Tag: crime control
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Does Prison Work? The Stats suggest not!
What can prison population statistics tell us about Crime Control in the UK? Is Prison an effective strategy for controlling crime? These are questions that should be of interest to any student studying the Crime and Deviance option within A-level sociology. Scotland, England and Wales have high prison populations In England and Wales we lock…
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Sociological Perspectives on Punishment
One way of controlling and reducing crime is to punish offenders. Given that punishment typically involves restricting people’s freedom and sometimes inflicting harm on people, it requires some justification as a strategy for crime control. Two main justifications exist for punishment: Crime reduction and retribution. These methods link to different penal policies. Reduction One justification…
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The Role of the Police in Controlling and Reducing Crime
This post simply applies a few perspectives to the role of the police in society Consensus Theory and Right Realism The Consensus Approach views the police as a neutral force who generally do a good job, having a close working relationship with law abiding citizens and responding effectively to the needs of local communities, defending…
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Zero Tolerance Policing – An Evaluation
A brief evaluation of Zero Tolerance Policing Zero Tolerance Policing involves the police strictly clamping down on minor criminal activities such as littering, begging, graffiti and other forms of antisocial behaviour. Clamping down might take the form of on the spot fines, or mandatory jail sentences, as with the ‘three-strikes’ rule in California. The best…
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Controlling and Reducing Crime – The Role of the Community
Most people manage to get through their whole lives without getting on the ‘wrong side’ of the formal agents of social control (the police, the courts and prison), so it should be no surprise hat many of the perspectives emphasize the role that the community plays in preventing crime and controlling crime. Consensus Theory and…
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Actuarial Justice and Risk Management
Feely and Simon (1994) argue that a new ‘technology of power’ is emerging throughout the justice system. It differs from Foucault’s disciplinary power in three main ways: It focuses on groups rather than individuals It is not interested in rehabilitating offenders, but simply in preventing them from offending It uses calculations of risk or ‘actuarial…
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Synoptic Surveillance and Crime Control
Thomas Mathiesen (1997) argues that control through surveillance has developed beyond Foucault’s panopticon model. The panopticon allows the few to monitor the many, but today the media increasingly allow the many to monitor the few. Mathiesen argues that in late modernity, there is a significant increase in surveillance from below, which he calls the ‘synopticon’…
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Public Space Protection Orders and Criminal Behaviour Orders
ASBOs are one of the best known crime control methods in the UK – the problem is they don’t exist anymore, they’ve been replaced by Public Space Protection Orders and Criminal Behaviour Orders. Public Space Protection Orders Public Space Protection Orders – are a geographically defined version of ASBOs that could severely restrict people’s freedoms…
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ASBOs – Arguments For and Against
ASBOs are a form of Zero Tolerance crime control and have been in use in the UK since 1999 – below are a few examples of how they’re used. Read them through and consider the arguments for and against using them in each case… An ASBO for shop lifting In 2013 jobless single mother Jade…
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Foucault – Surveillance and Crime Control
Michel Foucault is one of the most influential sociological thinkers of the last half century. One of his key contributions to criminology is his focus on how the nature of crime control has shifted from using the threat of violence and the fear of being physically punished to control through surveillance – fear of being…
