Criminology Tutorials – Spring Term 2019

The second part of the Criminology course takes the form of a series of five tutorials. It is
important to realise that these tutorials will be student-led and centred on participation. The
handouts for the lecture provide a starting-point for researching the areas; pay particular
attention to the materials highlighted on the tutorial handout.

Tutorial One – What is Crime?

Reading:

 Refer to the reading on the handout, particularly the relevant textbook chapters.
 Public Administration Select Committee (2014) Caught Red-Handed: Why
we can’t Count on Police Recorded Crime Statistics
(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubadm/760/7
60.pdf)
 Peelo, Francis, Soothill, Pearson, and Ackerley (2004), ‘Newspaper
Reporting and the Public Construction of Homicide’, British Journal of
Criminology, 44/2: 256.

Questions:

1. How might we explain and understand the PASC’s (2014) criticisms of Police
recorded crime statistics? What are the main problems in this area, and how
might we best respond to them?

2. Are victim survey methodologies (the British Crime Survey and CSEW) any
more useful to us than the Police data? Why/why not?

3. We need to read lots of sources as part of this course. But it is possible to do

this in an efficient way, if we are focused on reading for a purpose. To this end,
we will spend, in pairs, a maximum of 10 minutes reading the paper on victims
that is distributed in the class. During this time, read the paper to determine:

 What issue related to victims did it set out to explore?

 Why?
 How did it go about investigating this?
 What did it find?
 What does this mean, or tell us, about victims in general?

4. Evaluate the findings of Peelo et al (2004) concerning media coverage of

homicide cases. Do their findings suggest that the media's reporting of crime
has a counterproductive effect in terms of public perceptions of crime? Why?
 Tutorial Two – Theories of Crime

Reading:

 Refer to the reading on the handout, particularly the relevant textbook chapters.
 Geis, G. (2000)’On the Absence of Self-Control as the Basis for a General
Theory of Crime: A Critique’, Theoretical Criminology, 4/1: 35-53.
 Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., and Steg, L. (2008), ‘The Spreading of Disorder’,
Science, 322: 1681-1685.

Questions:

1. How should we understand the connection between social environment and

criminality? Does environment cause offending behaviour, shape/direct it, or
simply reflect choices made within our wider society?

2. Explain Gottfredson and Hirschi’s ‘General Theory of Crime’. What does Geis
(2000) suggest are the fundamental flaws of that theory, and how far do you
agree with his analysis?

3. Does the emphasis placed by left realism on pragmatic approaches to solving

the social problem of crime mean that the analysis of social inequality as a
cause of crime is no longer relevant?

4. How might we explain Keizer et al.’s (2008) findings? Does this prove that right
realism and ‘broken windows’ provide a valid explanation of offending?
 Tutorial Three – Explanations of Crime

Reading:

 Refer to the reading on the handout, particularly the relevant textbook chapters.
 Cole and Campbell (2013) ‘From Subhumans to Superhumans?’ in Knepper
and Ystehede (eds.), The Cesare Lombroso Handbook, Routledge: ch.8
(accessible as an e-book via the Library catalogue).
 Seddon T. (2006) ‘Drugs, Crime and Social Exclusion: Social Context and
Social Theory in British Drugs–Crime Research’, British Journal of Criminology.
46, 680–703.

Questions:

1. How have attempts to use the study of biology and psychology as a basis for
explaining offending behaviour evolved over time? Have these approaches
become more sophisticated, or do they remain problematic in perpetuating
offender stereotypes?

2. What do Cole and Campbell (2013) suggest is wrong with the use of ‘biological
positivism’ as a means of understanding criminality and offenders? Why might
approaches of this sort be morally problematic?

3. Does the identification of individual risk-factors and the offending life-course give
us a better understanding of the reasons why an individual might offend, or an
unhelpful one-size-fits-all model?

4. What are the main points made by Seddon (2006) in relation to the links
between drugs and crime? How does his argument tie in with other
criminological commentary that could be said to relate to ‘causality’?
 Tutorial Four - Distributions of Criminal Offending

Reading:

 Refer to the reading on the handout, particularly the relevant textbook chapters.
 Lammy, D. (2017) The Lammy Review [available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/64
3001/lammy-review-final-report.pdf.
 Newburn, T (2011) ‘Policing youth anti-social behaviour and crime: time for
reform’ Journal of Children’s Services, 6(2)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37441/1/Policing_Youth_Anti-
Social_Behaviour_and_Crime_Time_for_Reform(lsero).pdf
 Fitzpatrick, C. (2011) ‘What is the Difference between “Desistance” and
“Resilience”? Exploring the Relationship between Two Key Concepts’, Youth
Justice, 11(3): 221-234.
 McAra, L. and McVie, S. (2010) ‘Youth crime and justice: Key messages from
the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime’, Criminology and Criminal
Justice, 10/2: 179-209.

Questions:

1. How is the criminal law and criminal justice 'gendered' i.e. which criminal laws
discriminate for gender and how do criminal justice institutions (e.g. police;
courts) discriminate for gender (remember, discrimination is not always negative;
we can positively discriminate too)?

2. What factors did the Lammy Review (2017) identify as responsible for the
perceived differences in offending and imprisonment rates between different
ethnic/racial groups? How have criminal justice institutions (esp. police)
attempted to redress the disproportionate (and discriminatory) treatment of
ethnic minorities in criminal justice?

3. What is meant by ‘desistance’ from offending; and how does Fitzpatrick (2011)
relate this to discussions of youth crime?

4. What were Anti-Social Behaviour Orders? Why, according to Newburn (2011)

were they so controversial in a youth justice setting? Do you think formal social
controls tend to support or erode informal social controls?
 Tutorial Five – Responses to Crime

Reading:

 Refer to the reading on the handout, particularly the relevant textbook chapters.
 Norris and McCahill (2006) ‘CCTV: Beyond Penal Modernism?’, British Journal
of Criminology 46/1: 97-118.
 O’Neill and Loftus (2014) ‘Policing and the Surveillance of the Marginal:
Everyday Contexts of Social Control, Theoretical Criminology, 17/4: 437-454.
 Fitzgibbon and Lea (2018) ‘Privatization and Coercion: The Question of
Legitimacy’, Theoretical Criminology, 22/4: 545-562 (at
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362480617707952).

Questions:

1. Explain what is meant by ‘community policing’. Do you think that the use of such
approaches increases or decreases the 'effectiveness' of the Police force? Does
efficacy mean different things for different social groups?

2. How do Norris and McCahill (2006) see CCTV relating to the ideas of Garland
and others about a ‘new’, or ‘late-modern’ penology? Which aspects of the use
of CCTV do you think are most valuable, and which are most worrying?

3. What do O’Neill and Loftus (2014) conclude is so problematic about ‘mundane

policing’ via surveillance? How does it relate to the wider trends in criminal
justice discussed elsewhere on the course?

4. Is the privatisation of justice provision a positive development within the British

penal system? What, according to Fitzgibbon and Lea (2017), are the
strengths and weaknesses of this policy model?