Criminology Coursework †Assessing the riots Essay Example for Free

Criminology Coursework Assessing the riots EssayCriminology is cerebrate on the attempt to understand the meanings involved in sociable interaction. Theorists contract tried to explain sociological behaviour by looking at the patterns created by individuals that commit discourtesy. The revered 2011 riots ar pivotal in explaining criminological behaviour since official statistics show that 865 individuals were sic in prison by the 9th September 2011 for offences related to to the dis set up among sixth and 9th August 2011. This is non to say that new(prenominal)s were not involved, but that they throw off merely not been identified to date and may never be identified, however the evidence we do have ab come forward the re cent riots cave ins us plenty to talk ab out(a). This essay will provide a background for ca intents of the 2011 riots by applying the Labelling system and the Anomie theory to events that take to often(prenominal)(prenominal) behaviour. Mar k Duggan was shot by a practice of law officer from the specialist firearms command team and as life-pickings errors were made on behalf of the practice of law intensity, such(prenominal) events that led up to the riots suggest that the jurisprudence service could be to blame.It was on the 6th August that relatives sparked the riots by setting fire to jurisprudence vehicles as they demanded information about Duggans oddment, however the British flower Minister David Cameron rejected a causal relationship between the death of Mark Duggan and the subsequent looting. rough say estimateling is not a theory because it does not give an explanation of law, but questions why we have such rules. For Labelling idealogues on that point is no such thing as crime, as we create the laws and punish custodyts by specify certain acts to be deviant. Deviant kernel to de initiate from usual or accepted trites. Leading theorist Kitsuse said it is the responses of the conventional and adju sting members of society which identify and interpret behaviour as deviant which sociology transforms persons into deviants.This mover that it is not the actions themselves that are crimes but the amicable response to such actions that the majority of community deem to be unacceptable and so these actions have been made crimes. This is how we label individuals to be criminals as they do not correct to the behaviour of the ideal majority. This abide be un passably to nonage groups since they may not deem their actions to be criminal but do not have a choice, for example the introduction of the sinful referee Act which criminalised foregoingly civil offences such assection 63 which gives police the powers to remove persons go to or preparing for a rave. The aim of the act was to give greater penalties for anti-social behaviour however such activities bid raves may be anti-social in behaviour from some perspectives but is merely a form of frolic to others and so this is disc riminatory against ravers as their recreational activity has been barred.Commentators have seen the Act as a Draconian piece of legislation which was explicitly aimed at suppressing the activities of certain strands of alternative culture. In response to this Bill, the band Dreadzone released a single called Fight the Power which links into the Anomie theory (see anomie below) as the band were taking action to rebel the change in the law by getting the message across through and through their music. This also reflects Tannenbaums view of labelling that the transition of defining someone as a delinquent is collectible(p) to conflict over particular activities, which results in tagging in which the person becomes the thing he is described as existence and that the only way out is through a refusal to dramatize the evil. This can be use to the recent riots the people involved were in conflict with the rest of society. Official statistics have shown that 73 per cent of those that a ppeared before the courts for the disorders involved in the riots had a previous caution or credendum and so this fits in with Tannenbaums debate that once a person is labelled to be bad they will pass on in that manner.However, this data is only reliable to a certain extent as we do not know what sort of convictions the rioters already had and so they have been labelled as criminals due to divergence. According to Becker deviance is a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. Becker came to the conclusion that people are criminalised through the process of negotiation, known to be social constructionism for example the Crown Prosecution Service may drop the attention of murder to manslaughter if there is not enough evidence to convict for murder. By doing this the defendant becomes labelled for the crime of manslaughter even though he may truly be guilty of murder. By introducing what could be regarded as petty legislation more people will be labelled criminals, which in turn may lead the offender to act further on this basis. Lemert referred to this as atomic number 16ary deviance as when a person is labelled criminal they change their view of themselves and this then becomes their master status.On the otherhand primary deviance is when someone violates a social code, but does not get labelled. wherefore a person is only labelled a criminal if he is caught and since ethnic minorities are pass on to much more scrutiny than the white population this puts black people at an automatic disadvantage. spare-time activity the inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence it was uncovered that the police are institutionally racist. Institutional racialism can be defined as the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to the people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. This can be seen where police failed to identify the attack on Stephen Lawrence as being racially aggravated and presumed it was gang related. This is due to the labels attached to black people that they are all associated with black on black gun crime.Official figures show that black people in England and Wales are six times more likely to be stopped and searched by police in comparison with their white counterparts. The power given to police to stop and search is found under the evil Justice Act and requires the police to anticipate violence. For the Mark Duggan case although the officer may have pretty believed the suspect had a gun this was due to the label attached to him because of the colour of his skin and so such an assumption was not as a result of any proper intelligence. This reflects institutional racism as it is hard to believe that a white person would have been treated in the same way. contempt many black deaths in police custody there has been no conviction of a police officer. This is because of assumptions made that the victim must have been at fault becau se of the stigma that is attached to black people. This suggests an component of class because the lower class would most likely be punished when caught, whereas many officials manage to dismount minor crimes and so the rich and powerful are protected.The Brixton and Toxteth riots were also in response to such dissimilitude as at this time the police thought they were the law and so used brute force against many individuals for mere suspicion when in matter of fact they had done nothing wrong. Goffman referred to stigma as spoiled identities which he defined as an attribute that is deeply discrediting within a particular social interaction. Referring back to the riots this means that certain people, in particular black people cannot rid themselves of such spoiled identities and as a result are much more likely to be down to assumptions that they are deviant. It was Schur that outlinedthat a person employs deviant behaviour as a means of defence. This is germane(predicate) to th e recent riots since one man declared that he only joined in after being stopped and searched several times while trying to make his way home from the disturbances in the metropolis centre. This suggests that the riot was escalated by indignation towards the police as they inherit discrimination in carrying out their duties. Although racism is rooted in widely shared attitudes, values and beliefs, discrimination can occur irrespective of the invention of the individuals who carry out the activities of the institution.This means that the police may not even be aware that they are being racist, but the labels they attach to certain individuals are present regardless of whether it is intentional. This could be because of the small round of ethnic minority police officers and so the force is not representative, which in turn reflects the ignorance to the modern, multi-ethnical society that we active in. So is it fair to say that the police are to blame for the break out of the riots or that they did not carry out their duties efficiently enough to prevent them? The telegraph has cited that Mark Duggan was well known to the police. They had fancied that Duggan had a gun and further misleading information leaked to the in the everyday eye(predicate) that the victim had actually fired bullets at the police first. Both assumptions made by the police turned out to be false and so this created an outburst of anger since it appeared that such assumptions were based on the fact that Duggan was black.Labelling is a problem that cannot be converse easily and was acknowledged by Sir Paul Condon where he stated I acknowledge the danger of institutionalisation of racism. However, labels can cause more problems than they solve. Deviancy Amplication, as Leslie Wilkins pointed out is the process where the reaction by agents or agencies of social ascendency may lead to an escalation, rather than a diminution of deviancy. The riots reflect this as the deviant behaviour spir als out of control as more acts are defined as crimes which leads to more restraints against deviants which in turn leaves them flavour as outsiders and so pushes them into the surroundings of other criminals which again leads to more deviant acts. The 1981 Brixton riots produced the Scarman circulate which emphasised the indebtedness of police to apply the law firmly and sensitively without differing standards and although many measures were introduced to improve trust and understanding between the police and ethnic minority communities, theMacpherson inquiry in 2000 said the Metropolitan police still suffered from institutional racism.Although it is discernible that labelling causes many problems that cannot be reverted, it would not have been diplomatic to keep the truth behind the institutional racism a secret from the public and so on its emergence it is fair to say that this caused the line of the riots. As a result of this the police have now too been labelled and there of much trust has been lost in the eyes of the public. The Anomie theory was established in the aftermath of the industrial revolution where society had been subject to a social transformation, which saw a drop in the efficiency to