Criminal justice system

Agents of formal social control

  • CJS is dominated by older, middle and upper class, white men.

  • Those dispensing justice to the most disadvantaged in society are among the most advantaged.

Formal social control: create and uphold laws, punish and rehabilitate offenders

Legislature

  • House of common and House of Lords (monarch has royal assent)

  • responsible for introducing, debating and deciding on changes to the law

  • decisions made in one house have to be approved by the other

Police

  • responsible for enforcing the law and providing public with reassurance they will be safe.

The Judiciary

  • judge whether or not a person is guilty or not. Also responsible for sentencing and deciding what the appropriate punishment is.

  1. supreme court- most senior court which deals with cases of national significance so has more complex cases.

  2. court of appeal- people have the right to appeal during a miscarriage of justice and this court decides if they have been dealt with fairly.

  3. crown court- judge and jury who deal with indictable crimes e.g. robbery, murder

  4. magistrates- 95% of all crimes but mostly non indictable. no judge or jury but 3 magistrates who work as a panel.

Prison system

  • holding offenders that the court decides need to be behind bars.

The probation system

  • responsible for looking after offenders once they are released from prisons
    - help offenders reintegrate back into society
    - ensure that they don’t reoffend

  • 28,000 people employed as part of the probation system

  • people on probation are the ones most likely to break the law (reoffending = 70%)

Louis Althusser, Marxist: CJS is a state apparatus that keeps working class in their place.

  • as laws and rules are set by the powerful, they protect their interests, the law enforcements therefore target the disadvantaged who can’t defend themselves as they are marginalised. e.g. poor, EM, mentally ill

  • compares prison to the slave labour of capitalism as prisoners were told where to be and how to act while being exploited and controlled.

Punishment

  • Some argue there should be set punishments for each crime so objective while others argue judges, politicians and victims should be consulted in a subjective system.

  • Some believe main focus should be on the offence that has been committed and the harm it has caused while others focus on intent, motive and the state of mind of the offender.

Aims of punishment, Tim Newburn

Protection: maintains order by limiting the harm inflicted on public and property

  • makes people feel safer

  • e.g. sending criminals to prison for various lengths of time (2022, England and Wales, 82,000 prisoners)

whole life terms: give to the most dangerous offenders like serial killers and rapists who will never be considered for release from prison

deportation: foreign nationals sent back to their country of origin especially for terrorist offences.

Deterrence: convincing people that crime and consequences are not worth the risk

  • discourages people from committing crime as can see what will happen to them if they get caught doing the same thing.

speed cameras: encourage people to slow down as catches those speeding

Retribution: get what they deserve, revenge for law abiding public

  • maintain public order by exacting revenge on behalf of the public

  • helps conformists feel good about following the law as deviant criminals get what they deserve.

e.g. naming and shaming by listing names of offenders in the media (sex offenders list) so see justice system taking action in their communities

Reformation: help offenders become better people so they won’t reoffend later

  • helps offenders realise their mistakes and change ways

  • show criminals there is a life for them beyond prison if they engage with support offered. (big focus in Finland and Norway)

  • people criticise the death penalty so does not give someone chance to change their ways.

Reinforcement: of social values and bonds by uniting law abiding citizens against crime

  • Functionalists argue that communities are governed by a collective conscience which regulates their behaviour so those who break laws violate wider society.

→ norms and values are constantly redefined as society changes and new factors need to be considered within the CJS.

  • Marxists and Feminists: laws are not a reflection of value consensus but lawds are rules of the powerful.

Restorative justice- offender and victim brought together in face to face meetings to help repair the harm down, restore dignity and self respect of the victims to reduce their fear of crime and make offenders take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

John Braithwaite: most effective with ‘reintegrative shaming’. offenders should not only face their victims but should be named and shamed as they realise the extent to which society disapproves of their offending to shame them into future conformity.

Max Weber: in modern societies only the state has the power to punish offenders. system applies ‘rational legal authority’ based on agreed rules and regulations administered by officials rather than the whims of one powerful individual.

