Social Class and Crime and Deviance

Merton

Working-class crime results from the strain between culturally approved goals and limited legitimate means to achieve them, leading to innovation (e.g., crime).

What are Merton’s five modes of adaptation?

1) Conformity (accept goals and means), 2) Innovation (accept goals, reject means), 3) Ritualism (reject goals, accept means), 4) Retreatism (reject both), 5) Rebellion (replace both).

Snider

Capitalist states’ reluctantcy to regulate big businesses leads to focus on working-class "street", crime while ignoring elite crime.

What do Lea and Young say about working-class crime?

The working-class crime is real and caused by relative deprivation, marginalisation, and the formation of deviant subcultures.

Sutherland

Coined the term "white-collar crime" to show that the upper class also commits serious crimes, often overlooked by the justice system.

Miller

Working-class boys have distinct focal concerns (e.g., toughness, excitement, trouble), leads to crime even without strain or blocked opportunities.

Newburn and Rock

It is important to consider structural factors like poverty, social exclusion, and biased policing in working-class crime stats

What does the Crime Survey of England and Wales show about social class and victimisation?

The working class are more likely to be victims of crime, yet their concerns are often underrepresented in media and policy.

What are Miller’s Six Focal Concerns?

Trouble, Toughness, Smartness, Excitement, Fate, Autonomy – values in working-class subculture that may encourage delinquency.