SOCI244 Combined Lecture Notes PDF

SOCI244 - COMBINED LECTURE NOTES FOR MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS Opportunity theories key premise: Grounded in the idea that humans act rationally, opportunity theories seek to prevent and control crime by making the potential cost of committing a crime greater than its potential benefit Origins / h...

SOCI244 - COMBINED LECTURE NOTES FOR MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS Opportunity theories key premise: Grounded in the idea that humans act rationally, opportunity theories seek to prevent and control crime by making the potential cost of committing a crime greater than its potential benefit Origins / history - The Classical School of Criminology - The Age of Enlightenment - Intellectual and philosophical movement (17th and 18^th^ century) - Central ideas: human beings are rational and therefore have free will -- relatively new idea that we actually have free will - They have the ability to understand and consider the consequences of their (freely chosen) actions and behaviours (Tibetts et al 2022) Origins / history - The Classical School of Criminology (2) - Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), law student - Wrote the book "On Crimes and Punishment" (1764) - Concept of social contract which is the idea that: - Citizen give up certain rights in exchange for the state's protection - Unfair or disproportionate punishment by the state violates the sense of unity -- it enrages people and creates social disorder because people get enraged towards the state - Social contract needs to be fair - Against death penalty -- idea that it needs to be abolished - Emphasis on free will and individual choice (Tibetts et al 2022) - Law prescribes specific punishment for a crime - Cesare Beccaria said that: - Circumstances or background of offender will not be taken into account when it comes to punishment - Intent is irrelevant (Tibetts et al 2022) - Three Key Elements of Punishment/Deterrence according to Beccaria: - Swiftness of punishment - Certainty of punishment - Severity of punishment - For a punishment to be effective, the penalty must outweigh the potential benefits (Tibetts et al 2022) Contemporary applications: 1. Rational Choice Theory 2. Routine Activity Theory 3. Crime Pattern Theory 4. Situational Crime Prevention 5. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design [1. Rational Choice Theory] - Based on a homo economicus model of human action - This means we are all calculated to some extent, we can make calculated decisions but we are also selfish and choose the options that benefit us most - Adapted from economists (Becker 1968) - What are the factors that go into an individual's decision to commit a crime? - An individual is more likely to commit a crime if the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs (Tibetts et al. 2022) - Formal forms of deterrence (costs/consequences) - Punishment - Exclusions from educational institution, labour market, housing market - Informal forms of deterrence - Peers will disapprove - Moral beliefs - Risk of social exclusion - Shame/ humiliation - Often more influential than formal forms of deterrence (Tibett et al.2022) - Rewards - Financial gain - Status - Gratification - In order to prevent crime well have to increase costs and decrease benefits - Are people fully "rational actors" that never make reckless decisions? - What is the role of emotions? [2. Routine Activity Theory - Cohen and Felson (1979)] - Most crimes happen in people's everyday lives - Majority of crimes are mundane - Most crimes are opportunistic - People commit crimes when they see and seize an opportunity - Focuses on - The study of crime as an event - Its relation to space and time - RAT is not concerned with - The figure of the criminal - The psychological, biological, or social factors that motivated the crime (Miro 2014) - It aims to identify on the macro-level (large scale) criminal activities and their patterns - Emerged out of the aim to explain changes in crime rate trends (Cohen and Felson 1979) - Western countries in the 1960s: improvement of socioeconomic conditions but significant increase in crime rates -- before there was a lot more poverty therefore socioeconomic factors improved but crime levels worsened - Explanation was sought in the focus of changes in structural patterns of people's daily activities and routines - Greater importance of activities away from home - Women's participation in the labour market and higher education - Increase in vacation lengths - Technological improvements - Smaller devices with high value - Appearance of ATMs, increase in bank transactions - Increased mobility and visibility of consumer goods -- a lot more is on display - This provided greater criminal opportunities (Miro 2014) Three factors to routine activity theory: - Motivated offender (with capacity to commit crime) - Suitable target/victim - Absence of a controller -- absence of someone/something to stop them eg surveillance/devices, police/security, by-standers [3. Crime Pattern Theory] - Highlights the spatial ties connecting crime, targets, and patterns of movement of offenders - Which times/places are linked to a greater probability for crimes to occur? - Daily movements: offenders commit crime near the areas they spend the most time at (and the routes that connect them) - Understanding of the patterns of daily life and movement of offenders allows for understanding spatio-temporal crime patterns and spatio-temporal concertation (Miro 2014) [4. Situational Crime Prevention] - SCP is "a preventative approach that relies, not upon improving society or its institutions, but simply upon reducing opportunities for crime." (Clarke 1992: 3) - Very different to social problem-solving approaches to crime - Concerned with the situational determinants of crime - not concerned with disposition (biological, psychological or sociological) or background factors (Clarke 1980) - Crime can be prevented by opportunity-reducing measures: - Management, design or manipulation of the immediate environment - Increasing the effort of and risk for the offender (costs/benefits) - Reducing the rewards to the offender, excuses to commit crime, and provocations that may contribute to a criminal act (Clarke, 1980) [5. