Criminology

Criminology

Concerns about criminality progressively depict it as revolving around social lives. Tactics that focus on particular methods of crime prevention stress on tough measures against dangerous persons and possible criminalities. Modern civilization fundamentally shows a stirring mix between the social ideals and the essentials of a fruitful market economy which present opportunities for crime. In response, different programs come into play towards reducing crime across social settings. Populations deemed prone to law-breaking and persons perceived as highly likely to fall victim form the subject of focus through increased responsibilization. Targeted programs incline towards improving the population’s skills of co-existing in society. Consequently, the rise of crime deterrence procedures in different situations strives to make locations perilous for potential lawbreakers instead of exposing specific dysfunctions or disorders. Since the overarching concept remains that situations influence behavior, the growing stress on using different strategies focusing on augmenting security seeks to decrease crime.

Notably, some security programs focus on the privatization of unrestricted areas. Remarkably vigorous efforts seem focused on monitoring and possibly detaining homeless individuals and other persons fond of spending extended periods in public places (Steve & Grobelski, 2014). The use of civility codes punish a variety of behaviors regularly engaged by homeless people and utilizes more rigorous determination towards social control. The code fundamentally depends on different kinds of trespass rules to eliminate specific populations from extensive public places. Once cast out from a place, persons remain liable for detention if found at the given places. The approach takes consideration of the market society’s bearing on the magnitude of the crime problems (Currie, 2003).

Consequently, the expulsion is implemented through robust monitoring policies that render the destitute relentlessly targeted for investigation and likely apprehension. The presence of homeless and “other” persons seem closely associated with crime, hence the efforts to repel them. Instead of gauging inherent abilities possessed by such persons, the programs engage in risk mechanisms that change undesirable life events occurring excessively among poor communities into a higher threat score (Goddard & Myers). Security agencies seem keen on funding programs capable of accomplishing quantifiable outcomes rapidly. Consequently, it discourages the kind of extensive efforts required to deal with economic risk elements such as poverty. Scholars express criticism towards the risk factor deterrence model as it accentuates personal and psycho-social aspects while sidelining community-level influences as potential aims for change.

In addressing the anti-social conduct and the permeating effects of class, the Crime and Disorder Act made controversial engagement of instruments such as curfews, anti-social behavior orders, and parenting instructions. Through its together campaign, it got significant reproach for using a get-tough approach which fundamentally condensed the Labor Party mantra to emphasize crime at the expense of the causes of crime (McCarthy, 2011). As a result of criticisms condemning the prioritization of enforcement over deterrence, a major change of tactic culminated in a considerably closer stress on prior intervention and prevention of social crime. Where anti-social behavior orders function as the establishing code for helpful and regulatory interventions, an apparent net widening consequence manifests. Focusing on the context of a library, Cromwell, Alexander & Dotson, (2011) indicated that crime and added incivilities take place in the library. Theft, assaults, vandalism, use as shelters by homeless persons among others necessitate the implementation of effective measures (Cromwell, Alexander & Dotson, 2011). More often than not, Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) methods apply towards ameliorating the circumstances. Along with a well-designed security strategy and employee training, it becomes possible to overcome the crimes and incivilities.

Another noteworthy program is the John School which works as a reform negotiation. Fischer et al., (2002) examined the specific part of victims’ discussions in the logic and operations of the John School program. They traced the abstruse form of the initiative’s aims through contrasting its extensively endorsed constructive and educational objectives with the punitive aspects that occur in practice (Fischer et al., 2002). Based on crucial works on diversion and informal justice, evidence showed that the program concentrates unreasonably on members from lower economic backgrounds. On the other hand, the community partners’ program works through the utilization of intermediaries to complete an ordered approach to work with law enforcement, residents, and different public agencies. It seems as a way of mitigating the challenges of mobilizing urban dwellers and as a way of addressing disconnects in the interests of the different constituents (Frakas and jones, 2007). Since it utilizes a ‘doing doors’ approach, the Community Partners Program, Frakas, and jones, (2007) submitted that intermediaries offer a promising approach for partnerships in crime prevention.

Other programs result in a bulimic society characterized by cultural inclusion and methodical structural exclusion. Society is progressively grounded on a collection of views concerning the pathological nature of individuals deemed as socially founded human pollutants. In a valiant world of control using crime, the dread of crime and the ‘Other’, the structures in place take up the class influence of the advantaged from the economy, education, criminal justice, and government. The high numbers of staff engaged in the worldwide security sector proves quite astonishing.  While possessing a significant number of cheerful law enforcement officers, the sector depicts an abundance of malevolence in the control procedures. Brotherton and Naegler, (2014) asserted that the strangulation of a black man at the hands of law enforcement for a minor crime depicts the program’s conflicting aspects. It seems part of the ‘broken windows’ tactics and the disposition influencing the exclusionary nature of the rules and prospects of residents who consider themselves living in a humanizing world (Brotherton and Naegler, 2014).

