Role of punishment in preventing crime
- Created by: Maddy
- Created on: 16-05-17 18:47
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- Role of punishment in preventing crime
- Functionalists
- Sets an example
- Reinforces shared values
- Ensures justice is done
- An act of revenge against the deviant act
- reasserts boundaries between right and wrong
- Critique
- Prisons can actually threaten social stability more as they act as a training ground for criminals
- Rules aren't made by consolting everyone, only representative of ruling class values
- People may not be scared of doing the act but getting caught so prison may not be an effective detterent
- Some people might not see the act as being wrong
- Right Realists
- punishment increases the risks so people make the rational choice not to do it again
- Punishment ensures that people don't do it again, i.e Zero tolerance policing
- It ensures that people gain rewards the legitimate way without taking shortcuts
- Deters people from committing crime in the first place
- Critique
- SCP doesn't prevent crime, just displaces it
- Crime is socially constructed so you don't know what you should be targetting
- We have a lot of reoffenders, can't act as that much of a deterent
- It assumes people act rationally which isn't always the case
- Marxists
- Laws are a reflection of ruling class ideology
- Punishment acts as an RSA
- The unequal distribution of power is reflected in the uneven distribution of punishment
- Crimes of the powerful go unpunished meaning the idea of punishment could be seen as ineffective
- Critique
- It is hard to see that all punishment benefits the ruling class
- They don't may attention to the victims of crime
- There are some cases of white collar crime being punished
- Working class could arguably fill prisons because they cause the most harm to actual people
- They don't recognise issues with ethnicity and crime
- It is hard to see that all punishment benefits the ruling class
- Left Realists
- Punishment should focus on getting justice for the victims
- It should reduce the risk of people becoming victims of crime
- Police need to spend more time investigating to reinforce to the public that it is worth reporting crimes
- Tackling material deprivation to prevent crime
- Punishment should involve paying back to the community
- Critique
- They don't explain why not all people in deprived areas don't commit crime
- They can be seen as being too soft on crime
- They deflect attention away from more practical measures
- They ignore white collar crime
- Community bonds might be weak so could be ineffective
- Functionalists
- Critique
- They don't explain why not all people in deprived areas don't commit crime
- They can be seen as being too soft on crime
- They deflect attention away from more practical measures
- They ignore white collar crime
- Community bonds might be weak so could be ineffective
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