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)] - "Designing out crime" - Management, design or manipulation of the immediate environment - Increasing the effort of and risk for the offender Significance of opportunity theories - Some of the most widely cited theories in criminology and crime science (Miro 2014) - Facilitates policies and practices of crime prevention (Tilley 2009) - Has been widely and comprehensively implemented in crime prevention - Can be successful in preventing (certain kinds of) crime Criticism of opportunity theories × Displacement -- if applied somewhere might just push criminal activity elsewhere × Lack of interest in the offender and their motivations -- ignoring of the aetiology\* of crime × Doesn't 'solve' the problem of crime -- just manages it (Miro 2014) × Moral legitimacy? - Crime is distanced from structural inequalities or existential motivations - Crime and crime control is reduced to a managerial problem (Hayward 2012) × Hotspot policing and marginalisation × The over-policing of ethnic majority and working class areas -- public vs private space × Can be implemented for "Zero Tolerance" policies (Garland 1999) Criticism - Hostile Architecture -- reason for benches and beneath bridges being built the way they are is to stop homeless people from living there (e.g. Raymen 2016) - The cultural criminological critique (Ferrell et al. 2015, Hayward 2012) - Lack of considering the complexity of human emotion and motivations - What if 'thrill-seeking' is a central emotion? -- what if people just commit crime because it excites them - Feminist critique - Public vs. private space - IPV? Sexual violence? - Reinforcement of victim-blaming narratives - e.g. don't walk alone at night, don't wear certain clothes, don't get too drunk Cultural criminology key premise - Grounded in the idea that crime is culturally meaningful, cultural criminology explores the dynamics and meaning-making processes surrounding crime, transgression and control The origins of cultural criminology - Cultural criminology first emerged in US criminology and sociology of deviance - These approaches converged with British critical criminology in the early 2000s - Interdisciplinary approach: cultural studies, cultural geography, media studies. New Deviancy Theory (ca. 1955--1966) -- Response to orthodox criminology, Influence of feminist and Marxist criminology Interactionist tradition in criminology and sociology of deviance (1960s) - Crime as a social\ construction, the lacking ontological reality of crime Subcultural studies/Birmingham School of Cultural Studies (1970/80s) - Subcultures are both\ part of and a response to 'mainstream' culture, subcultures as a form of symbolic and cultural resistance What is cultural criminology? - Interdisciplinary theoretical (and methodological) perspective - Focus: - The cultural meanings of practices defined as 'crime" - The cultural dynamics of criminalisation and control in the late modern\ condition "Culture" in cultural criminology "Human culture" ≠ Ethnicity, territory = The 'symbolic environment' (Ferrell et al 2015: 3) in and through which individuals and groups make sense of their being, their actions, and the social and material world surrounding them Statement 1: - We cannot understand the world surrounding us without assigning meaning to objects, subjects, structures and environments. - 'human culture' -- symbolic environment How do we assign meaning? - Semiotics, or semiology - The study of signs, symbols, and signification. It is the study of how meaning is created, not what it is. - Signifier: any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image. - Signified: the concept that a signifier refers to. - Sign: the smallest unit of meaning. Anything that can be used to communicate (or to tell a lie). - Symbolic (arbitrary) signs: signs where the relation between signifier and signified is purely conventional and culturally specific, e.g., most words. Statement 2: - Human culture is created collectively: it is constituted by "the collective search of meaning, and the meaning of the search itself" (Ferrell et al, 2015, p. 3) - Cannot create human culture myself, its about shared meaning and values Statement 3: - Cultural forces consist of fluid, continually changing processes of negotiation of collective meaning through social practices and symbolic endeavours - Cultural forces is not something that's standing and fixed, its constantly changing and people are constantly adapting Statement 4: - Culture reveals itself as pervaded by contestation and struggle. We can witness this in so-called 'culture wars' and cultural conflicts between social groups around the dominance of values, beliefs and social practices. Late Modernity - Stadium of transition in contemporary societies - Late modernity vs. post-modernity - Characterized by fundamental cultural, political, economic and social changes Late Modernity - The condition of late modernity (Young 1999, 2007) - Economic globalization and the rise of neo-liberal ideologies - Changes in modes of production and patterns of consumption - Increased individual competition due to demands of flexibility and mobility on the labour market - Accompanied by increasing economic inequality and insecurity Late Modernity - Cultural globalization - Mass migration, tourism, new communication technologies - Leading to hyperpluralism and the continuative relativizing of norms and value - Increasing pluralism of norms, values and social worlds - Breakup of traditional/collective norms and values - A "spatial, moral and social overlap" (Young 2003: 390) Late Modernity - 'Ontological insecurity' (Young 1999, 2007) - "Precariousness of being" (Young, 2007, p. 3) - The uncertainty of identity caused by hyperpluralism, the individual's disembeddedness from biography, and the resulting discontinuity of individual narratives - Late modernity there is: - freedom of choice and lifestyle - individual liberation - pluralism of possibilities - But at the same time there is still: - insecurities of status and of economic status - discontinuity of individual narratives - instability of work, family and community [Statement 5:] Human culture is not simply a product of social class, ethnicity or occupation, but it cannot take shape without structure either. It is intertwined with structures of power and shaped by existing patterns of inequality. It does not take shape independent of structure, nor can it be reduced to a 'residue' of it (Ferrell et al., 2015, p. 3) [Statement 6:] The complex interplays of transgression, criminalisation, and control lie at the core of the often paradoxical processes in which meaning is negotiated and generated. Transgression and crime are "creative constructs" which are meaningful within the specific cultural dynamics surrounding them and "must be read in terms of the meanings they carry"\ (Hayward and Young 2004: 259) 'Crime' is not simply the act of deviating from a social norm, but is a cultural product. Constructions 'upwards and downwards' -- Haywood and Young, 2004 - The meaning which is given to the deviant act influences the meaning given to the reactions to it by actors of social control, and vice versa (Hayward and Young 2004) - Think about: - The meaning given to a transgressive act by the actor(s) - The meaning given to a transgressive act by authorities - The meaning given to a transgressive act by the various 'audiences' - Example -- graffiti = one of the most seen crimes, see it every day and very easily Constructions 'downwards' -- what kind of meanings are given to graffiti - Vandalism - Youth crime - Devaluation of private property - Symbol of social disorganization ('Broken Windows' theory) - Other meanings for graffiti given by those who perform graffiti egi: - Political communication eg George Floyd graffiti - Expression of artistic talent - Business techniques - selling products - Overlapping with high art eg Banksy Statement 7: - Crime in late modernity: Is interwoven with late modern consumer culture - Can be spectacular, exciting, or mundane - Is a form of coping with experiences of 'ontological insecurity' - Is a way to reassure and/or create identity. Can reveal, when deconstructed, "global shifts and historical trends monumental in their meaning" (Ferrell et al., 2015, p. 30). Emotions and crime - Emotions matter - Cultural criminology is concerned with: - The phenomenology of crime - Experiences of anger, adrenaline, pleasure, panic, excitement, humiliation, desperation \... - Al aspects we need to take into consideration when we are looking at people committing crime - The phenomenology of everyday life in late modernity - The search for excitement, the retreat into tedium and boredom, the tension of conformity, the impact of relative deprivation and blocked access to cultural goals - The study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view 'The Seductions of Crime' Jack Katz (1988) - The phenomenological study of the 'foreground' of crime - The criminal event, the lifestyles of offenders, the thought processes that precede the crime, the emotions before, during and after the criminal event - Focus on the sensual, visceral and bodily nature of crime - Vs. the overemphasis on rationality in orthodox criminology and the assumption people commit crime for material gain The foreground of crime and transgression - Background -- the condition of late modernity - Now criminologists ask how we move this into the 'Foreground' -- what are the motivators people have to make them commit crimes - The emotional, sensual, expressive and even aesthetic features of transgression - The excitement of the physical and/or social risk, experience of pleasure and empowerment, the escape from everyday routine and boredom - The possibilities of overcoming of humiliation, fear or anger and the symbolic re-appropriation of lost control and power via transgression - Violence is motivated by power and wanting to be in control of a situation - The regaining of ontological security via transgression and the creation of transgressive identities - This makes transgressive/criminal acts inherently appealing and attractive. - 'It is not the taste for pizza that leads to the crime; the crime makes the pizza tasty' (Katz, 1988, p. 52) Significance: - The 'cultural turn' in criminology - Interdisciplinarity - Allowed for shifting the focus of critical criminology towards a wide range of (everyday) phenomena - Resistance, crime in (social) media, crime and virtual realities, crime and consumer culture, risk-taking and transgression, crime control and urban space etc. - Allowed for understanding the complexities of crime as a cultural phenomena - While acknowledging the interplay of agency and structure Criticism - Romanticising crime? - Cultural criminologists 'romanticize' crime by over-emphasizing the resistant and exciting aspects of deviance - Fixation on celebratory accounts on 'subcultural outlaw groups' (Alison Young, 2008, p. 21), criminal edgework and 'low-level transgression' - The overly idealistic confusion of