crime and deviance booklet 1

What is the difference between deviance and crime?

Crime is the breaking of the rules that have been made into laws, and deviance is the behaviour which most or all people disapprove of in society.

What are the theoretical perspectives on crime and deviance coming from a functionalist?

•Boundary maintenance

•social change

•social cohesion

•safety valve

What is boundary maintenance?

Where punishment of crime reminds people of what will happen if they cross the boundaries of acceptable behaviour .This prevents a greater number of people committing crime.

What is social cohesion?

A functionalists view .When particularly horrific crimes will bind society together through shared outrage.

What is a safety valve?

Functionalist view. Deviance can be a form of pressure relief (releasing stresses from society), so deviance allows people to express themselves in ways that aren’t criminal.

What is anomie?

The breakdown of norms governing accepted social behaviour.

What is anti social behaviour?

Behaviour that causes harassment, distress or alarm to other people.

What is corporate crime?

Crime committed by employees on behalf of the company or organisation they work for.

What does it mean by miscarriage of justice?

When a court fails to deliver justice ,for example finding an innocent person guilty of a crime.

What are white collar crimes?

Crimes committed by people in relatively high status positions.

What is youth crime?

Crime committed by young people.

What is selective law creation?

Marxist view.Laws are made by the bourgeoisie and reflect their interests alone. It is rare that laws will be made to harm the interests of the rich .Therefore the laws simply exist to control the working class.

What is selective law enforcement?

Even though the majority of laws are made to reflect the interests of the bourgeoisie ,many of these laws could provide benefits to all of society if they were fairly applied.

What do Marxists argue about selective law enforcement?

The working class are far more likely to be targeted by the criminal justice system.

What is a criticism of Marxism?

They see crime as being an inevitable product of society.(People are puppets driven to crime by the nature of capitalism)

What is a feminist view?

Society is patriarchal.

What is women and victimisation?

A feminist view.Focus on the fact that women are more likely then men to be victims of particular types of crime - domestic abuse ,sexual assault

What are the experiences of women in the criminal justice system?

Women are sometimes treated differently to men in the criminal justice system.

What is female criminality?

Where feminists explore the reasons for female crime, as well as the reason why it tends to be less common than among men.

What is labelling theory?

It is an interactionism view.They believe that deviance is nothing more than actions that we label as deviant.

Also argue that labels are not fairly applied :some groups are more likely to have their actions labelled as criminal than others even when doing the same thing .

What are official crime statists?

They are drawn from records kept by the police , courts and other agencies.They show all the crimes that have been reported to and then recorded by the police in the last year.

Why do sociologists use official statistics?

•can find them easy

•free to access

•compare them over the years

What are the problems with official crime statistics?

•detection(some crimes may not have been discovered)

•reporting(people may not repost crimes as they are seen as small)

•recording(police forces decide whether reported crimes are recorded)

What is a victim survey?

Structured interviews asking people what they have been a victim of crime In the previous year.(csew- crime surgery for England and Wales)

Problems with victim serveys?

•people don’t always know they have been victims of crime

•victims memories may be inaccurate

•victims of crime such as rape or domestic violence may still be unwilling to admit it

What is a self-repost studies?

They are anonymous questionnaires where people own up to committing crimes in the last year, whether they have been discovered or not.

What are problems with self report studies?

•people may lie or exaggerate

•people often have different definitions of what constitutes a crime