
Marxist Views
Stretch and challenge: Can you relate this cartoon to globalisation?
Marxist Views
• Punishment is related to the nature of class society
and ruling class interests.
• Function of punishment is to maintain the existing
social order.
• Part of the repressive state apparatus.
• The form of punishment reflects the economic
base, each type of society has its own penal system.
• Under capitalism, imprisonment becomes the
dominant form of punishment because the capitalist
economy is based on the exploitation of wage
labour.
Michel Foucault (1977)
‘Discipline & Punish: The birth of the prison’
• Claims that the modern prison is based upon the
‘panopticon’ proposed by Jeremy Bentham in
1785.
• Prisons resemble, factories, barracks, schools,
hospitals etc. with wide spread CCTV.
• Consider Foucault’s notion of a ‘surveillance
society’ – similar to George Orwell's 1984
where the government hold so much information
about us that we are all like prisoners.
Check Your Understanding
1. Functionalist view
a) Surveillance and
discipline as a form of
power/knowledge
exercising control over
the population
2. Marxist view
b) Punishment as
boundary maintenance
– re-affirms the
collective conscience
3. Postmodern view
c) Punishment serves an
ideological function,
e.g. mops up
unemployed
Check Your Understanding
1. Functionalist view
a) Surveillance and
discipline as a form of
power/knowledge
exercising control over
the population
2. Marxist view
b) Punishment as
boundary maintenance
– re-affirms the
collective conscience
3. Postmodern view
c) Punishment serves an
ideological function, eg
mops up unemployed
A/B
Durkheim • How is punishment expressive?
• How does Durkheim distinguish
retributive justice in traditional
societies from restitutive justice in
modern societies?
C
• How does punishment
reinforce shared values?
• How punishment in modern
society different from that
in traditional society?
• How does punishment
benefit society?
Marxist
views
• How does punishment benefit the type
of economy? (Think about capitalism,
feudalism and slavery)
• How is punishment ideological?
• Evaluation
• How does punishment
benefit capitalism?
Foucault
• How does Foucault argue punishment
• What is surveillance?
has changed since the 19th century?
• How does surveillance (e.g.
• How does surveillance lead to selfCCTV) affect people’s
surveillance? (e.g. with reference to the
behaviour?
panopticon and a contemporary
example)
• Evaluation
Control and prevention of crime
Right realists
• Emphasize the individual
• Benefits outweigh the
cost of crime
• Society needs to
increase cost of crime
Left realists
• Focus on organisation of
society especially
inequality, disadvantage
and poverty that results
from this and the
environment of crime is
created
Situational Crime Prevention (SCP)
Right Realist measure
reducing oppurtunities for crime
• Victims should make themselves ‘harder targets’ by
investing in more secruity and surveillance
• Increase risk of criminal being caught and/or
deterring criminality by reducing opportunity for
crime
• Car manufacturers investment in satellite
technologies, disabling devices and computerised
locking systems has reduced car therft in the UK .
• CCTV in shops & secruity guards increase likelihood
of shoplifters being caught.
Evaluation of SCP
• Felson and Clarke: SCP
displace rather then reduce
crime . Criminal move to
softer targets.
– e.g. Chaiken et al
crackdown on subway
robberies in New York
displaced them to the
streets above.
• Use of surveillance may be a
problem because camera
operators may subscribe to
similar stereotypes to police
officers and end up focusing
in young males – labelling.
• Marxists: SCP creates a new
type of social inequality, poor
are disproportionately the
main victims of crime
because M/C can afford
security etc.
• They ignore white collar
crime, corporate ad state
crimes which are more
costly.
• Marxists and Left Realists:
SCP ignore root cause of
crime – poverty and
inequality.
Environmental Crime Prevention (ECP)
Right Realist –James Q Wilson
• Crime is caused by anti-social behaviour, vandalism,
graffiti and drugs.
• If these behaviours are tolerated = ‘anything goes’
develops.
– e.g. broken windows thesis
• This happens because:
– Little sense of community
– Informal and formal social control are weak
– Members of the community feel powerless
– Police target more serious crime and do not focus on anti
social behaviour
• Public housing estates experience most social problems and
these are likely to be found around high-rise tower blocks.
– This happens because residents do not take responsibility
for common entrances, stairwells and lifts as a result anto
social elements take over .
Wilson proposes
• Any sign of environmental decline such as broken
windows or grafitti must be tackled immediately
otherwise neighbourhood deterioration will follow.
• All public housing should not exceed three floors and
all residents should be encouraged to take
responsibility of communal space in order to protect
it from outsiders.
• Police should tackle all types of crime and disorder
and not just serious crime – zero tolerance
– famously adopted in New York to tackle subway
graffiti, drug dealing and begging. Between 1993-1996
crime reduced critics argue this was due to decline in
avaiablity of crack cocaine.
This is what I
call a perfect
neighbourhood
•
•
•
•
Well-maintained areas
Low crime rates
Feel a part of society
Less likely to offend
Wilson and Kelling (1982)
•
•
•
•
No social control
Loose their sense of belonging
Increase in crime
Damaged society
Wilson and Kelling (1982)
Social and Community Crime Prevention
Left Realists and other critical
criminologists – Marxists
• SCP & ECP treat the symptoms of crime and
not the cause.
• Risk conditions of crimes need to be
addressed such as poverty, unemployment,
poor housing etc. especially for the young and
some ethnic minority groups.
• Left Realists argue that urban crime is a
rational response to the lack of legitimate
opportunities and the powerlessness deprived
groups feel.
The government through policies should
tackle crimes in inner city areas and on sink
council estates:
• Educational programmes – improving
educational success in inner city areas,
reducing exclusions and the number of 16 year
olds leaving schools with no qualifications
• People are paid a fair wage so they are not
welfare dependant
• Reduction in wealth and income inequalities
– through taxation
• Invest in poorer urban communities to
create jobs
Evaluation of Left Realism
Too soft on crime!
• Crime is seen as society’s fault rather
than looking at individual choice.
• They fail to explain why most people
living in poverty do not commit crime.
• Right Realists argue that Left Realists
make excuses for criminals, tighter
control, effective socialisation of
children & more severe punishment
should be the ways to reduce crime.
Other links….
• This topic links with social policy, in terms
of social policies dealing with crime
prevention and punishment strategies.
– ASBO’s, Curfew, Dispersal Orders were new
Laws bought in by New Labour
• This topic also links with Shaw & McKay’s
Ecology Theory – remember ‘Zone of
Transition’
– Broken Window Thesis
Practice Exam Question
• ‘Assess the effectiveness of crime
prevention strategies in reducing crime.’
(33 marks)