Sociology - Crime

What are Examples of the global crime economy?

• sex tourism, going abroad for sexual exploitation. Now enhanced with cheaper flights and internet access

• Smuggling, e.g cigarettes

• Cybercrimes, e.g fraud

• Arms trafficking

• Woman and child trafficking, trafficked against their will

• Green crimes, crimes against the environment

• Drugs and money laundering

• Illegal immigrant smuggling

• International terrorism, e.g Manchester arena

• Trafficking cultural artifacts

• Body part trafficking

• Nuclear material trafficking

What are examples of UK modern day slavery?

• illegal immigrant smuggling, people pay money to be transported across borders to work (in the west). People may send this money back to their home countries or because they want a better life in that new country

• Sex workers and cannabis growers, people who work in these industries have normally been trafficked and are being held against their will. Because they are here illegally they are treated as criminals. Gang masters often manipulate these immigrants with threats for their family back home

• Nail technicians and car washers, these jobs are staffed by low paid foreign workers, they are exploited as society expects cheap services

What did Glenny 08 argue? McMafia

He argued that the global crime economy emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, many people got rich very quickly form buying oil cheaply and selling it for a massive profit in the West. At the time disorder was an issue so the wealthy created mafia style organisations to protect themselves

What are some of Glenny’s examples of the global crime economy

• Smuggling of cigarettes, this costs the economy as tax revenues are lost, e.g the uk lost $8 billion in taxes from smuggled cigarettes. These are transported on high speed boats and they can’t be caught as the police doesn’t have fast enough transport.

• Congolese civil war, mining of coltan in the Congo which is used in mobile technology and laptops. the global crime economy and gangs took advantage of the knowledge they could sell this coltan to Multi-national countries, they would trade weapons with tribes for access leading to the civil war. Tribes would fight now with different advantages and around 5 million died.

• Counterfeit goods, for example malaria drugs. The production of cheap malaria drugs has impacted the effectiveness of real ones. The low dosage in these drugs had led to mosquitos becoming immune to medication leading to loss of life

What are the economic effects of the global crime economy?

How can the global crime economy lead to an increase in other crimes?

For instance, in Columbia around 20% of its GDP relies on drug trade in cocaine. Wages from jobs created in this trade add tax revenue to the economy which is needed, countries like this are reliant on crime

Taylor in 97’ argued unemployment caused by loss of high street/imported goods has made people more likely to commit these crimes

What did Green and Ward 04 say about state crimes?

They defined state crimes as “illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by or within complicity of state agencies”

• they argued that it is a serious crime as it has many victims, people who suffer are powerless and it is impossible to prosecute

What did McLaughlin 12 identify about state crimes

He identified four categories of state crime

• political crimes

• crimes by security and police forces

• Economic crimes

• Social and cultural crimes

What are political crimes?

These are crimes committed by the government which often involve bribery and corruption. An example would be the government handling PPE during covid. Government ministers gave huge amounts of money to firms they had connections with to make PPE. This involved friends and family members who profited. Also the government was breaking Covid laws and covering it up

What are crimes by security and police forces?

Genocide/ torture examples includes the holocaust and rwandan genocide

what are economic crimes?

Official violations of health and safety. For example Grenfell 2017, 72 people because of the aluminium composite material cladded onto it. the enquiry had found the fire service at fault but investigation is still going ahead

What is a social and cultural crime?

This includes institutional racism e.g the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

What was the Rwandan genocide?

Rwanda is a country in east Africa which borders Kenya, Uganda and the Congo. It was a French and then Belgian colony

Rwanda included two cultural groups; the Hutu and the Tutsi, the French favoured the Tutsi who then became middle class

When the French and Belgians left the Hutu took over as a majority population and there was a Hutu president

The Hutu militia were a civilian group of extremists. They led a genocide against the Tutsi people. Around 1 million were killed in 1994

What is transgressive criminology?

This is a crime which isn’t against the law but one that causes harm

How did Kelman and Hamilton explain state crime?

