Studied by 0 people
Looks like no one added any tags here yet for you.
What is the difference between Crime and Deviance?
Crime =Acts that break the law put in place by the CJS
Deviance = Acts that go against the norms and values of society
What were the findings of Newburn (2007)?
- Suggests that crime is a label that is attached to behaviour, which society decides isn't acceptable
- An act can only become criminal when a label has been applied
- Crimes being labelled also depends on what context they are in
What were the findings of Downes and Rock (2007)?
Suggest that ambiguity is a factor in deciding what is deviant or not - people are unsure due to contexts
In what ways is Deviance argued to be social constructions?
Historically - Smoking, homosexuality
Culturally - Consumption of alcohol
Generationally - Smoking cannabis is seen as acceptable by younger gens
Contextually - Murdering on the street = unacceptable but solider = hero
What is Societal Deviance?
What majority of society see as deviant behavior - murder, sexual assault, child abuse etc
What is Situational deviance?
Behaviour being seen as deviant relies on situation, contact, location etc
Why are Crime Statistics Important?
- Comparisons
- Measuring police efficiency
- Highlighting areas where police are needed
- providing us with information
- Allowing sociologists to explain crime
What sources do Crime Statistics come from?
- Police Recorded Crime (PRC)
- Victim Surveys - for example CSEW (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
Describe the Trends in recorded crime timeline
1930s - early 1950s = gradual rise
1950s - early 1980s = steeper rise
1980s - early 1990s = rapid increase
Mid 1990s - Contemporary = gradual decline
Most crime is committed...
- By W/C males
- In urban areas
- By young people
- Against property 70%-80%
What proportion of crime is committed by people aged 10-21?
1/3
What is the peak age for crime in males?
14
What is the peak age for crime for females?
18
How does statistics sometimes give a distorted picture of crime in comparison to reality?
- Media create moral panics
- Change in social norms leading to more reporting
- Higher police presence
- Improvement in policing
- Police crackdowns on particular crimes deceive prevalence
What are the limitations of Crime Statistics?
- Questions of Reliability: Sociologists use them with caution
- Questions of Validity: Many offences are not discovered due to not reporting or not recording. 1/5 of crimes reported to police were not recorded
- Hidden crimes (Dark figure of Crime)
How much of crimes are not prosecuted?
92%
How much of Rape cases aren't reported?
98%
What are the reasons for unreported crime?
- Embarrassment
- Fear
- Don't know they are a victim of crime
- Deal with it themselves
- Distrust the police
What are the reasons for unrecorded crime?
- Not all crimes are entered into official figures
- Police Priorities / targetting
- Status of the victim
- It has been resolved
What were the findings of Moore, Aiken and Chapman (2000)
MAC
The police 'filter💻; crime and pick and choose what they actually record. This can be done in a number of ways:
- May regard the matter as too small to waste their time on
- Has already been resolved
- Victim doesn't want to proceed with the complaint
- Person reporting may be unreliable
- The incident reported may not actually be a crime
What are Victims Surveys?
Anonymous surveys to attempt to overcome the limitations of official statistics by asking the public whether they have been victims of crime
What are the limitations of Victim Surveys?
- People may exaggerate or lie
- People may forget they were victimised
- People may not realize their a victim
- Representativeness of survey
- Embarrassment/guilt to admitting being a victim
- Consensual or victimless crimes such as white collar, bribery and corruption
What are self-report studies?
Attempt to overcome limitations by asking people to 'own up' to their offenses they have committed. These provide information on victimless crimes
What are the limitations of Self-report studies>
- Validity findings
- Respondent defines what a crime is
- Rely on memory
- Lack of representativeness
Since 2003, Homcides per year rates have declined how much?
1050 -> 600 (550)
How can deviance differ?
Non-deviant crime
Time changes deviance
What did Durkheim say about crime?
- Crime is inevitable in society and a certain amount of crime and deviance is necessary for society to function
- Too much crime and deviance in society = Anomie
- No crime in society = Stagnation
What are the Positive Functions of Crime and Deviance
- Boundary Maintenance
- Social Cohesion
- Adaptation and Change
- Safety Valve Davis (Releases tension - petty crime instead)
- Warning Sign Clinard / Cohen
What are the Evaluations of the Positive Functions of Crime and Deviance?
- Ignores the victim
- Durkheim doesn't define how much crime is too much / little
- Ostracization and isolation
- Only beneficial to the powerful
What is the strain theory?
Founded by Merton
- Goals: what society tells us we should be aiming for in life Vs
- How we are told to achieve these goals
What does it mean if you Accept the means to Achieve the Goals &
Accept the Social Goals?
Conformity
- Conform to work and social goals
What does it mean if you Reject the means to Achieve the Goals &
Accept the Social Goals?
