About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about social policy and crime, focusing in particular on: (i) defining social policy as the actions taken by government to address social issues; (ii) crime defined as a social issue; (iii) the foci of social policy spanning early crime prevention through education, crime prevention via forces like the police and addressing the underlying causes of crime; (iv) social and community crime prevention, which comprises of education and social programs, employment opportunities, affordable housing projects, positive youth development, social/mental health services investment and the strengthening of social and community bonds; (v) the effectiveness of social and community crime prevention at reducing crime prevalence; (vi) restorative justice, which is a solution-focused technique adapted from the sentencing practices of many indigenous groups from around the world; (vii) the question of power when discussing the decisions around punishment sentencing and enactment; (viii) the effectiveness of, and positive responses to, restorative justice measures; (ix) the first right wing social policy to be discussed being situational crime prevention, which is based on routine activities to tackle the presence of a motivated offender, a potential victim and the lack of a guardian; (x) the parameters of Cohen and Felson’s routine activity approach; (xi) the main themes of situational crime prevention being increased detection risk, reducing rewards and reducing the prevalence of situations which might lead to criminal activity; (xii) environmental crime prevention as another example of a right wing social policy; (xiii) the similarities and differences between situational and environmental crime prevention, as well as examples of regulatory measures and environmental design as environmental crime prevention strategies; (xiv) an example of an environmental crime prevention strategy being the mosquito alarm, designed to disperse young people; (xv) the retributive model of justice as another right wing social policy; (xvi) the parameters of this model, which include that deviance is socially constructed, that equal force should be done unto the offender to right their wrong, and that each individual is responsible for their own actions; (xvii) the death penalty as the most infamous form of retributive justice.

About the lecturer

Dr Eveleigh Buck-Matthews is a lecturer in criminology in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. Dr Buck-Matthews’ research interests are in green criminology, protest and activism, and Participatory Action Research (PAR) methods. Some of Dr Buck-Matthews’ recent publications include ‘We, ourselves and us: tensions of identity, intersubjectivity and positionality stemming from the people and dancefloors project, Special Issue in International Journal of Drug Research.’ (2020) and ‘Review of Gender and Rock by Kearney, M. [2017] International Association for the Study of Popular Music Journal’ (2018).