AC3.2
Describe the contribution of agencies to achieving social control
Part 1 - Crime Prevention through Environmental Design
C Ray Jeffrey coined the term CPTED. Growing interest in environmental criminology led to detailed study of specific topics such as natural surveillance, access control and territoriality. The "broken window" principle that neglected zones invite crime reinforced the need for good property maintenance to assert visible ownership of space. Appropriate environmental design can also increase the perceived likelihood of detection and apprehension, known to be the biggest single deterrent to crime. And there has been new interest in the interior design of prisons as an environment that significantly affects decisions to offend. Wikipedia (2021)
According to Jeffrey, the physical environment can give opportunities to commit crime. For example, closed stairwells give easy access and the opportunity to escape. It is also difficult for anyone to see what is happening in such a stairwell. The murder of Damilola Taylor in a stairwell on an estate in Peckham is an example of this.
Alice Coleman - Utopia on Trial
The destruction wrought by the Second World War led to an unprecedented housing shortage in Great Britain. In order to facilitate the replacement of residences for displaced citizens, British authorities opted against rebuilding many of the bombed out rows of pre-war connected houses (known as "semis")
in cities like London and Birmingham. Instead, the government and modernist architects embraced large-scale public housing projects, and through the 1970s, block upon block of "point" and "slab" buildings designed in Le Corbusier functionalist fashion sprang up across the urban landscape
However, Alice Coleman (born 1923, now 97) professor of geography from Kings College, London, is noted for her work in the 1960s in researching the effects of living in these large scale public housing estates. She analysed 4,099 locks of flats in two London boroughs, and her findings were an attack on the effectiveness of the planning system within the UK which she considered to have clear connections between anti-social behaviour and the number of dwellings per entrance, the amount of semi-private space, the number of dwellings per block, the number of storeys per block and the presence of overhead walkways.
Gated Lanes - an example of CPTED
Sidebottom et al (2017) carried out a review of 43 studies analysing the effect of gated alleyways in urban areas. Looking at previous research the basis for the argument for gated lanes was that alleys may influence crime in several ways. They can attract offenders because of the perceived high likelihood of available crime opportunities (e.g. the presence of drug markets and prostitutes). They can generate crimes such as robbery and assaults by providing a convergence setting for motivated offenders and potential targets in the absence of capable guardians (Cohen & Felson, 1979). They may facilitate crime through providing inconspicuous access to alley-adjacent properties and a means by which to escape and evade detection. And, where uncertainty exists over their management and ownership, alleys can provide tempting and convenient sites to illegally discard waste, conduct arson or paint graffiti.
Lane gating, also known as alley gating, is a simple crime prevention measure that involves erecting lockable gates at the ends of alley-ways and passages that are the responsibility of the home owners who live around them.
The benefits of lane gating schemes are cited as:
extra security to prevent domestic burglary opportunities
restricted access to prevent anti-social behaviour (e.g prostitution and dealing/taking of drugs)
creation of safe play areas for children
improved community spirit and a sense of shared ownership
However there are criticisms of gated lane and these are cited as:
Gated lanes do not necessarily prevent crime, it just moves to another area
The crime methods just become more sophisticated to overcome the security.
Is it right to restrict access in a public right of way to residents only. What about emergency service access?
Costly to install and who maintains them - whose responsibility is it to keep them working?
Alley-gates: preventing crime or isolating communities? Colin Rogers looks at the pros and cons of alley-gates.
Click below to read the article...
Neighbourhood Watch
The first Watch developed in New York in 1964 after reports that witnesses did nothing to stop the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese. The scheme was duplicated in the UK in 1982 and in 2007 grew to a national organisation endorsed by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers. Its aim is to bring neighbours together, educate them on security and safety and create communities where crimes are less likely to happen and where members are encouraged to report it to authorities. Today it has more than 173,000 coordinators, covering 3.8 million households across England and Wales.
Prison Design
The Panopticon Design
Please read The Guardian article. Your teacher may set you an assignment of questions...
Foucault's Surveillance Theory
Foucault – Surveillance and Crime Control (Revise Sociology)
https://revisesociology.com/2016/09/21/foucault-surveillance-crime-control/#:~:text=Foucault%20argues%20that%20the%20use,are%20subjected%20to%20disciplinary%20power.
Michel Foucault is one of the most influential sociological thinkers of the last half century. One of his key contributions to criminology is his focus on how the nature of crime control has shifted from using the threat of violence and the fear of being physically punished to control through surveillance – fear of being seen to be doing something wrong.
Punishment has changed from being a violent public spectacle (such as hanging) to being hidden away, behind closed doors. It has also changed from being swift and physical, done on the body, to being more drawn out and psychological – punishment today is typically about changing the mind and the soul.
This reflects a change in how power is exercised in society – we have moved away from what Foucault called ‘sovereign power’ – which is control through the threat of force, to ‘disciplinary power’ – which is control through the monitoring and surveillance of populations.
Sovereign power was typical of the period before the 18th century when the monarch had power over people and their bodies, and thus inflicting punishment directly on the body was the means of asserting control.
Foucault illustrates the use of sovereign power by describing a particularly gruesome execution which took place in 1757, which forms the introduction to his classic book ‘discipline and punish’ (see appendix below).
Foucault points out that by the end of the 18th century this type of extreme public punishment no longer took place, instead punishment took place in prisons, behind closed doors and there was more of an attempt by authorities to control and reform criminals through the use of timetables and other interventions such as educational programmes.
