CRM2302 new final

Associated with Moral panic is

Stanley Cohen

Moral panic was coined by

Jock Young (1971)

jock young went out and

studied drug use in inner-city London, in which he explored how the media amplified the activities of young drug users and how media amplification created public fear and indignation.

jock saw that

• We stigmatize a group of people, push them out, don’t know much about them, story getting fabricated in media and so forth

fear of people fuels

intervention of CJS and creates the fantasay crime wave

cohen studied activities of groups of young people in Britain in the 1960’s

Mods and rockers

Folk Devils and moral Panics

• Wondering why media is reporting on this group/drawing their attention

• Cohen advanced the theoretical framework for “moral panic.”

Cohen’s Study

Cohen’s Text: Folk Devils and Moral Panic: The creation of the Mods and Rockers

• Creation, meaning they did not exist as an entity itself

• Based on events that occurred in the 1960s—clashes between two groups of youth

Media construction of the groups “mods” and ”“rockers”—two groups of young people with certain style however, the media constructed and attributed certain characteristics to these and then highlighted/sensationalized their differences in terms of their clothing/hair styles

• The nature of how they act/present themselves present a threat to traditional ways of living to people in britain in 60’s

• Did not call themselves Mods and Rockers

• Mods- more so teen fashion, scooter,  “classy”, said did not say/did a lot of shopping, didn’t understand hard work, consumer mentality 

• Rockers- Black, leather, motorbike—give “bad boy” vibe

• Both groups differ from 50’s style

  • Women dressing, wearing pants or mini skirts, eyeliner, big hair

  • Less modest than before

• Way people dress = representing something

Cohen saying the Mod’s and Rocker are associated with characters created by the media

mods and rockers are

associted with charcters created by the media

Moral in moral panic

• Pinpoint the decline of moral fibre, ethical awareness, good behaviour, rule and regulations/norms of society

  • No ethical awareness within individuals

  • Foundational values being shaking by the groups of people by the way they present themselves

    • Mods and Rockers representing consumerism, breakdown of women roles in society and “hardworking.”

    • Acts seen as deviant

Panic in moral panic

“a sudden excessive feeling of alarm or fear… affecting a body of persons and leading to injudicious effort to secure safety” (Garland, 2008, pg.10)

Cohens study of moral panic

Cohen (1973) in a study set out a paradigm for understanding the origin and nature of moral panic

• At some point, two groups come across one another, brawl happens, police come

• Cohen asked why to each group and they said they didn’t know why they had started it, just that they were two groups that were supposed to hate one another

His study shows how exaggerated media reports (initially about these groups and later) about clashes between rival young people created a moral panic about rise in youth crime

• The media reports about the young people's style, modes of transport, hairstyle, appeared to suggest that these were symbolic of young people's deviant traits

• News media predicted even more serious acts of deviance

• Low level delinquency among a diffuse group of young people reconstructed as a major social problem (Cohen, 1972)

  • Ex: Zero tolerance rule in schools (for aggression)

    • Regardless of what kind of aggressive behaviour students getting suspended

    • Once you have a policy in place, especially as kids, you make it easy for people not to be allowed to defend themselves/gain second chances

    • Prepares ground to label kids

• Outcry from the public to do something

• Application of label theory

Cohen defines moral panic as

• “Condition, episode (ex, 9-11), person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interest”

• Its’ nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media

• The moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people

Folk devil is a symbol

of what we should not be

Accorsing to moral panic theory several factors must. be present  for societal attention to an issue to constitute a moral panic:

Concern,Hostility,Consensus,Volatility,Disproportionality

Concern

• some reported conduct or event sparks anxiety

  • Media reporting

  • Ex: International Students being blamed for housing crisis, government looked to to fix the issue as media reports it

Hostility

• the perpetrators and portrayed as “folk devil” the personified symbol of the supposed problem- cultural scapegoats whose conduct appalls onlookers

  • Need someone to blame in moral panic

  • Scapegoat: take the group of people and make them the folk devil because we don’t want to face other issues within the society

    • Issues complicated, blaming a group = easier

    • Simplistic explanation to a complex problem

Consensus

• the negative social reaction is broad an unified; public sensitization to the issue- the fear that a “cherished way of life in in jeopardy”

• Disproportionality: the extent of the conduct by deviants, or the threat it poses are exaggerated, so are the punitive social control responses

  • Reaction by public exaggerated 

  • Actual threat to the reaction not proportionate

Volatility:

the media reporting and the associated panic emerges, context gives a panic the power to the influence law and social control (youth culture defying the traditional norms)

Moral Entrepreneur

individuals in positions of authority and power who frame the act/conduct of the group as problem, threat, foe, concern, impurity, immorality etc. to be eradicated, contained, purged, eliminated, prevented, by restoring to legal and law enforcement measures

• Appear on the media

• Have talking points → saying the same “simplistic” stuff over and over again

Four Subculture Targets

• Those who commit “serious” criminal acts

• Those who stray from organizational procedures or conventional workplace codes of conduct

