Crime and deviance

Alternative status hierarchy

Subculture providing a different way to gain status through delinquent actions when legitimate opportunities are lacking.

Illegitimate opportunity structures

Unequal access to opportunities for deviant behavior, leading to different subcultures like criminal, conflict, and retreatist.

Labelling theory

Concept that deviance is a social construct, where individuals become deviant when labeled as such by society.

Differential enforcement

Social control agencies tend to label certain groups as criminal, affecting who gets arrested and charged.

Typifications

Police use stereotypes to identify the 'typical delinquent,' impacting who gets stopped, arrested, and charged.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Being labeled as deviant can lead individuals to conform to that label, resulting in secondary deviance.

Deviance amplification spiral

Attempting to control deviance can lead to its increase, creating a cycle of escalating deviance.

Folk devils and moral panics

Media exaggeration and societal reaction leading to increased deviance, as seen in Cohen's study of the mods and rockers.

Mental illness

Interactionist perspective on how mental illness and suicide are socially constructed and labeled.

Criminogenic capitalism

Marxist view that crime is inherent in capitalist societies due to factors like poverty, alienation, and competition.

Selective enforcement

Unequal treatment of crime based on social class, with powerful individuals facing less prosecution than the poor.

Neo-Marxism

Critical criminology perspective critiquing traditional Marxism and emphasizing voluntarism in criminal behavior.

White collar crime

Crime committed by individuals of high status in the course of their occupation, including occupational and corporate crimes for personal or company gain.

Corporate crime

Criminal activities carried out by corporations for their benefit, causing significant harm in financial, consumer, employee, and environmental aspects.

Abuse of trust

Professionals in respected positions exploit trust for personal gain, leading to violations like tax fraud and money laundering.

Invisibility of corporate crime

Corporate crimes are often unseen or downplayed due to limited media coverage, lack of political will, complexity, de-labelling, and under-reporting.

Explanations of corporate crime

Theories like strain theory, differential association, labelling theory, and Marxism explain the causes and justifications for corporate criminal behavior.

Realist theories of crime

Realists view crime as a real problem and propose policies to reduce it, with right realists advocating control and punishment as solutions.

Causes of crime according to right realism

Right realists attribute crime to biological differences, inadequate socialization, and rational choice to offend, rejecting structural factors like poverty as primary causes.