Critical conflict practices are better in understanding the causes of developing responses to pipe vandalism in comparison to earlier perspectives of social ecology, opportunity, and situation identified by Hasley. It practices uncover reasons for crime across wider structural and institutional contexts. The approach is more practical as it assesses crime and focuses more on its production and relies on multifaceted standpoints. It identifies criminology from a range of positions thus exposing dominant crime discourse. Anthony and Cunneen find critical approach more practice as it emphasizes on, “the classist nature of crime policy and orthodox criminology” (Anthony and Cunneen, 2008). Critical conflict practices are more efficient as they assess the factors reasonable for crimes such as the relationship of crime with cultures and gender.
The social explanation for crimes related to damaged culvert pipes focuses on the radical aspects to encompass different perspectives associated with crime. It frames the problem by considering race, gender, culture and history. Investigations focus on the social structure characteristics and assessment of the relative power of groups. It also emphasizes on taking into account the complex between the economic sphere such as political, social and legal aspects. Laws governing society and operations of justice system becomes more relevant in analyzing vandalism of this type. It includes evaluation of how powerful groups such as politicians, big organizations and media influence small groups containing poor and working-class.
Though the pipes are allegedly damaged by people protesting against the logging of old-growth forests and rain forests the information will influence my choice of incorporating social aspects. The groups don’t hold certain positions depicting the influence of more powerful groups. It is crucial in this type of vandalism to uncover the entities exercising economic power and are in a position of influencing law and presenting interest to specific groups. It is more appropriate to find the actual producers of crimes using the Protestants for achieving personal gain. The marginalized groups stigmatize people belonging to working-class and then label them as delinquent. Analysis of power becomes essential strategy to solve these kinds of crimes. The protests actually benefit the large and powerful groups.
Understanding causes of pipe vandalism are more appropriate under critical conflict perspectives because it emphasizes on the outcomes of social inequality and power division as pertinent motivators of criminalization and offending. Stubbs identifies the benefits of critical conflict perspectives, “critical approaches have been valued for opening up new frameworks for inquiry, generating often fruitful dialogue with a host of cognate disciplines” (Stubbs, 2007). The approach allows investigators to analyze behaviours and practices after considering their social realities such as backgrounds and class.
Hasley’s outline fails to see factors associated with crime from broader perspectives as it relies solely on social ecology. Hasley mentions that “social ecologists came to see an important link between crime rates and level of social disorganization” (Hasley, 2011). The approach reveals that the central focus was on structural weaknesses ignoring individual factors that promoted crimes. The approach displays limitations as it sets two focal points for the identification of crimes including their biological and psychological makeup. The comparison of Hasley’s social ecology and anomie depicts that weakened controls were not the central reason for increased crime rates.
References
Cunneen, C., & Anthony, T. (2008). The Critical Criminology Companion. Federation Press.
Palmer, D., Lint, W. d., & Dalton, D. (2011). Crime and justice a guide to criminology. Lawbook Co.
Stubbs, J. (2007). Beyond Apology? Domestic Violence and Critical Questions for Restorative Justice. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 7 (2), 169-187.
