Crime & Deviance

Strengths of police figures

Strengths of police figures

1. Short time lag between crime and reporting, easily shows emerging trends

2. Easy access and have already been complied

Weaknesses of police figures

1. don't include unreported crime

2. influenced by changes in public perception

Dark Figure of Crime

estimated to be 50% more on top of known figures

Strengths of victim surveys

1. CSEW is completed annually by trained interviewers

2. Valid - 4 times higher than police figures

Weaknesses of victim surveys

1. Doesn't include victimless crimes, or with many victims e.g. Shoplifting

2. Small and may be unrepresentative sample

Issues of self report studies

1. Attrition - those who drop out tend to commit the most, so high attrition means you can miss frequent offenders

2. Validity - ppl conceal offending or make false claims, may not give an accurate picture of the number of offences.

Sutherland (class - crime)

crime has:

• high incidence in lower socio-economic class

• low incidence in upper socio-economic class

Social Exclusion Unit (2002) (class - crime)

many prisoners experienced social exclusion (growing up in care, poverty, family member convicted)

Williams (class - crime)

common amongst prisoners was:

• running from home

• experiencing violence

• being convicted for drug/alcohol misuse

Houchin (class - crime)

strong corelation between living in socially depived areas in Scotland and being in prison

CSEW (class - victimisation)

the chance of being a victim of burglary and theft increases as the unemployment in their area increases

Police Figures (gender - crime)

males commit 80% of all recorded crime

Official Crime Data (gender - crime)

peak age of offending:

• men - 18

• women - 15

both genders continue to offend well into their 20s

Walkgate (gender - victimisation)

women remain in abusive relationships as many can't leave, have nowhere to go or lack economic dependence, goes unreported

Official Crime Data (gender - victimisation)

women are 2x as likely to be a victim of non-sexual partner abuse

Soothill (age

age of conviction for:

• burglary - 16

• motoring & drug offences 21 - 25

Police Figures (age - crime)

Young people are more likely to offend than adults + 10 to 17yos committed 23% of police recorded crimes

Official Crime Data (age - victimisation)

victimisation in terms of age is disproportionate to fear of crime:

• older people are likely to fear crime

• young people are likely to be victims of crime

• 12% of children are crime victims (56% violent crimes)

Ministry of Justice (ethnicity - crime)

Black people stopped and searched 7x more than white people

Association of Chief Police Officers (ethnicity - crime)

offending rates among Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian were normal - despite news headlines in 2008 linking migrants to crimes

Home Office (ethnicity - victimisation)

Black people are 5x more likely to be murdered than white people

Gastrow (global orgsnised crime)

Transnational OCGs are able to operate because they are unaffected by state borders

Predicts the increasing wealth gaps in the global economy will lead to:

• demand for cheaper contraband goods

• expansion of criminal economies

Castells (global organised crime)

OCGs mimic business networks

• interact with international OCGs

• operate in low-risk areas

Potter (marxist) (green crime)

Scarce natural resources caused by green crime leads to:

• public unrest (food riots & fuel price protests)

• millions of avoidable deaths (e.g. from no clean drinking water)

• poorest suffer the most, no repercussions for rich organisations at fault

Durkheim - Society of Saints (functionalist)

crime and deviance is inevitable and functional:

• value consensus - crime reinforce norms and values by showing what is unacceptable

• deterrent - prison deters people from committing crime

• social cohesion - serious crime can also bring society together to condemn perpetrators

Cohen - Warning Sign

increase in a type of crime can be an indication that something in society isn't functioning as it should and change needs to occur

Polsky - Safety Valve

accessing pornography can prevent more serious sexual crimes

Merton - Strain Theory

people who fail to succeed by normal means turn to crime in order to achieve what they couldn't through normal means

Cohen - Status Frustration (subcultural)

young people get frustrated by their inability to achieve social goals so they turn to crime to achieve status.

Cloward & Ohlin (subcultural)

deviants achieve valued goals through legit means but different routes (i.e crime)

Miller (subcultural)

the working class have different norms and values (e.g. hyper-masculinity) which can lead to crime seeming normal

Hirschi - Control Theory (new right/right realist)

those well intergrated into society wont commit crime as they have strong social bonds and too much to lose

Presdee (postmodernism)

people need to let off steam in 'carnival' e.g. a night out. those in power tolerate 'carnival' as it's a necessary safety valve

Reiman (marxist)

ruling class are likely to commit crime but they aren’t treated as criminal, e.g:

• social security fraud - committed by poor - leads to prosecution

• tax evasion - committed by wealthy - no prosecution

Box (marxist)

crime is socially constructed by the wealthy, which they use to justify controlling those who are a threat to capitalism:

• murders, commonly by poor people, seen as criminal

• avoidable killings, e.g. due to health and safety negligence, are not seen as crimina