maintain order. Durkheim said crime is normal in any society and is functional in 2 ways. The first being an adaptive function that ensures change in society by introducing new ideas and practices and the second type is the boundary maintenance function that reinforces social values and norms through collective action against deviance. He then progressed by outlining 2 typical social formations organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity. Organic solidarity is organised roughly difference, whereas mechanical solidarity displays identical and shared values and so sanctioning is served here to identify and exclude offenders.The two latter formations were used to understand the rates of suicide. Durkheim said that the suicide rates are down to social so lidarity that is the integration into social groups and the regulation of social norms. His findings showed that anomic suicide occurred where the degree of regulation was inferior because individuals note a sense of normlessness. This can be shown through the amount of suicides within prisons, namely Kilmarnocks orphic prison, where six suicides have occurred since the prison opened in 1999 until 2005. In the BBC Panorama programme investigating Kilmarnock prison a riot within the prison was described, where officers recall witnessing inmates setting fires, flooding and smashing televisions. This can be compared to the riots outside the prisons as the time at which they occur is when individuals are subject to stinting and social change. In times of rapid social change, such as that from mechanical to organic solidarity systems of regulations may be insufficient to effectively limit individual desires and so what emerges is a state of anomie.This theory is therefore applicable as the Toxteth outburst, that followed the Brixton riot reflects a civil protest against the social change because during this time Toxteth had one of the toweringestunemployment rates in the country. The citizens of Toxteth felt let down by the Government as the city hit a disdain and they were given little help to be able to survive and so could not fit in with society. This is also the same for the more recent capital of the United Kingdom riots as society struggles through the recession where high unemployment and high crime is also present. Durkheim also related organic solidarity to the sexual difference between men and women. He outlined that men are much more likely to commit crime due to the higher impact social change has upon males. This can be reflected through the 2011 riots as statistics show that out of all offenders brought before the courts10% were female and 90% were male. Whereas Durkheims work related crime to insufficient prescriptive regulation, Mertons Anomi e theory was a result of the absence of alignment between socially-desired aspirations, such as wealth, and the means available to people to achieve such objectives.According to Merton every society has cultural goals in which to strive for throughout ones lifetime and it was the American Dream that this theory derived from. Although Martin Luther King, Jr. strived for racial equality, few will deny that Americans are focused on the almighty horse. It was the idea that prosperity and success were available to all those that worked hard, however Merton argued that the cultural demands on persons to achieve wealth brought about the use of illegitimate means, where they are denied effective opportunities to do so institutionally. Although this is based on American culture it can be applied to the UK as our society to daytime aims for material success. This is reflected throughout the looting that transpired out of the 2011 riots as much of the disorder was in aid of stealing goods and electrical products.The BBC referred to this in headlines as greed and criminality, however others argue that the subsequent looting was due to the lack of help from the Government, which has left(a) many people in a state of desperation. Merton recognised that the majority of society will conform even though they suffer the strain of anomie, however those that do not conform can be categorised into four types of deviants. These four human adaptions are known as the Innovator, the Ritualist, the Retreatist and the Rebellion. In the UK the typical drug dealer would be an innovator as they accept the cultural goals, but do not use the standard institutionalised means. This could be for reasons such as previous convictions preventing them from achieving a respected job andtherefore other means are used in order to reach the desired material success. Ritualism in contrast refers to those that still have the attachment to the institutional means, however the cultural goals have been l ost. Here could glide by the single parent working hard at all costs and not actually achieving the goal. Retreatism is where some(prenominal) the objectives and means have been rejected.Merton says that Retreatism concerns people who are in society but not of it, for example a typical British tramp. The Rebellion refers to the behaviour of many young individuals in Britain as they replace the cultural goals and the institutional means with their own rules to cope with anomic strain. The recession is a prime example of an economic break down in Britain, which would result in some members of society turning to illegitimate means in order to achieve goals where society has made the end goal much harder to achieve. So, for the offenders involved there is a display of Innovation as they have the goals but not