Interrogating criminal justice

Interrogating criminal justice

1. POWER

   • Hutton - politicians introduce harsh penalties in belief they reduce crime and increase votes
   • Quinney - Through law, a powerful ruling class is able to preserve social order to their own economic / social interests
     • Crime control way of regulating perceived threats to existing relations of power
   • Panopticon
     • A central, unseen observer
     • Never know when they are being observered
     • Self - regulating behaviour, have to behave as if being observed
   • Surveillance
     • Widepsread use means less private space
       • Potential for state interference over citizens
     • Offers protection

2. LOCAL / GLOBAL

   • Usage of different justice models shows how global issues and trends influence nation states
     • Punitive revival
       • USA - Zero tolerance
   • Baker & Roberts - Globalisation main contributor to international transfer of punitive policies
   • Economic globalism
     • Political globalism
       • One states actions effect others thus state sovereignty lost its power
   • Afghan illegal opium poppies
   • Way in which justice is perceived and delivered varies according to geopgraphy, culture & politics

3. HARM & VIOLENCE

   • Crimes against humanity
   • Box - Media images of dangerousness on young, poor & ethnic minority
     • Most vulnerable to arrest
   • Wacquant - racialised carceral patterning
     • Penal system replaced ghetto with controlling black Americans

4. INJUSTICES

   • Human trafficking
     • Victims in UK, Law treats them as criminals rather than harms which led them to being victims
       • No focus on the traffickers
   • Opium poppies
     • Destroying poppy farmers crops in Afghanistan
       • Punishes crime of illegal poppy production
       • Leaves farmer and family to starve
   • Youth in Youth justice system
     • Majority from bad social/ economic backgrounds
     • Portrayal of youth in media harms them
     • Victim of inequality and power struggle, harmed further by being negatively labelled
   • Webster - African Caribbean youth compared to white
     • More likely to be prosecuted
     • More likely to be stopped
     • Less likely to be cautioned
     • More likely to be charged and remanded in custody, no bail
     • More likely to be given custodial sentence

5. PUNISHMENT

   • RETRIBUTIVE
     • 'Just deserts'
     • Punishes past crimes, no consideration of future
   • UTILITARIAN
     • Rehab based
     • Punishment used to prevent future crimes