Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-x5cpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-31T15:18:24.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

5 - Stretching Punishment: The State, Law and Order, and Threatening the Spectator

from Part II - The Total Policy of Containment

Get access

Summary

The previous two chapters examined coordinated police tactics and physical space divisions, emphasizing the state's use of aggressive tactics to prevent football violence. Throughout government discussions, authorities failed to consider social research into the background of football violence, instead opting for increased punishment as its most effective disincentive. In this chapter, evidence will show that football governors also explored ways of manipulating the legal system in order to enact extreme punitive measures against rowdy football supporters, arguably exacerbating and provoking the behaviour they sought to control. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Home Office and Department of Environment officials explored how to maximize legal punishment by pressuring the magistrates' courts, working to change available arrest charges and exploring new sentencing options. Under pressure from MPs, police authorities and the public, sports governors attempted to appease calls for swift justice and harsh penalization. As moral anxieties about football violence developed, government officials responded by endorsing law-and-order principles and attempted to deter violence through disproportionate punishment. As football violence escalated and became a political embarrassment, government officials carefully inquired into ways of manipulating the process of conviction and sentencing for football spectators. Several government parties explored punitive measures like steeper fines, extended custodial sentences, juvenile detention, exclusion from matches and even corporal punishment, which were met with varying levels of success. In doing so, successive governments again focused on cultural expressions of authority and social rectification rather than the debilitating material circumstances which contributed to outbreaks of social unrest.

Type
Chapter
Information
Violence and Racism in Football
Politics and Cultural Conflict in British Society, 1968–1998
, pp. 123 - 146
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×