Abstract
This chapter explains and analyses various different criminological perspectives relevant in the context of this book. Theories such as control, governance, exclusion, and desistance are examined as applicable to the ex-offender scenario. An examination of existing literature on such perspectives is used to illustrate the nature of the legal rules and principles that invoke criminal records, explain the social and political influences that have effected changes in this area, and assess the implications of this having regard to concepts such as labelling, citizenship, and the legal principle of proportionality.
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Notes
- 1.
The change in Ireland has perhaps not been as stark or emphatic as changes in countries like the US and UK as documented by Garland. Nonetheless, a gradual influx in control policies has been observed in this jurisdiction and such policies continue to grow in number and popularity.
- 2.
Rose observes that “[s]chemes of risk reduction, situational crime control and attempts to identify and modify criminogenic situations, portray the criminal as a rational agent who chooses crime in the light of a calculus of potential benefits and costs.” Rose (2000, p. 322).
- 3.
It is argued that the preoccupation with actuarial risk in penal systems diminishes and often abrogates the idea of social justice which challenges the socio-economic constraints that often structure offenders’ decisions to desist from crime. See generally O’Malley, P. (2001) Risk, Crime and Prudentialism Re-Visited. In Stenson, K. and Sullivan, R.R. (eds.) Crime, Risk and Justice: The Politics of Crime Control in Liberal Democracies. Devon: Willan, pp. 89–103.
- 4.
There is nothing new in strategising towards risk and control, or with promoting public safety, or with targeting ex-offenders. However, what is new is the joining together of “the actuarial, probabilistic language of risk and the moral language of blame.” Hudson (2003, pp. 52–53).
- 5.
Chief Justice Finlay commented in the case of Kenny that “[t]he detection of crime and the conviction of the guilty no matter how important they may be in relation to the ordering of society cannot … outweigh the unambiguously expressed constitutional obligation as far as practicable to defend and vindicate the personal rights of the citizen.” People (DPP) v Kenny [1990] 2 I.R. 110, at p. 134.
- 6.
Risk thinking is central to the management of exclusion in strategies of control. Ericson and Haggerty explain that in the contemporary work of police “categories and classifications of risk communication and … the technologies for communicating knowledge internally and externally, prospectively structure the actions and deliberations not just of police officers and police tactics, but also other professionals who are now enrolled in the business of control … welfare workers, psychiatrists, doctors” (Ericson and Haggerty 1997, p. 33). For an interesting work on the risk paradigm, see Trotter, C., McIvor, G., and McNeill, F. (2016) Beyond the Risk Paradigm in Criminal Justice. Palgrave Macmillan.
- 7.
Rose argues that this is despite the “incompleteness, fragmentation and failure of risk assessment and risk management” (Rose 2000, p. 333). In Ireland at present, there is little by way of a broad scale determination of the success or failure of risk assessment strategies, so it is difficult to know which way the pendulum swings. In relation to notification requirements (e.g. under the Sex Offenders Act 2001), success rates are often measured in terms of compliance, and without any reference to the effectiveness of these obligations in terms of the presumed goal of public safety.
- 8.
Ontological insecurity arises from living in a diverse world where identity becomes less certain. Material insecurity arises from an increase in risk in the late modern world. See also Young, J. (2003) “Merton with Energy, Katz with Structure: The Sociology of Vindictiveness and the Criminology of Transgression” Theoretical Criminology 7(3): 389–414.
- 9.
Young explains that there are appeals to essentialising the other, namely, the provision of ontological security, the legitimisation of privilege and deference, it permits us to blame the other, and it forms the basis for protection. Young (1999a, pp. 103–104).
- 10.
See Bernburg, J.G., Krohn, M.D., Rivera, C.J. (2006) Official labelling, criminal embeddedness, and subsequent delinquency: A longitudinal test of labelling theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 43(1), 67–88; Baur et al. (2018) Beyond banning the box: A conceptual model of the stigmatisation of ex-offenders in the workplace. Human Resource Management Review 28(2), 204–219.
- 11.
See also Uggen, C., and Blahnik, L. (2015) The increasing stickiness of public labels. In Shapland, J., Farrall, S., and Bottoms, A. (eds) Global Perspectives on Desistance. London: Routledge, pp. 222–243.
- 12.
It must be said that not all those who commit crimes will necessarily have a criminal self-image. Many may separate themselves from their past criminal behaviour and some may justify their behaviour (perhaps believing that it is not really criminal).
- 13.
Some argue that the stigmatic function of the imposition of a conviction is not entirely bad and serves a useful function in deterring many from offending (Vold et al. 2015).
- 14.
The outlets for and forms of such stigma are also evolving: Lageson, S. and Maruna, S. (2018) Digital degradation: Stigma management in the internet age. Punishment and Society 20(1), 113–133; Lageson, S.E. (2017) Crime data, the internet, and free speech: An evolving legal consciousness. Law & Society Review 51(1), 8–41.
- 15.
See Ipsa-Landa, S., and Loeffler, C.E. (2016) Indefinite punishment and the criminal record: Stigma reports among expungement seekers in Illinois. Criminology 54(3): 387–412.
- 16.
Travis, J. (2002) “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion” in Mauer, M. and Chesney-Lind, M. Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. The New York Press, pp. 1–36, at p. 17.
- 17.
The Law Reform Commission argue that the permanency of criminal records reflects the consequential views expressed in the 1870 Act (Law Reform Commission 2007, p. 8).
- 18.
Sampson and Laub distinguish between termination and desistence as follows: “[t]ermination is the time at which criminal activity stops. Desistance by contrast, is the causal process that supports the termination of offending” (Sampson and Laub 2001, p. 11).
- 19.
It must be noted that there is no absolute formula for desisting with criminal conduct, and many factors including identity narratives, psychological characteristics, addiction problems, family ties, education, employment histories, and self-esteem can affect the reintegration process.
- 20.
This is not to suggest that all those who form a partnership or have children or get a job stop offending. Rather it may be that it is the quality of and attitude to the social bonds that motivate change (see Farrall and Bowling 1999). Moreover, individuals respond differently to social stimuli (Maruna 1999).
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Fitzgerald O’Reilly, M. (2018). Mapping the Criminological and Penological Landscape. In: Uses and Consequences of a Criminal Conviction. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59662-8_2
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