Understanding Criminology

Understanding Criminology

Term Two: 2008 / 09

Dan Ellingworth

GM4.03

Other Teaching Staff

Chris Fox GM411

Andrew Hope GM454

Suzanne Vaughan GM118

Pete Nicholson GM343

Unit Wiki:

Unit Handbook - Term Two

Term Outline

This semester, you are given the chance to apply the theoretical material you were introduced to last semester, by focussing on some specific areas of criminological concern. The theoretical schools we addressed in the first term are “ideal types”: signposts and concepts to guide you around the range of criminological theorists. This is, however, inevitably a simplification of particular theories: you might have an idea of the general approach of, say, a conservative criminologist, but you as you will move through your criminological units, you will need to become familiar with the distinctions between the work and theories of Travis Hirschi on the one hand, and the work of Marcus Felson on the other (for example).

In short, you will need to look critically at the theoretical overview you have gained so far, and begin to develop a critical eye that can identify the strengths and weaknesses of particular theorists, and perhaps recognise how different concepts and ideas could be applied and combined together to address a particular area of concern.

The aim of this reading pack is to allow you to apply the general theories addressed in the first term to specific areas of criminological concern. By necessity, the readings are an incomplete selection, both in terms of the areas covered – there are many other areas that could have been addressed – and also in terms of the adequacy with which the readings covered the topics that have been chosen. You should not treat the readings as sufficient to understand the topic, nor take the range of topics to represent the diversity of criminological interest s. What the readings do allow you to do is to focus on something specific for each seminar. This does, though, require you to have done the reading in preparation for the seminar. You should also ensure you bring this book with you to each seminar.

Lecture Outline

In order to address all these aspects, the lecture and seminar is set out as follows:

We will address a range of topics: these are areas of contemporary concern, and the aim is to allow you to link the theory, research material and policy and public debates. The topics will be addressed with reference to particular pieces of research, and particular publications, and you will be required to familiarise yourselves with the identified material.

Coursework Essay Questions: Word Limit: 2000 words including a 50 word paragraph

DUE DATE: 25th March 2009

You are required, in a brief 50 word paragraph, to identify one key academic article or original text that you have used to answer the question, and why it has been useful. This text should be based on original scholarly work, NOT a textbook. This should not be the only resource you use for this essay. Failure to include this paragraph will significantly affect your grade.

1. Choosing either classical OR positivist criminology, assess the strengths and limitations of the approach, and why it still retains an intrinsic appeal for many commentators.

1. Critically assess the usefulness of the concept of anomie in explaining patterns of crime in the 20th and 21st century.

1. To what extent does crime reflect mainstream cultural values?

1. Why do some communities become characterised by high levels of crime?

1. Critically assess the labelling perspective's depiction of the process by which someone achieves the label of 'deviant'.

1. To what extent has the growing awareness of victimisation in criminology the result of feminist criminology?

1. What are the significant differences in the explanations for, and responses to crime across different political perspectives?

Exam

The precise time and place of the exam has yet to be decided at the time of writing, but you will be informed of exactly when it is during this term.

The exam will last two hours, and will contain 8 questions, of which you will choose two. The exam will cover the material addressed in the second semester. You will receive exam preparation advice in the final lecture of the term.

Seminar Reading

As before, you will be expected to do some reading in preparation for each seminar. A reading is included for each seminar: you will need to have read the article in order to participate in the seminar. Questions relating to each reading will be available on the Wikisite.

Other Reading

As noted above, the reading for the seminars is not sufficient to adequately address the topic being covered. You will need to do additional reading as well: the Wikisite will include additional readings to be done, and I have attempted, wherever possible, to identify readings from one of five texts:

Jewkes, Y. and Letherby, G (2002) Criminology: A Reader, Sage, London

Hale, C. et al. (Eds.) (2005) Criminology, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press

Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Maguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2007)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 4th edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

and

John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

1. The Media, Politics and Crime

Overview Reading

David Kidd-Hewitt (1995) Crime and the media: a criminological perspective in Jewkes, Y. and Letherby, G (2002) Criminology: A Reader, Sage, London

Chris Greer (2005) Ch 8 “Crime and the media: understanding the connections” in Hale, C. et al. (Eds.) (2005) Criminology, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Reiner, R (2007) “Media-made criminality: the representation of crime in the mass media” in Maguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2007)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 4th edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Ch 4 Crime and the Media in Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Seminar Reading

Ditton, Jason(2005)'Crime and the Fear of Media',Criminal Justice Matters, 59:1, 4-5

Additional Reading

Reiner, R and Sonia Livingstone (1997) “Discipline or Desubordination? Changing Media Images of Crime: Final Report” available online at