  • legislation decided by elected and accountable governments, giving them some claim to being legitimate and justifiable.

→ when they won’t act rationally they lose power

Prisons

  • 2/3 of prisoners have no qualifications and have a low reading age.

  • prisons have a lack of educational programmes to correct this.

  • most prisoners are unemployable before they go sindie and then will be worse when they have a criminal record.

  • 25% of prisoners grew up in care

  • 40% have no home to go back to when they are released

  • 8.75 million prisoners (usa most)

  • Number of staff is cut by 30% despite prison population doubling.

→ overcrowding → 1/5 spend 22 hours daily in cells → violence, drugs, suicide → cost £36,00 a year

San Pedro, Bolivia

  • Houses 12x as many people as it is designed for

  • prisoner’s families can live them (no guards)

  • enterprise zones for businesses create a prison economy

Interactionist, Erving Goffman: prisons make pre-existing problems in society worse. e.g. separated from other family members destabilising relationships. disrupts offenders employment opportunities due to stigma of criminal master status lael. prisons have subcultures which provide training ground for criminals.

  • increase likelihood that an individual will reoffend especially as access to legitimate job opportunities in society are blocked.

  • manufacture crime rather than reducing it.

The Panopticon

Bentham

  • prison was round with a central tower that was able to see into every cell

  • improves behaviour and is cheaper as requires fewer guards

  • guards could see into each cell but the tower had blinds so the inmates could never know if they were being watch so always behave just in case.

→ actually built in Cuba (1921-1967)

The Panopticon

Relatively cheap- few guards but still works well

Guards felt safe as towers inaccessible

Not very humane- seeing individuals as mechanistic

The Death Penalty

  • murder is ‘unlawful, premeditated killing’

  • the death penalty is premeditated as follows a lengthy trial and then an extended period where the accused can appeal.

  • but is legal in some countries
    - abolitionist: canada, australia, most of europe (some in practice haven’t carried it out for 10 years e.g. Morocco)
    - retentionist: usa, india, Saudi arabia (some only for serious crimes e.g. Brazil)
    - death penalty laws and methods vary from state to state.

→ exemptions for severely mentally ill or those with intellectual disabilities

An argument that the death penalty is not effective as a deterrent because the number of people on death row increases year on year.

  • for example the south has the highest number of executions but still the highest murder rates.

Methods of execution

  • firing squad

  • lethal injection

  • electric shock

  • hanging

  • lethal gas

→ other methods like stoning and beheading used in other parts of the world

The death penalty was abolished in the UK for most crimes in 1965, but was still legal in the UK until 1998 for treason (crimes of disloyalty to the crown).

Ruth Ellis

  • last women to be hanged, 1955

  • shot her husband 5 times
    - had been abused by father
    - husband had punche dher in the stomach causing a miscarriage
    - struggling with her mental health e.g. taking antidepressants

Exoneration: conviction is reversed through a demonstration of innocence or a flaw in the conviction.

  • particularly controversial in death penalty cases where new evidence is put forth after the execution has taken place → miscarriages of justice.

  • 2019 =143

  • average of 4 each year since 1973

Stats:

2% of prisoners are females

56% of executions are white (so disproportionately black- 3x more likely)

Killing someone white led to 3x more chance of the death penalty than killing someone black

Surveillance

Surveillance: refers to the act of watching over people in order to control their behaviour or gain information. e.g. CCTV, phone tapping, geotracking, stakeouts (covertly or overtly)

Foucault: looked at the way punishment has changed over time. It used to be a violent public spectacle but has now changed to be hidden away behind closed doors.

  • more drawn out and psychological about changing the mind and soul.

sovereign power: control through threat or force e.g. punishment directly on body

disciplinary power: control through monitoring and surveillance of population

→ increases power of the state. means that marginalised cannot oppose inequalities of wealth and power.

Carceral archipelago (state of being imprisoned)

  • every public location is a small island panopticon in which everyone is subject to surveillance within a contemporary society.

  • government observes every part of society e.g. gathering data, tracking criminals, deterring crime.

