Criminological Theory and Policies in Criminal Justice - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION: Most policy making in criminal justice is based on criminological theory, whether the people making those policies know it or not. In fact most of the failed policies in criminal justice are due to misinterpretation, partial implementation, or ignorance of criminological theory. Every criminological theory contains a set of assumptions about human nature, social structure, and the principles of causation. Criminological theories are primarily concerned with causes or reasons for crime. But occasionally have important things to say about actors in the criminal justice system, such as police, attorneys, correctional personnel and victims. DISORGANIZATION: Disorganization basically refers to the failure of social institutions or social organizations (e.g. schools, business, policing, real estate, group networking) in certain communities and /or neighbourhoods (although writing prohibits such theories from being couched at the macro level to talk about society 1. Its origin has been traced to the study of ecology, which basically examines the relations between organism and its environment. _______________ 1. Bentley, Christopher. Criminal Practice manual: a Practical Guide to Handling Criminal Cases (Scarborough, Ont.: Carswell, 2000). Disorganization socially is treated as both perspective and theory. ASSUMPTIONS AS TO CAUSES CRIME: 1. Crime and delinquency are caused primarily by social factors (environmental determination). 2. Components of social structure are unstable (conflict 3. Instabilities and their effects are worse for the lower classes (lower class crime) 4. Human nature is basically good (social ability thesis (but subject to vulnerability and inability to resist temptation Environmental determination means that people are not ordinarily going to know what causes all the crime around them, and in fact such circumstances, they are most likely to blame bad people rather than bad places. The four wishes theory propounded by W.I Thomas 2 is bases on the idea that values in a given environment produce wishes which are the sociological equivalent of drives or instinct. What the person senses is important to their neighbourhoods as a whole becomes the core of their bring in terms of the fundamental or generalised things that drives them which are 1. New experience 2. Security 3. Response (or mastery of instinct or emotion) 4. Recognition (or status) ____________ 2. Colvin, Eric & Sanjeev Anand. (2007) Principles of Criminal Law, 3d ed. Thomson Carswell Toronto. LABELLING Labelling was a brain child of 1960`s and 1970`s which saw criminals as underdogs who initially did something out of the ordinary and then got swept up in a huge government sponsored labelling or shunning reaction argues that anyone facing such an overwhelming negative labelling social reaction will eventually become more like the label because that is only way out of their identity formation it points out that sometimes its best to do nothing and that there are few reintergrative rituals designed to help people fit back into their communities. 3 The theory of labelling is based on an argument that the process of tagging, defining, identifying, segregating, describing and emphasizing any individuals out of special treatment becomes a way of stimulating suggesting and evoking the very traits that are described as being. The theory is also reliant on some approach called “societal reaction”. Briefly this approach distinguishes between primary deviance (where individuals do not themselves a deviant) and secondary deviance (which involves acceptance of a deviant status. Primary deviance arises foe a wide variety of reasons biological, psychological and /or sociological. Secondary or intensified deviance becomes a means of defences attack, or adaptation to the problems caused by societal reaction to primary deviation. Presently, it is rare to find labelling theories like those which predominantly were in the late 1960`s.But still there are still social constructivist accounts of some type of deviance or another, and studies about the meaning of crime to criminals and criminalization are still done. 3. www. Wikipedia.org. Modern labelling theories have come to recognise that societies create crime by passing laws and that the substantative nature of the law should be object of study. CONTRASTS-DISORGANIZATION AND LABELLING Whereas disorganization theory mostly focuses on failure of social institutions or organizations(e.g. schools, business, policing, real estate, group networking)in certain communities or neighbourhoods, labelling on he other hand as a theory mostly focuses on failure of a individual morally and also contravenes what the society fells as common application of law. Routine activities theory part of disorganization holds that in order to eliminate crime any place you need to address three necessary conditions, pool of motivated offenders; suitable targets of opportunity and ineffective leadership 4. The labelling theorists in this group also think that crime is behaviour that violates criminal law. They also argue that it’s not the harm that makes the act criminal but the label conferred on that Act which varies situation to situation. Environmental determinism means that people are not ordinarily going to know what causes all round them and in fact, under such circumstances, what is meant is that they are most likely to blame bad people rather than bad places. In labelling theory the audience the society/neighbourhoods are unable to engage in self regulation is what disorganization theory talks about. In other word labelling theory is reformative in nature .Sometimes public scrutiny scares or shares a person to the point where they forfeit all further attempts to conformity. ____________ 4. Faculty.ncwc.edu In Early labelling theory a person became the thing the society described him as being. Being the way they are identified public. The society does not consider their own statuses that of spouse’s parent or worker –only that they are first and foremost criminals. Disorganization and labelling both points at the social evils in a society. Social decay of society is emphasized in the two theories. Bibliography 1. Francis T. Cullen and Robert Agnew, Criminological Theory: Past to Present, Oxford University press, London. Read More