Communitarianisms Impact on the Crime Prevention Policy of the New Labour Party - Coursework Example

 “Communitarianism’s Impact on the Crime Prevention Policy of the New Labour Party” What is Communitarianism? One definition given to Communitarianism is a Political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of community in the functioning of political life, in the analysis and evaluation of political institutions, and in understanding human identity and well-being. It was developed in the 1980s and '90s in explicit opposition to the theoretical liberalism of thinkers such as John Rawls. According to communitarians, liberalism relies on a conception of the individual that is unrealistically atomistic and abstract; it also places too much importance on individual values such as freedom and autonomy (Political Dictionary Communitarianism). The roles of Communities as well as the prevailing urban environment in crime prevention and control have increased considerably because of the emergence of Communitarianism as a distinct socio-political philosophy. Communitarianism, which became known in the eighties, underscores the need to balance individual rights and interests with that of the community as a whole, and argues that individual citizens are shaped by the cultures and values of their communities (Encyclopedia Britannica Online 2010). Etzioni (1993) says this particular philosophy ‘espouses that the growth of individuals is best served by the co-operative pooling of shared resources’. People are encouraged to contribute to the social capital by being members of the community groups and being active in their management. To further elaborate on this, communitarians maintain that the balance should gravitate towards the community so as to avoid going against the correct norms and avoid falling into the abyss of self-centered and power-hungry advocates (Sirriani and Friedland n.d.). In other words, the focus is now the community and not the individual since this is in conformity with what is being preached by the Communitarian platform. Of course, among the major considerations would be community safety, public welfare and benefits as well as resolution of social problems such as crime prevention and ensuring the safety of the community. Community safety as discussed by Walklate (2004) ‘turn in policy responses to crime has operated with very conventional images of both the nature and structure of communities and notions of what it is that communities need to be kept safe from in relation to crime. Those images reflect multi-facetted assumptions about victimhood, from the nature of communities that need intervention to the kinds of crimes that worry people’. According to Communitarianism, ‘crimes can be solved mainly through so-called self-help efforts of members of the community and that laws communicate and symbolise those values that communities hold in high esteem’ (Gullotta and Bloom, 2003: 369). Given this assertion, it becomes imperative that the association between communities, urban environment and effective crime control should be understood and analysed carefully both theoretically and in practice. Community safety should also be explained completely and Marshall (1998) gives a comprehensive definition of it as ‘a concept which is sometimes used interchangeably with that of ‘crime prevention’ in criminological debates. Communities have been given a role in local crime prevention through the emphasis on physical measures to reverse the broken window syndrome. Members of the community are encouraged to take a share in deviance control by co-operating with the police and fulfilling their moral obligations as active citizens’. The inter-relationships between them have to be scrutinized carefully so that we can comprehend entirely the role of the local authorities and police and what the communities have to do as part of the collaborative effort between them. In theory, government assumes the obligation to ensure the protection of the lives and property of citizens within one particular community. However, in reality, it cannot be possible that government can guarantee that it will be able to accomplish this obligation completely. There are numerous factors to consider such as the environment, crime reduction strategies, structure of community safety agendas, criminal victimization and the prevailing criminal justice system. In Jessop’s analyses (2002) of the ‘current form of capitalist state to contemporary criminal justice policy in general and community safety in particular, it states that these are the imagined political community, and the moral vision of the good society. In the foregoing discussion it is possible to see both of these practices are manifest in community safety discourse and praxis, from the symbolism of the victim, to the imaginings of consensus around what it is that communities need to be kept safe from, to the moral vision assumed in the concept of community deployed in community safety rhetoric’. Likewise, there is also a need to be aware of and analyse the development of crime prevention and community safety strategies in the social, political and historical framework. Within the social milieu, some of the issues that have to be taken into account are the position of the respective communities towards both the previous and present policies of the state in crime prevention. Are these communities more comfortable with what is presently being advocated by police and local authority officials? Sagant et al (2010: 9-11) state that ‘public policies increasingly respond to the needs of populations