AQA A Level Sociology Paper 3 - Crime and Deviance

clinard

should be reserved for behaviour that is so disapproved of that the community find it impossible to tolerate

deviance

subjective, and culturally determined - cultures changed over time and very between societies

normative definition of deviance (conform)

refers to actions which differ from the accepted standards of society - consists of the violation of social norms

Durkheim

"every society shares a set of core values"
no society has complete behavioural conformity

relativistic definition of deviance (conflict)

the basis of society is a diversity of values - not consensus
society far too complex
conflicts in interest
values in constant change of state

dynamic process

1. labelling/ interactionist
2. conflict
the dominant values are the outcome of the struggle

functionalism

- society based on consensus values
- ensures social solidarity
- 2 functions: socialisation and social control

Durkheim on crime and deviance

"crime is normal... an integral part of all healthy societies"
- crime inevitable and universal
- due to inadequate socialisation or anomie (the collapse of the collective conscious - modern society rules less clear cut due to increased individuality)

boundary maintenance (Durkheim)

- crime produces a reaction that unites members by condemning wrongdoing and reinforcing values and social solidarity

boundary maintenance (Cohen)

- media creates moral panics (exaggerated over reaction by society), which enlarges problem out of proportion to real seriousness
- media identifies a group as a 'folk devil' (threat)

adaption and change (Durkheim)

- crime starts with an act of deviance from individuals with new ideas that have been suppressed e.g. racism
- neither very high or low levels desirable
- too much threatens bonds of society apart
- too little means society controlling its members too much, preventing freedom and change

Davis - function of crime (safety valve)

prostitution a safety valve for releasing mens sexual frustrations without threatening nuclear family

Polsky - function of crime

pornography safely 'channels' sexual desire away from alternatives e.g. adultery

Cohen - function of crime

warning institution not working

functionalists - function of crime

- boundary maintenance
- adaption and change

Erikson - function of crime

- manages and regulates deviance rather than eradicate it entirely e.g. police
- festivals e.g. license misbehaviour that may be punished in other contexts
- young may be given leeway to 'sow their wild oats' - a way of coping with strains of transition to adulthood

criticisms of functionalism

- only say why crime exists, not how it came to be
- society doesn't make crime with intention to strengthen society
- ignores how crime may affect different groups e.g. what about perpetrator
- doesn't always promote solidarity

subcultural theory of crime

- deviance a product of a delinquent subculture with different values from those of mainstream society
- these provide an alternative opportunity for the who are denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means

A.K. Cohen: status frustration (subcultural)

- agrees with Merton: deviance mostly wc phenomenon
- results from inability to achieve goals by legitimate means
- however, not an individual phenomenon or focuses on utilitarian crime
- focuses on wc boys as face anomie in mc world
- cultural deprivation - lack of skills to achieve

Alternative status hierarchy (subcultural)

- values spite and hostility for those outside of it
- inverts values of mainstream society e.g. truancy at school
- offers boys ways to achieve
- explains non-utilitarian deviance e.g. vandalism
- ignores possibility of not sharing mainstream views in first place

Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures

- agree with Cohen: wc denied legitimate opportunities
- not everyone wants to innovate: different subcultures act differently
- unequal access to legitimate and illegitimate means
- different neighbourhoods offer different illegitimate opportunities
- results in three subcultures

Cloward and Ohlin: criminal subculture

- provides apprenticeship for career in utilitarian crime
- only in neighbourhoods with longstanding, stable criminal subcultures with established hierarchy of professionals
- learn from adult criminals

Cloward and Ohlin: conflict subculture

- areas of high population turnover making for high levels of social disorganisation
- loosely organised gangs and violence release frustration by winning 'turf'

Cloward and Ohlin: Retreatist subculture

- double failures: cannot make legitimate or illegitimate means
- retreat to drug use

Shaw and Mckay: cultural transmission theory

criminal culture transmitted from generation to generation

Sutherland: differential association theory

deviance learnt through social interaction with those who are already socially deviant

Park and Burgess: social disorganisation theory

rapid change in society causes instability and poor social control

Cloward and Ohlin - critiques

- too deterministic
- ignores wider power structures
- South: can be more than one subculture
- Reactive theory: not everyone starts off hating mainstream
- Miller: people focus on own goal not societies
- Matza: criminals not that dedicated to subcultures

Cloward and Ohlin - strengths

- provides an explanation of all types of crime
- influence on later theories of crime:
Merton helped left realism: in 1960s helped president Johnson's war on poverty
Ohlin developed crime policy in USA under Kennedy

Recent Strain theory

- new variety of goals: boys want to be "real men"
-> Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory: obsession with money = anomic (gormless culture)
- USA economic goals = more valued e.g. school
- Labour market as opposed to value sharing e.g. respect
- society based on free market capitalism, so crime in inevitable