• Those who adopt styles of behaviour or dress different from conventional society

• Miscellaneous groups who fail to conform to traditional conservative ideals and values

Effectively humanized deviance

Deviance could no longer be viewed simply as a pathological act that violated consensual norms, but as something created in a process of social interaction, in which some people who commit deviant acts come to be known as deviants whereas others do not

weakness of labelling theories

• Hard to study (Stigma is easy, but other concepts hard)

  • How they get labeled itself

  • Primary and secondary deviance also

  • Measure and quantify

• Ignore structural forces in society and their impacts

  • Gender inequalities, economic disparity, patriarchy

Diversion Movement

This refers to all those efforts to divert individuals, primarily youth but also adults, who are suspected of or have been charged with a minor offenses, from the full and formal process of the juvenile or adult justice system

Deinstitutionalization

• The removal of juveniles from jails, detention, centers, and institutions. Closure of asylum

  • Status offences (runaways, homeless, etc)

  • Youth being held in facilities, CJS trying to act as parents

  • After label theory, many of these closed

Decriminalization

• Removing of status offences from the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system

What is net widening

Adverse effect)

• Unintended consequences of these programs

• A problem that occurs when offenders who would have been released from the system are placed in a program simply because a program exists

• The reach of CJS intensified

  • Have bigger reach

  • Programs outside CJS- embedded in communities

  • Police having awareness of these programs, instead of giving ticket or warning, they send them to the programs

  • Not good- LT saying you should let them go, not put them in programs placing them into the CJS system in a different way then before

De-Medicalization

Closure of asylums, everyones on medications

Reintegrative Shaming Theory

created by John braithwaite:austriullian criminologist who based his theory in labelling theory

how was he influenced by labelling theory

When is a criminal label likely to have the effect of producing a criminal self-concept and future criminal behavior, and when is it likely to have the opposite effect of preventing crime?”

• Lemert like in the beginning

• Using labelling process to see how we can prevent crime

• Labeling negative, can it be reversed

Main concepts in reintergrative shaming

Shaming,Disintegrative shaming,reintergative shaming

Shaming

as social disapproval that has  the “intention or effect of involving remorse in the person being shamed and/or condemnation by others who become aware of the shaming” (Braitwaite, 1989:100)

• Some ideas based in Japanese society

  • Said that in their society, people abid and live by society norms and have internalized it

  • Don’t violate other people's boundaries → creates intense feeling of shame within the person

  • How they are raised and socialized to have that sense of shame

  • Internal mechanism to prevent crime, even if people are not around

• Shame = internalized feelings

• Guilt = More about the particular act

  • Bringing shame not guilt

Disintegrative Shaming

No work done with the offender and society leads to stigmatization of the devient and provoking further acts of deviance as predicted by the labelling theories

• Current practices of the criminal justice system

• Offenders are labelled twice, theft and as a thief

  • Criticizing system similar to labelling theory

• Just establishing guilt, no construction

• No service to the victim, offender, or community

Reintegrative Shaming

An attempt to reconcile and reintegrate the offender back into the community of law-abiding citizens through the words or gesture of forgiveness or ceremonies to decertify the offender as deviant (Braithwaite, 1989)

• Doing work with the citizens

• Rooted more in restorative justice

The social disapproval of shaming works to control crime when it is embedded in relationships that are “overwhelmingly characterized by social approval”

Reintegrative shaming also

uses Interdependency,Communitarianism,

Interdependency

• Attachment to others and commitment to conventional activities- social bonding 

  • Connection to the values- passed from generation to generation

  • Collective society 

  • Need for association and commitment

  • Attachment to family/friends

  • He arrests that reintegrative shaming is successful in reducing crime if individuals display interdependency

Communitarianism

• Small, closely knit communities in which families rely on one another, are more likely to engage in reintegrative shaming

The connection between communitarianism and interdependency

More community relies on each other the more interdependent they are

Reintegrative shaming goal

Goal is to find ways of shaming that are apt to create genuine remorse in offenders and then reintegrate them into the community

• Responsibility vs accountability

  • Accountability taking a step further

  • Accounting for the conduct → actively engaging, thinking, reflecting for why you committed the act

Programs used to make the offenders accept responsibility for their actions and restore them and their victims back to normal

Braithwaite believed that for the CJS to work, we shouldn’t just punish the criminal and stop there

strengths of reintegrative theory

• Avoids secondary deviance spiral (stops the cycle) if they can be reintegrated

• Communities less close = more crime

• Victim focused, application of shame in a positive manner

  • Taking shame and making someone aware of how they have hurt someone

• Applicable in practice

Weaknesses of reintegrative shaming theory

• Research shows weak support

  • Braithwaite predicted family shame is the most important and most influential source of shame, especially for women, was not supported by research (peer are more significant predictor of non-offending)

