sociology crime and deviance

Durkeim

- crime is inevitable, socialisation, trend to anomie, crime can be positive

Evaluation of Durkheim

- How much deviance is too much?

- Ignores that crime can lead to social isolation and fear

- Suggests that crime strengthens social solidarity but people don't commit crime in order to do this.

Merton

- Strain theory

- Conformity, ritualism, rebellion

- American dream

Evaluation of Merton

+ Theory explains how there are different reactions to societies goals

+ Most crime is property crime which this theory can explain

- Too deterministic - not everyone strives for money success and materialism

Cohen

- status frustration and subcultures

- alternative status hierarchy - subcultures values are the opposite of those of mainstream society

- focuses on w/c youths who don't have the means to achieve

evaluation of Cohen

+ provides some reasons for crime that isn't related to money.

- Not everyone shares the goals of the m/c. Presumes w/c boys are failures.

Cloward and Ohlin

- Three subcultures

- People turn to different types of subculture depending on their response to strain

- Criminal, conflict, and retreatist subcultures

Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin

+ gives more insight into different types of crime compared to Merton who only focused on crimes related to material gain.

- assumes everyone who is part of a subculture will turn to crime.

- assumes everyone will only be part of one subculture

Becker

- labelling theory

- identifies several key terms to discuss crime from an interactionist perspective: labelling, moral entrepreneurs/crusades, outsiders, master status, deviance amplification spiral, deviant career

Lemert

Primary deviance - acts not publicly labelled. Secondary deviance - acts which are labelled. Leads to a master status and a deviant career.

Young

- Studied hippie marijuana users in Notting Hill

- Showed how being labelled led to deviance amplification and moving further outside of societal norms

Cohen

- mods and rockers, moral panic

Cicourel

- Phenomenological approaches

- Process of interaction and negotiation

- stereotypes that the police/ public make

Triplett

- minor offences have been turned into major ones

- Explains higher rates of crime

- Society needs to reassess acts of primary deviance

Braithwaite

disintegrative and reintegrative shaming

Evaluation of interactionist theories

+ Explains how deviants can spiral and become worse

- Too deterministic

- The theory turns the offender into the victim because they were given label.

- people commit primary deviance before they've even been labelled, crime comes before the label.

Marxism

1- criminogenic capitalism, most crime is a logical response to economic deprivation and feelings of envy towards the ruling class.

- Gordon argues that crimes of the m/c are under-policed, under-punished and under-estimated.

- white collar vs blue collar crime

2- the ruling class prevent laws that would threaten their interests.

- Snider says that the capitalist state and those who hold power are always reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activity of their businesess.

3- Selective law enforcement, the police and CJS often ignore crimes of the r/c.

-Reiman shows that the proportion of w/c crime that gets prosecuted is much higher than m/c.

4- Ideological functions of crime, false impression given to w/c that laws are there to protect them.

- laws are made so that it looks like crime is a w/c phenomenon.

- the media exaggerate w/c crime which causes moral panic.

Evaluation of marxism

+ provides a useful explanation of relationship between crime and society.

+ highlights bias in crime stats and looks at it from a wider perspective.

- deterministic in that all w/c commit crime.

- prosecutions against the r/c do happen.

- even in places where capitalism is strong, crime is low (Japan, Saudia Arabia)

Neo-Marxism (the new criminology)

- links ideas of the functionalists, marxists, labelling theory

- Taylor, Walton, and Young outline a model which they call a 'fully social theory of deviance' and some key parts are:

Wider origins of deviant act, immediate origins of social reaction, wider origins of social reaction and the deviant process as a whole.

- Hall (et.al) uses the example of London muggings in 1970 which shows how people use minority groups to blame crime on.

Evaluation of Neo-Marxism

-Feminists criticise it for being gender blind, focusing excessively on male criminality and at the expense of female criminality

-Left realists criticise Taylor et al for not taking such crimes seriously and ignoring its effects on w/c victims

Right Realism

Wilson, Herstein and Murray

- biological differences

- some people are more vunerable due to hormones and innate personality traits.

