CRM 304: Canadian Criminal Justice

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CRM 304 Canadian Criminal Justice

• Week 13
• Critiques of and Alternatives to the Criminal
  Justice System

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This Week

• Critiques of the traditional CJS
• Crime Prevention
• Social development
• Situational
• Community crime prevention
• Restorative justice
• Community / problem-oriented policing (see Week 5
  notes)

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Critiques of the CJS

• The Criminal Justice System is
• unable to cope with the actual quantity of crime
• fails to identify many criminal offenders and
  bring them to justice
• fails to rehabilitate those offenders who are
  identified by the criminal justice system
• fails to address the underlying factors
  associated with crime and criminality
• may in fact promote crime through corrections
  system
• discriminates against (visible) minorities
• is insufficiently resourced, contributing to
  lack of justice

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Crime Prevention vs. CJS
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Crime Prevention Approaches

• Developmental Interventions designed to prevent
  the development of criminal potential in
  children/youth
• Situational Interventions designed to reduce
  the opportunity for crime to occur in a
  particular time and place
• Community crime prevention Efforts to
  reinforce/modify behaviours of local residents to
  take control of their own environment (informal
  social control)
• Community/Problem-Oriented Policing stronger
  partnerships with community that include efforts
  by police ti address causes of crime

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Crime Prevention through Social Development

• Premise Crime is linked to social and economic
  factors
• Individuals who are involved in chronic offending
  tend to be disadvantaged in several areas of
  their lives.
• Targets at-risk children and youth
• CPSD aims to alleviate social and economic
  problems that can increase the risk of criminal
  behaviour
• Identify causal (high risk) factors which, if
  corrected, removed or lessened, will reduce
  criminogenic qualities

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Family-based CPSD

• Basic objectives
• Strengthen the family as a nurturing environment
  for children.
• Develop and support good parenting that provides
  basic practices of healthy child development.
• Home Visitation Programs
• A professional who visits a home with parents and
  child to help develop and support good parenting
  practices.
• Visitors can be nurses, social workers, preschool
  teachers, psychologists or paraprofessionals.
• Can provide cognitive information, emotional
  support, or both.

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School-based CPSD

• Academic Education Provide factual information
  on salient subjects.
• Thinking Skills Enhance thinking and
  decision-making skills among students delinquent
  and at-risk populations specifically.
• Tutoring/Mentoring Remedial support for
  academic under-achievers.
• Behavior Modification Focus directly on
  changing high risk and delinquent behaviors.
• Counseling Individual group counseling for
  students with specific risk factors, such as
  alcoholic parents, drug use, low self-control,
  etc.
• Recreational and Leisure Activities Activities
  intended to provide constructive and fun
  alternatives to delinquent behavior.

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School-based CPSD

• Crime-Specific Focus/programs
• Violence prevention, conflict resolution,
  self-control
• Anti-bullying programs
• Drug and alcohol programs and counseling
• Sex education
• Anti-gang related measures
• Reducing truancy and school expulsions
• Respect for the law

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Employment-based CPSD

• Objectives
• Provide employment
• Provide training for future employment
• Different programs
• Summer job or subsidized work programs for
  at-risk youth
• Intensive, residential training programs for
  at-risk youth (Job Corps)
• Pre-trial diversions for adult offenders which
  make employment training a condition of case
  dismissal
• Prison-based vocational training and education
  programs
• Post-release transitional employment assistance
  for offenders
• Economic development for disadvantaged
  neighbourhoods

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Community Crime Prevention

• Crime is partially the result of the loss of
  community
• Solution Develop a sense of community
• Essential elements of the community mobilization
  model
• Community-based
• Collective effort of local residents
• Behavioural reinforcement/modification
• Informal social control

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Community-based

• The community is the focal point of crime
  prevention.
• Private citizens play a major role in maintaining
  order in society and therefore should be
  encouraged to accept more responsibility for the
  prevention of crime.
• Crime prevention efforts should bring together
  individuals and groups representative of
  community.
• The community must be seen as a major institution
  in society.