Foucault argues that disciplinary power evolved significantly in the late 19th century with Jeremy Bentham’s new design of prison known as the panopticon – which consisted of a central observational tower and prison cells arranged around it in such a way that the prisoners could potentially be under observation at any time, but could not see whether they were being observed or not. Because of this, prisoners had to self-monitor their behaviour so that, in effect, they ended up disciplining themselves as a result of being under constant surveillance (or because they were subjected to disciplinary power in strict Foucauldian terms)
The significance of Foucault (the important bit)
Foucault argues that the use of disciplinary power has extend everywhere in society – it is not only in prisons that disciplinary power (surveillance) is used to control people; and it is not only criminals who are subjected to disciplinary power.
Disciplinary power (surveillance) is now everywhere and everyone is subjected to it – the most obvious examples are the use of CCTV in public spaces; but disciplinary power is also at work in schools – through the use of electronic registers and reports; we can see it in workplaces – through the use of performance monitoring; and we can even see it in our personal lives – both pregnancy and childhood are highly monitored by health care professionals and social workers for example, and most of us just accept this as normal.
Most people now obey the rules because they know they are being watched – they regulate their own behaviour for fear of becoming the wrong kind of person – a failing student, an unproductive worker, a bad mother, an obese-person, for example.
NB – This is quintessentially sociological – it is only in very recent human history that we have become so obsessed with monitoring every aspect of our daily-lives, and one of Foucault’s points is that this constant surveillance doesn’t necessarily improve our lives – there are both winners and losers.
Human Ecological Prison
Watch the video and answer the questions in your handout
Bastøy Prison (Norwegian: Bastøy fengsel) is a minimum-security prison on Bastøy Island, Norway, located in the Horten municipality about 75 kilometres (46 mi) south of Oslo. The prison is on a 2.6 square kilometre (1 sq mi) island and hosts 115 inmates. Arne Kvernvik-Nilsen,[1] governor of the prison, leads a staff of 69 prison employees. Of this staff, only five employees remain on the island overnight.[2] The prison is about one hour commuting distance from Oslo.[3]
Once a prison colony for young boys, the facility is trying to become "the first ecological prison in the world".[2] Reoffending rates have been reported at 16%, compared to a European average of around 70%.[4] Inmates are housed in wooden cottages and work the prison farm.[5] During their free time, inmates have access to horseback riding, fishing, tennis, and cross-country skiing.[2][6] The only access to the prison is from a ferry that departs from Horten.[7]
Wikipedia (2021)
Supermax Prisons
These are prisons for very dangerous criminals including those who are a threat to national and international security. An example is ADX Florence in Colorado.
In the UK, the equivalent is are Category A Prisons - high security prisons where the most dangerous, and difficult to manage, prisoners are kept.
HMP Wakefield is in West Yorkshire and is the largest maximum security in the United Kingdom.
Part 2- Behavioural and institutional tactics
These are tactics used by agencies to change someone’s behaviour so that they do not commit crime. There are various examples:
ASBOs (Anti-social Behaviour Orders) Wikipedia (2021)
An anti-social behaviour order (ASBO is a civil order made in the United Kingdom against a person who had been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour. The orders were introduced by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998[1] and continued in use until repealed in England and Wales by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 on 20 October 2014, although they continue to be used in Scotland. ASBOs were replaced in England and Wales by the civil injunctions and the Criminal Behaviour Order.[2][3][4] They were designed to address behaviour like intimidation, drunkenness, and violence by individuals and families, using civil orders rather than criminal sanctions.[5] The orders restricted behaviour in some way, such as prohibiting a return to a certain area, or shop, or restricting public behaviour such as swearing or drinking alcohol. Many saw the ASBO as connected with young delinquents.[6]
It has been argued that ASBOs can be considered a Badge of Honour. Read the article above.
Criminal Behaviour Orders
A criminal behaviour order (CBO) is an order to the offender issued by a judge in England and Wales, at the request of the prosecution, under Part 2 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
A CBO is an order designed to tackle the most serious and persistent anti-social individuals where their behaviour has brought them before a criminal court. The anti-social behaviour to be addressed does not need to be connected to the criminal behaviour, or activity which led to the conviction. However, if there is no link the court will need to reflect on the reasons for making the order.
A CBO can deal with a wide range of anti-social behaviours following the offender’s conviction, for example threatening violence against others in the community, or persistently being drunk and aggressive in public. However, the order should not be designed to stop reasonable, trivial or benign behaviours that have not caused, or are not likely to cause anti-social behaviour.
Token Economies in Prisons (IEPs)
Watch this brief video to get an overview of typical IEPS.
Prison rules and sanctions for disobedience
Access this document and then answer the questions in your handout.
Police cautions
A police caution is a formal alternative to prosecution in minor cases, administered by the police in England and Wales. It is commonly used to resolve cases where full prosecution is not seen as the most appropriate solution. Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt. As a result of changes made by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, cautions can be administered in two forms: as a simple caution or as a conditional caution, the latter of which has specific conditions attached that the offender must satisfy—attending a course aimed at targeting offending behaviour, for example. The Home Office has released guidance to the police and prosecutors on the use of the simple caution.
he aims of the formal police caution are:
to offer a proportionate response to low-level offending where the offender has admitted the offence;
to deliver swift, simple and effective justice that carries a deterrent effect;
to record an individual's criminal conduct for possible reference in future criminal proceedings or in criminal record or other similar checks;
to reduce the likelihood of re-offending;
to increase the amount of time officers spend dealing with more serious crime and reduce the amount of time police officers spend completing paperwork and attending court, whilst simultaneously reducing the burden on the courts.