the means to achieve them and so have jumped on the opportunity of crisis in order to gain material success. Merton went on to argue that non-conformity resulted from differenti al access to opportunities, such as education and employment. From this there is a clear link to labelling as it is societies label that holds back the individual and prevents them from being able to achieve the end goals legitimately.This refers to the majority of the rioters since 73% of the offenders involved had previous convictions, and so although the desired goals are still prominent the label restricts the opportunity of getting a in good order job which in turn stops them achieving this ideology of material success. Even without a criminal conviction ethnic minority groups struggle to get the same opportunities in terms of employment. Looking at the UK as a whole, ethnic minorities make up about 7% of the population, yet in police forces across England and Wales, just 2% of their officers are non-white. It is also much harder for a police officer from an ethnic minority background to reach the rank of superintendent and so after much rejection they eventually give up. Foll owing the Brixton riots the Scarman report recommended efforts to recruit more ethnic minorities into the police force, and changes in training and law enforcement.The Macpherson report somewhat 17 years later showed that nothing has changed. The main problem with this theory is that it looks to assess fiscal crimes and ignores mindless crimes such as vandalism.However, as the riots are mainly concerned with burglary and theft (statistics show 13% of disorder was due to theft and 44% was assigned to burglary) this theory is applicable. Looking at the overall causes of the riots it is fair to say that the police have discriminated on the way a person looks and although this may have evoke further crime as deviancy amplication suggests, it is the Anomie theory that best explains the reasoning behind the riots. In order to prevent such mass atrocities occurring again, discrimination in any form must be eliminated from the Criminal Justice System. It was George Orwell that explained ho w society will become a police state and although surveillance programmes and more police powers have been enforced to give greater security to citizens much freedom is subsequently lost.Technology has been put in place in order to secure convictions, however in order for this to work the police must also be subject to the same kind of control. This would prevent discrimination on their part and also regain the publics trust in the police. The lack of opportunity from the Government has led to a proportion of society to ignore the law, which in turn creates disturbance between the law enforcers i.e. the police and the public.As the recent 2011 riots saw a more stand back approach by the police, they argued that they did not have the proper resources to respond due to cut backs from the Government, however much of the police fund is worn-out(a) on the wrong resources and so this must also be addressed for society to be controlled effectively. later on the Brixton and Toxteth riots the British public managed to regain police trust, however since the UK returned to an economic state like of that time it was evident that some form of protest would also reoccur. As this has happened, equal opportunities must be available to give everybody in society a chance to succeed, which in turn would lose the resentment that is held towards the Government and police.BibliographyTextbooksBowling, B., ruffianly Racism Victimisation, Policing and Social Context, 1998, Clarendon Press Gilbert, J., Discographies Dance Music, Culture, and the Politics of Sound, 1999, Routledge Newburn, T., Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing Orwell, G., 1984, 1949, 1st edition, capital of the United KingdomSecker and Warburg JournalsBowling, B. and Phillips C., (2007) disproportional and Discriminatory Reviewing the manifest on Police Stop and Search. Modern Law Review. 70(6) Dicristina, B., (2006), Durkheims latent theory of gender and homicide. British Journal of Criminology. 46(2) ReportsBell, I., 2011, statistical bulletin on the public disorder of 6th to 9th August 2011 King, M.L., Jr., (1968) The American Dream, Negro History Bulletin 31 (5) Macpherson, W., 1998, The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry, London Home Office Scarman, Lord J., 1981, The Brixton disorders 10-12 April 1981, London HMSO LegislationCriminal Justice and mankind differentiate Act 1994 (c.33)WebsitesBBC, December 2011, Toxteth riots Howe proposed managed decline for the city, http//www.bbc.co.uk/ intelligence operation/uk-england-merseyside-16355281 BBC, 11th August 2011, riots David Camerons commons statement in full, http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14492789 BBC give-and-take London, London riots looting and violence continues, 8th August 2011, http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14439970 Cached BBC, On this day 1981 Brixton riots report blames racial emphasis, http//www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/25 Guardian, T., 6th December 2011, Reading the Rio ts Humiliating stop and search a tonality factor in anger towards police, http//www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/06/stop-and-search Peter Gould, BBC News online home affairs, Changing feeling of justice, http//news.bbc.co.uk/hi/side/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/changing_face_of_justice.stm Kerry