Gordon (Marxist)

crime is a rational reaction to capitalism and competition. found in all social classes, but law enforcement focuses on lower classes

Cicourel (interactionalist)

labelling leads to selective law enforcement. i.e. when a group is labelled as deviant, then police are likely to focus on that group, reinforcing stereotypes

Lemert (interactionalist)

1. Primary deviance = person commits an act they know is deviant but no one know so it isn't labelled

2. Secondary deviance = deviant acts is witnessed and label is attached, making them deviant

Malinowski (interactionalist)

studed community where incest between cousins was deviant but common. however, when one man was publically shamed by him rival, the act became deviant, so he committed suicide

Becker - Deviant Career (interactionalist)

group create deviance by applying rules to certain people and labelling them as outsiders

Heidensohn (feminist)

4 forms of control:

1. home - need to be nurturing, gossip sanctions other women

2. public - men protect reputation by using violence

3. work - sexual harassment and subordinate role due to being a mother

4. social policy - benefits reinforce women role as primary caregiver

Carlen - Control Theory

cost of being a criminal outweighs benefits for women

women who are offenders have not been socialised into a familial ideology

Smart - Double Deviance (feminist)

for men, crime breaks the law but is role expressive

for women, crime breaks the las AND is role-distorting

Adler (feminist)

liberation is the main cause - females commit as they achieve equality, they feel able to commit crime like fraud as it's acceptable for men

Lea & Young (left-realist)

root of crime:

• relative deprivation - comparing to others leads to resentment, causing crime

• marginalisation - frustration turns to crime, hoping it will help their situation

Murray (new right/right-realist)

crime rates increasing due to increase in welfare state, creating an underclass who are often lone-parent and lacking a male role-model, breaking down primary socialisation

Left wing approaches to punishment

1. retribution - making offender suffer for what they did (form of revenge)

2. rehabilitation - aims to reintegrate the offender back into the society, addressing causes of offending

Types of shaming through punishment

1. disintegrative shaming - labelling and stigmatising the offender, affecting their self concept 'you're a bad person'

2. reintegrative shaming - focus on offender's behaviour, reaffirming their place in a law abiding society 'you did a bag thing'

Lea & Young (policing) (left-wing)

public lack trust in police so minimal policing needs to be used improve the relationship.

minor offences are overpoliced, while larger issues (domestic violence, white collar crime etc) is under policed

Lea & Young - Multi Agency Working

more communication between agencies can allow for early interventions those most at risk

Box (white collar crime) (marxist)

even though white collar crimes (e.g. banks charging people to use their own money) cause more harm to society, working class crimes (e.g. theft) are seen as criminal

Speeds & Burrows - Chivalry Thesis (gender - crime)

male offenders 2x as likely to receive custodial sentencing as female offenders (30% vs 15%)

Klein - evaluation of chivalry thesis (gender - crime)

racist and classist concept - only applies to white middle class women

Evil Women Theory (gender - crime)

when women commit serious offences, they're demonised by the media.

e.g. Moors Murderer, Myra Hindley is more hated than Ian Bradley, who was the driving force behind the killings of 5 children

Lombroso - biological view (gender - crime)

argued women lack the intelligence to break the law, genetically less inclined to criminality, he also concluded that female criminals possessed genetic abnormalities, had masculine traits and lack maternal instinct

women break the law less because they:

• lack the intelligence to

• are genetically less inclined to criminality

female criminals:

• possess gene abnormalities

• have masculine traits

• lack maternal instincts

Sutherland (gender - crime)

girls are more supervised = less opportunity for frime, boys are encouraged to take risks = more opportunity for crime.

if women become deviant then they will have been socialised more masculine (tomboys or w brothers)

Anderson (ethnicity - crime)

found policing in Philadelphia was racist where police would assume white ppl were trustworthy and middle class, while black ppl were lower class and criminal and this colour coding ignores individual behaviour. police would stop and harass young black males w/o provocation

racist police in Philadelphia:

• assume white people were middle class and trustworthy

• assume black people were lower class and criminal

• stopped and harassed young black men without provocation

Bhilox (ethnicity - crime)

most policing and politicise (e.g. differential deployment) are directed at the excluded in society (i.e. black, young and poor)

Hood - Race affects Sentencing (ethnicity - crime)

black men are 5% more likely to be imprisoned than white men

Glynn (ethnicity - crime)

black males reoffend as a way of getting back at society which has rejected them

Nightingale (ethnicity - crime)

high crime rate of young black men in Philadelphia explained by:

• poverty

• racism

• culture of conspicuous consumption

• glorification of violence

Lea & Young - racism creates criminality (ethnicity - crime)

criticise moral panics surrounding black crimes e.g. media focusing on mugging and linking it to ethnicity, when mugging is not an official crime