They explained about crimes of obedience, this is the idea that rules aren’t being broken but that there is conformity to the rules, they identified three stages of conformity

1) Authorisation, in Nazi Germany, there was a massive structure which involved laws, people in positions of power, rules, paperwork, and categorisation and treatment

2) Dehumanisation, the enemy are seen as sub-human often taught through propaganda

3) Routinisation, doing our daily jobs e.g death camps where soldiers would be responsible for one part of the process. Some would be responsible for taking victims to the gas chamber whilst some would tattoo the victims = takes the whole process away

How did Cohen explain technique of neutralisation as a form of state crime?

It went through a cycle

• firstly the perpetrators would say it didn’t happen ——> then they admit to something happening but this isn’t what others think ——> finally they admit to it but try and justify their actions

• States relabel crimes as something else or excuse them as regrettable but justifiable. For example, illegal torture and detention of terrorists is justified by denying they are victims as they themselves show no regard to human life, they appeal to the public to stop the terrorists to protect national security/ war on terror

What is tradition criminology?

Describes green crime as actions that break laws protecting the environment, this differs between countries and often seen as a breach of health and safety rather than a crime

What is green criminology?

Describes green crime as anything that causes environmental harm which includes people, plants, and animals

What examples are there of green crime?

• Pollution from burning fossil fuels like in Mongolia

• Unregulated fishing and illegal whaling

• Species decline due to destruction of natural habitats - deforestation

• Illegal dumping of toxic waste like in Ghana

  • Western countries send e-waste to developing countries like Ghana, this E-waste is burnt for precious metals in the products. The burning causes toxic fumes which damage people’s health + effect the water supply

What was the Volkswagon emission scandal of 2015?

This is an example of green crime where pollution and contamination of water + air through discharge + emission of dangerous toxic substances

• VW fixed the emissions on their cars, when a car goes through MOT it’s emissions are measured and have to be under a certain level to pass. These cars always passed and were sold as being good for the environment but instead the pollution they produced was the equilivant of the amount of pollution the UK produces a year, the company was fined for this

What was the Deepwater horizon oil rig disaster in 2010?

• An oil rig blew up in the Atlantic ocean and although there were few deaths of humans. Fishing areas and local communities were destroyed and long term affects on humans and animals persisted

What was the Bhopal disaster of 1984?

The US firm union carbide owned 51% of shares in an insecticide factory based in Bhopal, India. In 1984, the plant leaked poisonous gas which affected ½ a million. $470 million was paid by the company in litigation and a small number of employees were prosecuted for negligence but they only recieved short sentancing. By 2012, 25,000 deaths had been recorded plus birth defects

What was the case study of Mongolia and how does it represent green crime?

Mongolians traditionally led a nomadic lifestyle where they lived off the land and moved animals for grazing. Global warming has meant there are more droughts so people can no longer live this way. Many moved to the capital city Ulannaatar which didn’t have the infrustructure to cope so many people moved into yurts, people burnt fossil fuels like coal to heat their homes which causes more environmental damage and air pollution affecting health

What did Ulrich Beck argue about ‘global risk society’ and the environment?

In 1992 Ulrich Beck argued that many environmental disasters in the past were of natural origin and beyond human control. However, in late modern society there has been a massive increase in risk created by the actions of human beings through science and technology productivity. Beck calls this a “global risk society” and these risks include crimes/harm to environment

Who commits Green crime?

• individuals, through flytipping and littering

• Private business organisations like union carbide

• States and governments, e.g Agent orange was used in the Vietnam war, it destroyed all vegetation and poisoned water supplies, people were burnt at the time and there have been long term effects like birth defects

• Organised Crime, many groups dump illegal hazardous waste, these gangs set up companies advertising the removal of waste which they get paid for. They illegally dump waste and burn it

Why did white argue that green crime is common?

They argued we have an anthropocentric view of the world (human centred), the most important consideration of nations is the wellbeing of their citizens so the environment is a secondary consideration

What types of punishment are in the UK?

• Prison

• Young offenders institute

• Tagging

• Probation

• Fines

• Criminal behaviour order

• Community service

What was the functionalist perspective of punishment?

• Derkheim

Punishment provides an outlet for public anger at violation of collective values

• It reasserts boundaries of right and wrong

• It strengthens collective value

• Reinforces social regulation and control

• Builds social solidarity and cohesion

What was the marxist perspective of punishment?

