Ann Widdecombe on Zero Tolerance

The Fear of Crime and Zero Tolerance You might not expect a sociology teacher to be directing you to articles by ex-Conservative Minister Ann Widdecombe in The Express but teachers need to challenge stereotypes and point out sociological ideas wherever they may be lurking. By the way, The Express website is not right up to date so it may take a day or two for the article to turn up on line. Anyway, to cut to the chase, in today’s paper, Widdecombe bemoans the spread of the fear of crime throughout the UK - and indeed, its a problem which has been noted by those from many different positions in the political and sociological spectrum.

Widdecombe argues that the way to reduce fear of crime is to rekindle trust and a key element in doing that, she says, is to take a zero tolerance approach to crime. Zero tolerance is a policy approach but it has roots in several sociological theories: right realism, communitarianism, and control theory. The weaknesses of an approach like zero tolerance are that it operates with a highly selective view of crime, usually focusing on street crime, theft and violence. Important as these are, they are only one element of crime. Zero tolerance also tends to share the assumption of the right realists that crime starts small and inevitably gets worse - which may not always be the case. It also tends to assume that there is a consensus in society about what crime is - or in Widdecombe’s case - that there is a consensus about what people are frightened of. It would be interesting to consider whether different social groups are frightened of different things.