The ever-increasing security levels, enclosure, and staff presence within public places may prove counterproductive. Instead of liberating and comforting the public, it possibly creates an intensified sense of fear, effectively restricting the expression of an autonomous society (Minton, 2012). From having police equipped with machine-guns and the array of surveillance instruments that welcome people in airports to the barricades ubiquitous in parliament buildings, among other intense security measures, the inference is similar to a place under lockdown. The vastly visible security pervasive in most public spaces and, public buildings deemed as protecting the public and a needed measure in the war on terror tends to create an atmosphere of tension rather than freedom and a sense of calmness.

In focusing on bulimic exclusion, Moore and Hirai (2014) used research of drug rehabilitation courts to demonstrate that responsibilization approaches produce an enigma of bulimic exclusion and enablement for individual participants. Though a theoretical approach, they showed that participants in interventions keenly work to transfer their involvement in responsibilization. At the same time, dissimilar biases tied to a larger system of bulimic exclusion manifested. Irrespective of subjects’ efforts at entering into the societal mainstream, they eventually face rejection (Moore and Hirai 2014). Consequently, the new monitoring equipment obscures the traditional discrepancies concerning civil solutions and criminal sanctions. Instead, it brings forth a system of deterrent exclusion aimed at governing future conduct rather than controlling past behavior. Undeniably, the monitoring operations seem to a great extent grounded on the concept and ideas of the Broken Windows theory.  Pleysier, (2015) asserted that it focuses on the subdual of causal factors, and eliminating future criminal behavior. The cautionary reasoning and micro-management of conduct in public appear to produce a supervisory, chastising and, ultimately, the potential elimination of particularly ‘risky’ persons and sets from the public sphere.

Similarly, security measures in neighborhoods with an abundance of crime stigmatize the ethical/moral reputation of all dwellers. The pervasive notion is that persons residing in slums consider themselves without much to lose by getting identified in actions of deviance. Stark (1987) suggests that the possibility of being identified remains lesser in defamed areas. Law enforcement tends to take a reactive approach, acting upon distress calls instead of seeking out offenders. Since persons in stigmatized areas make fewer complaints, most residents often show an unwillingness to give evidence and law enforcement seems resigned to the idea that evil will occur at someplace. Karaian, (2014) focused on the ‘Respect Yourself’ initiative focusing on the reduction of sexting among teenagers. The observation revealed an over-representation of middle-class, white, female participants in the program. As a crime prevention /child protection initiative, it utilizes a slut-shaming approach as a way of responsibilizing teenage girls. While its approach seems questionable, it seeks to prevent the alleged ills that may arise from sexting, including sexual abuse, humiliation, and interdiction (Karaian, 2014).

Warnera, Beckb & Ohmer, (2010) postulates that much of the tactics at the core of social disorganization theory in neighborhood prevention of crime seem overlooked in favor of strategies that closely linked to rational choice and deterrence theories. Concepts of informal social control, as well as collective effectiveness, regularly get interpreted into community surveillance policies along with reporting of wary actions to the police (Warnera, Beckb & Ohmer 2010). Although such policies tend to render neighborhoods less appealing to criminals, they generate greater levels of certainty identification and later arrest. However, the social disorganization theory proposes crime deterrence procedures of a dissimilar kind.  It advocates for policies that faithfully link with restorative justice, re-integration, and conciliatory criminology. On their part, Mythen, Walklate & Khan, (2009) focus on the substantial application of unexpected counter–terrorism actions and their impact on the identities and experiences of young British Muslims. The prevalence of media misrepresentations of Muslims and the broader ramifications of counter-terrorism measures impede self-expression, mobility, and conduct in the public domain. Consequently, Mythen, Walklate & Khan, (2009) unveiled a variety of responses from young Muslims due to being victimized, most profoundly depicting feelings of bitterness, exasperation, and responsibilization.

In most shopping places, the use of CCTV cameras act as deterrents to potential shoplifters. By using video as a continuing script, the risky shopper gets captured in the action of stealing by the CCTV workers. Using the film as an originating script, the doing of the criminal is captured and disseminated to different organizations. The dissemination process encompasses televisual shopping center investigation, threat identification, and risk communication. Video footage remains active while being utilized as a component of social and occupational procedures, although the persons in the exchanges do not necessarily know each other (Kevin 2005). Persons operating the CCTV cameras employ codes to categorize and rank the r population of shoppers. Activity by specific groups of shoppers such as the aboriginal population gets routinely viewed as doubtful, anti-social, and risky to capital flow.

Often, the use of CCTV as a visual means of eliminating evils in social places and shopping places such as malls.  Business and ethical capitalists seem in endless pressure with visualizations of social disorder, such as crime, in efforts towards achieving social decorum and customer-friendly places. Malls often adhere to firm standards of consumer loyalty that favors the orderly user. CCTV helps as an influential instrument for policing against individuals reluctant or incapable of subscribing to consumerist philosophy outside the mall (Kevin, 2005). The control rooms used by CCTV operators function as the critical safety points in shopping malls as they manage and communicate information on risk, and facilitate immediate decision making.