The function of punishment is to maintain the existing social order

• Punishment is part of the ‘repressive state apparatus’ defending the ruling classes property

• Under capitalism, imprisonment is the main form of punishment because in capitalism ‘time is money

What are four roles of the criminal justice system?

• Deterrence

• Rehabilitation

• Public protection

• retribution

How do functionalists see deviance as inevitable?

• Poor socialisation, children are brought up in families where universalistic norms and values are not taught

• The range of subcultures that exist in society, due to pluralism where diversity has caused a range of cultures with different norms and values

What two functions did Durkheim believe crime has?

• Boundary maintenance, this is where criminal acts enable people to unite to condemn actions. E.g the Manchester bombings

• Adaptation and change, historically, criminal acts can lead to social change. For example the suffragettes led to votes for woman and pride led to gay rights

What did Kingsley Davies 37/61 argue about crime?

Some criminal acts can help maintain society. E.g prostitution can be seen as a safety valve which maintains family units

What did Polsky 67 say about crime?

Crimes like pornography channel sexual desire and stop adultery

What did Cohen say about crime?

Argues that deviene can be a warning that an institution is not working effectively as part of the organic analogy. E.g high reoffending rates in prisons

How can we evaluate functionalist theories about crime (excluding strain theory)

• functionalism often ignores the victim, most people end up frightened by crime. Criminal acts like prostitution and pornography have many victims

• Durkheim also fails to explain why these crimes exist in the first place

• Crime doesn’t always unite communities. E.g the Southport stabbings and the riots that happened afterwards

• Not all criminal acts can lead to progress in society e.g woman in Afghanistan cannot just protest

What was functionalist Merton’s strain theory “38?

The theory explains why people commit crimes and engage in deviant behaviours. When people cannot achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. He found structural factors (lack of opportunity due to poverty) and cultural factors (need to achieve materially, house, car, etc)

What 5 patterns did Merton find based on the position in the social structure of an individual?

• conformity, non deviant/criminal, conform and work hard

• Innovation, people who can’t achieve goals so turn to illegitimate ways to achieve

• Ritualism, giving up on achieving goals, just mark time to retirement

• Retreatism, dropout of society, addicts, the homeless

• Rebellion, reject goals and substitute new ones, protest groups and religious sects

How can we evaluate strain theory?

Positives

• useful to explain property crime also most crime is committed by the working classes

Negatives

• it doesn’t explain violent crime or crimes by groups it also misses out middle classes

Overall it’s a partial explanation

What are subcultural strain theories?

They see deviance as being the product of delinquent subcultures with different values from the mainstream

What is Cohen’s idea of status frustration “55?

This is an explanation for why working class youths commit crime. They believe in success goals of the mainstream culture but are unlikely to achieve these goals. As a result, they have a low status in society, this status frustration leads to them forming an alternative set of values, stealing replaces hard work, and vandalism replaces respect for property and status is gained from deviant acts

What did Cloward and ohlin “60 argue about subcultures, what 3 subcultures did they identify?

Subcultures are formed based on access to resources

1) criminal subcultures exist in urban areas with a mix of wealth and poverty e.g London. Established criminal families commit property crime

2) conflict subcultures exist in zones of transition. These are in urban areas with a lack of resources like schools, shops, and community centres. Criminal gangs commit crime over control of estates

3) retreatist subcultures exist in areas where there is less access to crimes like theft and gangs. Deviant gangs are likely to focus on drugs

How can we evaluate strain theory?

• Miller “62, strain theory does presume that the whole of society shares a value consensus. However, Miller suggests this isn’t true and there is a distinct working class subculture which has characteristics that are more likely to commit crime

• Matza “64, argues most people who commit crime, particularly when young drift in and out of crime. They don’t always become lifelong criminals

What is Hirschi’s control theory?

Argues that everyone has the potential to commit crime but we don’t because of our social bonds with society

• attachment

• Commitment and goals

• Involvement in activities

• Belief in social rules

• Family and friends

• Education and career

• Hobbies

What do recent strain theorists suggest?

Argue some of the goals in society have changed, although money is important, people commit crimes to show masculine traits

what do Marxists generally claim about class and crime?