- low intelligence

Murray

- Socialisation and the underclass

- Single mothers inadequately socialise their children, boys don't have a father figure to be a male role model so often turn to subcultures.

Rational choice theory

- everyone has free will and the rational reasoning to decide if they want to commit crime.

- Clarke argues people who decide the rewards are higher than the risks of crime will commit it.

- Wilson says punishments and consequences need to be increased so that the risk isn't worth it.

- Cromwell et.al say that we should have guardians (police, neighbourhood watch) to survey the streets.

- Example of USA after Hurricane Andrew when crime decreased.

Tackling crime

- Wilson and Kelling's broken window theory, we need to remove vandalism, anti social behaviour and public drinking to create a good atmosphere to prevent crime.

- Zero tolerance, we need to take low-level crime more seriously and give longer sentences in order to deter people (introduced in NYC in 1994, applauded for reducing crime).

- Reduce rewards and increase the cost of crime.

Evaluation of Right Realists

- doesn't look at wider issues such as poverty that cause crime.

- over exaggerates rational choice about committing a crime. Crime is often impulsive.

- focuses on street crime, ignores corporate crime.

+ provides some practical solutions to tackling crime, zero tolerance has worked in some parts of the UK.

+ recognises importance of community control.

Left Realism

Relative deprivation

- Lea and young

- media influences due to advertising makes people compare their life against others which leads to strain.

- crime is selfish because people commit it to ease their own deprivation at the expense of the wider community.

- Runciman says people compare their deprivation against others.

Subculture

- Weber says some groups will turn to legitimate ways of dealing with their misfortune while others will turn to subcultures.

- Pryce argues that non-deviant subcultures can help with integration and finding alternative solutions to lessen deprivation gap.

- Young says the American Dream culture creates subcultures.

Marginalisation

- working people have unions to help them, whereas non-working underclass have nobody and feel powerless to improve their situation so turn to crime and deviance.

Tackling crime

- Lea and Young

- Policing and control: the public must become more involved in informal controls, police need to improve relationships with the public.

- Tackling structural inequality: as a society we need to close the gap in inequalities, discrimination, and stereotypes.

- New Labour's 'New Deal': provide good jobs and opportunities for the less fortunate.

Evaluation of Left realism

- ignores other responses to deprivation.

- ignores corporate crime.

+ draws upon a number of theories to produce a fuller explanation.

+ highlights importance of everyone tackling crime and taking it seriously.

Gender and Crime

Chivalry thesis

- Pollack argues that men have protective attitudes towards women so are unwilling to charge/ arrest them which means women's crime is under-represented in stats.

- Flood-Page et.l found 1 in 11 female offenders were cautioned/ prosecuted compared to 1 in 7 males.

- Women are treated more leniently due to not wanting to separate them from children and that this is a 'one off'.

- women are 1/3 less likely to be jailed.

Evidence against chivalry thesis

- Farrington and Morris studied 408 offences of theft by men and women but women were not sentenced more leniently.

- Box says if women are treated more leniently, it's because their offences are less serious.

- Heidsohn argues that far from the CJS being biased in favour of women, it's biased against them: double standards- when women don't conform to their role they're punished.

- Scottish courts were more likely to jail women with children in care as they weren't conforming to their role.

- Example of Ian Brathey and Myra Hindley.

Functionalist sex role theory

- Parsons: boys are socialised to be masculine and risk taking.

- Cohen says a lack of male role models in the house means lack of appropriate socialisation. This results in identification with male street gangs as a source of masculine identity.

- The NR view: Lone parent families have made an underclass who have a lack of regard for societal values.

Evaluation of functionalist sex role theory

- Walklate says it ignores the importance of free will and rational choice.

- The fact that women are often performing domesticated roles allows them to hide their crimes.

Feminist explanations: Patriarchal Control Theory

- Women have less opportunity to commit crime because they are taught to be conformist and are controlled by men.

- Women are less likely to progress to senior positions which means less likely to commit white collar crime.

- Have care giver role

- Daughters have a bedroom culture so are less likely to be involved in gangs and crime.

