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Sociology in the News – Squatting and crime as a social construct
According to Schews – ‘On Friday 1st October, an historic ban on squatting in all circumstances comes into force in the Netherlands. All Dutch squatters will be instantly criminalised – in a country where squatting used to be largely legal. The new law, voted for by the right-wing, Christian-dominated Dutch government, makes squatting a crime punishable by up to 2 years and 8 months in prison.’
This is a great example of how a government can criminalise a group of people overnight and clearly demonstrates the ‘social construction of crime’ and the ‘power of the authorities to label certain acts as criminal’.
Here a couple of clips of squatters taken from youtube – ‘squat – breaking in Amsterdam in 2006 – note the jovial atmosphere of the neighbours and police – at the time they were not criminals in setting up a squat – but now they are!
Here is a second video which provides the history of squatting and the rationale for doing it –
One thing the women in the above video mentions is that it is up to local councils to enforce the ban on squatting, which some will not do, but if some local councils do choose to evict certain squats this will probably be resisted by squatters – which in turn will be met with some degree of force by the police – this this might result in a classic ‘deviancy amplification spiral’.
From Wikipedia – Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential,[1] that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. According to author Robert Neuwirth, there are one billion squatters globally, that is, about one in every six people on the planet.[2] NOTE – that most of these six billion are those living in slums in large cities in the developing world – we will look at this aspect of squatting as part of our Global Development module.
Sociology on TV – Free schools
Watched an interesting documentary about a journalist and his middle class associate’s attempt to establish a ‘free school’ in West London. Their plans have been agreed by the Department for Education and theirs will be one of the first 16 Free Schools to be established in the UK – to be up and running by September 2011.
Their hearts seemed to be in the right place – they wanted an open access school where children of all backgrounds and abilities could go – but there was signigificant opposition to this group of middle class parents setting up their own school – mainly focussing around the concern that this school will turn into a mainly white middle class enclave.
Personally I think that the strength of reaction against free schools are because these people see how unfair it is – the middle classes have always managed to make the system work in their interests – they did it with grammar schools, and marketisation – andnow this free school system gives parents, who will typically be middle class becuase of their greater cultural capital, even more power to shape the system in their interests to an even greater extent.
However, the West London Free School defends itself against these claims and you might like to watch Michael Gove, the education secretary outlinng the case case for free schools and you can find out more about free schools at the government’s web site
Personally, my judgement thus far is as follows
– I believe that some of the founder members of the West London Free School genuinly believe in setting up an open access school to children of all class backgrounds – but this won’t actually end up happenning – their self interest will get the better of them – and self interest will mean keeping the school middle class.
As to the Micheal Gove – he is both a Tory and a politician – two very good reasons to not believe anything he says. The only reason I recommend you listen to his speach is so you can analyse how far Tory education practise strays from this vision (which is a lie – we may as well say it like it is).
Some research on gender Socialisation – 2010
In this article – – http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/18/boys-girls-gender-gap– Cordilia Fine argues that biological differences only account for 3% of the difference between boys and girls, gender stereotypes held by parents are far more important in shaping a child’s gender identity.
Where gender is not emphasised the differences between boys and girls are minimal…
Spending cuts, agenda setting and ideological control
I thought the following two quotes were worth flagging up – from Polly Toynbee’s latest post – about the forthcoming budget cuts…
‘Never mind that benefit fraud is only 0.7% of the benefit bill, Cameron’s crackdown smears all claimants by association. The tax evasion bill is at least £70bn, according to Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, and the IMF puts it higher.’
So she is basically saying that if the government put its efforts into making the wealthy pay the taxes they are legally suppossed to be paying, then the forthcoming cuts would be much less severe…
‘Cameron has performed a political conjuring trick of some brilliance in diverting voters’ wrath from the gamblers of high finance to public servants’ excess. By persuading people it was public spending not the bankers’ crash that wrecked the economy, he has won the narrative so far – no mean feat. ‘
Now the media agenda is focussing on inefficient public services – when the cause of the financial crisis was the private sector lending irrespsonsibly. Interestingly, the fact the Tories are engineering a debate about what should be cut is precisely what steers our attention away from the tax avoidance by the rich and the fact they caused the crash in the first place.