Innovation
- Illegal work means but remain social goals
What does it mean if you Accept the means to Achieve the Goals &
Reject the Social Goals?
Ritualism
- Accept to work but no social goals
What does it mean if you Reject the means to Achieve the Goals &
Reject the Social Goals?
Retreatism
- Reject all goals of society
What does it mean if you have New Means & New Goals?
Rebellion
What are the critiques of the Merton theory?
- Assumes a value of consensus
- Lacks explanation to peoples responses
- Ignores white collar crime
- Ignores non-utilitarian crime - focuses on crime for material gain not DV or SA
What were the findings of Cohen?
Status Frustration - Functionalist Subcultral Theory
- Subcultures emerge when people are denied status in society
- W/C boys unable to gain status in a M/C world
- Get status in another way
What were the findings of Miller?
Focal Concerns - Functionalist Subcultral Theory
- W/C are socialized into different values, which can mean they're likely to engage in criminal behavior (focal concerns) eg. excitement, toughness, street smart
What were the findings of Cloward and Ohlin?
Illegitimate Opportunity Structures - Functionalist Subcultral Theory
Criminal:
- Utilitarian crimes in areas where crime is already established
- Provide learning opportunities for 'aspiring criminals'
- Can provide far greater financial reward than working a legitimate job
Conflict:
- Arises in areas where there is little social cohesion
- Opportunities are blocked or limited which means jobs aren't accessible
- Young people express frustratuon via cars such as theft and street crime
- Status and success is achieved Bia peer groups (gangs)
Retreatism:
- Consider themselves 'double failures'
- Failed in both mainstream and criminal societies
- They then retreat into homelessness or drug addictions, paid for by petty theft and/ or usually prostitution
What were the findings of Hirschi?
Hirschi's Social bond theory
Identified 4 social bond that promote not committing crimes and conformity. Crimes only occur when someones bonds are weakened
Attachment:
- The extent we care about what others people think about us - we are less likely to commit crime If we care
Commitment:
- What have we got to lose id we commit crime?> family, homes, careers
Involvement:
Do we have time to commit crime? Are we too involved in society to commit crime because we don't have the time to?
Belief:
- The greater our belief that society norms and values are correct, the less likely we are to commit crime
What are the Marxist Theories of Crime and Deviance?
Criminogenic Capitalism
Utilitarian Crime
Non - Utilitarian Crime
What is Criminogenic Capitalism?
Crime is born from Capitalism
What is Utilitarian Crime?
Gordon - Capitalism Foci
- Crime is a rational reaction to greed, profit, competition etc. this explains both white collar and street crime
What is Non - Utilitarian Crime?
Reaction to exploitation
- Oppression and exploitation can lead to violence and property damage. Frustrated by their position in society
What are the Criticisms of the Marxist Theories of Crime and Deviance?
Deterministic - Suggests people are passive puppets
Reductionist - Ignores all other potential causes of crime
Crime exists in Communist States
What did Cicourel do and find out?
- Investigated deviancy in 2 areas in California
- Found labels create typification - common look of what criminals look like
- Typification lead to selective law enforcement
- Particularly evident in ethnic minorities
What were the findings of Gilroy (1970)?
Crime is a politically motivated act. A reaction to injustices such as racism
What is the Neo Marxist theory on crime (Taylor, Walton and Young)?
In order to understand why people commit crime, you need to look at six different aspects of the crime, when all aspects are explored and taken into account, it should provide an explanation for the crime
What are the six components Neo Marxists look at in their theory of Crime and Deviance?
- Structural Origins of Crime
- The immediate cause of the act
- The act itself and the meaning behind it
- The immediate social reaction to the crime
- The wider origins of the societal reaction
- The outcome of the societal reaction
What was Stuart Hall’s Policing the Crisis - 1978
- 1972 - 1973, saw 60 events reported as muggings
- Mugging wasn’t a legal term in the UK and this was the first time the term was used.
- The Home Secretary quoted a 129% increase in muggings in London in the previous four years. Judges, police and politicians lined up with the media in stressing the threat that the crime posed to society. Many believed that Britain would soon become like New York and Chicago
- He applied Walton, Taylor and Young (1973)'s theory to this, and argued that both the muggings and the moral panic could only be explained in the context of the problems faced by British capitalism at the start of the 1970s
Becker argued that the deviant label can become a...
Master status
- In which the individuals deviant identity overrules all other identities
What are the 5 stages Becker argued are the Master Status process?
1. Publicly labeled a deviant - rejection from social groups
2 May encourage further deviance (deviancy amplification)
3. Deviancy is 'officially' dealt with - hard to find jobs
4. Deviant career may emerge - confirm their deviant identity
5. Label may become a master status, overriding relationships
What is the Deviancy Amplification Spiral - Wilkins (1964)?