By its continuous nature, CCTV footage offers an active reality in the direct sense as it constantly displays persons and their conduct. The CCTV operative interprets the exemplified obscurities of shoppers across the display. The video reading presents the dressing, body language, age, skin color, and other particulars of the buyers as regular or irregular, apprehensive or unwary (Kevin, 2005). The efficacy of CCTV video transcends the immediate setting as it functions as a starting script through proper transcribing by a CCTV operative into other official papers such as incident reports, which often apply in coordinating operations among pertinent authorities such as law enforcement, courts, and social services.

In terms of violence and crime prevention in drinking places, place supervision is chiefly carried out by the employees and management. Regularly, the guardian function of employees is essentially passive. That is, discouraging violence and defending possible victims through their presence only. Concentrating on essential supervision and environmental disincentives as an addition to measures towards decreasing the effects of heavy drinking offers the potential of lessening violence and harm in drinking places (Graham 2009). With regard to concerns about the proliferation of alcohol intake among young women, incidences of spiked drinks and drug-facilitated sexual violations trigger a renewed drive on safety guidelines for young women. A variety of organizations such as sexual assault care groups, the police department, and community welfare agencies (Brooks, 2011). The study by Brooks, (2011) revealed that young women depicted contradictory behaviors revealed through repelling, adopting and contravening the endorsed safety behaviors. Consequently, the practicality and the conceptual concerns of modern safety operations challenge the dominant emphasis on women’s behavior stimulated by such operations.

References

Brooks, O. (2011). ‘Guys! Stop doing it!’ young women’s adoption and rejection of safety advice when socializing in bars, pubs, and clubs. The British Journal of Criminology, 51(4), 635-651.

Brotherton, D. C., & Naegler, L. (2014). Jock Young and social bulimia: Crime and the contradictions of capitalism. Theoretical Criminology, 18(4), 441-449.

Cromwell, P., Alexander, G., & Dotson, P. (2008). Crime and incivilities in libraries: Situational crime prevention strategies for thwarting biblio-bandits and problem patrons. Security Journal, 21(3), 147-158.

Currie, E. (2003). Social crime prevention strategies in a market society. Criminological Perspectives: Essential Readings, 369.

Farkas, M. A., & Jones, R. S. (2007). Community partners:‘Doing doors’ as a community crime prevention strategy. Criminal Justice Studies, 20(3), 295-312.

Fischer, B., Wortley, S., Webster, C., & Kirst, M. (2002). The socio-legal dynamics and implications of diversion’ The case study of the TorontoJohn School’diversion programme for prostitution offenders. Criminal Justice, 2(4), 385-410.

Goddard, T., & Myers, R. R. (2017). Against evidence-based oppression: Marginalized youth and the politics of risk-based assessment and intervention. Theoretical Criminology, 21(2), 151-167.

Graham, K. (2009). They fight because we let them! Applying a situational crime prevention model to barroom violence. Drug and Alcohol Review, 28(2), 103-109.

Herbert, S., & Grobelski, T. (2014). Dis/Order and the Regulation of Urban Space. Cities and Social Change: Encounters with Contemporary Urbanism, 115-129.

Karaian, L. (2014). Policing ‘sexting’: Responsibilization, respectability and sexual subjectivity in child protection/crime prevention responses to teenagers’ digital sexual expression. Theoretical Criminology, 18(3), 282-299.

McCarthy, D. J. (2011). Classing early intervention: Social class, occupational moralities, and criminalization. Critical Social Policy, 31(4), 495-516.

Minton, A. (2018). The Paradox of Safety and Fear: Security in Public Space. Architectural Design, 88(3), 84-91.

Moore, D., & Hirai, H. (2014). Outcasts, performers and true believers: Responsibilized subjects of criminal justice. Theoretical Criminology, 18(1), 5-19.

Mythen, G., Walklate, S., & Khan, F. (2009). ‘I’ ma Muslim, but I’m not a Terrorist’: Victimization, Risky Identities and the Performance of Safety. The British Journal of Criminology, 49(6), 736-754.

Pleysier, S. (2015). Local governance of safety and the normalization of behavior. Crime, Law and Social Change, 64(4-5), 305-317.

Stark, R. (1987). Deviant places: A theory of the ecology of crime. Criminology, 25(4), 893-910.

Walby, K. (2005). How closed-circuit television surveillance organizes the social: An institutional ethnography. Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de Sociologie, 189-214.

Warner, B. D., Beck, E., & Ohmer, M. L. (2010). Linking informal social control and restorative justice: Moving social disorganization theory beyond community policing. Contemporary Justice Review, 13(4), 355-369.