Don’t be fooled by the Tory propoganda – It was the wealthy who caused the crash and now it is the poor who are going to pay! Demand an end to tax avoidance and higher taxes for the rich! Make those who created this mess pay for it.
An interesting discussion question here might be – has the time now come when violent resistance to Tory cuts is a duty rather than merely a right?
Building on sand: Why expanding the prison estate is not the way to ‘secure the future’
Relevant to the Crime and Deviance module – on social control and the effectiveness (or not) of prison…
From the summary – This briefing argues that the government’s analysis of factors driving up the prison population is `inadequate’ and `highly misleading’ .
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/buildingonsand.html
See also my blog on the ‘Spirit Level’ – why imprisonment rates are higher in unequal societies – you might like to compare what Wilkinson says with what Professor Carol Hedderman says in this document
Soc News – What would you do with £45.5 billion?
NB – I’m moving most of the material on here to my new site – ReviseSociology.com – check it out for everything related to AS and A level Sociology
The £45.5 Billion Dollar Question: what would you invest in?
OK you won’t exactly be able to make it, but here’s a link to an interesting event to be hosted by the World Developmen Movement in Glasgow –
What would you do with £45.5 billion? It’s a lot of money – not far off the GDP of Iraq. £45.5 billion is the amount of taxpayers’ money that the UK Government has given to one single British bank to bail them out. That bank is RBS. And RBS is investing that money in projects that are wrecking the climate and abusing human rights. But imagine what else could be done with £45.5 billion. This interactive event will set you thinking about the power of money and how it can be used to make the world a better, or worse, place.
See http://www.wdm.org.uk/events/wdm-scotland-autumn-events
Marxist commentators would probably call these type of activities for being ‘Utopian’ personally I think think Utopian thought is a useful critical tool
Research – The spirit level on imprisonment rates
It is not the underlying rate of crime or the seriousness of crime that explain cross national variations in imprisonment rates – It is how punitive the state is, which in turn is related to the degree of inequality in a soceity. This is just one of the claims of Richard Wilkson and Kate Pickett, authors of the spirit level. Lets look at the evidence –
In the USA and UK prison populations have been increasing –
USA 1978 – Prison population – 450 000
USA 2005- Prison population- 2 000 000 + (more than two million)
UK 1990 Prison population – 46 000
UK 2007 Prison population 80 000
UK 2009 Prison population 85 000 (note just two years + 5000 prisoners!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/23/early-release-prison-numbers
This means that in the US the prison population quadrupled in 27 years and almost double in 20 years in the UK.
This contrasts remarkably with what has been going on in other countries – in Sweden the prison population was stable through the 1990s and rates have been falling in France and Germany.
Note however that critics point to the problems of making cross national comparisons where crime stats are concerned.
Wilkinson argues that the number of people locked up in prison is influence by three things –
- The rate of crime
- The length of sentence
- The tendency to send convicted prisoners to jail which is in turn influenced by the likelihood of someone being caught and successfully prosecuted.
Criminologists Alfred Blumstein and Allen Beck examined the growth of the US prison populations between 1980 and 1996 and found that 88% of the increased imprisonment was due to tougher sentencing laws – namely the ‘three strikes law’ and the ‘truth in sentencing’ law which means less likelihood of getting out early. In California in 2004 there were 360 people serving life sentences for shoplifting – 0ut of a current population of 37 million, just over half the UK population!
Wilkinson also argues that tougher sentencing explains the increase in prison populations in the UK – Crime has been going down every year since 1995 according to the BCS.
So basically, claim 1 that Wilkinson makes is that it is not the underlying rate of crime or the seriousness of crime that explains imprisonment rates – its is how punitive the state is.
The second claim Wilkinson makes is that a high level of income inequality is correlated with a punitive state and a high prison population – click on the table below I couldn’t make it any larger!
http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why/evidence/imprisonment
The third point he makes is that those countries that are more equal are more likely to emphasise treatment and rehabilitation than punishment – with suspended rather than custodial sentencing more likely. This approach is found in the Netherlands and in Japan where some prisons have been called ‘islands of tranquillity. Guards are expected to be role models in the prisoners’ rehabilitation.
