Theorising CPP

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  • Created by: xoemmamcl
  • Created on: 05-12-18 13:56

Why Theorise CCP?

  • Theorists speak from historical background but it is important in how crime and punishment is seen today.
  • Important to understand theory to make sense of why punishment may be appropriate and what they have found in the past.
  • Gives broader ideas of social structure and power.
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Marxism – 1818 – 1883 - Societies had to be unders

  • Base – All things needed to produce eg, machines & factories.
  • Superstructure – Everything not do with production in society eg education & family.
  • Base shapes the superstructure & superstructure maintains the base.
  • ‘Base and Superstructure metaphor’ – the idea that economic ‘base’ of society determines developments in the ‘superstructural’ realms of law. Marx described the consciousness of people in a situation of class conflict as idealogical as they may represent and believe their ideas are objective and of universal validity. In reality, these ideas express class interests.
  • The economics of the base could not explain everything that existed in the superstructure. 
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Capitalist Society poliarized into two groups

  • Capitalism – This struggle is the key to understanding society, social control and punishment.
  • Bourgeoise – class of people who own the means of production eg, Factories.
  • Proletariat – working class, have to sell their labour power to capitalists in order to live.
  • Class inequality is further enhanced by the interactions between ruling class and the others.
  • Marx – understanding the struggles between these two groups was key to understanding social control and punishment. 
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Capitalism causes crime

  • Argues that capitalism is based on oppression and economic exploitation. 
  • Therefore, crime happens as a result of inequality and poverty. 
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Consciousness of people in class conflicts is ideo

  • Marx argued that the ruling classes used their control of social institutions to gain ideological dominance, or control over the way people think in society. 
  • Marx argued that the ideas of the ruling classes were presented as common sense and natural and thus unequal, exploitative relationships were accepted by the proletariat as the norm.
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Result of this? – False consciousness

  • Where the masses, or proletariat are deluded into thinking that everything is fine and that the  appalling in which they live and work are inevitable.
  • This delusion is known as False Consciousness. 
  • In Marxist terms, the masses suffer from false class consciousness and fail to realize their common interest against their exploiters. 
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Marx view on punishment

  • State and law operating in favour of ruling class rather than whole society and punish people for disobeying functions of their class in order to reinforce their power. 
  • Deviance is going away from norms and values of ruling classes. 
  • Ruling classes have the right to define working activities as deviant and have control over them.
  • Wealthier classes make laws to protect themselves – benefit fraud more punished than embezzlement.
  • Real criminals are the elite – they are exploiting the rest of society. 
  • Therefore, punishing people for disobeying laws reinforces power and maintains the elites position in society.
  • Working classes are punished more harshly. 
  • Critique – Ignores relationship between crime and other factors other than class such as ethnicity and gender. – It is deterministic and simplistic to assume that punishment is directly linked to the economic structure of society.
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Durkheim – 1858 – 1917

  • Durkheim had a functionalist view of crime. 
  • Focus on crime and society.
  • Argued crime is inevitable and a normal part of society.
  • Crime is socially useful as it sets boundaries for social values and norms.
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Social solidarity

  • “The bonds which unite men one with another” – took different forms in two different kinds of society.
  • Durkheim saw punishment as playing an important role in the creation and maintenance of solidarity which was necessary for social order and continued existence of society. 
  • Simple societies held together by “mechanical solidarity through likeness”. – people were united by the similiarity in the labour and general social roles they performed – gave rise to a homogenous conscience collective. - Collective conscience – a set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.
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Mechanical Solidarity (Pre-industrial)

  • Social integration of people with same values.
  • Individuals in this group tend to live under the same conditions.
  • Argued that crime is inevitable in this society as everyone behaved the same way. 
  • Anyone who deviated from the conscience collective was a criminal. 
  • Punishment is an important part of keeping society together as when crime occurs it affects everyone. 
  • Crime could be defined as “an act is criminal which offends strong defined states of the collective conscience”
  • Aim is to protect conscience collective and therefore, punishment tends to be severe.
  • Punishment serves to restore and reinforce the outraged conscience collective. Punishment is not primarily a deterrent or reformative. It is produced by collective retributive emotions and has a useful denunciatory effect. – Its main function is to maintain social cohesion intact.
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Organic Solidarity (Industrial)

  • Don’t have same beliefs and values.
  • Social solidarity was now organic – derived from people who were no longer largely self-sufficient as a result of their own labour. 
  • Conscience collective became weaker and more humanist.
  • Labour divisions - The Division of Labour expounds Durkheim’s theory. It is about the development of specialised work in society.
  • Could result in anomie. – Could lead to bad social conditions such as crime.
  • Punishment is not as harsh. 
  • Focuses on regulating connections between people. 
  • Tends to use more restorative methods when dealing with punishment of crime. Punishment – dwindled in importance as division of labour progresses and punitive law would be replaced with “restitutive law” – required law breakers to make reparation to their victims rather than suffer retributive punishment.
  • Argues crime is socially useful and crime and punishment helps develop society.
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Anomie

  • Anomie – state of normlessness – occurs when a society is progressing but rules are not progressing alongside it. – Having no norms can lead to trouble and cause criminal behaviour. It is caused by strains in the social system. 
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Critiques

  • Doesn’t explain all crime.
  • Doesn’t mention how social forces influence penal institutions.
  • His version of conscience collective is problematic, structuralist view.
  • Focus is on social control and conformity – doesn’t look at individuals directly and how deviance is connected with some groups more than others. 
  • Avoids questions of power and who is responsible for making laws and deciding how a criminal act should be punished. 
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Punishment

  • Assigns power of punishment to state to maintain social order and collective consciousness. 
  • Collective conscience can be restored by punishing offenders. 
  • Anomie weakened punishment – lead to more crime. 
  • Similarities in todays society? – punishments have become more focused on rehabiliation and reforming the offender. Eg, Commmunity Payback Orders. 
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Foucault

  • Post-structuralism.
  • Seeks to analyse punishment in social context and examine how changing power relations affect punishment. 
  • Punishment of the soul not the body. 
  • Discipline and Power – new system of discipline through surveillance. 
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Panopticon

  • Schooled into conformity by constant surveillance and repetitive forced labour.
  • Surveillance created knowledge of criminals body and created a new kind of power. 
  • Prison – more efficient and profitable in terms of economy of power to place people under surveillance than to subject them to some exemplary penalty.
  • Argued – can be seen in other institutions such as asylums. 
  • Aims to deprive prisoners of freedom. 
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Criticisms

  • Exaggerates amount of power over prisoners.
  • Goffman 1962 – showed how inmates can resist these controls in prison and hospitals.
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