This week we looked at Packer's 'due process' and 'crime control' models, in what was the most theoretically-oriented & probably the most demanding week of the unit so far.
The best way to think about these two models of the CJS is probably to start from those two images, the "conveyor belt" and the "obstacle course".
According to the 'crime control' model, the CJS needs to process a lot of offenders in order to keep society safe and orderly; the police can be trusted to identify the right people most of the time; and the system should operate as far as possible like a 'conveyor belt' from the moment that a suspect is arrested. This is the meaning of the 'presumption of guilt': in practice, everyone who is in the system is presumed to be equally guilty (in reality), because treating them as innocent would be far too demanding and time-consuming.
According to the 'due process' model, on the other hand, the CJS can do a lot of harm to the people it 'processes'; the police can't be trusted to get it right every time; so the system should operate as far a possible like an 'obstacle course', in which the suspect is only convicted once every piece of contradictory evidence has been eliminated and every weakness in the case has been rectified. The 'presumption of innocence' says that everyone who is in the system is innocent (in law), and should be treated as such, until they have been proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Don't try to reconcile these models with each other: they're meant to be polar opposites! However, it is true that if you push either one of these models to extremes you get something grotesque and unreal, like a court which sits for decades without deciding anything or a system for maintaining order by means of random execution. The question is always which way to push the system: do we want a bit more 'due process' (e.g. by letting more suspects opt for a jury trial) or a bit more 'efficiency' (e.g. by letting the police hold suspects for longer)? There are costs and benefits either way. (We may also want a bit more Doctor Who. Or that may just be me.)
Finally, one important point about the difference between the two mindsets is that the 'due process' model is characterised by scepticism about how much good the CJS can do. Looking back at the lecture on statistics, a 'due process' advocate would point to the very similar trends in the crime rate across many different Western nations and say that changes to criminal justice policy in Britain haven't made much difference to crime. That being the case, they might argue, it's a good idea to design the system in such a way that it does as little harm as possible, e.g. by locking up innocent people.
How do you think an 'efficiency' advocate would answer this argument? One possible counter-argument would be that the CJS isn't just about the actual level of crime - it's also there to deal with fear of crime, and with the widespread public anxieties about crime, terrorism, anti-social behaviour and so on. This brings us back to the 'Durkheimian' view of criminal justice - the CJS should respond to public fears and anxieties, by being seen to do something about the things society finds repugnant.
What do you think?
No classes or lectures next week, which will leave you free to hit the Employability Fair on Monday and Tuesday. I'm not running my standard office hours either, but I'm contactable by email any time - if you want to meet up, drop me a line on p.j.edwards at em em yoo dot ac dot uk.
Friday, 28 October 2011
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Week 4
Mostly statistics this week!
The point of this week's seminar & lecture was to think about how statistics on crime are produced. There is no "God's eye view" of crime: if we want to know what's going on, we've only got statistics to go on (apart from anecdotes and personal experience). So if we want to understand, for example, why the statistics show that a particular kind of crime has gone up, we need to understand how those statistics were produced. Usually there are a whole range of factors influencing statistics, and changes in those factors may lead to changes in the figures.
There was one particularly interesting example in the seminar, with the statement that "petty offences, many of them committed by young people, form an increasing proportion of crime". This could be because
This kind of problem is the reason why it's useful to have different statistical sources of information on crime. In this case, most of the external factors we've identified affect police recorded crime figures; cross-checking against figures from the British Crime Survey would help to eliminate external influences on the statistics. (Although BCS data has its own potential distorting factors.)
Finally, I said at the end of the lecture that next week's lecture would look at sentencing. Wrong! Next week's lecture is about "due process" and "crime control". In advance of it, please read the first chapter of Sanders and Young's Criminal Justice, which is called "The aims and values of 'criminal justice'". You can find it (the chapter) online; it's linked on Moodle under the Essential Reading heading.
The point of this week's seminar & lecture was to think about how statistics on crime are produced. There is no "God's eye view" of crime: if we want to know what's going on, we've only got statistics to go on (apart from anecdotes and personal experience). So if we want to understand, for example, why the statistics show that a particular kind of crime has gone up, we need to understand how those statistics were produced. Usually there are a whole range of factors influencing statistics, and changes in those factors may lead to changes in the figures.
