Tagged: criminal justice

Political & Economic Sociology / Teaching & Learning Guide

Facing More with Less: Thinking about School Budgets

There can be little doubt that because of the current economic conditions, a large part of society has undergone considerable strain. Whether discussing unemployment rates, downsizing, closed up businesses, or market trends, it seems that little has been left unaffected by these financial times. Of concern for this post is how schools, specifically secondary schools, have had to adapt to and deal with the economic state. Often making top news reports on major broadcasting stations or making the front-page of...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Embracing Civility or Intensifying Deviance….A Dialectic?

As prior posts may express, my attention has been gripped by the motivations and experiences of those engaged in deviant activity. More specifically, it is not major crimes under consideration but rather the marginal acts of expression and resistance – tagging, unsanctioned extreme sports, controversial fashions, and the like. While trying to empathetically understand the ‘deviant’ perspective, it seems this perspective is often dismissed as delinquent and nothing more, void of any further value. As scholars have often noted, this...

Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Toward a Quantified Life?

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about how much of our lives are being captured and translated into numbers, percentages, and statistics. It seems that no matter where one turns, some aspect of our social life is being measured quantitatively. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon – things like age, weight, body mass index, intelligence quotient, height, and physical aptitude scores have been with us for some time now. However, it appears that this movement to quantify...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

The New Wave of Deterrence and its Internalization

The notion of deterrence has no doubt become a mainstay in criminal justice for understanding and preventing criminal activity. Today’s use of deterrence highlights its influence seeing that its principles can be traced to the work of Cesare Beccaria in 1764. Reflecting the utilitarian framework, he noticed that citizens give a measure of their freedom to the government so that it can enforce agreed upon laws to keep the public safe and secure (social contract). Beccaria, reacting to the harsh...

Science & Technology / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

NHS Heroin: A “Cure” for Crime?

The General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing [RCN], Peter Carter, has called for the prescription of the (currently illegal) drug heroin to be prescribed on the National Health Service [NHS]. Although, not the first to suggest this radical approach to problematic drug (mis)use, his intervention at this particular juncture raises questions. Given the upcoming UK General Election (6 May 2010), as well as the recent controversies surrounding the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs [ACMD], Carter’s comments appear...