Thursday 1 okt
Criminology in tropical rainforests – dr. Tim Boekhout
Concept of sustainable development
Illegal logging, before (1997) it was ‘irregular trade’
Conflict timber
Global deforestation is the main cause of biodiversity loss. 1 soccerfield per second.
Illegal logging often poorly understood
- Criminal networks involved; u need equipment so not for ‘small’ people
- Not always or primarily economically ‘poor’, not in the Amazan
- Generally timber (= hout) business involved; corporate-organized crime
- Very organized and equipped with technology
- Hit and run
Moroccan panic – Bouabid
The Moroccan problem
Guest workers
Positive developments -> major Rotterdam
Negative developments
Cohen – classic moral panic theory
A misplaced reaction
A societal overreaction => moral panic
Results of his research:
- Exaggeration and distortion in the number of people arrested e.g.
- Prediction
- Orientation of society toward the events (riots in Amsterdam e.g.) → presented as a
Marokkanenprobleem
- Symbolization of the Moroccan of public enemy number 1
- Images → gay bashers, drug runners, terrorist, loverboys
- Causes
- Sensitization
- Societal control culture → involvement of regional/national authorities, unrealistic methods of
social control
- Folk devils (“don’t be like those moroccan’’) vs folk heroes
,The moral panic side
The real problem, the real significance (in blue)
The folk devil side
Mass stigmatization in daily life
- Media discourse on Moroccans and Muslims is negative
- Negative media discourse on Moroccans and Muslims influences the Dutch, and leads to
stigmatization and discrimination in daily interactions
Coping with mass stigmatization
- Ignoring → when they are confronted with discrimination they simply ignore it to maintain a
peaceful state of mind
- Selective conforming → they hide their Moroccan culture/Islamic culture (verkaasd)
- Reforming → actively to do something about the problem
- Selective retreating (not that much used) → avoidance of threatening environments where
they expect discrimination e.g. neighborhood, working places
- Contesting → protesting, violence
What he not found was:
- Internalizing
- Total retreating/isolation
- Total conforming/assimilation
The evolution of the Dutch gang – Robby Roks
Dutch Crips → also see the article
Tuesday 6-10-20
Crime control 1: criminal justice system and punishment
Punishment
Views on justice and punishment:
- The power to punish derives from the legal authority of the state to do things that would
otherwise be prima facie1 morally wrongful
- Justify punishment based on broader moral and political philosophies vs explain why particular
societies adopt specific punishments (sociology)
- Punishment is an inherently complex business connected to many theoretical perspectives
Reductivist perspective
111
An example of prima facie is when a wife walks in on her husband with another woman; at first
glance, it looks as if he is guilty of something just because of the circumstances.
, - Justifies punishment on the ground that it helps to reduce the incidence of crime; basis is
utilitarianism (Bentham)
- Wrong experienced by offender is outweighed by the compensating good effects for overall
human well-being
- Reductivist strategies:
o Deterrence
▪ Individual or specific → the aim of punishment to discourage the offender from
committing (further) criminal acts in the future
▪ General → the impact of the threat of legal punishment on the public at large; in a
broader sense
o Reform
▪ 19th century strategy to change offender through hard labour and religious instruction
o Rehabilitate
▪ 20th century; individualized treatment programmes (welfare state); target and change
criminogenic individual risk factors
• Education, employment, financial situation
• Relationships, substance abuse
• Criminal attitudes
• Criminal thinking patterns; neutralization
• Self-control
1970: nothing works
2000: facilitate change instead of coercion
Closer ties to prison system than before
o Incapacitate
▪ Protect potential victims, the public by locking people up
▪ Three strikes law (= imposes life sentence for 3 or more convictions)
▪ Increase in prison population
▪ Disproportionate impact on young, less educated, ethnic minorities
Retributive perspective
- Wrongdoers deserve it -> eye for an eye
- Restore the moral equilibrium (Kant) – denunciation
- Persons (offenders) should never be used as a ‘means to an end’
- Just deserts: more dure process-based, right of the guilty, proportionality is central
Sociological views on punishment:
Focus on the ways in which penal policy is determined by social and political forces and struggles of
interests.