What is Criminogenic capitalism?

They consider laws are enforced disproportionally against the working class, and their explanation is linked to capitalism

Criminogenic capitalism is the argument that says the working class do commit crime due to three reasons

1) poverty, the working class commit crime in order to survive

2) due to the demands of capitalism and consumerism, the working class commit crime as they are led to believe they need consumer goods

3) alienation, the working class feel frustrated with their status so commit violence, Gordon “76 crime is a rational response to capitalism

How does the state and law making relate to Marxist explanations of crime?

Law making and enforcement only serve the interests of capitalism

• chambliss 75, says most laws are designed to protect private property so maintaining the power and wealth of the ruling classes

• Snider 93, very few laws limit businesses, selective law enforcement take place where businesses tend to not be investigated for financial crimes or crimes impacting the public and working class criminals are more likely to be charged and face imprisonment

How do ideological functions of crime and law relate to Marxist explanations of crime?

• Pearce 76, laws often appear to benefit the working classes so they feel protected. However, often laws help maintain capitalism. E.g laws about health and safety appear to protect the working classes but they are actually designed to keep them fit for the workplace. In addition, Marxists argue the state and the media big up working class crime and highlight issues like immigration which cause divisions in the working class

How can we evaluate these original Marxist explanations of crime?

• It is reductionist, crimes are explained in terms of social class and ignores issues like gender and ethnicity

• Deterministic, not all working people commit crimes due to poverty

• Capitalism doesn’t always cause crime, there are some capitalist countries with low crime rates like Iceland. Bug countries that have poor welfare provision like the USA still do

What do Neo-Marxists argue about crime?

They believe a lot in what Marx says, they believe capitalism is wrong; and creates inequality. They also believe that the state makes and enforces laws that protect the wealthy

However, they do not believe that everyone in the working class commits crime. They believe that people choose to take part in activities for political reasons. They believe they are changing society, Neomarxists believe that crimes such as theft, vandalism, etc are meaningful and symbolic forms of protest

What did the Neo-Marxist Gilroy “71 argue about crime?

What are the problems with this idea?

His study on crime committed by black people argued that these acts were a form of resistance against police harassment and racism in society

These criminal acts tend to occur against people of a similar class and ethnicity so are likely to be a form of protest. This theory also presumes that crime is a rational response whereas most crime is spur of the moment. Also if this were true than all people who face racism would commit crime and this isn’t the case

What is New criminology? What did Hall argue?

Came from Neo-Marxism and is a combination of structural (Marxist) and interactionist (labelling) theory

Hall argued that in order to distract the public from the political and economic crisis at the time the media created a moral panic above black crime and mugging in particular. This social group were seen as the reason for problems in society

What did Reiman and Leighton 2012 say about crimes of the powerful? What crimes come from the powerful?

They argued the more likely a crime is committed by the higher class, the less likely it is to be treated as an offence

• financial crimes, embezzlement, tax evasion, avoiding paying taxes, misuse of expenses

• Crimes against consumers, miselling of products

• Crimes against employees, breach of health and safety

• Crimes against the environment, Volkswagen emissions scandal

• State corporate crime, govt crime, war crimes, and crimes against groups like Hillsborough

• Abuse of trust, people in important roles have power to get away with crime e.g doctors, teachers

What is the invisibility of crime?

Crimes become ‘invisible’ due to many factors

• covered up by powerful groups

• Victims are powerless e.g children, poor, elderly

• It’s hard to know who to prosecute

• Often victims aren’t aware crime has happened

• It’s not in govts interests to prosecute important people and businesses

How does strain theory and Box ‘83 say about corporate crime?

If a company cannot make profit legally, then in order to be seen as a success they find illegal means e.g not paying people for overtime

What does Geis ‘67 say about differential association?

If a companies culture allows crimes to happen in order to make a profit, people will do so.

1) deviant subcultures, a company when breaking the law is the norm

2) technique of neutralisation, the mindset that ‘everyone else is doing it… I’m just following instructions

What does nelken 2012 argue about labelling theory?

The rich can afford lawyers so they can decriminalise events, e.g the death of a worker will be written off as a breach of health and safety rather than corporate manslaughter

What’s the overall Marxist opinion of corporate crime?