and communities and that one of the main concerns of prevention strategies centers on adapting to the need and resources of each group. Crime prevention strategies have become more widespread but remain marginalized within broader public safety policies’. With respect to the historical context, according to an earlier ICPC Report, ‘More and more countries are adopting broad public safety policies that include a component devoted to prevention. The number of strategies specifically devoted to prevention is limited but continues to increase. Analyses of these trends leads us the following recommendation: greater priority must be given to crime prevention in public safety policies. Safety and prevention strategies, as defined by the United Nations, must constitute public policies in and of themselves, and not be annexed to other policies. They must benefit from adequate and specific resources both in terms of funding and governance, management capacities, follow-up, and evaluation. The evaluation of prevention programmes and strategies, when adapted to specific prevention issues, contributes to the improvement and adaptation of implemented projects and strategies and helps identify the most effective and promising practices’ Sagant et al (2010). This gives credence to the argument that crime prevention and community safety strategies evolve partly because of the progress and history of governments and nations. In the same manner, for as long as there are variations in the political systems of nations, it can always be expected that community safety and crime control policies will always change. Since its rise to power in 1997, the New Labour Party ‘identified the community as the essential site for undertaking social problems like crime and anti-social behavior and successfully positioned itself as being tough on crime and the causes of crime’ (Moore, 2008: 10). The Party insisted that it did not adhere to the so-called “soft on crime” policy of the Conservative Party. Nonetheless, it adapted the stringent approach to spending of the former Conservative Government which prevented New Labour to totally change the course of criminal justice policy. One distinct trademark of New Labour is the Criminal Justice Reform System. Solomon (2009: 41) explained that ‘criminal justice reform was at the heart of the New Labour’s public policy agenda. Between the years, 1997 and 2001, the focus was primarily on a root and branch reform of youth justice to prevent offending and tackle what Labour described as the emergence of an excuse culture’. This has been described as unparalleled in the history of England. As far, as crime and justice is concerned, New Labour has adopted a no-nonsense approach to bring crime down significantly. Since 1997, overall crime has fallen by almost 40 per cent and citizens are now less likely to be a victim of crime than at any time in the last 25 years. New Labour's beliefs are consistent - tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. But the nature of communities is changing, and this means the nature of crime and the causes of crime are changing too.  Only Labour has the policies to address these new challenges building on what has been achieved over the past decade and tackling them head on. It is giving police and communities new powers to tackle anti-social behaviour; investing in neighbourhood policing; taking measures to combat terrorism; and delivering a fairer and better-balanced criminal justice system - appropriately punishing criminals and offering support to their victims (ComparePolitics). Other key achievements of New Labour in this field aside from bringing down the overall crime rate is increasing police numbers and bringing down the risk of becoming a victim of crime at historically low levels. Likewise, through its efforts, the number of offenders who were brought to justice and entered education, training and employment went up dramatically. The essence of New Labour’s strategy for criminal justice is contained in the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998. ‘This piece of legislation represented an authentic paradigm modification in the discourse of crime management’ Powell (1999: 192 -201). It became the vital act of law that put in place New Labour’s crime prevention plans into full action. Section 17 of the CDA emphasized that all statutory agencies should be concerned about and take action to prevent any crime and disorder issues possible. For this reason, it is very important to cite the following fundamental measures of this act which influences our belief regarding crime and crime prevention. These include an obligation placed on local authorities, the police, health authorities and probation committees to work in partnership to develop and implement a strategy to tackle crime and disorder in their areas so that they will have a joint and formally stated policy for protecting the public and maintaining community safety. This in turn will be part of the process of forming a strategy to tackle crime and disorder. It will also be a requirement for the police and local authorities to conduct a crime audit in their areas which reviews patterns of crime and problems of disorder in those areas and hopefully will form the basis of all actions against criminality. In analysing the policies and reforms of New Labour on crime prevention and community safety, Hope (2005: 369-388) states that ‘it is very crucial to assess developments since the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, and assesses the impact of the government's Crime Reduction Strategy and its campaign