→ useful for controlling crowd behaviour or fighting against the threat of terrorism

Dynamic normalization: surveillance eradicates free will and independent thinking creating a society of like minded robots.

  • people lose instinct to think for themselves so do not behave spontaneously or develop original ideas.

  • focus on acting, thinking and being the same as scared of punishment.

Right Realism and prevention

Situational crime prevention

  • Aims to reduce crime in a specific area rather than eliminating criminal behaviour.

  • Ron Clarke, Rational Choice theory (pre-emptive approach)
    - directed at petty crimes
    - managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime
    - increasing the effects and risks of committing crime and reducing rewards

  • Target hardening: changes to crime targets that may prevent crime e.g. shutters, CCTV, window locks
    - also designing out features which encourage criminality e.g. sloping seats

Marcus Felson, New York Port Authority

  • poorly designed so provided opportunities for deviant conducts e.g. toilets, rough sleeping, drug dealing

  • reshaping the environment to ‘design crime out’ greatly reduces crime for example bright lights in dark corners, centralised CCTV system, small sink basin to stop homeless people bathing.

e.g. Glasgow airport, suicide truck driver → Bollards and taxis only

Criticised by ⬇

Displacement theory, Thomas Repetto: if people are no longer committing crime in some areas because it is too difficult, the problem will not disappear but will simply change in DFOC.

  1. spatial- moving elsewhere to commit crime

  2. temporal- committing it at a different time

  3. target- choosing a different victim

  4. tactical- using a different method

  5. functional- committing a different crime

Broken Window theory, Wilson and Kelling

  • leaving signs of crime such as broken windows, graffiti and begging creates an atmosphere that no-one cares. (police are too concerned with serious crime so turn a blind eye to these issues)

  • without action the neighbourhood will spiral and respectable people will move out.

→ Environmental crime protection: necessary to keep environments in good physical condition combined with a zero tolerance approach to policing. e.g. repair broken windows, police walking in streets, police being proactive tackling small signs of disorder → stops neighbourhood decline.

e.g. Clean car program- trains with graffiti on them were taken away which immediately meant graffiti largely never happened.

Assumes criminals think rationally and does not account for violences or those under influence of drugs and alcohol.

Situational crime prevention works in reducing some crime but likely to be some displacement.

Prevention focuses mostly on opportunistic petty street crime, and ignores white collar, corporate and state crime.

Left Realism and Prevention

Social and community prevention

  • focuses on the offender and their social context and attempts to remove the conditions which lead them to committing crime in the first place.

  • causes of crime often rooted in social conditions like poverty, unemployment, and poor housing.
    - social reform programmes address these issues so then reducing crime is a welcome side effect despite not being the main focus.

  • Left Realists think that the police should be based on consensus with police coming from and working on behalf of the community that they police. Creates a general agreement in the community about law and order, and that the police are on the same side as the vast majority.

Paul Lewis: genuine consensus policing would lead to more confidence in the police, and collaboration with rather than feeling threatened.

e.g. Resentment from a perceived lack of respect from police and innocent people being repeatedly stopped and searched → London 2011 riots.

→ 2012, moved towards consensus policing when they introduced elected police and crime commissioners e.g. a police budget, how the area is policed, appointing a chief constable.

Multi agency: crime prevention is not just the responsibility of the justice system but of everyone and that partnerships between a wide range of agencies and individuals need to exist in order to reduce the problem e.g. fire and ambulance, NHS, social workers, religious groups, child protection

e.g. Perry preschool project, USA David Weikart

  • provided high quality preschool education to 3 and 4 year olds living in poverty and assessed to be at a high risk of school failure.

  • condition 1: received this help for 5 years e.g. home visits, special sessions with more teacher contact each morning

  • condition 2 (control): received no help

→ significantly fewer arrests (35% vs 7% 5 or more arrests), more had graduated and were employed

Social and community prevention is the only type that addresses the causes of crime but this costs the most. (idealistic but uneffective)

→ $1 spent, $17 saved on welfare, prison etc.

Prevention focuses mostly on opportunistic petty street crime, and ignores white collar, corporate and state crime.