How can we evaluate these ideas?

Capitalism has created what Box ‘83 said a mystification that corporate crime is less widespread than working class crime.

Not all companies do commit crimes so this theory can be seen as deterministic. However, businesses do continue to breach laws and are often not charged. This means there is some truth to this

What is the interactionist/labelling idea of crime?

Crime is a social construction, no act is deviant in itself

What did Becker say about crime?

Social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to ‘outsiders’. Act or persons are only deviant when labelled as such

What did Cicourel say about crime?

How do police and probation officers depict delinquents based on typifications?

Police use typifications of delinquents to decide who they stop and search, typifications are a series of shared meanings and interactions to perceive individuals

• police make choice of who to stop and search based on meanings held by police of what is ‘strange’ and/or ‘suspicious’. This is related to particular geographical areas, low income areas with a high crime rate

• Probation officers make decisions based upon their picture of a ‘typical delinquent’. factors are based on backgrounds from broken homes, exhibit bad attitudes and have poor school performances

What did Cicourel say about crime?

How did they link working class to crime, how does the middle class get away with crime?

• found a link between the working classes and delinquency. Most young people convicted have fathers who work in manual labour, in a seven class occupation scale, 1/3rd were considered class seven

• Middle class delinquents don’t fit in the standard picture so they get away with crime, their parents can negotiate on their behalf and can be seen as respectable

• Delinquents are produced by agencies of social control and there is over representation of wc in youth delinquency statistics from biased law enforcement

What did lemert say about crime?

There is primary and secondary devience, lamert argued that not all devient acts become labels

• primary devience is an act which goes against norms and values but may not result in a label. Acts like these include speeding, underage drinking, and smoking weed

• Secondary devience is an act which gets labelled as criminal, for example if the person is speeding and caused an accident which killed others this would be dangerous driving, if they had done this whilst drinking, this would result in a label of ‘master status’

• This is where we can label people in a way preventing them having success in life and finding a job, thus leading to a devient career

What two types of shaming did braithwaite find?

Braithwaite found in 1989 that theres two types

• Disintegrative shaming, not only the crime but also the criminal is labelled as ‘bad’ and the offender is excluded from society

• Reintergrative shaming, instead of calling the criminal bad, their crime is labelled as a bad thing they did.

What is an example of a law based on disintergrative shaming?

Sarahs law

• This was a law that came about after the murder of a child called sara commited by a convicted sex offender, the law enabled people to find out the criminal records of anybody within contact with their child. The police will disclose convictions of sex offenders, this is an example of disintergrative shaming

What is an example of reintergrative shaming?

• Circles are an example of reintergrative shaming, where groups of volunteers work to enage with sex offenders as a core member

• The core members take responsibilty for their own risk management, circle members provide guidance in social skills and find appropriate hobbies

• Out of 137 circles, only 5 have been convicted, and 4 have been recalled to prison 

What was Jock Young’s ‘hippie drug use study’?

Young based his study on the 1960s hippy counter culture and the moral panic surrounding it, it was viewed very negatively by the authorities

The press reported hippies as promiscious, drug taking and law breaking. This led to the formation of regional drug squads who arrested significant numbers of hippies, Young argued overall this increased marijuana use as some saw it as an expression of resistance

What was Cohen’s study on folk devils and imoral panics deveince amplification

He studied mods and rockers and looked at how the media exagerated some disturbances at seaside resorts. This led to an increase in public concern and a call for a crackdown on the youths.

Cohen called these people moral entrupenors who judge and set standards of what is acceptable behaviour, this publicity led to more young people causing issues at seaside resorts, this is known as devience amplification spiral 

How can we evaluate moral panic?

The media has changed and far more many people are scepitical of media content

How can we evaluate labelling theory?

strengths

• Shows how labelling can affect self concept of individuals to be formed

• Shows the importance of sterotypes

Limitation

• Don’t explain why crime is commited in the first place

• Devients are seen as victims, ignores real victims

• Deterministic, does not always lead to self fufiling prophecy

What do realists believe about crime?