crime and resistance and celebration of (potentially harmful or simply mundane) acts of transgression - Hall and Winlow (2015) -- very strong critiques of culture criminology, argue that: - cultural criminology places too much emphasis on crime as a symbolic transgression of authority - It downplays the reality of the harm that some crimes are causing - Cultural criminology "is not really criminology, it's the sociology of peripheral mischievousness, and the distinction it makes between this and serious crime and harm is often unclear." (p. 51) - By suggesting crime is not such a big problem, the perspective contributes to the neglect of victims of serious crime Criticism - The feminist critique - Naegler and Salman (2016): Cultural criminology pays insufficient attention to important dimensions of power around gender, race and sexuality - Many accounts are written from a masculinist position and operates with a narrow conceptualisation of power and power relations - Cultural criminologists are overly preoccupied with so-called 'prototypically masculine, high-risk pursuits' - The main progenitors of cultural criminology were largely men, and that the focus of most of the early studies were male subjects Gender theories key premise: grounded in the idea of gender as socially constructed, gender theories in criminology focus on how gendered experiences of the world shape criminal offending, victimisation and responses to crime. Origins / history "In a good half of hysterical women there is sufficient intelligence if little power of fixing the attention; but their disposition is profoundly egotistical, and their absorbing preoccupation with themselves makes them love scandal and a public sensation. They are excessively impressionable, consequently easily moved to choler, ferocity, to sudden and unreasonable likes and dislikes. Their will is always unstable; they take delight in evil-speaking, and if\ they cannot draw public attention by baseless trials and scandalous forms of revenge, they embitter the life of those around them by continual quarrels and disputes" (Lombroso, 1895, p. 219, The Female Offender) - Traditional criminology uninterested in female offending → key theories did not account for women's experiences - 1960s/70s Second Wave Feminist movement saw emergence of feminist criminological thought which had three tenets: - Women to be included in criminological research - Focus on gender roles and social structures to explain the 'gender gap' - Victimology Concept 1: Patriarchy - Patriarchy: social, political and economic system where men hold power and women do not; maintaining the gender status quo - Different understandings of patriarchy and what is to be done about it - Second Wave feminists tried to make space for women within patriarchal systems, via law reform (Smart, 1989 - Emancipation theory (Adler, 1975) - Radical/Marxist/Socialist feminists argued that women could never be equal under patriarchal and capitalism systems -- need an overhaul (e.g., prison abolition) (Mackinnon, 1991; Carlen, 1988) - Marxist -- patriarchy is a product of a capitalist society -- need to over throw capitalism - Socialist -- equal weighing of capitalism and patriarch = explains their engagement with crime - Third-wave feminism argued that we also needed to think about race/colonialism (Richie, 1996) - Queer criminology emphasised the heteronormativity and cisnormativity of society that lead to queer communities labelled as deviated and overrepresented in the CJS (Buist & Lenning, 2023) Concept 2: Femininity and masculinity - Ignoring the 'gender gap' → normalisation of men's crime and violence (Chesney-Lind & Morash, 2013) - Gender as socially constructed and performed - West & Zimmerman (1987) on 'doing gender': - "We contend that the "doing" of gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of society is hostage to its production. Doing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional and micropolitical activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine "natures" (West & Zimmerman, 1987, p. 126) - Eg one of the reasons women may typically be expected to have a caring nature is because historically they started off with care work - Criminality as a way to perform/enact masculinity (or femininity in some cases) - 'hegemonic masculinity' (Connell, 1995): men as strong, aggressive, protective - Criminologists highlighted the way in which men engaging in criminality is a way of displaying their masculinity - Researches also considered how women criminals may commit crime as a way of resource / a way to perform their own femininity - Queer theory/criminologists question whether biological sex is 'static' → power as rational (Butler 1990) - Fails to consider people that are intersex - Emphasis on the fluidity and socially constructed categories - All about how does the criminal justice system see sex and gender? Concept 3: Intersectionality - Emerged out of critiques of liberal and radical feminism that focused primarily on middle-class white women, and CJS reforms that ignored marginalised women - Black American feminists (e.g., Beth Richie, bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Hillary Potter) developed concept of 'intersectionality' to understand how women's lives are shaped by multiple forms of oppression - Weren't really seeing many studies into women of colour - Concept of intersectionality came from the lived experiences of black women and the oppression they faced in the criminal justice system - Queer criminology intersectional from inception (Ball, 2016) Concept 4: Agency - Feminism is about women being strong, smart, capable → but what about victims? - Feminist criminology/victimology sought to have women recognised as victims of men's violence (Stanko, 1985) - Have to think