Merton's Strain Theory

- people engage in crime if they cannot achieve socially achievable goals by appropriate means
- structural: unequal opportunities
- cultural: emphasis on goals but not how to achieve them legitimately
- developed from Durkheim's anomie

Merton - The American Dream

- expected to pursue by legitimate means
- Americans sold their society meritocratic with opportunities for all
- different in reality; disadvantaged groups denied opportunities to achieve
- strain between goal and lack of legitimate means produces frustration

Conformity (Merton - adaption to strain)

accept approved goal and strive to achieve them legitimately

Innovation (Merton - adaption to strain)

accept goal but uses legitimate means, those at the end of class structure

Ritualism (Merton - adaption to strain)

give up on achieving goals but have interlaced legitimate means so they follow the rules, typical of lower MC office workers

Retreatism (Merton - adaption to strain)

reject goals and means and become a drop pit, typically trams, drug addicts e.g.

Rebellion (Merton - adaption to strain)

reject existing rules in society and replaces with new goals hoping to bring about revolution e.g. political radicals and counter-cultures like hippies

Merton - critiques

- takes official statistics at face value - over represents WC and sees crime as WC
- Marxists: ignore power of ruling class
- Assumes value consensus
- Only accounts for utilitarian crimes for monetary gain

Merton - strengths

- explains patterns shown in crime statistics

Becker: labelling theory

"social groups create deviance by creating rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders"

How and why are rules made? : labelling theory

"moral entrepreneurs" again laws: creates new outsiders and expands social control agency

Platt: labelling theory

idea of juvenile delinquency originally created as part of a Victorian campaign aimed at protecting young people at risk from truancy and sexual promiscuity

labelling theory

depends on appearance, background, personal biography, and situation and circumstances of offence

Piliavin and Brair: labelling theory

police decisions to arrest youths based on physical e.g. ethnicity, manners from which they make judgements about character, can also be influences by time and place

Cicourel: negotiation of justice

- officer stereotypes leads them to concentrate on particular people, leads to class bias in crime
- agents of control reinforce this - juvenile delinquency coming from broken homes, think they'll reoffend
- MC youths no charged due to fitting type
- statistics not realistic and should be investigated

Lemert: Primary effects of labelling

- primary = acts before public label
- pointless to seek causes as so widespread
- not part of organised way of life
- little significance for individuals status, dont see themselves as deviant

Secondary effects of labelling

- result of societal reaction
- master status: Label for life
- accept label - reoffend - secondary deviance
- Young: hippy marijuana users; drugs primary to begin with, reaction causes them to become outsiders, more drug use, more reaction

Deviance amplification

- spirals, attempt to control deviance increases it
- Cohen: folk devil and moral panics

Labelling and criminal justice policy

- attempts to control has opposite effects
- criminal justice system: less tolerant - increase of deviance (secondary); Triplett: young offenders evil so less tolerant of minor offences
- policy implications: negative label = more deviance
- De Haan: Holland; decriminalise soft drugs = less secondary deviance as no more naming and shaming

Braithwaite - Reintegrative shaming

- labels act but not person
- prevents stigmatisation but makes them aware of their actions - officers forgive them - prevents secondary deviance

Labelling theory- criticisms

- deterministic
- gives offender victim status - ignores victim
- implies without labelling, crime wouldn't exist
- Downes and Rock: free will does play a role

Labelling theory - strengths

- shows law not fixed and discriminatory
- statistics more of a record of action of social control agents
- review of restorative justice schemes in UK by Shapland et al found offenders who has been through the process less likely to offend

Marxists - Criminogenic Capitalism

- crime inevitable as crime caused by nature
- rise in WC crime due to exploitation
- Poverty = crime only way (utilitarian: only way to get goods, non-utilitarian: frustration)
- Not only WC: "dog eat dog" e.g. tax evasion
- Gordon: crime rational response to capitalism and found in all social classes

Marxists - the state and law making

- Chambliss: laws protect private property
- Snider: capitalist state reluctant to pass laws that regulate business or threaten profitability
- e.g. intro of British law to East African colonies: British introduced tax based on money, non payment = punishable offence. could only pay tax if worked on plantations

Marxists - selective enforcement

- all classes commit crime
- Reiman: MC commit most crime but less likely to be treated as primal offence (wrote the rich get richer and the poor get poorer)
-high rate of conviction "street crime" - typical WC

Marxists - ideological functions for crime and the law

- Pearce: laws appear to benefit WC e.g. health + safety, but benefit MC e.g. workers fit - gives capitalism 'caring' face
- Carson: 200 firms broke health and safety laws on one occasion
- 1.5% prosecution MC
- law enforced selectively - divides WC to blame criminals and protect capitalism

