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Encyclopedia > Zero tolerance

Criminology and Penology
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Zero tolerance is a term used to describe a non-discretionary enforcement policy for the criminal law or informal rules. Under a system of zero tolerance, persons in positions of authority – who might otherwise exercise their discretion in making subjective judgments regarding the severity of a given offense – are instead compelled to act in particular ways and, where relevant, to impose a pre-determined punishment regardless of individual culpability or "extenuating circumstances". Zero tolerance can refer to: Zero tolerance in criminology zero tolerance (schools), the rule enforcement policy in North American schools Zero Tolerance (video game), a video game Zero Tolerance Recordings, a record label Zero Tolerance (1995), an American film starring Robert Patrick Zero Tolerance (1999), a Swedish film starring Jakob... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Criminology is the scientific study of crime as an individual and social phenomenon. ... Penology (from the Latin poena, punishment) comprises penitentiary science: that concerned with the processes devised and adopted for the punishment, repression, and prevention of crime, and the treatment of prisoners. ... In sociology and, later, criminology, the Chicago School (sometimes described as the Ecological School) refers to the first major body of works emerging during the 1920s and 1930s specialising in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere. ... The Classical School in criminology is usually a reference to the eighteenth century work during the Enlightenment by the utilitarian and social contract philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. ... Conflict criminology Largely based on the writings of Karl Marx, conflict criminology claims that crime is inevitable in capitalist societies, as invariably certain groups will become marganalised and unequal. ... Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people’s cognitive behaviour. ... The Feminist School of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction against the gender distortions and stereotyping within traditional criminology. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory (which is more akin to anarchism than communism), social research, and philosophy. ... Integrative Criminology reacts against single theory or methodology approaches, and adopts an interdisciplinary paradigm for the study of criminology and penology. ... Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and two of his Italian disciples, Enrico Ferri (1856–1929) and Raffaele Garofalo (1851–1934), founded what became known as the Italian school of criminology. ... In criminology Left Realism is the polar political opposite of Right Realism. ... Marxist criminology is one of the schools of criminology. ... In criminology, the Neo-Classical School continues the traditions of the Classical School within the framework of Right Realism. ... In criminology, the Positivist School has attempted to find scientific objectivity for the measurement and quantification of criminal behaviour. ... In criminology the Postmodernist School applies postmodernism to the study of crime and criminals, and understands criminality as a product of the power to limit the behaviour of those individuals excluded from power, but who try to overcome social inequality and behave in ways which the power structure prohibits. ... In criminology, Right Realism (also known as New Right Realism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Positivism, or Neo-Conservatism) is the ideological polar opposite of Left Realism. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of statutory and common law that deals with crime and the legal punishment of criminal offenses. ... Culpability (Blameworthiness) is the state of deserving to be blamed for a crime or offence. ...


The term is also used in the context of driving under the influence of alcohol, referring to a lower illegal blood alcohol content for drivers under the age of 21. In the U.S., the legal limit in all states is now .08%, but for drivers under 21 the prohibited level in most states is .01% or .02%. For other uses, see Under the influence. ... Blood alcohol content (BAC) or blood alcohol concentration is the concentration of alcohol in blood. ...


Zero tolerance policies are studied in criminology and are common in formal and informal policing systems around the world. The policies also appear in informal situations where there may be sexual harassment or Internet misuse in educational and workplace environments. Criminology is the scientific study of crime as an individual and social phenomenon. ... Sexual harassment is harassment or unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. ...

Contents

History

The paternity of zero tolerance stems from a program started with the Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Act New Jersey, 1973.[1][2][3][4] This inspired Wilson and Kelling to write an article entitled "Broken Windows" (1982).[5] The program had no significant effect on crime rates which continued to grow in the following years[citation needed] while the program itself was described as a public relations policy.[1][2] When the crime rate dropped in the mid 90's, it was attributed to economic improvement and demographic shifting[citation needed]. Official language(s) English de facto Capital Trenton Largest city Newark Area  Ranked 47th  - Total 8,729 sq mi (22,608 km²)  - Width 70 miles (110 km)  - Length 150 miles (240 km)  - % water 14. ... James Q. Wilson (born May 27, 1931) is the Ronald Reagan professor of public policy at Pepperdine University in California, and a professor emeritus at UCLA. He has a Ph. ... George L. Kelling is a Professor at Rutgers University, a Research Fellow at Harvard University, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. ... Broken windows in the Pruitt-Igoe housing development Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles is a criminology book published in 1996, about petty crime and strategies to contain or eliminate it from urban neighbourhoods. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...


The conceptual rationale for zero tolerance emerges from a reaction against classical utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham had argued that penalties should be graduated so that the degree of pain threatened by the penal system would act as a deterrent by matching or exceeding the gain that might be derived from the proposed crime. At the time, capital punishment was a normative penalty. This had arisen because legislators were frustrated that less severe penalties did not seem to deter criminal behaviour. Penalties were therefore raised incrementally until even relatively minor thefts were punishable by death. Bentham argued that a combination of additional resources to improve policing and a scaled reduction in penalties would achieve better results. Utilitarianism (1861), see Utilitarianism (book). ... Jeremy Bentham (IPA: or ) (February 15, 1748 O.S. (February 26, 1748 N.S.) – June 6, 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. ... Deterrence is the method manipulating a persons action by negative motivational influences. ... Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ...