Townsend, Frank Tannenbaum Dramatization of evil, http//www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/tannenbaum.htm Cached Similar CachedOxford Dictionary, exposition for deviant, http//www.oxforddictionaries.com Scottish Government, HM Inspectorate of Prisons Report on HM Prison Kilmarnock January 2005, http//www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/14103535 Cached Warshauer, M., Liverpool John Moores University, Who wants to be a millionaireChanging conceptions of the American Dream (2002), http//www.americansc.org.uk/Online/American_Dream.htm Wheatle, A., Evening Standard, 9th August 2011, We need answers about the death of Mark Duggan http//www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23976405 Televi sion ProgrammesBBC One, 2005, Panorama Kilmarnock Prison Part 1, LondonCached 1 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, scalawag 212 2 . Ministry of Justice, Statistical bulletin on the public disorder of 6th to 9th August 2011, (15th Sept 2011) scalawag 11 3 . BBC, 11th August 2011, riots David Camerons commons statement in full, http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14492789 accessed 18/02/2012Cached 4 . Oxford Dictionary, definition for deviant, http//www.oxforddictionaries.com accessed 20/02/2012 5 . John Itsuro Kitsuse, 1962 6 . Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) 7 . Jeremy Gilbert, Discographies Dance Music, Culture, and the Politics of Sound, 1999, Routledge, rogue 150 8 . 1994 9 . Frank Tannenbaum, 1938 10 . Kerry Townsend, Frank Tannenbaum Dramatization of evil, http//www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/tannenbaum.htm accessed 19/02/2012Cached Similar 11 . Iain Bell, Ministry of Justice, Statistical bulletin on the public di sorder of 6th to 9th August 2011, (15th Sept 2011) scalawag 5 12 . Howard Becker, 1963 13 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, scalawag 212 14 . Edwin Lemert, 1967 15 . ibid 16 . William Macpherson, 1998, The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry, London Home Office, chapter 6.25 17 . Ben Bowling and Coretta Phillips, (2007) Disproportionate and Discriminatory Reviewing the Evidence on Police Stop and Search. Modern Law Review. 70(6) 944 18 . Criminal Justice andPublic Order Act 1994 (c.33) section 60 19 . Alex Wheatle, Evening Standard, 9th August 2011, We need answers about the death of Mark Duggan http//www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23976405 accessed 21/02/2012 20 . Erving Goffman, 1963 21 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 217 22 . Edwin Schur, 1951 23 . The Guardian, 6th December 2011, Reading the Riots Humiliating stop and search a key factor in anger towards police, http//www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/06/ stop-and-search accessed 20/02/2012 24 . Benjamin Bowling, Violent Racism Victimisation, Policing and Social Context, 1998, Clarendon Press, page 3 25 . William Macpherson, 1998, The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry, London Home Office, chapter 6.25 26 . Leslie Wilkins 1964 27 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 218 28 . BBC, On this day 1981 Brixton riots report blames racial tension, http//www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/25 accessed 21/02/2012 29 . Emile Durkheim, 1972 30 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 170 31 . ibid 32 . The Scottish Government, HM Inspectorate of Prisons Report on HM Prison Kilmarnock January 2005, http//www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/14103535 accessed 21/02/2012Cached 33 . Panorama Kilmarnock Prison Part 1, London BBC One, 27/02/05, Retrieved 03/02/2012 34 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 173 35 . BBC, December 2011, Toxteth riots Howe proposed managed decline for the city, http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16355281 accessed 23/02/2012Cached 36 . London riots, (6 August 2011) 37 . B. Dicristina, (2006), Durkheims latent theory of gender and homicide. British Journal of Criminology. 46(2), 212-233 38 . Ministry of Justice, Statistical bulletin on the public disorder of 6th to 9th August2011, (15th Sept 2011) page 3 39 . Robert Merton, 1949 40 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 175 41 . Martin Luther King, Jr., (1968) The American Dream, Negro History Bulletin 31 (5), 10-15 42 . Matthew Warshauer, Liverpool John Moores University, Who wants to be a millionaire Changing conceptions of the American Dream (2002), http//www.americansc.org.uk/Online/American_Dream.htm accessed 21/02/2012 43 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 175-176 44 . BBC News London, London riots looting and violence continues, 8th August 20 11, http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14439970 Cachedaccessed 22/02/2012 45 . T. Newburn, Criminology, 2009, 1st edition, Willian Publishing, page 175-177 46 . Iain Bell, Ministry of Justice, Statistical bulletin on the public disorder of 6th to 9th August 2011, (15th Sept 2011) page 5 47 . Peter Gould, BBC News online home affairs, Changing face of justice, http//news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/changing_face_of_justice.stm accessed 22/02/2012 48 . ibid 49 . 1981 50 . Lord Scarman, 25th November 1981, The Brixton Disorders10-12 April 1981, London HMSO 51 . Iain Bell, Ministry of Justice, Statistical bulletin on the public disorder of 6th to 9th August 2011, (15th Sept 2011) page 7 52 . George Orwell, 1984, 8th June 1949, 1st edition, London Secker and Warburg