Social control in sports and the CCTV issue: a critical criminological approach

Abstract

When criminological discourse on sports is restricted to causal explanation of deviant behaviours without thorough examination of the part played by the dominant structure and institutions within this social phenomenon, the discourse is limiting and its primary objective is the reproduction and legitimation of the established opinion. Our approach determines the connection among deviance, social control and sports through the scope of critical criminology. Finally, our proposal is completed with a relevant approach regarding the issue of the use of closed circuit television cameras in sports fields, the working hypothesis of which is that this use conserves and reproduces the dominant production relations legitimating the stigmatizing and selective operation of formal social control. As a consequence, a measure of criminal policy which is presented as the most suitable treatment of violence in sports fields constitutes, in fact, a neo-conservative policy of expanding social control.

Notes

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