Both right and left realists believe crime is a problem that needs to be tackled, they think that crime is on the increase and causes fear in the public so needs to be stopped

However,

• Right realists believe that crime needs harsh punishments

• Left realists believe that we need to focus on finding the underlying causes of crime

Where did right realism originate from?

It came about during the 1980s under the presidency of Reagan, many of the ideas were adopted by Thatchers UK govt, they placed focus on how crime destroys communities and should be controlled by punishment

What did Right realists argue about the biological causes of crime?

How can this be criticiqued?

Wilson and Herrnstein ‘85 believed that people who had personality traits like aggression or risk taking were more likely to commit crime

Herrnstein and Murray ‘94 found that some people are more likely to commit crime based on their IQ, on average, criminals have a lower IQ than the rest of the population 

However, Lilly et al ‘02 found that intelligance only accounted for 3% gap in offending 

What do right realists argue about socialisation and the underclass in causing crime?

Murray ‘90 found that the ‘new rabble' were a welfare dependant group, and failed to socialise their children properly, there has been an increase in lone parent families that are matrifocal, boys in paticular are likely to be influenced by males who are delinquent, for the underclass crime is the norm

What do right realists argue about rational choice causing crime?

Clarke ‘80, argued that the decision to commit crime is a choice based on rational calculation of the consequences. if the punishment isn’t strong and their is an oppurtunity to deviate they will

What did Felson ‘02 argue about the cause of crime from a right realist perspective?

Came up with ‘routine activity theory’. There must be a motivated offender, a subjective target and the absence of a guardian - this links into the idea of rational choice

How can we evaluate right realist ideas into the causes of crime?

• Deterministic in that it presumes that all working class individuals commit crime

• It’s only a partial explanation of crime, it only focuses on street crime not corparate crime

• It contridicts itself, if people are born criminals it is unlikely a rational choice to commit crime

Right realist methods to tackle crime, Target hardening + evaluation

this is a policy which makes it harder for people to commit crime, its a form of situational crime prevention e.g security guards, cameras, car alarms, uncomfortable seats in bus shelters, and neighbourhood watch

however, target hardening does not solve crime, means devience occurs elsewhere. It also presumes crime is rational

Right realist methods to tackle crime, Zero tolerance + evaluation

This is the idea that tough prison sentences will act as deterrence to commit crimes, it is based on rational choice

However, the prison system is full, and there are high reoffending rates

Right realist methods to tackle crime, Broken windows + evaluation point

Began in the 1980s in New York, prosecution of low level crimes like fare dodging to improve communities

This policy is ineffective and can lead to negative labels making it hard for offenders, although it improves low level crime, there is no impact on serious crimes like violence

What are the general ideas stemming from left realism?

It’s similar to Marxism as they see inequality and capitalism as a problem, working within the system that they have already

Young in 2011 described the ‘aetiological crisis’ where there has been a crisis in explanation. No one has explained the increase in crime since the ‘50s. They said that victim surveys show the impact on crime on the disadvantaged is massive. The fear of crime is big in this group, with street crime, mugging, mainly carried out by w/c males

What 3 factors did Lea and young (left realists) identify as causes of crime?

1) relative deprivation, when people feel poor compared to others, this is likely to occur in urban areas with greater inequality. This links to Merton’s strain theory

2) subcultures, having access to other devient subcultures e.g being able to get weapons

3) marginalisation, when people feel their needs aren’t being represented in society, no one in government is interested in supporting these social groups

What’s young ‘02s idea of a late modern society?

In late modern society, there is instability, insecurity, and exclusion which makes crime worse

Late modernity has led to a media saturated society (media has given us access to a wealthy way of life), with cultural inclusion leading to economic exclusion (people are poorer with less access to funds). We now have a bulimic society where people gorge and vomit out their expectations (status frustration)

• Lewis argued this leads to the 2011 Riots taking place

What 3 features are there of late modernity?

• growing individualism

• Weakening of informal controls - break down of family and communities - people moving away from families and divorce

• Growing economic inequality and economic change, globalisation

What evaluation points can we make about left realism?