Marxism - critiques

- ignores relationship between crime and non-class inequalities
- not all capitalist societies have high crime rates e.g. Japan 1/5 homoside rates than USA
- Ignores inter-class crime e.g. mugging
- not clear how capitalism can be caring

Marxism - strengths

- explains relationship between crime, laws and capitalism
- influenced recent studies - Slapper and Tombs corporate crime = under policed so pushes companies to use criminal means

Neo-Marxism

- capitalist society based on exploitation and class conflict with extreme inequalities
- state enforces laws based on MC interests
- capitalism should be replaced with classless system

Neo-Marxism

- adapt Marxism to apply to modern day
- influenced by Marxism and labelling theory
- need comprehensive understanding of crime to change society

Neo-Marxism: anti-deterministic (Taylor et al)

- reject marxist deterministic view that crime caused by other external factors
- voluntaristic (free will)
- criminals not passive poppets - actions meaningful and conscious choice to change society e.g. distribute wealth
- shouldnt be labelled as deviant

Neo-Marxism: how to understand criminals

- wider origins: unequal distribution of wealth and power
- immediate origins: context of action committed
- act itself: meaning to criminal
- immediate origins of social reaction
- wider origins of social reaction: who has power
- effects of labelling on future actions

Neo-Marxism - critiques

- gender blind as focuses on male criminality
- Burke: explanation too general and idealistic

Neo-Marxism - strengths

- Hall et al: applies Taylor et al to moral panic over mugging

Left Realism

- developed in 1960s
- like Marxists, see society as unequal
- however, are reformists, believe in slow, gradual change
- need to develop explanations of crime that will lead to practical strategies

Left Realism - taking crime seriously

- crime real problem effecting disadvantaged groups
- serious rise in crime since 1960s
- Young: crisis in explaining crime
- disadvantaged groups: most targeted and scared

Left Realism - taking crime seriously

- critical criminology and labelling: no increase in crime, just reports
- increase too great -> more reports -> more crime
- need to recognise most affected: local victims surveys show more than official

Left Realism - causes of crime: relative deprivation (Lea and Young)

- crime in deprivation but deprivation doesn't always lead to crime
- drawn from Runicman: all suffer if face failure
- WC more likely to experience due to humiliation

Left Realism - causes of crime: subculture (Lea and Young)

- influenced by merton, Cohn, coward and ohlin
- response to lacking means to achieve goals of society
- led to increase in street crime since 1950s as deprived group attempt to find collective solution

Left Realism - causes of crime: marginalisation (Lea and Young)

- powerlessness felt by disadvantaged groups
- unable to improve situation so some turn to violence and rioting to express anger and humiliation

Left Realism - impact of late modernity on crime

- Young: we are living in late modernity in which globalisation has brought about unstable society underpinned by individualisation
- compared to "golden age of modern capitalist society" (1950/60s) due to welfare state/ unemployment

Left Realism - impact of late modernity on crime

- communities lose ability to manufacture specific objects as can be bought on global market for cheap
- loss of low skilled jobs: unemployment
- happened when new right encouraged government to cut welfare

Left Realism - impact of late modernity on crime: relative deprivation

- cultural inculcation: media places emphasis on immediate gratification and have high expectations of what good life should look like
- economic exclusion: regardless of worth, ethnic and poor denied opportunities to achieve goals

Left Realism - impact of late modernity on crime

- nature not pleasant; crime no longer just committed by poorest and not motivated financial gain
- Young: increased hate crime due to resentment of immigrants
- rise of individualism: lack of agreement of what crime is and how to deal with it

Left Realism - impact of late modernity on crime

- high crime society with low tolerance for crime
- communities disintegrate as individuals isolate
- fear of crime = harsher punishment

Left Realism - policy solutions

- eradicate institutional racism from CJS and stop racist profiling in stop and search
- government investment in inner city schools to increase number of school leavers with qualifications
- implementation of legalisation to raise min wage to 'living wage' - decrease dependency on benefits
- businesses invest in poor communities to create jobs

Left Realism - strengths

- Hughes: draws attention to brutalising reality of street crime in inner cities without over-romanticising
- highlights effect of crime on victims and shows most victims members of deprived groups
- agree with right realism: communities and police need to work together to combat crime

Left Realism - weaknesses

- no empirical evidence showing criminals interpret their realities in the ways described
- doesn't explain why ethnic/MC groups turn to crime
- only focuses on subcultural, not individual crime
- Henry and Milovanovic: accepts authorities definition of crime e.g. committed by poorest

Right Realism

- similar to new right
- traditional criminologists yet to provide practical solutions
- best way to cut crime = tougher stance e.g. no rehab
- labelling and marxists too sympathetic towards offender; needs direct action instead

Right Realism - underclass theory

- Marshland: crime committed by highly deviant, immoral and work shy culture
- make up "problem families" living in inner cities who socialise next generation into crime
- Murray: women lead problem families, which have grown in past 30 years due to welfare state