Masculinity and Crime

- Messerschmidt argues that masculinity is a social construct. There is a normative masculinity (what a real man should be) which is highly valued by men.

- White m/c youths conform in school but outside they need to assert masculinity and are involved in gangs.

- White w/c boys have less chance at academic success so turn to subcultures and act tough.

- Black w/c boys become involved in more serious crime and experience more strain.

Postmodernity, masculinity and crime

- Winlow: city of Sunderland had a high rate of deindustrialisation and many young men worked as bouncers for night clubs but then got involved in gangs, grugs and anti social behaviour.

The liberation thesis (Adler)

- Women become liberated from patriarchy; their offending becomes similar to men. They have begun to commit more masculine crimes such as robbery, assault or even murder.

- Descombe says females were as likely as males to engage in risk taking behaviour. Girl gangs are adopting the same stance.

- sex discrimination act and equal pay act have given women more opportunities to commit crime, especially in the workplace.

- Female offenders risen to 1 in 6.

Ethnicity and Crime

Statistics and the problem of measurement

- Em groups are over-represented in crime stats. They only make up 14% of population but take up 25% of prison population.

- Victim surveys show that black men are over-represented as suspects in crimes related to robbery/mugging.

- 90% of white crime is intra-ethnic

- Graham and Bowling used a sample of 2,500 people and found that 43% of blacks and 44% of whites admitted to offending.

Stop and Search

- Philips and Bowling argue that the CJS is racist.

- Waddington acknowledges that police do more stop and search for EM groups but this is because there are more black w/c youths out at night in areas of high crime.

- ethnic minorities are more likely to be unemployed, manual workers, live in city areas of high crime and so this makes them targets for stop and search.

- black people are 7x more likely to be stopped than white people

Convictions

- black and Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty. In 2006/7, 60% of white defendants were found guilty, against 52% blacks and 44% Asians.

- suggests discrimination in the police department and CPS. Labelling, deviance amplification, moral panic.

Prison

- in 2007, just over 1/4 of the male prison population were from ethnic groups.

- given longer sentences

- more likely to be on remand, waiting for trial & sentencing

- less likely to be granted bail.

left Realist explanations

- Lea and Young say that black people are more likely to be involved in street crime due to wider social reasons:

39% of Afro-Caribbean boys achieve 5 GCSE's or above.

60% of young black males live with just one parent (usually mother).

- lower rates for Asians due to police stereotypes of them being passive (changing since 9/11)

Neo-Marxism explanations

- Gilroy: argues that the police and CJS act on racist stereotypes of Afro-Caribbean and Asians. Gilroy believes that when ethnic crime does occur, it's a form of political resistance against a racist society.

- He uses examples of colonialism and how crime is a social construct.

- Hall et.al muggings and moral panics: Capitalism was failing during the 70s but the government needed to divert attention away from this. Black youths faced more economic deprivation, the media picked up on these robberies and created a moral panic, the government therefore put more police in some areas which lead to more black arrests.

Ethnicity and Victimisation

- 61,000 racist incidents recorded in England and Wales- mostly damage to property or verbal abuse.

- 10,600 people were prosecuted/cautioned for racial offences. However, this doesn't reflect even 1/4 of the incidents.

Social class and crime

statistics

- Walmsley et.al found 41% of prisoners are from w/c, against only 18% m/c.

- Official statistics on convictions show that there are social class differences in the types of crime committed: lower social class= street crimes, burglary, violent crimes compared to higher social classes = financial crimes, fraud

Marxism

- Criminogenic capitalism, capitalism causes crime, society is consumerist and people want to achieve this. Capitalism is alienating and leads to frustration. (link to Merton/Cohen)

- Selective law enforcement: the CJS mainly concerns itself with policing and punishing the marginalised, not the wealthy.

Evalutation of marxists

- Deterministic

- Ignores that lots of w/c crime is committed against w/c, so it's not a response to social inequality.