In modern times, sentencing has become politicised as the Neo-Classical School and Right Realism have argued for a reduction in the discretion allowed to courts to adopt a just desserts approach. Rather, the judges should be constrained to impose more severe penalties in a more mechanical system which pays less regard to the question of individualised justice. The intention is to use the sentence imposed on every convicted person as a warning to others (see Rational Choice Theory). The news media give maximum coverage to "crime" and the "policies" for its control (see moral panic), and victimology has been included in the general political pressure for law enforcement agencies and the courts to take a firmer line. In parallel, criminologists and government advisors such as James Q. Wilson (see quality of life and Fixing Broken Windows) claim that by changing the physical environment and reducing opportunities to offend, there can be crime prevention through environmental design as a part of Environmental Criminology. An alternative set of strategies is offered by Left Realism. In law, a sentence forms the final act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. ... In criminology, the Neo-Classical School continues the traditions of the Classical School within the framework of Right Realism. ... In criminology, Right Realism (also known as New Right Realism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Positivism, or Neo-Conservatism) is the ideological polar opposite of Left Realism. ... A trial at the Old Bailey in London as drawn by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin for Ackermanns Microcosm of London (1808-11). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... J.L. Urban, statue of Lady Justice at court building in Olomouc, Czech Republic Justice concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. ... In criminology, the Rational Choice Theory adopts a Utilitarian belief that man is a reasoning actor who weighs means and ends, costs and benefits, and makes a rational choice. ... A moral panic is a reaction by a group of people based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behavior or group, frequently a minority group or a subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to society. ... Victimology is the study of why certain people are victims of crime and how lifestyles affect the chances that a certain person will fall victim to a crime. ... James Q. Wilson (born May 27, 1931) is the Ronald Reagan professor of public policy at Pepperdine University in California, and a professor emeritus at UCLA. He has a Ph. ... The well-being or quality of life of a population is an important concern in economics and political science. ... Broken windows in the Pruitt-Igoe housing development Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles is a criminology book published in 1996, about petty crime and strategies to contain or eliminate it from urban neighbourhoods. ... Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a multi-disciplinary approach to deterring criminal behavior. ... Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people’s cognitive behaviour. ... In criminology Left Realism is the polar political opposite of Right Realism. ...


The terminology is most commonly used to describe the allocation of additional resources to combat identified crimes in particular geographical locations or for particular purposes. Hence, extra police patrols are deployed in known hot spots where prostitution and drug dealing are problems for local residents, specialized police units monitor the behavior of repeat offenders on the streets, and on-scene arrests in incidents of domestic violence are all claimed to be effective in reducing crime. According to Sherman (1997), those that do not work include: neighborhood watch programs organized with police; arrests of juveniles for minor offenses; arrests of unemployed suspects for domestic assault; increased arrests or raids on drug market locations; storefront police offices in high crime locations; and police newsletters with local crime information. Those that appear promising, defined by the authors as "programs for which the level of certainty is too low to make firm conclusions, but for which based on the limited evidence there is some reason to expect some successful reduction in crime," include: proactive drunk driving arrests with breath testing may reduce accident deaths; community policing with meetings to set priorities may reduce perceptions of crime; police showing greater respect to arrested offenders may reduce repeat offending; polite field interrogations of suspicious persons may reduce street crime; making arrest warrants to domestic violence suspects who leave the scene before police arrive may reduce domestic violence; higher number of police officers in cities may reduce crime; and gang monitoring by community workers and probation and police officers may reduce gang violence. Note that friendly or cordial policing appears to be effective at reducing recidivism risks for some serious crimes. In criminology, the research and analysis of prostitution falls within the topic of public order crime. ... Retail selling Street selling is the bottom of the chain and can be accomplished through purchasing from prostitutes, through cloaked retail stores or refuse houses for users in the act located in red-light districts which often also deal in paraphernalia, dealers marketing merriment at night clubs and other events... “Domestic disturbance” redirects here. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...


"Zero tolerance" policing violates the Law Enforcement Code of Conduct passed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which says in part: "The fundamental duties of a police officer include serving the community, safeguarding lives and property, protecting the innocent, keeping the peace and ensuring the rights of all to liberty, equality and justice" (cited in Robinson, 2002). This code requires that police behave in a courteous and fair manner, that they treat all citizens in a respectable and decent manner, and that they never use unnecessary force. As Robinson (2002: 206) explains:

Zero tolerance policing runs counter to community policing and logical crime prevention efforts. To whatever degree street sweeps are viewed by citizens as brutal, suspect, militaristic, or the biased efforts of 'outsiders,' citizens will be discouraged from taking active roles in community building activities and crime prevention initiatives in conjunction with the police. Perhaps this is why the communities that most need neighborhood watch programs are least likely to be populated by residents who take active roles in them.

It has been argued that zero tolerance policing will fail because its practice is alleged to destroy several important requisites for successful community policing: namely police accountability, openness to the public, and community cooperation (Cox and Wade 1998: 106).