Right Realism - control theory (Hirschi)

- most dont commit; costs outweigh benefits
- people have 4 controls they dont want to loose: attachment, commitment, involvement, belief
- young and underclass less likely to have these; commit more crime
- old settle down and acquire these goals

Right Realism - Rational choice theory

- Cornish and Clarke: criminals have free house and choose crime; weight benefits against costs
- Felson: crime increased; policing deteriorated, community controls weak, punishments too lenient
- Wilson and Kelly: "broken window theory"

Right Realism - Rational choice theory: "broken window theory"

Wilson and Kelly: communities allow area to get into bad state, control weak so more crime occurs

Right Realism - social policy

- had some impact on it since 1980s
- Van Den Haag: three strikes rule (implemented in America): tougher laws and longer prison sentences to deter people, 3rd strike = life sentence

Right Realism - strengths

agree with left realism: communities and police need to work together to combat crime

Right Realism - weaknesses

- Rex and Tomlinson: underclass exists but not deviant e.g. surveys show have some same values
- labelling: Murray encourages bad treatment of poor
- Cohen: leads to class inequalities as rich can afford to protect themselves
- Left realists: overemphasis control, doesn't tackle issues

gender patterns in crime

- Heidensohn and Silvestri: gender difference most significant feature
- ⅘ convicts male
- by 40 9% females have criminal conviction, men 32%
- however, women more likely to commit property offences (aside from burglary), and men are more likely to be convicted of violence or sexual offences, and to be multiple offenders

do women commit more crime?

- female crimes less likely to be reported e.g. dv, sexual assult
- even when women's crimes are reported, less likely to be prosecuted or will prosecuted more lightly

the chivalry thesis

- most criminal justice agents act in a chivalrous way towards women
- Pollack: "Men hate to accuse women and thus send them to their punishment, police officers dislike to arrest them, district attorneys to prosecute them, judges and juries to find them guilty and so on"

the chivalry thesis: self report studies

- Graham and Bowling:
sampled 1721 14-25 year olds - men are more likely to offend but difference not far apart
- men 2.33 x more likely to commit
- Flood-Page et al: 1/11 women cautioned, 1/7 men

the chivalry thesis: official statistics

- females more likely to be released on bail, and given fine or community service
- 1/9 offenders receive a prison sentence for shoplifting whereas ⅕ men
- Hood: studied 3000 defendants, found women ⅓ less likely to be jailed

evidence against chivalry thesis

- Box: study in UK and USA found same level of treatment in more serious offence
- Buckle and Farrington: observational study of shoplifting, 2x as many men as women but women are more likely to be prosecuted
- self report studies:
men more likely to commit more offences and
Hales et al found men more likely to be offenders in serious crimes

under reporting of male crime against women

- 2012: 8% of women sexually assaulted report it
- Yearnshire: women suffer 35 assaults before reporting DV
- crimes of powerful underreported, and more likely to committed by men
- women's offences less serious
e.g. lower rate of prosecutions of females as crimes are less serious and less likely to go to trial
- women more likely to show remorse

feminists - bias against women

- Heidensohn: women treated more harshly
- Sharpe: double standards e.g. sexual activity; 7/11 women given support because they're sexually active but none of the 44 boys
- Carlen: women are less likely to be jailed because of their crimes but more of the court's assessment of them as wives, daughters and mothers

feminists - bias against women

- criminal justice system patriarchal
e.g. rape cases, male judges make sexual remarks
- Walklate: victim often on trial in rape cases as she has to prove her respectability in order to have her evidence accepted
- Adler: women deemed to lack respectability = less likely to have their testimonies believed in court

functionalist sex role theory

- explains gender differences in criminal behaviour in terms of differences of gender socialisation e.g.
- norms and values associated with traditional femininity are not likely to lead to crime, but those with masculinity are e.g. boys encouraged to be tough, aggressive; more likely to commit acts of violence in the future

functionalist sex role theory

Parsons: differences due to gender roles in traditional nuclear family; men instrumental breadwinner role , women expressive role, giving role models for women
- Cohen: lack of male role models means boys more likely to turn to all male street gangs as source of masculinity

criticism of functionalist sex role theory

Walklate: Parsons assumes because women have biological capacity to bear children they are best suited to expressive role

Heidensohn: patriarchal control at home

- woman's domestic role restricts free time, less opportunity to go out and offend
- women who don't fulfill role enforced to through force
- Dobashand Dobash: many violent attacks due to fact women don't complete domestic 'duties'
- daughters develop 'bedroom culture' as less likely to be able to stay out late, and do more housework than boys

Heidensohn: patriarchal control in public

- Islington Crime Survey: 54% of women avoided going out after dark
- media reporting of rapes
- fear of gaining a 'reputation' e.g. make-up and way of talking deemed as respectable