about what is associated with being a victim - Have to associate women with typical views of femininity - CJS policies based on women victims as weak and passive (e.g., domestic abuse legislation that took choice away from victims) (Bailey, 2010) - Third-wave feminism -- the emergence of the victim-SURVIVOR = women can be both (Bosworth & Carrabine, 2001) - But challenges to implementing this in practice - Victim survivor might not press charges or report - Criminal justice system basically saying if you want our help your not going to have any agency at all - Victim survivor who engages in a lot of resources that means they know about their legal rights, the police will often not help them because to them that's not what a victim 'should do' - A woman can be a victim and a survivor Concept 5: Epistemology - Challenging positivist methods that had excluded women - Any truth didn't actually speak to the whole picture - Often research was biased - Feminist methods focused on qualitative research (e.g., interviews, focus groups) (Ramazanoglu, 2002) - Argued if you want to know something about women's lives you should sit down and talk to them - Breaking down power dynamics between researcher and researched (e.g., co-production) - Refers to approach where participants are actually involved in designing the research - Participants have a say in the research design - Researcher positionality and bias (Renzetti, 1992) Significance of gender theories in criminology 1. There is no one feminist perspective: there exist key commonalities, tensions and contradictions. 2. According to gender theories, gender is a social construct, with crime being an enactment of masculinity and/or femininity. 3. Feminist criminology is one of the most influential criminological perspectives in terms of criminal justice system reform. 4. Gender theories and feminist criminology have produced a distinct methodology that questions 'how we know what we know' about the lives of women, men, and gender diverse people. 5. Feminist criminology has been particularly influential in the field of victimology, but struggles to balance victimhood with agency. Green criminology key premise Grounded in the idea that not all harms are crimes, green criminology studies environmental destruction and the inequalities it generates. Origins of green criminology - Crime is not a fixed attribute - Behaviour that has been so labelled - Not all harm is criminalised - Power - Lawmakers - Media - Politicians ◊ Administrative v criminal Origins of green criminology -- Crimes of the powerful - White collar crime - Corporate crime - State crime - State-corporate crime "Green criminology refers to the study of environmental crimes and harms affecting human and non‐human life, ecosystems and the biosphere. More specifically, green criminology explores and analyzes: the causes, consequences and prevalence of environmental crime and harm, the\ responses to and prevention of environmental crime and harm by the legal system (civil, criminal, regulatory) and by non-governmental entities and social movements, as well as the meaning and mediated representations of environmental crime and harm" Brisman and South, 2018: 1 Green criminology - Not a cohesive branch - Interdisciplinary (politics, geography, natural sciences, philosophy, etc.) - Perspective / framework - Definitions, theory, methods, epistemologies - Climate, non-human animals, wildlife, pollution, etc. Key concepts -- Capitalism - System - Economic, social, cultural, political - Accumulation £££ - Exploitation for profit - Inequalities - Commodification - Goods, services, labour, nature Key concepts - Capitalism - Contradictions of capitalism - Unlimited accumulation - Limited resources - Deepening inequalities Key concepts - Inequalities - Contamination - Deforestation - Floods - Social conflict Key concepts -- Ecological justice - Capitalism inherently unjust - One goal: grow and accumulate - In order for this to happen you have to have a hierarchy of people - Everything else (commodification) Key concepts -- Ecological justice - In order to build a Hierarchy you need separation - Means that Nature stripped for parts - our way of understanding nature is completely different from us - Humans // nature - Nature: tap and sink - Anthropocentrism Key concepts -- Ecological justice - Ecological justice says we need to move away form this hierarchy and start looking at things besides humans - The interests of everything and everyone must be taking into consideration when thinking about justice - Ecocentrism - Interconnectedness - Eco justice includes social justice -- adds a layer of interconnectedness - Capitalist hierarchies - Commodification Significance of green criminology - Critical crim pushed boundaries of criminology, critical criminology says: - Instead of looking just at the Crimes, take a look at the harms - Instead of just looking at less powerful, lets look at powerful too - Individuals - structures, states, corporations - Green crim further expanded them - Victims: humans - non-human, maybe humans aren't the only ones that can be victim -- animals legally victims in some countries (there is a recognition) - Topics: legal but harmful -- green criminology pushes this further -- animals for human consumption (looking at why we care about dogs but not cows eg) Significance of green criminology - Engages with the biggest threat of our time - Individual, community, national, international - Interdisciplinary - Law; biology; philosophy; anthropology; sociology; etc. - Critique of capitalism - Commodification, consumption, inequalities - Questions our ontological anchors - Who are we? Who matters? What is our social circle? What are our responsibilities? What do we want? Can we have better futures? Critiques of green