- In countries of high capitalism, crime is low (Japan)

Strain Theory

- Merton argues that when people are blocked from success they achieve it through illegitimate means which is usually crime.

status frustration

- Cohen says w/c boys develop an anti view towards the norms and values of society so join subcultures to deal with this. (alternative status hierarchy)

left realism

- Lea and Young identified 3 related causes of w/c crime:

- subculture

- deprivation

- marginalisation

evaluation of left realism

- deprivation doesn't explain all types of crime.

- w/c crime is the focus but this could just be a moral panic.

- stats under-represent crime of the m/c

right realism

- Murray argues that it's single mothers who are inadequately socialising children and there is a lack of role model = subcultures

white collar crime

- Sutherland defines it as 'a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the cause of his occupation.'

- Occupational crime is against a company you work for, for your own gain (BHS pension scandal).

- Corporate crime is committed on behalf of an organisation by a director/ceo/employee (Volkswagen)

reasons for low rates of detection in white collar crime

- Hughes and Langan suggest 4 reasons:

1. low visibility

2. diffusion of responsibility

3. diffusion of victimisation

4. complexity

The mass media and crime

representation in the news media

- 46% of the media reports were about violence/sexual violence when these crimes only make up 3% of crimes reported.

- shows success of lots of types of crime, which is not reality. Police deal with more crime than shown.

- they show women and children as being risk of being a victim.

fictional representations of crime

- law of opposites by Surette: most common crime is property crime, but fictional crime is mainly about violence, drugs, and sex.

- fictional crime shows murder to be calculated and well planned whereas it's usually more spontaneous.

- villains are those with high status and lots of power, in real life offenders are from all backgrounds

News Values

- News values are the criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the media: (Cohen and Young)

- Immediacy

- Drama

- high status individuals

- violence

Fear of crime

- Gerbner et.al, watching over 4 hours of TV a day made people have more fear of crime.

- Schlesinger and Tumber, there is a positive correlation between media consumption and fear of becoming a victim of crime.

- After 9/11 many passengers refused to sit next to someone in traditional muslim dress.

media as a cause of crime: socialisation

- The media has been held responsible for socialising criminal behaviour in the following ways:

- imitation, arousal, desensitisation, glamorises crime

- an example of imitation is the film clockwork which was banned because people began to act like the characters.

- Bandura, Ross&Ross study showed how children imitated adults' behaviour when they were rewarded.

media as a cause of crime: advertising and relative deprivation

- Merton's strain theory

- Left realism (Lea and Young), there is inequality in society, the media portrays a certain lifestyle which some people can't achieve and so people feel marginalised and deprived.

media as a cause of crime: moral panics

- Cohen's folk devils and moral panics: Cohen noted how the media used symbolic shorthands as icons of troublemakers. This creates a moral panic around these people and labels certain people as deviant. This causes deviance amplification.

- Becker's labelling theory shows how the media label people as deviant, even the media themselves sometimes embark on moral crusades.

- Durkheim: the media simply reflects a true picture of crime. It shows what needs to change in society in terms of laws, morals, values etc.

Examples of moral panics

- HIV/AIDs in 1980s within the gay community

- mugging in the 1980s (Hall et.al)

- islamic fundamentalism and terrorism (2000s/2010s)

evaluation of moral panics as a cause of crime

- it assumes society will react but how do we measure this reaction, subjective.

- we have become desensitised to crime so the media doesn't have the same impact as it used to.

Media: providing opportunities for crime

- Wall identifies 4 categories of cyber crime which have risen: cyber-trespass (hacking, spreading a virus, sabotage), cyber-deception and theft (illegal downloads of film and music, identity theft), cyber-pornography (underage access, indecent pictures of children), and cyber-violence (trolling, bullying, stalking, hate crimes)

Globalisation

definition of globalisation and examples

- Held et.al: 'the widening, deepening, and speeding up of world-wide interconnectedness in all aspects of life, from the cultural to the criminal, financial and spiritual.