Zero tolerance and narcotics

Zero tolerance for use of narcotics is an official goal in Sweden inspired by the Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist, Nils Bejerot. When the Swedish "legal prescription experiment" was initiated in the spring of 1965, Bejerot started the "Injection Mark Study" at the Remand Prison to monitor the spread of intravenous drug abuse in Stockholm.. Bejerot was a leading critic of the Swedish drug control system, using epidemiological principles to argue for comprehensive measures to prevent, detect and stop drug abuse. The new users of a drug who not yet has been damaged by the consumption of the drug are seen as important ambassadors for drug use. It is therefore very important to identify and treat the new carriers of the habit, witch means zero tolerance for use. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ... Look up Criminologist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Nils Bejerot (born September 21, 1921 in Stockholm - died November 29, 1988) was a Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist, best known for several things: His role as a psychiatric advisor during the Norrmalmstorg robbery and coinage of the term Stockholm syndrome to refer to the way a hostage reacts in some...


In practice has the zero tolerance been a success. Drug use levels among students are lower than in the early 1970s. Life-time prevalence and regular drug use among students and among the general population are considerably lower than in the rest of Europe. In addition, bucking the general trend in Europe, drug abuse has actually declined in Sweden over the last five years. A week link has been that the municipalities pays 100% and the government 0% of the cost for treatment of drug abusers if they are not in a prison. The municipalities had financial problems for a period. UNODC made a special report about Sweden's drug policy in 2007[6] United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is a United Nations agency which was founded in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention with the intent to fight drugs and crime on an international level. ...


Effectiveness of the zero tolerance policy

The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

While correlation between zero tolerance measures and lower crime rates may exist, it is harder to prove causation. As an example, a decreasing crime rate in New York City in the early 1990s is sometimes touted as an effect of the zero tolerance policies enacted at that time. Others argue that the lowered crime rates actually started in 1991 and 1992 - before zero tolerance was enacted. In their book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner go back further and correlate this decrease in crime with the legalisation of abortion in 1973. They point out that potential criminals, the result (they say) of unwanted children being reared in a hostile environment by parents who didn't want them, were instead simply not born. To support this claim, they point out that the decrease in crime rates was occurring nationally, not only in New York City. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... The cover of this version of Freakonomics has a picture of what looks like an apple on the outside but is really an orange. ... Steven Levitt Steven Levitt (born May 29, 1967) is prominent American economist best known for his work on crime, in particular on the link between legalized abortion and crime rates. ... Stephen J. Dubner (born 1963) is an American journalist who has written three books and numerous articles. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ...


Criticism

Opponents of Zero Tolerance believe that such a policy neglects investigation on a case-by-case basis and may lead to unreasonably harsh penalties for crimes that may not warrant such penalties in reality.


See also

Robert R. Kiley, better known as Bob Kiley, (born 16 September 1935) is a public transit planner and supervisor, with a reputation of being able to save transit systems experiencing serious problems. ... Crime mapping is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. ... Ray Mallon (b. ...

References

  1. ^ a b Norman Dennis, George Erdos (2005) Cultures and Crimes, cap. 13 Dealing with Diversity: Libertarianism and Multiculturalism pp.169-183 ISBN 1-903 386-38-1
  2. ^ a b Fabrizio Tonello il manifesto 31 August 2007, p.5 [1] [2] (Italian)
  3. ^ POLICE FOUNDATION - RESEARCH BRIEF - THE NEWARK FOOT PATROL EXPERIMENT
  4. ^ http://www.brokenwindows.com/introduction.html
  5. ^ http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/sjrp/publicat/global1.htm [lxxxvi]
  6. ^ UNODC: Sweden's successful drug policy, 2007
  • Cox, S. & J. Wade. (1998). The Criminal Justice Network: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Robinson, M. (2002). Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
  • Sherman, L., D.; Gottfredson, D; MacKenzie, J; Eck, P; Reuter & Bushway, S. (1997). "Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising." [3]
  • Snider, Laureen. (2004) "Zero Tolerance Reversed: Constituting the Non-Culpable Subject in Walkerton" in What is a Crime? Defining Criminal Conduct in Contemporary Canadian Society. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, and Montreal: Laval University Press (French translation), 2004: 155-84.

Il Manifesto (Italian for The Manifesto) is an Italian communist newspaper. ...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
ABA Zero Tolerance Policy (2324 words)
While zero tolerance began as a Congressional response to students with guns, gun cases are the smallest category of school discipline cases.
Zero tolerance is theoretically directed at students who misbehave intentionally, yet it also applies to those who misbehave as a result of emotional problems, or other disabilities, or who merely forget what is in their pocket after legitimate non-school activities.
Zero tolerance in schools, however, is closer to a mandatory life sentence for a wide range of student misconduct.
Zero Tolerance (1486 words)
Nevertheless, the superintendent demoted the principal for violating the school's "zero tolerance" policy.
Nor are adults free from the negative consequences of zero tolerance.
A new report reveals that zero tolerance policies in schools is ineffective in reducing alcohol abuse or other problems.
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