There was one particularly interesting example in the seminar, with the statement that "petty offences, many of them committed by young people, form an increasing proportion of crime". This could be because
- People are committing more crime at the moment, opportunistic petty crime in particular, due to the recession
- Young people in particular are committing more crime at the moment (because of the recession) and young people are more likely to commit petty crime
- Petty crime is being more heavily policed at the moment (by PCSOs, street wardens etc), leading to more petty crime being recorded in police figures (although it may be that no more crime is actually being committed)
- A number of new low-level offences have been created recently, leading to a rise in overall crime because people are committing new crimes (although it may be that people's behaviour hasn't changed)
- Low-level offending has remained constant, but more serious offending has dropped, leading to a rise in low-level offending as a proportion of the total
This kind of problem is the reason why it's useful to have different statistical sources of information on crime. In this case, most of the external factors we've identified affect police recorded crime figures; cross-checking against figures from the British Crime Survey would help to eliminate external influences on the statistics. (Although BCS data has its own potential distorting factors.)
Finally, I said at the end of the lecture that next week's lecture would look at sentencing. Wrong! Next week's lecture is about "due process" and "crime control". In advance of it, please read the first chapter of Sanders and Young's Criminal Justice, which is called "The aims and values of 'criminal justice'". You can find it (the chapter) online; it's linked on Moodle under the Essential Reading heading.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Week 3
I didn't have much luck with the audio-visuals this week - the perils of writing lectures on a Mac! I hope Al Murray managed to get his point across even without video.
The point of this week's lecture was to open up the question of what the criminal justice system should be doing (and who it should be doing it for), before we start looking at statistics next week & ask whether it's doing it well. The lecture approached the question of what the CJS ought to be doing from two angles - starting from first principles and then looking at what the government currently says about it. The point I wanted to stress is that there are lots of different ways of defining success for the CJS: reducing crime, reducing fear of crime, rehabilitating offenders, locking up offenders for long periods, making the "law-abiding majority" feel safer, etc - and they all have costs and benefits. What we saw in the seminar was that they also appeal to different groups of people: not everyone wants the CJS to 'succeed' in the same way.
The point of this week's lecture was to open up the question of what the criminal justice system should be doing (and who it should be doing it for), before we start looking at statistics next week & ask whether it's doing it well. The lecture approached the question of what the CJS ought to be doing from two angles - starting from first principles and then looking at what the government currently says about it. The point I wanted to stress is that there are lots of different ways of defining success for the CJS: reducing crime, reducing fear of crime, rehabilitating offenders, locking up offenders for long periods, making the "law-abiding majority" feel safer, etc - and they all have costs and benefits. What we saw in the seminar was that they also appeal to different groups of people: not everyone wants the CJS to 'succeed' in the same way.
Friday, 7 October 2011
Week 2
This week's lecture gave an overview of the Criminal Justice System; the main point of the lecture was that the CJS is (a) big, (b) complex, (c) composed of lots of separate agencies and (d) not actually a system. In the seminar we looked at some of the different agencies involved & their conflicting priorities, suggesting that having different agencies pulling in different directions might not always be a bad thing.
As we go through the unit, I'm hoping people will leave comments & suggestions on these blog posts. I think the lecture was reasonably clear & trust it got the main points across, although the slides could perhaps have been a bit more exciting. I thought the seminars went pretty well (those I did, anyway) - most people had something to say & we filled the time. I think it was reasonably well integrated with the lecture, too, although I'd be interested to get the perspective of people in the Monday groups - what's it like doing the unit 'seminar first'?
More generally, I hope people are keeping up with the reading that's assigned in the Unit Outline. Newburn's Criminology in particular is a terrific resource, with something in it for just about every week of the unit - and it's even available online.
As we go through the unit, I'm hoping people will leave comments & suggestions on these blog posts. I think the lecture was reasonably clear & trust it got the main points across, although the slides could perhaps have been a bit more exciting. I thought the seminars went pretty well (those I did, anyway) - most people had something to say & we filled the time. I think it was reasonably well integrated with the lecture, too, although I'd be interested to get the perspective of people in the Monday groups - what's it like doing the unit 'seminar first'?
More generally, I hope people are keeping up with the reading that's assigned in the Unit Outline. Newburn's Criminology in particular is a terrific resource, with something in it for just about every week of the unit - and it's even available online.
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