2. Criminals: Mad, Bad or Calculating

Hollin, C (2002) “Ch 5. Criminological Psychology” in Maguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2002)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Hayward, K (2005) Ch 6 “Psychology and crime: understanding the interface” in Hale, C. et al. (Eds.) (2005) Criminology, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Ainsworth, P (2002) ‘Psychology and Criminal Behaviour” in Jewkes, Y. and Letherby, G (2002) Criminology: A Reader, Sage, London

Hans Eysenck “Personality theory and the problem of criminality” in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

CH 7 Psychological Positivism in Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Seminar Reading

Tyler, T.R (2004) ‘Enhancing Police Legitimacy’, ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; 593

Additional Reading

Hirschi, Travis, Gottfredson, Michael (1993)‘Commentary: Testing the general Theory of crime’; Journal of Research in Crime and DelinquencyVol. 30, Issue 1 (available on the Wiki)

Geis, G (2000) On the absence of self-controlas the basis for a general theory of crime; Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 4(1): 35–53 (on the Wiki)
TYLER ARTICLE HERE
3. The Economics of Crime

Reading

Box, S. (1987) Recession. Crime and Punishment, Palgrave, London

esp Ch 2 Why should recession cause crime to increase?

Young, J (2002) “Crime and Social Exclusion” in Maguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2002)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Chris Hale (2005) Ch 16 “Economic Marginalization, social exclusion and Crime” in Hale, C. et al. (Eds.) (2005) Criminology, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Simon Field “Crime and Consumption” in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

Charles Murray “The Underclass” in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

John Lea and Jock Young “Relative Deprivation” in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

Willem Bonger “Criminality and Economic Conditions” in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

Seminar Reading

Reiner, Robert(2007)'It's the political economy, stupid! A neo-Clintonian criminology',Criminal Justice Matters,70:1,7- 8
4. Young People and Crime

Newburn, T (2002) “Young people, crime and youth justice” in Maguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2002)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Chris Hale (2005) Ch 19 “Young People and Crime” in Hale, C. et al. (Eds.) (2005) Criminology, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press

Muncie, J ‘Youth and Crime’ in Jewkes, Y. and Letherby, G (2002) Criminology: A Reader, Sage, London

Ch 29 Youth crime and youth justice in Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Seminar Reading

Pearson, Geoffrey(2006)'Disturbing continuities: 'peaky blinders' to "hoodies'',Criminal Justice Matters,65:1

Additional Reading

Blake Morrison (2003) “Life after James” available at

5. Situational Crime Prevention

‘Crime prevention and community safety’ by Adam Crawford inMaguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2007)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 4th edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press (equivalent chapters are available in earlier editions)

Ch30 ‘Situational crime prevention: theory and practice (Ronald V.G.Clarke) in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

Ch 24 Crime prevention and community safety in Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Seminar Reading

R. V. G. Clarke (1980) ‘“Situational” Crime Prevention: Theory and Practice

British Journal of Criminology Vol. 20 No. 2

6. Drug Use and Crime

Drugs, Alcohol and Crime – Nigel South in Maguire, M, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2007)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 4th edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Ch 21 Drugs and Alcohol in Newburn, T (2007)Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Seminar Reading

South, Nigel(2002)'Cultures of Consumption and Social Exclusion',Criminal Justice Matters,47:1,28 - 29
NIGEL SOUTH HERE
7. Crimes of the Powerful

Ch 22 Nelken, D ‘White Collar and corporate crime’ in Maguire, M, Morgan, R, Reiner, R (eds) (2002)’The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Ch. 13 'Corporate Crime' by Steve Tombs and Ch.14 'Understanding Organized Crime' by Paddy Rawlinson in Hale, C. et al. (Eds.) (2005) Criminology, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press

Croall, H “White Collar and Corporate Crime” in Jewkes, Y. and Letherby, G (2002) Criminology: A Reader, Sage, London

Ch 18 White Collar and Corporate Crime and Ch 19 Organized Crime in Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Seminar Reading

Tombs, Steve(2007)'A political economy of corporate killing',Criminal Justice Matters,70:1,29 - 30
STEVE TOMBS HERE

1. The ‘law and order’ society

Seminar Reading

Garland’s “12 Indices of Change” taken from Garland, D (2001) The Culture of Control, Oxford, OUP

Additional Reading

Ch45 ‘Human Rights and crimes of the state: the culture of denial’ (Stanley Cohen) in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

Ch 16 Late modernity, governmentality and risk in Newburn, T (2007) Criminology, Cullompton, Willan