    • Women socialized into feeling shame not inline with feminist argument (More neg then pos)

  • Does not explain the cause of crime and how to prevent crime

  • Does not address the structural issues in society 

  • The importance of cultural context is ignored

    • American context

Cultrual criminology

The placing of crime and its control in the context of culture… Viewing both crime and the agencies of control as cultural products—creative constructs—they must be read in terms of the meaning they carry.The placing of crime and its control in the context of culture… Viewing both crime and the agencies of control as cultural products—creative constructs—they must be read in terms of the meaning they carry.

catagories for cultrual criminology

The Culturalist Approach

The Structuralist Approach (UK-Based)

The Eclectic Approach

The Culturalist Approach

• Studies the culture and agencies of those who engage in crime and deviance

  • Studying gangs, groups, lifestyles, graffiti 

  • Focus on the importance, the messages, not just the deviant act

• Culture refers to: shared way of life, values and beliefs of a particular groups “to be study of collective meaning and collective identity” (Ferrell, 2008)

• Multiple cultures—but subcultures and countercultures

  • Every subculture is a counterculture

    • Promote act of passive resistance to the dominate discourse within society 

• Graffiti, goth style, hippies, etc., are all countercultures 

The Structuralist Approach

(UK-Based)

• Focuses on the social structure as the key explanatory theme

• Grounded in Marxist (economy) and feminist perspective

  • Patriarchy as a culture: women upholding it as its embedded in our culture so its hard to move away from it

• Focuses on how the socio-structural disadvantaged and culture (youth culture) interact to inform identity and behaviour

• The role and importance of power relations

  • Belief in certain things pushed by those in power

The Eclectic Approach

• Those whose perspective does not fit nearly into the two broader categories mentioned

• Hayward presents both Culturalist and structuralist perspectives 

• He contends that crime is the product of a specific mode of consumption (i.e consumerism) that has emerged in capitalist societies

  • Buying goods, materials, services

  • Consumerism- important part of North American , especially US culture 

Capitalism → Consumption → Consumerism → Cultural Inclusion in Capitalistic Societies: all are invited through advertisement and other media productions to participate in a consumer culture 

Cultural inclusion is accompanied by the structural problem of material execution, which marginalizes the impoverished, compelling them to resort to illegitimate means of material success → Crime: Product of culture of consumption

in culture criminology theres a

The criminalization of culture

• What we label criminal behaviour is subculture behaviour 

  • Behaviour by outsider is being called criminal

  • People being targeted, people only exist within the counterculture, outsiders criminalize that culture

• Media, police, and moral entrepreneurs construct stigmatizing discourse about subcultural style and activities. A style can be constructed as “dangerous” and trigger profiling

  •  i.e hoodies as style of illicit subculture

    • Wearing hoodies in Londons in early 2000’s would have you followed by security 

  • Taking one symbol and making it stand for illicit subculture

• It is usual the style and behaviour of minorities/African Americans/poor people who are constructed as illicit

  • Things like seeing a minority in a gated community and assuming that they do not belong there as they “can’t afford it”

The criminalization of culture products

• Cultural Products: Photographs, movies, music, books, etc. 

• Constructing certain products as illicit, criminogenic, i.e “gangsta rap” material

  • Culture feeds movie media materials and that then feeds the culture

    • Studying movies (like action movies) to determine culture

      • Based in the cultural norms, protect/highlight them

Commodification of crime

• True crime media

  • American idea of having to punish it, but at the same time the biggest cultural outlet (the media) produce and glorify it

• The game “Ghettopoly” is a monopoly-style game in which “playas” move around “Tyron’s Gun Shop” to “Ling Ling’s Massage Parlour.” Building crack houses, “pimping and selling guns as they go”

  • Game is mega racist

  • Associated african americans with guns

  • Targeting asian people as well

  • Game tells us about American culture 

    • Being racist

    • Can also learn about deeper issues like those who play it then create automatic association

• How crime sells and makes money

Critique of cultrual criminology

• Not a new direction for criminology, no new insights; ignores impact of criminalization

  • Took insights from other perspectives (did focus on nuance of culture) but didn’t say anything new

    • Most don’t really say anything new however

• “A theoretical soup,” “manifesto,” (not really theoretical perspective), “Perspective,” “Series of criminologist interested in culture,” “criminology of thrills and risks,” rather than a unified theory on culture

• Fails to provide a precise definition of theorization of the concept of culture

  • Doesn’t define culture

• Romanticizing crime and criminals (adventurous, risk-seeking); glorifying resistance itself and “almost built-in affinity with the resisters”

• Methodology likely to give rise to ethical issues, and criticized for focusing on minor crimes

  • Ethnography → immersing oneself into the culture

    • Researcher coming in and immersing and committing deviant acts

Strengths of cultural criminology

foreground factors and the role of emotions is understanding the meaning of crime fore the perpetrator

(Interviewing the people within the culture and then reporting that)