criminology - Problem-focused, not enough solution-focused - Traditional CJS solutions - Not radical enough - Big picture solutions - Idealistic / impractical, especially if take into account ecojustice and everyones interest must be at balance -- too many, very impractical to think about justice in that way - Complex data - Often no single perpetrator -- can be difficult to establish who is responsible - Cumulative effects - Slow emerging effects - Definition of crime too wide - Not unified -- very atomised, stopped green criminology from developing Key premise: Grounded in the idea that criminology often reinforces colonial power structures, decolonial\ criminology centres the experiences of groups affected by colonialism to challenge criminological knowledge. In order to understand the origins we need to understand that criminology is: - Deeply political - Policy, strategies, measures - Capacity to produce marginalisation - CJS: control, punishment and prevention - Influences how the state wields power Why control? - Domination - Force/coercion - Consensus, compliance/domination - Control offenders \...control 'the other' - 'Race', class, gender - Define threats through informal and formal law, by doing this they create 'the other' = who we don't want to be or are afraid of Colonial hierarchy - Built around the categorisation of humans, societies, practices and knowledge\]e - Cant have all equal societies, have to categorise into who is 'civilised' and 'savage' - Do this by justification of violence - Leads to brutalisation of the other Origins - Silent on colonial violence - Genocide - Plundering - Enslavement - State violence - Production of incorrect and morally bankrupt 'knowledge' - Pseudo-science of crime, eugenics = at the core of criminology - Production of flawed statistics and accompanying stereotypes - some more likely to be criminals than others, black people still targeted by cjs today - subject to violence since colonial times -- not something that ended still happening and evolving with societies = criminology played a part in keeping the hierarchies to this day - Design of marginalising poly and measures against some populations Colonial logic of domination and violence perpetuated by criminological theory and\ practice - Genocide? - Crimes of colonialism? - State violence? - Racist origins of criminology? Colonial logic of domination and violence perpetuated by criminological theory and\ practice - Mass incarceration - Police brutality - Criminalisation of entire populations - Marginalisation of communities - Colonial logic of domination and violence perpetuated by criminological theory and practice Decolonial criminology identifies the ways in which colonialism remains alive in the CJS: - Reconceptualise - Victim - of unrecognised violence - Offender - or are they victims of colonial violence? - Justice - or is it punishment and control? - It gives voice to the experience of people who are still subject to violence in the current colonial-inherited model of order Decolonial crim is not a thing on its own - emerged from larger trends in criminology such as: - Postcolonial theory - Former British colonies: Said, fanon, Spivak, Bhabha - Critique colonial legacy: impact and persistence - Decolonial theory - Latin America: Aníbal Quijano, Maria Lugones, Walter Mignolo, Catherine Walsh, Arturo Escobar - Colonial structures and relations remain active - Indigenous criminology - AUS, NZ: Cuneen, Tauni - Marginalisation and the CJS Key concepts - Recognises - Coloniality of power - Epistemic violence - Advocates for - Epistemic justice - Decolonial praxis Key concepts -- Coloniality of power - Concept by Aníbal Quijano who says: - Colonial hierarchies and power differentials remain alive in modern systems - 'Others' established by colonial powers still marginalised under current CJS - They're the ones who are overpoliced, incarcerated, demonised, stigmatised, kept marginalised Key concepts -- Epistemic violence - Epistemology = "the part of philosophy that is abiyt the study of how we know things" -- what kind of knowledge is valid and what's invalid - Ignoring / suppressing / dismissing - Knowledge - Ways of knowing - Treating people as objects and subjects, not thinkers and producers of knowledge - 'epistemic violence is when you reject different ways of knowing; you believe there is just one way of knowing, so you ridicule other way sf knowing, you suppress other ways of knowing and you dismiss other ways of knowing' (Arthur, 2023) Criminology and Epistemic violence - 'Valid' and 'universal' theory - One form of knowledge is considered more valid - Other forms of knowledge are considered unimportant / untrue - Supresses/ignores experiences and certainties about the CJS - Produces 'knowledge' that informs marginalising portrayals of crime - What marginalised communities have tried to voice - Suppress the lived experience of those who have been through violence eg through over policing, - Feeds media and public views, policy and politics - theories and practices that are marginalising and keep in place colonial structures of power - Injustice in a false consensus built on violence Key concepts -- Epistemic violence - Victimisation - What/who is worth protecting - What can be damaged? - How much damage should be tolerated? - Who is offending? - Who should the CJS focus on? -- street crime tat involves over plocing of minority pop or crimes of powerful involving white rich people who've made money from colonial violence - What is justice? - How should we deal with law-breaking? - Does respecting the law ensure justice? - Is punishment necessary? Key concepts -- Epistemic violence - What is theory? - Knowledge producers or data bank? - What is universal? - What if it is not applicable in the global north? Key