Ch23 ‘Drifting into a law and order society’ (Stuart Hall) in John Muncie, Eugene McLaughlin and Mary Langan (eds) (2002) Criminological perspectives: A Reader, Sage, London

Garland , D (2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press pp 6-20

To investigate the new patterns of crime control is … at the same time, to investigate the remaking of society and its institutions for the production of order. It is to ask, `what is the new problem of crime and social order to which the emerging system of crime control is a response?' `What is the new strategy of governance of which it forms a part?' 'What are the new social conditions that helped bring these into being?' Such is the densely interwoven character of social relations, that an inquiry into the transformation of one institutional field inexorably leads to questions about contiguous fields and about the cultural, political and economic relations that underlie them. As I will argue in what follows, today's reconfigured field of crime control is the result of political choices and administrative decisions-but these choices and decisions are grounded in a new structure of social relations and coloured by a new pattern of cultural sensibilities.

Indices of change

So what are the changes to which I have been referring? What are the signs of movement and the visible landmarks of the emerging new terrain? Rather inconveniently, a simple statement of observed shifts and transformations brings with it some tricky theoretical problems and some delicate questions of historical and penological judgement. As the contentious literature on this subject attests, specifying what has happened is almost as controversial as explaining why it has happened. Nevertheless, it is possible to point to a set of developments that mostinformed commentators would recognize, if only as a starting point for discussion. At this stage I want merely to catalogue those signs of transformation that have been perceived by practitioners and academic commentators. I present them here as a first, under-theorized, approximation of what is going on, though as my analysis unfolds I will provide more detailed accounts of each one.

These `observations' are, of course, already interpretations, insofar as they operationalize conceptual tools and analytical categories and make judgements about qualitative or quantitative change. But they are widely shared and regularly recurring interpretations that are not especially controversial, nor are they closely linked to any specific interpretation or theory. Beginning with this deliberately weak definition of the problem to be explained, the remainder of the book attempts to rethink this preliminary series of observations: to extend and elaborate them, to offer an account of how they came into being, and to explain their significance for crime control and social order in late modern society.

Here, and throughout the book, I draw upon evidence from the UK and the USA to make my case. My argument will be that the strong similarities that appear in the recent policies and practices of these two societies-with patterns repeated across the fifty states and the federal system of the USA, and across the three legal systems of the UK-are evidence of underlying patterns of structural transformation, and that these transformations are being brought about by a process of adaptation to the social conditions that now characterize these (arid other) societies. I make no claim that the pattern of developments to be found in these two societies is universal: there are important national differences that distinguish the specific trajectory of these policy environments from one another and from those of other societies. Nor would I claim that the recent UK and US experiences are in all respects similar, and I will frequently point up differences of kind, of degree, and of emphasis that continue to distinguish them. However, it is my claim that the institutional problems and policy responses that have taken shape in these two places are sufficiently alike to allow me to talk, some of the time, about structural tendencies that characterize them both. This also leads me to suppose that many of the underlying problems and insecurities are, or soon will be, familiar to other late modern societies, even if their cultural and political responses and social trajectories turn out to be quite different .s As I will suggest in the pages that follow, the pattern of risks, insecurities and control problems to which American and British governments, corporations and citizens have been responding are those typically generated by the social, economic and cultural arrangements of late modernity-even if the specific politics, institutions and cultural adaptations that shape their responses are not.

Abstracting from the extensive literature on crime control and criminal justice in America and Britain, it is possible to indicate the most important currents of change occurring over the last thirty years:

The decline of the rehabilitative ideal

If asked to describe the major changes in penal policy in the last thirty years, most insiders would undoubtedly mention `the decline of the rehabilitative ideal'-a phrase that Francis Allen brought into common usage when he used it as the title of his 1981 book.' A more cautious description of what has occurred, written twenty years after Allen's book, might talk instead about the fading of correctionalist and welfarist rationales for criminal justice interventions; the reduced emphasis upon rehabilitation as the goal of penal institutions; and changes in sentencing law that uncouple participation in treatment programmes from the length of sentence served.

As we will see, `rehabilitative' programmes do continue to operate in prisons and elsewhere, with treatment particularly targeted towards `high risk individuals' such as sex offenders, drug addicts, and violent offenders. And the 1990s have seen a resurgence of interest in `what works ?' research that challenges some of the more pessimistic conclusions of the 1970s.1 But today, rehabilitation programmes no longer claim to express the overarching ideology of the system, nor even to be the leading purpose of any penal measure. Sentencing law is no longer shaped by correctional concerns such as indeterminacy and early release. And the rehabilitative possibilities of criminal justice measures are routinely subordinated to other penal goals, particularly retribution, incapacitation, and the management of risk.