An attempt to control deviance leads to greater amounts of that deviance
- (Initial Act) Sensationalised by the media
- Calls for something to be done by moral entrepreneurs
- Moral Panic ensues
- Deviant group are alienated and ostracised
- Greater targeting of the deviant group "Crack downs"
- More arrests are made
- Reshaping of the act as criminal or deviant
What is an example of the Deviancy Amplification Spiral?
Drug takers in Notting Hill
What are Pros of the Labelling theory?
- Provides Insight into the nature of deviance nor provided by structural theories
- Highlights importance of stereotyping
What are Cons of the Labelling theory?
- Removes blame for deviance away from deviant
- Doesn't explain the cause of deviant behavior s
- Ignores wider structural factors
Pre 1970s women were...
Neglected by sociologists when studying crime and deviance
What were the findings of Heidensohn and SIlvestri (2012)?
'Amnesia' and "neglect and distortion' eg. studies of W/C crime fail to acknowledge W/C women commit far less crime than men
How much of the total prison population is male?
96%
What were the findings of Heidensohn (1996)?
Suggest women are invisible in crime because:
- Academics and researchers were predominantly men
- Malestream MC sociologists wanted to increase reputation and 'street credit; by studying macho WC males
- Women tend to commit less crime or less detectable crimes - prostitution, shoplifting
What were the findings of Messerschmidt (1993)?
Found that crime and violence can be means of accomplishing masculinity for men that have failed to achieve this in other areas
- Argues that men commit crime in order to assert their masculinityy - links to the crisis of masculinity
What were the findings of Pollak (1950)?
Chilvary Theory
- Male dominated CJS adopts a 'chivalrous; approach to women and crime
- Women are seen as less guilty and more vulnerable
- Women are treated more leniently by the law
- 1st offenders 1/2 as likely to receive imprisonment (ministry of justice)
What were the findings of Carol Smart (1976)?
- Women are 'invisible' in the sociological study of crime
- Victimisation is ignored
- Women are 'doubly deviant' as they break the law and the gender roles - more stigmatised
What were the finding of Walklate (2004)
Generally, the crimes women get imprisoned for are of a less serious nature
What were the findings of Farrington and Morris?
The more serious the crime, the less the difference in sentences
What are two other criticisms of the Feminist theory of crime?
- More women in CJS (21%)
- "Chilvalry is dead" - rise of the independent and self-sufficient women
What do Functionalists argue are the reason women don't commit as much crime?
- Gender role
- They are socialized in a way that means they are nit aggressive or have the characteristics to be a criminal
What is the criticism of this Functionalist view?
Just because women are biologically able to bear children, doesn't mean they are the best for the expressive role
What were the findings of Dunscomb and Marsden?
Argued that women commit less crime because they have less time due to the triple shift
(disagreed by feminists who argue that this exploitation of women could lead them to become angry)
What were the findings of Connell (2005)?
Hegemonic Masculinity
- Men turn to crime to assert masculinity when other avenues are blocked
- Can explain why M/C tend to commit corporate crimes
- Can explain why men from all classes commit domestic violence and sexual assault
What were the findings of Pat Carlen (1990)?
Suggested that female criminality was a result of
rejecting socially-approved pathways for women
- Interviewed 39 working class females aged 15-46
who had criminal records
2 ways in which women are expected to conform to societal norms:
- The class deal
- The gender deal
What is the The Class Deal?
- Women who chose employment were rewarded with the class deal
- Women sold their labour in return for wages and used these to purchase material goods. This meant women were controlled by expecting to be obedient, passive and submissive in order to progress
- This extends to education where aspirations of employment led to control of behaviour with the lure of good grades
What is The Gender Deal?
- Acceptance of traditional gender role
- Women were rewarded emotionally by looking after the family, and supported financially by husbands who provided security in exchange for the support from the wife
What happens if you reject the deals>
- Carlene research led to suggestions that rejecting these deals lead to criminality and deviance.
How does realist theories see crime?
They see crime as a real problem and undermined the cohesion of a society. They focus on reality of crime and what's actually happening, impact on victims and communities and the development of policies to reduce crime.
- More interested in crime prevention and control rather than why someone may commit crime
What is Left Realism?
Developed as a response to Marxist and Neo-Marxist approaches in the late 1980s which it accused of:
- Not taking W/C seriously and romanticising these criminals
- Failing to take the concepts of victims seriously and that most victims are the poor and deprived
- Offered no solutions or practical policies to reduce crime
- Believe social inequality cause crime
- Street crime causes most worry
what were the findings of W.C Runciman (1966)?
Defined relative deprivation as when someone feels improvised in relation to others or compared to their own expectations
- LRs argue that people were better off in the 1980s than in the 1930s, yet crime was much worse in the 1980s. People aren't poorer, but that they live in close proximity with people who are much richer therefore commit more - Social exclusion
What is Relative Deprivation and a Bulimic Society?