concepts -- Epistemic justice is the Centring of marginalised voices: - Epistemic justice gives those affected by te coloniality of power a voice and to promote their knowledge and view of what the CJS should be - It considers the experience of injustice - Philosophy of life - View of justice - Law, institutions, processes, outcomes - More than a data bank Key concepts -- Decolonial praxis - Praxis: practice - We need to decolonise the way we do justice -- significantly altering the cjs through abolitionism - Tearing down, building better - Non-reformist reforms -- reforming institutions in the cjs so that they shrink - Shrinking oppressive institutions - Funding community services that can lead to decolonisation and provide better avenues for justice Significance - Exposing - CJS as colonial violence - Research bias - Myth of the universal - Promoting - The unsettling of knowledge - Multiple narratives e.g. about victimisation - Setting of another course - Transformative justice - Decolonisation of criminology - Decolonial, Southern, postcolonial - Abolitionism - Setting another course - Transformative justice Critiques - Risk of romanticising - Pre-colonial utopias? - Always been issues of justice, gender, class, values\... in one shape or another, not that we want to go back to pre-colonial times - 'The colonial' -- looks different for all different people, essentialising the British empire subject is equally marginalising in the process - Risk of oppression - Nothing universal? - everything is down to context - Risk that we dismiss the cornerstone values of humanity that should remain in place no matter what - e.g. freedom, equality, wellbeing - risk losing sight of the knowledge that facts exist Critiques - can criminology ever be decolonised? - Takes place through universities and academia - Integrating marginalised knowledges - Feeds the beast - Universities, degrees, employability - May accept the knowledge but reject the people - In order to decolonise youd have to reconsider , dismantle start from scratch the whole purpose, context and form Ultra-realist criminology key premise Grounded in the idea that human action is rooted in the psychoanalytic and socio-economic\ structures of society, ultra-realist criminology explores how capitalism shapes criminal or\ harmful behaviour. Origins - Why do people choose to harm others in pursuit of their interests? - Conflict theory // Marxist - It is about class and economic deprivation - But URC say crime is not just rebellion - Realist criminology - Focus on 'real crime' - But URC place more emphasis on the root structural causes - Cultural criminology - Importance of culture as a motivator - But URC criticise the lack of serious structural analysis - Psychoanalysis - Capitalist values target the human psyche: desire, alienation, shame, envy - URC add a thick layer of macro economics and structural analysis - Go back to crime and harm as real, harmful events (realism) - Focus on how economic conditions lead to crime and harm - Highlight the relationship between structure and psyche (Marxism + psychoanalysis)\ Capitalist structures + capitalist goals/desires = crime/harm Main concepts (general claims) A yellow emoji with black text The pseudo-pacification process - Capitalism suppresses overt violence - Needs a disciplined work force - No rebellious or unpredictable behaviour - 'Pseudo-pacified' society - Violence discouraged - Aggression channelled ◊ socially acceptable outlets (e.g. work) - Things like economic instability can trigger it The pseudo-pacification process - Capitalism (structure) conditions the individual (violence/crime) - Capitalism 'tames' human violence - Does not eliminate the violent urges - Redirects them to activities compatible with capitalism - But\... - Capitalism is not the only force: gender, culture, etc. - If economic insecurity can trigger violence, there should be more of it - What about agency? - 'Capitalism' is not one across the globe and through the ages Hyper-conformism - Alignment with capitalist values can lead to violence - - Rebellion not because of unfairness of system, but because they want to conform - Consume Hyper-conformism - Profit, consumption, acclaim - Individualism, competition - Desire and alienation - Deviant practices to conform - Theft, embezzlement, fraud - Corporate crime, gang/narco culture, consumer crime Deviant leisure - What we consider leisure is tainted with capitalist values - Sport: clothing, balls/bats/protection/etc., venue, transportation - Hobbies: materials, classes, time - Traveling: ££££££ - Even meditation! - Our pursuit of leisurely activities can lead to significant harm - CrossFit - 'Improve' the self, gain recognition, achieve beauty standards - By consuming: memberships, outfits, supplements - Obsessive, harmful behaviour (e.g. performance enhancing drugs, eating disorders) - Unsatiable desire: never perfect - Party holiday - Escape from reality, experience true pleasure, gain status - By consuming: tickets, clothes, alcohol, drugs, souvenirs, etc. - Unhinged, harmful behaviour (e.g. binge-drinking and associated harms) - Unsatiable desire: not unique, glamorous or genuine\...sobering consequences - Our leisure activities are aligned with capitalist values - Excess, individualism, consumption - They can push people to crime/harm - Always attached to hyper-conformism - Even in its 'rebellious' or 'resistance' forms, it works for capitalism Special liberty - Individuals believing they are exempt from moral and social rules - Capitalist individualism; competition; justification of means to achieve ends - Ultimately advances hyper-conformist behaviours - But not just about deprivation - Special liberty to achieve different levels of hyper conformism - Special liberty to achieve different levels