Punishment and Victimisation

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Functions of Punishment

  • 1. Deterrence: Punishmetn discourages offenders from future offending and may also serve as a deterrent to the public at large
  • 2. Rehabilitation: Punishment as a way to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend. E.g. Education and training for prisoners, anger management courses for violent offenders.
  • 3. Incapacitaion: Thid is the use of punishment to remove the offender's capacity to offend again e.g. imprisonment, execution, the cutting off of hands, chemical castration etc.
    • These are instrumental justifications of punishments, it is a means to an end - crime reduction
  • 4. Retribution: It is based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished, and that society is entitled to take its revenge on the offender for having breached its moral code
    • This is an expressive view of punishment - it expresses society's outrage
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Functionalist Approach to Punishment

  • Durkheim: the function of punishmetn is to uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values. Two types of justice while punishment functions to uphold social solidarity, it does so differently in diffrent types of society:
    • 1. Retributive Justice: In traditional society there is little specialisation between individuals is based on their similarity to one another. This produces a strong collective conscience which, when offended, responds wit vengeful passion to repress the wrongdoer. Punishment is severe and cruel and its motivation is purely expressive 
    • 2. Restitutive Justice:  In modern society, there is extensive specialisation and solidarity between individuals is based on the resulting interdependence between individuals. Crime damages this interdependence, so it is necessary to repair the damage, for example through compensation. Its motivation is instrumental, to restore societies equilibrium. Nevertheless, in modern society, punishment still has an expressive element because it still expresses collective emotions.
  • Evaluations: Traditional societies often have restitutive rather than retributive justic e.g. blood money.
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Marxist Approach to Punishment

  • The function os punishment it to maintain the existing social order: It serves ruling-class interests. As part of the 'repressive state apparatus' it is a means of defending ruling-class property against the lower classes.
    • E.P. Thompson: Punishment is a part of the Ideological State Apparatus. In the 18th century punishments such as hanging and transportaion for theft and poaching were part of a 'rule of terror' by the landed aristocracy over the poor.
    • Melossi and Pavarini: Prison developed in the 17th century in order to impose discipline on workers, creating a subservient workforce that could be successfully exploited by the ruling class.
  • Evaluation: Laws do exist that benefit everyone e.g. theft, and rich people are punished when found guilty of breaking them.
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Foucault: Birth of the Prison

  • Foucault: There are two different forms of punishment, which are examples of different forms of power.
    • Sovereign power: Typical pre-19th century, when the monarch has power over people and thier bodies. Inflicting punishment on the body was the means of asserting control. Punishment was a spectacle, usch as public execution.
    • Disciplinary power: Becomes dominant from the 19th century. In this form of control, a new system of discipline seeks to govern not just the body, but the mind or 'soul', via surveillance
  • The panopticon: surveillance turns into self-surveillance and discipline becomes self discipline. Instead of being a public spectacle, control takes place 'inside' the prisoner. Disciplinary power has not  infiltrated every part of society e.g. CCTV, Google
  • Evaluation: Foucault exaggerates the extent of control e.g. Goffman showed how inmates are able to resist controls in institutions such as prisons ad mental hospitals; - some states are shifting back to using direct force to control populations e.g. Black Lives Matter and militarized policing.
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Imprisonment Today

  • Since the 1980's there has been a move towards populist punitiveness, with politicians seeking electoral popularity by calling for tougher sentences. Prison numbers have increased by 70% since the 1990s.
  • Carrabine et al: The consequences of an increased prison population include, overcrowding, poor sanitation, barely edible food, clothing shortages, lack of educational and work opportunities, and inadequate family visits.
  • Mass incarceration: Garland: The USA, and to a lesser extent the UK is moving into an era of mass incarecration: imprisonment ceases to be the incarceration of indivudual offenders and becomes the systematic imprisonment of whole groups of the population. In the USA it is young black males. The reason for mass incarceration is the growing politicisaition of crime control.
    • Downes: This may have an ideological function: The US prison sustem soaks up about 30-40% of the unemployed thus making capitalism more successful
  • Alternatives to prison: There has been a growth in community-based controls, such as curfews, treatment orders and electronic tagging, whilst at the same time, the numbers in custody have been rising steadily, especially amond the young.
    • Cohen: The growth of community controls has cast the net of control over more people and rather than diverting young people from the criminal justice suystem, may divert them into it.
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Victimisation - Introduction

  • Victimology: is the term used for the study of victims and patterns of victimisation.
  • United Nations: define 'victims of crime' as those individuals who have suffered harm (including mental, physical or emotional suffering, economic loss and impairment of their basic rights) through acts or omissions that violate the laws of the state.
  • Christie: The notion of a 'victim' is socially constructed. There is a stereotype of the 'ideal victim' favoured by the media, public and criminal justice sustem as weak, innocent and blameless individual such as a small child or old woman who is the target of a strangers attack.
  • The average chance of being the victim os a crime is any on year is about 1/4. However, the risk is very unevenly distributed between social groups.
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Patterns of Victimisation 1

  • Repeat Victimisation: If you have a victim once, you are likely to be one again. BCS: 60% of the population have not been victims of any kind of crime in a given year, but 4% are victims of 44% of all crimes. Those who have the fewest and least baluable material possessions are those most likely to have them stolen or vandalised.
  • 1. Gender and Victimisation: Males are at greater risk than females of becoming victims of violent attacks. About 70% of homicide victims are male.
  • Young men have about twice the risk of young women of being the victim of violent crime. Older men and women are the least likely to be the victims of violent crime.
  • Women are far more likely to be the victims of certain crimes - they are 92% of **** victims - **** Crisis Line: 2/3 **** victims do not report the offences
  • Hester and Westmarland: only around 5% of those that are reported result in conviction. However, Walklate: The police are now beginning to treat it more seriously, with domestic violence units and **** suites in many police stations.
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Patterns of Victimisation 2

  • 2. Social Class and Victimisation:
  • The hightest rates of victimisation are found 1. Among the unemployed, the long-term sick, low-income families.
  • 2. In areas with widespread vandalism etc.
  • 3. In areas with high levels of deprivation.
  • BCS: The 20% of poorest areas face around twice the risk of being a victim of burglary, nearly double the risk of vehicle related thefts, higher risks of vandalism and overall household crime compared to the most affluent 20%.
  • 3. Age and Victimisation:
  • The lifestyles of the young, as well as giving them greater opportunity to commit crime, also expose them to great risk of being victims of crime.
  • Wilson et al: 27% of 10-25 year olds reported being victims of personal crime like assault without injury and theft
  • Those most at risk of being murdered are infants under one. The old are also at risk of abuse e.g. in nursing hoes, where victimisation in less visible.
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Patterns of Victimisation 3

4. Ethnicity and Victimisation:

  • Ethnic minority groups do not face a higher risk of becoming a victim of most crimes than the white population, apart from racial attacks and homicide.
  • Homicide: Ethnic minorities are at more than twice the risk of being murdered compared to the white population.
  • Both Black people and Asians are up to 14X more likely to be the victim of a racially motivated incident than White people. Ethinic minorities, the young and the homeless, are more likely to report the feeling under-protected yet over-controlled. All minority ethinic groups report a higher fear of crime than the white population.
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