I just couldn’t resist this – the Dutch police clip from the Fast Show – I’m sure they’re not this relaxed…
And a link to a blog about a Swedish jail http://welcometosweden.blogspot.com/2007/12/youtube-funny-swedish-prison-cell.html (careful with this I’m not sure how real it is!)
Wilkinson contrasts this to the crowded conditions and violence of guards the ‘supermax’ prisons in the USA – which are prisons within prisons where prisoners are kept in extreme isolation for up to 23 hours a day – estimates say that up to 40 000 people have been kept in these conditions. Medical Anthropologist Lorna Rhodes describes prisoners’ lives here as characterised by lack of movement, stimulation and social contact.
A link to a CBS report and video – Supermax – ‘A clean version of hell’ – in the words of one of its ex wardens –http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/11/60minutes/main3357727.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_3357727
Wilkinson says ‘Not only do the higher crime rates of imprisonment in more unequal societies seem to reflect more punitive sentencing rather than crime rates, but both the harshness of the prison system and use of capital punishment point in the same direction’
The fourth point Wilkinson makes is that prison doesn’t work – he reports reoffending rates in the US and UK at about 60 -65% and in Sweden and Japan at 35 and 40% – one thing worth thinking about is that the higher the rate of reoffending, the higher the prison population – as you are more likely to go to jail for a second than a first offence!
He also suggests that there is a concern that ASBOs actually increase crime.
Finally, and in an interesting conclusion to the chapter, Wilkinson suggests that in unequal socieites, where the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are greater, the result is a greater sense of fragmentation, which in turn leads to mistrust of others and a heightened fear of crime – this then leads to a public demand for politicians to get tough on crime, which they do in order to gain popularity. All of this of course is exaggerated by the media!
He contrasts this to more equal societies which are more likely to have a CJS that works with professionals – criminologists, lawyers and prison psychiatrists to think about how to actually reduce crime and rehabilitate offenders.
On the ineffectiveness of harsh punishment I also found this quote which appears at the end of the first link (the BBC one) at the top of this item
Frances Crook, the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said that having doubled since the mid-1990s, a new record had been reached with no end in sight to further record highs.
“This ceaseless growth in prison numbers is untenable and any new administration will have to bite the bullet and find a strategic way to reduce the prison population,” she said.
“Recent statistics show that 36.8% reoffended on community sentences in 2008, compared with more than 61% for those sentenced to a year or less in prison. Not only are community sentences more effective at reducing crime but they come at a fraction of the price, with a community order costing on average £2,000-£3,000 a year, compared with at least £41,000 a year to run a prison place.”
So – if you believe Wilkinson’s stats, and a whole load of other stats incidentally, inequality leads to fear which leads to a punitive CJS which leads to a higher prison population.
NB – We will discuss the obvious problems of data selection, objectivity and attributing causality at some point in class.
A quick round up of good sociology blogs
At the moment there seems to be very little out there from the United Kingdom – most blogs seem to be American, so I have kept this to a manageable list – I will add more sites as I deem appropriate!
http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/sociology/ – A good, UK focussed blog on sociology issues – covers some of the same ground I intend to.
http://www.polity.co.uk/giddens6/default.asp – The blog accompanying Anthony Gidden’s undergraduate text book.
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/ – I think this bloke might work in a university – very activist focussed and recommended! – This guy appears to be an info Junkie!
http://globalsociology.com/ – a good US blog full of book reviews.
http://thesociallens.wordpress.com/ – a US blog updated by two people – lots of topical issues all be it with a US focus.
A word on information overload – don’t get freaked out by the sheer amount of information in these blogs – You can get the impression from some of them that these people know everything, when quite often they are just firing off quick links to other peoples sites. No one is superhuman (with the possible exception of Noam Chomsky) when it comes to digesting information – just process what you can!
Also, remember that quite often it can be better to learn a less knowledge in depth rather than spreading yourself too thin –specialise in one small area and let everything else flow from there…