of hyper conformism Significance - Understanding the psychological pull of capitalism and how it affects law-breaking and harm-doing Critiques - Economic determinism: over-predicts crime - Capitalism is of great importance, but it is not the origin of all harms - Going back to 'everything is class' is not helpful - Acknowledging multiple forms of oppression does not need to be divisive - Ignoring multiple forms of oppression does not make it powerful - Gender gap in crime - Men commit more crime than women (esp. violent) - Labour market changes lead to crime, not gendered social expectations - traditionally male jobs; = traditionally female jobs - Working-class men are more affected by labour market changes, leading to crime - 'Hard lads' are out of work and turn to crime - Poor explanation - Why not all men? - Why are women affected by the labour market not equally inclined to crime? - Why are some jobs 'traditionally male'? - They do say it is because the labour market needed strong men for certain jobs but this is an oversimplification. Not everything is just because of the market - Forceful factoring out of socio-cultural constructions of gender and expectations surrounding it makes for weak explanations - Similar with ethnicity, sexuality, etc Biopsychosocial theories premise Grounded in the idea that criminal offending cannot be understood through only one lens, BPS\ integrates biological, psychological, and social factors to explain criminal behaviour. Origins: Origins - On their own, viewed as reductive and potentially discriminatory - In the 1970s and 1980s = recognition that criminal offending could not explained by one theory, so criminologists began to combine them (integrated theories) - Biosocial criminology emerged as key integrated theory (biological + social factors) - Biosocial crim does consider psychological factors but in less direct way than biopsychosocial criminology - More recently (2000s onwards) biopsychosocial criminology (biological + psychological + social factors) Key concepts - Biological explanations - Hormones and anti-social behaviour ('sex gap') (Raine, 2014) - Resting heart-rate (thrill seeking/risk taking) (Baker et al., 2009) - Lower resting HR, constant state of under arousal so crave thrill seeking activities - Biological development (puberty and anti-social behaviour) (Moffitt, 1993) - More testosterone, spike in hormones results in aggressive behaviour, emotional irregulation leading to criminal behaviour - Neuro-biological explanations (decision-making) (Rafter et al., 2016) - Genetics -- e.g., the criminal gene (Fergusson et al. (2011) Key concepts - Psychological explanations - Childhood development (Moffitt, 1993) - E.g., adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) - Personality disorders (Raine, 2014) Key concepts - Social explanations - Strain theory, social learning theory, labelling theory have all remained popular but have been updated. For example: - Strain theory in the digital age (Pew Research Center, 2018) - Globalisation and transnational crime (a changing social world) (Rios, 2011) '\...biopsychosocial criminology should become the standard for criminology in general' (Posick et al., 2021, p. 7). - this is what we should all be using Significance - Example 1: Substance abuse - Biological - Genetics predisposed individuals to drug abuse - Drugs impact neurotransmitters -- relates to impulsivity (drug itself might be the pathway to criminal behaviour) - Psychological - Mental health issues may co-occur with substance use leading to risky behaviours - Social - Living in high-crime neighbourhood - Friends/family who use drugs - Case study - Young person whose family have a history of drug addiction (biological) - Start using drugs as teenager to cope with trauma of growing up in this family environment (psychological) - Friends are also doing drugs and they live in neighbourhood where drugs are accessible (social). Significance - Example 2: Domestic abuse - Biological - Serotonin deficiencies can make someone more prone to anger and aggression - Psychological - Past experiences of abuse affect how individuals respond to conflict - Social - Cultural norms reinforce gender roles - Family/peer acceptance - Unemployment - Case study - Man with genetic predisposition for impulsivity and aggression (biological) - Grew up witnessing domestic abuse and views it as normal way to resolve conflict (psychological/social) - Friends condone sexist and misogynistic attitudes towards women and therefore think VAW is acceptable (social). Significance - can also look at different programs that link to BPS - Example 3: Brighter Futures for Children - Approach brings in all 3 of bps lenses - Biological - neurological challenges that may put children at risk of off - Psychological - support from mental health services - Social - help with employment, education and training - creating environment where child can thrive Critiques - Complex and messy to apply - Which 'factor' is most influential? - difficult to pinpoint what is significant to crime - Showing a causal relationship - Strong focus on biological determinism (ethically/morally dicey) - Focus on individual behaviours not crimes committed by corporations - looks into crime from disadvantaged people not those in power - Individualises crime and doesn't pay attention to structural inequality - ignores things like institutional violence and broader inequality - Difficult to implement in CJS (resource intensive) - would you need a doctor, psychologist and a sociologist for one crime committed - More weight on some factors (often not enough on social) - more focus on biological, limited information on how the social world led to criminality - Positivistic -- the narratives and complexities of people's lives get lost