- People indulge themselves with media images of expensive consumer lifestyles, but are then forced to vomit these out due to economic restraints
- Leads to increased anger, resentment and frustration
Young argues relative deprivation is made worse by what three features of late modernity?
Growing individuals
- Emphasis on being self-centred
Weakening of Informal Controls
- Social structures breaking up
Growing Economic inequality and Economic Change
- Globalisation increasing the wealth gap
What are Pros of Relative deprivation?
- Emphasis how crime can happen due to inequality - development of marxism
- Can be applied to other classes
- Provides an explanation
What are Cons of Relative deprivation?
- Doesn't give explanation for severe crimes such as rape
- Not everyone that is relatively derived commits crime
- Only focuses on W/C crime
What are two solutions to crime that left realists propose?
- Elect police officers
-
What is Right Realism?
- Associated with the New Right way of thinking
- Argue that traditional theories is unhelpful for policymakers
- Potentially the greatest influence of current UK policies
- Share similar views to that of Functionalists
What are the Right Realist explanations of Crime?
- Most criminal are rational thinkers, they calculate the pros and cons of the crime
- Crime will increase if: there Is no risk of being caught, there is no punishment, pros outweigh cons (Broken Window Theory)
- As criminal choose to commit crime, even 'minor' crime needs to be dealt with using a zero tolerance policy
What were the findings of Cornish and Clarke (1986?)
When criminal weigh up the pros and cons, the solution is to increase the cons. Higher policing to increase chances of being caught
What are the Pros of Rational Choice Theory?
- Tougher punishments and a zero tolerance approach should make crime less favourable reducing the rates
- Highlights that criminals aren't always mentally unstable, they do often have rational thought
What are the Cons of Rational Choice Theory?
- Some crimes are irrational and don't weigh up the pros and cons
- What about crimes committed when people have mental health issues? insanity plea?
- Some crimes are more harmful than others
What were the findings of Wilson and Hernstein (1985)?
BioSocial Theory
- Argued that crime is caused by a combination of biological and social factors
- Combining personality traits such as aggressiveness, energetic, assertive and risk taking alone with low impulse control, with poor socialisation and/or a lack of rile models will lead to criminality
What is the XYY Syndrome?
'Supermale Syndrome'
- Lower than average IQ, speech impediments, learning difficulties, difficulties with social interactions and poor attention span
- Additional male chromosome gives them more testosterone which leads to more aggression, hyperactivity and anti social behaviour eg. John Wayne Gary
What were the findings of Jacob et. al (1965)?
Coined Supermale syndrome
- Conducted research into the make up of the prison population of Corsairs Prison in Scotlanf
- Found that 7 out of 196 inmates had XYY gene (3.5%) compared to 1 in 1000 in general population
What are the Pros of Biosocial Theory?
It does provide explanations for why some men commit crime
- Supports the statistics that men commit more crime
- Highlights how some mentally unstable may commit crime
What are the Cons of Biosocial Theory?
- Not enough evidence to support the idea that biology is the main driver of crime
- Focuses too much on genetic make up and biology
What were the findings of Murray (1990)?
The Rise of the Underclass
- An unemployed work-shy underclass have led to a rise in crime
- They live in broken communities with high rates of coal disorder and crime
- Underclass is characterized by welfare dependency, lack of individual responsibility and respect for authority and dysfunctional family life
What are the Pros of the Underclass theory?
Explains why W/C commit a large majority of crime
What are the Cons of the Underclass theory?
- White collar crime is still very prevalent
- Isolates, marginalises and demonizes the W/C
What is the Broken Windows Theory / Findings of Wilson?
The extent to which a community regulates itself has a dramatic impact on crime and deviance - where there is one broken window left unreplaced there will be many more
What did the Broken Windows Theory influence?
- Policy makers in NY in 1990s. there response was 0 tolerance policing where the CJS took low-level crime and anti-social behaviour much more seriously than previously
- Three strikes and your out policies
What are the Pros of the Broken Window Theory?
- The impact of the policy in NY appeared to be dramatic with crime levels - 40% drip in overall crime and over 50% drop in homicide
- People in communities where a lot of crime is committed do become desensitised to crime and commit more of it, so this theory supports that theory
- 3 strikes your out can be a deterrent for petty crimes
What are the Cons of the Broken Window Theory?
- This policy coincided with a period of economic growth and a reduction in poverty. Marxists suggest that the crime rates in NY fell because of the social cohesion significantly improved
- Overcrowding in prisons
- Doesn't explain the root cause of crimes
- Private prisons get more prisoners equalling more money
What is Situational Crime Prevention?
- Society needs to increase the chances of getting caught, or reduce the opportunity for criminals to commit crime
- SCP can be carried out by a range of people, not just authorities
