Unit ¬Prisons, Punishment and Criminal Justice ESSAY (1,800 words) Worth: 50% A1 Submission Assessment format: Essay Length: 1,800 words Due date and time: By 17.00 on Turnitin, Late penalty: If the assignment is submitted (without an approved extension) after the due date and time, it will attract a late penalty of 10% per day. Assessments will not be accepted, in the absence of approved extensions and Special Considerations, after the marked assessment task has been returned to students who submitted the task on time. Also see section on Extension, Special Consideration, and late assignment penalties in attached Social Science Student Resources document. Submission method: Students must submit their assignments to Turnitin by the due date and time. Emailed or printed assignments will not be accepted. Is assessment compulsory? Yes, you must complete this assessment in order to be eligible to pass the unit (as explained in Section 5) regardless of the aggregate mark you achieve across assessments. + essay topics (Choose ONE): 1. 'Power comes to its limits where threat must be used to terrorise recipients into acceptance of values... [Discuss this statement with regard to the phenomenon of mass imprisonment and Nils Christie's (2000) idea of 'dangerous states'. 2. We tend to feel differently about our actions when we know we are being observed. This conditioning of action by observation is the essence of social (as opposed to coercive) control. Considering Foucault's concept of the 'carceral network' and Cohen's discussion of 'netwidening', is the use of intensive and pervasive surveillance an effective way of achieving justice? If so, for whom? 3. It has been said that the official purpose of sentencing (see http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/cpa1999278/s3a.html) are often in tension. Explain the possible contradictions within these reasons for sentencing in light of the academic discussions of whether punishment can or cannot be justified, and for whom. 4. Traditional theories of justice and punishment presume that individuals are responsible for doing right or wrong. But, with growing recognition of diversity, it is clear that 'right' and 'wrong' can mean different things to different people, and so a moral code is not suitable for decisions on surveillance and sentencing in a modern, pluralistic society. A more recent trend is to measure not moral factors but risk factors and decide on coercive interventions on that basis. Discuss this move towards an 'actuarial logic' (Feeley & Simon 1992) in criminal justice and its implications, such as post-sentence controls and indefinite detention. Reading Hudson, B 2002, 'Punishment and control', in M Maguire, R Morgan & R Reiner (eds), The Oxford handbook of criminology, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 233-63. Hall, M 2010, 'Key themes in New South Wales criminal justice', Current Issues in Criminal Justice, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 19-43. Lacey, N 1994, 'The traditional justifications', in State punishment: political principles and community values, Routledge, London, pp. 16-57. Foucault, M 1995, 'The body of the condemned', in Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison, 2nd Vintage Books edn, Vintage Books, New York, NY, pp. 3-7. Foucault, M 1995, 'The carceral', in Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison, 2nd Vintage Books edn, Vintage Books, New York, NY, pp. 293-308. Cohen, S 1985, ‘Inside the system’ in Visions of social control: crime, punishment and classification, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 40-86 Brown, M 2008, 'Risk, punishment and liberty', in T Anthony & C Cunneen (eds), The critical criminology companion, Hawkins Press, Leichhardt, Australia, pp. 253-64. • Rose, N 2000, ‘The biology of culpability: pathological identity and crime control in a biological culture’, Theoretical Criminology, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 5-34. • Simon, J 1988, 'The ideological effects of actuarial practices', Law and Society Review, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 771-800. Christie, N 2000, ‘Dangerous states’, in M Brown & J Pratt (eds), Dangerous offenders: punishment and social order, Routledge, London, pp. 181-92. • Carlen, P 2002, 'Women's imprisonment: cross-national lessons', in Women and punishment: the struggle for justice, Willan Pub., Cullompton, UK, pp. 138-51. Available Online • Carrabine, E & Longhurst, B 2002, ‘Gender and prison organisation: some comments on masculinities and prison management’, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 161-76.