• ignores issues with gender and focuses on male crime

• It’s narrow in its explanation, it doesn’t look at corporate crime

• The explanation does fit the social profile of prison population

What do if kingly, lea and young argue about policing in relation to crime (left realism)

They found that police clear up rate is too low to act as a deterrent. As the police are losing trust from the public, they don’t information. So police swamp areas and use stop and search, in turn this alienates communities

They believe the communities see the police as the enemy, therefore left realists suggest democratic policing is the idea that communities work with the police to protect the area. Also other solutions are investments in communities like church groups, also the police will come into schools to support pupils at risk. Making people feel less marginalised

what are the issues with left realist policing suggestions?

These solutions cost money which comes from government tax payers, the results are also hard to measure as change is gradual so the policies aren’t effective with the government as they want to be seen as effective

Why does it appear that woman commit less crime? What are criticisms of these ideas?

Woman are likely to get away and bet let off with crime. This is linked to chivalry thesis

• Otto Pollack in 1950 argued that men are socialised to be chivalrous towards woman and woman are naturally more secretive so can get away with crime

• Some may criticise this as it lacks temporal validity, gender roles are no longer traditional.

• More recent studies back this idea up. For instance, Flood-Page in 2000 studied self report figures and found 1 in 11 woman were cautioned whilst 1 in 7 men were cautioned for offences. Showing woman get away with crime

• However, Carlen in 1998 and Heidensohn 2002, argued that when woman commit crimes that go against their gender roles like sexual crimes. They are more likely to be punished harshly. They call this double deviency which is the idea of breaking laws and gender norms

Why do woman actually commit less crime?

Sex role theory

• parsons argues that woman and men are more likely to be socialised into the expressive role. Woman are likely to be gentle, loving, and maternal

• Dunscombe and Marsden, woman have less time to commit crime. This links into the triple shift, woman have to do paid work, house work, and emotion work

• Heidensohn, woman are more controlled in 3 ways.

  • woman don’t have as much freedom when going out, McRobbie ‘bedroom culture’

  • Restrained in public, their behaviour is controlled by expectations with men using language to control behaviour like ‘slag’

  • Woman are more controlled in the workplace, less likely to gain promotions making it harder to commit white collar crime

Why do woman commit crime?

Pat Carlen created a study looking at woman in prisons and found that in most cases they failed the gender deal and class deal. The gender deal is the idea that if you stick to stereotypes like having children you will be rewarded with emotional rewards and a stable home life. The class deal is the idea of having qualifications and a stable income with a home, cars, etc. woman that are in prisons have failed those deals with no qualifications or family.

What are the reasons for increased female criminality?

• Liberation thesis

• Feminisation of poverty

Fran Adler in 1975 argued about liberation thesis, this theory is based on the premise that due to a rise in feminism woman have become more like men. There has been less patriarchal control and woman have become more aggressive and risk taking with an increase in crime

• however, this be problem with this theory is that statistics don’t back this up and it is anti-feminist.

Feminisation of poverty, woman are more likely to live in poverty compared to men, one reason is because many are single parents with 90% or single parent families being matrifocal. This can be backed up with statistics with woman mostly committing crimes like shoplifting - this is linked to a need for money

What are the reasons for male criminality?

• Masculinity of crime

James Messerschmidt argued traditional hegemonic masculinity has characteristics which lead to males committing crime.

• the desire for heterosexuality, showing sexual behaviour through inappropriate comments

• Men are seen as stoic which means they can up with a lot, and this leads to men being under pressure

• Testosterone can make males more aggressive and take risks to show off to peers

What are the reasons for male criminality?

• masculinity crisis

• Labelling theory

• masculinity crisis has also led to crime, Mac and Ghail, there has been a crisis in masculinity. Working class boys are growing up in areas with high unemployment due to decline of traditional industries, they are often bought up in matrifocal households with no male role models. Attainment is low and crime is the only option to survive and gain status

• Labelling theory, males are more likely to face stop and search tactics than females are. This leads to groups of males becoming stereotyped as trouble makers leading to a master status. People with criminal convictions find it hard to gain employment

How can we evaluate reasons for male criminality?

• statistics do back up these theories we men do commit more crime than woman. However this may not describe all men’s behaviour. These theories are based on traditional male identify. Other factors are ignored like men spending time in care, no qualifications. These ideas may apply to a small group but not all males