Durkheim and punishment
- Functionalist view; punishment has an important role in society
- Punishment maintains social order in face If rapid social change
- Expressive quality of punishment: rituals
- Sustains social solidarity: shared conventions, meanings and moralities that hold societies
together
- Reassures public sentiment
Criminology in tropical rainforests – dr. Tim Boekhout
Concept of sustainable development
Illegal logging, before (1997) it was ‘irregular trade’
Conflict timber
Global deforestation is the main cause of biodiversity loss. 1 soccerfield per second.
Illegal logging often poorly understood
- Criminal networks involved; u need equipment so not for ‘small’ people
- Not always or primarily economically ‘poor’, not in the Amazan
- Generally timber (= hout) business involved; corporate-organized crime
- Very organized and equipped with technology
- Hit and run
Moroccan panic – Bouabid
The Moroccan problem
Guest workers
Positive developments -> major Rotterdam
Negative developments
Cohen – classic moral panic theory
A misplaced reaction
A societal overreaction => moral panic
Results of his research:
- Exaggeration and distortion in the number of people arrested e.g.
- Prediction
- Orientation of society toward the events (riots in Amsterdam e.g.) → presented as a
Marokkanenprobleem
- Symbolization of the Moroccan of public enemy number 1
- Images → gay bashers, drug runners, terrorist, loverboys
- Causes
- Sensitization
- Societal control culture → involvement of regional/national authorities, unrealistic methods of
social control
- Folk devils (“don’t be like those moroccan’’) vs folk heroes
,The moral panic side
The real problem, the real significance (in blue)
The folk devil side
Mass stigmatization in daily life
- Media discourse on Moroccans and Muslims is negative
- Negative media discourse on Moroccans and Muslims influences the Dutch, and leads to
stigmatization and discrimination in daily interactions
Coping with mass stigmatization
- Ignoring → when they are confronted with discrimination they simply ignore it to maintain a
peaceful state of mind
- Selective conforming → they hide their Moroccan culture/Islamic culture (verkaasd)
- Reforming → actively to do something about the problem
- Selective retreating (not that much used) → avoidance of threatening environments where
they expect discrimination e.g. neighborhood, working places
- Contesting → protesting, violence
What he not found was:
- Internalizing
- Total retreating/isolation
- Total conforming/assimilation
The evolution of the Dutch gang – Robby Roks
Dutch Crips → also see the article
Tuesday 6-10-20
Crime control 1: criminal justice system and punishment
Punishment
Views on justice and punishment:
- The power to punish derives from the legal authority of the state to do things that would
otherwise be prima facie1 morally wrongful
- Justify punishment based on broader moral and political philosophies vs explain why particular
societies adopt specific punishments (sociology)
- Punishment is an inherently complex business connected to many theoretical perspectives
Reductivist perspective
111
An example of prima facie is when a wife walks in on her husband with another woman; at first
glance, it looks as if he is guilty of something just because of the circumstances.
, - Justifies punishment on the ground that it helps to reduce the incidence of crime; basis is
utilitarianism (Bentham)
- Wrong experienced by offender is outweighed by the compensating good effects for overall
human well-being
- Reductivist strategies:
o Deterrence
▪ Individual or specific → the aim of punishment to discourage the offender from
committing (further) criminal acts in the future
▪ General → the impact of the threat of legal punishment on the public at large; in a
broader sense
o Reform
▪ 19th century strategy to change offender through hard labour and religious instruction
o Rehabilitate
▪ 20th century; individualized treatment programmes (welfare state); target and change
criminogenic individual risk factors
• Education, employment, financial situation
• Relationships, substance abuse
• Criminal attitudes
• Criminal thinking patterns; neutralization
• Self-control
1970: nothing works
2000: facilitate change instead of coercion
Closer ties to prison system than before
o Incapacitate
▪ Protect potential victims, the public by locking people up
▪ Three strikes law (= imposes life sentence for 3 or more convictions)
▪ Increase in prison population
▪ Disproportionate impact on young, less educated, ethnic minorities
Retributive perspective
- Wrongdoers deserve it -> eye for an eye
- Restore the moral equilibrium (Kant) – denunciation
- Persons (offenders) should never be used as a ‘means to an end’
- Just deserts: more dure process-based, right of the guilty, proportionality is central
Sociological views on punishment:
Focus on the ways in which penal policy is determined by social and political forces and struggles of
interests.
Durkheim and punishment
- Functionalist view; punishment has an important role in society
- Punishment maintains social order in face If rapid social change
- Expressive quality of punishment: rituals
- Sustains social solidarity: shared conventions, meanings and moralities that hold societies
together
- Reassures public sentiment