- ICT (more hacking, scamming, identity theft)

- Mass media (video games, films, TV, social media)

- Cheaper air travel (drug trafficking, illegal immigration)

- Deregulation of markets/products (laws and policies alter in relation to import and exporting goods)

Castells - Global crimes

- Castells argues that there is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum. This takes a number of forms:

- smuggling illegal immigrants which there are between 800,000 and 1.2 million in the UK

- trafficking of human body parts makes $245 billion yearly, mainly kidney, liver, heart

- cyber crimes which there are over 560,000 in the UK daily.

- drug smuggling which makes euro 400 billion yearly.

- The west demands products eg, sex workers, drugs, low skilled workers and poor third world countries provide these services.

Globalisation and rising crime

- Taylor focused on how globalisation has given free rein to market forces, claiming that this has created greater inequality, which has in turn led to rising crime.

- insecurity & inequality of the poor leads to criminal opportunities for the elite groups. E.g. The loss of industry in LA has led to more drug gangs.

- lack of regulations has led to the big companies exploiting workers, avoiding paying tax, employing the poor, breaching health and safety regulations.

- Winlow, industrialisation, example of bouncers in the NE.

Glocal crimes

- Hobbs and Dunningham: new forms of organisation have international links, but crime is still rooted in its local context.

- Drug trade comes from global sources but it still needs a local contact. The local contact is the one who supplies and sells the drugs. Global contact is the one who traffics the drugs. Globalisation has affected patterns of crime, created more global sources through easier travel and more to sell.

McMafia

Glenny (2008)

- the fall of the soviet union also led to the fall of communism in 1989 which caused a deregulation of global markets.

- under communism the government regulated the price of everything except for natural sources like oil, gas, metals.

- those who had wealth could buy these cheaply but then sell them abroad for a much higher price, Deregulation meant they could 'break' law on buying and selling.

Evaluation of globalisation

- There are many positives such as INTERPOL and United Nations which help to tackle crime across the world.

- INTERPOL: inter-governmental organisation to help police work together to make the world a safer place. Enables them to share and access data on crimes and criminals.

Tackle mainly: cyber crime, organised crime, financial crime and anti-corruption.

- United Nations: international organisation committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, and promoting better human rights.

Main focus is on: human trafficking, smuggling of migrants, illicit manufacturing, and trafficking of firearms.

Human rights and state crime

Definition of state crime

- Green and Ward: 'illegal/deviant activities perpetrated by or with the state agencies'

examples of state crime

- genocide

- torture

- war crimes

- assassination

categories of state crime

McLaughlin identifies four types if state crime:

- Political Crimes: E.g. Corruption and Censorship.

- Security and Police force Crimes: E.g. torture and genocide.

- Economic Crime: E.g. gov official violations of health and safety laws, tax evasion

- Social and Cultural Crimes: E.g. racism

Reasons for the seriousness of crime

- The scale of state crime: carried out by the powerful people/groups who define their actions as legitimate.

For example, in Cambodia between 1975 and 1978, the Khmer Rouge government of Pol Pot is believed to have killed up to 2 million people (1/5 of country's population).

The state's monopoly of power gives it the potential to inflict massive harm, this means they can also conceal crimes or evade punishment.

- The state is the source of the law and therefore can cover up their actions.

powerful people find ways to cover up their actions. They control what the media can report.

Real examples of state crime

- Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979: leader Pot Pot put people under harsh living conditions and people died from disease, starvation, or damage to their bodies from torture.

- Chechnya LGBT concentration camps 2017: The Russian LGBT network claims many people have been imprisoned and at least 3 died under torture. The leader of the country denied all allegations. Homophobia is a huge issue.

sociology and state crime (through human rights)

- Schwendiger says crime should be defined in terms of the violation of human rights instead of breaking of legal rules.

- Any state that allows discrimination based on any aspect of being human is doing this.

- If people are accepting what the state is defining crime as then nobody will question human right violations and we just become obedient to the state.

- It's the role of sociology to defend human rights violation as a crime.

evaluation of Schwendiger

- difficult to define what classes as a violation of human rights, so this view is difficult to put into practice.

- argue that the state should be accountable for their crimes but don't give suggestions on how this can be achieved effectively.

