CJS, Crime Control, Prevention & Punishment

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Role of the CJS

  • Agencies that deal with criminals and victims form the Criminal Justice System
  • They are overseen by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice
  • CJS is made up of those agencies of formal social control which make and apply the law and impose sanctions

CJS main agencies

  • Crown Prosecution Service
  • Her Majesty's Court Service (HMCS)
  • Her Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS)
  • National Probation Service (NPS)
  • The police

Other agencies involved

  • NACRO - crime reduction charity, helps ex-offenders and tries to prevent young people
  • Victim support - charity that gives free help to victims, witnesses, family and friends
  • Legal Services Commission (LCS)
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Evaluation of the CJS

  • A disproportionate amount of influential people within the CJS are male, white and middle class e.g. judges: in 2007, only 19% were female and 3.5% from an ethnic minority
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Theoretical approaches to the CJS

Functionalism

  • Durkheim - law and CJS is a reflection of value consensus which exists, social solidarity
  • CJS aims to punish offenders, deter others, and reform them to prevent further offences

Marxism

  • Chambliss - serves interest of m/c as it protects private property, favours powerful
  • CJS is selective, tax evasion is often ignored
  • Performs ideological role, appears to protect all people, legislation = false consciousness

Feminism

  • Smart - CJS challenged chivalry thesis, but is patriarchal and biased against women 
  • Feminist criminality - more female police officers and lawyers

Labelling theory

  • Cicourel - works in interest of m/c, reinforce police bias
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Functionalist view on crime control & prevention

  • Agencies of socialisation and social order being maintained prevents people from committing crime and deviance
  • Social policies should focus on socialising people correctly and value consensus
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Realist views on crime control & prevention

Left realism

  • Stress the importance of being tough on the causes of crime in society
  • Inequality causes crime - marginalisation, subcultures, relative deprivation
  • Believe in social crime prevention / communitarianism to tackle social issues (material and cultural deprivation) to remove criminal motivation
  • Improve community cohesion and relations, both between residents and with police
  • Support parenting e.g. SureStart

Right realism

  • Stress the importance of being tough on the criminals
  • Individuals choose to commit crime - rational choice theory
  • Believe in situational & environmental crime prevention - target hardening, designing out crime, broken windows theory
  • Believe in increased social control - zero tolerance policing, harsher punishments, supervision of offenders, Neighbourhood Watch, ASBOs
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Postmodernist view on crime control & prevention

  • Fragmentation of society has been reflected in a similar fragmentation of formally organised crime prevention
  • Growing emphasis placed on private crime prevention and informal localised arrangements for controlling crime e.g. private security firms controlling public spaces, use of surveillance techniques, gated communities
  • People are regarded less as citizens and more as consumers
  • Growing detachment of CJS from centralised control to more informal localised arrangements e.g. localised and community based policies
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Surveillance

Foucault

  • The nature of social control ('discipline') has changed from public punishments to the body to more subtle types of punishment
  • Pre-early modernity: death penalty, torture, imprisonment carried out solely by police / CJS
  • Late / post-modernity: surveillance carried out by CJS, education, healthcare, retail
  • 'Panopticon' analogy - prison design allowing guards to watch prisoners without being seen
  • Prisoners conform as they don't know if they are being watched

Evaluation of Foucault

  • Bauman and Lyon (postmodernists) - living in age of ever-present surveillance
  • However, they argue we're now living in 'post-panoptical age', watches themselves are no longer present e.g. CCTV, social media monitoring us. Liquid surveillance now exists
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Role / function of punishment

Reduction

Using punishment to prevent and reduce further crimes by...

  • Deterrence - punishing individuals, e.g. high fines, prison
  • Rehabilitation - reform and change behaviour and attitudes, e.g. therapy, anger management
  • Incapacitation - remove ability to offend again, e.g. death penalty, prison, tagging

Retribution

  • Paying back society, justifies punishing crimes rather than preventing further crimes
  • Offenders deserve to be punished for breaking moral codes of society, entitled to take their revenge e.g. fines, community service
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Functionalist view on punishment

  • Durkheim - in modern society the function of punishment is to be restitutive: to maintain social solidarity and reinforce shared values
  • In the past the function of punishment was to be retributive
  • In mordern society there is extensive specialisation, social solidarity is based on interdependence between individuals

Stage 1 - crime damages interdependence, damage must be repaired e.g. compensation

Stage 2 - punishment aims to restore things to before offence and restore equilibrium

Stage 3 - order restored by public trials & punishment, moral unity, shared values reaffirmed

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Marxist view on punishment

  • Critical of punishments used by CJS, function is to maintain existing social order which is corrupt and unfair
  • As part of the repressive state apparatus, punishments are used to protect ruling class property and values from the lower classes
  • Imprisonment reflects capitalist values - prison and capitalism have similar structure
  • Rusche and Kirchheimer - punishments are part of the system of social control and class domination in unequal societies
  • Scale of brutality in punishments rises when economies are strong, declines when there is a labour shortage so prisoners can concentrate / be fit for hard labour
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Right Realist view on punishment

  • Crime increased in latter half of 20th century due to punishment and prison being regarded as too soft, no longer a deterrent
  • Van Der Haag - CJS needs to be harsher (more punitive and retributive), offenders should be jailed for life after three offences, no matter how trivial
  • Clarke - prison works because fear of it increases cost of crime, losing freedom
  • Prison works as it takes criminals off the streets

Evaluation of Right Realism

  • Anti-retribution argument suggests reform and rehabilitation through education, training for jobs, anger management and restorative justice are better for ensuring prisoners don't return to crime
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Labelling theory view on punishment

  • Cohen - growth of community controls has cast 'net of control' over more people
  • Agrees with Foucault that social control has spread through society to more agencies of social control than in past
  • But community controls frequently fast track young people into CJS
  • ASBOs used by police haven't diverted young people away from CJS, but have actually increased chances of entering custodial sentences
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Summary of punishment

Punishment is fair and effective

  • Functionalists - order is restored, shared values reaffirmed, moral unity between members

Punishment is not fair or effective

  • Matthews - prisons often act as 'universities of crime', educating about more serious crime
  • Garland - 'mass incarceration' of particular social groups e.g. young black men
  • Garland - 2/3 of prisoners reoffend, 'managing' crime rather than prevening it
  • Marxists - maintains corrupt and unfair social order
  • Right Realists - needs to be harsher, more punitive and retributive
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