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Informal Social Control

• Community safety is best promoted through
  informal social control (ISC)
• ISC based on custom, common agreement, or social
  norms
• ISC refers to the enforcement of local rules by
  neighbourhood residents for appropriate public
  behaviour
• In theory, ISC restricts crime and disorder
  through a enforcement of societal norms and
  standards that the community holds dear

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Summary Conceptual Cycle of CCP (Mobilization)

• Neighborhood residents can be mobilized to
  participate in CP projects
• Involvement fosters stronger community people
  assume greater responsibility for their
  collective protection and neighbour interaction
  increases
• Social interaction and social cohesion leads to
  more effective informal social control
• Thus, aside from the direct impact of CP
  activities in reducing crime or fear of crime,
  CCP may also reduce crime fear by fostering
  local informal social control

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Situational Crime Prevention

• The management, design, or manipulation of the
  immediate physical environment
• Objective reduce the opportunity for criminal
  activity by (i) making it harder to offend, (ii)
  increasing the risk of detection and
  apprehension, or (iii) reducing the anticipated
  rewards
• Opportunity for crime can be reduced in one of
  two ways (i) organizing the immediate physical
  environment or (ii) organizing individuals (e.g.,
  Neighbourhood Watch)
• Critiques only addresses symptoms (not root
  causes of crime), does not prevent crime, only
  deflects or displaces it

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Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

• Some dominant characteristics
• Access control
• Target hardening
• Surveillance
• Spatial hierarchy
• Territoriality/defensible space

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CPTED

• Access control
• A safe design should control access to a site,
  limiting unnecessary traffic and deterring
  offenders from entering
• Access control can be achieved by ensuring
• entrances are clearly defined, well lit, and
  overlooked by windows
• installing security hardware,
• designing streets to prevent a quick and easy
  entry and exit

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CPTED

• Target hardening
• The use of security devices and hardware to
  lessen the vulnerability of potential targets to
  crime and nuisance
• Dead bolt locks
• Window bars
• Alarms
• Fences
• Safes

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CPTED

• Surveillance
• Maximizing the ability of residents to oversee
  their space, including spotting suspicious people
  and activities.
• Natural surveillance opportunities can be
  enhanced by
• orienting windows to entry ways or public spaces
• designing landscapes that allow unobstructed
  views of surrounding areas
• improving visibility with lighting
• avoiding the creation of entrapment areas
• Formal, intentional surveillance (CCTV, security
  mirrors)

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CPTED

• Hierarchy of Space
• The design of a residential environment should
  help identify ownership by delineating private
  space from public space through real or symbolic
  boundaries.
• A spatial hierarchy can be achieved by
• creating real boundaries, such as fencing
• creating symbolic boundaries, such as
• landscaping
• differing the grade or paving stone colours of
  private space from that of public space.

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CPTED

• Territoriality/Defensible Space
• The design of a neighbourhood should help foster
  peoples vigilance and ownership over their
  homes, public space, and neighbourhood as a
  whole.
• Territoriality can be made more defensible by
• enhancing natural surveillance
• providing a clear definition of controlled
  space
• designing clearly-marked transitional zones for
  people moving from public to private spaces
• attracting local residents to use public and
  semi-private spaces

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Collingwood Village (Burnaby, BC)
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Beach Neighbourhood (Vancouver, BC)
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Trelawney (Mississuaga, Ontario)
Modular Lotting
Trelawney
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Andy Livingstone Park (Vancouver)
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Restorative Justice

• Focuses on restoring the losses suffered by
  victims, holding offenders accountable for the
  harm they have caused, and building peace within
  communities.
• A process where an offender, victim, families,
  community come together to apply problem-solving
  techniques to resolve how to deal with aftermath
  of an offence
• Emphasis is on restoration
• restoring the losses suffered by victims
• restoration of the offender in terms of
  socialization
• restoring the relationship between offender and
  victims
• restoration (reintegration) of offenders and
  victims in the community

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Restorative Justice

• Restorative programs are characterized by four
  key principles
• Encounter Create opportunities for victims,
  offenders and community members who want to do so
  to meet to discuss the crime and its aftermath
• Amends/Restitution An Offender take steps to
  repair the harm they have caused
• Healing/Reintegration Seek to heal victims and
  offenders reintegrate them
• Inclusion Provide opportunities for parties
  with a stake in a specific crime to participate
  in its resolution

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Restorative Justice vs. the CJS

• Alternative to CJS diversions from traditional
  court system
• Focuses on harm caused by crime repairing the
  harm to victims and reducing future harm by
  preventing crime
• Requires offenders to take responsibility for
  their actions the harm caused (offender admits
  guilt, RJ does not attribute guilt!)
• Seeks redress for victims
• Seeks to reintegrate victims and offenders in the
  community
• The victim, offender and community members
  participate in the administration of justice
• Offenders are managed in the community
  alternative sentences