PREVENTION THEORIES AND METHODS. For a real prevention of imprisonment.
By Giuseppe Mosconi. Univ. of Padova
1. New prevention involution results.
- zero tolerance and actuarial justice
- integrate prevention as mix of police and welfare work
- critics from social policies and withdrawal from that
- reduction of prevention to a better cooperation between police forces, between State and local
civic police
- scientific research submission to political goals.
- utopian perspective of prison abolition by means of New Prevention methods
- Imprisonment use free from principles and guarantees, even against incivilities
- NO EFFECTS ON PRISON POPULATION AT ALL, increasing everywhere.
2. RETURN TO NEW PREVENTION PRINCIPLES
- NP as totally different from penal prevention and police prevention
- destructuration of the common sense stereotypic relations as:
+ criminality = - security = need for + control
+ control = - criminality = + security
- structuration of new relations, like:
+ control = + criminality = - security
- repression = - criminality = + security
New prevention Goals: - criminality, - insecurity, - control, - prison.
- to question the definition of criminality ( crime trends), feelings of insecurity, objective security,
crimes and incivilities.
- clearly distinguish between real and subjective insecurity
- local dimension, limited area interventions, local culture and people participation, through
suitable structures.
- risk control, damage reduction tecnics
- Research fundamental role as research-action.
- organization of permanent research centers as observatories, data archives, pilot experimental
structures.
- security policies as general social policies for the whole community, not only as crime
management.
- every political choice as relevant for crime prevention.
SHORTLY. Research – Project- Implementation- Evaluation
3. THEORETICAL PROBLEMS
- Choosing Criminological paradigms, on the base of the coherence between Knowledge, Problems
definitions, Forms of intervention, taking in account the nowdays confusion between etiological
paradigm and progressive policies. and viceversa (categories- relationships- effects)
- Relationship between Security and Freedom, including two connected questions:
relationship between rights and needs
distinction between security as goal or as means, depending from security definition
- definition of the priority between the decreasing of crimes and increasing of safety
- relationship between safety as personal perception and as statistically grounded phenomenon
- relationship between order and disorder as
- theoretical paradigm
- technical intervention
- definition of crime and deviance in relation to different Law sources:
- criminal justice and penal law
- legal System
- Human Rights legislation
- Constitution
- local legislation
- different definitions of insecurity: insecurity strictly defined, unsafety, anxiety, risk, panic.
- the real and concrete causes of insecurity, in our way of life
- different identities and perception about security, by different subjects: women, poor, homeless,
immigrants, drug addicts, minorities, etc…
- definition of security as private or public matter
- conflict between safety of the few and safety of the community, as safety of all, taking in account
the substantial rights protection.
- structural, unforgettable conflict between welfare or repressive method of intervention and control,
as not easy to integrate, considering contexts, variables, knowledge, institutions, etc..
- critical approach to the deviance ( oriented to the complexity of the phenomenon, to its
contradictory and complex elements) as radically conflicting with the approach grounded on “ law
and order” policies ( autopoiethic, unchangeable, unavoidable, politically worthful )
4. METHODOLOGY PROBLEMS
- danger of some instrumental use of the new prevention method, to relegitimate traditional control
policies through new political images, new ideologies and new languages.
- forms of intervention and participation by the community: contrast between new vigilantism and
real participation to the community for substantial problems mobilization.
- Redefining role of the police, as part of new preventive and no-punitive strategies
- Which kind of research, between theory and application. Which kind of theories and categories (in
progress). How to implement forms of action as means of experimental research.
- danger of amplification of social alarm by means of emphatic campaign on crime prevention,
concerning crime in itself
- danger of competition between state and local administration about an higher efficiency in
preventing and prosecuting crime, mainly trough traditional or new repressive ways.
- redefinition of the relationship between central state, local state administration and municipalities
concerning each one competences ( projects, resources, methods…). and form of participation of
the local communities
- Danger of privatization and marketization of the security and crime control issues ( prison,
surveillance, community education, welfare. ecc…)
- To define and manage the relationship between scientific researchers, politicians and local
administration. taking in account the differences in defining functions, goals, times of work,
methods, cultures, interventions, perspectives.
ALL THIS NEEDS SUITABLE SOLUTIONS TO REPLACE PRISON AND REPRESSIVE
WAYS IN PREVENTING CRIME
5. PERSPECTIVES AND PROPOSALS.
A) Accept and really realize that the relation between crime and insecurity is a complex, dynamic
and contradictory context, involving:
- crime variables and social construction and definitions of it.
- real and common causes of insecurity
- need of security as need of a good life and a better social organization
- need of security as need of rights protection
- social needs as individually or socially defined
- labelling and identities as part of the social process, concerning not only the authors, but also the
victims and the public
- public opinion attitudes toward punishment, crime, prison, dangers, insecurity
- identities, images, expectations and attitudes
- representation from the media of all that
B ) Conceive in general the new prevention not only as an alternative to the penal law, but to the
imprisonment as such.
C) Evaluate the new prevention policies results not only on the base of the decreasing crimes, and
increasing sense of security, but over all on the base of the decreasing of prisoners number, and the
progressive reduction of prison role in reaction toward crime.