CRJS 501 Criminal Justice Theory

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CRJS 501Criminal Justice Theory

• Session 4
• Criminal Justice Theory
• OPPRESSION
• LATE MODERNITY

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Question

• The most interesting thing you read this week?

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Theoretical Orientations Oppression
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Criminal Justice as Oppression

• Feminism and Criminology (Daly Chesney-Lind)
• Feminist Theory, Crime, and Justice (Simpson)
• The New Peculiar Institution (Wacquant)
• Poverty and the Criminal Process (Chambliss
  Seidman)
• Crime Control in the Capitalist State (Quinney)
• The New Criminal Justice System (Parenti)

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Criminal Justice as Oppression

• Probably the two most diametrically opposed
  frameworks are the systems and oppression
  orientation (p. 221).

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Daly Chesney-Lind Feminism and Criminology

• We are at a time of transition in which gender
  equalityfounded on legal principles of equal
  access to and due process in social institutions,
  offers a limited prospect for changing the
  panoply of inequalities in daily life. In the
  case of gender relations we cannot retreat to
  separate spheres, nor can we embrace the equality
  doctrine uncritically. Criminologists, especially
  those involved in the formation of policy, should
  be aware that equal treatment is only one of
  several ways of redressing discrimination and of
  moving toward a more humane justice system (p,
  229).

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Simpson Feminist Theory, Crime, and Justice

• prisons, like other institutions of social
  control retool deviant women for
  gender-appropriate roles in capitalist
  societies. Societal control of female deviance
  serves the needs of capital (p. 241).

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Wacquant The New Peculiar Institution On the
Prison as Surrogate Ghetto

• The fourth peculiar institution operating to
  define, confine, and control African-Americans,
  is the novel institutional complex formed by the
  remnants of the dark ghetto and the carceral
  apparatus with which the ghetto has become joined
  by a linked relationship of structural symbiosis
  and functional surrogacy (p. 270).

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Chambliss Seidman Poverty and the Criminal
Process

• the poor do not receive the same treatment at
  the hands of the agents of law-enforcement as the
  well-to-do or middle class. This differential
  treatment is systematic and complete. (p.259).

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Parenti The New Criminal Justice System

• the new criminal justice system does an
  excellent job of destroying the social fabric
  upon which any future political rebellion would
  rely for coherence at the same time it has
  created a system of surveillance and repression
  that is already being used against a new protest
  movement. The courtsnow function as social
  abettors, in which the poor and the dark skinned
  are shunted off to a concrete hell with
  industrial efficiency (p. 288).

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Questions

• Key features of the Oppression Perspective?

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• Explain the following from the Oppression
  Perspective
• Until relatively recently there has been
  resistance culturally and in law enforcement
  agencies to identifying and defined females as
  violent offenders (e.g., gang members, serial
  killers, batterers) and historically, when women
  do commit acts of aggression and violence they
  are often dealt with in the mental health rather
  than criminal justice systems.
• The number of black women in prison rose by 828
  from 1986-1991 (p. 272).

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Thoughts/Comments on the Oppression Perspective?
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Theoretical Orientations Late Modernity
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The Late Modernity Perspective

• Criminal justice must be understood within the
  context of macro-societal shifts associated with
  the current era of late modernity.
• FIVE KEY THEMES
• - Actuarial Justice Risk, Safety, and Control
• - Neo-liberal and Neo-conservative Politics
• - Contradiction and Incoherence in CJ Policy
• - The decline of state sovereignty
• - The socially exclusive society

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Criminal Justice from the Late Modernity
Perspective

• Crime Control and Social Order (Garland)
• The Anti-Politics of Crime (Loader)

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Garland -- Crime Control and Social Order

• Spatial controls, situational controls,
  managerial controls, system controls, social
  controls, and self controls in one social realm
  after another, we now find the imposition of more
  intensive regimes of regulation, inspection and
  control, and, in the process, our civic culture
  becomes increasingly less tolerant and inclusive,
  increasingly less capable of trust (p 288).
• the reconfigured field of crime control is
  structurally related to the conditions of late
  modernity (p.295).

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Loader -- The Anti-Politics of CrimeSee
http//governingthroughcrime.blogspot.com/

• These are books Ericsons (2007) Crime in an
  Insecure World, Simons (2007)Governing through
  Crime ofand forour times, efforts to wrestle
  seriously with the present that call for and
  repay careful, sustained attention. I want, in
  this spirit, to use their appearance as a chance
  to reflect on the place that crimeand, by
  extension, punishment and control, safety and
  securityhas come to occupy in contemporary
  public life and social relations (p. 318).

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Questions

• Key features of the late modernity perspective?

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Thoughts/Comments on the CJ from the Late
Modernity Perspective?
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• Explain the following CJ Practices from the Late
  Modernity Perspective
• The expansion of the use of prisons and the
  notion that prisons are an indispensable part of
  social life.
• Restorative Justice Initiatives
• The Use of actuarial tools to predict
  dangerousness.
• Prisoner Reentry Initiatives http//seattlepi.nws
  ource.com/opinion/336017_recidivism19.html

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Concluding Questions

• What is criminal justice theory?
• What sorts of questions are raised by criminal
  justice theorists and whats the point of asking
  these questions?

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Term Paper Workshop

• How would your topic be explained from the
  theoretical perspectives discussed today?
• Rational-Legal?
• CJ System?
• Crime Control/Due Process?
• Politics?
• Social Constructionist?
• Growth Complex?

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In Class Exercise

• Apply the theories weve covered so far to term
  paper topics in your group.
• Rational/Legal
• CJ as System
• Due Process/Crime Control
• Politics
• Social Constructionist
• Growth Complex

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Questions

• Do some topics more readily lend themselves to
  explanation by some theories over others?
• What challenges did you face in analyzing your
  topics from these perspectives?
• Are there other perspectives that need to be
  considered?