- human rights are important but also subjective so becomes too complicated to include these as law breaking.

Denial and Neutralisation

-Cohen's spiral of denial

- Stage 1 = it didn't happen

- Stage 2 = if it did happen it wasn't a crime

- Stage 3 = it can be justified

- neutralisation theory: things that delinquents use to justify their behaviour, Cohen applies this to how states use the same techniques to justify human rights violation such as torture/massacres:

- denial of victim

- denial of injury: by saying that they started it first e.g. bombing of Iraq, Syria

- denial of responsibility: people say they were following orders so it becomes difficult to blame someone.

- condemning the condemners

- appeal to higher loyalty: justifying their actions as serving good for other nations, the world and future generations

crimes of obedience

Kelman and Hamilton's (1989) concept stating that people perform aggressively and violently as a form of obedience to authority with power, even though it may be considered immoral or illegal by self or others.

Identify 3 features that produce crimes of obedience:

1. authorisation: those with higher power can order you to carry out an act that violates human rights, justification is that you don't act on your own morals.

2. routinisation: when a crime has been committed once then it makes it easier to do again.

3. dehumanisation: if the person you are committing the violation of human rights against has been painted as a monster and someone who is the enemy.

modernity and state crime

- Bauman says science, technology, and the impact of globalisation has given rise to state crime and violation of human rights.

- he uses the Holocaust to explain how modernity and science impacted on this large scale state crime.

Green crime

definition of green crime

- refers to actions which cause harm to any aspect of the living world

Global risk society

- Beck argues that we live in a global risk society. This means that risks in the modern era are man-made and so we cannot predict the consequences of these, e.g. global warming. Individuals have adopted 'risk unconsciousness', we don't think about the future impact.

Traditional vs Green criminology

- Traditional is only interested in law breaking activity that was against people/organisations.

- There are national/international laws and regulations that monitor and define what crime is.

- Green = White argues that if harm is done to the environment, humans, or animals then this should be the subject of green criminology. Green crime moves away from legal definitions of crime and looks at a global perspective of environmental harm.

White's concept of harm

- anthropocentric view = humans have the right to dominate nature for their own use. Humans are separate from nature so they take priority.

- ecocentric view = humans and nature are dependent on each other, each needs the other to survive.

Primary vs Secondary Green Crime

- Nigel South

- Primary crime = crimes that result directly from the destruction of the earth's resources: crimes of air pollution, deforestation, against animal species, water pollution.

- secondary = further types of crime that occur as a result of environmental issues: 1985 French secret service blew up a Greenpeace ship as they thought it was interfering with their intelligence.

- Dumping toxic waste, especially in the developing world. Breach of health and safety rules causes disaster such as Bhopal disaster.

Bhopal disaster, India

- in 1984, the US majority owned Union Carbide Pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, started leaking cyanide gas. All six safety systems had failed and 30 tons of gas spread through the city.

- half a million people were exposed to the gas and around 20,000 people died.

- 120,000 still suffer long term effects such as blindness and breathing difficulties.

- Campaigners claim that the site was never cleared up and no one has faced criminal court.

Crime prevention

Situational crime prevention

- Clarke identifies 3 features of situational crime prevention as:

directed at specific crimes, managing or altering the immediate environment that crime takes place in, and increasing the risk and effort of committing crime.

- Target hardening is an example of situational crime prevention:

- general public need to reduce risk of becoming a victim

- lock doors and windows

- use security

- don't leave values on show

- Situational crime prevention measures are rooted in rational choice theory:

- if we target harden then the cost vs benefit of crime makes the criminal think more rationally about engaging in criminal activities.

Criticisms

- Marxists and left realists say that these prevention methods ignore the root cause of crime. You cannot prevent crime without dealing with the root cause first.

Example of situational crime prevention

- the port authority bus terminal NYC: poorly designed and provided opportunities for crime e.g. the toilets were a good place to deal drugs, throw away unwanted stolen goods and attracted homeless people.

re-shaping the physical environment led to a reduction in crime.