CrimePolicePunishment Vicky Crossley Crime Prevention Clarke Clarke focused

Crime/Police/Punishment Vicky Crossley

Crime Prevention - Clarke • Clarke focused on situational crime prevention. • “People will commit offences when the costs of offending are less than the benefits obtained by offending. ” • Rather than increase punishment he argued it better to make it more difficult to commit crime. • Foucault – prison and community punishment can be combined as the state extending its tentacles of discipline and control.

Styles of Policing in the UK! Neighbourhood Watch • Teams of police and community support officers work in a geographical area. • The aim is to get to know the members of the community and respond to their specific concerns. Reactive Policing • Police respond to emergency calls from the public to help.

Police and Society Relationship! • Consensual Approach! • - Sees police having a close relationship with local area. Role of police being to represent the interests of the majority of law-abiding citizens. Individual offenders caught as a result of complaints made by community. Neighbourhood and reactive policing reflect the balance of police work.

• Conflict Approach! • - Provided by Scraton – The Police = An occupying force imposed upon working class and ethnic minority communities. These areas are largely patrolled. Imposed law reflects the interest of powerful groups. • Late-Modern Approach! (Foucalt, Cohen + Feeley) • - They would argue that the shift towards neighbourhood policing represents an extension of control over the population.

Police Discretion! • The police need to use discretion in deciding exactly which laws to apply and in what circumstances. • Reiner Three ways of explaining the basics of police discretion.

• 1. Individualistic – the explanation for police discretion is that a specific police officer has specific concerns and interests. Thus interprets law according to them. • 2. Cultural – Police mostly white and male. Work long hours in each other’s company. Develop occupational/canteen culture. Skolnick has 3 main components… 1. Suspiciousness 2. Internal solidarity + social isolation 3. Conservatism 4. Masculinity – Graef (1989)

• 3. Structural – derived from Marxism. Law biased in favour of powerful groups. Therefore, any upholding of law involved upholding capitalist values of society.

The Courts! • Magistrates Courts – Magistrates are volunteers drawn from local communities. However, when Morgan and Russel explored backgrounds of magistrates they found… • Equal gender balance. • 40% of magistrates over retirement age. • 70% held/previously held professional or managerial positions. • Senior judges background = overwhelmingly male, white and educated.