against anti-social behaviour. The argument is that, in its zeal to reduce crime through its "modernization" agenda, applied to public service delivery, and the consequent emphasis on performance in the reduction of crime, the government is neglecting the institution-building task of constituting new security governance in the community. This neglect may have led to a rise in insecurity in society, fostered by a heightened anxiety about disorder and seems set to continue with the government's approach to police reform. Although an emergent agenda of "civil renewal" holds out some promise for policies that recognize the role of citizens in the co-production of community safety, there are also dangers of reinforcing the insecurity of the disadvantaged’. The New Labour Party envisioned mutual partnerships between the government, the community, the private sector and local authorities not only to promote urban governance and development but crime prevention and community safety as well. For the citizenry, the stringent approach of New Labour towards crime prevention and its equally disciplined response to community safety and the promotion of their welfare was the more rational policies that government should assume. What then are the social consequences of crime prevention and community safety strategies? Through the years, crime prevention activities gradually increased in the UK and as a result, communities became an integral part of crime prevention. This was basically what New Labour advocated and was relatively successful in accomplishing. ‘New Labour was less obsessed by the theme of individual responsibility and, while retaining the idea that people should not just rely on the state to sort out their problems, was more oriented towards the idea of active communities participating in formulating policies. Tony Blair, influenced less by Neoliberalism than communitarianism was focused on what he saw as the need to restore a sense of moral community’ Lea (2007). Prime Minister Tony Blair was noted for his advocacy of and staunch support for “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange”, reduced links with trade unions, and obtained unprecedented commitments to free enterprise, anti-inflationary policies, aggressive crime prevention, and support for Britain’s integration into the European Union (Gallagher). This was in full synchronisation with the thoughts of community safety. More than individuals, communities have become more important participants and the community oriented approach became more evident.  In effect, crime prevention and community safety strategies have become what can be described as the new genre of urban governance which is more of the exercise of power taking into consideration the fusion of civil society, the local government and the state.   Crawford’s dissertation (2008) supports this theorem. ‘It may be that the nation state is not necessarily the most appropriate unit of analysis through which to study comparative crime prevention policies, as it draws attention to the role of national governments rather than local governments and municipal authorities as well as market-based innovations and the role of civil society. City-level developments may provide more nuanced understandings of local differences and the cultural and institutional sensibilities that inform them’. Hopefully, this academic discourse was able to present vividly the impact of Communitarianism on the crime prevention and community safety policies and strategies of the New Labour Party as well as the socio-political and historical factors that needed to be explained. Reference List . Political Dictionary: Communitarianism. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.  Crime and Justice: Labour. ComparePolitics.co.uk. http://www.comparepolitics.co.uk Crawford, A. (2008). Comparative models of crime prevention and delivery: their genesis, influence and development. [July 7, 2008]. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com /topic/1366457/communitarianism [November, 2010] Etzioni, A. (1993). The Spirit of Community; Rights, Responsibilities and the Communitarian Agenda. New York. Crown Publishers. Gullota T. and Bloom, M. (2003). Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion. Springer. p. 3369 Hope, T. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. University of Toronto Press. Volume 47, Number 2. [April 2005] pp. 369 -388 Jessop, B. (2002) The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity Lea, John, Crime Prevention and Safety. http://www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk [2007] Marshall, G. A Dictionary of Sociology. Encyclopedia.Com. [January, 1998] Moore, S. Neighbourhood Policing and the Punitive Community. palgrave-journals.com. [July, 2008] Powell, M. New Labour, New Welfare State? The Third Way in British Social Policy. The Policy Press. [1999] p. 192 - 201 Sagant, V., Shaw M., Idriss, M., Jendly, M., Kam, J., and Mulone, M. International Report on Crime Prevention and Community Safety: Trends and Perspectives. [2010] pp. 9-11 Sagant, V., Shaw M., Idriss, M., Jendly, M., Kam, J., and Mulone, M. International Report on Crime Prevention and Community Safety: Trends and Perspectives. [2006] Sirriani C. and Friedland L. Communitarianism. Civic Practices Network. cpn@cpn.org Solomon, E. New Labour and Crime Prevention in England and Wales. What Worked?. IPC Review. www.ipc.uOttawa.ca. Vol. 3, No. 1 [March 2009] Walklate, S. (2004) The Protective Society? Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Community Safety Journal. Vol. 3 No. 1. Read More